Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Ididn’t enjoy seeing death, but I wouldn’t have minded a second or two to bask in the afterglow of Brock Greer’s. Unfortunately, the buzzards took off after he sipped his final breath, the alpha of the wake leaving behind a verbal middle finger for me.
“Out of my territory within the hour, wolf leader,” Alpha Tomas said. “I am grateful for the chance to avenge our Selena. However, my gratitude only extends so far. Consider this the end of my leniency.”
I stared up at him from where I’d collapsed in the dirt. “I can’t move.”
“Move or die,” he replied and flew off.
“I’m not the bad guy here,” I flung at him as he retreated. “I’m the one who killed the bad guy.”
Blood trickled into my ear, and I tried to raise my hand to palpate the wounds on my head, neck, face. My fingers felt like they belonged to someone else. I let my numb hand flop to my side again.
“Fennel? Cecil?” I rasped.
Silence.
They’re okay. They’re safe. They’re resilient and strong and made of magic.
I gazed at the cemetery fence that abutted the yard. I didn’t know if it was blood loss, panic, or just plain fear, but I could’ve sworn I saw a figure in a hood standing beside a tree inside the grounds, watching me. The man with the chains or the ghoul?
My guess was the latter. The damned ghoul was probably laughing himself silly watching me crawl around in the dirt.
Joke was on him, because I enjoy crawling in dirt.
My magic beckoned to the soil surrounding the house.
It was dormant, long asleep, not alive enough to pull me into its embrace to heal.
Ignored soil could be awakened, but it took time.
I scooped up a heaping handful and drew as much magic as I could from it, welcoming the burn as it melted into my skin.
My body screamed with pain as my magic tried to heal me. It was an agony made so much worse when two sets of hands grabbed me and hauled me roughly up onto the porch.
I greyed out while they dragged me inside the decrepit house, regaining full consciousness after they dumped my body inside a chalk circle that they sealed with more chalk. Then lost it again when they cast a spell that hit me like a brick to the chest and stole my breath away.
When I woke again, it was to the sound of two women chanting. They sat cross-legged at equidistant points from each other, much as Bronwyn, Margaux, and I had when forming our temporary coven.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
The women never stopped chanting. They didn’t even look up when I spoke, simply stared at their hands, lips moving, rasping Latin in an increasingly rapid staccato.
Heat bloomed on my body, from the outside in. It was as if I were being baked in the oven like a batch of Ida’s biscuits. This wasn’t my magic trying to heal me. It was coming from somewhere else.
“Bronwyn?” I called out her name, but I knew she wasn’t here.
My next realization came to me slowly, probably because the day they’d approached Ronan’s truck, they’d worn dresses and had pretty headbands in their hair. They’d looked almost ethereal, what humans thought fairies looked like.
Tonight, they were in black from beanies to boots. Long sleeves, pants.
It was midday and a hundred degrees. They couldn’t have been comfortable, yet I didn’t spy a single drop of sweat on their brows. There was no air conditioning, either. Given the age of the place, I doubt it would’ve passed an HVAC inspection.
“You’re the Gibson sisters,” I said. “The Org’s pet necromancers.”
One of the women stopped chanting and slowly raised her head.
“Do not hold our family name in your mouth, demon spawn. I command it.” She did something with her hands then lightly touched the salt circle. It glimmered with low silver flames, like a gas burner set to 2.
Mercury fire. The same stuff I’d used to take out the demon Gnath. It was harmless to humans, but deadly to demons.
I didn’t know if I should be relieved or terrified.
“Are you Geraldine or Grisette?”
The speaking sister flinched at the first name; the other sister flinched at the second. Neither woman would ever make it in professional poker, that much was for certain. Ida would mop the floor with them.
“Geraldine, who do you work for?” She flinched again. “I mean, I know it’s The Org, but exactly who do you report to?”
The other sister, Grisette, raised her fist and struck the salt circle. The mercury flames grew three feet, effectively hiding their faces.
“How rude,” I muttered. “Hey, if you’re banishing or killing me or whatever, what difference does it matter if you tell me who sent you? Don’t I deserve to know the name of the person who ordered my death?”
“Miles didn’t tell you? Typical.” The voice came from near my head—Geraldine.
“He was all bluster,” Grisette said. “So many of them are. The Org isn’t what it used to be.”
“No, it is not,” Geraldine said, with an annoyed huff.
“There was a time when saying you were an honored member of The Esteemed Order of the Removal of the Blight on Humankind truly meant something. Now, look at us. Stuck in this miserable little town in this horrid house frying our behinds off in these ridiculous outfits. What I wouldn’t give to put on a summer dress. ”
“What I wouldn’t give for a glass of lemonade,” her sister drawled. “And you’re right about these outfits. Emerson’s forced us to wear these stupid tactical getups for the last time. I think this might have to be our final job for him, sister.”
“Agreed,” her sister said.
“Why don’t you quit now?” I asked. “Tell me where to find Emerson, and I’d be happy to deliver your resignation letters personally.”
A dust bunny rolled around my head. I reached for the soil embedded in the lint and absorbed its magic into my skin.
I was decently powered up from the soil I’d absorbed in the Mini and outside the house, but most of that magic had been shunted into healing my injuries.
I wasn’t a fast healer like a wolf, but my magic did its best to keep me alive.
“Nice try, demon-witch. The Gibson twins always complete the job. Even if we don’t like it,” Grisette said. “We have an excellent work ethic.”
“It’s a responsibility thing,” Geraldine said. “Something a creature like you wouldn’t understand.”
The irony.
“I’m giving you a chance to walk away. If you don’t take this opportunity to do the right thing, I’m going to kill you both, and what’s worse, you won’t be the first person I’ve killed tonight.”
Technically, the buzzards had killed Greer and the Yarnells, but only after I’d forsworn the wolves. Being separated from the pack had left them with no external strength to draw upon when their own ran out.
The birds were the bullet, but I was the gun.
I took a second to search inside myself for second thoughts or regrets and found none. Floyd Pallás had left me mess after mess. His blackmail, his wounded wolves, his radicalized alphas. Taking out Greer and the Yarnells had been just another post-Floyd clean-up job.
“You talk pretty big for a demon trapped in a circle,” Geraldine said.
“And you talk pretty big for a necromancer who plays a little too close to Hell,” I snapped.
There was a sudden sharp intake of breath. Grisette’s.
“You threaten us, demon?” She snapped her fingers, and the mercury flames leapt off the circle and danced toward me.
“Not a demon. Just a pissed-off woman.” I stared at the glossy silver flames until black starbursts formed in my vision. “Bring me Bronwyn. I know she’s here.”
“I bet this one possessed the witch,” Geraldine whispered. “Like she did Miles.”
“I didn’t possess Miles, you dumbass. Gnath did. And I killed him after he did it—Gnath, I mean, not Miles. Your ex-coworker is alive and well in some forgotten village in a country where they don’t keep track of things like passports or social security numbers.”
“There’s no way that’s true,” Grisette said.
“Look, bring Bronwyn to me or I’m going to get her myself. And if I do it, there’ll be bloodshed and weeping. A lot of weeping, because, ladies—” I tightened all the muscles in my chest, bracing myself as I rose into a seated position. “—I have absolutely had it with you.”
“Had it with us?” Geraldine yelled. “Us?”
Grisette, having apparently clocked the rage in my posture accurately, leapt to her feet and held out both hands, pouring magic into the mercury flames. Necromancer magic. It was different from witch and mage magic, but there was a lot of overlap. Ida had educated me.
The conflagration engulfed my body, icy-hot flames rolling down my chest and back, blowing my hair around with an unseen wind. Black spots flowered in my vision and spread until I couldn’t see anything but silver and darkness.
“Where did you come from? What do you think you’re— Get out of there this instant!” Geraldine shrieked.
A cat-sized pocket of darkness leapt over the chalk line and into the salt circle, landing squarely on my head. Tiny claws pierced my scalp.
I winced. “About time you showed up.”
Fennel replied with a meow that rumbled deep within his chest. I’d heard happy, sad, annoyed, and chastising—that one I’d heard a lot lately—Fennel, but I’d never heard enraged Fennel.
Mercury flames continued licking at my skin. They didn’t singe my hair or scald my skin, but they did burn. Gods, did they burn.
Deep within me, Demon Betty recoiled.
Should’ve put the fire out the second they cast the spell.
But it wouldn’t have mattered. They’d have thrown something else at me if that spell had failed. I wasn’t a necromancer, and Ida hadn’t taught me everything. I knew some things the sisters could do, but I didn’t know everything they could do.
Fennel climbed down my shoulders and landed in my lap.
“Thanks for coming,” I whispered.
The flames didn’t affect him at all. His magic allowed him to traverse the otherworlds, but he wasn’t demon. He wasn’t human, either. I didn’t know what he was, exactly, but I was very glad he was fond of me.
“I love you, Fennel.”