Private The Last One to Know

"Zoraida Eva Marie... What exactly did you mean by that?" Rafael demanded when his granddaughter replied to his comment about Shiro turning into a vampire with a "Not her too" while a very worried and secretive look crossed her features.

Flinching inwardly, Zora just stared at her grandfather. She knew that she couldn't stay quiet too much longer. Shiro had obviously been affected too by the spell. The same spell that had changed her son into a lich. And that meant the spell had probably affected whomever else did the ritual with Jeremiah.

"Shiro was part of a ritual -" Zora began calmly.

"Ritual? What kind of ritual? And who else were you referring to?" Rafael asked suspiciously, his anger just barely held in check as he interrupted Zoraida.

"Resurrección..." Zoraida answered uneasily and in Spanish, purposefully avoiding his gaze as she also deliberately "forgot" to mention that Jeremiah had been the one she had been referring to. Hoping on some level that she might be able to deflect somehow his immediate anger.

"She was doing what? Bringing back the dead..." Rafael replied in disbelief as he peered at Zoraida, not quite believing that Shiro would be that inane.

"Why in the name of the gods would she be attempting such a spell? That's magic way above her, way above most of you. And you damn well know that I do not condone that type of magic. It's dangerous. It can corrupt the caster nd the soul it's trying to bring back. What the hell, Zoraida. You know what Tomas was like. You knew the all the terrible things he did with that type of magic," Rafael began, his voice rising in anger as he switched between Spanish and English while he berated his granddaughter.


@Kada

Zoraida attempted to calm her grandfather down and appease him somehow while he went off on her. She knew Jeremiah was in the house, and she really did not want him - or Rafael - to meet under these circumstances. She knew she could deal with Rafael's wrath - she was used to it - but she was not so sure her son could.

"Jeremiah, no..." she exclaimed when he suddenly entered the room, instinctively wanting to shield him from all this unpleasantness. "Let me, please..." she pleaded.

"Jere..." Rafael whirled when he heard his grandson's voice and stopped his tirade in mid-sentence as he slowly took in the lich before him.

"What in the name of Herne?!" he demanded as he shot Zoraida an impatient and thunderous look.

"Have you done to my grandson?!" he asked, his voice rising in bewildered anger.

"You should have reversed the spell then," Rafael told Jeremiah, his attention now fixated on his grandson.

"Any experienced mage would have known that. Otherwise, and especially when doing big magic, it will only bounce back on you..." he stated, pointing out the obvious.

"And this is exactly why you do not do that type of magic with a group of... I am assuming - since you chose Shiro for this folly... of inexperienced, novice casters," he ranted, knowing full well Shiro's capabilities, and feeling downright frustrated at how stupid they had all been.

"You do know you could have killed yourself, or worse, right?" Rafael asked Jeremiah, still angry, but not as much as he was a few minutes ago. His anger was dissipating, but slowly.

"Jeremiah!?" Zora cried out as she ran over to him when he collapsed on the floor, extremely worried about him.

"Grandfather Stop it, please!" she exclaimed as she looked at Rafael, choking back tears. "He meant no harm," she said in Spanish.

"Zoraida, please," Rafael sighed in exasperation as his gaze wandered over to a very contrite and defeated looking, Jeremiah.

"I know he meant no harm. However, what he did could have killed him, or killed him and the other casters," he explained as he continued to gaze at his grandson, his anger dissipating almost completely now as he relented.

"And Jeremiah, there are worse things than death. You could have brought back something that has no soul, or transferred your own soul or any of the other casters into the undead body," his grandfather explained.

"One wrong word, one badly timed incantation and all of you could have died. That is why I am angry," Rafael admitted finally as he peered at Zoraida as she tried to console and protect her son from his anger, a fact that made him purse his lips together.

Rafael held his tongue at that. It was useless to point out the obvious... if they had been in control, all this would not have happened. The arrogance of youth, he knew it all too well. Like mother, like son, he thought darkly as his gaze moved over Zoraida, and frowned. At least, she hadn't taken others with her in her folly to cure herself.

"Don't worry, Shiro is fine...Well, at least compared to you she is. She got off easy. Believe me,," Rafael stated coolly, still quite angry that she had chosen to lie and cover up her participation in what had happened to her cousin and his great-grandson.