Page 193 of Nightshade

My immediate plan was to let Remy know to check out the church. Maybe there was absolutely no connection between the church and my father, but something told me all these little discoveries were converging for a reason. However, that wasn’t to say that I absolutely couldn’t be swayed into going with him. “Remy!” I whispered, cringing when even my hushed voice reverberated off the walls. “Remy, are you there?”

Nearing the end of the hallway, I came to a stop, scanning over the doors. The fact that most stayed on the other side made it too quiet and somehow eerier than the east wing.

Sighing, I twisted around to turn back, and an enormous figure standing there sent a shock of terror through me. On a scream, I dropped the lantern, which was recovered by quick hands.

When he held the light up to his face, I nearly screamed again.

“Jericho, I … I was just …” The words failed me. Of course they did. I’d snuck out of my room in search of Remy, which didn’t get any worse than that in his mind. And if he suspected that I might’ve been capable of leaving with the fallen angel, then the angry expression on his face was only the beginning of what was sure to be a fit of rage.

“Looking for someone?” he asked.

No point in lying. My intent was innocent enough, it was only my execution that seemed shady. “Yes,” I said, angling my chin high and matter-of-fact. “I need to relay something to Remy.”

“And what is that?”

“The phrase we spoke about earlier. I’ve heard it before. I think the church I went to growing up is affiliated with this Pentacrux. I need to tell Remy to check the church. For my father.”

Jaw shifting, he stared quietly down at me for a moment. Didn’t take a blood pressure cuff to tell me he was pissed. Really pissed. The twitches of his scarred lip seemed to mark off the blips of fury pulsing through him. “I know where to find him,” he said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Come with me.”

“Wait. Why?”

On a bored sigh, he tipped his head. “If you’re not interested, then please return to your room.”

“Fine. I’ll go with you. Just … don’t be mad at me, okay? I’m just trying to make sure my dad isn’t in harm’s way.”

Jericho led me through more corridors, and down a stairwell that seemed to stretch into the bowels of the cathedral. The cold air that clung to the stone walls in the lower level of the church sent goosebumps across my skin.

“Why the basement?”

A quick glance over his shoulder was the first time Jericho bothered to look at, or even acknowledge, me. “Undercroft.”

Right. I knew that. I’d been in one before. In my nightmares, when I found two nuns buried in a wall. “Anya said I wasn’t allowed down here.”

“Anya isn’t the master of this cathedral.”

We passed a low window adjacent to the staircase, where an orange haze illuminated the soft ripples over the surface of the sea. Given the darkness of the sky, I guessed it to be the beginning phases of the ominous blood moon, though its hue still remained somewhat pale. It was true, then. The pentad blood moon. Weird.

The staircase opened onto arched stone columns and rows of arched, wooden doors.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled, as we passed one of them, and my mind spun with whether, or not, to run.

He won’t hurt you, I told myself. He’s too infatuated.

Yet, I knew how quickly infatuation could turn deadly, particularly if he thought I was scheming to leave.

He came to a stop at a door and, from his hip, unclipped a loop of old-fashioned keys.

Everything about the situation had me frowning. Had he locked Remy up? For what? And what good would it do me, if he’d imprisoned him? There’d be no point in telling him about the church.

Lowering the lantern, he stepped aside. “Make it quick.”

“You locked him inside? What good is telling him, if he’s unable to leave?”

“And I ask you: What good is leaving, if there’s a chance you’ll be swiped up and sacrificed?”

Lip snarled, I pushed past him through the door, frustrated with his insistent arguments. “Remy!” I called out, but as I entered the room, I skidded to an abrupt halt.

The light from the lantern outside showed a small, but furnished, room, with an enormous four-post bed draped in red velvet bedding, chains and cuffs dangling from the ceiling of it. A nearby wall held paddles and whips and bars. What looked to be a sawhorse with rounded padding over the top of it--clearly a sexual contraption.