I had an entire argument with myself over moving the bone in the first place, before I mentally slapped myself and put my game face back on. How could I have possibly known I was going to have personal use of a fucking dead man’s bone?
“All right, so where is it?” Sin asked once the six of us were standing in the remains of the chapel.
Sighing heavily, I pointed at the melted and crushed remains of the reliquary shrine. If the bone was still inside, there was zero chance it was intact. “There.”
“Fuck,” Chaos grunted.
“Damn it,” Grim said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he hung his head.
Evander, the stoic prude, was less visibly dismayed. He moved toward the shrine with purpose. Doing so forced him to cross in front of Grim, who jerked away.
“Careful! One accidental touch and?—”
“I’m an angel, you can’t kill me.”
“Not outright, but you aren’t wholly immune, and it would be the height of inconvenience to have you incapacitated right now.”
“Look,” Malice said, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he pointed at the mangled bits of metal.
“Is something moving in there?” Sin asked as we all watched the dust and ash begin to rise in a swirling cloud.
Sin shoved Grim toward the destroyed shrine, but he hadn’t needed to. It was clear Grim was drawn toward the spot. He stepped closer and the cloud grew denser, a shape taking form within the dust.
“Is that what I think it is?” Malice asked.
“I thought you said it was a bone,” Sin added, almost accusingly.
“It was.”
“That is not a bone,” Sin said, pointing toward what was clearly some kind of ceremonial dagger.
Before I had a chance to speak again, Grim reached out and took the weapon by the handle. Any remaining dust dropped back down, inert once more.
“Well,” I said after a beat of stunned silence. “That was easy.” I hadn’t counted on the object being transformed into a literal weapon by the mere presence of a horseman, but it wasn’t much of a leap. My Father was known for his mysterious ways.
“This time it was. We had someone who knew exactly where it was hidden.” Evander’s voice was cold and detached.
“Isn’t that why Gavin and the others stayed behind? So they can work on sussing out the rest of the items?” Sin asked.
“We can only hope they make progress. I doubt we’re going to have any kind of divine intervention lighting our path.”
“This bone responded to Grim,” Malice said. “Weare the intervention. We need to be there for each one.”
“I don’t know why it is so special. It doesn’t feel like anything more than a dagger carved from bone. There is no power here,” Grim said, turning it over and inspecting the blade.
“That’s because it hasn’t been attuned.”
Chaos grunted. “How are we supposed to do that?”
I looked from him to the dagger. “And there is the hard part. I don’t know.”
“I guess it was too much to hope everything about this one would be easy,” Sin said after a moment. “Should we head back to the others, then?”
Snarls echoed in the distance, the demons surrounding us growing bolder, closer, spoiling for a fight. Or a snack. We didn't have time to put them in their places.
“Yes,” I said decisively. “Let’s.”
Chapter