Song of the Chapter: The Wombats – "Curveballs"
|Revelations|
"Alright," Percy started, opening up the grimoire on the fiberglass table, "let's get down to business."
"To defeat...the Hans," Luce sang with a giggle. Percy, rather than be annoyed with her outburst, like her past boyfriends, looked at her adoringly.
We were all stuffed from our breakfast, and while the coffee could've been a wee bit better, the food was delicious. I was prepared to go into a food coma after eating so many Belgian waffles, but the discussion of the grimoire was more important than sleep. And after Aspen and I finished all the things we needed to do today, we could always take a nap later.
The waitress swept by and gathered up our empty, but dirty plates, off the table. Aspen, having been a server himself when he was living in California, stacked the plates and utensils neatly together at the end of our table to make it easier for her to pick everything up. I had never known that was easier for them until he went on a mini rant about how he hated when patrons left everything out and dirty for him to pick up. He claimed: "It wasn't in my job description to be their maid."
"So what's up with the grimoire?" Aspen asked, sitting forward with his elbows resting on the table.
"Well, for one thing," Percy hesitated, gulping as he flipped through the pages, "The pages of the grimoire are not made of paper..."
"Soooo, they're made of papyrus or animal skins?" Luce asked, leaning over Percy to get a better look at the book.
He shook his head and cringed. "Animal skin isn't too far off..."
My eyes widened as I looked down at the book in fear, realization crippling me. "Is it...human?"
He nodded. "I took a piece off when I realized the texture felt different. Just a small bit off the corner, and had one of my friends in the biology department at school test it. It came back human."
We all took a moment to let that sink in, and shuddered.
"Does that mean that my ancestors killed people? Just to make a goddamn book?!" I was livid. I was horrified. I was scared. Was that what I was made out to be—a murderer who used her victims to add more things to the grimoire? Had Mom done that?
"It was an ancient practice. Something that dates back thousands of years. Whoever made the book used their victims' skin to make it. I don't think anything in here is too recent. Maybe a century years old? But that's about it."
"A century?" I let out a humorless laugh. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? That the last relative that added to that book—that killed for it—was my great-great grandmother?"
Somehow the grimoire ended up in my hands. I looked down at the open pages with such disdain and hatred. It felt like fire was coiling around my veins. It filled me with a white-hot burning sensation, but not a painful one—one that made me feel powerful.
I felt a deep pressure in my upper thigh. It was a tight squeezing sensation, and it was making the white-hot feeling fluctuate—go from powerful explosion to a dimmed ember.
"Ray!" Luce shouted as she reached across the table to wrap her small elegant hands around my fisted one.
At the sound of her panicked voice, the white-hot feeling evaporated as if it had never been there in the first place. Instead I was left feeling...cold...empty.
YOU ARE READING
Of Darkness (Supernatural Mates Book One)
Paranormal"He's going to die, okay?!" My bottom lip quivered, a telltale sign that I was already crying. Rory took another step away from me, this time like he had been struck by lightening and thrown into the throngs of a hurricane. "He's going to die and th...
