The Bound Angel (Sacrilege Rising: Book 1)

Chapter Twenty Nine

The car was stuffy and hot. The sweat rolling down Silas’ back was making him itchy. If they lowered the windows, they’d lose the benefit of having them tinted. The air conditioner was turned up all the way, but it wasn’t keeping up with the heat. Sitting directly in the sun, it felt like they were in an oven inside a greenhouse. He didn’t like it. He never liked it. Small spaces. Confinement. The idea of having to sit here any longer made his skin crawl. But he endured.

The boy was the key. He’d managed to bind the Dark Lady, but how? Silas had expected… more from him. He assumed the boy was guarding a hidden trove of power, or that his appearance was a deception hiding a terrible sorcerer. Or possibly uncover a network of practitioners using him for some obscure ritual. But no.

The boy went to class. He studied and worked. After days of observing him perform one menial task after the next, it was becoming clear there was no secret cabal, no hidden power, no special gift. He was a vanilla human. It was as much a disappointment as a relief. This would be easier than Silas could have hoped.

Visions of the future unfolded in his mind, like they’d been doing so often lately. The Dark Lady standing at his side while his followers laid waste to any who dared challenge him. The Dark Lady returning to him after a task accomplished, bringing powerful information. The Dark Lady, kneeling, doing precisely what she was made for.

It was all within his grasp now. He’d done the work and taken the risks and waded through an ocean of blood to get to this moment. He’d burned through his entire flock, all his reserves, years of work. Now all that was left was this final, missing piece. If he had to wait a little longer in this stuffy car while his skin crawled, well, it was a small price to pay.

Of course, the boy might still carry some secret, appearances notwithstanding. Silas hoped the simplest, most straight-forward approach would work. In his experience, these things were more art than science, and simple was usually best. He had contingencies, of course. He was just hoping he wouldn’t need them.

He wiped his forehead with a cloth already damp with sweat. “Look, there’s shade right over there.”

“We won’t have a clear view of the front door,” his companion answered. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation.

He thought of him as a companion out of convenience more than a sense of camaraderie. That, and he’d already forgotten the man’s name. They were all the same, anyway. In the ways that mattered, at least. The faces and stories might be different, but his followers all had the same haunted expression in their eyes. The same fervor for revenge on some perceived slight. He listened to their dreary stories when he recruited, nodding along as if he cared. They tended to trust him more that way. They had little talent of their own to speak of, but more hands made lighter work all the same.

Silas fumed. His companion was right, which made it that much more frustrating. If they moved to another area they would only have a partial view of the apartment building. But he wanted to rage at the man sitting next to him all the same. For days now, days, they’d been sitting here, only leaving for restocking of necessary supplies and to use the bathroom. Almost a week wasted, watching the dregs of humanity come and go, eyes cast down, trudging back and forth from their dull lives to their dull jobs. He never understood why they wasted their lives like that. Where was their sense of adventure? Where was their ambition?

He supposed it came back to the old idiom of the frog slowly boiling in a pot of water. There was no grand decision that this was how their life was going to go. It just happened, one easy, sensible step after another, until all that was left was a bleak hope for death. He couldn’t complain though. His stable was full of these people. Well, used to be full. While his skin crawled and his brain screamed to get out of the car, he held his temper in check.

His companion finally said, “There she goes.”

“Who?”

The man glanced down at the three pictures clipped to his clipboard. “Uh, Meredith, I think.”

Silas craned his neck. It was, indeed, the boy’s coworker. The curly hair gave her away. That made all three. All three of the women from the warehouse had been here in the last few days. Some more than once.

“Follow her,” he ordered.

The car lurched, then slowly pulled out. It wasn’t easy trailing someone on foot in the city. She could stop or turn in any direction while they were restricted to keeping with the flow of traffic. After a few blocks, she did, in fact, turn down a side street and enter a building.

They now had locations on all three. No more waiting. Silas said, “Take me to the church, then come back.”