Chapter 24

"So now what?" Cowboy asked. "What do we do?"

Emerald curled tight against me. "He's going to take us again, isn't he?"

"No," I said. "I won't let that happen."

"They are going to use the angel dust," Eligor whispered. "They are preparing it now."

I was up and moving before he finished speaking, the others running with me. "Look for stairs," I said.

"Here!" Cowboy yelped. "I got stairs."

They led up, and I took them two and three at a time. "Eligor, how close?"

"Less than thirty seconds," he huffed out.

The first floor was where the front desk was, where we came in, and there was only one door that I could see. The same green door that had been behind the receptionist.

"Hurry." I pointed at the door.

Easter hit the door first, using her shoulder to bust it open, and spilled out, ducking down behind the desk. Emerald, Cowboy and Eligor followed her. I strode out, and around the desk, squinting into the big lights that were aimed straight at the building. I could see a few figures, several with wings silhouetted. I lifted Dinah and shot out the glass in the front doors and kept on walking.

"Gardreel, I'm surprised." I kept walking. "I honestly thought you were too afraid to meet me in person."

"I am not afraid of you." His voice boomed as though he had a megaphone but doubted it.

"Really? My, you are afraid of my grandmother. The Sword. Namaa, if you prefer her given name. I like the first better. Sharp. Dangerous." I kept on walking until I was out of the building and well away from it. The others slowly followed me.

"Ten seconds," Eligor whispered.

I grinned. "Ten seconds to angel dust, huh?"

The sky above us rumbled and a bolt of lightning slammed down into the ground between me and Gardreel as the skies opened, and rain crashed down around us.

My heart thought it was Killian. My head said it wasn't. He was gone, Ipos taking control of him until he could find a way to take it back.

For once, my head was wrong.

The lightning ripped out through the skies, and hit every single fallen in the vicinity, throwing them back a good twenty feet. Killian stood behind them all at the driveway entrance, his hair slicked by the rain, his grin crooked and sexy as fuck. "You coming or not, lass?"

I was running first, the others caught up, but I didn't care in that moment. He grabbed me around the waist, kissed me hard enough for me to know it was him, really him, and then shoved me at the cop car. "It won't hold them, let's go."

We climbed in; Ruby was all over us, barking and yipping in excitement, like she was a damn puppy. I slammed the cop car into reverse as the fallen started to get up from the blow Killian had dealt them.

They wouldn't fall for it again, I knew that. Killian was on his bike and peeled out, sending a spray of gravel across the hood of the police car as we took off after him.

Anxiety flowed through me, and I realized it wasn't my own. "Emmy, you okay?"

"Yeah, just . . . Eligor isn't here, he . . . he asked me what I saw. He asked me for the spell."

I didn't twist around. I couldn't look at her, because her energy said it all. She'd told him.

"He said just in case I got hurt. I believed him, I'm sorry!" She let out a sob.

"Not your fault, kid," Easter growled. "He was a slippery fuck right from the beginning."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

I shook my head. "Easter is right. They . . . they set us all up from the beginning. As soon as they lost Vivian, they allowed us to get here," I grimaced, thinking about Eligor, thinking that maybe he'd picked up a thing or two from me. Maybe he'd learned to hide how he really felt. Whatever the case was, it had worked in their favor. He'd told me that a Magelore held the other spell, and I'd believed him.

I frowned. Could Vivian be working with them too? That didn't feel quite right.

"What's the next step?" Easter asked.

"We need a spell caster," Emerald said and Easter pointed at herself. "And they have to have a wand made of southern moss and oak. When we have that, all we need is a gun and the demon." She swallowed hard. "The words are simple to the spell. Do you want them now?"

Easter looked at me and I nodded. "Yes. Better that we all know them. Eligor is already going to give it up to his boss."

Emerald took a deep breath and cleared her throat. "The soul of one, freely given, cast in steel, from body riven, given power, given life, to cause the world a world of strife. No more grave, no more answers, let this spell be necromancers, way to beat the call of death, and into weapons give steel breath."

She sighed. "That's it. And you specifically need the demon Bazixal." Emerald paused. "Both spells said that."

My foot nearly hit the brake. "Both spells said that we specifically need the demon Bazixal? Are you sure?"

She bobbed her head. "Yes, I didn't write that part down. I should have."

"Did you tell Eligor that part?" I could hope she hadn't, but by the way her face fell, she had indeed. "Never mind, it doesn't matter. We have a wand to find. Easter, you got one like that?"

"No, but I know someone who does. An old witch in Savannah. She's a master at stuff like this. It'll cost us, though. She isn't cheap." Easter twisted around so she was looking out the back of the cop car. "They're coming. I can just see them in between lightning flashes."

I took us straight into town, and we left the cop car by the pipe-laying factory and got on our bikes. We didn't need cops running us down, as well as the fallen.

"How are we going to slow them?" Cowboy shouted over the wind as we started to pick up speed.

I didn't have an answer to that. What I knew was all we could do was try to outrun them. They weren't faster than the bikes.

That was the only upside of riding in the rain, with the stinging bite of every droplet slamming against my face. The fallen didn't seem to like the rain either, and we lost them somewhere along the way.

Savannah was a long way away. We didn't have time to dick around, and then we were going to have to backtrack to get to New Orleans.

At the first stop for fuel, I pulled Killian aside. "You take Cowboy and Emerald to New Orleans. See if you can find any abnormals willing to fight. Easter and I are going to have to find a faster way to Savannah than the bikes, or we're going to run out of time."

We had to beat Gardreel to Bazixal.

"You need a private jet," Killian said. "Let me see if I can get something lined up along the way, you just keep going. I'll call you." He tapped the stolen phone in my pocket.

I stared into his green eyes. "And the demon?"

"We came to an agreement. I wouldn't let you burn him out, and he let me take the reins permanently. Not exactly perfect, but good enough. You scared him, that's why he ran."

He kissed me quick and then he was taking the two younger abnormals with him. They would be safe with him. Or as safe as we could be in our current situation.

Easter and I got moving, me with my sidecar and Ruby pretty damn happy to be coming along for an extended car ride.

There was no holding back on speed. We had the bikes going full throttle in between pit stops.

No sleep.

No talking.

We barely ate enough to keep going.

The drive to get to Savannah was enough to keep me awake despite the nearly eighteen hours it took.

Eighteen hours, and we were on our last day. Close to noon.

Easter led us through the town of Savannah, under the low-hanging moss-covered trees, past the squares that made up the central part of the city. Ruby gave a woof as we passed a thin woman with a cleft palate. She shook a fist at the dog, and for a second, I thought she had webbed hands.

"Here," Easter yelled over the rumble of the two bikes. She flicked hers off first and was through the gate to a large old house. The front garden was immaculate, if a bit wild looking. I snapped my fingers at Ruby, and she leapt out of the sidecar and came around to me.

We followed Easter up the rickety steps to the front door.

She banged three times. "Celia, are you home?"

I pulled out the phone. Nothing from Killian. Fuck. If he didn't find us a faster way back to NOLA, we still might be able to do it. Assuming that this Celia woman had the wand, and it wasn't too much to part with a fucking stick.

My jaw ticked.

The door opened and a woman who looked like she'd just stepped out of the nineteenth century stared out at us, her puffed sleeves and long full dress helping her fit the part. Her face was soft, and that could have been deceiving. Because her eyes were hard as they flicked over us. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"I need a wand," Easter breathed out. "A very specific wand made of southern moss and oak wood." Easter paused. "Please."

Celia drew in a deep breath and crossed her arms. "Well, come on in then. Let's discuss the price and the timeline."

I stepped around Easter. "The timeline is immediate. The price is whatever you want."

Her eyes snapped to mine, and I stared right back. Old ladies didn't scare me, not even those who had spells at their fingertips.

Her lips slowly curved. "I've heard about you. Your grandmother, Namaa, used to have tea with me from time to time. Completely wild, but even so she liked a good cup of Earl Grey. I miss her."

The idea that my grandmother and this woman had tea together made my head hurt. "We need that wand, Celia. Can you make it for us?"

She sniffed. "Of course I can. It will take a bit of time."

"How much time?" Easter asked. "We are on a crunch."

The old woman waved us into her house. I looked up a long stairway to the second floor, but she went to the right, headed toward what looked like the kitchen. The smell of cookies baking filled the air.

Surreal didn't even begin to cover the sensation. Especially when I took a good look at what was in the kitchen. It looked like an old school apothecary, right down to the miniature cauldron sitting on a hotplate, bubbling away. Herbs hung from the rafters, jars of spice and God only knew what, sat in perfectly organized shelving units on the counters.

"That wand takes months to make," Celia said as she sat down at the table.

Easter groaned and bent her head, barely holding herself up. "We don't have months."

Celia and I were still doing our best to out-stare each other. She finally sighed and looked away. "I may have one tucked away, but it is my personal oak wand, you must understand—"

"We'll take it," I said, my voice even. "And of course you'll be compensated."

She snorted. "Or I'll be dead. A wand of that power is partially my protection."

Dinah had been silent all this time. "Not to be melodramatic," she now drawled. "But the world is on the line. Why not offer her a spell in exchange?"

A spell.

Celia sat up straighter. "Did your gun just talk?"

"You want a weapon like her?" I asked. "I have the spell to make another."

And that was how the deal went. I scribbled down the spell, and Easter took the wand.

It could have been worse.

Of course, we still had to get to New Orleans before the stars began to bleed.

I checked the phone one more time. "Nothing. We fuel up and we go."

"If you are in a hurry, I might be able to help," Celia said. "I . . . the spell you gave me is worth more than the wand. I would not be in your debt."

I was sitting on the bike. "What are you thinking?"

"I have a friend with a private jet. I'm betting he'd take those two bikes for a one-way flight." Celia smiled. "He's a shifter, but he's always wanted a bike. He'll love those."