My eyes grazed his bookshelf and immediately locked in on an old gemstone encyclopedia. I remembered Dane telling me about a stone last night in great detail—rose quartz. I pulled the book from the shelf. It was lighter than it should be. A rush of adrenaline swept through my bloodstream as I opened it to find it had been hollowed out.
Inside, I found stationery, India ink, a fountain pen, deep red wax, and a seal with the Mendoza family crest.
At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than a cache for stationery, but the real stash was in another compartment underneath. A pair of scratched-up Ray-Bans, a well-worn map of the United States, a half-empty pack of Chiclets, an old Walkman, and a Backstreet Boys CD.
“Ash! Ash! Where are you? Ash?” Beth tramped down the hallway, calling my name like a town crier.
“What the hell,” I groaned, shoving everything back in the book and tucking it away on the shelf.
I cracked open the door to make sure she was alone before slipping out of the room.
“Oh my stars!” Beth exclaimed. “What are you doing down here? Everyone’s asking about you. I’m afraid they’ll make me leave if we’re not together.”
“Do we have to go back to the party?” I looked at her pleadingly.
“Oh, are you ready to leave?” She took my hand.
I felt bad for messing up Beth’s big break into the social hierarchy, but I couldn’t go back. “I just need some air.”
“There’s another way out down here,” Beth said as she led me to a darkened staircase at the end of the hall.
“I thought you’d never been here before.”
“That’s curious, isn’t it?” she replied as she hurried down the stairs to a dead end.
She ran her hands over the wood-paneled wall.
“Beth, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but this is—”
I heard a chilling pop as the wall swung open, revealing a dark, narrow entryway.
Beth grinned up at me before pulling me inside and closing the door.
“What is this place?” I whispered.
“I’m not sure.” Beth fumbled with something, striking a match. She lit a small candle that was resting on a table.
“How did you know that was there?”
“I think I’ve been here before.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty safe assumption.” I exhaled, feeling completely sketched out. Sometimes Beth scared me.
I took a few matches from a silver cup on the table and put them in my pocket. I wondered if Dane made these.
As we stepped out of the cramped entry into a large circular room, the smell of old parchment and eucalyptus hit me. Spencer’s scent.
Beth drifted around the windowless room as if in a daze. I gravitated toward a huge cross on the far wall, made from dried cornstalks. Beneath the cross was a candle-filled altar with mounds of melted wax forming monstrous shadows against the wall.
At the foot of the altar, lying open on the ground, was an old Bible. I’d read the Bible before, but this wasn’t like any Bible I’d ever seen. It was the Old Testament, but much of it was crossed out, with words written over the text along with unintelligible scribbles.
Next to the Bible was a whip with a worn leather handle and a chalice containing a dark red substance that smelled of mandarins and the sea.
“What the hell is this place?” I whispered.
“I don’t think we should be in here,” Beth whispered as she backed into a table, sending a barrage of oily blue-black feathers to the ground. Crow feathers.
Beth’s hands shook as she scrambled to pick them up. Her breath came in rapid bursts.
“Beth,” I soothed. “Calm down. You said there was another exit. Concentrate. Where is it?”
Beth grabbed my hand and led me behind the altar wall, to another narrow hallway—another dead end.
She felt along the wall, trying to find a way out when we heard footsteps approaching from the outside. We ran back through the chapel to the narrow hallway we’d come in. Frantically, Beth tried to find the right panel, when the door behind the altar creaked open. There was no time. I blew out the candle. Leaving us in complete darkness.
A match was struck—the smell of phosphorous and kerosene did little to mask Spencer’s eucalyptus scent.
As he stepped into the circular room, I heard him slipping off his shoes, followed by a soft pooling of fabric hitting the ground.
Beth clung to my arm as I tried to edge down the hallway. I peeked around the wall to see the back of Spencer’s perfectly sculpted naked body kneeling before the altar, his only flaw the thick scars crisscrossing his back.
He clutched the handle of the whip in front of him. He appeared to be praying.
“Forgive me, for I have sinned.”
He dipped the end of the leather strings into the dark red substance and swung it fiercely over his shoulder. The sickening sound of the leather strip splitting his skin made me cringe. The scent of fresh blood filled the small space. “Let this blood cleanse me and keep me strong.” I was stunned to see his wounds heal right before my eyes. The dark red substance must’ve been the blood of an immortal—Katia’s blood.