Eclipse

19.

Give

I stared at the Lupi in a shock that paralysed my limbs. How could I possibly...

"A summoning ritual, you say?" I managed to say. "Then..."

"Yes. They want to bring the Fallen back, and the moment they get their hands on it, they will do it. They cannot get their hands on this."

My mouth opened and closed as I struggled to string together a sentence of comprehensible words.

Shit, Emory muttered in my head.

"You took the words from my mouth," I replied, unconsciously saying the words out loud as I rested my chin in my hands. "Shit."

"Yeah. That's what I was thinking when I got around to translating it. It has a bunch of other stuff, related rituals, but this... this is the big thing."

Yuri remained silent, a worried expression crinkling his forehead like a sheet of paper. "I'm afraid you can no longer stay here, Mitchell," he finally said unhappily.

"What?" Pierce shouted, leaping to his feet in alarm. "No! You—you can't do this to me! I—I'll be mince meat the moment I step out on the streets, Yuri, you realise that, right?" Pierce seized Yuri's shirt and pulled him to his feet, even though Yuri towered above his minute height. "Look, you'd better listen to what I have to say—I saved your ass when those rogues wanted you dead, remember? You can't just leave me on the fucking streets, you hear?" Pierce's voice rose steadily in both volume and pitch with an almost deranged tone, but the sad and pitying expression never left Yuri's face as he looked down at the smaller man, who was almost in tears of desperation.

"Mitchell, I opened this club because I have seen the petty fights between the Lupi and the Nephilim firsthand. The Nephilim have their goals, which I have no wish to be part of, and the few Lupi and opposing Nephilim who are aware of this are trying to stop it. Fallen is neutral territory. If a fight breaks out, both parties are kicked out. If this is what you've been hiding from me... you need to go before people find out and shit hits the roof here. I know that various parties of demon-dominant Nephilim have their own fair share of spies here and they all know of your involvement with the book. The moment they catch whiff of this, they'll strike and they'll strike hard, and I have no intention of letting my business getting caught in the crossfire. You. Have. To. Go."

"Yuri," Pierce croaked. He looked ready to collapse on his knees and beg. "I'm your friend. You can't do this. If they see me... I'm dead before I can even try to find someone to trust to keep me safe. I need your safety! You're the only guy I can trust! You can't just throw me out now... please!"

"Can't you shift? Shift and run until you're safe?" Yuri asked.

"Um... this might be a bad time to say this," I began hesitantly, "but I have recently found out that the Lupi curse may be starting to break. Shifting may not be an option."

Pierce let go of Yuri's shirt abruptly, backing away quickly as despair etched into his face. "Fuck," he breathed, sucking in breaths loudly. "Fuck! What do I do?"

"How about I take the book while you take the first flight out of here?"

"I'll be dead before I even get to the airport, and you just expect me to let the Nephilim get their hands on it? Hell no."

"I'll find a way, Pierce," I said, standing up, "but I can't leave this place without getting the book, and the faster I get out there with it, the better. If it were up to me, I'd let you get killed off for what you did, but I'm nice like that, so I suggest you take the offer you have in your hands right now."