Page 108 of The Devil

Senna stands outside the circle. I recognize him because he’s not wearing a mask, not yet. And he’s watching this strange ceremony like it’s the first time he’s seeing it. He’s American, not a member of the Scottish order, so maybe it is.

He pulls his mask down over his face. It’s different than the others. His is gunmetal black, the expression stern. Dark glass covers his eyes and on the forehead is a red smear and some part of me knows it’s blood and even through all that’s happening, this detail is the eeriest. He takes his place in an empty space in the circle to make twelve.

Jameson, who has been standing to the side, gives a nod and a moment later, organ music crashes through the chapel, the sound startling and so loud it drowns out the pounding of my heart.

My mother was here, made to kneel in a circle of men similar to these. My mother somehow managed to escape them.

But too late. She was pregnant with me by the time she got away.

Pregnant.

I sweep my gaze over the circle of faces around me and my brain begins to piece a terrible puzzle together, one I can’t face just yet, because I recall some of her diary entries. The strange plural wording. The thing that couldn’t be real because my brain refused to let it be so.

The cloaked masked men begin a chant, and the organ becomes an accompaniment, background noise to something darker, more sinister.

The men look down at me, watching me. Even behind their masks, I feel their gazes burning into me.

A familiar scent begins to fill the space. Incense. It’s followed by the sound of the doors opening again. It’s like I’m in a fucking horror movie. I’m the fucking star of the show.

The circle around me opens to reveal the back of the chapel and from those same doors in this unholy place, two boys appear dressed as altar boys. I recognize one as the waiter from the restaurant. They’re carrying processional candles on long brass poles, and they begin to walk toward us.

The priest of earlier is next. He’s chanting, too, and swinging the thurible leaving puffs of incense to float to the ceiling and vanish.

Behind him comes Master Robertson. Once he is in sight, each of the masked men lower their heads in deference.

Robertson is unmasked and I watch as he chants. The altar boys stand back and once Robertson enters the circle, the others close it around him. Robertson’s eyes never leave my face as he walks around me, coming to stand behind me.

The organ music drops away at the same moment the chanting ends and we are plunged suddenly and irrevocably into a silence thick and heavy and final.

Robertson’s hand lands on top of my head. I flinch but he carries on as if I haven’t.

“Let the chosen step forward,” he says.

And from the circle of men, one steps forward, coming to stand before me, looming tall and dark and terrible.

“Do you, Callum Stewart, accept the role of husband?”

My world goes sideways, my brain trying to keep up, to make sense of what is senseless.

“I do.”

“Brother,” Robertson says, clamping his free hand around Callum’s arm in a brotherly greeting. “They key is yours.” He hands the literal key to my chain to Callum. He then turns to the collected men. “Let us begin.”

38

JET

They’re not expecting us, but they’ll figure out pretty quickly we’ve pirated their vessel when we dock, so before we reach the island, we lower the anchor and climb into two of the life rafts. A few men will remain behind ready to carry us away once we return with Amal.

Cassian has a dozen soldiers with him and the boat was well-stocked with guns, various knives and ammunition. Even Sev is armed.

Our boat launches. Sev steers us toward the pier that will take us to that cave we were led out of. I study my brother’s back, wondering about him. Growing up together, he and I have had our share of fist fights, each of us leaving the other bruised and bloodied, but I’ve never seen him be outright violent. That’s not to say he hasn’t been. I don’t know. But he’s always been against my having anything to do with the Trevino mafia family.

“Sev,” I call out over the roar of the engine and the storm wreaking havoc on the sea.

He looks over his shoulder at me, eyes squinted against the rain, his hair and face wet. “Thank you.”

“She’s your wife. Family. We protect our family,” he says before returning his attention to the castle.