Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon Hunting Soccer Mom

Chapter Fourteen

I stopped by Laura’s before heading to Coastal Mists and found her perched at her kitchen table, her laptop open, her fingers tapping at her keyboard. I moved to stand behind her and found myself looking down at the Web site for the Larnaca tourist bureau.

I’m trying to impress you with my resourcefulness,” she said. “How am I doing so far?”

“Not bad.”

“Good. Because the only location you told me about was Larnaca, so after this, I’m stumped. Although I did do some research on the cathedral earlier this morning.”

I’d begun to read over her shoulder (the site raved about Larnaca’s easygoing pace coupled with its fascinating links to the ancient past), but at that I looked up. “St. Mary’s Cathedral?”

“Yeah. Since you said that Goramesh is looking here now, I figured I could start by researching the cathedral.”

“Pretty interesting history, don’t you think?” I asked.

“Did you read about the saints’ ashes used in the mortar?”

I could practically see her face fall. “You already knew about that? I thought I’d be telling you something new.”

“Sorry. Old news. That’s why Eric and I used to think this town had so few demons.” I snorted. “So much for that theory.”

“Well, demon-free or not, the cathedral sure has a lot of tragedy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Five of the original missionaries were murdered. Martyred I guess is the word. They were burned on individual pyres. Just horrific stuff.”

“Wow,” I said. “I had no idea.”

“Really?” She brightened considerably. “You really didn’t know?”

“I really didn’t. Tell me.”

“Well, the yuck part was that they were burned, but the fascinating part is that the cathedral still has their remains. The church kept the ashes in bags, saving them in case any of the martyrs were sainted.”

“I’ve seen them,” I said, remembering the coffee-sized bags in the display case. “So, were any of them sainted?”

She shook her head. “No, but one of them was beatified. That’s the first step, right?”

I nodded. “I doubt any of that’s helpful to us, though. The martyrs are part of the cathedral’s formal collection, so they’ve been on the Web site forever. Goramesh wouldn’t have to sneak around to find them.”

“Oh.” She leaned back, her enthusiasm fading. “At least it makes a good story.”

“Come on, Laura. I haven’t even asked you to help yet, and already you’re doing great.” I said all this in the same voice I use to tell Allie that her math homework was going really, really well. As uneasy as I’d been about Laura helping me originally, now I was keen on the idea. I didn’t want her to get discouraged and distracted, moving on to other more consuming things such as closet reorganizing or dust-bunny wrangling.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“So tell me about this,” I said, focusing again on the Web site about Larnaca and sounding more chipper than I felt.

“I just pulled it up,” she said. “I haven’t even read it yet myself.”

“Look,” I said, noticing a paragraph in the middle of the page. “It says that Larnaca is where Lazarus lived.”