Alaric reached for the book. He read the spel , too, frowning. "Does it have to be a blood spel ?" he asked Mrs. Flowers. "If it backfires, the phantom might be able to turn it against us."
"I'm afraid it's going to have to be a blood spel ," Mrs. Flowers replied. "We'd need more time to experiment to change the spel , and time is the one thing we don't have. If the phantom is able to use its captives the way we think it can, it's only going to get more powerful."
Alaric began to speak again but was interrupted.
"Wait," said Celia, a slightly shril note in her usual y husky voice. "A blood spel ? What does that mean? I don't want to get involved in anything" - she searched for a word - "unsavory."
She reached for the book, but Stefan slammed his hand down on it. "Unsavory or not, this is what we're doing," he said quietly, but with a voice as hard as steel. "And you're a part of it. It's too late for you to back out now. I won't let you."
Celia gave a convulsive shudder and cringed back in her chair. "Don't you dare threaten me," she said, her voice quavering.
"Everybody calm down," Meredith said sharply. "Celia, no one is going to make you do anything unless you agree to it. I'l protect you myself if need be." Her eyes flew quickly to Alaric, who was glancing back and forth between them, looking worried. "But we need your help. Please. You may have saved us al by finding the spel , and we're grateful, but Stefan's right - you're part of this, too. I don't know if it'l work without you." She hesitated a beat. "Or, if it does, it might leave you as the phantom's only target," she added cunningly.
Celia shivered again and wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm not a coward," she said miserably. "I'm a scientist, and this... irrational mysticism worries me. But I'm in. I'l help any way I can."
Meredith, for the first time, felt a flash of sympathy for her. She understood how hard it must be for Celia to continue to think of herself as a logical person while the boundaries of what she'd always accepted as reality col apsed around her.
"Thank you, Celia." Meredith glanced around the room at the others. "We've got the ritual. We've got the ingredients. We just need to gather everything together and start casting the spel . Are we ready?"
Everyone sat up straighter, their faces taking on expressions of stern resolve. As scary as this was, it was good to final y have a purpose and a plan.
Stefan breathed deeply and visibly took hold of himself, his shoulders relaxing and his stance settling into something less predatory. "Okay, Meredith," he said. His stormy green eyes met her cool gray ones, in perfect accord. "Let's do this."
Chapter 31
Knowing he couldn't perform the ritual on an empty stomach, Stefan hunted down several squirrels in Mrs. Flowers's backyard, then returned to the boardinghouse's garage. Meredith had parked Mrs. Flowers's antique Ford out in the drive, and there was more than enough room to set up everything they needed for the banishment ritual. Stefan cocked his head at a skittering noise in the shadows and identified the fast-beating heart of a little mouse. The atmosphere might not be a comfortable one, but the spaciousness of the room and its cement floor meant it would be an excel ent place to work the spel .
"Hand me the tape measure, please," Alaric said from his sprawled position in the middle of the garage floor. "I need to get this line just the right length." Mrs. Flowers had dug up a box of multicolored chalk from somewhere in the boardinghouse, and Alaric had the book propped open and was careful y copying the circles, arcane symbols, parabolas, and el ipses from its pages onto the smooth cement.
Stefan gave him the tool and watched as he measured careful y from the innermost circle to a row of strange runes near the outermost edge of his drawing. "It's important that everything be precise," Alaric said, frowning and doublechecking the ends of the measuring tape. "The smal est error could lead to us accidental y setting this thing loose in Fel 's Church."
"But isn't it loose already?" asked Stefan.
"No," Alaric explained. "This ritual wil al ow the phantom to appear in its corporeal form, which is far more dangerous than the insubstantial thing it is now."
"Then you'd better get this right," Stefan agreed grimly.
"If this al goes as planned, the phantom wil be trapped in the innermost circle," Alaric said, pointing. "We'l be at the outermost edge, over there past the runes. We ought to be safe out there." He looked up and gave Stefan a rueful grin.
"I hope. I'm afraid I've never done any kind of summoning in real life before, although I've read a lot about it."
Terrific, Stefan thought, but he returned Alaric's smile without comment. The man was doing the best he could. Al they could do was hope it would be enough to save Elena and the others.
Meredith and Mrs. Flowers entered the garage, each carrying a plastic shopping bag. Celia trailed behind them.
"Holy water," Meredith said, lifting a plant mister out of her bag to show him.
"It doesn't work on vampires," Stefan reminded her.
"We're not summoning a vampire," she replied, and went off to mist the outer spaces in the diagram, careful not to disturb the chalk lines.
Alaric stood and started very cautiously hopping out of the huge multicolored diagram, clutching the book in one hand. "I think we're about ready," he said.
Mrs. Flowers looked at Stefan. "We need the others," she said. "Everyone affected by the phantom's powers has to be here."
"I'l help you carry them down," Alaric offered.