“Wait, so that chick really…died?”Lizzie’s brows were at her hairline, and Temperance scooted closer to her, threading her arm around her stepsister’s.
“When I looked closed at the woman who appeared at the center of the ring.She was…slightly taller than the other one.I think the woman impaled by the blades was, in fact, another victim.”
“The carnival is doing this?But how the hell would it get away with that?It travels all around.People are going to put two and two together and realize—”
“There’s magic involved,” I cut in.“I highly doubt they let their methods be discoverable at all.I lucked out last night, just catching the difference, and I’ve been practicing magic for twenty-some years.”
Lizzie stood up, walking in front of my desk and planting her hands down on the surface so that she was right up in my face.
“Then we need to figure this shit out.What do we know about them?”
Gesturing toward my laptop on the corner of the desk, I cocked my head.“By all means, Ms.Chamberlain.If you can find something about them, please do.”
She rolled her eyes at me, making my pulse flicker for a moment as Temperance joined us at the desk, laying her hand down on the pile of books I’d stacked up earlier.
“Fine.I’ll Google.You both do the bookworm thing and see if you can find something in all these books of yours that looks like that symbol on the dead woman or this one.”
Quickly, Lizzie scrawled an image on a spare pad of paper I had on my desk, stealing a pen from the mahogany desk organizer I had next to the books.
“My mom’s necklace?The church thingy?”Temperance looked at Lizzie as if she’d lost her mind.
“Hey, I always thought it was more like a cult, and the vibes last night were all ‘holy glory’ and shit.They could totally be related.”
“Holy glory?”I smirked, furrowing my brow as Lizzie took my computer and sat down with it on the edge of my desk.
“Yeah, like all those people who get off on praying and believe they’re getting ‘lifted up’ by their god.”
“That just sounds like religion, Lizzie.”
“Which is all fucked sometimes, Temps.”
Scoffing, I held up a hand.“Alright, back to your corners.Let’s just see what we can find.”
Itwasahandfulof hours later that we all sat around my coffee table with a plethora of information and a bad fucking feeling about all this.The carnival did have a record of being around during some missing person reports, but there was no way to prove anything.From what Lizzie found, they were known for their macabre performances, and the symbol of that “church” was spotted on several of the performers in the photographs she’d managed to dig up.
The symbol itself—along with the one on the victim we’d seen—was tied to some ancient workings that were utterly alien to me.Temperance and I had found some obscure references to them in books that I’d had to call up from the depths of the archives and delivered to my office, which we passed off like an extra-credit assignment.
“This is odd.Have you looked at this?”Temperance lifted up onto her knees from sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, pushing a book in my direction.“This isn’t standard witchcraft stuff.The language is almost…religious.But there’s a note in the margins, something handwritten by someone ages ago.Does that say what I think it says?”
I pulled the book to me, scanning over the faded writing.“His Holy Goodness, Barer of Light, nothing but…lies?I think that’s what it says.Growing malevolence seeking to…Fucking hell, ‘feast on the righteous.’”
Using air quotes around the last few words, just like the writing did, I glanced between Lizzie and Temperance before continuing.
“Golden light, powers exchanged, but not to god to It.”Tilting my head as I set the text down, I raised my brows, chewing on my tongue for a moment.“Well, it looks like someone figured something out.Af if this is some sort of entity acting like a god, looking for worshippers, it’s not unprecedented.It also tracks with the—”
“Cult vibes!”Lizzie said, her excitement laced with vindication.“I fucking told you!”
Unable to keep myself from laughing, I pulled my glasses off, setting them down on the table that was strewn with books and printouts that Lizzie had found.The sun was setting outside my stained glass windows, and the low lighting painted the room in soft hues of yellow and orange.I only had the lamp by the couch on, and it hit me how alone the three of us were in my office.
The entire campus was likely gone by now; surely, no faculty to come knocking.We’d also dispensed with the required uniform attire at this point.My jacket hung on the back of my desk chair, my sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and I’d loosened my tie when it was getting too fucking hard to concentrate.Both Lizzie and Temperance had ditched their school jackets, left haphazardly on my couch, and while Temperance’s skirt was still the usual length, Lizzie had cut hers to hit at mid-thigh.
With her perched on the edge of the chair, her legs uncrossed, it was a test of fortitude not to glance down and follow the tantalizing warmth of her deep tan skin up to the shadowy juncture between her legs.
We’d also gone through like a third of that bottle of scotch.
What the fuck were you thinking, Caleb?
“Who fucking called it?I did.”Lizzie stood up from the couch abruptly, strutting over to Temperance and leaning down into her face, so close I thought she might finally go for what they both clearly wanted—what I desperately wanted to see.“Who’s amazing?”
