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, turning 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?”