Page 76 of These Unhallowed Halls
“It’s…done?”Cerberus met my stare as my question hung, nodding.“Oh my gods.”
Lizzie’s arms were around me, and then I released my hold on the ice.The world moved around me as Cerberus rushed to the sacrifices, tearing through their chains before touching each of their foreheads.They passed out unharmed, and I had a feeling he’d wiped them.That was…a lot to see.
“We need to go,” he said, sprinting up to us, shifting back into Caleb.“He could hear sirens.”
The cops were not going to understand this, so I nodded, letting Lizzie pull me up.My attention went to the stands where I knew the dean was still lying.
“I don’t want to leave her here.”Caleb shot a glance that way, and in a blink, Dean Owens was lying on the ground in front of me.
“She tried, you know.She tried in the end.”I knelt down, taking her hand.“Get us out—Oh my gods!”
Dean Owens squeezed my hand as the sound of sirens got loud enough for all of us to hear.She was alive somehow.
“Rebecca?”Caleb grabbed her other hand.“Fucking hell, hold on.We’ll get you out of here and to—”
“The school board,” she croaked out, blood coating the inside of her mouth.“They’ll..help.”
“Right.”Nodding, Caleb took all of our hands as best he could, his eyes closing.“Buddy, get us out of here.”
The world was shifting again, and I felt that tug on my body just as red and blue lights began to light up the outside of the tent.
Twenty-Eight- Stagnation Cannot Foster Growth, Only Change Can Do That
Caleb
It’dbeentwenty-fourhourssince we left that tent, and…so much had happened.Thankfully, we were able to get Rebecca to the school board for healing, but I was forced to leave almost immediately after dropping her off, trusting Temps and Lizzie to report back to me.That many powerful mages in one spot would have picked up on the soul weaving I’d done, and I would’ve lost my job in a heartbeat.
I’d been grateful to hear that she would be making a slow but steady recovery when my partners returned to my apartment, and none of us was ashamed to say that we almost immediately passed out.
Now, awake and snuggled into my bed with them, I stretched over to my nightstand where my cell was charging, and picked it up to see if we’d missed anything during the night.
“Well, anything?”Temps rolled onto her side, looking up at me from her position next to me in the bed.
“It looks like the authorities blame ‘odd cult behavior’ for the bodies and horrendous crimes committed by the carnival.The headline says, ‘Son of Infamous Killer, Pastor Jebediah Paine, Found Dead in His Carnival of Horrors.’”
“Ha, well, shit.That’s pretty damn accurate, actually.”Lizzie lay on my other side, her arms folded behind her head as she looked up at the ceiling.“Wonder how they’re going to explain those ‘freaks’ we fought.”
“It looks like a lot of it disappeared after we killed him.The circus tent’s rooms and shit were mostly gone.There’s no mention of the house of mirrors or funhouse.”
“More like a not-so-funhouse, thank you very much.We almost died in there.Ugh,” Temps shuddered, “fuck that place.”
Pulling her under my arm, I kissed the top of her head, scrolling away from the news and to the emails the school had sent.
“Classes are paused until the board sorts this out.And they’ve expressed interest in me continuing to teach, so I think we’re clear on the soul-weaving front.”
“Thank gods,” Temps said, nuzzling into me.“I feel weird saying it, but I’m glad that the dean was able to see how necessary it was because she was right there in the tent with us.”
“Umm,” Lizzie leaned up onto her elbow, glancing at me with that uncertainty she disliked so much behind her eyes, “any word about the townspeople who were killed?”
I knew she was getting at Temps’ mother, and undoubtedly she was curious about her father as well.I went back to the article, scrolling through the paragraphs that speculated why Paine had done all this.We knew well enough that this was a family corruption.Jeb had been just like his old man, falling into the depths of malignant power and trying to use it for his own gain.
As we rested last night, Cerberus had filled the three of us in more about what had happened in the World of Below with his parents and Jeb Senior.He’d corrupted an entire portion of the Underworld and very nearly spread his plague through the entirety of it.It’d taken his mother everything she had, as well as the Beast King in several forms, to defeat the man.
It made sense that shortly after, the demiurge would cook up another plan involving Paine’s son.
Refocusing, I found a section of the article about the people found inside the tent’s backroom, and the surviving victims who’d nearly been killed by the cult extremist before an unknown person or thing had killed him.
“It says that there are twelve confirmed victims and nine survivors.The survivors were blindfolded so they didn’t see what happened to Paine, but report hearing an animal attack.The names of the lost aren’t listed ‘for the privacy of their surviving families.’”
