Page 54 of Destined for Dreams
Chapter 15
Cori
Monday had arrived. It was the big day for Cori to prove she could control her new ability to bestow special gifts with her tattoos, so she’d arrived at the shop early to get things ready. While she felt reasonably confident about the test, her luck hadn’t been that great lately. Anything could go wrong. She prayed it went smoothly or else her business would be lost.
Her phone rang just as she finished her opening prep. As soon as she saw it was an unknown number, she quickly answered it. “Hello.”
“It’s me,” Bartol said, his familiar voice coming over the line.
“You’re late.”
“My apologies.” He sounded exhausted. “I told you before that I couldn’t always call you on time. Sometimes things come up, and this search has been…more than a little difficult.”
Her shoulders sagged in relief after finally hearing from him. She’d barely gotten any sleep the night before when he didn’t call. Today’s test with Derrick was bad enough but not hearing from Bartol made things worse. She’d tossed and turned. When Monday morning had arrived and he still hadn’t sent her so much as a text message, she’d been both angry and worried. But now all those feelings went away listening to the exhaustion and stress in his voice.
“Want to talk about it?” Cori asked, taking a seat on the barstool behind her shop counter.
He sighed. “I’m not certain you want to know.”
“I’m right here, Bartol. Whatever you need.”
The longer he was away, the more strongly she felt about that. It had already been a week since they last saw each other, and she felt every mile that separated them. It was far more difficult than when he’d just avoided her for a month but still been around Fairbanks. She could feel the bond between them stretching like a taut rubber band.
“The demon’s kills are less than pleasant,” he admitted. “And due to some unusual time constraints, it has taken us two days to clean up one of his latest messes.”
She frowned. “Messes?”
“It was rather gruesome. Perhaps massacre would be a better word, but even that doesn’t quite fit. I don’t know what to call it.”
Cori knew she shouldn’t ask anything more, but she also wanted to understand what he was going through. “What do you mean?”
Bartol was quiet a moment. “The demon compelled thirty humans to consume each other until they were dead. The carcasses were left for the authorities to find, but the blood and other…leftover scraps were hidden so that only those with angel blood could see, touch, or smell the remains at a specific time of day.”
“Wow.” She was at a loss for words. “Where did this happen? When?”
“A little over two weeks ago in Romania—inside a cathedral.”
Her stomach rumbled with nausea. “That’s horrible. And you’ve been cleaning it up?”
“I’m afraid so.”
If thirty people had torn each other apart in some sort of zombie feast, the mess left behind had to be terrible. She could imagine what it might be like within the confines of a church. Then another thought occurred to her—this had happened weeks ago.
“So none of the humans coming for mass every day were aware the remnants were all around them?” she asked.
“Yes. That is why we’ve taken the time to clean it up when we really need to get back on the hunt. We could not leave the remains like that, and there is only one other person in the city who can see them.”
“Another nephilim?” Cori had thought most of them were stuck working in the nerou training camps since quite a few had led the campaign to bring the supernaturals out.
“Yes, she lives here.”
She couldn’t help feeling a little jealous. “Do you know her?”
“We were once friends—long ago.”
Cori clutched her cell phone tightly. “What happened?”
Bartol hesitated. “Does it matter? That was many centuries ago.”
