“Easier?”

I nodded. “I couldn't make them tap dance, but that worked.”

“Thank God, because I have no interest in meeting a zombie.” She turned to look inside the church.

I followed her, my footsteps ringing in the silence. It was a quiet, simple space. The arched ceiling was plain and white. Dust covered the pews and altars, and the frescoes on the walls were faded and dim. The place echoed with silent emptiness.

I stepped farther into the church, searching for a clue. It had been centuries since I’d been here, and I’d never had reason to explore. “Now, where is our crypt?”

Together, we searched the interior perimeter of the small church. There were no doors that led underground. It was like our quarry had disappeared into thin air.

“Were they really ever here?” Carrow asked. “Or did we beat them? Because nothing looks disturbed.”

“The entrance to the crypts could be around the outside.”

Carrow shuddered. “I don’t want to spend too much time out there unless we have to.”

“Agreed.” I strode up to one of the frescoes, which depicted a service in the church. It was strange for wall paintings like this to show scenes from the church within which they were placed, but the Church on the Hill was anything but normal.

“Look at this.” I pointed to the painting, which seemed to show figures descending stairs in the floor.

“They’re at the front of the altar.” Carrow hurried toward the dusty platform depicted in the painting, and I followed.

There, perfectly inset into the floor, was a door, unnoticeable until we were standing o

n top of it.

Pleasure surged through me. This was unexpected, and surprises were rare for a vampire of my age.

I knelt, running my hands over the hinges. The dust had been disturbed there, pressed to the side by the opening of the door. The hinges themselves were now shiny and clean. “They’ve come this way.”

An iron handle was set into the wood. Carrow reached for it, twisting it up and out to pull. It didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

“They didn’t break through.”

She studied the lock. “This is too big for the key that I saw in my vision. That was much smaller than this lock. Do you think they had another key?”

I shook my head. “Perhaps. But the priest who worked here before the church shut for good was an Englishman. I’ve no idea how one of his keys might have got into their hands, but it’s possible. Maybe they used a spell to trick the door into opening.”

“You knew the priest?”

I nodded and stood. “I also know where he kept important things like keys.”

“How do you know that?” She rose to join me.

“I would visit here centuries ago.” I looked down at the crypt. “Though I never cared what they did with their dead, so I was unfamiliar with this.”

“A religious vampire?”

“Hardly. I was building my empire.”

“With a church?”

“Most definitely with a church. They’ve always possessed great power in communities, and Father Alderage was no different.”

“And he helped you set up your criminal enterprise?”

I shrugged, feeling a strange hollowness inside me. “We were friends, I suppose. And there was plenty in it for him.”

Tags: Linsey Hall Shadow Guild: The Rebel Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net