Blood Relatives

33. Six Heads Are Better Than One

Carmine drove wearily to Anna's apartment; she'd agreed to meet Anna and Mia for a sleepover at Anna's house that night. Not that she really felt like hanging out after what she'd been through. But it would be way harder to cancel than to just go and pretend that her debacle with Conner had never happened. So that's what she did. As soon as she got there, she made her way to Anna's kitchen.

"Do you have any Advil?" she asked.

"I think so." Anna told her. "What for?"

"I've just got a little headache. There was a lot of noise." Carmine said, remembering the smashing of their feet on that metal door. She took three before joining her friends in Anna's bedroom.

Before she'd left for her ill-timed adventure with Conner, Carmine had packed every book she had that even mentioned the word incubus. She'd already discounted most of them, but it was all she had. Mia brought her laptop. Of course, Anna had never bothered to get Internet, but Mia connected anyway through one of Anna's neighbors.

Normally, this kind of thing wasn't something Carmine would want to do at a sleepover, but they really needed to figure something out. And for the first time, Carmine had no idea how to get rid of the person they were facing. She figured she could use the extra help.

"Thanks for helping me tonight." Carmine told her friends.

"Of course." Anna told her.

"No problem." Mia said. "Besides, we need to have something to show the boys when we see them."

"Yeah, I don't think they're that good at making plans." Carmine seemed to remember making up most of it herself last year.

"But to be fair, we didn't let them help that much." Anna pointed out.

"That's because we were too worried about them finding out about you two." Carmine told her.

"But we don't have to worry about that anymore. Remember?" Mia grinned wickedly at Carmine, and Carmine instantly knew what she was thinking.

"Ok – fine. I messed that up. But it worked out pretty good, didn't it?"

"It did." Mia admitted. But she was still smirking to herself.

"So what books did you bring?" Anna asked. Carmine showed her, and Anna grabbed the first three. "I'll go through these."

"I'll see what I can find online." Mia told them. So Carmine took the rest of the books and started thumbing through them. Two hours later, Mia finally spoke up.

"You know, these websites are really stupid." she told them.

"What do they say?" Carmine asked, leaning over to look at the screen.

"Mostly that you shouldn't worry. I found a couple that tell you how to summon one."

"Well that sounds like a fantastic idea." Carmine shuddered.

"I did find one thing that might be useful." Anna said slowly. "There's some book that talks about the five ways to get rid of an incubus or succubus."

"What ways?" Mia asked.

"It doesn't say."

"Then what book?"

"It doesn't say that either."

"Then what good is whatever you're reading?"

"...I think I know that book." Carmine told them, peering over Anna's shoulder.

"Wait – really?" Mia asked.

"Yeah."

"How? It doesn't look like it's published anymore." Anna said.