Jake groaned. “Right. Of course.” He’d insisted on leaving the Olds behind. The police were looking for it, after all. See? Here was one of those overlooked things. A potentially fatal miscalculation. “And I suppose the book has info we need to do this thing up right?”
Kelsey shifted in his seat again. “The book lays out the whole ritual for performing a banishment spell. How to perform the sacrifice. With a knife, by the way. There are chants the person performing the sacrifice has to, uh, chant.”
“The chants are in the book?”
“Yeah.”
Jake ceased drumming the steering wheel and wrapped his fingers tight around the hard plastic. “We need that fucking book.”
Jordan leaned forward, poked her head between the seats. “We don’t have time to go back. We do that, the Harvest will begin without us. We’ll be too late.”
Jake glanced at the clock.
Almost 1:00.
Kelsey had risked sending a text message to one of his friends, a fellow student at Rockville High he was sure he could trust. The friend verified that a special assembly had been called for two P.M. If Will’s mother had told him the truth-and there was no reason to doubt she had-this would be when Lamia would initiate her Harvest of Souls. Jordan was right. Going back for the book at this point was out of the question.
Now Kelsey leaned forward and Jordan retreated. “She’s right. But there’s a Barnes & Noble on the way, at a strip mall right off the street. It’s a long shot, but they might have another copy there.”
Kristen said, “We are not performing any goddamned blood sacrifice.”
Jake ignored the comment. He knew she was on edge. Brittle. She might fall apart any moment. Getting into an argument with her would be counterproductive. To understate.
He looked at Kelsey. “Right. We make a pit stop at Barnes & Noble. Think. Is there anything else we need before we get to the school?”
“Just a knife.”
“I’ve got an old switchblade in the glove box. Will that do?”
“I guess it’ll have to.”
“Did you hear what I fucking said?” Kristen’s eyes flashed as she leaned toward Jake. Her nostrils flared. There was a harsher, more emphatic edge in her voice now. A tone indicating no tolerance for disagreement. “We’re not doing this. Are you stupid? Who are you thinking of sacrificing anyway?”
Jake looked at her. He hesitated. He knew what he needed to say would only incense her further. But there was just no way around it. He’d intuited the only solution the moment Kelsey told him the victim only needed to be human. And it sucked. It really did. He didn’t particularly want to die. He made his expression as sober as he could and said, “It has to be me.”
“What!?”
Kristen’s scream reverberated in the car.
Jake cringed and looked away from her. “It’s the only way.”
“Bullshit it is!” Kristen leaned closer and grabbed a handful of his shirt. “You’re all I’ve got left. I won’t let you do this.”
Jake peeled her hand away and smoothed his shirt. “What do you propose we do, then? Just let all those kids die?”
“Fuck them.”
Jake gaped at her. “Kristen-”
“I mean it. They’re nothing to me.” She glanced at the kids in the back. “Them, too. I don’t care what happens to them. We should just drop them off and skip town. You said you’d take me back to Minnesota with you, remember?”
Jake put a hand to his temple. Her ranting was making his head hurt. He’d known his impulsive offer to take her with him when he left might come back to haunt him, but he hadn’t expected it to happen so soon. “We can’t do that. Think about what you’re saying, Kristen. One of those kids you don’t give a shit about is Trey. I understand that you’re upset. This on the heels of what happened to your brother has to be almost too much to bear. But-”
“ALMOST!?”
Her voice rose to screech level now, felt like a knife going through his skull.
She went on: “And as for your precious brother, he didn’t seem too interested in your help this morning. He hit you, remember? So, yeah, fuck him, too.”
Jordan made a sound of disgust. “Could you please shut the fuck up? And by the way, I don’t care what happens to you either, bitch.”
Jake’s stomach began to knot up. He could feel the situation spinning out of control, and didn’t have the first clue what to do about it.
Kristen twisted in her seat and aimed Stu’s.38 at Jordan’s midsection. “Talk to me like that again and I’ll shoot you. You do not want to fuck with me.”
Jordan sneered. “Right. I’m half demon, remember? What could your bullets do to me?”
“I don’t know, bitch. Maybe I should pumps six rounds straight into your face and find out.”
Jake’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel. He’d sensed before that Kristen harbored a fearsome temper. That it could be so…overwhelming, though, came as a revelation. He recalled what she’d said about her boyfriend kicking her out for unspecified transgressions and knew he should have headed off any sort of relationship with her in that moment.
Hindsight, as always, was a motherfucker.
He braced a hand on Kristen’s shoulder and shoved her back into her seat. She gasped in surprise and glared at him.
Jordan laughed. “Oooh. Boyfriend lays the smack down.”
Kristen screamed again and lunged toward the gap between the seats.
Jake shoved her back again and said, “STOP!” He glanced at the rearview mirror, sought Jordan’s eyes and found them. “That goes for both of you. Knock it the fuck off.”
There was a lull in the battle then. Kristen sat panting in the front seat. That and the thrum of traffic around them were the only sounds for more than a minute.
Then Jake relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and exhaled a long breath. “I’ve made up my mind, Kristen. This has to be done. There’s no one else. I’m sure as hell not asking one of these kids to take my place. I told you before to stay home, but you didn’t listen. If you want, I can drop you off at the bookstore. You could call a taxi to take you home.”
Kristen looked at him. She was outwardly calmer now, her expression smooth and unreadable. But a glint in her eyes hinted a still-raging storm within. “No. You’re stuck with me.”
“Even if it means watching me die?”
Kristen didn’t say anything, just stared at him.
Kelsey said, “Hey, there’s that mall.”
Jake saw the strip mall coming up on the right. The Barnes & Noble looked to be the main attraction here, dominating the center of the retail space. He flicked on the blinker, switched lanes, and slowed down as they neared the parking lot. The lot was crowded, so he pulled to a stop outside the store’s entrance and fished his wallet out of his back pocket. He extracted a fifty-dollar bill and passed it back to Kelsey.
“That should cover it. Get on in there and find that book or something similar. I’ll cruise the lot and circle back.”
Kristen said, “You’re forgetting something.”
Jake braced himself for another argument, but made himself look at her anyway. “Yeah?”
Kristen’s expression remained placid, her tone even. “The police are looking for him. He shouldn’t be showing his face in public.”
Jake cursed himself for overlooking something so obvious. “Oh. Right.”
Kristen twisted in her seat again and extended a hand to ward Kelsey. “Give me the money. I’ll go get the book.”
Jordan snorted. “Yeah, right. And pretend not to find it.”
She snatched the fifty from Kelsey’s fingertips and climbed over him. She pushed against the back of the seat with an unnecessary level of force, jostling Kristen as she reached for the door handle. Then the door was open and she was standing outside.
She leaned down and peered through the open window. “What’s the name of that book?”