Page 81 of Death Trap

Tamara tapped the side of her face. After a long moment, she said, “With your blood and power, it might. Or…a demon could fall into our laps.”

“Either way, it’s something, right? If it’s a demon, then we’ll use him to get us out.”

“I like the way you’re thinking.” She clapped her hands once. “Okay, let’s get started. Do you have anything sharp? Since the kitchen is staged and we need to slice your palms.”

“Whymypalms?”

“That’s where your power seems to concentrate the most. So that’s where we need to take the blood from. It’ll give us a better advantage to make this work.”

Made sense.

So we needed something sharp…

I fiddled with the pendant on the choker.

When Tamara’s gaze found it, an idea popped into my head the same time it appeared on her face. I took off the necklace in a hurry and handed it to her. She ripped off the Victorian charm and bent the thinner pieces decorating the edge until it snapped, leaving a jagged piece pointing out.

“Perfect.” She smiled, and the jitters started. She seemed a little too excited to slice me open.

She snatched my arm and gripped it tightly. “Now, hold still. Don’t you dare scream.”

I glared at her. But the moment she pressed the sharp tip of that pendant into my palm, I sucked in a quick breath as the pain sliced through me. I had almost forgotten this was Hell. Things hurt much more, and souls bled here. It was part of the torture.

I bit my bottom lip hard enough for more blood to coat my tongue as she did the other palm.

As the dark red began to flow from my hands, Tamara jerked me toward the coffee table so it could spill there instead of getting absorbed into the shag carpet.

“Have you ever made a spell from scratch before?” I asked, mostly to distract myself from watching the blood drip onto the wood. But also to ignore the floating sensation taking over my body.

“Once or twice,” she answered, completely unfazed by what was happening. After rubbing her hands in my blood, she climbed onto the table and began drawing symbols on the ceiling. Right where Azrael had popped out of.

“And how did that go?”

She shrugged and continued drawing. “One success…”

“And the other one…?”

“One reason I’m here now.”

Ah, I see.

My nerves jumped up a notch, and my vision blurred.

Now would be a bad time to pass out.

When she was done, she jumped down. “Are you too woozy to draw your part?” She pointed to the empty places where my spirit door symbols belonged. “There, there, there, and there. Then complete the circle.”

I blinked a few times, locked my knees, and took a deep breath in to steady myself before I nodded. “I can do it.”

“Good, because I don’t need you keeling over.”

Me neither.

“Make sure your drawings are perfect. Otherwise…”

“We could have a mishap. Got it.” With my fists clenched, I climbed onto the coffee table on wobbly legs. Using my bloody fingers, I drew the squiggles I had drawn so many times before with my chalk. A couple of times I had to stop and regather myself before the faintness took hold. When I finished, I jumped down and stumbled a bit. Tamara’s hand was quick to hook under my arm and haul me back up.

“And here I thought you would leave me if I fell,” I told her.

---