Page 111 of Mortis

“Not tonight it isn’t.” He shook his phone in my face, urging me to look. “Now, I can’t find pictures of all the crypts, but I suppose a crypt is a crypt. And considering they kept you in the dark, pictures of the inside probably wouldn’t help anyway.”

I noticed the slight tremor in his voice when he mentioned the dark, but I didn’t draw attention to it. Now wasn’t the time to uncover more about Arlo’s past. There would be time for that later.

When we succeeded.

I refused to entertain any other possibility.

I scrolled through the photographs. Graves, graves, and more graves. Nothing stirred even the faintest memory.

Until one did.

My claw froze against the screen.

“Wait.” I pulled his wrist closer and pointed. “That one.”

I stared at the distinctive amphitheatre-style layout. The catacombs built into the earth. The vaults that were once open but had seemingly been sealed since my escape. Recognition crawled through me like ice, and I tapped the screen again.

Arlo’s eyes widened.

“Holy shit.” He looked from the photograph to me. “I fucking solved it.”

“We solved it,” I mumbled almost petulantly.

He scoffed and flicked his dark hair over his shoulder, peering up at me through his lashes. “Sherlock doesn’t share top billing with Watson.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I provided almost every clue.”

“And you did a fantastic job,” he replied, patting my shoulder in a condescending fashion.

I growled again. Was this what Teddy felt like when he and Arlo were bickering? Despite my annoyance, I couldn’t help feeling fond of the small man beside me. And given his teasing, I suspected he was rather fond of me as well.

Arlo tapped away at the screen again. “Warstone Lane Cemetery. Opened in the eighteen hundreds . . . catacombs . . . extensive underground structures . . .” He turned back to his phone and browsed for a few more seconds. “It’s not as private as I expected. But there’s a lot of tree cover, and the weird layout gives major ‘we’re a cult and we sacrifice the living’ vibes.”

He suddenly locked his phone and pulled the keys to the hearse from his pocket.

“Let’s go, beastie boy,” he announced. “We’ve got a damsel to rescue.”

The cemetery was a two-hour drive from Blackthorn. Thanks to Arlo’s questionable interpretation of the speed limit and the mostly empty roads, we shaved almost fifteen minutes off the journey. When we arrived, the clock on the hearse’s radio confirmed it was almost eleven at night. Considering it was a weeknight, the streets surrounding the cemetery were deserted. Low lights glowed behind the windows of some houses, while others sat in complete darkness. The cemetery itself was pitch black, and as expected, the front gates were locked.

“Can’t exactly go barging through the front gates,” Arlo said. “That’s asking for trouble.”

I agreed, so we began by exploring one of the smaller streets running alongside the cemetery. Streetlamps illuminated the pavements, forcing us to stick close to the shadows. I’d also returned to my human form during the drive, unwilling to draw any unnecessary attention. We searched for a while, hoping to find a hole in the iron fence large enough to slip through. Even a broken railing would have sufficed.

But there was nothing.

“For fuck’s sake,” Arlo hissed. “We’ve been walking for twenty minutes and there’s no way in. Since when is a public space this well maintained? In Birmingham of all places.”

I placed a hand on his arm. “There is one way we can get in.”

Arlo looked at me over his shoulder, eyes narrowing. “Like a secret entrance?”

I tipped my head from side to side. “Not quite.”

His eyes narrowed further. “Did you know about this the whole fucking time?”

“Yes. But I didn’t mention it earlier because I assumed you wouldn’t like it.”

He spun around and planted his hands on his hips. “Kael, if I only did things I liked, I’d spend my days in bed surrounded by hot, muscular men instead of working a nine-to-five.”