Of Witches and Warlocks: The Complete Series

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

We spent the next week drawing out things from Shelly's vision, trying to formulate some plan of attack and where the best access points to Damien's property were. Though we attempted to keep things between the four of us, the others quickly noticed our quiet whispering together all the time.

Krista was the one who finally approached us and asked to know what was happening. Vance filled her in on the details and she encouraged us to let the rest of the group know.

Surprisingly, most of them agreed with us and felt it was time for some action too. My mom was the only one who seemed really hesitant, and under the current circumstances I could hardly blame her. She was already resigning herself to the fact my dad was a lost cause, and she didn't want her daughter placed back in the line of fire.

Personally, I didn't care about the danger. I was ready for all of this to be done and over with. Honestly, the thought of a surprise attack excited me, and I hoped it would put an end to all of this mayhem once and for all.

"How do you think we can contain Damien?" Shelly asked at our late night brain storming session. "If we can't kill him because of the Awakening, we need to find a way to keep him captive. He's really powerful though."

"I've thought a lot about that. I'm not sure a containment system like you used to hold me will work for him," Vance replied. "He had Portia in something similar and was able to walk through the barrier at will."

"We should drug him," I spoke up. "That's what he did to me. He can't work his magic if he's not conscious."

"That would be my first choice too," Grandma said. "The only problem we run into there is we would need to make sure he was kept drugged on a precise schedule. One late dose and everything could fall apart."

"I say drug him and remove the Awakening from him," Hex added, and all eyes turned to him. "I can gain access to the Hoodoo ritual that was used on Vance and Portia, and I have no problem marking this guy for death."

Shivers ran over my skin as I remembered what I'd gone through when Mayla and Catriona removed the Awakening from me. It seemed so uncaring and blasé to have us all sitting around the dinner table talking about a subject so casually. I had to remind myself this was Damien we were discussing, and the world would be a much better place without him. No one ever spoke of it out loud, but we all knew we were planning someone else's demise. Evil or not, it was a distasteful thing to be doing, and it made me even more angry with Damien for placing us in this kind of situation.

My personal focus though, was to try to rescue my dad and see if there was any way he could live a semi-normal life again. I knew the others seemed to think there was no hope for him, and he wouldn't want to be rescued in his current state. They were convinced Damien had probably driven him mad, but I wasn't so sure. I wasn't going to give up on him until I saw with my own eyes that he was beyond saving.

Another week passed by while we gathered supplies and ingredients we needed for the potion to sedate Damien and remove the Awakening. During this time my mom also aided in getting supplies for blood donations so we could start building up a supply of fresh witch blood for Vance, if he wasn't able to readily drink from me.

It was a sparse choice of candidates for Vance, with the only magical people besides me being Earl, Grandma, and Hex. He needed to consume twice the amount of Earl's blood to get any kind of fix, because Earl's magic was so diluted. Hex was not at all thrilled over donating his, but managed to do so without grumbling too bad. Grandma was happy to comply, but it still wasn't enough.