Smokey Joe got to his feet and shook his head. “The old man wants all prisoners kept alive.”
Shears shrugged. “Fair enough.”
He wound up once again, and I prepared to make out with the business end of his boot.
The douchebag didn’t disappoint.
Smokey Joe flicked his spent butt at my face. “Thank you for your cooperation, hellspawn. I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again real soon.”
Count on it, dickless.
I waited until the two of them turned their backs.
Then I leaped to my feet and charged.
I took Smokey Joe first, grabbing his head and twisting it around until his neck snapped. He dropped like a sack of bricks, and then I was on Shears.
He was no match for my strength. I wrestled him down and bashed his head against the ground.
“And for the record,” I said, “those are somebullshittattoos.”
After a brief recon down the corridor to make sure no one else was in the vicinity, I returned to the cell and searched the guards, removing the devil’s trap baton, Smokey’s lighter, a pair of high-tech stun guns, four knives, a flashlight, and a fat wallet full of what looked like black credit cards without numbers or names.
I also took the comms devices—souped-up phones, just as I’d suspected. They worked underground, and also contained GPS trackers and maps of the entire cave system.
Since Shears and I were similar in size, I stripped off his clothes and quickly changed into them, especially grateful for the steel-toed boots.
Yeah, the ol’ switcheroo was probably the oldest trick in the book, but there was a reason it was such a classic move: It usually worked.
Plus, I looked damn good in camo.
Locked and loaded with my new gear, I grinned at the men slumped at my feet. “Thank you foryourcooperation, assholes.”
Then I lit the bodies on fire and headed out in search of the witches of Blackmoon Bay.
Two
Gray
Fire, ash, and blood.
It was all I could see, all I could smell, and—no matter how hard I tried to spit it out—all I could taste. My throat burned as I panted and gasped my way across a barren, rocky terrain in search of water. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had any.
How long had I been wandering this forsaken place? Days? Weeks?
I was exhausted, my body little more than a collection of bruises and bloody gashes that throbbed painfully with every beat of my heart. I had no shoes. It hurt to walk. To breathe. To exist. And the magic I’d worked so hard to unlock with my book of shadows ritual had all but fizzled out. Tapping into it now felt like trying to start a campfire in the rain. A spark, then a fizzle. A puff of smoke that quickly disappeared.
The possibility that my magic was permanently spent was frightening enough. But if I didn’t find water soon, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have to worry about magic—or anything else, for that matter.
Where the hell am I?
I reached the top of a jagged black ridge and sat down to catch my breath, scanning the horizon. Acrid smoke roiled in the distance. With every painful breath, it singed my lungs and brought tears to my eyes. The wind kicked up, and a storm of ash swirled around me like snow, falling endlessly from a sky so black I wondered if I’d been swallowed by some great, terrible beast.
I pulled my shirt up over my mouth and waited for the wind to die down again.
One thing I’d learned about this place: the fires were a constant.
So was the thirst.
