The Sweetest Burn (Broken Destiny #2)(46)

Father Louis beamed. "Done."

I now knew why the grave dirt we'd used hadn't worked on Oblivion. Father Louis hurried to the front of the chapel. I thought he was leaving to get the agreed-upon hallowed dirt, but instead, he locked the chapel doors and came back.

"You never did explain how Blinky managed to be on hallowed ground without exploding or something," I said to Adrian.

He smiled, and for the briefest moment, he reminded me of Demetrius. The demon was the only other person I'd seen who could convey such dark expectancy with a mere curl of his lips.

"You're about to find out, but I'll give you a hint-if hallowed objects exist, then so do their counterparts."

With that, Adrian grabbed one of the four pillars that flanked the altar and turned it on its axis. With a grinding sound, the entire altar and part of the stone floor beneath lifted up on its side, causing the candlesticks and velvet cloth to crash onto the floor. The new position revealed a square, open space beneath the altar, with stairs that led down.

"You've heard of trap doors, well, this is a trap altar," Adrian said, his grin turning challenging. "Follow me."





  CHAPTER NINETEEN

FATHER LOUIS TOOK one of the altar's fallen candles, lit it and brought it down with us. Without that single flickering flame, we wouldn't be able to see anything. Well, most of us wouldn't. My eyes were already adjusting to the dark. As I'd told Costa, my abilities were like a muscle; the more I used them, the more they were there when I needed them.

"What kind of a church is this?" Jasmine whispered as we descended the stairs. The tunnel around us was so narrow, if I stretched out my arms, I'd hit the wall. That's why Brutus had to stay up in the chapel. Even though the staircase descended only about fifteen feet, there was no way Brutus would fit in this tiny space. I hoped no one in our group was claustrophobic. Even I was starting to feel twitchy from our cramped quarters.

"A very special one," Father Louis replied. He didn't sound unnerved by our surroundings. In fact, the old priest sounded almost giddy. "It originally came from the French village of Chasse-sur-Rhône. No one knows how old the chapel is. Some say five hundred years old, some say a thousand."

I was more surprised to hear of its original location than to hear of its age. "Someone moved an entire stone chapel all the way from France to here?"

"Oh, it didn't come here first," Father Louis said, further surprising me. "Its first destination was New York. It stayed there forty years and miraculously survived a fire that leveled the castle next to it. Then the chapel was inherited by another family, and they had it transported stone by stone to here."



       
         
       
        

"Why would anyone cart around an entire chapel once, let alone twice?" Jasmine asked, voicing my own thoughts. "You could build several new ones with much less time, money and hassle."

Father Louis reached out, touching the stone walls fondly. "There's something special about this place. If you stayed here any length of time, you'd feel it. Right, Adrian?"

Adrian was still at the front of our procession, and at that, he threw a glance over his shoulder at the priest.

"I don't know that I've felt something special, but it is the only place I've kept coming back to, so I suppose that counts for something."

All I felt was the thrum of hallowed ground across my senses, which, although stronger from the multiple churches on the campus, wasn't unusual. Maybe Father Louis was just romanticizing because the chapel had such an unusual history.

"How did you come to have a trapped demon down here, anyway?" I asked.

Adrian opened a small door at the end of the staircase-and something hit me with a full-body punch, knocking me back into Father Louis and Costa. With my momentum, I flattened them against the staircase.

"What is it, what is it?" Jasmine cried.

I looked around, dazed. "I don't know."

And I didn't. I couldn't find the cause of the force that had thrown me on my ass. All I saw was darkness behind the small door that Adrian had left open as he rushed to me.

Then I felt it; an indescribable pull toward something beyond that door. My heart began to pound and every hallowed sensor in my body began screaming out an alert. The reaction was so intense, I barely noticed the pain as the slingshot began to glow and uncurl itself from my arm.

"Oh my God, it's here," I whispered. Then I said it louder as excitement mingled with my certainty. "The staff is here!"

"What?" Jasmine said with disbelief.