I rested my forearms against the wall of the circle and bent my head, slowing down my ragged breathing. Tonight I was probably going to die, and I was probably going to lose my soul. And there was nothing anyone could do about it. Leanne had told me about as much.
Leanne. Her name reminded me that I could still do something. I could try to save her if she wasn’t already gone. And she might not be gone, though I couldn’t depend on the devil’s word for that.
I straightened up. “I’m sorry,” I said to Andre.
He came up to the other side of the circle and placed his hand on his side of the barrier. “Don’t apologize to me. You are not going to die tonight.”
No, if the poem Cecilia sent me was anything to go by, it was much worse than that. Tonight I’d lose my soul.
***
“Touching, but we don’t have all evening.” The devil’s hand touched my shoulder and I almost died of fright. My fangs came out and I was too scared to worry about sheathing them.
I pushed his hand off of me and backed up. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.
His lips curved into a menacing smile. “You don’t really get a choice.”
He stalked forward even as I continued to move away from him, and he closed the distance between us in record time. Andre yelled something, but I was too focused on the being in front of me to listen.
The devil snapped his fingers and the world stood still; every blade of graze, every person, and every creature save for the devil and I froze in place.
“What have you done?” I cried, gazing at all the officers, Andre, and Oliver, all who stood immobile.
“They’re fine. As soon as we leave, time will resume as usual. To them it will seem as though it never stopped to begin with.”
The devil wrapped a hand around my wrist and jerked me forward so that I collided with him. My body recoiled at the sensation of being pressed this close to him, but the contact produced some useful information. The skin beneath his shirt felt solid, warm even. Tonight, the devil was a thing of flesh and blood.
Now was the time to use my siren abilities. Considering how scared I was, I thought it would be difficult to coax the monster to the surface. I should’ve known the siren in me was made of darker stuff. The mere thought of using my abilities brought them forth. My skin began to glow as power rushed over me.
“Break the circle and let me go,” I said, my voice lilting.
One side of the devil’s mouth curved upwards. “You can put out the light show. That doesn’t work on me.”
My skin dimmed. Of course it didn’t work on the devil. He might be corporeal tonight, but he wasn’t human. I could smell as much; the cloying smell of blood and brimstone had tickled my nose since he appeared.
“Say goodbye to your friends.” But the devil wasn’t known as a trickster for nothing. Before I had a chance to push away or reply, my surroundings winked out.
Chapter 22
Catacombs. The subterranean passageway I found myself in had been lined with human bones, reminding me of Peel’s hall of skulls. Unlike Peel Castle’s hall, however, leg and arm bones rested alongside skulls; wherever we were, it wasn’t beneath my school.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking around. The flickering torchlight cast my surroundings in shades of orange.
The man in the suit wrapped a hand around my upper arm and yanked me forward. His touch made my stomach roil. I’d never really thought of evil as a physical sensation, but it was. I could feel it press against me, triggering the same physiological response that guilt might. It was the kind of unease that made me feel dirty from the inside out.
“You wanted to know if your friend was okay. I’m taking you to her to show you that she’s fine.”
The devil’s voice had an exotic roll to it. Something about the cadence reminded me that once upon a time my ancestors danced around campfires and prayed to him.
I shook my head. Being around him was not good for my sanity. Whether it was Samhain, or just hanging around beings that were not of my world, my senses were off.
Next to me the man in the suit hummed. That had to be a very, very bad sign.
We wound down an extensive series of hallways mostly in silence. I had expected a lot of things when it came to hanging out with the devil, but quietly walking next to him was not one of them.
It also gave me hope. Perhaps if I bided my time, the devil would have to let me go before he could get what he wanted.
Somehow I just didn’t see that happening.
The halls we walked down began to brighten. We rounded the corner of the passageway and the room opened up.
My eyes widened. We’d entered a cathedral made entirely of bones. Above me hung a skeletal chandelier, and beyond it the walls were composed of thousands of leg and arm bones. Some sick interior designer had even gone to the trouble of creating arching patterns along the walls and ceiling for aesthetic appeal.
“There she is.” The devil pointed across the cathedral. Leanne rested on top of a bone altar. He skin looked translucent, and for one horrible instant I thought she might be dead. But the subtle rise and fall of her chest alerted me that she was merely unconscious.