“It isn’t,” Nel said. She reached for a water bottle and tried to take a drink. Her hands were shaking enough that she ended up spilling part of it down her front. “We need to call in help.”
“There’s no one to call in.” Eva sighed, lying back down on her bed.
At least Sawyer wasn’t in the same room as that mummy anymore. He had wandered off. Shoring up defenses with orders for the skeletons and enigmas that patrolled the warehouse. Eva paid attention to them as they could help. But if that mummy was as dangerous as Nel’s shivers, none of them would be going anywhere near the skeletons and enigmas.
“You said that these things have a small area that they affect? How small?”
“I don’t know. A hundred feet?”
Eva sat up. Smile on her face. “Then it is simple. We don’t go to the warehouse. At all. We target the field and the ritual. Preferably while Sawyer is there.”
“We won’t know once your ritual runs out.”
“No,” Eva agreed. “But he has gone to the graveyard and then the field every night. He might take a break just in case the vampires attack, but I doubt it. That might delay his ritual.”
“What if he has another one? They’re hard to make, but he has one. He clearly knows how to make them.”
“I doubt it. This one feels personal. Like, an old lover or something.”
“Just send the vampires in first,” Serena said with a groan. “If they fall to pieces, who cares. Now try not to wake me again unless you want to do this all without my help,” she said as she flopped back down underneath her covers.
Eva looked to Nel and gave the augur a half-hearted shrug.
“Sacrificing vampires? Works for me,” the augur said. Her voice was a few notches chillier than normal. “As long as I get to stay here.”
As she returned to peeping out the peephole, Eva followed Serena’s example and covered herself back up.
If Sawyer
Assault
The field wasn’t any different in person. Not that Eva had expected it to be. Her ritual gave her a perfect picture of exactly what Sawyer saw and felt. She had already known how the place would look, feel, and smell. Looking at it with her own eyes didn’t matter in the slightest.
In fact, she was actually feeling better than any time that she had visited through Sawyer’s eyes.
The ritual was fading away. In an hour, maybe two, it would have run its course, leaving Eva all by her self. She could still see Sawyer at the moment, but the sounds were slightly muffled and the colors were muted.
If there was one thing that was different about the real field versus seeing it from Sawyer, it was having Nel and Serena at her side as they looked down at the valley filled with caskets and coffins.
Serena was imitating Catherine at the moment. Her cellphone was out and she was tapping away. Coordinating with the vampires was a full-time job, apparently. Six of them were dotted around the field, keeping themselves out of sight of the many skeletons and enigmas. Two more were just behind Eva.
The ‘Lord’ Kuvon had decided not to grace them with his illustrious presence for the night, sending a portion of his minions instead.
Frankly, Eva wasn’t expecting much from any of them. Sawyer was expecting vampires to attack. Aside from the Elysium Order, Sawyer being prepared to fight vampires would probably be the worst thing that could happen to them.
Eva really didn’t care what happened to any vampire that wasn’t named Serena. In fact, if Sawyer killed them all, she wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep over it. That would leave Kuvon and maybe two other vampires that also hadn’t joined in their little escapade. It wouldn’t be difficult to reclaim her blood from them.
And Eva was less than enthused about gifting them a case filled with vials of her blood.
Besides, killing off the vampires would make Nel happy.
At the moment, Nel looked like she could use all the happiness that she could get her hands on.
The summer air was warm, even in the dead of night. Eva wouldn’t have been able to tell that just from looking at Nel. Or from feeling her as she grasped on to Eva’s arm.
It was strange to think that she had been holding back on the trembling. Eva could barely see straight with how much the vibrations traveling up her arm wound up shaking her around. Every single slight noise in the wilderness around them was received with a jump from Nel followed by the girl whipping her head around to find out just what was attacking them.
Nothing. Nothing attacked them.
“Calm down,” Eva said, patting the augur’s non-withered arm. “The vampires are staring.”
“I’m not supposed to be out in the field,” she hissed back. “I can’t fight!”
“Would you rather be back at the hotel? All by yourself? The hotel that the vampires run?”
