Author: Emily Goodwin
Category: Vampires
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“Callie,” he pants and tries to sit up.
“No,” I tell him and push him back. Normally, I wouldn’t stand a chance winning any sort of physical battle against Lucas. I jump onto my feet and shake my hands, needing to expel some of the energy. “I need salt, a white candle, a knife, and…and my purse,” I tell Abby. I take a step back and pace to the other side of the living room.
I’m so stupid. Why didn’t I think of this sooner? It’s a curse. A curse preventing Lucas from healing.
But…why is his heart beating?
What kind of curse can do something this dire to a vampire? Lucas is old and strong. It would take one hell of a powerful curse to affect him in the slightest.
I don’t have what I need to break a curse here. I bring my hands to my head and try to think, but I can’t get a single thought in over the noise of my anxiety.
A curse.
Who would curse Lucas?
Why would someone curse Lucas?
To get to me? But why? I get along with everyone in my coven. The closest I have to an enemy inside is Ruby Darrows, and we have a weird understanding now.
She testified on my behalf when I was on trial and saw me telekinetically pull someone’s molars out and didn’t say anything to Tabatha. Besides, Ruby is the definition of a rule follower. She wouldn’t curse Lucas…or would she?
“She’s not stupid. She knows I’d rip her to shreds if she did anything to him,” I say out loud as I pace back and then look around for the keys. Is my purse in the car? I don’t remember having it when we got in the car. Did I even take it? Or is it in the office at the bar?
“Dammit!” I mutter. I have basic magical supplies in my purse but nothing strong enough to break this fucking curse.
“Callie,” Lucas starts and tries to sit up again.
“No,” I tell him and hold out my hand, pushing him back down with magic. “Don’t move.” I stride back over, hands shaking. “The curse might spread.”
“We both know that’s not how curses work.”
My bottom lip quivers, and I close my eyes, fat tears rolling down my cheeks. “I’m going to stop it, and then I’m going to break it. A Return-to-Sender spell should reverse the effects.”
“I know you will,” he says calmly, like he actually believes it. I suppose on the surface, it sounds simple, but breaking curses is anything but. You have to know the exact type of magic used and then figure out how to peel it back without doing any more damage.
“Will this work?” Abby rushes back into the room holding a three-wick vanilla-scented candle in a decorative glass jar.
“It’s good enough.” I take the candle from her and move to the floor, shoving the coffee table to the side.
“How can I help?” Abby asks.
“Make a circle of salt on the floor big enough for Lucas to lay in.”
Abby nods and looks at Lucas, sizing him up. “Um, lie down first so I don’t make it too small.”
I offer him a hand, but he sets his jaw and gets up, one hand going to the wound on his stomach. My mind is still racing, trying to recall the hex-breaking charm that’s in my Book of Shadows. It’s funny, really, considering how much danger I’m in on a weekly basis, and I haven’t been cursed since my junior year at the Academy.
Lucas slowly lowers himself to the floor, and I grab a pillow from the couch and put it under his head.
“Try to lie still,” I tell him, kneeling down at his side. I put the candle in front of me and place one hand on his chest again, closing my eyes and trying to get a read on the curse.
I wish Pandora were here. She might know the right mix of ingredients to make some sort of potion or incense to send this curse packing. She’s bonded to me, just like Binx and Freya, and if she could hear me, I know she’d get the others—maybe even Scarlet, my hellhound, too—and would come here as fast as possible. But my mind is too scattered to call for them at this distance.
I try to clear my mind and focus on the darkness swirling inside Lucas. I can feel it but can’t get a grasp on it. I clench my hand, pressing my nails into Lucas’s chest as I concentrate. It’s right there…right in front of me…
“Revelare,” I whisper and feel myself slip deeper into the darkness. The curse reaches up and grabs me, pulling me under dark, murky water. It burns my skin and crushes my bones. I cry out in pain but don’t take my hand off Lucas’s chest.
I’m almost there…I can almost see it.
“Callie,” Lucas croaks. I know this is hurting him, too.
I squeeze my eyes shut and push harder. The curse is shutting me out, trying to block me off. Whoever cast this added a protective element, making a Return-to-Sender spell even more difficult than it already is.
“Revelare!” I pitch forward as pain radiates through me, traveling down my spine and making every single nerve spasm.
“Cal!” Abby shouts and stops making the salt circle.
“No,” I tell her, holding up my other hand. “The salt…keep…keep…going.” I turn my head, gritting my teeth. “There’s something there.” I push harder, sending a pulse of magic through my fingers, sparking Lucas’s chest. “It’s blocking me from seeing what kind of spell was used.”
Lucas brings his hand up and puts it over mine. It’s the push I need, and suddenly, I break through the barrier. Black fog swirls around me, and the smell of a bonfire mixes with the stench of death. Wind rustles tress in a forest and clears the fog.
The vision slips away, and I push harder, pressing my nails into Lucas’s flesh. He wraps his fingers around my wrist, and I’m there again, standing by the fire. A group of witches, all wearing hooded robes, grab hands and start chanting. Their voices are lost over the crackling flames, and the smoke makes it hard to see.
Come on…come on…
Suddenly, the flames quell, and the witches all bend down, pulling something apart. The pungent smell of death and decay fills the air, and one of the witches stands up, holding a mess of intestines.
“Oh my god,” I say, jerking my hand back.
“What did you see?” Lucas asks, still gripping my wrist.
I blink rapidly and turn to him, looking right into his gorgeous blue eyes. “Necromancers.”
Lucas’s brows furrow. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. Holy shit.” I suck in a breath but get no air. “Holy shit.”
“Breathe,” he reminds me for the millionth time tonight. I would suffocate it if wasn’t for him.
“What does that mean?” Abby asks, stepping back and holding the canister of salt to her chest.
“Necromancy is a form of black magic that uses the dead to do their bidding. The Grand Coven has deemed it illegal. You’d get your powers bound if you were caught.”
“The dead, like vampires?” Abby’s hands start to shake.
I blink as her words hit me. Necromancers use blood and body parts to aid their spells. They summon spirits and raise the dead with the intention of using them for nefarious reason.
Necromancy makes my resurrection spell look like child’s play.
I don’t know why they’d go after Lucas. He’s not brainless like a corpse, who’s able to be controlled. He still has his own free will, and it would take a different type of curse to compel him to do their bidding.
I rock back on my feet, trying to figure out what to do next. I’m getting hung up on the why in all of this.
Why curse Lucas?
Why use necromancy?
It’s like the answer is right in front of me, blinking flashing lights, yet I can’t see it. My breath leaves me, and I look at Lucas again, resting my hand over his chest again.
And then I feel it, the weak, thready heartbeat that Abby was talking about.
His heart is starting to beat.
He’s not healing.
“Holy fucking shit.” My words tumble out of my mouth as it hits me. I know what they’re trying to do.
“What is it, my love?” Lucas grunts.
“They’re t
rying to bring you back to life.”
Chapter 4
“Back to life?” Abby echoes. “Can they do that?”
I shake my head. “No. It won’t work. His body has been dead for too long that it…it won’t work right.”
I thought I was desperate before, but now…now I’ve never been more desperate in my life. I had a year-long class at the Academy, teaching us all about vampires. And while Lucas has taught me more about his kind than the class ever did, I know one thing for sure: vampires die when you try to bring them back to life.
It’s been done before, many times. Before the witches killed most of the vampires in the war, vampires would turn any witch they could sink their fangs into. The hope was they’d create a vampire with magical powers, forced to obey their maker, that could be used as a weapon against the witches.
It didn’t work. Our magic dies with us and isn’t transferred through blood. The witches, desperate to get their brothers and sisters back, worked spell after spell trying to bring the turned back.
For years, witches and warlocks dedicated themselves to finding a magical “cure” of sorts.
And for years, they failed.
As far as we know, the only way to not be a vampire anymore is to be dead. There’s no coming back after your body has been dead, and resurrection spells are temporary, as I saw for myself a few months ago. The bodies deteriorate, and whoever you brought back dies all over again.
It’s dark. Messy. Fucked up.
No wonder it’s illegal.
“I have to stop it.” I’m trembling again, and I can’t form a coherent thought. I splay my fingers over Lucas’s chest again, feeling his slow pulse. His heart is only beating maybe twenty times a minute, not enough to sustain human life.
I won’t be able to break the curse now, but I can bind it in a sense and keep it from progressing. He’ll be like this, still a vampire but only at half power, but at least he’ll remain undead until I can figure out how to save him.
I can’t think of a single spell. I forget all my charms. I need to get it together.
“Take this,” I tell Abby and pick up the candle. I hold my hand over it and summon a string of bright red magic. It sizzles down, wrapping around the wicks, and lights the candle. “And stand inside the circle right by his head.”
Abby’s eyes go wide again, looking at the magically lit candle, but takes it, tossing the empty canister of salt on the ground. I pick up the steak knife she brought me and cut the neck of Lucas’s shirt.
“Getting frisky?” he tries to joke, but I can see the fear in his eyes now that we know exactly what we’re up against.
I blink back tears and rip his shirt down the middle, spreading it open. The sight of the bloody bandage on his stomach makes me dizzy again, but I can’t let it get to me.
Not now.
Not if I want to stop this curse from further sinking into Lucas. We don’t have much time until more parts of his body try to work again. Everything will give out and he’ll die—and there will be no coming back.
“Hold the candle up,” I tell Abby. “And be prepared for the flames to rise.” I put my hand on Lucas’s chest again, trying to get back to the shadow the curse left. My eyes fall shut, and I get a flash of the witches in the woods again, seeing them draw some sort of symbol on a poppet with blood.
Suddenly, the words come to me, and I know exactly what to do.
“I call upon the forces of light,” I start and move my hand up, right over Lucas’s heart, and feel the curse pulsing against my fingers. “I bind this curse and bind it tight.”
I take my hand off Lucas’s chest and pick up the knife, bringing it to my forearm. With no hesitation, I draw the blade over my skin. Blood instantly pools around the cut. I set the knife down and take two fingers from my right hand, swiping them over the cut and covering them in blood.
I blink and see the sigil in my mind. I don’t know what it means, yet I know it’s what I need to draw.
“I call upon the forces of light. I bind this curse and bind it tight.” I use my own blood to draw the sigil on Lucas’s chest. “I take in the power of earth, air, water, and fire into me, and bind this curse, so mote it be.” I press my hand down on the sigil, and the flames in the candle shoot up.
Something invisible grips me, crushing my heart in my chest. All the air leaves my lungs, and for a moment, I can’t breathe. Magic sizzles around my fingers, but instead of burning Lucas, it causes the sigil to glow.
Lucas tenses, pressing his hands against the floor as pain ripples through his body. And then the tightness leaves me and I gasp for air.
It worked.
Lucas is still cursed, still in some sort of half vampire transition, but the curse won’t progress.
I let out the biggest sigh of relief and look up at Abby. She’s holding the candle out in front of her with a mixture of awe and fear on her face.
“Do I even want to ask?” A voice comes from behind us, and I jump, whirling around to see Phil standing in the threshold of the living room, staring at us.
“Probably not,” I say, swallowing hard.
Phil’s lips are parted with shock at he looks at Lucas, lying on the floor. “You’re not, uh…not sacrificing him, are you?”
“I just married him.”
Lucas lifts his head up off the pillow. “But if we’d been married for a while, you’d sacrifice me?”
I turn back to him, tears pooling in my eyes again. “Perhaps. Just remember happy wife, happy life should be taken more seriously when you’re married to a witch.”
Abby blows out the candle and sets it on the coffee table. She steps around, slowly moving toward her husband.
“We were…there was…I…I don’t really know what happened,” she stammers.
“Are you okay?” Phil asks slowly. He’s wearing a lab coat over a button-up shirt and dress pants. Right. Like Abby, he’s a doctor, too. He was at the hospital and is just now getting home.
“I am,” Abby assures him.
“Are they?” he asks, but she doesn’t answer because she doesn’t know.
“I’m fine,” I say and stand, reaching down to help Lucas up. My arm is still bleeding, and I debate letting Lucas lick the blood that’s dripping down but don’t want to freak out Phil any more than we already have.
Lucas needs all the blood he can get, though, and I’d rather him get it than have Abby wipe it away. She’s going to insist on cleaning and bandaging the wound, I’m sure.
Lucas stiffly rises to his feet and stands at my side. He towers over me, making my five-foot-seven-inch frame seem small.
Phil shuffles closer, narrowing his eyes as he looks at Lucas. A big bandage on a vampire’s abdomen isn’t something you see everyday, I know.
“Is that an Archangel sigil?” he asks.
“What?”
“That.” He points to Lucas’s chest. “I was raised old-school Christian and always thought the Archangel sigils looked cool. It’s a random thing to remember, but I’m pretty sure that’s one.”
“Really?” A chill runs down my spine, and Julian’s words the devil was once an angel echo through my head. Did Lucifer have a sigil before he was cast out? “Do you know whose it is?”
“Michael, I think.”
“Of course,” Lucas says softly, slipping his arm around my waist.
Abby looks from Phil to me and back again.
“Well,” I start. “I’m going to get Lucas home and then will come back and help you clean up, Abby.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it,” she tells me, voice still shaky.
Phil slowly shakes his head. “What the hell is going on? Callie is covered in blood.”
“It’s mine,” Lucas says casually. “Well, most of it.” He grabs my wrist and lifts my arm. “This is hers.” Much to my chagrin, he brings my arm to his lips and licks the blood off. Feeling his tongue on my skin sends a jolt of warmth through me, even now.
“Why?” Phil asks slowly, t
urning back to Abby, whose jaw tenses. I know she hasn’t told him everything, and I hate that she’s been lying to him for me. Phil proved himself to be a surprisingly cool guy who’s rather accepting of both me and Lucas.
“Lucas was stabbed by some holy-roller protestor, which normally wouldn’t be a big deal since he can heal, but he wasn’t healing, so I panicked, brought him here so Abby could stitch him up, and then I realized he was cursed by necromancers, and since I don’t have what I need to break a curse here, I did what I could with what we had and bound the curse so it can’t progress and kill my husband,” I spit out quickly.
“And Michael and I go way back. Not really. Only like back to late this summer. My cats aren’t cats, and Scarlet isn’t a puppy. She’s a hellhound. Also, I didn’t fall down and cut myself a few weeks ago. I was shot with an arrow by witch hunters who were paid by a vampire of all things to try and kill me. I didn’t want you to be freaked out, so I had Lucas change your memory.” I let out a breath. “Wow, it feels good to tell the truth.”
Everyone stares at me, and Lucas gently presses his fingers into my side. “Anything else you want to confess?”
“One time I accidentally stole a lipstick from Target. It got pushed to the back of my cart and I didn’t see it, but when I was unloading everything into my car, I saw it and just took it.”
“That’s it?” Lucas cocks an eyebrow.
“I live on the edge.” I shrug and look at my sister. “Sorry about the memory thing. It was kind of for your own safety. I’ll cast an extra protective spell around the house later, too.”
A few seconds of awkward silence tick by, and it’s only then I realize that Abby was watching TV when we came over. A commercial for toilet bowl cleaner sounds behind me.
“Will this new circle actually keep the in-laws away this time?” Phil asks, a smile slowly coming to his face.
“I can definitely make that happen.” I rub my temple, feeling a massive headache starting to form. “But really, we should go. I need to get back to Thorne Hill so I can work on breaking this curse. I’ll help you clean first.”