Page 55 of When I Accidentally Summoned a Demon

“Well,” I say.

“Yes,” Valefar agrees.

We go toward it. The old padlock hangs uselessly from one side of the latch, rust having eaten through part of it. The iron itself is bent and warped, leaving enough give that the door can be pulled open. Valefar says nothing. His tail pulls in and coils tight at his side.

The temperature drops.

Not gradually, the way ocean air does when the fog rolls in. It’s sudden, like stepping through a seam in the world. The goosebumps move up my arms in time with Valefar’s.

But we need the stone. Everything will be fine. Because we’re doing the right thing. And it’s about high time the universe rewards someone for doing the right thing.

I pull the iron door up, and the smell hits first—stone and cold and something older and darker than the underground air. A narrow set of stone stairs drops away below us, slick with moisture, no light.

Valefar goes first. I follow.

At the bottom, the crypt opens into a single chamber, and it’s far more elaborate than anything prepared me for.

Ribbed stone arches climb into a narrow vaulted ceiling. All the old Gothic details carved into the walls must have cost someone a small fortune generations ago. Time has dulled everything, but not destroyed it. At the far end, a waist-high iron fence encloses the raised burial platform and stone coffin. Barred windows are set high into the surrounding stone, little more than slits to let in the weak grey light from outside.

Apparently Elias Doran believed in being subtle above ground and dramatic as hell beneath it.

Above the coffin, carved directly into the wall, is a line of Latin. I squint at it. “I’m a little rusty,” I admit.

“Veritas sola aperit viam,” Valefar reads. His voice moves differently down here, flatter, absorbed by stone. “Only truth opens the way.”

I stare at the coffin. “You think the stone’s inside?”

“Most likely.” His gaze tracks over the carved markings around the lid. “These are not decorative, Ves. They are instructions.”

I step closer, brushing my fingers over the Latin etched into the stone edge. Truth alone opens the way. “So, the coffin only opens if someone tells the truth?” I wonder.

“Not merely tells it,” Valefar says quietly. “Confesses it.”

Something in my stomach flips. The crypt falls silent around us. Then something clicks under my feet. The carved letters above the coffin flare once, pale gold, and then dim. The lid shifts a fraction of an inch, the seal releasing, the way a pressurized jar gives when the vacuum breaks. We both stare at it.

“It would appear,” Valefar says, “the crypt is waiting.”

For what? An eerie sound comes from beside the crypt entrance. My hackles rise. Ice creeps into my blood. I jump at the sound of a low, resonant crack. Stone grinding against stone. And then something that is not stone anymore, something that was stone for God knows how long, not merely decorative—it comes off the wall.

It’s enormous. The shape of a dog, but something dark, something wrong.

“Hound.” Bethie’s word from the park pierces my mind like an icy needle.

The hound’s body is skeletal, joints grinding, ribcage exposed, and its eye sockets burn red. It opens its jaw, and the sound it makes is not a bark. It’s unholy, ancient, spine-chilling.

I choke on a breath.

Valefar’s hand shoots out, and he shoves me behind the iron fence surrounding the burial platform. “Get the stone.” He squares himself to the hound. “I’ll handle Fluffy here.”

“Fluffy,” I repeat from beyond the fence, because apparently that’s what my brain latches onto. “Was that a Harry Potter reference?”

“Stone!” he shouts.

I spin back toward the coffin. And blow out a breath. “I really should have paid more attention in seminary.”

20

Valefar