The spirits focused on the control panel, and the indicators lit up one by one.
Oh god.
The last indicator blinked, but the light didn’t fully illuminate.
“Shears,” Number Eighteen called out. “We need more juice. Hit the generator downstairs.”
Darien looked at Alara, then back at the rest of us. “Now don’t go anywhere. Everybody will get a turn.” He vanished, leaving the other vengeance spirits behind.
I scanned the room, searching for a way to escape, when I noticed Priest reach under his hoodie. He pulled out the caulking gun from the hardware store, the barrel loaded with purple cans of cheap hair spray.
What was he doing?
Priest aimed at the vengeance spirits and pulled the trigger, simultaneously igniting the fireplace starters wired to the end of the caulking gun. It was a makeshift flamethrower made from Aqua Net, electrical tape, and ingenuity.
A stream of flames shot out, and Priest scorched the wall from left to right. The prisoners’ faces contorted as the fire burned them to ash—and then nothing.
I ran over to Alara and kneeled in front of the chair, unbuckling the stubborn leather cuffs.
“Come on!” She pulled against the restraints, her face streaked with tears. “Get me out of this thing!”
“I’m working on it.” I fumbled with the ankle cuffs, yanking the last one free. Alara leapt from the chair.
My eyes were still level with the base. A single piece of wood attached the chair to the platform.
A piece shaped like a cylinder.
Someone had cut a crude notch in the wood, the knife marks faint but still visible. It seemed impossible, but I had to be sure. I held my breath and reached inside. The wood popped out, revealing a strip of silver glinting behind it.
In a sick twist, had Darien hid the casing in the instrument of his own execution?
My hand closed around the metal that felt as smooth and seamless as glass.
It looked exactly like the sketch in Priest’s journal—strange looping symbols cut into the outside, and empty slots where the disks slid in place.
Lukas noticed the casing in my hand, his expression a mixture of awe and relief. “You found it.”
Jared’s eyes darted to the door. “We still have to get it out of here.”
“Shears said he was coming back. He might catch us before we make it,” Priest said. “We have to destroy him.”
“How?” Alara’s voice trembled.
The answer appeared in my mind slowly, like a print developing in a darkroom. “I know what to do, but I need you to distract him.”
Jared grabbed my arm. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to explain.” And I knew he would never agree if I did. “Do you trust me?”
The words hung between us—the question the four of them had been asking me all along. Now I was the one asking.
One by one they nodded and Jared spoke the words. “I trust you. But—”
“Then I need you to buy me some time.”
Priest handed me the disks. “Take these just in case.”
“No.” I tried to push them back into his hand.
“Don’t you trust me?” Priest gave me a lopsided grin, but his tone was serious.
I shoved them in my pocket.
“I’ll buy you that time,” Priest said before he turned to Alara. “You have to get back in the chair.”
She stumbled away, her eyes wild. “Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere near that thing.”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll disconnect the wires….” Priest led her by the elbow as I took off down the hall.
CHAPTER 31
Devil’s Trap
I ran toward the gray metal door at the opposite end of the hall.
I was the only person within these walls, living or dead, who wanted to get into a cell—especially the cell of a psychotic serial killer’s ghost. But there was only one way to destroy him and if I was going to do it, I needed the element of surprise. And about eight minutes.
That was all the time it would take me to draw the one thing Darien couldn’t use his disappearing act to escape.
The Devil’s Trap.
I pictured the intricate design as I stepped back into the cell—the pentagram inside the circle, within a heptagram inside another circle—every line, every shape, every letter of languages I didn’t recognize.
The square cell was tiny. If I drew the outer circle big enough, the curved lines would touch the walls, leaving only the four corners of the room unmarked. Darien would have to step inside the symbol when he entered the room.
How can I get him in here?
It didn’t matter unless I finished the Devil’s Trap.
Shouts echoed from the other end of the hallway.
My hand started to move. I worked quickly, trusting the part of my mind that remembered the details on the face of a dollar bill, and the spot where every kid stood in our kindergarten class picture. I ignored everything else but the voice of my memory.
Seven names surrounded the circle—Samael, Raphael…
Looping the script perfectly, I copied the unfamiliar symbols like I’d written them hundreds of times. But I was careful, haunted by the entry in Jared’s journal from the night the Legion summoned Andras.
What if I make a mistake?
I stopped, momentarily paralyzed by the thought, until a metal door slammed at the end of the hall.
My hand shook as I finished the last few details.
“Where are you?” an agitated voice called.
Darien.
How could I hide the Devil’s Trap long enough to get him to step inside?
I glanced at the tiny window cut in the door, hoping the spirit wasn’t as close as he sounded. The opening was only ab
out eight inches across. If I stood right in front of it, Darien wouldn’t be able to see anything except my face. My knees buckled as I stumbled toward the door with the final piece of the Shift in my hand.
He stormed down the hall.
“I’m right here.” I held up the cylinder, my face positioned in front of the window.
We were only a foot apart when his body passed through the door. I scrambled into the corner—one of the only places the curves of the Devil’s Trap didn’t touch.
Darien looked down, his feet firmly planted within the confines of the circle. His eyes mirrored the terror in the faces of the men that had flashed over Alara’s in the electric chair.
He lunged forward until his fingers hit the edge of the circle. The supernatural force field threw him back into the center. “What have you done?”
“I think we both know.” I huddled in the corner, clutching the Shift’s casing against my chest.
“Kennedy!” Jared and Lukas called out, their footsteps getting closer.
Darien focused on the door. The metal rattled and the cell’s heavy bolt clicked into place.
Bodies slammed against the door on the other side, and Lukas’ face filled the small opening. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I slid my back up the wall until I was standing. Drawing the circle up to the very edges of the walls had made it easier to trap Darien.
Now I realized that it also made it impossible for me to get out.
“Don’t move,” Lukas said. “If you step inside the circle, he can hurt you. Stay there and the Devil’s Trap should destroy him.”
Should?
It sounded like something else they weren’t sure about.
“How long will that take?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Lukas answered.
What if he found a way to get out before then?
Darien ignored Lukas and pointed to the cylinder in my hands. “You have to put it back or innocent people will die. That’s what she told me.”
“Who?”
“The one who asked me to hide it.”
“You mean the demon,” Lukas shouted from the other side of the door.