The island was supposed to be mostly unpopulated apart from baseball fields and some rich man’s summer home, but the trees that should have grown there appeared far taller than they ought. They reached up to block out the moon, tall and black as metal girders. Oliver blinked, but his eyes weren’t wrong, the trees seemed sharper and stylized, like something out of a tapestry. Just beyond them stood a cathedral. Oliver had seen ones like St. Patrick’s in Manhattan, but this one felt grander, more foreboding, older than possible in America.
He expected the captain to come out any moment and tell them they were turning back, away from the unnatural fog and trees. Instead, he brought the boat as close to a makeshift dock as he could before calling out to remind them this was a one way trip. For a long moment, Felipe merely stared up at the shapes looming in the night, but at the brush of Oliver’s hand on his shoulder, he snapped to attention and smoothly leapt onto the dock. Oliver scrambled out less gracefully behind him, watching in silence as the ship paddled away from the mist.
“We need to get off the dock before someone sees us,” Felipe whispered, urging Oliver toward the unnatural forest and the path leading deeper into the island.
The more they moved inland, the warmer and lighter it grew. In the eternal twilight, they ventured slowly up the dirt path into the forest. The trees Oliver had spied from the ship were even stranger up close. Their boughs were bare without any signs of insects or birds or nests left from fall. It could have merely been because it was winter, but to Oliver, the trees felt dead, their trunks black and shiny like jet. While they retained the impression of bark, Oliver was certain his hand would come away bloody should he touch them. Felipe was about to take a step off the weatherworn trail when Oliver grabbed his arm.
“I don’t think we should leave the path. All this is overlaying the real island or standing in its place, but it’s something otherworldly, isn’t it? One of those pocket spaces Gwen mentioned. What if it’s like the fae?” When Felipe scoffed, Oliver said more pleadingly, “I don’t think the Queen of Faerie is going to pop up, but weird places like this have minds of their own, don’t they? They do things to trick people into staying or getting lost forever. This place feels wrong. I— I just want to be careful.”
“But they’ll see us coming, possibly before we see them. That puts us at a disadvantage, Oliver.”
“I know, but I would rather face them head-on than be lost in this place for all eternity. I really don’t like the magic here.”
***
The worst part wasFelipe trusted Oliver’s instincts. He had managed to repel Father Gareth’s compulsion to a degree and differentiate magic by scent. If Oliver told him something made him uneasy, he would avoid it. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel it too, he certainly noticed the strange quiet and the unnatural sky, but after spending decades chasing people with magic or otherworldly creatures, he had become desensitized to it. Then again, they mostly sent him to kill things and not get killed in the process, so his experience with pocket spaces was nil.
He sighed. “You’re probably right. Let’s keep going and hope this leads to the castle or whatever that is in the center. I assume that’s where they are.”
“It’s a cathedral. Should we stuff our ears and nose now?”
“No, let’s wait until we get closer. I want to hear if trouble is coming.”
Oliver looked unhappy with his answer, but it would have to wait until they located Newman and the priest. If Oliver was right about the forest or island playing tricks on them, Felipe was making damn sure he could hear and that they couldn’t get separated. Taking Oliver’s hand, they walked through the gloom together.
The deeper they went into the woods, the more Felipe thought he could see shapes in the shadows and hear howls on the wind, though the breeze never stirred. Through the trees, he caught glimpses of the building’s massive façade looming in the distance. He half expected the cathedral to continually leap out of reach like a mirage, but when they came around the final bend, the dirt gave way to cobbles and a graveyard’s worth of discarded bones in the square before the Gothic monstrosity. The longer Felipe stared at the cathedral, the more convinced he was it breathed. The ribs of the vaulted roof expanded and contracted as it bore down on its buttresses like a creature poised to leap, its hundreds of limbs spread wide. In place of an eye was a gaping, shattered rose window, and where its mouth should have been was a carved portal and open door. If someone told Felipe the building’s maw burrowed deep into the bedrock like a tick and sucked the life from the island, he would have believed them.
Beside him, Oliver froze, his hand tightening in his. “I know wehaveto go in there, but I feel like going into that cathedral makes our chances of getting off the island much slimmer.”
“And if they survive and bring something far worse back because we didn’t stop them?”
“The key here isif, and judging by all the bones, the odds don’t look good,” Oliver said, scuffing a pile of bones at their feet with a grimace. “If there’s anything in there that looks like it could eat us, do you promise we can leave?”
“Deal. Take your knife out before we go in.” When Oliver gave him an odd look, he replied, “You aren’t used to carrying one. You’ll forget you have it if you aren’t holding it.”
Felipe checked his gun and the dagger at his hip one more time. He hoped Oliver couldn’t sense his own trepidation upon seeing that the swathe of cobbles leading up to the cathedral was littered with bodies. Some were no more than pieces that could have been human or animal while others still clung to the tatters of their humanity. Several larger piles looked like horses, and as Felipe passed a horse and armored rider, he squatted down for a better look but didn’t see any evidence of bitemarks or obvious violence. He wasn’t certain if that made him feel better or worse.
The rotting wooden doors of the cathedral hung broken on their hinges, but what drew Felipe’s eye was how wet and leathery the stone of the cathedral looked. The tiles leading into the vestibule and beyond were smooth marble dyed a murky brown by blood or thousands of feet, but the walls sent him closer to Oliver’s side. Where the cathedrals he had heard about in Europe were supposed to be temples to light, the only light seemed to come eerily from within. At the tap on his arm, Felipe turned to see a row of slabs shattered across the floor, revealing a pit below. Bones and three splintered coffins had been thrown beside it. Names Felipe had seen in myths along with those lost to time had been desecrated by past pilgrims. In every nook of the cathedral, there was devastation. They carefully stepped around holes broken through the floors and smashed altars with their empty reliquaries.
The nave went on for what felt like miles, but when they reached the center of the cross, beneath the spire, men’s voices carried on the air. Felipe met Oliver’s gaze as he motioned for them to stop their ears and nose. Handing him hunks of gauze, Oliver winced as he shoved the pawn-shaped plug into his ear. The stringy fabric itched Felipe’s nose horribly and made his eyes run, but it was better than being compulsed again.
Pulling Oliver close, Felipe tried to whisper in his open ear, “Stay behind me and out of sight if you can help it. There’s less chance of them turning us against each other if they don’t know you’re here.”
Before Oliver could argue, Felipe shoved his earplug in and inched toward the sanctuary. Newman and Father Gareth’s backs were to them as they stood at the altar before a massive statue that nearly reached the uppermost gallery. Where Felipe would have expected gold and a marble Madonna or Pieta, he found a tower of bodies. Flesh and features of every continent stacked one atop another in a revelry of death. Some were skeletons holding their skins while others were pinned to trees with their entrails dangling or holding their head in their laps, but all were rendered in gruesome detail. Vomit rose in Felipe’s throat, but he choked it down as he pulled Oliver behind a broken sarcophagus.
Like the rest of the cathedral, the tombs surrounding the sanctuary had been plundered, yet the dais and altar remained intact. Oliver’s hand tightened on the handle of his blade as he and Felipe cautiously peered over the stone coffin. While the earplugs didn’t block out everything, Felipe couldn’t make out what Father Gareth was saying beyond a droning chant. The moment the words stopped, the priest took a knife to the flesh of his arm and scattered blood across the stones. The air changed in the room so fast that Felipe bit back a cry at the sudden pain in his ears. Even if he couldn’t smell magic like Oliver could, he could feel the tremble of the stones beneath his feet and a charge in the air like the first rumbles of a storm. Gooseflesh rose across his neck and arms.
The ritual had begun.
