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“How will I know they are following me?” she wondered.
“Sometimes, when they are around, you will smell rotting flesh. Also, you need to make it seem like you’re about to do something important, so they will want to follow you no matter what.”
“I can call all my friends and we can talk about something secret, something outside of school grounds,” she suggested.
“Will they join you?” her father asked. “They need to know beforehand what they are getting themselves into. I don’t want anyone’s blood on my hands, unless it’s my own.”
“I’ll talk to them.”
“Can they be trusted?”
Eva wondered. She remembered Dorian, and how Katrina told her that he wanted to get her in bed just for a stupid bet. She also remembered his words, his assurances that she was lying. Katrina was a liar, that much was obvious and well known. But, was she lying in this case? Eva still wasn’t a hundred percent sure. However, for this to work, she needed to trust them all. Completely. Without trust, every plan failed.
“Absolutely,” she nodded, never sounding more certain of something in her life.
“Then, get them,” her father motioned. “We need all the help we can get to form the pentagram and kill the Hellhounds.”
“What happens after we kill the Hellhounds?” she continued with her questions.
She needed to know the whole plan, if there was one.
“Then, we go after Rannulf,” Sorwyce nodded calmly. There was determination in his voice. “It will be a good old fashioned demonic exorcism.”
“Do you know how to do it?” she asked again. “I mean, have you ever done it?”
“No, dear child,” he smiled, and she wondered why it was that he was smiling, when he’d just admitted that he didn’t know how to perform an exorcism.
“That doesn’t sound very good,” she whispered, with fear in her voice.
“Books will help us, we just need him rendered motionless, so he can’t hurt us or talk to us. We need to focus on what we are doing, otherwise his lies might taint our hearts and he will surely convince us that we are doing the wrong thing. He might even make it look like Rannulf is dying.”
“What if he really dies?” Eva shuddered.
“That, my child, will be the price we pay for the safety of the world.”
Ev
a swallowed heavily. Her father wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her close to him. She could feel his heart beating violently. She understood why. He was a parent. A father, just like Sorwyce. Allowing one’s child to die for the sake of the world, that was too much for her brain to understand. So, she left it to the adults. For her, it was easier to think how she would get the Hellhounds to follow her.
She realized neither of the two men were speaking. Both were silently staring into the fire, as if the dancing flames were talking to them. If they were, she couldn’t understand it. She rested her head on her father’s tired chest and closed her eyes. She hated that he was brought to her, only so he could be threatened to disappear again. But, despite everything, she was grateful that she got to see him at least one more time and to give him one more hug. A tear rolled down her face and she wiped it with her sleeve.
The two men stirred out of their reverie. Sorwyce got up and walked over to the steaming cauldron. He lifted the lid, and the sweet aroma of soup permeated the place.
“Now, how about that soup?” he asked again, already setting up the plates on a small, flattened out piece of rock that served as a miniature table.
Eva wolfed down the soup hungrily, wiping her mouth with her fingers, at the lack of a napkin, but it didn’t matter. Ladylike behavior was the last thing on her mind right now. She was hoping to stay here with them but she wondered if that was safe.
“It’s almost morning,” her father told her. “You need to get back to the school. No one should see you were missing the whole night. It might raise unnecessary questions.”
“I understand,” she nodded.
“This is the map to the church,” Sorwyce offered her a piece of paper, with a clearly marked road from the school up to the mountains, where the church lay hidden. “It needs to happen in two days, at midnight. The star alignment will be in our favor, and we need all the celestial and earthly help we can get. Now, when you return, just follow the moss.”
“Are you sure you’ll find your way back?” her dad worried.
“Dad, I’m about to be chased down by two Hellhounds,” she grinned, “I think I can find my own way back pretty easily.”
“Yes, I know, but the woods are treacherous, and the roads aren’t paved, and…”
