The sentinel promptly disappeared up the basement’s staircase.
Jolene rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’d apologize for bringing you into this, but I had to send for you. You’re the only one in our lair who could have collapsed that forcefield. I had no other way of freeing those children.”
Rubbing her aching chest, Khloé said, “It’s fine.” She looked at the spot where Enoch had stood. “Shame you didn’t kill him for good.”
Jolene sighed. “I had hoped to make him see reason, but that didn’t work so well.”
Just then, Mitch reappeared with a tall glass of water. “Here, drink this.”
“Thanks,” said Khloé. She took the glass and practically inhaled the water.
“Feeling better?” asked Orrin.
She nodded. In truth, she felt like utter shit.
“How long do you think it’ll be before Enoch’s body regenerates?” asked Ciaran.
“Probably a few days.” Jolene smoothed a hand down her blouse and swatted at the material of her sleek pencil skirt, as if she felt stained by the whole encounter. The veneer of elegance she oozed was an innate quality that Khloé couldn’t help but envy.
“If he has any sense, he’ll disappear,” Jolene went on. “I might not be able to kill a Lazarus demon, but I can certainly make him suffer a terrible death, over and over.” She looked down at the corpses. “Since bodies can’t be resurrected more than once, these poor little ones will be safe from him in the future.”
“Jolene,” said Mitch, who’d wandered over to the other side of the basement and was staring into a large wooden trunk. “There’s something you need to see.”
Khloé and the others followed her grandmother, who sidled up to Mitch. Peering into the trunk, Khloé felt her stomach lurch. She jerked back. “Holy fuck.”
“Lolita,” said Jolene with a sigh, staring at the dead body. Much like the children, its clothes were clean, and its hair had been styled into a tidy braid. But it was mighty clear by the state of decomposition that the corpse had been dead for a number of years.
“Either he lied that Lolita walked out on him or he caught up to her,” said Mitch. “Whatever the case, it seems highly likely that he killed her.”
“If she threatened to leave him, it’s possible he killed and then reanimated her to keep her with him,” mused Orrin. “Why wouldn’t he have kept her body with Molly’s?”
“He sees them all as living beings of a sort,” said Jolene. “To him, they’re truly not dead. If he’s angry with Lolita, he wouldn’t reunite her with their daughter.”
Khloé nodded. “Keeping her trapped in a trunk seems something of a punishment to me.”
Ciaran shoved a hand through his hair. “This is all so unbelievably fucked up.”
Orrin turned to the Prime. “Me, Mitch, and the other sentinels will take care of moving the bodies. You, Khloé, and Ciaran should go breathe in some air that isn’t filled with death.”
Jolene put a hand to her throat. “It just devastates me that we’ll have to cremate the human children’s corpses if we can’t locate their resting places. They don’t deserve that.”
“Enoch probably would have taken them from local cemeteries,” said Ciaran. “Want me to make some calls and find out if there’s been reports of bodies being exhumed?”
“Yes,” said Jolene. “He must have taken them at some point in the last month, since they were supposed to be ‘friends’ for Molly. She died four weeks ago tomorrow. I can’t say for sure how soon after that he reanimated the other corpses. If one of our lair members hadn’t noticed that Molly’s grave had been desecrated, I might never have learned what he’d done.”
“He could come back for her body,” said Orrin. “It would be pointless, I know, since he can’t resurrect her again. But he’s not ready to let her go yet. It might be best to have someone watch over her grave.”
Mitch nodded. “Then we can grab him if he reappears.”
“Once she’s back in the cemetery, arrange for some of our Force to stand watch but to stay out of sight,” Jolene ordered. “The rest of us need to work on tracking him. He doesn’t have many living family members. Those that are alive belong to another lair. I’ll pay them each a visit and see if he’s contacted any of them. They could even give him sanctuary.”
“I want to be there,” said Khloé.
“Yes, I thought you might,” Jolene groused. “I’ll allow it, since he may well pop up a shield to protect himself. And while it vexes me that you’d make such a request to come along yet refuse to accept my offer for you to join our Force’s ranks, I won’t comment on it.”
“You just did.”
“Then I won’t comment on it again.”
“I’ll go make those calls and see if I can find out where he took the human kids from,” announced Ciaran.