Son In Law Madness

Chapter 14: Dark Discoveries

*Lucas*

'Something bad....'

Sasha's words rang in my head as I tried to focus on finding a new project to write up a proposal for. There were plenty of sites in Egoren that needed attention.

But I couldn't shake Shasha's warning about the temple from my mind.

Part of me wanted to believe she'd been spooked by her near-fall, but I knew that couldn't be it. It seemed crazy to risk my career by reporting her 'feelings of evil' to King Xander. But, if there was something to it, I would be to blame if people got hurt because of it.

I warred with my options for the better part of an hour before I cursed out loud and went to find Brady.

He was waiting in the hall.

"Need to talk?" Brady asked, those damn lips twitching again.

"Shut up," I grumbled. "Where's Phoebe?"

"Sleeping."

"You still catch spooky vibes, don't you?"

"Can I sense the difference between good and evil? Yes," Brady said. "Why? You want me to go hit Donovan Clarke again?"

"You hit him?" Jealousy curled in my gut.

"One of the most satisfying things I've ever done," Brady confirmed. "Wouldn't mind doing it again."

I grunted. "Some things a man wants to do for himself."

"For his mate," Brady corrected me, his eyes twinkling.

"She's not my mate," I muttered, though my heart thudded when I said it.

"You don't know that," Brady said. He sighed and shook his head. "Anyway, what's up?"

"Sasha says there's something evil at the site."

"You don't believe her?"

"I don't know. But, I believe she believes it. I want to go back over to the site." I didn't know I'd decided that until the words were out. Brady followed me as I hurried to start packing bags with what I'd need for exploring in the darkness from my engineering supplies.

"What? Now?! It'll be after midnight by the time the train gets there! It'll be the last train out. There won't be one back until morning!" Brady protested.

"I need to know. And now that the Lycaon Church is involved, they're not just going to let me stroll over there in the daylight," I reasoned, slinging my bag over my shoulder.

"You could just report it," Brady pointed out. I waited for him to play the potential scenario out in his head. "Yeah, you would both look unstable. But, if you're caught out there...."

"I'll just have a look and see," I muttered. "Will you come with me?"

Brady laughed. "Yeah, um, no."

"Why not?"

"Because it's crazy."

"Scared?" I teased.

"Engaged," he reminded me.

"Right," I said and headed for the door. "I shouldn't have asked."

"Where will you stay until morning?" Brady asked, falling into step beside me.

"I know a guy in town," I assured him.

Brady raised an eyebrow. "Did you let him know you were coming?"

"No time." My tone was clipped.

"You know I'm not letting you go out there alone, right? You could very well die out there...."

"Are you coming?" I held up the second bag for him and he snatched it from me.

We fell into a companionable silence as we headed for the train station, which surprisingly lasted the several hours it took to get out to the site.

The way Brady's eyes slipped from side to side as we made our way down the road at the edge of the woods and past the barn Sasha and I had made our stand in made me realize, with rising dread, that he sensed something out there.

"Rogues?" I asked, not sure why I was so hopeful.

"Yes... and no. That's not the only thing out there," Brady said quietly.

I groaned and raked a hand through my hair. "Great. Just great."

"Well, as long as we don't bother with whatever it is and it stays here...." Brady began.

"We're bothering it," I said.

Brady looked at me. We could see each other just fine under the moonlight, as both of us were a mature shifter and vampire, so no flashlight was needed. His glowing eyes were incredulous. "You've got to be kidding me."

"I am if something has latched itself onto Sasha. That's what she said. I'm not leaving here until we get some answers," I replied firmly.

"Latched itself onto... so that's what that was," Brady mumbled.

"What what was?" I asked.

"When I grabbed her wrist to get her out of the bar, away from Donovan, I got this little zap of... something. But it was gone so quickly, I barely clocked it." Brady looked out into the woods again and shivered. "Lucas, my man, I know you're worried, but there are some things you just shouldn't f**k around with."

We reached the library site. The temple area was roped off with a single industrial flood light shining down into the hole.

"Are you sensing anything?" I asked

Brady stopped cold. "Evil alert."

"Color me surprised," I said, rolling my eyes, and then I remembered something. "A good bit of the old library burned down a few years ago, all the way through the foundation, and there was nothing but dirt beneath. There was no sign that a temple had ever been here, so this whole situation feels way off."

I saw that the archeological team had already built a scaffolding down into the hole. "Convenient," I observed, touching a ladder.

Brady caught my arm. "This is a bad, bad place. We need to get the f**k out of here. Now."

I shook him off. "Not until I have my answers." I put my foot on the first rung of the ladder, readjusting my bag on my back before descending.

Brady stayed up top for the longest time, me looking up at him from the temple floor, him looking down at me with a pained expression on his face. "Lucas...."

"Either help me or don't," I snarled, tired of his shying away.

Brady sighed and half climbed, half floated down into the temple with me. "I'm going to regret this. We both are."

"I won't regret anything as long as my Sasha stays safe," I grunted, starting to poke around.

"My Sasha," Brady muttered, but he began circling the small space from the other side.

There was an open corridor leading off one of the walls, and after finding nothing but innocuous books and other artifacts sitting in organized rows in the main area, Brady and I focused our attention on it.

The floodlight did not reach that far, nor did the moonlight, and I was just getting out a flashlight when something crunched beneath my feet. I looked down and saw bone.

I jumped back, slamming right into Brady.

"Sweet mercies of the White Queen!" Brady breathed, gripping my shoulders. "There have to be at least a hundred skeletons down here!"

A hundred? I flicked on my flashlight and shone it down the corridor, revealing a kind of catacombs. Skeletons, now meticulously assembled and tagged, filled the space, some spread across the floor, others in little notches carved into the walls.

My stomach turned.

Brady stepped carefully into the corridor and began reading some tags. He murmured to himself more and more as he moved further down.

"What? What is it?" I asked, as though there could be something worse than the discovery of an old Lycaon burial ground.

"Carbon dating," Brady said. "They all... died at the same time." He looked around. "All of them. This is just one generation of people."

I took a step back, shocked. "Plague?"

"No, none detected. Cause of death on all of these is a question mark," Brady said, making his way back down to me. He shook the dust off his clothes and grimly cast his eyes back over the temple proper. "The evil isn't coming from there, anyway."

"Where is it coming from?" I turned around, looking around the space myself. Aside from being dusty, it was pristine, all laid out in a grid by the archeologists.

Brady was like a bloodhound. He walked over to the altar and began feeling around, his brow furrowed in concentration.

There was a low click, then a grating sound.

Brady went into the narrow space between the altar and the wall. I followed him, squeezing in next to him so we were hip to hip.

A dark space had been revealed under the altar. A dark space with....

"Is that the White Queen?" Brady echoed my confusion.

"Yes," I said, staring at the statue.

"But this place is supposed to be an ancient temple, isn't it?" Brady continued.

I nodded. "It is."

"Egorens don't worship the White Queen. They never did. Did they?" Brady asked.

"They did not," I confirmed as something glinted behind the statue in the darkness, catching my eye.

"Then what the hell...?" Brady trailed off as I reached behind the statue.

"I don't know," I admitted. My hand closed on something smooth and round.

The ground trembled.

"f**k, Lucas, what are you doing?!" Brady shouted as dust from the shaking walls filled the air.

I knew it was risky, but something compelled me to tug on the object.

"Hopefully finding some answers," I said. I gave a tug and the round object fit snug in the palm of my hand. I held it in the torch light to see it was an orb. A warm light seemed to glow from inside, but I didn't have time to think as the floor beneath us began to buckle.

"Lucas, put it b-!"

I grabbed Brady's arm, ramming the orb in my pocket, and ran for the scaffolding.

We scrambled up it, getting clear of the edge just as the hole groaned beneath us.

Brady and I ran and jumped clear, barely in time to get out of the way as the temple collapsed into itself, turning into so much rubble.

Breathing hard, we headed away from the site and back to the dark streets of the town.

When our feet hit the smooth pavement of town we stopped running, and I pulled the orb out of my pocket.

"I think we might have found what we're looking for."

It wasn't glowing anymore. I handed it to Brady.

"It's a marble ball. It doesn't even have an inscription," Brady muttered, turning the orb over in his hands and handing it back.

"I know this is going to have our answers," I said, not sure how I knew. But deep in my bones, I was sure of it.

"Is it talking to you or something?" Brady asked.

"No. But this has to be the key to whatever is going on. I'm going to contact my cousin Eliza Crimson," I decided, tucking the orb into my bag.

"The archeologist who works with the Lycaon church?" Brady asked.

"Yes," I said.

"They send her all over the place. It might take her forever to get here to take a look at it," Brady pointed out.

I raked a hand over my hair. "You have a better idea?"

Brady thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, you're right. She's probably your best bet."

"Our best bet," I responded.

"Oh hell no. I'm finished with this. One collapsing, buried out-of-place temple to the White Queen is enough for me. You are not going to drag me into whatever that thing is doing," Brady said, putting two fingers together in a warding cross.

"Come on," I said.

"Not a chance. I've got a good thing going with Phoebe," Brady reminded me.

My shoulders sagged. "What if it was Phoebe who felt something latch onto her?"

Brady was quiet for a long time, then he sighed. "Fine, fine. But don't ask me to hang onto it for you."

"I won't."

Brady tipped his head at the imploded temple site. "What are we going to do about this?"

"We were never here," I intoned.

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