Two is Company (House of Anubis)

Chapter 97: The Sinners Walk Among You

"Okay," he said, trying to sound optimistic for Alfie's sake. "'In the place of rest you will succeed.' Well, let's succeed, eh? You take this side, I'll take this one?"

"Yeah, whatever," Alfie grumbled.

They searched the place what felt like top to bottom, but neither of them could find anything. When they reconvened in the center of the room, Alfie was beyond agitated. "I hate this crypt! I don't wanna be here!" he complained. "Tunnels could be leading anywhere; secret rooms: kind of intriguing; cellars: dark and dusty, but okay. Crypts are for dead people! Alright? I'm making a stand! Alfie says no more!"

He slammed his hand down on one of the metal rods that lined the large stone sarcophagus in the center of the crypt, but it came loose and nearly caught Eddie in the jaw. He managed to grab it before he ended up with a bloodied chin, though, and as soon as his fist was around it, did the metal begin to burn white hot. Eddie nearly dropped it again, but the searing heat only lasted the second it took him to look down at the markings on the rod. The golden etchings matched the artifact they'd uncovered in the living room.

"Alfie, you found it!" he cheered. "The second artifact!"

"Really? Hell yeah!" Alfie exclaimed. "Can we go now?"

With no better place to stash the second artifact for the time being, the boys elected to keep it where it was until they could come collect it later. Hidden in plain sight and all that jazz. They reemerged in the woods and hightailed it back toward the school lest they face Mara's directorial wrath. Still, they had an hour before curtain up, which in Eddie's opinion, wasn't cutting it that close: the show didn't start till half-past noon, and it was only 11:45 at the latest.

Everything was right on schedule.

—

Kira and Fabian crawled past Victor's office, where he sat and fumed over KT's escape. They silently agreed they didn't want to deal with how Victor would react if he realized they were also viable options for captives, and so thought it best to sneak about rather than thunder around the house like bulls in a china shop.

Once they were on the bottom floor, they zipped into Eddie and Fabian's room, shutting the door behind them cautiously so as not to make any noise. Fabian was already ripping into KT's parcel before Kira even turned away from the door and he spread the contents out onto the bed. She sat down beside him and peered at the contents, only feeling slightly bad that they'd opened KT's mail without her permission. Whatever was in here had to be important, and it almost certainly couldn't wait.

Fabian held aloft a media impression square, squinting at it with the light behind the lens before pulling out his device to download it, while Kira lifted up a small book from the pile. It looked similar to the boobytrap manual she'd found at Rutter's Antiques, but what caught her attention most was the ripped corner of paper that fluttered out from the yellowed pages onto her lap. One sentence was scribbled on it in chicken scratch handwriting:

"'The sinners walk among you,'" she read breathlessly. "Definitely important."

Fabian offered her a grave expression, clicking the square into the impression machine and hitting the download button. The loading bar seemed to take ages, each percent creeping by at a snail's pace while the two friends held their breath. Finally, bar was full and a truly terrifying image jump-scared them on the screen: an illustration of a woman— one of the same women in the drawings from the book they'd found in the secret room— with pupil-less, glowing red eyes.

"Patricia," Fabian whispered forlornly, and Kira took his hand, squeezing it so tightly she felt a joint pop slightly; Fabian squeezed back just as hard.