43
Damon
The truck skidsto a stop on the wet gravel drive outside Mercer Manor. No snow tonight, just a fine, relentless mist that slicks every surface and turns the headlights into smeared halos. Hunter kills the engine, and my boots hit the ground before the door even finishes swinging open. Hunter’s right behind me, coat flapping, moving fast toward the cluster of men striding across the backyard.
Timothy is there–masked, rain-soaked, shoulders rigid. Killian Payne beside him, gun already in his hand. Tristian Mercer is a step ahead, pointing toward the darkness. Sy’s at the rear, fists clenched.
Hunter reaches them first, grabbing Timothy’s arm.
Timothy’s head snaps around. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” I ask, falling into step.
“Story said she saw someone she knew,” he says. “Someone she recognized as one of ‘my men.’”
I wish that was a surprise. I wishanyof this was a surprise.
“King!” Hunter shouts. “Stop. There’s something you need to know.”
He looks over his shoulder at Tristian, who’s already moving across the wet grass toward a structure in the distance. Everyone’s expensive clothes are dark and clinging–suits ruined, shoes squelching. Timothy’s mask is coated in a fine sheen of condensation, making the eye holes look like black mirrors.
“What?” he asks, voice low, lethal.
“Alone.”
“There are no secrets here, Baron.” He gestures at the others. “I need everyone’s help to make sure she is found safe.”
Hunter grimaces, his light brown hair darkening with the rain, then says it flat out. “Whoever’s hunting the girls and taking them, they’re using Baron rituals.” His jaw sets. “It’s one of us.”
I wait for Payne or Perilini to explode, to start throwing accusations. They don’t. They just watch–tense, waiting. There’s a clock ticking, another bomb about to explode, and Timothy’s eyes, shadowed behind the mask, go wide with shock.
“One of us,” he repeats. The words sound hollow.
Hunter nods once. “It’s all Barons-coded. The bodies, the masks that Arianette remembers, the positioning–but most concretely, the beetle. It’s a rite of transformation. Someone’s sending a message and they’re using the old ways to get it across.”
For a heartbeat he’s frozen–rage and regret warring across the lower half of his face. Then Perilini, of all people, circles him fast, grabs his face in both hands, and forces eye contact.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Sy says, voice low and vicious, “or what fucked-up House of Night bullshit is happening right now, but I am not letting anyone take another one of our girls. Understood?”
Timothy’s eyes clear and he nods his agreement.
Simon spins him around and shoves him toward Tristian. “Go.”
We move as a unit.
Tristian leads us across the slick lawn to the bulkhead doors–rusted iron set into a low rise of earth. He yanks them open. “Ithink this is what you’re talking about,” he says, turning on the flashlight on his phone. “It’s usually locked. My parents didn’t want us down here, especially the girls, but lore was that it led to the catacombs.”
Torchlight flickers up from below–someone’s already down there. Timothy doesn’t hesitate. He goes first, descending the stone steps fast. We follow–Killian, Simon, Tristian, Hunter, me–a mixture of fancy shoes and scuffed boots ringing on the narrow stairs.
“You never came down here?” I ask.
“Girls don’t really like dark, creepy places,” Tristian says as though that explains everything. “I needed them out of their pants, not freaking out of their minds.”
Killian rolls his eyes, but continues down the narrow stairs. He and Sy both have to duck, their shoulders brushing the stone walls. At the bottom, the tunnel opens into damp darkness. Timothy stops dead and bends, picking something up off the ground.
“Fuck,” Hunter growls when he sees Arianette’s collar held up. Black leather with the bronze pentagram pendant glinting in the torchlight.
Killian’s voice is tight. “Tell me you’ve got a fucking tracker on her.”
