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SINCE THIS SPELL WAS so complex, I decided to use all the ingredients that were listed rather than using a shortcut. The cupboards were stocked with everything I needed, except for unicorn blood, of course. I took the flask out of my pocket and put it at the end of the row of ingredients. It would be the last thing I would add to the concoction.
Taking a seat on the uncomfortable wooden chair, I went to work. Power stirred from the first word I read out loud. It grew as I added ingredients in the correct order and mixed them with a spoon. Sweat trickled down my back and I was glad for the boost Jake’s blood had given me. Without it, I would have been wrung out before I was even halfway through the incantation.
Speaking words in a foreign language that I didn’t even understand, the mixture began to glow as I neared the end. Dull crimson, the paste at the bottom of the cauldron looked and smelled vile. Greg’s hand tightened on my shoulder in silent support when I reached for the unicorn blood. Five of us had been turned into Spencer’s thralls, which meant I would need to add ten drops of blood. Chanting the final paragraph of the enchantment, I carefully measured out the dosage. Only a couple of drops were left when I was done and I put the lid back on and slipped the flask into my pocket.
Staring into the cauldron, I used the spoon to mix in the silver drops. The paste changed from red to silver so bright it hurt my eyes. “That wasn’t so bad,” I said, believing it was over. I’d expected the spell to take a lot more out of me. No sooner did I have that thought than pain wracked my body. Dark slivers of essence from all the different types of magic I had inside me were drawn into the cauldron. A hint of gangrenous green was drawn from the reaper, along with a tinge of gold from the dragon blood. Falling off the chair, I landed on my side on the floor, stunned and weakened to the point of nearly passing out.
Greg sent his spectral form to warn my friends as the power swelled inside the cauldron. Then it cut out, fading away to nothingness.
Connor burst through the door first, notified by someone who could see the reaper that I needed help, but the others were right behind him. My mate scooped me into his arms and held me on his lap. I smiled at him wearily to show him I was okay. “Do you need my blood?” he asked.
“Always,” I replied, then flicked a look at the crowd that had gathered in the room. “But it can wait. Help me to my feet, will you?”
He did as I requested and supported me while I hobbled over to the desk. I peered into the cauldron to see the glowing red paste had broken down into a shimmering silver liquid. “My hands aren’t exactly all that steady right now,” I said. “Can someone pour that into a glass?”
“I’ll do it,” Jake offered. Rudy pulled a glass from thin air, presumably stealing it from the kitchen upstairs. Jake carefully picked up the cauldron and the leprechaun teleported himself onto the desk and held the glass steady. We all watched as the liquid filled about a quarter of the vessel.
“There’s not much,” Rudy said critically. “It looks like you’ll have enough for one small sip each.”
“I’ll go first,” Quin offered. As our leader, she wanted to test the spell to make sure it wasn’t going to harm the rest of us. Rudy handed the glass to her while Jake set the empty cauldron back down. “Here goes nothing,” she murmured, then took a small sip. Jake snatched the glass out of her hand when she doubled over in agony. Hissing out curses that were enough to make a sailor blush, she weathered the pain until it finally began to fade.
“How bad was it?” Roderick asked in trepidation. If an alpha werewolf had been that badly affected, it didn’t bode well for him.
“It was fairly awful,” she replied with a grimace. “But it’s worth it. I can feel the difference already.”
“You might want this, lass,” Rudy said and offered her one of the enchanted rings. She took it and slid it onto her finger. Again, it grew in size to fit her. This time, she barely flinched at the pain as it became attuned to her. “Now you’ll be protected from anyone who tries to control you again,” he told her.
Quin took the glass from Jake and handed it to the Archivist. “You might as well get it over with,” she said not without sympathy. Watching the rest of us suffer would only erode his courage even more.
With a shaky hand, Roderick took a small sip of the enchanted liquid. Quin took the glass from him as the human immediately fell to the ground.
“Oh, dear,” Winston said in distress when the Archivist started screaming in agony. Mirra hunkered beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder and crooned something beneath her breath. It seemed to help and his screams choked off. His torment lasted longer than Quin’s and his face was streaked with tears when it was over.
“I’m okay,” he said in a croak as the siren helped him to his feet. Putting a hand on his forehead, he gave Quin a shaky smile. “I see what you mean. Spencer’s control was like a parasite in my mind that I didn’t even know was there. It’s gone now.”
“My turn,” Mirra said bravely and took the glass. She took a small sip, handed it to Connor, then went rigid. Pain was etched on her face and her knees buckled.
Jake caught her before she could hit the ground. Easing her down, he held her as she struggled to hold in her sobs. “It’s okay, darlin’,” he whispered in her ear as he rocked her. “It’ll be over in a second.”
Sagging when the pain was gone, Mirra’s eyes were shining with tears. “That was truly horrible,” she said. “I’ve never felt pain like that in my entire life.”
“Not even when I extracted the dark magic from you?” I asked uneasily. She’d almost died when Morgwen’s assassins had stabbed her with a magical dagger.
“That was nothing compared to what I just suffered,” she said with a sympathetic look at Connor and me. “You’ll want to have some more blood before you drink that stuff,” she told me. “You’ll need your strength.”
“We all know what’ll happen if she drinks Connor’s blood,” Rudy said slyly. Folding his sleeve back, he offered his arm to me. “Drink, girly, but only take one mouthful this time. It should be enough to perk you up.”
Connor’s lips thinned that I was taking blood from someone else, but he didn’t protest when I moved to the leprechaun. Again, my fangs descended and I bit into his vein. While his blood wasn’t as tasty as Jake’s, it was just as potent. One mouthful was enough to fully charge me and I drew away. “Thanks, Rudy.”
He nodded gruffly, then we turned to wait for Connor to go through his ordeal. He took a small sip, leaving just enough for me, then handed me the glass. I slipped my arm around his waist when his entire body clenched in pain. Squeezing his eyes shut, he ground his teeth together until the agony receded. Wiping sweat away from his brow, he looked better than he had before. “I think that did more than just destroy the demon’s hold over me,” he said. “I think it also pushed Viper’s poison back a bit.”
“Unicorn blood has incredible healing powers,” Rudy said. “It could cure whatever the Jaculus did to you.”
I wanted to hand Connor the flask so he could take the last few drops of unicorn blood, but he motioned for me to stop. “That could come in handy for someone who needs it a lot more than me,” he said.
“He’s right, darlin’,” Jake agreed. “That blood is meant for someone else.”
“Who?” Jonah asked.
My foster father shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just know it has a purpose, but it isn’t clear what it is yet.”
“What’s the point in having visions if they don’t tell you everything you need to know?” Brandi complained.
“They’re meant to be a guide,” Rudy told her as he tossed a ring to Connor and Mirra. “They’re not a step by step manual.”
“They should be,” she muttered crankily.
“Okay, Ari,” Quin said and motioned at the cup. “It’s your turn. Bottoms up.”
After seeing the torment my friends had gone through, drinking the concoction was the last thing I wanted to do. Being free from Von Hades was incentive enough to put myself through the torture. Putting the glass to my mouth, I tilted my head back and swallowed the remaining liquid.
My first impression was that it tasted like heaven. My second impression was that I’d just been catapulted straight back to hell and had landed in a lava pit. Fire seemed to ignite inside every cell in my body as the unicorn blood eradicated the control that Spencer had placed over me with his blood. I dropped the glass, but Connor caught it before it could fall to the ground.
After a few seconds, I realized I was on my knees with both Connor and Jake hunkered next to me. Jonah was muffling his sobs of empathy behind his hands and Brandi was trying to comfort him. Mirra and Quin watched me with sympathetic expressions. Roderick was trying not to vomit at the memory of his own pain.
It felt like it lasted forever, but it was over in less than a minute. I still had the demonic essence I’d ingested in hell, but I could feel Spencer’s influence had been wiped from my mind. “I’ll have one of those rings now,” I said, voice scratchy from trying to suppress my screams. Connor took the last ring from Rudy and placed it on my finger himself. The pain that wracked me paled into comparison to the other spell.
“We’re all free now and these rings will ensure we can’t be controlled,” Quin said, twisting her new ring on her finger. “Not unless someone steals them from us,” she added as an afterthought.
“That’s not going to happen,” I told her. “I altered the spell so no one can remove them without our permission.”
“Nicely done,” Mirra said with a grin of appreciation.
“Von Hades will know what just happened,” Jake reminded us. “We need to be ready in case he retaliates.”
Right on cue, we heard the distant sound of a cell phone ringing.
