And the mural—that
mural
.
It filled the entire rear wall of the cathedral, painted with the same degree of loving detail as the gargoyles. Its textures were so meticulous that it could have been a window into another world.
Deirdre’s skin crawled as she studied the man and woman in the mural.
They were looking at her.
The Walkie Talkie in her pocket exploded with noise.
“They’re moving!”
“It was a trap, get out, get
out
—”
“—the hells are those?”
Deirdre twisted the volume knob to quiet it. “What are you guys talking about? What’s moving?” She waited for a response, but everyone had gone silent. She pressed the button again. “What’s going on out there?”
Quiet.
Something heavy thudded into the roof above her.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
Deirdre froze, ears perked as she listened to the movement. The thudding continued rhythmically. It sounded like a heartbeat.
Or footsteps.
The Walkie Talkie shook as she lifted it to her mouth again. “Is that you, Stark? Vidya? Bowen?”
No response.
Something else slammed into the roof, just as resonant as the first. A third
thump
followed.
Three bodies clunked toward the bell tower.
Now the stairs were creaking. The first of the newcomers was inside the cathedral.
Deirdre hurried into the hallway behind the choir loft and took the narrow steps down to the first floor. She didn’t bother trying to be quiet. The thumping and scraping of large bodies moving above her were more than loud enough to mask the sounds of her movements.
She hit the first floor and searched for somewhere to hide. The doors behind the pews probably led to the monks’ apartments—not somewhere she wanted to go. There was also a confessional against the wall. It was the only secluded area she could see, which made it the first place they’d look for her. But it wasn’t like she had a lot of options.
And judging by the sounds of movement, she was out of time.
Deirdre climbed into the confessional. She left the door open a crack and pressed her eye to it, watching the cathedral on the other side.
Something was moving in the choir loft. The light from the stained-glass windows didn’t reach all the way up there, so she couldn’t see who or what they were, but Deirdre could see that they were big.
They weren’t the human monks who lived at Holy Nights Cathedral.
Shapeshifters?
One of them climbed onto the railing and jumped off.
It landed in the middle of the pews with a
crash
of stone meeting stone.
Deirdre jerked the door shut, adrenaline flooding her system. She’d only glimpsed the creature, but a glimpse was all she needed. It was as big as a werewolf and made of the same gray stone material as the walls of the church. Its flesh—if it could be called flesh—was covered in magical runes.
One of the gargoyles from the roof had come to life.
And it was looking for her.
That window in the bell tower must have been left open to give the gargoyles passage in and out of the cathedral. Deirdre had tripped some kind of alarm by getting in.
Damn Bowen for being right
.
Footsteps rang out through the cathedral. Each one sounded like a mallet striking an anvil—or giant stone feet slamming into the ground.
Heavy breathing whuffed not far away.
The gargoyle was searching for her.
Deirdre cracked open the door and peered through again. Two of the gargoyles were prowling through the pews. They may have been stone, but they looked convincingly alive. Their muscles rippled as they walked.
Their backs were to the confessional.
Now or never.
Deirdre drew her Ruger, pushed the door open silently, and jogged for the door leading to the monks’ apartments.
Her feet didn’t make a sound against the floor. Her clothes barely even rustled with her movements.
But she heard a growl behind her.
The gargoyles had seen her.
Deirdre gave up all attempts at being quiet and bolted.
She reached the door to the apartments. It was locked. As she struggled to twist the knob, she threw a look over her shoulder and saw both gargoyles unfurling massive gray wings tipped with metal hooks.
“Screw it,” Deirdre said.
She fired her Ruger at the lock.
The metal broke. Deirdre pushed the door open and leaped inside, shutting it behind her.
Statues flanked either side of the doors. They were faceless human figures, tall and heavy, made of the same thing as the gargoyles. Hopefully they wouldn’t also come alive to fight her.
She shoved one over. It crashed to the ground and blocked the door.
“What are you doing here?”
Deirdre whirled, aiming her gun at the source of the voice.
It was Brother Marshall.
He stood a hundred feet down the candlelit hallway, draped in those voluminous black robes that could have hidden anything. There was no sign of the staff. But there was no sign of his hands, either, so Deirdre suspected that he was armed.
“Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head,” she said.
He didn’t move.
“What do you want?” Brother Marshall asked.
Deirdre licked her lips. Her gun wavered. “I need the—uh, I need you to give me the Infernal Blade.”
Surprise flitted over his face.
“The what?”
Something slammed into the door behind Deirdre. She drew the Sig in her other hand, aiming it behind her, and keeping the Ruger on Brother Marshall.
“The Infernal Blade,” Deirdre snapped. “The cursed sword. I know it’s here.”
He surveyed her with narrowed eyes. “You didn’t come here to rob us.”
“Actually, that’s exactly why I came here.”
“There’s something else that’s drawn you to our hallowed halls tonight. The gods have a plan for all of us,” Marshall said. “I know this for a fact.”
“Do you, now?” Deirdre asked.
He shrugged, unworried to be at the point of her gun. “You wouldn’t have been able to find us if you weren’t meant to be here.”
The guy was crazy at worst and mildly delusional at best. Of course, if Deirdre had committed her life to being a monk at some remote cathedral, then she would probably want to convince herself that the sacrifice was worthwhile, too.
A gargoyle slammed into the other side of the door again.
Deirdre took a step toward him, holding the gun straight at his head. “The sword. Where?”
Marshall walked forward until the gun butted up against his head.
“You won’t shoot me, Deirdre Tombs,” he said.
The sound of her name coming from his lips made her skin erupt in chills. She took a quick step back. Deirdre looked Brother Marshall over again, staring hard at his unfamiliar features. “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”
“I watched you kill that doctor on the news. You hated him. You kill because you feel like you have to. Not because you’re evil. You’re not going to shoot me tonight.”
Crazy
and
delusional.
But damn if he wasn’t right. Deirdre wasn’t going to shoot some harmless nutball.
“Screw it,” she said, dropping the gun. “You’re either brainless or have balls of steel. I’ll just have to find your stupid sword on my own.”
“You’ll have to search quickly,” Brother Marshall said. “The Office of Preternatural Affairs is already on its way.”
A chill washed over Deirdre. “What?”
“The gargoyles are usually enough of a security system, but just in case they’re not, the OPA is automatically notified to come clean things up.” He flicked the robe of his sleeve back, baring one wrist. He was wearing a watch. It looked so weird along with the robes. “I’d give them five minutes.”
No wonder he wasn’t worried.
Deirdre had to get out of there, and
fast
.
She only made it two steps past Brother Marshall when his other hand emerged from his robes.
He had a gun.
Deirdre didn’t move fast enough. He shot, and an instant later, pain smashed through her shoulder. Her whole arm erupted with fire.
She threw herself behind the other statue for cover. Bullets pinged into the legs of the statue, mere centimeters from her head.
Brother Marshall was a good shot.
The doors exploded open an instant later.
One of the gargoyles loped into the hallway, pounding along on its knuckles like a giant stone gorilla. Brother Marshall shouted at it. “She’s behind the statue! Get her!”
Deirdre threw herself across the hall. The gargoyle swung its fists into the statue, and stone exploded behind her.
She bolted down the hallway, rushing past Brother Marshall at full speed. He tracked her with practiced ease, swiveling to train his gun a few inches ahead of her.
Another gunshot. It hit her in the thigh.
With a cry, Deirdre fell. She bowed her head and let the pain rock through her for a moment—only a moment.
Brother Marshall was reloading.
The healing fever swept through her, immediate and strong. He must have been using standard bullets. It didn’t hurt anywhere near badly enough to be silver. But who knew what kind of bullets he’d have in the next magazine?
She got back to her feet and limped toward the door at the end of the hall.
Deirdre threw herself down the stairs to the basement.
She didn’t take the time to close the door behind her. It probably wouldn’t have slowed down the gargoyle anyway. She could hear it thudding on the floor above her, rushing to catch up. It sounded like being chased by a herd of buffalo. Giant, angry buffalo with razor-tipped wings.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness under the cathedral. She seemed to be in some kind of catacombs. Candles smoldered in recessions on the walls, allowing her to make out the dusty tunnels, the cobwebs dangling from the ceiling, the dirty floor. And coffins lined the walls. Actual coffins, most likely filled with actual dead bodies.
Deirdre would be grossed out later.
She leaped around a corner, pressing her back to the wall beside a coffin. Deirdre held her breath and listened. There was scuffling, crashing, shouting.
The gargoyle didn’t follow her downstairs.
A familiar roar shook the catacombs.
Stark had followed her inside the cathedral, and he was obviously in his shapeshifted form.
Damn it, but Deirdre was actually excited to hear him.
If anything could take down one of those gargoyles, it would be Stark’s monstrous beast.
His presence also meant that her time to find the Infernal Blade first was running out.
She shoved her shirt aside to inspect the bullet wound in her shoulder. She had already healed most of the damage there. Her thigh was rapidly knitting together, too. When she rested her weight on the foot, it didn’t throb too much.
“If I were a legendary cursed blade, where would I be hiding?” Deirdre breathed, stepping back out into the broader tunnel of the catacombs.
She eyed the coffins, stomach churning.
If the sword was hidden within one of those, it was going to have to stay hidden.
Deirdre jogged down the central aisle of the catacombs, swatting aside cobwebs. The catacombs felt much longer than the cathedral upstairs, as though that hallway extended into infinity. The sound of her footsteps fell flat against the stone walls without echoing.
Within a few hundred feet, the floor changed from dirt to a mosaic. As soon as the tunnel widened into a larger chamber, Deirdre stopped.
The room she had discovered couldn’t have been under the cathedral—it must have been deeper within the canyon. A long, thin window let in the moonlight from the surface, dappled by the grass and bushes above.
A moonbeam spilled directly onto another altar.
The stone pedestal was large and elevated above the rest of the room. It looked like just the kind of place to hide a cursed sword.
Deirdre’s gaze skimmed the floor. The tiled mosaic was elaborate enough that it could have masked magical runes and she never would be able to tell. Without any visual sign of spellwork, she didn’t have any way to detect traps.
There might have been no magical traps at all. Why craft extra spells to protect the cathedral’s bounty when they had animated statues ready to smash intruders into bloody smears?
Just in case…
She set her Walkie Talkie on the floor and kicked it gently, sending it skittering across the mosaic.
For an instant, nothing happened.
She blinked. “Okay then,” Deirdre said, lifting a foot to step forward.
Then the Walkie Talkie exploded in blue flame.
She shouted and leaped back against the wall, clutching a sconce for balance. The battery in the Walkie Talkie popped, jetting acid across the tile. Plastic warped and bubbled. Wires turned white with heat.
Some trap.
Yeah, I’m not walking out there.
The catacombs shook again, showering dirt from the roof. Deirdre’s eyes flicked to the top of the tunnel, half-expecting to see Stark throwing one of the statues through a wall.
They were so far away that she could barely hear the fight now. It was impossible to tell who was winning.
Stark might be only seconds behind her.
If Deirdre wanted to get the sword, she needed to do it now.
She studied the room with new eyes, searching for a way to reach the central altar without touching the floor.
Deirdre could jump pretty good distances without a head start—as she’d proven to herself in New York while escaping the killer—but she’d had more space on the rooftops. Here, she would only be able to jump ten feet at most.
The entire room was a large dome, with inlets in the walls that curved toward the apex. If she could get atop one of the tall statues set back among the pillars, those would give her some altitude. She might be able to jump from there onto the altar.
Deirdre rolled out her shoulder, flicking Brother Marshall’s flattened bullet to the floor. It had been pushed out when she healed. Now she was aching, but limber.
She reached around the corner to grab the wall, pulling herself up using one of the decorative inlets. It was edged with old stone that crumbled under her fingers. It didn’t want to hold her weight.