Page 110 of Haunting the Hunter

Why would he kill what he already was?

My brain tries to make sense of it, but it’s not clicking. The pieces don’t fit. Something’s missing. What if the Covenant wasn’t about worship? What if it was aboutcontrol?

But all I know right now is that everything I believed about the Covenant might be a lie—and that Jonathan Halloway was never just a founder.

I try to see the pieces how Cade would. He’d put the emotion aside. Break it down. Trace the motives. Connect the patterns.

He’d know what this means.

Cade. Fuck. I pull out my phone and check again for any notifications. Nothing.

Doubt creeps in. What if the cards were wrong? He may bealive…but that doesn’t mean he isn’t in a living hell.

This journal changes everything, but I don’t knowhow, exactly. I begin to feel the overwhelming presence I’ve come to see as a sense of comfort: Alabaster.

“You’ve been busy,” he says, placing a finger on the journal, seeming to skim the page. “Find anything interesting?”

“I—I don’t know, honestly.” I turn toward the window. “The man who established the cult. The one that’s after me… He was like me.”

“Is that so?” His response sounds almost like he’s baiting me. The tone of his voice pulls the realization from me. I whirl around to face him. His glowing eyes are akin to a creature from the deep, dangling its luminescent lure. Drawing me in, beckoning me to ask the question.

Why ishehere?

I walk up to him quickly, my gaze fixed on his face.

“Why do you say that like youknow?” I focus on his eyes, searching for answers.

A small smirk plays at the corners of his lips.

“What do you know?” I ask again sternly.

His face is unreadable. I straighten myself and wait for him to break the silence.

“What do you want to know?” he says, crossing his arms.

“Why are you here?” I demand.

He drops his arms to his sides, exhaling a slow breath as he sits on the same chair where we shared our first kiss.

“Let’s call it… curiosity.” He places his elbow on the arm, hand to his chin. “I was drawn to the grimoire, you see. That’s a very interesting thing for humans to have. Items like that are quite dangerous when left in this world for too long.”

I sit down on the ground, crossing my legs. “Define dangerous.”

He glances up like he’s weighing the risk of telling me as Karma comes in, jumping on his lap. He pets her head as he speaks.

“It’s artifacts like that,” he says slowly, “that sparked the worship of Gods across your world. Whole religions built around them. We thought they’d all been confiscated. Removed from this realm a long time ago. Not all of those Gods were worth worshipping, Calli.” He leans in.

“Wait. Why? Why would your kind take them?”

His eyes glint as though he’s recalling a memory.

“There was a war. A war on worship. The more a God is worshipped, the stronger they become. That’s the way of the world. That’s what humans were made for.”

“Made?” My voice catches. “What do you meanmade?”

He chuckles in a low voice.

“Oh, little witch… you really think your kind evolved that fast? You think you crawled from the mud and learned to build temples on your own?” He smiles. “Mortals are the prey of many species. Your blood feeds vampires. Your souls feed what you call demons. Your worship feeds the divines. The list goes on.”