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Another trick.
Priest looked up in time to see the writhing black mass coming at him. The journal slipped from his hands as the shower of snakes hit, their bodies draping over him like a net. I could tell from the terrified look on Priest’s face that he didn’t realize the snakes were an illusion.
“They’re not real!” I shouted.
Priest deflected the smaller serpents with his body and clutched frantically at the larger ones, hurling them away. “Get them off me! Get them off!”
I stumbled toward him and reached for a black snake draped over Priest’s shoulder. When I touched it, my hand slipped right through and the snakes disappeared.
“Priest. Look at me.” I grabbed his face in my hands. “The snakes aren’t real. Don’t you remember what Andras did to Maya?”
Priest stared back at me, his expression dazed. After a moment, the fog lifted. “Kennedy? Did you see them?”
“They were some kind of illusion,” I said, trying to reassure him.
Priest nodded. “I kept trying to tell myself that, but it was like my mind wouldn’t listen. It was so real. I could feel them slithering all over me.” He shuddered.
Jared, Lukas, Alara and Elle crowded around us, and the demon laughed. But shoulders sagged and his movements were slower, as if manifesting Alara and Priest’s fears had drained him. “Enough games.”
“We can’t fight him,’ Lukas said. “He’s too strong.”
Elle’s eyes darted to the door. “There’s no way to outrun him.”
I have to trust Faith.
“We can raise the barrier,” I said. “Maybe it will buy us some time.”
Lukas held out his hand. “It’s our only shot.”
“What about Elle?” I asked. “She can’t be part of the circle.”
Lukas stepped behind her. “Stay in the middle and hold Kennedy’s journal so the rest of us can see it.” By now, he knew I only needed to see something once to remember every detail.
Elle wrapped one arm around Bear. We joined hands and followed the instructions in my aunt’s journal.
I recited the words from memory, while the other Legion members read from the page: “May the bonds of blood and the marks we bear protect us.”
Andras laughed, but our voices remained strong.
“As the wings of black dove carry us.”
A surge of energy cracked against us and hurled our bodies across the floor. My cheek hit the cement, and I struggled to push myself onto my knees.
The barrier didn’t work.
My friends lay scattered around the room, and Andras stood in the center of it all. His sadistic expression looked frighteningly human. Faith had been right all along. This was a fight we couldn’t win.
“From where I’m standing, these odds don’t look like even,” a male voice that didn’t belong to Andras called out. “A marquis of hell preying on a bunch of kids? Times must be tough, Andras.”
A tall man I’d never seen before stood at the far end of the warehouse smoking a cigarette. Dark sunglasses covered his eyes. Between the cigarette hanging from his lips, his SWAT–style clothing, and the black tactical boots sticking out underneath his coat. He dropped a leather doctor’s bag and red, plastic container on the floor next to him.
Andras stared back at him through the dockworker’s eyes. “I am happy to prey on you first.”
A second man, dressed in matching sunglasses and tactical gear, stepped out from behind one of the metal shipping containers with a black canvas bag. Something was looped around his other hand. His dark features and a few days worth of stubble gave him an edgier appearance.
He opened his hand, releasing what looked like a whip. He snapped the ivory-colored weapon, and it arced in the air, the individual sections clicking forward one at a time like links in a bike chain.
The whip—or whatever it was—struck Andras. The demon arched his back and roared in pain. Andras tried to pull it off, but the whip began to move without any help from the man wielding it. The ivory sections latched onto the demon’s back, pulsing and writhing like rats.
“It’s alive.” Priest watched in awe.
“What the hell is it?” Lukas asked.
Priest shook his head. “I don’t know, but I want to meet the guy who made it.”
The man guiding the whip flicked his wrist and retracted the weapon. Andras dropped to his knees as the individual parts of the whip ripped from his back.
Elle squinted at the jagged pieces of ivory. “Are those bones?”
Alara recoiled. “They look like vertebrae.”
The whip struck again, and Andras let out another enraged cry.
“You must’ve wasted a lot of energy on whatever you were doing before we got here,” the man holding the whip said.
I remembered how drained Andras looked after he manifested Alara’s fear. Then he brought Priest’s fear to life. Did the Rituale Romanum affect him, too? Did he have to fight it?
The taller man in the long coat lifted the red plastic container and walked toward Andras.
A gas can.
“Do you think he’s gonna set Andras on fire?” Priest sounded morbidly hopeful.
“Not unless he wants to burn up the rest of us, too.” Lukas glanced at his brother. “I’m thinking it’s not gasoline.”
Jared nodded. “Makes sense.”
“Why does he have a gas can?” Elle’s eyes darted between Lukas and Jared. “Will someone tell me what’s happening?”
“Relax.” Lukas pulled her against his shoulder. “I’m guessing it’s holy water.”
“You guess?”
The tall man hoisted the can in the air and dumped the contents over Andras. Clear, odorless liquid splashed onto the dockworker’s body. Steam rose from the areas where the liquid hit his skin, leaving behind red burns.
The guy with the whip rushed toward them, hooking the weapon through a loop on the back of his pants. The ivory bones, vertebrae or whatever they were, coiled through the loop like a sleeping snake. He opened a black canvas bag similar to the duffels Priest packed his gear in, and dragged out a heavy length of chain. The two men worked together, winding the chains around Andras’ neck, wrists, and feet, in a strange configuration and securing them with a padlock.
“I will tear off your skin and strip your bones,” the demon snapped.
“That gives me something to look forward to.” The man with the whip hauled Andras to his feet, half dragging him out of the room by the padlock. The demon bared his teeth, snapping at his captor like a rabid dog.
“Are you all right?” The tall stranger wiped the holy water off his hands with the edge of his black coat, then removed his sunglasses and tucked them in his jacket pocket.
“I think so,” I said.
Priest helped Alara to her feet and examined her eyes. “You hit your head pretty hard. You might have a concussion.”
“I’m fine.” She swatted his hand away, sounding like herself for the first time since Andras brought her nightmare to life.
“Who the hell are you guys?” Lukas asked.
The stranger raised an eyebrow. “A little appreciation would be nice. We did just save your lives.”
“How did you know we were in here?” Jared asked. “This place isn’t exactly on Boston’s Freedom Trail Tour. Were you following us?”
“We were following Andras, but it seems he was following you.”
“How do you know about Andras?” Priest sounded shocked.
“I’ve spent the better part of my life monitoring Andras, though I never expected to come face-to-face with him.” He extended his hand to Priest. “My name is Dimitri Falco, and that was my associate, Gabriel.”
Priest reached out to shake his hand.
Jared caught his arm. “Look at his ring.” A heavy signet ring encircled Dimitri’s finger. A triangle with an eye on top, like the one on the back of a dollar bill, was engraved in the silver; and lines drawn to resemble sunbeams radiated out from the Eye. The rin
g looked exactly like the one Priest’s grandfather had described. “He’s Illuminati.”
Dimitri smiled. “The Eye of Providence is popular these days. I see it online all the time.”
“But you didn’t buy that ring online, did you? Or yours wouldn’t have the Rays of Illumination on it,” Priest said.
