Ritual Magic (13 page)

Cora straightened herself when she finally
pried her eyes free from Jack's bouncing shoulders and sat up
straight in her chair with her own air of regal beauty.

My eyes wandered back over to Jack, who had
resumed his military appearance, noting that he no longer had any
sign of a smile on his face. No emotions, no thoughts, no
words...just action. My lips spread into a smile as I nodded a
silent
thank you
to Jack. Cora was back in her element.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door,
drawing our attention away from Cora. Actually, it was more of a
staccato pounding.

"And
that
will be the ex." Solomon
grumbled as he walked towards the door yet again.

I straightened my shirt as I sat up straight
in my ornate chair before I turned to catch Cora staring at me,
eyeing me with a tiny smile on her pink lips. "Hush," I
snapped.

Von stormed into the room, clearly not
willing to keep the pace that Solomon was using, which was a
combination between the Sean Connery stroll and the Batman stalk.
Maybe I watched too many movies.
You think?

Von stopped short of the table and eyed
everyone sitting there suspiciously as if we were all in cahoots,
planning to steal his monster set of Magic The Gathering trading
cards to sell at a garage sale for a buck.
Does Von even HAVE a
hobby?
I eyed him suspiciously. Who knew?

"What the hell is this?" Von turned on me
and waved his arms around the table to point out the people he
thought that I had forgotten were sitting there.

"We need to talk, Von." My voice was strong.
I was tired of this whole process and Von was the final piece to
the puzzle. It was about time to get the show on the road, as Cora
had said before. "We need your help."

"Help?" His sharp tone dropped a fraction,
but his body remained rigid with stress. He was clearly taken aback
that I was saying that we needed his help at all, and it was a new
development that I was willing to use to my advantage.

I simply stared at him, expressionless.
"Yes, we need your help. You are an integral part of a ritual that
needs to take place before the new moon." My eyes were fixed on the
imaginary 'third eye' location on Von's forehead. I couldn't really
look him square in the eye, so I stared at that spot in between the
eyes where the nose met the forehead. Looking Von in the eye at the
moment just wasn't feasible, but not making eye contact with him
could kill this conversation all together, and I was well aware of
his need for formality.

"What ritual?" He continued to look at me,
but his voice was calm. This was something he understood—magic and
rituals.

"A conception spell." The words floated
across the table, skidding across the grain of the impossibly
beautiful table and slapped him right across the face.

"WHAT did you just SAY?" He was standing so
rigidly that I was afraid his knees might lock and he would faint
right away.
Has Von ever really fainted?
I eyed him
warily.

The best tactic was to act like it was all
business—that seemed to be the only thing that Von
understood...business. I hated him for it.

"Look, Von." My voice took a businesslike
tone as I waved towards an empty seat on the other side of the
table. I wanted him as far away as possible, or I was going to want
to hurt him...a lot. "We need to perform a conception spell to
ensure that Cora..." I swept my hand over to her and it looked like
Von was noticing her for the first time, "is conceived." I said it
like I was explaining the color of shoes—very matter-of-factly.

Von's head turned slowly towards Cora and he
eyed her up and down. I noticed Jack flinch in the corner of my eye
as Cora sat motionless under Von's intense scrutiny. Von finally
turned his eyes back to me and he shook his head. "So what are you
expecting me to do?" He didn't even ask to be introduced.

"Well, first I expect you to act like a
human." I snapped at him. "Von Edwards, this is your daughter, Cora
Elena Ravenwood." My tone was covered with anger as my eyes threw
bitter, icy daggers in his direction. My eye contact was dead on as
my anger sparked and a pop of energy sounded off the walls. "Make
nice and meet your daughter."

Von shifted in his seat and cleared his
throat, considering what I had just said. He turned to face her
fully and nodded sharply like he didn't want to believe any of the
new information, but he was willing to play along...at least for
the moment. "So you are my daughter?" His voice sounded hollow.
Damn.
He wasn't buying it.

"Yes." Cora smiled lovingly at him, a bright
twinkle in her eyes.

I could immediately see the way that she
adored him—she absolutely oozed love and kindness towards him, even
though he didn't deserve it in my eyes. She was compassionate
towards him and worried about his feelings about me. I could tell
by the way her eyes kept jumping from him to me like she was
watching a tennis match happen from one end of the table to the
other.
Table tennis
. She was swirling with love and
adoration, hitting me dead in the heart as I realized that I was
slightly jealous of the way that she was looking at Von. She was
consumed with the fact that he was her supportive, loving
Daddy
even though he was looking at her like she had just
grown a tail.
He really pisses me off sometimes
.

The room was dominated by silence as Von
eyed Cora and then me. He eyed Cora again and then flicked back to
me. He was doing a great job of looking like a complete idiot when,
of all people, Gabriel spoke up.

"I am afraid that this situation may call
for a little more proof for our friend Edwards here." He shrugged
and continued to sit with his chin high in the air. He looked so
stuck-up when he did that and I wanted to growl at him, but I
simply glared in Von's general direction instead.

"Ask your questions, Von. You need to get to
know your daughter." My voice shook on the word
daughter
.

Why did
he
have to be a part of the
equation? I mean
really
? Couldn't we have had another
vampire, demon or anything?! Why Von? He just rubbed me in all of
the wrong ways, and he was doing a damned good job of finding a few
new ones to add to the list.
Are we still angry about the lack
of passion when you went missing?
Yes,
we are!

Von looked down at the table like he was
organizing his thoughts, causing all of us to sit quietly as he
contemplated the information before him. He looked up at Cora and
turned his head so that he wasn't looking at her straight-on. He
was looking at her like he was suspicious of her, ready to take
anything she said as a complete falsehood, and I wanted more than
anything to scream.

"I can't think of anything to ask." He ran
his fingers through his hair. "I don't believe any of this." His
voice trailed off as he turned his attention back to me. "I can't
even believe that you are idiotic enough to buy into this, Celeste.
You have to
think
and
act
like a queen. You can't go
around accepting the story of every stranger you meet willy-nilly."
He shook his head at me as if I was stupid, and that made my back
zip with energetic tingles and burning sensations.

Oooh, if he was JUST within my reach!
What would I do?
SMACK him, but good!

Knowing that I held a bit of information
that he was not privy to, I grinned across the table at him before
I continued. "Gabriel, Leo and Solomon all agree that she is
telling the truth." I shrugged at him like he was the odd man out.
"And so do I."

"Who the
hell
is Leo? And what does
it matter what
Solomon
believes? This is
our
daughter, right? At least supposedly." Von leaned forward onto the
table like the topic was suddenly getting very interesting. Little
did he know that what he was about to hear was going to set his
world on edge.

"Actually," Solomon's voice rang through the
room, the rich timbre of his baritone drawing Von's eyes to his,
"Cora is the daughter of five.
You
," he pointed at Von with
a finger gun, "Gabriel," he flicked his thumb in his direction,
allowing the gun to dissolve away, "
Me
," his thumb thumped
into his own chest, "Celeste's," his other hand swept in my general
direction for effect, "and
his.
" Solomon gestured to the
darkened doorway over in the back of the room, where a dark shadow
was now standing.

Leo's timing was absolute perfection. He
sauntered into the room like he owned the place and straightened
his blue pinstriped Italian suit with one, strong, sinewy hand
while gazing leisurely over all of the tense faces at the table.
His hair was slicked back and his eyes were the vivid blue that he
swore was his natural eye color.
Contacts, they have to be
contacts. No one has eyes that amazing in real life
.

I smiled up at him as he swept through the
room with an air of dominance and sauntered over to me, leaning
over my chair to place a scalding kiss on my cheek. I could
immediately feel a fierce blush on my cheeks because I was
wondering if everyone would be able to see what his touch did to my
skin. But now
everyone
could clearly see what I thought of
the kiss and how Leo just seemed to push my buttons without even
trying.
What a crafty, sneaky demon.

"Thank you for coming, Leo." I smiled up at
him, genuinely thrilled that he had appeared when he had. "We have
a few new guests that you need to become acquainted with." I
couldn't even lift my hand because of the sudden exhaustion that
had practically tied me to the chair, every muscle entirely
depleted of energy. I just flicked my chin towards the end of the
table.

"Charmed." Leo's voice oozed of elegance and
something I was instantly suspicious of. "It is quite enjoyable to
make your acquaintance, both of you." He nodded first from Gabriel
and then to Von. "I am Leonzio Emilio Castillion, king of the
demons." He bowed deeply to add an air of formality while everyone
in the room, besides myself and Solomon, were trying to decide if
he was honestly for real. "It is an immense pleasure to meet the
final two of the ring of power." His comment sounded snide but his
eyes gave away that he actually meant what he said. He was
sincerely impressed with the gathering before him.

"I see that we are all of the same
caliber...a Native American Chieftain with remarkable longevity and
agility, a warlock of the highest ranking, a king vampire and
warrior, as well as
myself
, the king of demons." He squared
his shoulders as if he was savoring being in such unique company.
"Yes, this is a very select group."

Leo's eyes scanned the table until they
finally fell upon Cora, instantly lighting up upon recognizing her.
"My darling daughter! Come here and give your old Babbo a hug, will
you?" He threw his arms open and there was a brush of a chair as
Cora rushed into Leo's arms for a deep and loving embrace.

"Babbo." She whispered, but everyone in the
room could hear her clearly. She sounded like a little girl that
needed reassurance and support. I immediately turned to throw
visual daggers at Von before returning them back to watch as Leo
and Cora embraced.

"That's okay," Leo patted her back as he
continued to scan the room as if he were looking for danger. His
eyes finally rested on Von's stoic face and a moment of panic
struck a chord in my mind.
We need him, Leo. Don't hurt
him...much.
Von was going to be the weak link in this
impossible scenario, it was becoming painfully clear.

My eyes were still watching Leo and Cora as
I heard Von's quaking voice from across the table. "Explain."

Flicking my gaze back towards him, I
realized that he was piercing me through with what he probably
figured was his most stern expression. I couldn't resist as I
rolled my eyes and placed my hands in my lap, wringing them for all
they were worth underneath the table.

Cleansing breath. Count to ten. Close
your eyes. Center yourself.
I was working as hard as I could to
ensure that the words that I spoke came out in the right order and
with the correct sentiments.

"Cora is our daughter. And when I say
our
daughter
I mean
OUR
daughter." I waved around the room,
pointing to every single male except for Jack. "She is a miracle
child, conceived by magic in a ritual that must take place in less
than four days." My heartbeat picked up as I looked over at Solomon
and then back towards Von's side of the table. "She will be the
child of all five of us, and she will be skilled beyond compare.
She is absolutely incredible, indescribable, and you would know
that if you took a moment to actually
see
her." My voice
seethed with anger that was impossible to disguise.

Suddenly Solomon's hand was on my shoulder
as if he was trying to hold me down in my spot. Maybe he knew me a
little
too
well.

Von stared over at Leo and Cora as Leo
rubbed her back and whispered to her in Italian. Cora nodded as she
rested her cheek gently against his shoulder, closing her eyes as
she appeared to be submitting to his words and support. The two
were almost the exact same height, which obviously seemed to bother
Von as he straightened in his chair.

"You don't need me for this." He shook his
head and looked over at the window. "I don't need to be a part of
this...farce." He pushed up and out of his seat as he walked over
to the window, pulling back the heavy curtain to scan the tall line
of buildings standing across from ours and the expanse of Central
Park below. "Nice view."

"Yes, we
do
need you, Von." My voice
shook slightly. I was panicked at what losing Von's cooperation
might cost us. "Without you...the prophecy will not be fulfilled."
I shook with fear, my heart raced, and I could hear the pounding in
my ears, echoing as if I were in a huge tunnel.