Between Shadow & Ruin (Fangs & Fae Saga Book 2)

twenty-six.

We laughed at first as Chris struggled to get back down. He was swinging back and forth as he reached up towards his right foot where the invisible string held him.

"Guys, a little help..." he said, nervously. I looked up and saw a stake heading for him. He put his hands around either side of it, trying to keep it from piercing through his chest. Val raised her hand, yelling out a phrase in Greek. The stake stopped as Chris dropped it on the ground between my feet. Zane knelt down under Chris, and I saw a red light glowing on the ground in a weird shape.

"Chris –" He was wiggling around trying to get himself down. "Chris, will you stop?" Zane said, reaching for his arm. "Stop moving around. I'm going to get you down, but you need to hold still!" I pointed out to Zane what I could see.

"Zane, there's something on the ground under Chris."

"What, where?" I grabbed his hand and hovered it above the spot. He said something in Greek, and it revealed itself. Weird symbols were placed at different points on a circle. "Oh, that's nice. I should've expected that."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Adriel used runes!? What kind of fae uses runes!?" Val said.

"She wanted to be stronger than anyone and pulled magic from all cultures. She used runic magic, spiritual magic, ritualistic magic... whatever she could get her hands on to make herself 'better' than the rest."

"So how do we undo this?" Val asked. I could see Zane thinking about how to undo it and he pulled the knife from his pocket again. He handed it to Val. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Slice through it. You're going to have to put a lot of force behind it. Break the pattern of the rune and the spell should break."

"Why can't you do it?"

"Someone has to catch Chris and Liz shouldn't step foot into this circle unless she wants to be strung up there too. Unless you want to do it?" Val shook her head, knelt down and opened the knife. She jammed it into the ground and attempted to cut through the hard wood floor. Zane was saying something under his breath as Chris fell into his arms. "Hey, sexy." Chris stood up, fixing his shirt and Zane laughed loudly. "Never thought I'd be holding you like that." Chris nudged his side.

"Zane, Val. This entire house is covered in magic. More traps I assume," I said, once everyone calmed down. "What are we looking for?"

"I'm not really sure," Zane said. "Anything, honestly. When Odie was a kid, we know that he could see magic but then that just stopped a few years later. We know he saw Liam's spirit and then Tristan's did something to him to make him dark. We know that all of this has to do with Odie having both his and Liam's souls battling against each other, and I guess now he threw it up and it's in the basement. He has to fight it, so, I guess we're looking for anything to give us an edge on how to help Odie."

"But would Adriel have even known anything?" Chris asked.

"She practiced magic from every culture across the world. Santeria, voodoo, black magic, tarot cards... if it had a way to be used for darkness, she tried it even if she had no fucking business doing so. She kept everything here instead of the fae realm because she didn't trust the fae to not convict her, so she hid all of her proof on Earth in the middle of the fucking mountains in Greece. I can't believe I ever helped her with this shit." Zane gripped the back of a chair. I walked around the space, trying to see if anything caught my eye. Val and Chris did the same as Zane tried to keep his composure. I walked to Zane and grabbed his hand.

"Hey, we'll figure this out," I said, quietly.

"Like hell, we will. I'm not leaving here without an answer. I can't let Odie go through this alone."