Chapter 38

Chapter

Thirty-Eight

This wasn't the first time my best-laid plans had blown up in my face. In fact, it wasn't even the first time today it had happened.

Back at my house, Carly and Katy were prepping their altar, mirrors, spellwork, and according to Carly, actual-factual divine forces to protect us as we faced the spirits and the necromancer.

At this moment, trapped in the Hensleys' lilac-scented bathroom, I had pretty much none of those things. And my backup team were all down in the kitchen, utterly oblivious—at least for now—to what I faced.

I didn't let go of my magic, but I forced myself to be calm so neither Malcolm nor Sean would sense I was in trouble until I had a plan. As much as this spirit enjoyed killing, I had no doubt he'd try to make good on his threat.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"You's don't need my proper name." He forced Oliver's mouth into an unsettling, uncanny rictus of a smile, like a robot mimicking human expression. "But we know yours , little birdie. Alice…Evelyn…Worth." His grin stretched Oliver's lips until he looked like a dog or a wolf baring its teeth. "Whore name if I ever heard one."

I'd been called worse by people in my own family, not to mention a Dark Fae and other very scary things, so that insult didn't faze me much. "What can I call you, then? I can't very well just say Hey psycho ."

His atonal laugh made the hairs prickle on my arms. I hoped Matthias couldn't hear it from downstairs. "Call me Little," he said. "That's what they all called me. I got a lot of names."

I recalled the mysterious words etched into the blades of the weapons used in the murder-suicides last night. "So if you're Little, where's Big?"

He chuckled. I liked that sound even less than his laugh. It held so much malevolence and unmistakable threat of intimate violence that my skin crawled. I had to resist the urge to back away.

"He's having his own fun," Little told me, with another chortle. "We each got our own lil' hobbies, you know."

More bad news, if true. I didn't think the spirits were more dangerous off their master's leash than on it, per se, but the fact they were capable of making plans, controlling themselves, and being devious instead of flailing mindlessly and jumping from host to host or screaming in an alley meant they had been on our side of the abyss a while as well as being incredibly powerful. So the necromancer had been planning this crime spree for a while.

In the meantime, Little's speech patterns, voice, and overall demeanor had clued me in that he wasn't from our time. How long ago he'd lived and how long he'd been dead I didn't exactly know, but there was something distinctly out of place about him.

"What are your hobbies, then?" I asked when he seemed to be waiting for me to respond. I needed to buy time to hatch a plan. "Besides the obvious, I mean."

"Robbin' and stealin' always kept coins in our pockets and food in our bellies," he said, with obvious pride. "But mostly we like the killin'. There's other pleasures we want that we's been missin' for a real long time, though. We aims to enjoy ourselves. We jus' have to figure out how to control cocks as well as we control hands and feet."

Fury and revulsion made my magic sizzle and guts churn. "You won't be doing any such thing," I said, my voice cold. I wasn't sure about the physiological aspects, but given enough time and opportunity, they might actually be able to follow through on this new, monstrous threat.

He grinned again. "I think I want to start with you, Alice Evelyn Worth. Can you stay quiet 'til I'm done so I don't have to kill your friend and this one's sweet lil' wife? I bet you can." He leaned forward. "But I hope you don't," he added in a whisper. "I want blood on my cock. Ain't nothin' better in this world or the next."

The full horror sank in of what he and "Big" planned to do to me and whoever else they wanted to victimize. The threat formed images in my head that went straight to some of my biggest and deepest fears. Nausea surged. My hands trembled.

During my years as my grandfather's captive, he'd threatened to use me as breeding stock if he found the right sire for my offspring. My consent was never a factor in the equation.

In my line of work, I'd faced similar threats to Little's before too—but never with the added complication that if I fought back, I'd endanger the lives around me.

Little grinned at me. His ghostly rotten teeth shimmered in front of Oliver's perfect smile. "What do you say, little birdie? Will you scream?"

I took a moment to think of Carly, who'd insisted I draw the spellwork for tonight's ritual on my skin under my clothes well in advance so the magic had extra time to bond to me. If she'd foreseen this moment, she would have told me, but maybe she'd gotten some kind of inkling I might need the spellwork ahead of schedule. She'd halfway gotten me believing there were no such things as accidents when it came to things that mattered.

And she would have told me the fact Little, in Oliver's body, was standing right smack in the middle of the circle I'd drawn the other night wasn't a coincidence either.

I'd wiped away the chalk days ago, but the echo remained. It would only be a fraction as powerful, well-warded, and solid as mine at home, but it would be enough to get the job done—I hoped.

Little's smile twisted into a snarl. "I asked you a question. Are you gonna scream, lil' birdie?"

"No," I said.

As if I'd given in, I went to my knees right in front of him, making sure I was inside the perimeter of the circle.

He smirked down at me. "Not so proud now, are you? You look real good there on your knees. I think I'll make you crawl behind me wherever I go until I'm done with you."

Another flash of memory surfaced—this one worse than the last. Moses had taken me to see my parents' bodies after he'd burned them alive. By the time I knew they were gone, nothing remained but ash in the shape of two people who'd held each other as they'd died.

He'd made me stand next to the ash until I couldn't stand any longer, and then I'd had to crawl behind him out the door of my parents' home and down the sidewalk to his car. I was eight years old.

I'd curled up in the back seat of Moses's car, as far away from him as I could get, and sworn I would never crawl for anyone ever again.

For this half-baked plan of mine to work, timing would be everything. I sliced my finger on the hidden edge of one of my crystals and waited for blood to well up. A weak echo of a circle needed a good dab of blood to invoke. I'd practiced this scenario repeatedly too, both during my captivity in Baltimore and since moving to California.

Little reached for the waistband of his pajama pants.

I pushed love and trust as hard as I could through my nascent bond with Sean and touched my bloody finger to the circle. " Enclose ," I said.

The circle flared weakly, but I figured Malcolm and maybe even Matthias would feel it and come running. I didn't have much time.

Little made a snarling sound.

With my earth magic, I grabbed the spellwork written on the skin over my heart. The smell of parchment and damp earth filled the circle, swirled by witch magic and my own power. Something detached inside me. The sensation reminded me of Carly's mirror pulling Valas out of me and my stomach lurched.

No time for nausea or second thoughts.

I lunged at Little—or it felt like I did. My ka , my astral self, slipped free of my body as easily as shedding a cloak. Nothing so terrible should feel so effortless. The deceptive simplicity and terrible power of the spellwork made me respect and fear Carly's magic even more.

In fact, Charles, Moses, and the world at large should be grateful Carly was on the side of good.

As my physical body slumped to the bathroom floor, my spectral self dove through Oliver's body. I wrapped my arms around Little's ghastly, ghostly form and ripped him out of Oliver. My client collapsed and hit the floor in a heap.

Little thrashed in my grip, howled in rage, and, of all things, tried to bite my face. Reflexively, I kneed him in the groin and his howl became a screech.

Huh. I couldn't believe that worked. I filed that away to tell Malcolm about later.

I gripped Little tighter, took a deep breath, and hummed five notes.

The circle crackled and the floor yawned open beneath us. I heard Malcolm yell my name just before Little and I plunged into absolute darkness.