Page 109 of Deliver us from Evil

I tap on the first result, and it takes me to a bible website. I read the first verse of Luke chapter eleven.

It’s a prayer. A common one because even I’ve heard it before.

I guess Luke’s the forty-second book in the bible. Forty-two-eleven.

It was the combination to the safe, which is now missing, and the basement. What’s the chance it’s also the password used to encrypt the file on Gabriel’s computer?

But it’s not a pin number like the basement door…

“Library. Now.” I call over my shoulder, already headed in that direction.

“I haven’t had a smoke yet!”

“Save it!”

I have a feeling he’s going to need one when we’re done, anyway.

We race back to the library. I remote access my PC back in California and quickly add the entire prayer to my cracking program.

It takes milliseconds to parse.

The file pops open on the library’s computer.

I’m wrong, though.

Cass won’t need a smoke.

Neither of us will.

We need someone with a stronger stomach.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Zach

“You ever wish you could wipe out your memories?” Rube asks.

We’re in our Ghost’s bedroom. Neither of us would even consider sitting on the mattress, so we’re squeezed in beside each other on the blanket box at the foot of the bed.

I don’t even have to think about it. “No.”

“Not at all?”

We’re smoking a cigarette. It’s our third in a row—we’ve been putting them out on the carpet in a blatant show of disrespect.

It should feel petty, but instead it feels amazing. Like we’re extinguishing each and every one on the Ghost’s bare skin.

“No, because then they’d get away with it. All of them.”

“So revenge is better than forgiveness?”

I turn to him, narrowing my eyes. “I’m sorry, did I miss something? The last time I checked you were going to gouge out his eyeballs with your thumbs and then piss in the sockets.”

He looks away. “If we hadn’t come back here…”

I inhale deep.

Oh.

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