Page 44 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

twenty-nine

Luke

The drive back to Philly had taken longer than expected.

Vampires required rest but Luke had been running himself a bit too hard.

When Angelo Torretta had first called them, he had no idea the job would spiral like this.

A search and rescue— sure. Not a typical gig but easy enough.

Safekeeping? Why not. Playing bodyguard and private detective?

A little beyond their typical scope but they were smart and well-trained. Prevent a demon ascension?

It was absolutely fucking insane.

But he loved every minute of it.

It was the conflict in his head every minute of the day. The good and the bad of his human death, the whole wide world he’d never expected to exist seducing him almost immediately. With Tefi as his guide, it was hard not to become enamored.

It was easy to let it consume him.

But now he was wide awake, rejuvenated and downright giddy at his discovery.

It was a needle in a haystack kind of find.

Hardly bigger than his palm, tucked deep in an old filing carton, a box of goods they had plucked from an occult shop in Baltimore that had been tossed aside for an upcoming audit by the Caruso men.

But written on the inside cover were the words ‘ recordum mutationis ’ in faint chicken scratch.

A record of a change. Or something to that effect.

Luke hadn’t ever been all that good in school.

He was too restless, too distracted. He had passed most of his classes by the skin of his teeth, and a little bit of extra homework help from Gideon.

But he had always been pretty good at picking up languages.

He learned Spanish while running errands for Frank, and bits of Latin and Aramaic and Ancient Greek while dicking around in Harker’s library, pouring through the texts and doing a hell of a lot of research.

The words scribbled in Latin definitely piqued his interest.

Which is why he was staring so intently at Harker as the demon hunter flipped through the diary, eager to see if the book was what he hoped it was.

“You really don’t have anything else you could be doing right now?”

“Nope,” Luke replied brightly.

“Yeah, not true, babe,” Cleo called out from the living room.

“Didn’t you say something about finalizing the schedule?

” Gideon asked from the opposite end of the kitchen island.

He was staring down at the hotel floor plan spread out on the counter, a thick black marker in his hand as he marked their entry points.

Luke scoffed. As if Gideon would ensure the minute-by-minute play to anyone else.

“Or you could sort through the ammo you made me pick up for you,” Cleo added. “Considering I had to deal with Frank and all his creeps to get it.”

Luke twisted around in his stool, his eyes narrowing at Cleo.

“You said it went well.”

“It did,” she shrugged. “But that’s because I know how to play him. Doesn’t make him any less of a woman-hating weirdo.”

He frowned.

Frank Markos wasn’t much of a charmer, that Luke knew.

But if he had made Cleo feel uncomfortable in any way—well, just the thought of it was making his skin itch.

He also didn’t love the idea that this felt like new information to him.

He knew Huck was a problem. But Cleo had met Frank before, had been dealing with him in one way or another since she signed on to work with Gideon and then Luke full-time.

When Luke took off with Tefi, Gideon was recovering from a brutal fight with a vampire gang and Cleo had blown her way out of a safe with a homemade bomb.

From what he heard through the grapevine during those first few months, Cleo and Gideon went way underground.

Hard to continue behaving like normal after that kind of run-in, harder still to go their own separate ways.

Luke knew he’d left his brother in the lurch.

They had worked together for so long, their communication was almost wordless.

But Luke was changed. Made entirely new.

He had to learn how to adjust, and he couldn’t do it with his brother looking over his shoulder.

Gideon and Cleo did the same thing. She stepped up.

Gideon could rely on her in a different way, the two of them developing their own shorthand.

And soon Luke was getting word through various channels that Gideon was back in action and Cleo was right there with him.

It had surprised the hell out of him. He couldn’t deny there was a small part of him that wondered if their relationship was more than professional.

Despite that, he also felt relief.

Like it alleviated some of the guilt he felt by leaving in the first place.

“Yeah, I’m gonna wanna talk about that more,” he told her.

She merely rolled her eyes in reply before she went back to loading up the clips sitting on the coffee table in front of her, boxes of ammo stacked neatly on each side.

Luke wasn’t sure he’d have a place when he returned to work with his brother. He didn’t want to impose on whatever dynamic they’d created. But when he realized Gideon and Cleo behaved more like siblings than lovers, a very small part of Luke was pleased as all hell.

And they became a very easy trio.

“Alright, I think we’ve got something,” Harker said, drawing Luke back around.

“Tell me,” he said, though he now felt a little bit more distracted than before.

“Judging by the binding, I’d wager this dates back maybe a hundred and fifty years,” Harker said, finally making eye contact, his dark eyes glimmering briefly.

His locs were piled up on top of his head in a loose bun, and he was fiddling with a chain hanging around his neck.

“The Latin is a bit baffling—like it’s all in a personal short hand. ”

“And? Anything that might help us with the ritual?”

“The entries seem to follow a lot of what we already know,” Harker said, before he shuffled to a few pages toward the end. “But there is something here I haven’t seen before, and if it’s true, we’re in for a bit of trouble.”

“Oh, cool,” Gideon said dryly. “Because we’ve had a really easy fucking go of it so far—”

“What is it?” Luke asked..

“There’s a bit here where he writes about this stage before the ritual officially takes place,” Harker started, holding the diary out for Luke to see. “ Immunis sum . Immune. Essentially, he’s saying that he was… invincible until the blood moon took place. He could not be harmed.”

“Could not be harmed,” Luke repeated.

“That thing the bloke said to you in the quarry,” Harker said. “About bathing in untouched blood? I think that’s it.”

“Okay, but not… literally, right?” Cleo asked.

Harker grimaced.

“Well, no one’s had any fucking luck tracking down those kids,” Gideon muttered.

“Whoever it is we’re looking for,” Harker started, “we can’t kill him. Not yet.”

The mood wasn’t exactly light, but in that moment, there was a heavy lull that settled over the group. Five kids. All gone, if this diary was to be believed. It was only a few days until the ritual. If it were Luke, he’d want immunity as long as he could before the ritual took place.

He raked his fingers through his hair as he shifted back on the stool.

“There are a lot of tight squeezes here,” Luke said to his brother.

“I know.” Gideon sighed.

“We can play keep-away,” he replied. “We just gotta hold on until the moon rises.”

“Where’s Benny?” Harker asked.

“In the bedroom,” Gideon said, gesturing behind him. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “She’s got some research of her own she’s investigating.”

“What does that mean?” Luke asked.

“That’s for Benny to share,” he said. “Not me.”

Luke didn’t like that. He didn’t like being in the dark.

“Perhaps we make a little visit to our usual haunts,” Harker suggested, catching Luke’s eye. “See if we can’t drum up a little gossip. A man puts together an ascension ritual, he’s sure to reach out to some of the more unsavory channels.”

It was hard to believe that just six months ago, Harker was more likely to stake him than take him out to a vampire bar for a feed and reconnaissance.

Tefi had amassed a lot of enemies over the decades, and while Luke was with her, they became his enemies too.

It was the connection between a sire and a vampire.

It was also the protectiveness that lived within Luke whether he was vampire or human.

But in the short time they were together, he had to figure out his own allies, his own way of navigating the supernatural world.

Convincing Harker he wasn’t the same kind of trouble Tefi was had been a process.

But Gideon had been able to vouch for him.

Luke shrugged. “I could always use a drink.”

“Why does that not sound like you’re gonna order a mai tai?” Cleo asked.