“Fuck,” Felix says, resting his elbows on the table. “I’ve missed you all.”
“You’re the one who took a job in Salem,” Evander chuckles. “I knew you’d regret it.”
Felix laughs and opens his notebook, tapping his finger down on the page with the spell. “Let’s do this.”Chapter 15Eliza nudges a dead squirrel with the toe of her Gucci shoe. “Resurrecting an animal isn’t the same as resurrecting a human?”
“Not at all,” Evander tells her, coming down the back porch steps. “Though it’s just as dark.” His eyes go to me, and I just nod. I know what I’m getting myself into, though I’m not worried.s
Black magic is illegal because it’s a gateway to Satanism. And when Satan is your uncle who you talk to on the regular anyway… I’m not worried.
“And I have what I need for the spell,” I tell her, looking at the deer that Freya and Pandora caught. I grimace, not looking forward to slicing it open and pulling out the entrails. “I should get started.”
“Do you have a cage?” Felix asks. “Or a metal trash can, perhaps?”
“There’s an old rabbit cage in the shed,” I say, and Eliza takes off to get it. We moved outside after realizing that the animal resurrection spell is going to get a little messy. And even after moving the furniture out of the living room, we were tight on space. We’re in the backyard, just a few feet from the porch, and Nicole and Naomi have been carefully crafting the intricate circle—with magic, of course. I had to temporarily remove all my wardings, and the house feels unnervingly vulnerable right now.
Everything is almost ready, and I’m getting nervous. I hate that there is doubt in my mind, but what if this doesn’t work? Then what? I’ve faced evil before, but nothing scares me as much as the thought of losing Lucas.
“This rusty thing?” Eliza asks, coming back with the cage. It’s in worse shape than I remembered, but it should do.
“Yeah.” I take it from her and carefully put it in its place inside the circle. I put the dead squirrel in next, laying it on its back. Binx caught and killed it, having quickly snapped its neck to keep the carcass clean.
Then I grab the back legs of the deer and give it a tug. The thing is surprisingly heavy. It’s bleeding but is still very much alive. We’ve placed a paralysis spell on it, keeping it from running away…or thrashing in pain. In order to bring back the squirrel, I need to take the life from something else.
I don’t look at the deer’s face, not wanting to risk seeing the pain and fear in its eyes. Sacrificing an innocent animal makes my stomach hurt, but it has to be done.
“Here.” Eliza comes over and takes one of the legs from me. As if it’s no effort at all, she moves it several yards from where it was, next to the circle.
“Thanks,” I tell her, wiping blood or mud—or maybe both—off my hands. “Did you ever think you’d be assisting in a dark ritual like this?”
She gives me a pointed look, cocking one eyebrow. “When I was a human, we lived in fear of witches. My mother used to tell us stories about witches in the woods who would come out and go into town, looking for unchaperoned females to take back and train in dark magic.”
“That would make me want to go out alone.” I step over a line of the circle and start toward the house.
“Witch trials weren’t as popular in the 1700s as they were the century before, but many people still feared witches just as much,” she goes on. “And then after I was turned into a vampire, I was taught to avoid witches at all costs.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “And now I’m surrounded by them.”
“Lucas taught you to avoid witches?”
She nods and opens the back door for me. “He was alive during the War of Light and Dark. He really didn’t take part,” she reminds me, though I have no reason to doubt Lucas. He’s not ashamed of anything he feels or does and would tell me if he had taken part. “Avoiding witches saved us a lot of drama, I know now.”
“You seemed scared of me the first time we met,” I say and then regret it, thinking I’m going to piss her off.
“I was,” she admitted. “Lucas told me stories about witches, stories I thought he made up just like my mother to keep me in line. But then I saw you and saw what you could do…” She shakes her head. “It wasn’t just you but realizing everything I’d been told was true.”
“You lived for nearly three hundred years without seeing a witch?”
“Lucas kept me safe.” She can’t help the smile that comes to her face when she talks about him. The relationship between progeny and sire is something I don’t quite understand, but they love each other unconditionally without that love being romantic or sexual. Most of the time, Lucas acts like Eliza is his daughter, but often they come across more as siblings. I used to think it was weird, but now I like it, and I’m glad Eliza is part of my family in a sense.