“Saints’ bones bind enchantment,” Eric said. “Stuart’s vision must be referring to that. So what we’re looking for is below it. Below the Safe Room.”
“That makes sense,” Laura said. “There are old servant passages under the house, right? They must go pretty much everywhere.”
“He’s building a door right under our feet,” Allie said, her voice hard. “A way to reach through and grab us. Me and Mom and Daddy.”
“We won’t let him,” Cutter said.
“First task is finding the portal,” I said, standing, now hungry for action. Needing to do something—anything—to protect my daughter.
“Then we figure out how to destroy it and keep Samarek away from you three. And trapped in hell,” Eddie said.
“Kate—” Eric caught my arm.
“I know,” I said. “We don’t know what we’re walking into. But time is running out. We need to go careful, go armed, and go together. But, we also need to go now.”
I looked around the room. “Stuart, Eddie—stay here with Timmy. Get all the kids in here, too, along with Marcus and Fran and all the staff. Everyone armed, just in case. Protect the students.”
“I’m going into the basement,” Allie said. It wasn’t a question.
I wanted to argue. Wanted to lock her in the Safe Room and never let her out. She was the one Samarek truly wanted, after all. I was certain of it. She was the one he’d torture first, because that would hurt both Eric and me.
But at the same time, for all those reasons, she needed to come, too. Because along with Jared, she was the strongest warrior we had.
“Fine. But you stay behind me and your father. Jared,” I added, “you’re with us.” A few minutes later, once I was sure everyone not going under the house was safe in the library, I glanced at our little group. “All right, then. Time to see what’s hiding under our noses.”
18
ALLIE
The basement stairs creaked under our feet, each step taking us deeper into the dark.
Dad went first, a flashlight in one hand and a blade in the other. Mom followed close behind, and Jared’s hand found mine as we brought up the rear.
The door opens below that which binds enchantment.
Just a little bit farther, and we’d be directly under the Safe Room. Or, at least, I think we would. Please, please, let us not have guessed wrong or somehow veered off course in this dark and creepy basement.
“How far back do these passages go?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “We must be getting close, right?”
“No idea,” Mom admitted. “I’ve never had a reason to come down here. Who knows what these walls have seen? Or what they hide.”
A lovely thought.
The thing is, no one really knew what Theophilis did to this house—or what havoc Lilith’s break-in had wreaked back before this building housed Forza.
For that matter, Stuart and his business partners had done work before they tried to sell the place, and they could have shifted bits heavy with mojo and then sent them to the county dump.
After all, they’d made a lot of changes before Mom got the idea for Forza West.
In other words, none of us had a clue as to what was actually down here.
The passage narrowed as we moved deeper. The walls changed from drywall to stone, the floor from concrete to packed earth. The air grew colder, damper, and it smelled like something old. Something that had been waiting.
“There.” Dad stopped, his flashlight landing on a wooden door set into the stone. Heavy oak planks bound with rusted iron. “That shouldn’t be here.”
“What do you mean?” Jared asked.
“I’ve seen the original blueprints. There’s not supposed to be a doorway here.” He examined the door without touching it. “Someone added this.”
