“Not until the rest of my shit arrives at least.” I’m still cringing from Juliet’s head ramming into my cervix. We undoubtably have to have a home birth. I can’t be treated in a hospital, and if Juliet’s blood raises red flags, it will be even harder to get out without unwanted attention.
I need to talk to my dad, but I still haven’t heard from him, which is worrisome on its own. Right now, I’d really like to know how he pulled off switching me with Nancy’s biological daughter, who was born sleeping. I was treated as a normal human, and no one flagged me as a biological anomaly until William sent me to the research lab to be tested.
“It will be here in a day or two. As anxious as I am to meet my daughter, the longer she stays put, the better it will be.”
I rub the side of my stomach, trying to get her to move. “I know. Do you think I should have ordered an extra tarp?”
“I don’t think you needed to order any.” He slides his hand down my stomach. “Turning the bedroom into Dexter’s kill room isn’t an environment you want to give birth in, my love.”
“You’re the one who showed me that video. Birth is messy.”
Lucas chuckles and kisses me. “Evander pulled in the driveway. I’ll let him in. Stay here and keep your feet up.”
“Thanks,” I tell him. By “letting him in,” Lucas means he’ll open the door and move out of the way of the sunlight. A moment later, he and Evander rejoin me in the family room, and Evander sets a large book about Ancient Egyptian magic on the coffee table.
“Any luck finding the scroll about the Oracle?” Evander asks, taking a seat on the couch at the opposite side of me. The Oracle supposedly can get you passage through the gate, but that’s all we know. It’s a bit of a stretch, I know. Julian had the amulet I put back together with magic, and now that he’s gone, I can’t ask where he hid it.
“Nope.” I sigh. “Please tell me you have had better luck.”
“I have.” His eyes light up. “You know I’ve been studying the dark magic Paimon used to root you to the earth so he could take your divinity.” He pulls a broken piece of one of the white gemstones from his pocket. “I’ve been slowly reversing the spell in just this particle. The magic is still there.”
“Is that bad?” Lucas asks.
“Quite the opposite. We can use these as a trap.” Evander waves his hand over the piece of gemstone, and it glows yellow, sending my mind spiraling back to that night. All the air gets sucked out of my chest, and anger rises inside me. I ball my fingers into my palm to keep from summoning hellfire. “These are spelled to take power from whoever is standing inside the circle. They used your own powers against you, Callie. Now, it won’t hold the Horsemen for long, but it will ground them by pulling from whatever dark magic flows through them, keeping them in, trapped for a few minutes at best, but enough time to get away.”
It’s not quite the exciting breakthrough I’d hoped for, but it’s promising. If we can trap them, even temporarily, maybe we can kill them.
“Where do we set the traps?” I ask.
Evander raises his eyebrows and sighs. “That’s the million-dollar question, though if I was killing to bet, I’d set them around you. We know Paimon made a bargain with the Horsemen. Help him get you, they get unlimited hell on earth.”
“The front yard?” I suggest, looking out the window. The guys are here working on the pool, and I’ve been waiting for someone to stumble upon a body for days now.
“It’s the largest clear area around us,” Lucas agrees. “How soon can the traps be ready?”
“It’s going to take us some time to pull the spell from each fragment. We have to break them apart in order to have enough. I have several professors working on it, and we’re bringing in another high priest to expedite the process.”
“How soon?” Lucas repeats.
“A week at best. More likely a week and a half,” Evander tells him. “Rushing the process could damage the spell structure. One thing we can’t figure out is where the gemstones came from in the first place. Normally, you can trace a spell’s origin,” he tells Lucas. “In this case, we can’t.”
Lucas nods. “One week.”
“We can make it,” I tell him, though I don’t believe anything I’m saying. My stomach grumbles loud enough for Evander to hear it. “You know plotting and planning revenge and murder is very much my jam, but do you want to get lunch now? I’m really hungry.”
“As am I. I got so into my research, I forgot to eat breakfast,” Evander says. Lucas helps me up, and I get a little dizzy when I stand. Blinking it away, I get a drink before heading out the door and into Evander’s car.