Nightwalker

Twenty-Seven

Riordan

Somehow, you'd think being the co-captain of a rugby team would make me a bit stronger than my fellow peers.

Christian DelaCourt was insanely heavy and having the captain title under my belt did nothing but make me feel like a loser for not being able to hold him up.

Although drugging the boy was nearly an option, Soren had a safer option that would keep him away from home overnight.

"How long is this thing gonna last for?" Thor waves his hand in front of Christian's face while Soren helps me lay him on my couch.

I pick up Soren's open spellbook from the coffee table and look over the geasan he was reading. He scribbled something below a Gaelic sentence; a translation.

𝕮𝖍𝖆 𝖘𝖌𝖚𝖎𝖗 𝖉𝖔𝖗𝖙𝖆𝖉𝖍 𝖋𝖆𝖑𝖆, '𝖘 𝖉𝖊𝖎𝖗𝖌𝖊 𝖈𝖗𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖊, 𝖆𝖓 𝖌𝖊𝖆𝖘𝖆 '𝖘 𝖌𝖑𝖊𝖎𝖉𝖍𝖎𝖉𝖍 𝖊 '𝖓 𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖍-𝖔𝖘𝖉𝖆.

*𝑵𝒊𝒍 𝒐𝒇 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅𝒔𝒉𝒆𝒅, 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕, 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒂 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒕.

What the hell did that mean?

Nil of bloodshed. Sterling of heart. Someone who's pure?

"It'll be active for seven hours. That should be enough time to keep him away from his house. He can't die if he's not at the site of death, right?" Soren turns to me and I groan.

"I sure hope so. I'm still trying to think of an excuse other than 'my friend put a spell on you' when he wakes up." I hand the book back to Soren.

"Hopefully by the time we're done with Sean, we can drive him home and place him in bed like nothing happened." Martie says, taking a seat on one of the empty couches.

I found stress in her delusion that this was going to be an easy fix. Nothing about this was going to be easy. Her assumption that we'd have spare time after dealing with Sean showed Martie's disconnection from the reality of our situation.

Initially, I believed Martie didn't need to know about my clairvoyance or the challenges Thor and I faced attempting to save lives. It was my stupid attempt to shield her from harm.

Though it was wrong, I didn't want her to see that part of my life. The haphazard, messy part filled with tears, insomnia and near death situations.

Now that she knows about all of this, I'm afraid that I've put her in more danger than ever before.

Soren scoffs. "He's going to be really confused when he wakes up."

"Is he okay?"

All of us simultaneously whip our head to the little voice from the kitchen.

"Sean! Jesus."

When did he get back from school?

"Did I scare you?"

"Yeah," I fiddle with the stone in my pocket, "...a little."

His eyes wander to Christian passed out on the couch, then back to mine.