Ammon’s eyes widen. “Indeed?”
“Indeed. I need to know how I can control Santa Muerte and force her to reveal the name. Do you have any magical thingamajigs that can do that?”
Fiona finally chimes in. “Are you sure you want—”
“I’m sure,” I interrupt. There she goes again, trying to get her way.
Her shoulders sag. “Very well, dear.”
Ammon considers my request. He quietly rises and disappears through the back door. Moments later, he returns with another box. This one is made of wood blacked with resin. Gold hieroglyphs—character texts and images— cover each side and the top. He turns the box to me and opens the lid, revealing the contents.
Inside is a folded piece of ivory cloth. Ammon gestures for me to take it. I hesitantly reach into the box and lift the fabric. Despite its gossamer texture, it’s curiously heavy. I unfurl it to reveal a long and delicate veil made of a silky mesh. The material is so fine it’s translucent.
“Whosoever dons this veil is compelled to tell the truth,” Ammon says. “Place this on the head of the spirit, and you can ask for the name.”
Great. So I just need to get close enough to Santa Muerte to drape this over her head. Then I interrogate her for Dudley’s name. I return the veil to its box, and he closes the lid. He places this box next to the one containing the pendulum. There sit the two keys to solving my case and my life. One key will help me find Elizabeth. One key will help me learn my demon’s name.
“Do we have a deal?” Ammon asks.
Truth be told, I’m a bit naive when it comes to the details of donating blood on the black market. “Do you need a drop right now? Do I go to the local Red Cross and have them draw ten milliliters?”
Ammon and Fiona exchange a brief chuckle.
“Dear,” Fiona finally says. “He doesn’t want your blood.”
I wrinkle my brow. “He just said he wanted…”
Oh no.
It occurs to me what is so funny—and not so funny. They don’t mean to draw my blood while I’m me. They want to draw it from me while I’m Dudley.
The words struggle to come out: “Well… what do… how… are we going to do that? When are we going to do that?”
Ammon smiles and raises his hands. “Why not now? Why not here?”
My stomach sinks. This is not like the exercise Fiona and I did in her house. This isn’t finding that fine line. What we’re talking about is unleashing the deadly and dark force inside me. This will be a full demonic episode.
After sitting in silence for too long, Ammon finally asks again, “Do we have a deal?”
Paige is going to kill me.
Chapter 27
____◊____
AMMON AND FIONA LEAD me through the club. Once again, all eyes are on me as we navigate our way through the place. Ammon leads us down a long hallway to a locked door. He presses a smart card against a reader then enters a six-digit pin into the keypad. The light turns from red to green.
“High-tech?” I ask.
Ammon smiles as he opens the door. “Everyone here knows magic. One of our members is nearly one thousand years old, knows the secrets of life and death, and once resurrected a woman who had been dead for a month. He still doesn’t understand email. Sometimes, technology is better.”
We pass through the door and down another hall. We arrive at a large circular room. Huge blocks of limestone form the rounded walls, with each block etched in more symbols. At one end is an old wooden cabinet, and in the middle is a stone altar roughly the size of a cot.
Fiona closes the door behind us after we enter. It scrapes shut with a thunderous boom, shutting us inside. I give her a questioning look, but she merely returns a smile.
Drawn on the floor is a perfect circle about thirty feet in diameter. There are no symbols inside it—just a blank canvas. Ammon opens the cabinet and collects four candles. He lays them at four opposite points of the circle.
Fiona takes my hand and leads me to the altar. As I near, I notice it’s completely covered in the carvings of various runes and symbols. There are so many, overlapping each other, that they look like graffiti. I surmise that the reason it has so many symbols is because a lot of ceremonies have been conducted on it over the years. I also notice there are manacles connected to the stone. They look comfy.
“We can always back out if you want.” She guides me onto the altar.
“Shut up, Fiona. Let’s get this over with.”
I’m sure she’s trying to be reassuring, but after the way she’s been acting lately, I suspect she has some ulterior motive I haven’t figured out yet. I know enough not to trust Fiona or Ammon, but I’m also realizing that I can be as valuable to them as they can be to me. I may provide them some long-term benefits, so I don’t think they intend to do me harm… today.
Fiona gestures at the tweed coat I’m wearing. “You’ll be needing to remove this.” I take off the garment and hand it to her. Dressed only in my T-shirt and jeans, I’m suddenly freezing. At least, for now. “Shoes, too, dear,” Fiona says. “It’s all part of the… process.”
Ritual, she almost said. As in ritual evocation or ritual sacrifice. Begrudgingly, I remove my boots. She gestures to my socks, and I peel them off and stuff them in the boots. I’m suddenly conscious of fuzz between my toes.
I lie down on the cold stone, and Fiona shackles me to the altar. It is just as uncomfortable as I imagined. She jerks down on the chains to remove the slack from my arms and legs then uses a metal lock to keep them in place. When I pull on the chains, there is no give.
Ammon
