Chapter 14
Fourteen
Nathan
Being saddled with a grumpy hellhound was not how Nathan had imagined the week going. Of course, he also hadn’t imagined hellhounds existed at all, and he certainly hadn’t imagined one would jerk him off in the middle of a public park.
It was all too much, but it didn’t matter.
What mattered was whatever Father McDonagh was up to.
Because, although initially he’d doubted much of what Hunter had told him, the hellhound’s words had confirmed what Nathan had understood on some level since the night he witnessed…
well, whatever the hell it was he witnessed.
Which is why they were staring at the rectory from the bushes across the street.
“This is stupid. I live here.” Nathan was already annoyed, and the scratchy evergreen shrub they were hiding behind didn’t help matters.
“You didn’t come home last night. Who knows what the old asshole thinks is going on? Maybe he realized you saw something.”
Letting out a sigh, Nathan absentmindedly scratched the back of his hand as he searched for his patience. “Father McDonagh is an asshole, but he’s not some kind of murderer.”
Hunter’s silence made it clear he hadn’t ruled it out. There was a lot Nathan didn’t know about the situation, but he had trouble picturing the pastor of St. Stephen’s as a cold-blooded killer. The man was a priest!
“Look, his car isn’t there,” Nathan said. “He must have gone somewhere.”
Nodding, Hunter softened at Nathan’s words. “Are there places in the rectory you haven’t seen? Areas or nooks where he could have hidden away tools or evidence?”
Nathan hummed, considering the question. He’d done a little more poking around, but he’d found nothing. He wondered if, after the incident with the crystals, Father McDonagh had disposed of anything incriminating.
“At this point, I think it’s only Father McDonagh’s bedroom. And the basement. He’s always kept that locked.”
“Okay.” Hunter’s attention went right to the bulkhead. It jutted out from the side of the house, covered in chipping white paint. “Why don’t we try the basement first? If they’re doing any significant workings, they’d need the space.”
With that, the hellhound was slipping around the bushes, staying in the cover of the trees as he made his way over to the bulkhead. Nathan didn’t understand why he was being so stealthy. Father McDonagh was obviously gone.
Even so, Nathan followed his lead. He didn’t want to upset the hellhound. It was obvious Hunter didn’t like his unwillingness to stay away for his own safety. If he wasn’t careful, Hunter might just kill Father McDonagh and move on.
No matter what the pastor had done, Nathan didn’t want that.
Hunter beckoned with a quick hand motion, showing that he’d pried open the lock on the door. This was all so strange, like they were performing some kind of spy operation, secret agents of an enemy power.
Maybe they were.
As unobtrusively as he could, Nathan slipped in through the bulkhead and down the stairs, opening the ancient wooden door at the bottom and stepping into the basement.
The first thing that struck him was just how empty it was. He’d expected boxes, old Christmas decorations, garden implements, that sort of thing.
Instead, there was nothing. Just a big empty room with a few load-bearing poles scattered about the place. Or at least that’s what he thought, until his eyes adjusted to the light. Then an intricate white pattern revealed itself on the concrete floor.
It was mesmerizing; the interconnected lines and swirls almost demanding his attention. But that wasn’t all. The entire room had an oppressive feel, and the air crackled with static electricity.
Nathan had never felt anything like it before, and he wasn’t sure what it meant.
“It’s a permanent circle.” Hunter’s words came out in a low, raspy tone that sent shivers down Nathan’s spine. It was both terrifying and hot as hell.
“What does that mean?”
Hunter knelt down by the edge of the circle, running his hand over the pattern.
“These aren’t just symbols written in chalk. There are grooves in the concrete that have been painted over in white.”
“What does that mean?” Nathan’s voice was quiet and small in the dank basement. The room grew more ominous by the second.
“It makes it possible to do more powerful magic. And…”
Hunter’s voice trailed off as his head turned toward the far corner of the room. In the dim light, Nathan could only make out that something was hanging from the wall over there.
Staying on the outside of the circle, Hunter made his way over to it. Nathan followed as well, a few feet behind. As they approached, an apparatus became visible: a series of leather straps bolted into the wall.
“Those are for a person,” Nathan whispered, the realization hitting him like a freight train as he surveyed the position of the straps.
“They are,” Hunter grunted, reaching out but not touching the strips of fabric. The hellhound stood there and stared for a long moment before turning back to Nathan.
“We need to leave,” he said, gesturing back to the entrance.
“We can talk more elsewhere, but we shouldn’t be here.
The place is humming with forbidden magic.
I can’t sense any kind of alarm spell, but the longer we’re here, the higher the chance they’ll know we broke in.
The power is thick enough that our very presence will leave a signature if we stay too long. ”
Nathan didn’t understand anything the hellhound was saying. A large part of him still didn’t trust Hunter, but he was far out of his depth.
“You’ll tell me what all this is for?” Nathan asked, pointing to the binding apparatus.
Hunter nodded, his eyes dark. “Yes. Now let’s get out of here.”
The person sitting across from Nathan was enormous. He had bigger muscles than any person should be allowed to have. A short-cropped salt and pepper beard covered his square jaw, and Nathan had to admit he was handsome, even if the man wasn’t his type.
Ammon. His name was Ammon, and he wasn’t a man, not really. He was a hellhound.
Both Tristan and Hunter had spoken about Ammon, but Nathan hadn’t met him before now. Or at least he didn’t think he had. He might have been there one night when Nathan had gotten really drunk.
Regardless, the hellhound was intimidating. There was no question.
Reaching across from his position kitty-corner to Nathan, Tristan reached out and gave his hand a squeeze.
“It’s fine. He’s only intimidating until you get to know him better.”
“What does he become then?” Nathan asked. Ammon stared off into the distance as they talked about him.
“Oh, still intimidating,” Hunter chimed in. “You just realize he’s kind of a meathead. Bull in a china shop type, you know? When a toddler wrecks a sand castle, you don’t blame the toddler. The sweet, dumb child doesn’t know any better.”
“Hunter…” Tristan shot Hunter a glare of absolute death.
“Tell me what you found.” Ammon’s voice rumbled in his barrel chest, flowing out like the aftershocks of an earthquake. Did all hellhounds have sexy voices? Although Nathan preferred Hunter’s. It was smoother. More like an avalanche than an earthquake.
Was he really thinking about how sexy Hunter’s voice was right now? What was wrong with him?
“There’s a permanent circle in the rectory basement,” Hunter said, all business. Nathan’s balls tingled at the hellhound suddenly acting seriously. “Along with a…”
Hunter glanced at Nathan as he trailed off. Nathan furrowed his brow. What was Hunter keeping from him?
“Tell me,” Ammon commanded.
“A soul confiner.”
“What’s that?” Tristan and Nathan asked at the same time. By the intense way Hunter had said the words, it was not a good thing.
Hunter sighed. “It’s what we call it when a Forbidden One has set up a series of bindings—physical and magical—to keep a soul in place so they can drain the power from it. Those leather straps are positioned to hold a victim in place until a ritual finishes.”
“So they could use their soul?” Nathan asked, knowing the answer but hoping it would be something different.
“Yes. They drain the power from it until it dissolves, and the person—the essence of who they are—is gone. It’s the greatest punishment a soul can go through.” Ammon was out of his seat and pacing now, the slight sound of stickiness as his feet trod the bar floor.
“So then…” Nathan couldn’t bring himself to finish the question, because the answer would be so horrible.
Hunter nodded, his lips pressed together in a line. “They would cease to exist. No Heaven or Hell, no reward or rehabilitation, not even a chance at reincarnation.”
Nathan did his best to ignore the last part of that sentence. He was still struggling with reconciling the existence of hellhounds and demons, and adding reincarnation into the mix was too much for his mind to hold.
“We’ve been in Purgatory for almost three months now,” Ammon said, stepping in and out of the dark corners of the room as he did. “How has this been going on right under our noses?”
“Maybe it hasn’t,” Tristan chimed in, then hopped off his stool to put an arm around Ammon’s waist. Nathan was surprised to see Ammon relax at the bar owner’s touch. “There’s got to be a way to hide it, right?”
“It didn’t seem warded,” Hunter said, “although I’m not an expert at forbidden magic. But maybe they haven’t used it since before you got here. A hellhound coming to town would make anyone using forbidden magic more cautious.”
“What am I supposed to do now?”
The question burst out of Nathan like lava from a volcano. He’d sat and listened to them deliberate, out of his depth, barely understanding half of what was being said, and he still didn’t have a path forward.
He hated feeling helpless. It reminded him of his mother, growing sicker while he prayed. More than prayed, he begged God to save her, not to leave him alone. But in the end, she’d died, and he’d clung to the only community he had. He’d become a priest because he hadn’t known what else to do.