Page 46 of Midlife Vampire Unexpected

“Right now, we’re focused on the crystals.” Mae directed her attention to the crystals.

Kartika studied the crystals. “Okay, one second.” She began twisting the crystals around bit by bit.

She looked down, frowning.

“One of them is missing from the formation,” she said. “I’ll go and look in my things. Maybe it fell out of the box or something. I don’t know. I do know there was a small hematite crystal that sat in the center of the configuration when Frank had it set up.”

I glanced around at the rest of the Coven and nodded. “I’ll go down to the hotel and get it with you.”

With a bit of luck we‘d identified the missing link to our Fae communication tool.

Chapter 33

Kartika had the rental car she’d driven up to The Estate with, so I followed her in the cop car. I’d gotten dressed that morning to go to work. Antonio thought I was crazy for wanting to go to work in the evening, but the reality was being attacked by a perpetrator, whether they were supernatural or not, wasn’t a good excuse to not go to work when you were a police officer. In fact, it was even more of a reason to go to work because there were bad guys out there and they were creating havoc.

My plan was to get the crystal, deliver it to The Estate, and then go back and check in with Sheriff Ted. At least one of us needed to show up to work to keep him off the premises of The Estate and I knew it wasn’t safe for Bianca to go into work. After last night, maybe it wasn’t that safe for me, either.

Kartika’s tears hadn’t bothered me earlier. I’d understood them. If I found out I was adopted at this age, it would be a pretty scary thing and I would have a lot of questions for my parents. We hoped to keep her safe by not having her association with The Estate known.

I stood by silently in Kartika’s hotel room as she began to dig around in her boxes. “Those boxes were in another box. I’ll find it here in a second. I’m still here for another couple of days. I’ll go down to the hot springs and then to the seaside. Hopefully I’ll see you guys around.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to be nice and noncommittal at the same time. I was going to keep an eye on Kartika while she was here, that was for sure, but the sooner she got out of town, the safer it was going to be for her as far as I could see it. Until we found the sixth member of the coven, the last thing we needed right now was one more liability.

“I found it!” Kartika said, turning to me and handing me a small, long box. “It’s what Frank gave me to give you. He said these would activate the other crystals.”

“And you’re sure there’s no more,” I said, standing there, wanting to make sure I wouldn’t have to come down here in a few hours to find something else.

The box was taped and sealed shut. I didn’t really want to open it, so I had to trust her.

“It’s everything, I’m sure. I’m sorry I didn’t deliver them all the same time. It was my mistake.”

I felt a wave of compassion for her. I totally knew how she felt being all alone. She sounded like I felt when I lived in Indianapolis. I wanted to bring her into the coven and then share with her sort of the goodness of our found family, but it wasn’t safe yet. Maybe it would never be safe. It was one of the risks of being in the supernatural world. It seemed we were always one step away from death and destruction. Then again, I had died and it didn’t seem too bad so far.

“Thanks for your help,” I said, gripping the box tighter and heading back up to The Estate.

By the time I got back to The Estate, everybody had regrouped in the red room and were looking at the crystals again, trying out different formations. They settled on moving it back the way Kartika had left it. I handed Mae the box.

“Here’s the last of the boxes.”

Mae turned to Antonio, but he ignored her kissing me on the cheek instead.

There was no way to introduce the idea of me and Antonio being together any other way. I ignored the looks and raised eyebrows of the rest of the coven. Mae handed the box of crystals to Antonio.

“This is kind of your show,” she said. “It was Hilda’s idea to use the dark crystals.”

“Let’s get the box open,” Antonio said.

He used one shifted talon to rip open the tape in the box and open it up to a small row of perfectly square hematite crystals. There was a single row of about ten of them inside the rectangular box. He lifted them one at a time, interspersing them into the pattern of the crystals that were already on the table.

There was one hematite crystal that was larger than the others. “This is the keystone,” Antonio said, setting it down in the middle of the crystal formation. “Now we need some elemental magic.”

“I don’t even know what to do,” Jane said.

“You need to feel it,” Antonio said. “In your soul. Reach out to all your people, all of the Fae, the ancient ones. They have a psychic connection between all of them and it’s gotten weaker over the years. They use crystals to help keep it focused, so if you can reach into that magic of connection, then the crystals will enhance your ability to connect with them.”

“So, you’re basically saying she’s the transmitter?” I asked.

“I’m saying she’s the receiver, and the crystals are the enhancer. They’ll make it possible for the rest of us to see what’s going on.” Antonio said.

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