“It’s okay,” Lula knelt and rested her face against Lorde’s fuzzy head.
Abbi shut the door.“Cookies too,” she said, sniffing.“We all need lots of cookies.”
“Lead the way, Pumpkin.”
She glanced up at me.“You’re going to follow, right?”
I touched the top of her head, her hair soft under my palm.“Of course, I am.I am not leaving you.Either of you.”
She nodded, those eyes serious and ancient.Then she started down the hall.“Hado was worried,” she said.“Hado says it’s dinner time.”
At the end of the hall a small meow called out.
“We’re coming,” Abbi said.“They’re okay.They’re still here.”She bent to let Hado leap into her arms.“It was scary, but I wasn’t afraid.”
I touched Lu’s shoulder.“We should eat.”
She gave Lorde one last pet and stood.
“Do you think,” she looked away, then met my gaze.“Do you think they’d have food for me?”
She was talking about blood.She never asked for blood.Holding the book had cost her more than I’d thought.
“Monster hunters?I’d expect they have some decent blood around here somewhere.”
“I hate wanting it.”
“I know.We’re doing all sorts of hard things today.We’re still standing.”
The magic in the book had shaken me down to my core.I couldn’t fight it, couldn’t outrun it or outthink it.I hadn’t even known my spirit was leaving my body.
Dying.
Power like that shook a man.
We were walking in sync, and she rested her head against my shoulder, briefly.
“Don’t you ever do that again,” she whispered fiercely.
“We’ll figure it out.Maybe it won’t be so bad next time.”
Even I didn’t believe that.
I could see the argument in her, because it was in me too.Those spells weren’t as bad as Cupid and Raven had said they were.They were worse.
The gods had said using the spells to kill Headwaters might kill us.They hadn’t told us just opening the book would kick our butts.
I never wanted to see the inside of that damned book ever again.
“Hey,” Pamela greeted us as we walked into the control room.“Abbi told us you opened the book.What do you need?”
Josie had a huge first-aid kit open on the table.Cardamom was leaning on the far wall watching us with eyes that caught more light than they should, his tattoos glowing softly against his skin.
“Food,” I said, “to start with.Then advice, then sleep.Probably in that order.”
“I’ll get dinner off the stove,” Pamela said.“Lula, do you need blood?”
Like I said, hunters were pros at this kind of thing.
