The Delacours: Part Deux

ten.

As we pulled into the driveway, Zane barely shifted the car into park before Val opened the door. She swung the door of the house open in front of her with her magic and ran towards Odie. I rushed towards her to keep her from opening his door and put myself between the door to Odie's room and her.

"Val, he's asleep." I could hear him snoring quietly.

"Yeah, but I need to check on him."

"He only just fell asleep a two or three hours ago, honey," Chris said, coming out of his room into the hallway, moving us towards the end of the hall away from Odie's room. "He wasn't feeling well."

"What's wrong?" Val asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"His eye is bothering him again. And he was anxious." Val took a deep breath.

"Fine. What's happening with his darkness?" Zane had come in the house with our bags as we came down the stairs. Chris led us into the backyard as he told us about the noises he'd been hearing and the movements he saw. We opened the door of the fence that separated our backyard from the school's and went into the basement of the school through the hatch. The snarling of the darkness had calmed down, but it was still moving around pretty wildly. The formerly shapeless darkness now had a familiar shape. I moved Val out of the way to take a better look.

"Val?" I said, turning towards her. "Is it just me or does it look like..."

"A baby?" Chris said with me. "That's what I thought too. And it looks much bigger and more definite than it did when I first saw it."

"So, what, it needs to be born?" Zane asked.

"I guess that makes sense," Val said. "If it's supposed to be something that Odie needs to defeat and if it follows what happened when Odie was little, it's supposed to be Liam. When I had Odie, we consecrated what was left of Liam's body into the earth, so I'm not sure what's going to happen..." Val crossed her arms and put her hand under her chin. We heard a snarl come from the darkness. I turned my back to the cage.

"It's late, why don't you and Zane get some sleep? Chris and I will keep an eye on things..." I said, leading Zane and Val away from it.

"I think we should go to the fae realm and see if we can figure anything out," Zane suggested.

"Zane, I don't think there is anything to figure out. Do you know how many books I've read about this over the last fourteen years? Zero. You want to know why? There aren't any! No one in the fae realm has ever dealt with anything like this and none of the Elders are any help. We're on our own with this... just like we've been for everything else in our lives..." Val wiped her eyes as Zane turned away from her.

"If you want to know more about dark magic, I know one place we can check..." Zane said under his breath, covering his face with his hand. "But we'll still have to go the fae realm first..." I looked at the time. It was nearly five AM.

"Can you just wait 'til the kids wake up?" Chris said. "They really miss you and if you leave again without seeing them, they'll be upset." Val took a deep breath.

"Of course," she said. We headed up to the backyard as Zane and Val spelled the hatch door to the basement shut. We crossed the fence, locking it back up on our side. Val and Zane both looked exhausted and I suggested they at least take a nap before leaving. Reluctantly, they went to sleep as Chris and I stayed in the kitchen. He gave it a beat before saying anything.