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Anton was about to leave the house late Wednesday night when his mother came home.

"Anton! Where are you going?"Advertisement

"I thought I'd go hang out at The Nocturne for a while. Where've you been? You're never here anymore."

"I've been at your father's laboratory."

"The lab? What were you doing there?"

Taking his arm, Serafina led him back into the house and into the living room. Sitting on the sofa, she pulled him down beside her.

"I've been practicing a spell I found in an old book."

"What kind of spell?"

Serafina plucked at the hem of her skirt, suddenly reluctant to tell her son what she had been doing.

"Mother? What kind of spell?"

"Bringing dead animals back to life."

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Anton frowned. "Why would you want to do that?"

Turning toward Anton, she took his hands in hers. "I bought some old books on witchcraft from someone on eBay." Her voice trembled with excitement. "There's a spell in one of them, a spell for bringing the dead back to life."

Anton's frown deepened. "Dead animals?"

"Dead people. Your father, Anton, I've found a way to bring him back."

Anton stared at his mother. She was out of her mind, he thought. She had grieved for his father so hard and for so long, it had driven her over the edge.

"Even if such a spell worked," he said quietly, "I doubt if it would work on someone who's been dead as long as my father."

"There was no time limit," she said. "It will work, I know it will."

"What's the spell?"

Serafina had read it so often, she could recite it from memory. "On All Hallow's Eve, between dusk and dawn, the blood of kin must be drawn, nine drops, no more, no less, the blood of kin you must bless. To this the blood of love you add, and the blood of an enemy, it must be had. Seven drops of each, one by one, quickly now, it must be done. Four drops of a maiden's blood, rosemary for remembrance, an infant's blood, three drops for life anew. A sprinkling of yarrow, a dash of rue. Spread the blood upon the crypt, when the moon commands the sky. Call forth the dead, his name times three. Doubt not, and he will come to thee."

Anton swore under his breath. She really was crazy. The blood of kin. No doubt she intended to use his own blood, Anton thought. The blood of an enemy. Probably that of the vampire, DeLongpre. And the blood of a maiden? Cara's.

"Was this the revenge you had planned all along?" he asked.

"No, but this is better. Don't you see? I'll bring your father back and he can exact his own vengeance."

She clasped her hands to her breasts, her expression one of pure bliss. "And we'll be a family. Think of it, Anton, the three of together at last."

"There's no way to know if it will work," Anton said. "No way to practice it before we try it on my father."

"It will work," she said again, and there was no doubt in her voice. "I know it will."

Anton stared at his mother. She sounded so certain. "You didn't...?" He shook his head. Surely she hadn't tried that silly incantation on anything besides animals; and if she had, he didn't want to know.

She's crazy, he thought again. Yet even as he worried that his mother was losing her mind, he found himself wondering if the incantation would, indeed, work. pqdm.com