Father Louis, still flattened on the staircase next to me, bowed his head in awed reverence. "In nominee Patris, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti," he began to intone.
"Ugh, anything but that," a disgusted voice said, with the same Demonish accent Adrian had.
My head whipped around. That hadn't come from Costa, who was farther up the staircase. It came from beyond the open door.
"Shut up, Blinky," Adrian snapped. He cradled my head, wincing as the now fully extended sling grazed his arm. "Are you okay, Ivy?"
Actually, between the slingshot and my overloaded hallowed sensors, I felt like I was being split in two and barbecued. Despite that, I managed to smile. We'd found the staff! No more fruitless searching, no more worrying about it falling into demons' hands, no more realms swallowing innocent people and places. I'd start dancing in glee, if I could move yet.
"I'm fine, but I need help up."
Very gently, Adrian lifted me to my feet. Costa helped Father Louis up even though the old priest had fallen on top of him, and Jasmine edged by them to get to me.
"Are you sure about that- Hey, look! It doesn't hurt when I touch it," Jasmine said in surprise, holding up a piece of the glowing, golden sling.
"Huh?" I said, stunned into a grunted response. "How?" I added a bit more eloquently.
"Supernaturally charged objects only react to people who can harness supernatural power, like you and me," Adrian replied, holding up his thickly gloved hands. He'd also worn gloves the first time I met him. At the time, I'd thought it was because he didn't want to leave fingerprints after kidnapping me. "But to a normal person like Jasmine, the sling is nothing more than ordinary rope," he finished.
"But you can't use the slingshot, Adrian. Only I or a descendant of Goliath can, so why does it burn you?" I wondered.
Adrian's expression became shadowed with more than our dark surroundings. "It's hallowed. My abilities are derived from opposing forces, so whenever something hallowed touches my skin, I have an adverse reaction, and the more powerful the object, the more intense the reaction. That's why I always wear gloves."
Jasmine looked away, but not before I saw a knowing look cross her features. I began to wind the sling around my hand. I didn't need it to brush against Adrian again and have the subsequent welt be another reminder to Jaz about his lineage. Besides, I must have a decent amount of darkness in me, too, because the slingshot burned me like fire whenever it activated.
"I'm sure that Moses's staff is here," I said, getting back to the point. "Every hallowed sensor I have is ringing off the hook, so it must be somewhere inside that room."
"Moses's staff?" that unfamiliar voice repeated, followed by low, disdainful laughter. "Who did you bring here, Adrian? A delusional treasure hunter or an extraordinary idiot?"
"I brought the last Davidian," Adrian shot back, "and you're about to watch her recover the second-most-hallowed weapon in existence."
CHAPTER TWENTY
THAT STATEMENT WAS greeted by silence. I tested my legs and found that I was able to stand again. Wow. This hadn't happened when I found the slingshot. Then, I'd just felt a full-body alert and a strange pulling sensation that had led me to its location. How powerful must the staff be if just being in its vicinity was enough to knock me off my feet?
Too powerful.
As soon as the depressing thought crossed my mind, I shoved it back. I had to do this, no matter the consequences. On the bright side, at least it would be over soon.
"Let's do this," I said, and walked into the small room that a glance showed to be a crypt.
A man stood next to a stone burial vault, which was the only furniture in the room. He looked to be my Dad's age, with thick brown hair, pale skin and a ramrod-straight posture that reminded me of a marine at full attention. That was where his human similarities ended. He was shirtless, which revealed odd extensions of flesh beneath his arms that looked like flaps, as if he were wearing a base-jumping suit made of skin. That wasn't what made me stop and stare in fascinated horror, though. It was his eyes. All several dozen of them.
Eyes covered his entire upper body, even on those skin flaps. Worse, they followed my every movement, as if just being there wasn't creeptastic enough. I was so, so glad that he had on a pair of baggy pants. If those eyes were all over him, I didn't want to know.
Then I met the gaze of the eyes in his normal-looking face, and really shuddered. No human could infuse such raw, unadulterated evil into their gaze. Not even minions could. Demons had a monopoly on that, and this one seemed to be the grand master of it. I felt chilled all the way to my soul as I stared at him. If I didn't have a demon-killing weapon wrapped around my hand, I might have walked out right then.