Page 111 of Death Wish

I walked over to the place Xaver had once stood, bent down, and scooped as much of the blood-soaked dirt into the bag as I could find. Just in case. The magical bag held about three pounds of the stuff, even though it was the size of a silver dollar.

“What are you doing?” Cole asked.

“We need Xaver’s blood for the cure. I’m hoping the fact that it’s soaked in dirt won’t matter much.”

“Xaver’s blood? Why do we need his blood?”

“We need the blood of the one originally damned. The one responsible for giving the curse. For Kay, that’s Xaver.”

“How did you find this out?” he asked, brows pinched. “I thought it was just ‘damned blood.’ Like mine.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him my information had come from another demon. And not just any demon. One responsible for one of the seven deadly sins.

“I’m not sure if it’s true, but I figured we’d try all options. Can’t be too safe, right?” There. Didn’t actually answer his question but didn’t lie either.

“Right…”

Tying the drawstrings, I closed the bag and put it in my back pocket. “We should get back to the others and figure out what we need to do to get this right. It’s a big day tomorrow. For all of us.”

That was an understatement, wasn’t it? My anxiety kicked up a notch, knowing that realistically, we only had one chance to save Kay.

Possibly Cole, too. Who knew how much longer he had before the demon side of him took over and he was lost completely? He had come pretty damn close to that point before.

Too close.

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