Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy #1)(26)

I turned the camera up the trail to the left. It was almost completely overgrown; twigs, fallen branches, and grass left the path nearly invisible. “Once freed, the men were brought down this very trail. Accounts of the rescue describe them as energetic and strong, despite the days trapped underground. Apparently, cannibalism does a body good. But the rescued men claimed they had experienced something else down in the mines, something otherworldly.”

Despite the instructions to head right, I walked a little way up the left path. Something was dangling from a low-hanging tree limb: a small bundle of twigs held together with twine, swinging gently in the breeze. I plucked it down, holding it still for the camera. The twigs were woven into a circlet, and a design had been formed in the middle using more twigs, twine, and...fishbones.

Just like the strange trinkets Mrs. Kathy used to hang around her porch.

“Even now, the legends of what the miners experienced underground lives on in this small town’s local culture. The rescued men claimed they met a monster, a God who had been sleeping deep in the earth. They claimed this God granted them mercy, allowing them to escape in exchange for worship. According to the legends, Morpheus would eventually buy the church located near their rescue site, and dedicated it to the worship of the underground God.”

I turned off the camera, satisfied as I headed back toward the other fork in the path. Down the fork and around the bend, the trees cleared. For a moment, the sight of St. Thaddeus took my breath away. The cathedral had three magnificent spires at the front, reaching high into the sky, rivaling the tops of the pines. The wood was blackened with age, covered with patches of moss and fungi. A low stone wall lay in crumbled heaps around the church’s dirt courtyard, and it looked as if the steep roof had caved in on one side.

I began to record again, in silence this time, letting the view speak for itself. The church was far larger than I had expected; it was a relic of exquisite Gothic architecture. Beneath the center spire was a large round window of stained glass, although it was so covered with dirt and grime that I couldn’t make out what it depicted.

The front doors, still covered in chipping white paint, were chained shut. I wandered around the side of the building, examining the boarded-up windows, filming everything. About halfway down the side of the church was a single door, and this one had already been opened: the chain that once secured it dangled off the handle, the padlock still attached and the links cut.

I’d read online this was the way to get in, but I still held my pepper spray ready. With my weapon in one hand and the camera’s flash illuminating my way, I shoved open the door with my foot and the old hinges screeched. Dust cascaded down around the entrance, the shadows thick within. My light cast a sickly yellow beam through the gloom across the nave. A pile of rubble and splintered boards lay beneath the caved-in ceiling, dull light spilling in from above.

The wooden pews still remained, set in long rows up and down the nave. Hymn books were tucked into the shelves on the backs of the pews, swollen and moldy with the damp. The air was thick, oppressive in its silence. There was no tingling, no chills, nothing that would have alerted me to lurking paranormal energies.

The church felt dead. Like a void that dispersed all its light, all its energy, leaving only moldering air behind.

But there, at the front of the church surrounding the pulpit, someone had erected some kind of shrine. I approached carefully, side-stepping splintered beams from the fallen ceiling. Numerous white candles sat around the pulpit, surrounded by their own melted wax. More of those bizarre twig trinkets were scattered around, more fishbones, more twine.

The dust on the ground was disturbed. The footprints were fresh. I hesitated, my camera frozen in my hand as I fixated on those footprints. It wasn’t as if this place was unknown to other explorers. I wasn’t the first to come here, and I wouldn’t be the last. But I didn’t particularly like finding such fresh evidence of a visit.

But I’d come here on a mission. I had an investigation to do.

I started with the audio recorder. I wandered around the nave with the camera fixed on me, asking questions to the empty air.

“Is anyone here with me?”

“What’s your name?”

“How long have you been here?”

The old building creaked in the wind, and somewhere beyond the pulpit, a little sound made me fall silent. I couldn’t even guess what I’d heard. A whisper? The wind? Had something fallen? A footstep, or a knock?

I was used to feeling something in these old places. As the minutes dragged by, and the silence stretched on, that began to unnerve me more than anything; it wasn’t just that I wasn’t experiencing chills, or unease — I felt nothing. The excited buzz of a new investigation was gone. The awe at the church’s architecture had faded. What was left behind was a heaviness that made my thoughts feel slow, as if I was dissociating.

Maybe coming here alone hadn’t been a good idea after all.

I needed to wrap things up, but there was one last thing I needed to film. I set up the camera on its tripod facing the pulpit, and cleared a space for myself in front of the mass of candles.

It was time to create some demon-summoning clickbait.

I’d used my translation notes to mark the relevant page in the grimoire, and I turned to it now. The golden eyes of the Killer greeted me. In the dim light, those eyes looked brighter than ever, searing into me with an accusing gaze. I paused, letting my fingers brush over the page. That face was dangerous, sharp, cruel...and so goddamn familiar.