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“JK Rowling. Obvi,” Chris said with a look of complete seriousness on his face.
It took me a second to process his words, and then I snorted I was laughing so hard.
I bent over, trying to catch my breath. “Oh, shit. That was not what I was expecting.”
Chris smiled, but it wasn’t his full smile. “Figured you needed a laugh. You gotta be even more exhausted and stressed out than I am, and that’s saying something.”
I huffed as I straightened up. “Funny enough, I’m not that tired. I don’t have time for it and the fear really helps keep the exhaustion at bay.” If we got through this, I was going to take one hell of a nap, though. I might not get out of bed for days.
“The duffels are just well packed, and honed from years of use. The Cazadores know what’s typically needed, but the totes are a newer addition. They’re those reusable grocery sacks. They fold up smaller than my wallet and can carry up to fifty pounds of crap. Suckers come in handy.”
“I’ve got four in here,” Dastien said, handing me two of the tightly folded nylon bags. “Hopefully that’s enough.”
“I hope so, too.”
Chris took the tarps from Dastien. “You ready?”
“No,” I laughed again, but this time it was a lot more desperate. “But let’s do this anyway.”
The dirt and debris crunched under our feet as we made our way to the trapdoor. The smell got worse and worse the closer we got, and I tucked my nose under my shirt. It didn’t do anything for the smell, but it made me feel like it helped.
I looked down into the hole. The basement wasn’t tall, but it was still a six foot drop to the floor. “How did Luciana get in and out of here?” I could make it back up here with a jump now that I was a werewolf, but before? No way. Not a chance.
“There must’ve been a ladder or something that she stashed here that burned.” Chris shrugged. “Give me a sec.” He jumped down the open door, landing with barely a sound. After a little rustling, he yelled up to us. “All set.”
I took one look at Dastien to gain the strength, and then jumped. The ground was cement. I’d been expecting dirt for some reason. I squinted as I looked around the darkened room. “Any lamps down here?” I asked as Dastien landed next to me.
“I tried some, but none of them work,” Chris said. “We could light one of the candles—”
“No!” There was no way I’d burn any candle that Luciana had down here. A little bit of sun came through the trap door, shedding a ray of light and shadows across the closest parts of the room. The rest of it was pitch black. “I can see. Sort of.” And the parts that I couldn’t see I could avoid.
There was a massive spell on the ground written in white chalk and something brown, which I assumed was dried blood. Black lines criss-crossed through the circle. The candles on each point of the inverted pentagram had died out a long time ago—only puddles of hard black wax remained—but that didn’t mean that the spell had burnt out. I could feel it tingling along my skin.
In the center of the inverted pentagram was a short altar—only six inches off the ground and three feet long. Rotting bodies of a black chicken and a black goat lay on the stone. They were mostly gone. What flesh was left was swarming with maggots.
At least nothing on the altar was human. It was gross, but it wouldn’t give me nightmares.
A few items in the circle caught my eye. A goblet. A dagger. A quart-sized jar that had a few different things in it—the biggest of which was a feather. My fingers itched to hold them, but there was no way I was going to chance crossing the circle to get them just because I was drawn to them. Astaroth hadn’t shown up yet, so he didn’t know we were here. But if I crossed the circle? I had no doubt that he’d be here within minutes.
But why was I drawn to them?
I forced myself to look away and take in the rest of the room. I tried not to look at the waist-high, tarp-covered pile beside me, but my gaze kept darting toward it. “We’re going to have to do something about them.”
“We’ll get a team here and burn everything once you get what you need,” Dastien said. “It’s the best we can do.”
I nodded. If they had any attachments to Astaroth, it really was better than burying them. They were already dead. I was reasonably certain they wouldn’t care what happened to their bodies now.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkened room, I noticed that it was a little bigger than the house. A few support beams ran through the area, but besides that, it was a wide open room. I still couldn’t see the back wall—it was too dark—but on two of the closer walls, there were bookshelves. They were loaded to the point where I wasn’t sure how they hadn’t broken yet. A black, intricately carved armoire took up the middle portion of one of the walls, and my gut told me that there was going to be some key stuff in there.
I turned to the guys. “Grab anything on magic about stealing powers. Calling up demons. Anything that mentions Astaroth in the title or table of contents or looks like it will help us make the spell we need or close off the magic Luciana did—including spell ingredients. Any books or ingredients that looks unfamiliar—take it. Even if it’s evil. We can burn it later. But this house was someone else’s before it was Luciana’s. Could be that not everything down here was evil before she took over. So we’re taking everything we can, and I want to be out of here in the next five.” I’d only been down here for a minute, bu
t my skin was crawling.
“Let’s do this,” said Chris.
With that, we all got to work.
I started looking at the books. Anything that had demon in the title went into my bag. After the eighth book went in, I started moving faster. Nearly every title had something in it that freaked me out. Black Magic for the Discerning Craftworker. Channeling Demons: A Survey Study. Spells of Blood and Ash. What the hell. “Nix my last. Just take everything.”
