“It would be,” Kilian said. “Do we wait for the priest to get back?”
Stephen grimaced. “I was never good at waiting, and now I am impatient and exhausted and anxious to get the next step moving. Even if Silas has our answer, and he can point us to whichever type of supernatural creature is targeting you, we’re still going to need to find the individual attacker. Then we’re going to need to make peace with Mia. That's a pretty big to-do list, and standing around here doing nothing is making me kind of jittery.”
It was all logical. And yet, Kilian had a knot of discomfort at the center of his belly, weighing him down. “If there's anyone in the church, they’re not going to be amused by us messing around with the altar.”
Stephen lifted his hand and wiggled his fingers so that the air distorted. “I think I have proven myself adept at camouflage. Making people see us as priests feels a little sacrilegious even for me, so what do you say I conjure up a couple of workman's outfits?”
“Would anyone believe that workmen would mess with the altar in the middle of the day?”
Stephen shrugged. “We could wait until the middle of the night, but do you remember how I told you that I felt like there was a timer ticking down?”
“You think we're near the end of whatever deadline the universe is imposing,” Kilian guessed.
“Oh hell yeah,” Stephen quickly agreed. “The universe’s alarm clock is about to ring like Armageddon is coming in. We are about to have the rude awakening to end all rude awakenings. I would rather have at least one person on our side when the excrement hits the oscillating temperature regulator.”
Kilian felt the same, but he wasn’t sure Silas was the ally they needed. When he’d gone to sleep, he’d been exhausted at how fast the world moved. However, he was the closest thing Kilian had to an ally. His mother was in second place in that competition, and the most she would do was avoid calling the police on them. At one point Kilian had felt like a part of a team. He’d had friends he would die for and who would die for him.
Now he had Stephen, and he couldn’t be sure that Stephen wasn’t the one trying to kill him. At least if Silas turned homicidal, he’d attack head-on, and that made him the closest thing Kilian had to a friend. “Okay, we do this.”
Maybe Kilian was picking up on Stephen’s dread or maybe Stephen's words were making him paranoid, but Kilian felt the weight of anticipation. It felt like those pregnant minutes after he and his team had reached their target but before they’d been given the signal to move in. Kilian hated those still moments where every horror seemed equally possible and his brain would conjure them one after another.
Ironically, his mind’s eye had been dulled by a reality that surpassed the horrors imagined. He'd never visualized anything as horrific as watching a team member ripped into strips by a dragon’s claws before getting slapped off a cliff. He'd never imagined being led to the point of starvation and left staring into the eyes of a sadistic witch seconds before his own nature had driven him to feed on a friend.
The horrors in his life had always surpassed his musings to such an extent that he was terrified of even trying to plan contingencies. It was as if the universe felt the need to outdo him with ever more sadistic torments. However, Stephen was right that they needed an ally. They needed someone who could help them identify the enemy before the enemy stripped Kilian of his very soul. And if that meant he had to face his personal demons by facing the God of his childhood, then that was what he needed to do. He just wasn’t looking forward to it.
Chapter Seventeen
Kilian gritted histeeth as he walked into the cathedral. Stained glass saints stared down at him, casting watercolors across the stone floor. Kilian had to get close enough to the altar that Stephen could wake Silas. That was all. He didn’t have to touch the sacred objects and light was just energy or particles. He couldn’t remember which and he distracted himself for a moment trying to recall his high school physics class. Either way, the fact that this light had filtered through images of Christ didn’t change its nature.
Repeating all this like a too-long mantra, Kilian ignored the weakness in his knees and the pain curling in his guts. When Stephen walked faster to get around a family, Kilian grabbed the polished arm of the nearest pew and forced his legs to support his weight even when he wanted to collapse.
Maybe all the Christian symbols hurt, but Silas had been able to walk into a cathedral. In fact, the Christian symbols were so ineffectual at controlling his vampire nature that he’d had to take a wooden disk carved from Christ's cross to suppress his power. If Silas could do that, then Kilian could damn well get his sorry ass within fifteen feet of the altar so that Stephen could reach the secret chamber under it. He was a soldier. He refused to consider any other option.
Keeping his gaze carefully focused on the plain stone floors and the polished edges of the pews with their distinctive lack of Christian symbols, Kilian forced himself forward, grabbing at each new pew to propel himself down the aisle.
“Are you all right?” A voice tremulous with age asked.
