“Don’t thank me yet.Thank me when your wife recovers.”Grateful pulled the stethoscope from her neck and pressed it to Laina’s chest.
“Is there a chance it won’t work?”Jason asked, exchanging glances with Selene.
“I’ve never worked with sulfralite before.”Grateful returned her stethoscope to her neck and tucked her hands into the pockets of her lab coat, her belly stretching her scrubs underneath.“I promise I’ll do everything I can.”
A knock came on the door.Everyone froze.Grateful narrowed her eyes.The knock came again.“I’m in the middle of a procedure,” she called.“What do you need?”
“It’s Meredith.Is Silas in there?”
Grateful raised an eyebrow in Silas’s direction.He sighed and crossed the room to open the door.An unexpected swell of warmth filled his chest at Meredith’s smile on the other side.
“When you didn’t show up at the station, I started to worry.Manahan said you’d be here.I thought you might… need someone.”She searched his face.A slight blush colored her cheeks, and didn’t that make him feel like the king of the world?She stepped in closer.“What’s going on with Laina?”
“Who are you?”Grateful interrupted.
“Meredith.”She glanced at the other faces in the room and then at Silas.
He should introduce her.He cleared his throat to speak, but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.
“I’m Silas’s new partner,” Meredith said for him.
He didn’t correct her.What was the point?“This is a family occasion, Meredith.And it’s not safe.”
She locked eyes with him, rubbing her palms together in tiny nervous circles.“I just thought you could use some moral support.”
Goddess, she was beautiful, and it was kind of her to come.Thoughtful.
“Silas?”Grateful asked.
Inevitably, it came down to him.He should tell her to leave.They hadn’t known each other long, and she didn’t owe him anything.But when he looked at her, he couldn’t find the strength.If she was willing to stay, he needed her.Closing the door, he ushered her deeper into the room and pulled her back against his chest.The full-body contact made his stomach flip and his pulse pound.“Give Grateful room,” he whispered in her ear.
She smiled up at him over her shoulder, those warm brown eyes wrinkling at the corners.“Sure.Okay.”She didn’t pull away.
“You all might want to stand back for this,” Grateful said.
Everyone but Kyle took a step away from Laina’s bed.When Grateful gave Kyle a questioning look, he shook his head.“If she can survive it, I can too.”
With an acquiescent nod, Grateful reached into her bag and retrieved a mass of bones and feathers held together with wooden rings and decorated with rough-hewn stone beads.Silas had never seen anything like it.
“What is that?”Selene asked, shivering in Jason’s arms.
Silas felt it too, a cold rush coming off the thing.
“It’s a juju—a magical charm.I’ve jerry-rigged this one to draw out the substance emitting negative energy in Laina.Angel feathers—that’s the key.”She placed the juju on Laina’s chest, where it rested like a spread hand.
“Angel feathers?Like from an actual angel?”Meredith’s eyes popped.
“All we have to do is activate it, and this thing is going to become the world’s strongest sulfralite magnet.”Reaching behind her head, Grateful retrieved Nightshade from under her lab coat.
The sheath on her back was enchanted to conceal the blade, and Silas enjoyed the feeling of Meredith pressing against him at the sight of its purple glow.Grateful lowered the tip of the sword to the juju, energy writhing off the thing like an awakened serpent.
“Trezitae locul de muncati.Trezitae locul de muncieti.”
The energy flowed into the grisly mass on Laina’s chest.Silas gasped in time with Meredith as the juju rose up on bony legs, becoming a wicked-looking spider.It scampered across Laina’s chest, its faceless head sniffing her torso.The thing stopped near her belly button, the site of one of her stab wounds.It lowered its feathered belly to her skin.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a faint vibration rattled the bones.The juju glowed pink, then red.Laina’s body quivered.
“What’s happening to her?”Kyle asked.
