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“Do you think they’re romantic?” Claudia asked. “Or just friends?”
“It may be more complicated than that,” Lucas said.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“We’re in contact with our local fey in Peru. All I’ll say is I’ve heard her name come up as a key player in the courts.” I paused to let that sink in, but at this point I was more shocked that she actually let someone call her Coco and live.
“We should call Michael again,” Donovan said. “Give him an update and check on the situation at the school.”
I nodded. We’d expressly avoided the news. The fight against Luciana was only hours away, and we needed to stay focused. Still it was tempting. Donovan had been checking in with Mr. Dawson throughout the day. Word was things weren’t pretty on campus. They’d managed to keep the police from storming the gates, but getting anyone to believe that the video girl was actually a demon wasn’t a cakewalk.
A moan from the TV broke the silence.
“Jaysus,” Donovan yelled. “Change the channel already.” He got up, dialing Mr. Dawson as he crossed into the adjoining room.
The laughter started off soft, and then we were hooting at the TV.
“They’re definitely having sex now,” Adrian said, finally changing the channel.
“Just no more gagging noises. Please. I’m already worried how many showers it’s going to take to get the ick of this place off me,” Claudia said.
As they kept bantering and flipping through the channels, I leaned against Dastien, resting my head on his shoulder.
You okay? He asked.
Yeah. Tired, but okay. We have good friends.
He brushed my hair away from my forehead and placed a soft kiss there. Yeah. We do.
As I closed my eyes, I knew that we’d find Luciana tomorrow. One way or another, all of this would come to an end. And after, if I was lucky enough to live through it all, I was going to have years with my friends. With Dastien.
That was motivation enough for me to keep going. To not give up.
I had too much to live for to lose it all now.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’d hoped to hear from the witch by the morning, but when that didn’t happen, we had to continue with our original plan. We all crammed into one SUV, and by the afternoon we’d realized what a mistake that was. There was nothing fun about a group of cranky supernaturals. Even thought our rental had three rows of seats, that still left two people squished in the trunk. Cosette hadn’t returned with Van. For now, that was okay, because there was no way they could’ve fit, but I was starting to get worried.
It had taken forever to get moving this morning. Everyone wanted a shower, and with only two bathrooms, that took for freaking ever. Then all the Weres needed food. By the time we hit the road to start looking at churches, it was already past noon. Although we figured that was an advantage if we were going to be up against demons.
Still, with no Cosette and no luck finding the right church, the mood in the car was tense.
“There’s another option two miles away,” I said. Dastien was driving, and I was sitting shotgun at the moment, but we’d been rotating seats at each stop. Although, it wasn’t a very diplomatic seat rotation. It was more of a mad scramble—people crawling over each other trying to get a good spot. Slowest got the trunk. And no one was playing fair. I had to warn Chris and Meredith more than once to be careful with the witches. But Raphael had been in the same window seat after the past three churches and he looked pretty smug about it, so I was thinking magic was involved.
“If she’s at the last one on our list, I’m going to freak out,” Meredith said as she leaned between the front seats. She blew a chunk of pink hair out of her face. “Are you getting any helpful feelings yet?”
“If I do, I’ll let you know.” I wished I had a better way to get us there, but I’d been so focused on the people in my vision, I hadn’t been paying that much attention to the decorating. I knew the church we wanted was adobe and had stained glass windows, but beyond that, I had no clue. “Why don’t you pick the next one?” I handed the map to her. We’d circled all the possibilities in red marker. Only three circles were left.
So at least this was almost over.
Still, every time we got to a church, our energy level amped up. When it was a bust, we all flagged. It was like a never-ending adrenaline roller coaster.
I just hoped we found Luciana before dark.
Meredith picked the next church and we were off. It took about ten minutes driving north of the city. We followed a few winding dirt roads until we ended up at a weed-choked parking lot. The church was run-down and slowly being swallowed up by desert foliage.
The adobe was right, but I didn’t see any windows. It had small bell tower and ornately carved wooden doors. One had an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe and other was the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Whoever made them was an amazing artist. They’d made the wood come to life.
