“That would require actually knowing where to find the Shift. Not to mention the part about an angel’s blood a demon bone, and a dragon’s stone whatever that means.”
“Maybe it’s still at the penitentiary.”
He shook his head and handed me the journal. “We already searched what was left of that place.”
“Like your brother’s life depended on it?” I knew they had tried to find it because they believed the Shift belonged in Legion hands and Priest wanted to take it apart. But Jared’s life was on the line now.
Lukas seemed less convinced. He grabbed a hoodie and pulled it on over his T-shirt. “Let’s track down Priest and Alara.”
I didn’t need them to tell me this was long shot. Even if we found the Shift, I didn’t know how the angel blood, demon bone, and dragon stone fit in. Maybe they were symbolic references. Priest couldn’t just swing by and pick up a vial of angel blood at the hardware store. I considered asking Gabriel and Dimitri, but none of us trusted them enough to put Jared’s life in their hands.
The other details didn’t without the Shift.
There was still a chance to save Jared—one that didn’t involve trying to persuade a demon to leave his body and take up residence in someone else’s. And that possibility changed everything. It stirred something in the deepest part of me—a feeling I’d almost forgotten.
Hope.
27. MASTER OF BONES
If any of us leave, Dimitri and Gabriel will ask where we’re going.” Alara was right.
“I don’t want them looking for the Shift without us,” Lukas said.
No one argued. We needed to get to West Virginia State Penitentiary without Dimitri and Gabriel, and we had to do it fast.
“We’ll have to sneak out during the day,” Priest said. “Gabriel is up all night like a vampire.”
We were holed up in Lukas and Priest’s room, the safest place to plan. Between the constant soundtrack of Lukas playing Tetris and Linkin Park blaring from Priest’s MP3 player, Gabriel refused to set foot in here.
“If we disappear, they’ll come looking for us,” Lukas said.
Bear slept by the door, but I knew he be up if he heard anything in the hallway.
“I’m not leaving Jared here alone with them.” Even if I trusted Gabriel and Dimitri—a point I was still undecided on—I didn’t trust Gabriel’s rage. He couldn’t see past the demon when he looked at Jared, and Andras manifesting my mother had only made it worse.
Priest turned up “Castle of Glass. Two of us go, and everyone else stays to make sure Dimitri and Gabriel don’t do anything crazy.”
“That still leaves one problem.” Lukas said. “We left the Jeep parked on the street in Boston. It probably has a boot on it by now, and I doubt Dimitri and Gabriel are going to give us a ride unless we tell them what we’re looking for.”
A mischievous smile tugged at the corner of Elle’s lips. She was stretched out on Lukas’ bed, propped up on one elbow. “Maybe not to the prison. But I can get them to take us into town.”
“Then what? Moundsville is a ten hours from here,” Lukas said.
Priest perked up. “I can steal a car.”
“No one is stealing anything,” I said.
“I can get us a car.” Alara was swapping the black laces in her tactical boots with white ones covered in bleeding Ex-Voto hearts.
“How?” Priest still hadn’t figured out where Alara had gotten the Jeep, a detail she refused to divulge.
“Stick to designing weapons to save our asses and keep us from being possessed.” Alara winked at him. “Leave serious stuff like auto theft and saving the world to the girls.”
Even after we had explained Elle’s plan twice, Priest was having a hard time grasping the genius of it. “It’ll never work. Gabriel and Dimitri won’t care about buying that kinda stuff.”
Lukas kept his eyes on his game. He didn’t seem to want to discuss the specifics any more than we were hoping Dimitri and Gabriel would.
Alara checked the supplies in her tool belt: plastic soda bottle filled with holy water, paintball gun, ammo, pouches of herbs and rock salt, an EMF, a multi-tool. “You obviously don’t have any sisters.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Priest asked.
Alara winked at him. “Watch and learn.”
We found Gabriel camped out in the room with the glass dry erase boards. Azazel was stretched across the ebony table in front of him.
“Can I help you with something?” Gabriel didn’t look up from the barbed demon vertebrae he was polishing.
Alara and I fidgeted uncomfortably for his benefit. “I need to go to the store,” I said.
“I’m sure we’ve got whatever you want here.” He moved on to a hooked claw.
Alara cleared her throat. “Um… not everything.”
Gabriel rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. “Doubtful. But tell me what you need. If we don’t have it, I’ll go out.”
I gave Alara a questioning glance.
She shrugged. “If you’re sure. It’s girl stuff. It’s in a special aisle. There are lots of different kinds.”
Gabriel’s cheeks reddened.
“I have a picture on my phone.” Alara pressed a few buttons, pretending to look for something.
He held up his hand. “I’ll take you. But we can’t be gone too long.”
Priest, Lukas, and Elle were hanging out in the hallway, listening. I imagined the look on Priest’s face and smiled.
Gabriel wound the whip around his arm and hooked it behind him. “Do you both need to come?”
Alara gave him an innocent look. “Well, we both—”
Gabriel cut her off. “Let’s go.” He obviously didn’t want the details, which was exactly what we had counted on.
When we pulled up in front of the drug store, Alara hopped out first. “Sure you don’t want to come in?”
Gabriel gave her a hard stare, and opened a tattered issue of Soldier of Fortune. “I’ll wait here.”
Alara sauntered through the automatic doors in her black cargos like she owned the place, and the world along with it.
I followed her through the aisles toward the back of the store. “You’re really going to do this?”
She stopped in the makeup section and glanced in the mirror, smudging her black eyeliner a little. “Just give me a head start. Hang out in here for fifteen minutes before you go back to the car.”
That’s the part I was dreading, but it was worth it if she found the Shift.
Alara pushed open the swinging doors at the end of the freezer aisle, marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “There’s always an exit in the back of these stores.” She stopped and took a deep breath. “How do I look?”
It was the last thing I expected her to ask. “Are you serious?”
She zipped her hooded leather jacket and tightened her tool belt. “Of course I am. Do I look like the kind of girl a guy would mess with on the subway?”
For a second, I thought she was joking. But she was still waiting for an answer. “No.”
“Perfect.” Alara strode through the back door and straight up to the jet-black Dodge Challenger parked in the alley.
A broad-shouldered guy with dark hair and sun-kissed skin leaned against the car, his arms folded in front of him. Everything about him was rough around the edges, but he was gorgeous.
The moment he saw Alara, his bad boy demeanor vanished and his face broke into a wide smile. He didn’t wait for her to make it all the way to the car. Instead, he met her halfway and hooked an arm around her neck, pulling her in for a hug. “I knew you’d miss me.”
She pretended to push him away, but he only held on tighter. “What if I said I just needed a ride?”
He grinned. “I’d ask you what you did with the last ride I lent you. Then I’d say you were lying.” He held out his hand. “You’re Kennedy, right? Alara talks about you all the time. I’m Anthony D’Amore.”
I couldn’t decide what surprised me more—that
I was about to shake hands with Alara’s mystery guy or that she’d told him about me.
“Nice to meet you. Alara’s told me—”
“Nothing about me, right?” He took her hand and interlaced his fingers with hers. “That’s my girl.”
His girl?
Priest and Lukas would’ve killed to see this.
“How do you two know each other?” I had to ask.
“We met at one of those junior high mixers. Alara went to our sister school.”
A mixer? I had enough trouble imagining Alara in a club, let alone a school dance.
“I used to get into a lot of trouble. Alara was always the one who got me out of it.”
“Now it’s your turn to return the favor,” she said, nudging him playfully.
“You’re lucky I’m on break, or I’d be training. I have a big match coming up.”
“Are you a boxer?” I asked.
Anthony laughed. “No, Alara’s the fighter. I design Battle Bots for the team at MIT.”