Page 17 of Monsters of Midnight

Cade had managed to successfully bring his brother back to life.

Chapter 9

LANEY

I sat curled up on the side of the couch, my feet tucked underneath me and my arms hugging a pillow. My stomach was still upset, still dancing in tiny little circles that I couldn’t quite get a handle on, and calm down. Katrina sat with me and was watching me closely, I assumed to make sure nothing went wrong with the potion.

“Do we even know what it’s supposed to do?” I asked.

“It’ll help you control your powers. Better,” Katrina said. “I use it a lot up in Cougar Creek. We had a lot of brand-new witches come in. They couldn’t control their power so I made a potion to help them learn how to do it better.”

“How many women are in Cougar Creek Coven?” I asked.

“There’s a high priestess and two long-term members of the coven, which is me and Hilda. Then there are my children. They both go to the Crown Academy, but they’re in the coven too. Boy and girl. It’s not just females in covens. In the last year we had five new women join the coven, each one representing a point on the pentacle and their combined strength is what helps protect the portal there.

“Where does that portal go to?” I asked. “Is it permanent?”

“It’s one of the portals to Undirheim,” Katrina said, “but it’s very dangerous,” she added, as she saw my ears perk up when she told me where the portal went to.

“So, you can get us in!” I exclaimed.

“Negative. The Cougar Creek portal is a sealed one,” she said. “You can’t open the rift at Cougar Creek to get into Undirheim. You need to follow proper channels. There are ways about it. I don’t know exactly what they are, but if you try to get into Undirheim through Cougar Creek, you’re going to come up against a coven of witches who don’t want you to. At the end of the day they all work for the Demigod Corporation so you’re better off figuring out how Ryder wants to deal with this.”

I gave up and threw myself back against the couch. I felt a little bit petulant, but the truth was Ryder was off fighting monsters for the DCC. Doing the same shit he’d always done, which was go off and take care of his work rather than taking care of things that might need attention on the home front, in this case rescuing Caroline from Undirheim.

“If Cade’s brother comes back, that’s who Caroline was sacrificed for, isn’t it?” I asked, deciding to take a different approach when I saw how terse Katrina was. The Cougar Creek Coven portal was off-limits. I knew how to bide my time.

“Yes, if Cade’s brother has materialized into the physical realm, then he’s done that on the value of Caroline’s sacrifice,” Katrina said.

“So, it makes sense that all we have to do is kill Cade’s brother and Caroline will come back?” I asked.

Katrina shook her head. “Doesn’t work like that. Once you die, you die. For Caroline to come back to life, there would need to be a new sacrifice.”

A shudder ran through me. I knew I’d be willing to sacrifice myself for Caroline to come back, but it didn’t sound like that would solve the problem of well, me wanting to be with my best friend and hang out with her rather than in different parallel universes.

I knew I couldn’t justify killing someone to bring her back. That was never going to be an option. Even though there are people on the planet I’d like to murder, specifically thinking of Magnus, but there was no way I could put anybody else through what it felt like having Caroline dead.

A sharp pain ran through my temple. I put my fingers against my brow.

“Are you okay?” Katrina asked.

“I think so,” I said, breathing in sharply as another pain scorched through my head. It felt like an electric voltage charging my brain, leaving a dull pain in its wake.”

“It’s probably the medicine working. Maybe you should lay down,” Lady Albright suggested.

“I don’t really feel like being alone down in my room right now,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry.

“Well, you’re already practically lying down on the couch,” Katrina smiled, standing up. “How’s your stomach feeling?”

“It’ll calm down, but my aching head is too much,” I muttered.

“I have another potion for that if you’d like,” Katrina offered.

“Not if I have to drink it,” I shook my head gently, waving my hand at her as she moved toward the kitchen.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “This one you just have to smell, it’s like an oil.”

“I guess I can give it a try,” I stared out the window. We were so high up you could see the birds flying. I watched them as I heard Katrina open her box of potions and start to mess around with the glass bottles.

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