I fired up the comms again. “Read me?”
Kentarch said, “Copy.”
Domīnija: “Copy.”
As Joules and I headed toward the fort wall closest to the main entry, I saw that pentagrams—not pentacles—had been carved into all the lanterns. Demonic-looking shadows wavered over the walls. “You guys receiving this?”
They affirmed.
We passed a makeshift garbage shed filled with bones. Human bones. I investigated a few and found blade marks left from carving the muscles and tendons away.
Domīnija observed, “Definite cannibalism.”
Joules swore under his breath. “So these Minors lured people here by promising help, then they ate them?”
I’d bet on it. “Judging by the number of skulls, the Pentacles did a brisk business back when more humans were around to harvest.” Too late, I remembered Evie was watching this. Was she reliving the fight for her life in the Hierophant’s cannibal pantry? “How you doing, peekôn?”
“Remembering.” Her tone seethed.
Joules and I continued on, even though I needed to rail against these fiends. Quiet outrage was corrosive. It burned like I’d swallowed acid—
We flattened ourselves against the wall when two robed figures appeared to float down a nearby cross-corridor. One carried a black candle, while the other cradled a goat’s skull.
Once they’d passed, I said, “The only thing worse than a cannibal is a devil-worshipping one.”
“Do they worship the devil,” Evie wondered, “or the Devil Card?”
Joules said, “If it’s the latter, they’re going to hate the Reaper as much as I do.”
Smooth as silk, Domīnija replied, “Your feelings are requited, Lord of Lightning.”
We trailed behind the figures, until they walked through that black door. “They must be goan to the service. I’m heading in. You with?”
When Joules nodded, I glanced down at his javelin. If he went weapons-hot with that thing in a closed building, he might blow me to bits too. But hell, wasn’t like I had a great shot of getting out alive anyway. “If they so much as blink the wrong way, light ’em up.”
“Always do, Cajun.” His chest puffed out. “Always do.”
Dieu aide-moi.
Evie said, “Joules, if you’re the only one who makes it out of there alive, you’ll wish you hadn’t.” She sounded halfway to the red witch already.
Kentarch: “Radio silence in five.”
Five seconds later, I eased the door open, and Joules and I slipped into a deserted alcove. Black candles and more pentagram lanterns illuminated an old chapel that had been satanified. All the crosses had been turned upside down. Black swaths of cloth dangled from the ceiling. Painted pentagrams covered the doors.
Choirboy Joules looked like he was about to lose his shit.
Chanting sounded. “Hail Ogen! Hail the Foul Desecrator! The Pentaculum beseech thee.”
I muttered, “You called it, Evie.” I remembered her telling me that the Devil Card had always been ranting about Sabbats and offerings. He’d had no idea the Pentacles were worshipping him. Did they even know Ogen was dead?
A man’s voice carried over the chanting: “We offer up this defiled world of darkness for your ascension and kingdom, Lord Ogen. Accept this body as a meal for your unnatural hunger! Enchain our own bodies and flood us with your power. We offer you pain and screams for your demons’ appetites.”
The followers chanted, “Pain and screams. Power and demons. Pain and screams.”
Curiosity compelled me closer. Joules and I eased along the edge of the alcove and peeked around the wall.
Hooded figures occupied the pews. Their chanting grew louder, more frenzied. Against the back wall, a pentagram hung over an altar on a dais. Before it stood a robed man with his back to us. My WAG: the King of Pentacles. Before him on the altar lay a man’s body with jostling legs.
Fils de putain. The king had just set aside a bloody knife to dig his victim’s heart from his chest. Too late to save the man.
As the people swayed, I made out a pentagram tattoo across each one’s throat. They were all adult males, fourteen of them in total, the entire suit. So where were the other Minors?
Joules stiffened beside me. “That’s a priest. We’ve got to do something!”
I saw then what Joules had spotted—the victim’s collar. “Keep it down. He’s already dead.”
“Then they’re mutilatin’ a murdered priest.” Choirboy wasn’t having it. Electricity sparked over his skin until the hair on the back of my neck stood up. If the worshippers hadn’t been in such a moaning craze, they would’ve noticed us.
The king placed the still beating heart in a silver dish on the altar.
“He stole his heart!” Joules hissed. “Right out of his chest.”
Domīnija said, “Control yourself, Tower. There are too many of them.”
I was a former Catholic boy too, but . . . “That guy probably wasn’t even a priest. He could’ve murdered one and stole his clothes. Or these Pentacles dressed him up for sport.”
Joules wasn’t registering my words, and I couldn’t grab him without getting a jolt.
“Listen to me, we’re goan to back out of here.” We didn’t know what these Minors were packing—other than a taste for human flesh. “We’ll snag that leader after he turns in, and we’ll question him. We leave now.”
Joules hadn’t taken his gaze off that victim. “Sick o’ this world. Sick o’ this shite.” His accent was thicker than I’d ever heard it. “If I canna save a priest, then what do I have powers for?”
“To help us save the entire world.”
“Then we start by stampin’ out evil. These Minors are all cannibals. They cheered as that freak removed a priest’s heart!”
“Do it, Tower.” Evie’s voice was breathy, stunning. “Blow them to pieces.”
“Evie, tais-toi!” Shut up! “Domīnija, get her off the comms.”
In a strange tone, the Reaper said, “Not possible at present.”
“Feckin’ hell, she’s right.” Joules’s charge glowed too bright, lighting up the back of the murky chapel. He raised his javelin, electricity crackling along the length.
The king turned toward the worshippers. “Return to us, favorite son of Satan. Filius Satanae, enchain us to your unnatural will. . . .” He trailed off as he spotted us. “Arcana!” He slapped his bloodied hand over his throat tattoo. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Joules fired his javelin with blistering speed.
The king waved his free hand. The javelin stopped in midair, then dropped harmlessly.
Oh, merde—
Another wave of the king’s hand launched me and Joules back against the wall. IMPACT. Like a giant punch to the lungs. Somehow kept hold of my crossbow.
“Jack!” Evie screamed in my earpiece.
“Ah, the great Tower is visiting.” The king’s eyes looked feverish in the lantern light. “A Major for us to feast upon.”
Joules and I fought to rise. But the king kept one hand on his tattoo, the other directed at us.
“I’ll kill you all!” Joules cried, struggling against the man’s hold.