No idea.“Should be.” She didn’t want to get any closer.
“What do you need?”
She pulled her bag from her shoulder. “A flat space, for starters.”
Darian gestured, and two of the men got busy sweeping brown leaves and twigs aside to reveal the damp earth beneath. Eve watched critically, then stopped them when it was large enough.
“Can you tell us exactly where the vampire is?” she asked as she pulled out her trusty pot of white paint and started to decorate the forest floor.
Darian thumbed his mic. “Charlie team, do you have thermals on the target?” A pause. “And he’s prone?” He listened. “Roger.” He pointed to the left of the house as they looked at it. “That’s the south side. He’s two rooms in, top floor. That accurate enough?”
Eve didn’t answer, just pulled out Marcel’s compass and arranged the candles around the two thick circles she’d drawn.
“Candles, huh?” Darian muttered. “Alec, go get umbrellas from the cars. Just in case.”
“Sir.” One of the men trotted off.
Cally pulled out the obsidian and her pin, running through the invocation in her head. Keeping her mind busy kept her anxiety at bay, along with the thought of all the guns surrounding them.
“All yours,” Eve said, giving Cally an encouraging pat as she passed.
“How long will this take?” the man called Mikhail asked, finger twitching on his trigger guard.
“It’s magic, not science,” Cally muttered as she stepped carefully over Eve’s lines and settled herself within the circles. “It’ll take as long as it takes.”
“Here you go,” Eve said, handing a cigarette lighter to him. “You can start us off.”
Mikhail took it without objection, shouldered his weapon and crouched to his task. Trust Eve to charm even an Order thug. Cally would’ve smiled if she wasn’t feeling sick.
She focused on the distant house, trying to center herself, quietly going over the Gaeilge she’d memorized.
Darian crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes.
Cally glared at him. “Are you going to stand there and watch? Do you know how distracting that is? At least go behind me.”
He didn’t say anything, but he did take a few paces around the edge of the circle.
“That’s no better,” Cally told him. “I can still feel your eyes on me. Can’t you look at the house or something?”
“Just get on with it.”
Yeah. Great advice.
Cally pricked her finger and wiped her blood on the obsidian, trying to shut out the distractions. The forest fell quiet as the men watched expectantly. The earth beneath her was moist and cold, leeching damp into her jeans. The man Darian had sent off returned, only to be hushed as he approached. A car drove by on the distant road.
She focused on the vampire in the house a few hundred yards away.Nico Aldobrandini.The man who had killed her mother.
“Fan i do chodladh, ná dúisigh go deo.” Stay in your sleep, never awaken.
No sooner had she begun, than Cally felt her power reach out. It was like her bond to Antoine, only instead of a tug, it was a push. It was working! The spell was doing something.
She focused harder, not letting herself get distracted, concentrating all her intent on the sleeping vampire.
“Ceangailte agat, níl slí le himeacht uaim seo.”Bound you are, no path to leave me from here.
Her power seemed to swell, pulsing toward the distant house. Pulling from within her, almost like the pull of Antoine’s feeding.
Draining from her, too. She took a sharp breath, half sudden fatigue, half surprise.
