Or we were going to cast a spell that would slip our control the moment we unleashed it and destroy us, our family, the world.
I picked up the witch’s box and opened it.
Lula looked even paler than normal, the circles darker under her eyes.She might talk a good game, but she was exhausted.
She placed the book in the witch’s box.I set it on the floor, draping the shadow cloth over the whole thing.
We left the circle and the room in silence.
Once out in the hall, the fatigue really kicked in.I wanted to sleep for a hundred years.
“Food.”Lu took my hand and guided me down the hall straight into the kitchen.
The kitchen was old school industrial but had a table with bench seating at one side.
That’s where Lu deposited me.
“Give me a minute,” she said, pulling down a cast iron skillet and drawing over a loaf of bread.
I crossed my arms on the table and rested my head there.I closed my eyes for a second, only a second.
“Brogan,” Lula’s hand stroked down my back.“Food.”
I made a sound and she chuckled.
“Yes.Eat something.You’ll feel better.”
I reluctantly lifted my head.
She held a plate with a huge sandwich on it and piles of potato and corn.
My stomach growled and I sat up.
She settled the food in front of me and sat close so she could lean against my side.She’d made herself a steak—venison, rare—and cut small bites to eat.
Card was already eating a bowl of soup, checking his phone, and Abbi was out in the control room, telling whoever was out there what we’d found.
I picked up the sandwich—layers of meat including some of the venison, surrounded by cheese and tomato, onion and lettuce—and dug in.
I’d never eaten a sandwich so quickly.Then I turned on the fried potatoes and corn she’d broiled and seasoned.
As soon as my plate was cleared, I tuned back into the conversation.
“At the rest stop, might be best,” Elmer said.“Good vantage points from there.”
“Easy for us to get to, means it will be easy for him too,” Lula said.“It’s so close to the highway.”
“Then back in the hills a bit.But it’s where I’d park.We have good access to surveillance and a couple bolt holes if things go south.”
Pamela and Josie weren’t in the kitchen.I hoped they were sleeping.
Elmer looked fresh, like he’d gotten some shut eye after his reconnaissance of the meeting place with Headwaters.
He also looked relaxed and confident, as if facing this kind of monster was an everyday thing.
He was a hunter and not easily spooked.I’m sure he’d taken on all kinds of evil in his days.
“What about escape routes?”Card asked.“If it goes to hell in a handbasket, I want a way out of there.I’m not going to die in the middle of Nowhere, New Mexico.”
