Trent held his hand out for his light, and I gave it to him. He turned away to study the map as I scanned the terrain behind us. There had been a twisted silhouette at the dry lake, the vaguely human-looking figure furtive and fleeting. Trent’s cupped hand hid much of the light, and his red-tinted finger traced our probable path from where we arrived to where Ceri had indicated the demons had their access to their database. Why it wasn’t in the city bothered me, but she had said they had put it on holy ground to prevent demonic or familiar tampering.

The map Ceri had sketched had an eerie feeling of familiarity, with an undulating line indicating the dry river and marks showing where old bridges crossed. It looked like Cincy and the Hollows. Why not? Both sides of reality had a circle at Fountain Square.

Turning away, I dug in my pack. “You want a drink?” I said softly as I brought out a bottle, and when he nodded, I handed it over. The crack of the plastic seal shot through me, and Trent froze until he was sure the wind was still blowing and the night was still.

In the ugly red light, his eyes were black when they met mine. “Guess what’s on the patch of holy ground they store their samples on?” he said, tapping the map and Ceri’s star.

I looked at the map, then past him to the crumbling remains we had yet to venture into. In the nearby distance, glowing in the early moonlight, were spires. Really familiar spires.

“No…,” I whispered, tucking a curl back behind an ear. “The basilica?”

The wind ruffled the edges of the map while Trent drank, his throat moving as he downed the water. “What else could it be,” he said as he tucked the empty bottle into his sack. The sound of sliding rock jerked him straight, and my pulse pounded.

Trent clicked off his “special light,” but there not a hundred feet away in the sickly red haze was a twisted, hunched silhouette—staring at us with arms hanging slack at its sides. Its feet were shod, and leggings rose past the thin shins. An elbow-long cape fluttered in the cold wind. It turned a bare head to the east as if listening, then back to us. Waiting? Testing? Trying to figure out if we were food or foe?

A shudder rippled over me that had nothing to do with the steadily dropping temperature. “Put your map away,” I whispered as I eased to my feet. “We need to move.”

I thanked God it didn’t follow.