Page 166 of Terror at the Gates

I pressed my lips together but couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll help you bury the body.”

“As a true friend would,” she said.

We smiled at each other and then fell silent. I dropped my gaze to Cherub, feeling a little awkward for not addressing the elephant in the room, though I should have known Coco would not let it go.

“So,” she said, drawing out the vowel. “Zahariev finally took a bite, huh?”

I laughed, breathless. “It was more than a bite.”

Coco pressed her lips together. “All night?”

“Mostly,” I said.

“No wonder you’re tired.”

I was tired because I’d gone without sleep for about a week, ever since this fucking blade came into my possession. It had really been the catalyst for so many terrible things. The worst part was I still didn’t exactly understand what we were dealing with. I just knew I didn’t want the dagger to leave my hands and partly out of spite. I didn’t want Lisk to have any more power, but I also didn’t want to see the Order of the Serpent release a couple of ancient gods we knew nothing about.

I still felt like I should meet Saira tomorrow night. I would like to know more about the Order of the Serpent. If they were really a formidable force or just a handful of women who truly believed they were talking to a divine entity. Either way, I was going to need their trust to get my hands on their three blades.

As we lounged in the living room, the electricity surged.

“That’s been happening all day,” said Coco. “The newssaid the commission might enforce rolling blackouts to minimize the strain on the power grid if it doesn’t get better.”

Fucking demons, I thought.

The sooner I found those blades and forged that sword, the better. I was ready to go hunting.

***

I drifted off into a dreamless sleep, waking with enough time to shower and eat before Zahariev and I headed to Hiram. We arrived half an hour before service was set to start, parking within view of First Temple.

When I was younger, I always thought the spires atop the church looked like teeth.

It’s a monster, I’d said.He wants to swallow the sky.

My mother had not appreciated my imagination and told me that was an evil thing to say, so I thought it instead.

Now that I was older, I’d say my observation was pretty accurate. Lisk had turned First Temple into a state-of-the-art fortress of white marble and built a mansion to match.

Supposedly, it could withstand any disaster, which made Zahariev’s theory that Lisk wanted to end the world more probable.

It made me think he’d had this plan for years—the temple was his ark; his chosen species, the rich.

All he needed now was the Deliverer to make his dreams come true.

“I thought archbishops were supposed to live modestly,” I said, glaring at Lisk’s matching pointy roof. It towered over the concrete wall he’d built around his home, which, like the temple, took up an entire block.

“I don’t think Lisk liked the idea of living in a rectorywhile the families lived in lavish mansions,” said Zahariev.

“So you’re saying he was jealous?”

“I think he feared the people would listen to the families over the church.”

“If he didn’t have a nice house? That’s ridiculous.”

“Money’s power, little love. You know that.”

I knew it, but money didn’t automatically grant anyone the skills it took to be a good leader, and neither did blood. Maybe the families would have been more effective if God had given them qualities like integrity, compassion, and the ability to admit when they were wrong.