The Delacours: Part Deux

thirty-four.

It took two weeks for Anna to give me any news on the vampires being transferred out to other countries. Val had Celia continue to make more of the potion so that we would have enough for everyone needing it. Anna said that we would have a hundred vampires coming through the portal for America. The night before they were going to come through, we all sat down with Odie to talk about what was going to happen. He was wringing his hands together before we even got to talking.

"If you don't want to do this, it'll be fine. The vampires can get through without you..." Val said, putting her hand on his knee.

"Yeah, they can, but how much harder will it be for them? Trying to follow a path and ignore the spirits? If I can keep the spirits distracted, keep them away from the vampires then this will be over even faster..."

"Odie, you're not going into the Realm of the Dead, that's too risky. Even if your blood is a part of the spell," Zane said. "You're just gonna stand outside the portal on our end and keep the spirits from coming through."

"How?"

"You and I are gonna keep a light shield in front of the portal... You'll pull from my energy and we'll keep the portal protected from any spirits – good or bad – from escaping. Those spirits have to remain in the Realm and you can see them better than any of us." He nodded and took a deep breath.

"Okay. What are the rest of you gonna do?"

"Your dad and I are gonna get the vampires from the basement into the backyard to feed off either a blood bag or an animal, depending on their preference," Val said.

"And I will be welcoming them to America as their new Magister and assigning them to a jurisdiction..." I said, with a grimace.

"We have already spelled the backyard of the school with protective enchantments... so we just wait for the ready text from Anna and we open up our end of the portal," Zane said. "So you should get some sleep. We're gonna have a long day." Odie headed up to bed and the four of us sat in the living room in silence. Val grabbed mine and Chris' hands and we grabbed Zane's.

"This time tomorrow, this'll be over," she said.

"Yeah... for this wave of vampires. There are thousands of vampires in France... This is only the beginning," I said.

"Well, let's just focus on this group. When the next group comes, we'll deal with it then. I love you three so much, but Zane and I should get some sleep too." We all headed up to bed. I could feel Val toss and turn all night. I put my arm around her and kissed her shoulder.

"Relax, Val..." I said, quietly.

"I'm trying. I know it works... I just am really worried about this whole thing. I still am no closer to getting rid of those bastards, we still have no idea how to actually get rid of Kalial and moving vampires is just stalling the inevitable until we do get rid of him and those stupid humans."

"Yeah, I know... I feel the same way, but we're not gonna go running in there blindly either. The best thing we can do is continue to research that fae who accessed the archives and get our information correct. Hopefully some of those vampires that come over can get us some new information too."

"I hope we take care of this soon..." I squeezed her a little tighter to me as she relaxed under my arms.

The next morning, we all got ready. Aria came and took the twins for the day, and Odie groaned as he put on a pair of white wrap pants. He and Zane covered their chests in a balm to help concentrate their magic and protect Odie against the spirits. Chris brought down a cooler full of a blood bags and a cage full of rabbits and placed them at the bottom of the stairs. I walked into the backyard in a blazer and shirt that Val picked to hide my growing baby bump and stood just outside the doorway.