Page 72 of Blood of Night (The Thorne Hill)

Melinda sent me a handful of texts as well, and nerves flash through me when I open them, worried something happened to Easton. I quickly scan through her texts.

Melinda: Hey! Just wanted to let you know Easton is supposed to be discharged around nine this morning.

Melinda: So I asked a friend with a friend in the Order if anything was said about missing artifacts, and she had no idea what I was talking about. So looks like they haven’t even noticed you guys took anything LOL

Melinda: We’re heading home! He looks thrilled, doesn’t he?

She sent a photo of Easton sitting in a wheelchair, reluctantly obliging to the hospital policy of being wheeled to the lobby.

Melinda: The officer that questioned him is here. Apparently there was a vampire attack last night?!

Melinda: You okay? I haven’t heard from you and I’m starting to worry.

Melinda: Okay, your phone is dead. Now I am worried.

Her most recent text is the last one I got, and it just says, “call me ASAP”.

ChapterThirty

My jaw tenses as I listen to the phone ring. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Hello?” Melinda answers.

“Hey, I just saw your text.”

“Oh, right. You okay? You totally ghosted me.”

“Yeah.” I bring my hand to my forehead. “It’s, uh, been a little crazy over here. The oracle worked.”

“Uh, good? I think, right?”

“Yeah. It’s good.” Of course Easton didn’t tell Melinda anything about Lucas. “What’s going on?”

“I figured you’d want to hear this right away because it seems super sketchy in an end-of-the-world sort of way.”

“Great.”

“I know,” she says apologetically. “We heard from another hunter, that last night this church in Kansas had a mass suicide. I thought for sure this church would turn out to be more of a cult, but it doesn’t seem that way. But thirteen members carved a sigil on their chests and then drank poisoned Kool-Aid.”

“Well, fuck. Any idea what made them go all Jonestown?”

“Supposedly, an angel visited them at night and told them to do that. Their bodies were arranged in a pentagram and I didn’t recognize the sigil, but it definitely looked demonic.”

“Do you have any pictures of it?” I ask.

“I have a bunch. Do you want crime scene photos or do you want me to sketch it?”

“Oh, crime scene, please,” I say too eagerly and Abby gives me a look.

“Okay…hang on one sec.” A few seconds pass by and then my phone dings again. I pull it away from my year and look at the first photo she sent. It must have been taken from a balcony above the altar, and shows an aerial view of the bodies, arranged so they form a circle and star, just like Melinda said. The next photo is a close up of one of the victims, showing the sigil on her chest.

“Fuck,” I huff. “A demon with that same sigil on his chest showed up today.”

Lucas, who was already able to hear our conversation steps over.

“Shit. What happened?”

“We killed it.” I go back to the pot of mac ’n cheese, stress eating a big spoonful. “Do you know the exact location of this church?”

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