“And you know this because?” I ask, brows arched.
“I was dead…？” He pauses. “Well, sort of.”
“Sort of?” That’s news to me. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll tell you once you go in there and kick Cole’s whiny little ass,” he answers with his trademark smirk. “So don’t screw it up.”
“Not planning on it,” I say, “but you know. Shit happens.”
“It does,” he agrees, face pensive and eyes sad.
I’m pretty sure this is Hudson’s version of a sad puppy dog face—or as close as he gets to it—and I am not going to fall victim to it. There’s too much on the line.
So instead of looking at him, I crouch down and place the four items the way the Bloodletter told me to: bloodstone in the north position, dragon bone in the south, werewolf eyetooth in the west, and witch athame in the east, all arranged in a circle large enough for two people to stand in.
Once he realizes I’m not going to change my mind, I can feel Hudson watching me with a somber face. But every time I glance up at him, the expression in his eyes is completely unreadable.
After I’m done laying the items out, I light the special candle Macy gave me for just this occasion and put it on the other side of the square, as instructed.
I’m not a witch. I don’t have any of Macy’s magic in me. But supposedly, that’s what these four items are for. Their magic is so strong that I don’t need any of my own to make this work.
I’m not sure I believe that, but I guess we’ll find out one way or the other soon enough.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, then step inside the circle—and right away, I know exactly what the Bloodletter was talking about. I can feel something start to happen. I have no idea what it is, but it’s definitely something big.
There’s a charge in the air, an electric shock that rides the air currents as they glide past me. As they do, every hair on my body stands straight up and my skin starts to tingle. My chest gets tight, my breathing labored, and it feels like I’m going to pass out.
“Get out!” Hudson yells at me, panic evident in his voice. “Get out of the circle!”
But it’s too late. I’m not going anywhere—I can’t go anywhere. The electric current that surrounds me is burning hotter, getting stronger, and the ground beneath my feet starts to vibrate.
There are loud gasps from the crowd, a few screams, and that’s when I realize it’s not just me who feels it. The ground beneath the whole arena is starting to shake.
I stumble back a little at the knowledge, nearly step outside the circle like Hudson begged me to, but the electric current catches me and refuses to let me escape. Instead, it zaps me and pushes me right back in.
Not going to lie—it scares me a little. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life, not even down in the tunnels with Lia when she called up that horrible black nastiness that nearly killed Jaxon and me.
But I don’t have time to worry about that right now, not when it feels like the entire universe is about to lose its shit all over this place. My knees are turning liquid as the ground goes from trembling to full-on shaking, and I throw my arms out to help get my balance.
“Jaxon?” I call, but there’s no answer. Still, I turn to look behind me, convinced he somehow managed to make it in here after all, because I don’t know anyone else who can make the earth shake like this.
But the walkway behind me is empty.
There’s no one here but me.
The five-minute-warning bell sounds, and I know that I don’t have any more time to waste. It’s now or never. I turn back around and look down at the circle—only to gasp, because the items are no longer on the ground. Instead, they’re hovering about three feet in the air now. Not only that, but they’re also glowing and vibrating so violently that I can feel it in the air all around me.
The ground shakes more violently, and I wait for something to happen, wait for Hudson to suddenly be standing in front of me. But I can still feel him in my mind, can hear him bitching at me even now, telling me to stop this madness before it’s too late.
Obviously he hasn’t gotten with the program, because I knew two minutes ago that it was already too late.
The Bloodletter told me I’d know what to do when the time was right, but I’m still waiting for the knowledge to hit me. All I know right now is that I better get some mystical, magical inspiration soon or this whole stadium is going to shake apart—and take Hudson and me with it.