Chapter 39

Notetoself.Never start a conversation with a necromancer about death. The cold, haunted look in Dyre"s eyes and the chill in his voice as he spoke about suffering was still with me as I made my way downstairs.

Aahil really had answered the door. I nearly tripped over my own feet as I hurried down the stairs so I could salvage the situation before someone got killed. My people or theirs, I could see it going either way. Especially if the Alliance sent a different team this time, people who weren"t used to the weirdness around here.

I let out a sigh of relief when I found the jinn leaning against the doorframe as he sneered at field mage whatever-the-fuck-her-number-was. "Heya, Jacki," I said with a big fake smile. "How"s it hanging?"

"Lovell." She went to step past Aahil, into the house, but stopped when the threshold erupted into flames.

"No one invited you in, mage," my wonderful asshole jinn purred as he crossed his arms over his chest, still lounging in the threshold while the fire burned around and through him. "But by all means, ignore my warning."

Jacki looked even worse than she had last time. The bags under her eyes looked like deep bruises, and her aura spoke of stress and exhaustion. "I"m hereto speak to the owner of the house, demon," she bit out, not at all cowed by the dangerous elemental who was toying with her. "Oleander Lovell, I have questions for you regarding a magical surge that occurred late yesterday morning." She grabbed her tablet device from her belt and waved it at me. "I would let you read the official warrant for questioning, but I didn"t bring my fire extinguisher."

"Aahil," I said tiredly. "Just let her in. The whole world knows we"d wipe the floor with her and her pathetic team before they even got a shot in."

Aahil grinned. "You do have a point, witch." He put out the fires and held out an arm, gesturing for the Alliance squad to enter. Jacki was followed by the same team who had accompanied her before. And they all looked nearly as stressed as she was.

I saw Hasumi wander over to the bookshelf just inside the formal sitting room we never used, and my lips twitched as the water weaver pretended to select a book from the dusty row of spell periodicals while they got a read on everyone"s emotions. Niamh stood in the center of the entryway with her arms crossed, ass-eyeing every one of them in a way that said she was just looking for a reason to shoot or stab someone. She really didn"t care for the Supernatural Alliance. Something about fae hospitality rules and territory. I don"t know. Zhong was a little less obvious about his hovering, even though he towered over Niamh and outweighed her by, like, a whole person.

"What do you need this time?" I asked, waving the Alliance team into the dusty sitting room. If people were going to keep coming inside, I might have to start cleaning this room. But then again, maybe if it was dirty, they"d be less inclined to come back...

Jacki held up the tablet and I skimmed the notice of intent to inquire about a disturbance. I signed where she indicated, then sank into one of the stiff wingback chairs, smirking when she stiffly collapsed into the chair opposite mine. The chick was about to fall over. The stick up her ass was the only thing holding her up. I thought maybe Ambrose was right about the Alliance falling apart. They were clearly overworking their low-level minions.

"I"m here to ask about a fluctuation in magic use," she said evenly.

I shrugged. "You know I"m rehabbing traumatized supes here. You"ve already noted and investigated the sudden increase in magic use over the last month or so. You confirmed there"s no unauthorized demons or other nasties hanging around last time you were here. Nothing new." Nothing new that she needed to know about.

She scrubbed at her face. "What are you really doing, Lovell?"

I kept my face neutral. "What are any of us doing? Just trying my best to get by."

She wasn"t amused. "Look. I want to give a good report for you. Do what I can to make the higher-ups stop pestering you and stop wasting my time every time they send me and my crew out here to investigate nonsense. But I need you to be straight with me." She sat up taller, squaring her shoulders as she looked at me. "I need you to agree to a truth charm so there will be no doubt about your motives and what you"re getting up to in this creepy old house."

I narrowed my eyes at her. She could probably cast a truth spell on me at any time, or activate a pre-prepped charm to the same effect. It wasn"t common magic, but the Alliance had lots of resources. They could afford to outfit their minions with the most effective magic. However, there was the little bit about how casting a truth spell without express permission from the person being spelled was considered mind manipulation and violation of free will and could land you a prison sentence.

She was right. If I agreed to a spell like that, no one would doubt the truth of what I said. But, there were secrets I did need to keep. I couldn"t have the Alliance knowing about Ambrose and Dyre, for one thing. And for another…well there were all kinds of little white (and not so white) lies built into my very existence. Under a truth spell, there was no telling what kind of shit I"d let slip that could be used against me, now or in the future.

"Sorry, but no," I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. "I"m not letting some stranger poke around in my head. I can"t risk you asking the wrong question and hearing something out of context. The Alliance is probably more than willing to twist my words however it suits them, if they think it will give them a reason to eliminate the last living Lovell."

She let out a long sigh, her shoulders sagging a little. "That"s pretty much what I thought you"d say. But I had to ask."

I hesitated for a second, but fuck it. I sort of liked this woman, for some reason. Whether she believed me or not was on her. "I"m not letting you spell me," I said firmly. "But I"ll tell you what truth I can."

She narrowed her hazel eyes at me suspiciously. "Meaning you"re going to lie when it"s convenient."

I shook my head. "No. It"s just that some secrets aren"t mine to share. I"m not going to violate confidences and trust just to appease your bosses. Especially when I haven"t done anything wrong."

She arched an eyebrow.

So I did the best I could with the whole truth thing. "I hate my family and how they lived their lives. I"ve had to spend my whole life—ever since I was a little kid—being judged for the crimes of people I hardly even knew, just because we share genetics. I"m not my parents. Or my grandparents, or crazy old aunt Shady. I don"t get off on causing death and destruction. I don"t believe in making people suffer just so I can amass more power. I honestly don"t understand why that would be someone"s life goal, you know?"

She regarded me skeptically. "And yet you"ve come back to live in the ancestral home after years away. And you"re gathering an army of powerful supernatural slaves to do your bidding."

I snorted. "Right. I have mediumship skills, did your files tell you that?"

She nodded reluctantly.

"Well," I said, bending the truth just enough to hide the existence of the bestiary. "One day I was in an antique shop pawning off things to pay my rent in the human world—where I have chosen to live a magicless human life just to get away from all the annoying judgmental magic users, by the way. Anyway, I picked up a ghost hovering near the stuff I had pawned." I looked away, my gaze finding Elijah, where he hovered as an amorphous blob of smoke no one else could see. "He"s been helping me to find some of the people who were badly wronged by my ancestors." I looked at Jacki and hoped she saw the truth in my eyes. "I"ve been freeing them from entrapment, doing my best to make amends to them for the evil my family has done." That felt a little too close to the truth, so I elaborated. "Um…you know, like the jinn I freed from that lamp I showed you last time?" I straightened my spine and tried to stop sounding so pathetic. It wasn"t like I needed the Alliance"s sympathy or permission. I just needed them to leave me the hell alone. "Some of them had no other place to go," I told her evenly. "They had lost entire families and ways of living. So they"re staying here temporarily until they can find a place for themselves out there."

Jacki stared into my eyes as if she could will me to reveal my secrets. "So you"re just a good Samaritan."

I shrugged. "More like a pushover with an annoying soft spot for outcasts."

But of course her faeish looking partner chose that moment to pipe up. "I sense bodies. Corpses."

I stifled the urge to scrub my hands over my face or pull at my hair in irritation. Instead, I just shrugged. "We have a crypt on the grounds. It"s been used by the Lovells for hundreds of years."

She pinned me with a suspicious glare, her hand going to her weapons belt. "I didn"t sense them the last couple times we were here."

I rolled my eyes. "Because I had the crypt sealed with wards. But I"ve been doing some remodeling. Tearing out the crypt and moving it further back into the woods." I shrugged. "I"m thinking of building a pool for the water elemental who is currently using this place as sanctuary."

Sure, it was a weird explanation. But not technically illegal.

Jacki stood. "Show me."

I blinked at her. Fuck my life. "Um. Now?"

She and her team all shifted to make sure they had hands on or near their weapons and charms. I really did not want to go to war with the Alliance today. My magic was still recovering from yesterday. And I was physically exhausted from cleaning up Dyre"s mess.

"Fine!" I threw my hands up, then stood. "You can gawk at my mess. Fucking nosey, suspicious assholes."

I lead them out back and waved a hand dramatically to show them the messed up back yard. Let "em gawk. It wasn"t like I had done anything illegal. Just really fucking weird. And the entire magical community already thought I was strange anyway. Might as well give them something to talk about.

"What the hell happened here?" Jacki demanded, her eyes darting around, face wearing a priceless expression of horror and confusion as she took in the ruined back wall, the half-smashed crypt, and the pile of corpses in various states of decay. Dyre had helped me erect a ward around the stack of bodies to keep them from further decay or other unpleasant consequences until we could banish the ghosts so we could burn them. I sure as shit wasn"t keeping them around. But hey, it turned out knowing how to magically preserve bodies came in handy. Score one for the necromancer.

"I tried to do some landscaping," I said dryly. "I"ve never been trained, since no one wants a Lovell for a student. And the land here is apparently really resistant to growing things. I hear it"s tainted by having my ancestors in residence all those years." I waved a hand at the courtyard wall and the crypt. "Backfired. Blew shit up. Made one hell of a mess." I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. "Happy now? The big, bad Lovell witch can"t even use magic and she just blew up the family crypt. I"m sure everyone will have a good laugh at my expense. Nothing new there."

She just blinked at me. "No one is going to believe that"s what happened."

Niamh stepped up beside me, her hand on the dagger at her belt. "It"s the truth."

Jacki just shook her head. "I don"t care if it"s true or not, the Alliance will think you were trying to harvest spell ingredients from the dead. It sounds like something a Lovell would do."

I rolled my eyes. "I petitioned the city repeatedly, years ago, to remove the bodies from the property. I don"t want the things." I waved at the body pile dismissively. "I"m going to burn them. I just have to get rid of a couple of lingering ghosts first, so I don"t traumatize their spirits."

The centaur on her team stepped forward and gave Jacki a wry look. "I know it sounds absurd…but I believe her."

Jacki just scoffed. "Yeah. Worst part is, I kinda do too. No one who was looking to harvest body parts for black magic would be this incompetent and sloppy."

I held out a hand toward her in illustration, looking around at the others to make sure they heard her. "See? Finally someone gets it."

"She really is an incredibly stupid and incompetent witch," Aahil chimed in. "Abysmal. An embarrassment to witches everywhere."

"Thank you," I said between gritted teeth.

Jacki shook her head. "I don"t want to know what you were actually doing out here. Just…I"m happy as long as you aren"t harvesting Lovell bodies, or trying to raise the dead or something, okay?"

I huffed. Even though she was way too close to the truth on that one. "Goddess, no. I"ll be glad when I can finally burn them and be done with it."

Strange and unpleasant as it was, there was technically no law against my storing or disposing of my dead relatives in any way I chose. Their deaths were already documented. Parts harvesting for certain nasty spells would be illegal. But exhuming them and burning them to ash? Perfectly acceptable. I mean, don"t get me wrong, the neighbors probably wouldn"t invite me to dinner or poker night after they heard about this. But I wasn"t exactly drowning in social invites to begin with.

Jacki glanced around at the various creatures who had gathered out here to support me, her perceptive eyes taking in jinn, gargoyle, water weaver, and fae. "We talked to you all last time, but…I"d like another word with each of you, if you don"t mind. Just to confirm you are all here of your own free will and she"s not making you do weird shit…like…with corpses or something."

None of us looked at each other. I had made them do weird shit with corpses. But it was just a little bit of organization, gathering, and stacking. Nothing bad.

I watched as Jacki and her crew led my people back inside for questioning. Something was definitely weird about this whole interaction. On multiple levels. But I couldn"t come up with anything that was an immediate, overt threat to our safety. If Jacki needed to be told they were all free and I wasn"t evil one more time, fine. She at least seemed willing to tell the higher ups that I wasn"t practicing black magic or necromancy.

I choked back the hysterical laugh that wanted to bubble up at that. I could just imagine the look on Jacki the field mage"s face if she discovered that I had a necromancer hiding in my upstairs closet.