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By the contemptuous twist Molly gave "they," she meant Paige and Lucas.
Savannah shook her head. "I said I was driving Jaime to the airport, hanging out until her plane left. By now they're probably figuring I skipped out on my chores, but nothing more than that."
"So, Molly, your secret is safe...if you want it to be," I said. "We can back up and start over. Pretend we're in your living room again. I just told you my problem and you want to help."
"In return for..."
Savannah barked a laugh. "You think you're in any position to bargain?"
"I'll offer the same deal," I said. "If you help me, I'll contact Mike."
Molly scowled.
"In that case, how about this deal: you answer my questions in return for me forgetting who killed him."
I TOLD her the story again.
"First piece of advice?" she said. "Go back and take a hard look at whoever is giving you this cock-and-bull."
"Cock-and-bull?"
"Someone's having you on. Feeding you bullshit."
"I've tried contacting these spirits myself and--"
A brittle smile my way. "Step one, then, would be to find a better necromancer. Either there are no spirits or they're in on the game. Whoever came up with this story doesn't know jack shit about magic. They trolled the Internet or maybe checked out a few reference books at the library. What they researched isn't our magic. It's human magic."
"Human magic?"
"In human folk magic, you kill someone to drain his energy, his power, and take it for yourself."
Savannah made a rude noise, summing up her opinion of humans.
"But human magic doesn't work," I said.
Molly pinned me with a withering look. "No kidding, which is why I said someone's pulling your leg."
I looked at Savannah.
"She's right about this not sounding like a sacrificial ritual. Same as Paige and Lucas said. But if you've tried contacting them yourself, then it's not a problem of power."
Molly rolled her eyes.
"Could the ghosts be playing a trick?" Savannah said. "That does happen, doesn't it?"
"A trained necromancer can tell if she's being played."
A sniff from Molly.
"You say it sounds like a human's version of magic," I said. "Could that be what it is? The results of humans sacrificing people in some kind of fake black-magic ritual?"
Molly and Savannah looked at each other. In that exchanged look, all grudges seemed forgotten--sister witches considering an academic question.
"What does happen when humans play at ritual sacrifice?" Savannah said, half asking, half musing. "They can't get any powers from it, but does anything happen to the soul of the person they kill?"
Molly said, "If it did, necromancers would have seen this kind of thing before."
"So maybe it doesn't happen every time. But under certain circumstances..."
