With my free hand, I jerked one from his, seeing him flinch. I gave him an apologetic grimace and said, “Hair and blood.”
We dropped the hairs simultaneously, and I had to use my teeth to pull the blade out. We weren’t supposed to move our right hands from the earth at all, according to the black book. I wish this version of the spell had a fire like the one to access the demon. Right now, a fire would have been nice.
Holding the knife in my hand, I glanced at Aidan uncertainly. I wasn’t an expert in this; I didn’t know how to prick his finger or cut his hand without it being a bother later.
Seeing me hesitate, he held up his ring finger. Locking eyes with me, he pressed it to the tip of the blade.
I didn’t ease back, gritting my teeth, knowing it was going to hurt him. With a hiss, he pulled back and inspected the cut.
“You’re turn,” he said.
Swallowing hard, I prepared myself as he took the pocketknife from my shaking hand. He kept his eyes on me and nodded. “You don’t…”
Before he could finish, I held up my hand and pressed my middle finger to the tip. It was sharp; I could feel that before it snapped through flesh.
I gasped at the acute pain. Such a wuss, I thought. Wrenching back, I glanced at my finger. A small droplet of my blood had surfaced in the cut, which was much smaller than Aidan’s. He had to twist his wrist just to keep any blood from falling.
He struggled with the safety to bring the blade back down, but his bloodied fingers kept slipping.
“Forget it. Put it in your lap,” I whispered, hoping my voice wouldn’t disrupt whatever we were magically disturbing—if we were at all. I didn’t feel anything different.
“With these sacrifices, we invoke a rift to the Demon’s Grave,” I finished.
We held our free hands over our buried ones until blood dripped free.
Staring at the dirt over our hands, we waited. The seconds ticked by like minutes and we looked around, afraid to move.
“Did we do something wrong?” Aidan finally asked the stillness.
We exchanged a puzzled look. He held out his bloodied hand for the black book and flipped awkwardly through the pages using his thumb.
I picked up the flashlight to help him see. Neither of us moved our hands from the dirt. “Maybe this is the wrong spell?”
Rain came down in globs, splattering the pages and I feared for the ink.
“Or we need a fire,” Aidan suggested gently.
“Maybe she didn’t write everything down.” I sighed, deflated.
Aidan’s eyes wandered past me in thought. “Maybe,” he said cautiously, “we should start a fire now?”
“With what? Wet wood?”
“Maybe there’s something dry in the trees. We have to try, Nora. We can’t just leave now.”
A small part of me had been relieved when nothing had happened, but that’s not what we came for. “You’re right,” I said softly. “Let’s go see if we can find anything in the trees.”
Aidan wiped his bloodied hand in the wet grass. “Besides, that Midnight Ruling almost seemed too easy. Didn’t it?”
I nodded, having thought of that when I had first read it. “Anyone would be able to do this,” I agreed and started to gather the grave dirt back into the margarine container.
I felt the vibrations through my kneecaps first, then my toes. Gasping, I stood up so suddenly my head spun. “Aidan,” I breathed. The ground beneath us moved. I’d never felt anything like it in my life.
My entire foundation rocked, overwhelming me with a piercing sensation of helplessness. What would stop it from opening up and swallowing me whole?
Aidan staggered to his feet and reached for me, but his aim was off and he missed.
Thunder boomed, and I felt it rumble through my chest, shaking my heart and lungs. The scream I’d built up disappeared, and I slapped my palms over my ears, feeling the mud squish against the side of my head.
The second thunderous eruption filled the night with streaks of lightening that lit Aidan’s wet, scared expression.
Aidan was looking past me, one arm out as if to usher me behind him.
Twisting, I scanned the trees for movement, legs bent to keep my balance as the ground continued to make me feel useless.
People stood just within the trees, and I realized we’d dropped the Swiss army knife in the long grass.
It was becoming harder to stand straight as the shadows shambled toward the clearing.
Aidan backed up, grabbing my arm and taking me with him.
My eyes searched the ground desperately for a glimmer of the knife.
The roar above our heads began to sound like a word, just one.
“Mine.”
I didn’t look up for long. I saw a flash of light from the trees and realized the darkened figures had a flashlight. Was it something from the Grave coming to get us?
The sweeping flashlight drew across the grass, and I saw a glimmer of hope, or rather, of steel.
Skirting around Aidan, he tried to grab at me as I dove at the ground for the knife.
My knees slammed into the muddy grass. I flopped onto my stomach to snatch the Swiss army knife before the shadowy intruders could cave in on me.
A flash of lightning almost revealed the shadows. There were three human-shaped things, though the larger shadow trailed after them, as if they were connected to the tree line.
The first figure raised a thick arm to shield itself from the shock of the lightning flash.
I thought I heard Aidan’s voice behind me, and I managed to get my feet beneath me.
Twisting to grab Aidan, I realized in my desperation that I didn’t want to fall into the blackness alone.
But I didn’t fall into darkness as I had expected.
I managed to turn just as thunder erupted so loud I felt every organ in my body jump, and the entire world went white.
I felt a heavy pressure in my torso, enough to throw me back. Luckily, long grass and soft earth made it an easy fall.
I raised my arms to shield my face, and static bolted through my hair and skin, prickling every pore. The pressure in my chest made me realize that I didn’t feel the ground beneath me anymore.
All this happened in less than a fraction of a second but felt longer.
I knew I was screaming only because my throat was aching, but I couldn’t hear myself.
The white blinding light disappeared, and it took me several seconds to blink away the prancing dots before my vision. Aidan wasn’t there.
My ears were ringing, but I could hear faint shouting.
I looked left and right as the panic sunk greedy claws into me. “Aidan?!”
He wasn’t in the clearing. He wasn’t anywhere.
Where he’d been standing, tendrils of scattering smoke accompanied a black charred circle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The smoke was brief, losing a battle with the rain.
Still gripping the Swiss army knife, I realized it was a miracle I hadn’t stabbed myself in the fall. I stared at the empty space where Aidan had been and tried to speak when…
“Jesus Christ,” a voice erupted.
The rain began to fall heavier than before, splattering my face and making it hard to see.
A girl shrieked, and I saw movement running back into the tree line. Was I in the Grave? Did it work?
Standing on shaky legs, I called out, “Aidan?”
Maybe he’d been thrown in another direction. Maybe he’d been hit by lightning. The thought made my insides recoil.
Feeling light-headed, I forced myself to approach the darkened spot where the rain hissed and sizzled on orange embers. Rain drenched my clothes and dripped through my hair and down my face.
How far could it have flung him?
“Aidan!” I shouted, seeing his backpack still on the ground.
Where is his flashlight?
“What the hell is going on?” I heard a male voice shouting behind me.
I ignored it. I needed to fi
nd Aidan first. We needed to do this together; we promised each other.
I hunkered down against the rain and called his name over and over, trying to patch the thin hole of anxiety. I wasn’t hearing his voice.
A hand clamped onto my shoulder.
Without thinking, I ducked and turned, brandishing the knife in a blind swing.
The intruder grabbed my elbow and twisted my arm behind my back so quickly I shrieked. Trying to lean forward, I stopped struggling to reduce the pain that rocketed through my shoulder.
“Where’s Aidan? Where did you take him?” I shouted.
“What?” the voice asked, and it was then that I recognized it.
“Where’s Aidan?” I shouted and squirmed, but my shoulder felt intent on popping out of its socket. “Let me go! We have to find him, Cooper!”
He let me go after a moment’s hesitation and stepped back. “Didn’t you see?”
Freed, I dove into the trees. Feeling with my hands so not to crash into an unseeing branch, I tried to find evidence of him, of the Grave, of even Damien.
“Nora!” Cooper grabbed my arm again.
“Listen,” I hollered over the storm. “He must have been flung back, like me. He could be hurt.”
“Nora!” Cooper shouted again to make me look at him. “The lightning,” he said, eyes frightened. “It hit him.”
I stopped trying to shake him off. The words repeated in my head, echoing until they began to absorb—slowly.
The white flash that’d blinded me was lightning. It made sense. Confusion masked logic as I sorted out the details as sanely as I could. He went without me. The ceremony worked, but not for me. What went wrong?
“The lightning hit him,” I repeated out loud and glanced past Cooper to the dark stain in the earth.
“Yeah,” Cooper said, relieved when I spoke to him. “I thought it hit you, too.”
It was supposed to!
I stood, unmoving, unable to think of what I should do. The Midnight Ruling didn’t work for both of us. Did that mean I had to find another way? Maybe I had to do it again? I’d moved just before it struck. Did that ruin everything?
Cooper glanced over his shoulder as Joel jogged toward us, his shorter legs tangled in the tall grass. “Let’s get to the damn car already! It’s freezing.”
“But Aidan…” I started.
“Was hit by lightning,” Joel said loudly as if he didn’t believe it himself. “I saw him and then he disappeared.” To Cooper, he shook his head. “I checked around the perimeter. I can’t see him anywhere. I never thought I’d see something like that in my life.” He almost smiled but wasn’t able to. If he did, I was certain I would’ve lost it. “Anyway, come on, I found Claire,” he said as if this ended the discussion.
“Claire Weatherbe is here too?” I snapped. “What the hell are you all doing here?” I felt my hands ball up into fists as Joel rolled his eyes.
“Not the best time to talk,” he said, pointing to the sky, the rain drenching him thoroughly.
“Yeah, come on, Nora,” Cooper said. “We’ll drive you home.”
“Like hell we will,” Joel snapped, his dark eyes targeting me.
“Joel!” Cooper spun. “Her friend was just killed.”
I was shaking my head when the idea struck. What if he was killed? What if Aidan wasn’t transported to the Demon’s Grave? I didn’t know what a lightning strike could do to a body, but I was certain it wasn’t powerful enough to obliterate flesh and bone. No, no, I assured myself. He’s still alive. He’s not dead.
My mind left it at that. I wouldn’t allow it to trail further into the “what if’s.”
“…were up to something freaky, you saw it,” Joel was arguing. He was at least a head shorter than Cooper, but he was packing more muscle. The rain suctioned his shirt to his broad shoulders and defined pecks. If I didn’t hate him, I might have admired him.
Towering over Joel, Cooper was yelling, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Come along and leave the bitch behind or stay, I don’t care.” Joel turned his broad back to us and started to walk away.
Cooper ran up behind him and shoved his shoulder to make him face us.
Already emotionally charged, I ran up to them to stop a fight if one were to break out. I needed a plan, not a brawl.
Claire popped out of the trees again. Her eyes were wide, her red hair was matted to her shoulders, and her nipples protruded from her shirt like spears. She grabbed Cooper’s arm and screamed, “Let’s go.”
The shrillness stopped Joel from taking a swing with a fist the size of a grapefruit.
“Not without her.” Cooper never took his eyes off of Joel.
“Yeah, yeah,” Claire said dismissively. “Let’s just go.”
“What? Didn’t you just see…?” Joel began, stopping at Claire’s piercing stare.
“It’s freezing out here, and we have to go to the police.” She pointed behind her. “It’s my car we’re going in anyway. What I say goes.”
“No police,” I blurted, drawing everyone’s attention.
Claire pointed at the clearing but didn’t look. “You’re friend just evaporated in a lightning strike and you don’t want to go to the police?”
“She’s right. We should take her to the hospital instead,” Cooper interjected.
“No hospital!” I snapped, frustrated with these morons. They shouldn’t be here in the first place. I turned away, gripping my temples in an attempt to collect my scattered thoughts.
I could always get Aidan’s car keys from the wheel well where we’d hidden them. Then I could weigh the options without these stupid people. The grave dirt was gone, but I might be able to find where it’d been dropped…reuse it. Somehow, I doubted that would work. But I could also go back to the cemetery, get the supplies, and wait until tomorrow at midnight.
Before I got too far from the clearing, I felt a strong arm wrap around my waist.
The thunder clapped, drowning my scream and tickling my throat with the vibration.
Here it was. The earth was about the swallow me whole and Damien would drag me and…I peeked over my shoulder…me and Cooper down to the Demon’s Grave.
All at once, the world began to spin as my first attempt to kick back had me swept off my feet and spinning. Cooper caught me and pinned me to his chest, my head still twirling with whatever maneuver he tried. I could have been upside down and I wouldn’t have known.
“Nora,” Cooper said. “Come with us.”
Struggling madly, I couldn’t loosen his grip. I didn’t want to go with them. They shouldn’t have come. What if their presence messed up the entire ritual and it wasn’t me?
“You can’t drive right now. You’re acting crazy. Come with us. It’s okay. You’ll be safe,” he assured me, his voice attempting to be gentle over the roar of the weather.
What to do? What to do?
I glanced over my shoulder, peering past Cooper to see the dark spot in the grass again. I felt a lump in my throat and a wormy mass of emotions rising from the depths.
I couldn’t save them. And now Aidan was gone. Wasn’t I supposed to be the target, not him?
The Erebus wants you. He always wanted you.
The heaving gasp for air made me feel the hot tears melting with the rain, and I couldn’t stop it.
It wasn’t until Cooper told me to take deep breaths that I realized I was hyperventilating.
He held me, wrapping me up easily in his height, but he wasn’t Aidan. Aidan, what have I done?
Cooper helped me through the trees until I saw Claire’s Chrysler 300 behind Aidan’s rusting station wagon. There was no way a college student could afford that thing; it must belong to her parents. I did my best to compose myself. The last thing I wanted was for them to see me frazzled.
It was hard directing my thoughts away from the Midnight Ruling.
Claire had towels placed over the leather seats as Cooper held the back door open for me. He slipped in beside me, f
orcing me to scoot over.
Sitting in the middle, with Cooper close, I didn’t want to move away from him. He was the only heat at the moment. The car warmed but not fast enough. I realized I shook so violently I couldn’t hold my hands or legs still no matter how hard I concentrated.
I kept my eyes down, and the car was drowned in silence as Claire started down the dark road. It was more of a grassy, overgrown path than a road. The rain pelted the car, her windshield wipers zipping back and forth at their quickest speed.
“I have a test tomorrow.” Claire broke the silence, her voice acidic. She didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone in particular. “I won’t be able to study at all. It’s almost one in the morning.”
“How was I supposed to know they were all freaky with the voodoo?” Joel growled in the passenger’s seat.
I flinched. “What the hell were you doing out there anyway?” I felt feisty enough to handle Joel. My emotions were still charged—raw but charged. It wasn’t just the cold making me shiver.
“I should ask you the same thing,” Joel shot back.
“Yeah!” Claire echoed, her eyes catching mine in the rearview mirror.
I grit my teeth together. “You followed us and we’re the freaks?”
“Yeah.” Joel twisted in his seat. “We saw you two on the ground and chanting and cutting away like you’re some stupid cunts from The Craft.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” I said, not sure why I bothered. Plus, I’d liked that movie when I was younger. Who was he to judge?
Stunned, Joel stared at me. Whatever he expected from me, that wasn’t it.
It was Cooper that said cautiously to those in the front seat, “The ground did start to shake.”
“I thought the clouds were talking,” Claire whispered. She adjusted her hands on the wheel; her manicured nails were dirty.
“That was an earthquake and lots of thunder,” Joel recovered. “Coincidence. You two were out there throwing your mumbo jumbo, and obviously someone didn’t like it. Struck one of you dead.”
Joel never would have struck me as religious. You learn something new everyday.
“Basically, you killed your friend,” Joel said.
I reacted like a coiled spring.
Attacking a guy who was four times my size and muscled enough to join the WWE wasn’t exactly smart. But I wasn’t working with smarts; I was working with rage.
Midnight Ruling Page 9