Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(80)

Her morbid words twisted my stomach into a knot, but I forced myself to ignore it. “I’m coming with you,” I said as I stood up and reclaimed my place beside him. He needed backup in case something went wrong and since Gabriel and Dominic’s mere presence in the building would tip off the spelled alarms, that only left me.

Gabriel slipped off his leather jacket, revealing a military-style shoulder holster. He pulled it off from around his head and then tossed it over to me. “Just in case.”

“Nice.” My lips peeled into a smile as I examined the thick leather straps and then slipped my arms through them. The harness floated around me, but the second I adjusted the straps and tightened it to my body, it fit like a second skin. “I seriously need one of these,” I said as I opened the pockets and inspected the throwing knives and other useful weaponry.

“It’s yours,” said Gabriel with a small smile.

“Ready?” asked Trace, slinking his arms around my waist and pulling me into his warmth.

Could you ever really be ready for what I was about to do? “Nope.”

But we were doing this anyway and with that thought, we were gone.



The cold air bit out at me as Trace and I materialized inside the Sacred Necropolis. The deep underground cavern loomed nearly a hundred feet over us as thick stalactites dripped from the ceiling like icicles. With my arms still looped safely around Trace’s back, I took in the haunting sight and gasped. And endless sea of gilded coffins sliced through the trenches like veins inside a body. I couldn’t believe that my mother had been in here all this time, possibly just a few feet away from where I stood, rotting away with the other corpses.

“How are we supposed to find her in here?” I asked as I stepped back from Trace, my feet solid against the packed earth. “There must be hundreds of coffins in here.”

Trace’s brows furrowed as he scanned the open space and then walked up to one of the caskets resting nearby. “They’re all numbered,” he said, reading a string of numbers off the front. “No names.”

“Great.” Not that it would’ve helped. We didn’t have enough time to go through each and every coffin in search of my mother’s name. “We’re never going to find her. This is a complete waste of time.” I was a little too eager to abandon the search and get the hell out of there.

“Maybe not,” said Trace, walking up to me. “Maybe you can track her.”

I gave him a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look. I wasn’t in the mood for his groundless optimism. Not today. Not while we were in here looking for a needle in an underground cemetery. “Get real, Trace. There’s hundreds of coffins in here. Maybe thousands. She could be in any of them.”

“Yeah, but you Invoked, right?” His dimples pressed in as he smiled at me. “And technically, she’s a Rev.”

Hmm, he had a point. “But I’m not—” I paused to think of the right word “—sensing anything.” It only happened once or twice before and I wasn’t even sure how I did it. It just sort of happened and then suddenly I knew I was among Revs. It was all very fluke-ish.

“Close your eyes.”

I looked at him strangely.

“Just trust me.”

I closed my eyes.

“Clear your mind and focus on my voice. Only my voice.”

Shifting my weight, I did as he said.

“Can you hear your heart beating?” he asked me.

I shook my head that I didn’t.

He picked up my hand and placed it against my chest. “You feel that?”

I nodded as my heart gently thumped against my hand.

“Listen to it,” he said, and I did as I was told.

At first I didn’t hear anything but the sound of dripping water cascading from the ceiling, but as I continued to force my focus inward, I suddenly became aware of the soft droning of my heart. It was faint at first, because I wasn’t scared anymore, but it steadily got louder until I felt as though it were beating in my ears.

“Walk,” he said, but I hesitated, afraid I might unwittingly walk into a coffin. “I’m right here,” he assured me. “Just keep listening to the sound of your heart beating. You’ll know where to go.”

Trusting him, I carefully turned to my right and took a small step. My body hummed from his proximity as my heart continued to beat steadily in my ears. I took a few more steps and the sound became fainter. Stopping, I turned on my heel and backtracked the other way. The sound picked up again. The further I walked, the louder my heart sounded until it was a deafening scream in my ears. Instinctively, I stopped in my tracks, knowing that she was here. I turned to the left and set my hand down on a hard surface.

Opening my eyes, my gaze settled on the gilded wood beneath my hand. “I think this is it.”

Trace was right beside me. He unlatched the side locks and pulled open the coffin.

A young man in his late-twenties lay motionless before us, and my heart sank.

“It didn’t work.”

“Yes, it did,” he said and then ticked his chin to the small piece of wood protruding from his chest. “You definitely tracked a Rev.”

“Just not the right Rev.” I was thankful just the same because had I completely messed that up, we would have come face to face with a decomposing body or skeleton. And, oh my God, I so did not need to see that.