“She’ll be fine. Even if they comment on the fact that she did most of the fighting, Allie’s going to be fine. Mindy and Eliza have her back, right? Jared, too.”
I forced a nod, taking one last glance before she dragged me forcibly from the doorway. The last thing I saw was Bruce sliding into the empty seat to Allie’s left with a smile that was more than a little flirtatious—and Jared’s dark scowl aimed right at the back of the boy’s head.
I’d already left Timmy with Marcus in the main training center before the cooking fiasco began, so Laura and I headed up the stairs so I could retrieve my little guy before going to check on Stuart.
We were midway up the grand staircase when Laura paused, drawing a deep breath. “As much as I’ve been working out with you, you’d think these stairs were worse than an hour on the elliptical.”
“Well, it is a lotta stairs,” I said. “And I’m guessing you didn’t get much sleep last night, what with Mindy moving out. And I don’t mean in the sad and lonely insomnia sort of way,” I added, thinking of Cutter as I flashed a lascivious grin.
“Yeah,” she said. “I hardly slept a wink with my little girl gone. Poor, poor me.”
We shared a laugh before my melancholy took over. I had no one to worry with now. No one to share the fun kind of insomnia with. Stuart had been taken from me—please, God, temporarily—and Eric was very much off limits.
And, yeah, sure, Timmy made a great snuggle companion, but it really wasn’t the same.
I pushed off the mood and continued up the stairs. “Just don’t distract him too much during the day,” I teased. “The man’s here to train.”
“Hey, professional here. I’m going to say hi, then go get settled in the admin office. I know you’re jealous,” she added. “I’m expecting a full day of paperwork.” Stuart had been handling all the administrative stuff that went with opening a private school. Fortunately, he’d asked for help early on, and Laura had volunteered. For the last few months, she’d picked up where he left off, and I was left blissfully unaware of everything that had to happen behind the scenes.
“Have I mentioned how much I love that you’re working here?”
“Have I mentioned how glad I am that I can?”
I returned her grin, but my smile faded quickly as we reached the landing. “What?” she asked. “I can practically hear you thinking.”
I stopped, turning to face her. “There must be another chalice stone.”
“Please tell me you changed the subject and that I’m not supposed to have filed some sort of order form for one of those things.”
“No, no, I’m being serious. We said it last night, right? Lilith must be planning another attempt at getting inside Allie. But to do that, she’d need another chalice stone. All we need to do is find it and break it.”
She moved to lean against the ornate handrail as I paced in front of her, my sneakers silent on the tile flooring. “It’s a good theory, Kate, except it doesn’t pan out.”
I came to a stop, my attention fully on my friend. “Of course it does. It’s the only explanation.”
“Except that I’ve now read everything in the universe about that chalice. Which, considering it turned out to be a stone table, was very poorly named.”
“And?”
“And it was one of a kind. Now that it’s broken, she can’t recreate that ritual.”
I shook my head. “No. That can’t be right. She isn’t asking her demonic minions to hold off out of respect for my daughter. You must have missed it.”
She tilted her head and stared me down. “One, I’m getting pretty good at research. Two, it wasn’t just me. It was me and Eric and Eddie all looking. Plus Mindy, who has really got a knack for this. And, just to add extra icing to the cake, Father Corletti also assigned a team to research.”
“How come I didn’t know any of this?”
She widened her eyes, but otherwise didn’t answer.
“Right. Duh. I get it. But it doesn’t make sense.”
“Not a lick of sense,” Laura agreed. “Honestly, we all thought it was great news, but after yesterday all I can think is that—”
“There must be another ritual,” I said, finishing the thought. “Well, damn.”
“There are some ancient tablets that talk about lost rituals that honored Lilith. My new plan is to scour them.”
“Yes,” I said. “Good plan. Maybe there’s some ritual to bind her to a human. Or to force a human to consent to time-sharing.” Lilith couldn’t move in uninvited, but I knew first hand that she was willing to lower herself to share a body. She’d shared with that bitch Nadia, after all, and I’d almost lost Eric all over again, not to mention Allie. In the end, we’d all survived, but Eric had lost an eye in the battle.
