Chapter 103 - Simon

I went down the hall and knocked on the door. It was early and she may not be up yet.

“Who is it?” Nana yelled from the other side of the door.

“It’s me, Nana.”

“What do you want?” She yelled again without opening the door.

“I have a question about magic that you may have the answer to.”

She cracked the door open. “Why haven’t you asked Violet?” She stared at me through the crack.

“She’s under a lot of stress and I don’t want to make it worse.”

“Hmmm.” She thought for a second. “Ok, come in.” She swung the door open and shuffled to a desk that had a light on and a book open. She sat down in the chair and looked at me. “Well?”

“This needs to be between us only.” I said staring at her, letting my Alpha voice seep through.

“All right, all right. On with it.” She waved her hand at me to continue.

“There were some situations that have occurred that Violet is led to believe that the bad witch, Eli, has started using Blood Magic. And she thinks that if she were to face that she wouldn’t be able survive.” I paused and stared at her. She looked off in the distance, lost in thought. “That’s why I wanted to come to you. To see if you knew anything about Blood Magic and if there was a way to defeat it.”

She shot up and shuffled to the piles of books that lined the wall. This was the first time that I was in her room and books covered every wall. She was muttering to herself as she read the titles until she stopped at one. “Make yourself useful and get this one.” She pointed to a book that was halfway down the stack.

I lifted the books off the stack, and she grabbed the book. I set the books down. She leafed through the book and landed on a page. There was a dark shadow figure on it, one similar to what Violet was talking about when she rescued Toby.

“What does it say?” I asked looking over the writing but couldn’t understand it because like Violet’s book it must have been in Latin.

“It’s talking about how you can use Blood Magic for all sorts of things. Manipulation, summon demons, conjure plagues, Voodoo, mass destruction, all sorts of spells.” She continued to read. “To be able to do Blood Magic, you have to give a great sacrifice.”

“Like what?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t say. It just says, ‘a great sacrifice.’ It could be anything, a life, your soul, really anything that the Devil wants.”

“It does have to do with the Devil, then.”

“Devil, demon, Angel. Whatever force is around that can grant them the Blood Magic power.” She continued to read. “Blood Magic is not necessarily evil. It depends on how you use it.”

“Bad witch equals bad intentions.”

“Right.”

“Does it say if there is a way to defeat blood magic.”

She took the book and sat down in her chair. She studied it for ten minutes. “Ah ha!” She yelled and I jumped. She was silent for so long I wasn’t prepared for her to yell.

“What? What does it say?”

She continued to read over the text.

“Nana!”

“Christ, boy! Let an old woman finish before she answers.” She read the text again and cleared her throat. “Blood Magic is hard to defeat but can. The caster needs to be bound by White Magic. They need to be bound in such a way they cannot move and speak. If they can move, they can use motion to conjure magic. If they can speak, they can use words to conjure magic.”

“Sounds easy enough.” I said thinking over her words.

“But the witch needs to be powerful. More powerful than when the one using Blood Magic was before they made the sacrifice to get Blood Magic.”

I nodded. Violet was more powerful than any of the witches around. She was the last familiar witch. She said she was powerful but had no official training. She felt like that was a detriment because she didn’t get the training other familiar witches had in the past.

“Does the writing say anything else?” I looked down at the words, as if they would magically make sense to me.

“Nothing useful.” She shook her head and looked up at me.

“Can I borrow this?” I pointed to the book.

“Yes, but bring it back.” She handed over the book, “and if there is a tear in it, that’s coming out of your hide.”

“Got it, Nana.” I yelled behind me as I made my way back to our room. This was great. There was a way to defeat this asshole. And Violet could have some hope.

When I got back into our room, Violet was sitting up staring at the wall in front of her. I took the book and sat it next to her.

“Violet, what’s wrong?”

She shook her head as if to clear it. “Nothing, just thinking. I couldn’t sleep.”

“I went to talk to Nana. She has had her nose in a book for as long as I can remember. Back then I didn’t know what they were about. Now that I do, I thought she would be a good resource.”

She looked at me. “I didn’t even think about Dot.”

“It’s good that I went to ask her. She gave me this book and we have a solution. Or as good of a solution as we can get.”

Violet picked up the book. I flipped to the page that Nana was looking at.

“From what she told me, if we bind the one who is the one using Blood Magic. We defeat them.” I paused, but she was absorbed in the words in front of her. “More or less.”

She flipped the page and continued to read. I really need to learn Latin, since my mate and grandmother were witches and constantly had Latin books around.

She looked up from the book and a smile spread across her face. “Simon, this is really good.” She looked back down. “It gives me an understanding of what it is we are up against.”

My heart swelled. Only an hour ago she was talking about leaving, to save our pack. Now she was saying this is good, that it’s helping. “Told you to leave it to me.”

She scoffed. “Thank you, Simon.” She continued to read.

I kissed her head.

“Actually, can you do me a favor?” She touched my arm. And the electrodes pulsed through me, in the same way as they did when she first touched me.

“Anything.”

“Would you please go and make sure Stella has everything she needs? And make sure everything still looks good? The bartenders are arriving at four o’clock to set up everything and guests should start arriving at five o'clock. I really need to study this before the event today to make sure I am ready in case something does happen.

“Of course, you ask me to go to the belly of the beast.” I smirked at her. “I’ll do it. But only for you.”

“Thank you.” She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. She went back to the book.