School seemed so very unimportant so he decided to skip it and go help read and research. His mom was okay with that. In fact, she went with him to help. Paul definitely didn't expect his mom to be so on board.
Everyone in his group was also there. Paul felt in his gut they were close. There will be something in these books that will help. Paul and his mom walked into the study. Melissa and Aiden were already reading through books.
“Oh hi Mrs. Lisbon.” Melissa said with a surprised tone.
“Hello Melissa, hello Aiden. What needs to be read?” she responded.
“There's a stack over there not in the catalog book.” Aiden said as he pointed.
Grace sat down and started reading. Paul did the same.
“Okay so what are we looking for?” Grace asked.
“We don't know for sure, anything to do with blood magic or the town's history. Anything you think might be helpful. Go with your gut and there are no wrong answers.” Aiden responded.
An hour would go by and Grace came across a journal from a demon. Her eyes widened. “Oh my god, are demons real?”
“Oh yeah we found that out yesterday. Thalia doesn't know if angels are real.” Paul replied.
She paused for a minute processing this new information. “Are ghosts real? Could that be a thing?”
No one answered, so Aiden yelled out. “Hey Thalia!”
“Yeah.” She yelled her response from the next room.
“Are ghosts real!” he asked loudly.
“Yes!” they heard through the wall.
“Thank you, Thalia!” He screamed out. Using a normal volume he continued “Yeah so ghosts are real apparently.”
“I'm sorry, how does she know all this stuff again?” Mrs. Lisbon asked.
Paul explained, “A decade ago when she went off to college she got recruited for this magic society. The first year of it is just learning different stuff.”
“So Hogwarts she went to Hogwarts.” Grace said in disbelief.
“I can see her as a Ravenclaw.” Melissa chimed in.
“No you're Ravenclaw, she is definitely a Slytherin.” Aiden joked.
The room filled with laughter. Just then Thalia came running in exclaiming, “Ghosts are real. Guys! The spirits are real!”
She left the room and called out for the twins. They all just looked around at each other confused. She eventually came back to explain. “We've been trying to find written words and anything to tell us what happened when they sealed the tomb. Why not just ask them point blank.”
Grace slowly closed the book she had. “You wanna just ask ghosts.”
Thalia ran away excited and Beatriz followed. Tyler looked at Paul from the doorway and laughed. “Superpower.” he said and walked away.
It took an hour to set up. Mr. Everald and the twins were left in a room and given instructions while Thalia waited outside the room. Paul thought this was weird. “Why aren't you in there?”
“It's probably better if I'm not. My type of magic isn't popular.” she responded.
“Using dead people,” he said.
“Yeah. But I didn't see them as people at that point. When you die your soul leaves. Your soul is what makes you you. It's your life force, your memories, it's you. When it leaves, they aren't them anymore, they are just parts.” she told him.
Paul didn't know how to respond. It kind of made sense. Paul didn't really think about his soul before this all. He did a little when he was younger while he was learning about death and heaven when his dad died.
There was nothing for Paul to help with so he grabbed his mom and left for the night. A text message came in before he fell asleep. It stated they failed, but they're going to try something else tomorrow. This text was frustrating to read.
It was Tuesday now and Paul's mother made him go to school. Paul exclaimed. “Come on mom. There's a grand scheme to life here and A.P. biology is not that important if a witch has an evil scheme involving my friends.”
“Paul, honey, in the grand scheme of things, I think I've been outrageously cool about all this. One thing I'm not cool with is you not graduating.” his mom responded.
There was no point in arguing. So he went to school. It was lunch time, and he was expecting to eat alone however Melissa showed up and sat down next to him.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Oh I'm pretty useless until they figure out the talking to the dead thing. And if I don't show up to school some girl will try to take my place on top here.” replied Melissa.
There was a brief laugh and then a pause. The pause went on longer and became awkward. Paul decided to blurt the first thing in his head. “Did you break up with me because I'm a human, and you're a vampire?”
Melissa's face was visibly relieved. “Yeah. I did. It wasn't something I planned. You were so cute talking about your future. And then you said you were at the beginning of your life.”
“So.” Paul said.
“I'm dead Paul. There is no one future. I'm gonna have to have dozens. I'll have to move around and start over.” she replied.
He was a bit frustrated. “I'm capable of moving.”
“Yeah for a while that'll be swell. But it's not a normal life. There's no family home and no kids and uplifting your life every five years. It would have been unfair of me to start a relationship with you, have us fall in love, and then spring the I'm a vampire thing on you. You're gonna die of old age Paul. I'm gonna go on forever, or I will be murdered.” Melissa explained.
Paul began to argue. “I mean if Delilah and Zane can do it-”
The girl interrupted, “He's fucked up for doing that. I like him, I do. But he made a bad move. One that was unfair to Delilah. Now she has to become a vampire or lose the guy she loves. He basically made the decision for her.”
“Never thought of it that way. How about this? We put a timer on it. Be together until we go off to college. I think we're both emotionally intelligent enough to do this. We're going off to college anyways. Chances are we'll end up in different places.” Paul said.
Melissa was silently thinking. Paul added “Plus I'm going in with eyes wide open. No vampire surprise.”
She laughed and then kissed him. Paul was beginning to believe Tyler's theory, maybe the universe does always work out for him. The couple continued eating and decided to cut the rest of the day. They went to the tunnels to help out. In the car Melissa got hungry and pulled out a blood bag from her purse. This was the first time he had seen vampires feeding so casually. It weirded Paul out a little but at least she wasn't eating him.
Aiden and Quinn were there as well. They were moving the cursed artifacts in the tunnels. Zane wanted them away from people, and they were safe as long as they did not open the boxes. Paul and Melissa decided to flip through the catalog book that they found in the cabin. He had flipped through it before but this time he got to read each one.
Before they got too comfy Thalia came rushing in. “There's more blood!” Everyone just stared at her. So she continued. “The reason it didn't work was because it wasn't just the two family's blood. It was every type of supernatural being and the Everalds. We have the witches and the humans. All we have to do is track them down and get their blood.”
“How do you expect us to do that?” Melissa asked.
“We will find a way. We're getting so close.” Thalia replied.
Aiden stepped up looking concerned, “Okay did we ever stop to think what we're gonna do when we open it.”
“What do you mean?” Thalia asked.
“I'm happy we are solving it but what if we are opening a Pandora box here.” Aiden explained.
Beatriz stepped forward. “Someone was willing to kill to get it opened. They don't have any plans to stop. Think of everyone who was caught in the middle of this. Quinn's dad and Rhea and Sophia. The others from the town fair. Paul was stabbed.
“Twice. They stabbed me twice.” Paul added.
Beatriz continued. “No one knows what's really going on. Just us. There is something powerful in the tomb. If we get it first we can stop people from getting hurt. We would have some leverage.”
“I'm just saying we need to be careful here. We don't know how dangerous magic can be?” Aiden replied and looked to Thalia.
Paul was wondering if this was something Eddie could help with. However, all this stuff happened way before technology was around. There was no harm in trying so he decided to call anyway.
Thalia passed around a list of different types of blood they needed and the family name that donated the blood. They would have to track down specific bloodlines. The first word he saw was demon blood. He did not want to be the one who had to get that. The next up was the siren's blood.
Paul was shocked and Quinn noticed.
“What's up?” he asked.
“Siren's blood” Paul replied.
“Siren, like hot ladies who sing.” Quinn questioned Thalia.
“Kind of yeah. But not just ladies, sirens could be men, and it's not just singing.” Thalia replied.
“No it's not that they exist. Look at the family name.” Paul instructed.
He showed Quinn the list and Quinn was just as shocked.
“Will you two tell us!” Aiden demanded. He grabbed the paper from their hands to look at what was shocking the boys.
“Our football coach might be a siren.” Paul explained.
“No way. It has to be a coincidence. Maybe he just happens to have the same last name. Is it a common name?” Mr. Everald suggested.
“It's Cantorisky,” Paul responded.
“Hey what is a djinn?” Aiden asked.
“It's what genies are based off of.” Thalia replied.
“I knew it.” Quinn said.
Noah went up and grabbed the list. “Huh! Would you look at that? Leland. The demon on the list. I knew a guy by that last name when we lived here. We used to play poker.”
“Okay that's a great start. Use Eddie to see if you can track him down. You three see if you can get Coach's blood.” Mr. Everald instructed.
“Should we take a vampire, then we can compel him.” Paul asked.
“A lot of supernaturals can't be compelled.” Thalia insisted.
Before everyone left Thalia gave them a jar. “Here take this blood jar, that's one thing I know how to do.”
The three teens had no idea how to get the coach's blood without him knowing. They did discuss causing an accident, but they needed to get in a jar. The decision was made to drug him. They would sneak in and put it in his food, so tomorrow they could come back and collect the blood.
Paul knew drugging people was bad in theory. They just couldn't think of anything else. Luckily they knew where the coach lived because every year on his birthday the team would TP his house. The boys drove over. They parked across the street from the house and waited for nightfall. This plan made him anxious so he called his mother to ask.
“I'm sorry you wanna know what exactly?” she responded.
“How many sleeping pills to knock out a grown man to harvest his blood.” he replied.
“What pills are you using?” she asked.
“The ones from the medicine cabinets.” Paul answered.
“Those won't knock him out, wait there I'm coming over.” she said as she hung up.
Quinn and Aiden looked at Paul. He told them her reply. “She said wait here she is coming over.”
The boys waited for 40 minutes in the car when Grace pulled up. She walked over to the car and got in.
“Hey mom,” Paul greeted.
“Okay these are special circumstances, promise me you'll never drug anyone again.” she demanded.
"Yeah promise, no drugging.” Paul responded.
Grace turned to Aiden and Quinn. “You two. Promise me.”
“Yeah, no more drugging people. I promise.” Aiden assured.
“Never again Mrs. Lisbon.” Quinn said in agreement.
“How are we getting in?” she asked.
“Well luckily Paul and I were taught how to open locks magically.” Aiden responded.
She looked at Paul. “Okay let's go.”
Paul and his mother walked up to the back door. He whispered the words “cincinno infectum facti” and the door unlocked. The Coach's house was actually nicer than he expected. Unfortunately he had hardwood floors so walking quietly was tricky.
The two found the coach sleeping in his bedroom. Grace tiptoed up to the sleeping man. The floor creaked, and the coach stirred in his sleep. They froze in their tracks. Paul's heart had never beat so fast. He grabbed his lucky pendant and prayed. “Alright guardian angel now is the time to start helping.” Paul thought.
He looked over to his mother, and she wasn't even breaking a sweat. Paul couldn't help but notice how she looked so calm and collected.
Coach eventually settled and started snoring. The duo started slowly making their way toward the bed. Nurse Lisbon took her syringe, inserted it into the sleeping man's shoulder and pushed down on the plunger.
Paul's heart was racing, he definitely thought he was going to wake up. They waited a few minutes for the drug to kick in. Paul poked him a few times to make sure. Grace took another syringe and stuck it into his arm and drew some blood. Paul couldn't believe this worked or how easy it was.
Calling his mom was a great idea he admitted to himself. He should have just done that in the first place. They returned to the car.