“That’s perfect,” Ren said. “Just let me...” He trailed off as his fingers flew over the computer. “Okay, yeah, that symbol ties with a tribe that was established around here,” he said, pointing to the map on his screen. The area was in the hills above San Diablo, about a mile away from a public campground.
“That’s close,” Ren said. “Jared, once we’re there, do you think you can track them? Any demon scent heading into the woods would be them, right?”
“Good thinking,” Jared said. “I yeah. I can totally track them.”
* * *
It took three more hours, and four more telepathic messages between Jared and Celia, but we were finally on our way. Apparently Jared’s sister had been able to escape from her crystal vault, when one of Lilith’s minions had failed to secure it properly.
“She’s fine,” the girl had told Jared when he’d asked about Allie. “She talks to me. She helped me. We’ve helped each other.”
“Thankfully she seems to have come through her ordeal intact,” Jared said to me, after he relayed one of their conversations. “She sounds sane. Nothing like what she was before. I think they left her alone. I think that gave her time to heal. And I think having Allie with her helped her find the way back.”
I reached for his hand. “I’m so glad to hear it.”
A team of us were in the van, and between Celia’s information and Ren’s research, we were able to locate the probable location of the walking path from the public camping at the demonic cult’s ancient homestead in the wilderness.
Celia promised to keep guiding us, and I could only hope that would work. We still didn’t know where the Remnant was. And if Lilith already had it, she could be performing the ritual right now.
Celia seemed to think that wasn’t the case. She told Jared that the demons who served Lilith had been coming and going, and she’d heard them talking about a search and a gemstone. I only hoped that meant that we still had time to find it first and ruin any chance she had of getting inside of Allie.
Because there was a chance. Eddie had tracked down the actual ritual, and we now knew that it was essentially the same as before. Lilith would use the Remnant in lieu of the chalice stone. Her essence would flow from the host to the Remnant and into the vessel, presumably Allie.
Before, she’d needed Eric’s blood as well. There was no mention of that in the ritual we found, though it did mention a catalyst. And since none of Lilith’s minions had made a play to capture Eric, I feared the catalyst was something a lot easier to come by.
Our only real chance was to find and destroy the Remnant. Do that, and Lilith’s bit of essence could either zip back off into the ether or just hang around waiting for the body to slowly decay.
In the passenger seat, I pulled my feet up and hugged my knees to my chest. This was the worst part. The waiting. I wanted to be in the fight. I wanted to be battling for my little girl. I didn’t want to be driving to a park like we were going camping.
I hated camping.
We turned off the main road to a gravel road, then turned onto a dirt road that was still technically in the park, but well away from the campsites.
We got out, then started searching for the trail we knew had to be close by.
“Are we sure this is the right direction?” I asked.
“If what Ren read from the maps that he found— and if what Celia remembered and told Jared—is correct, we should be,” Cutter said.
“There” Eliza said. I turned around and saw her pointing slightly east. “That tree. Didn’t Celia say something about a dead tree with blackened bark marking the path?”
“She did,” Jared said.
He’d asked her to relay anything that she remembered from the time that she was brought to this prison.
She’d been frantic and scared, but they hadn’t blindfolded her. And while she didn’t have many memories that would help without context, now that we were on sight, the few things she remembered made some sense.
That black tree.
A boulder that stuck into the path.
A small ancient graveyard that we passed as we descended a hill.
“We must be close,” Cutter said. Laura had wanted to come, too, but we had all insisted that she stay behind. Eddie as well. He’d grumbled about it, and I did feel a little guilty. He might be in his eighties, but he was still spry.
Still, I needed him back at the school. We were sending our best fighters to rescue Allie and Celia. As far as I was concerned, we had no choice—too much was riding on getting Allie away from Lilith.
But I couldn’t discount the possibility that this was a trap. So Laura, Marcus, Eddie, and Ana had stayed behind to protect the school, and Father Donnelly had come to join them, along with Doctor Carlton, who he’d asked to come, too, in case any of us came home injured.
