Page 29 of Cold Sacrifice

She wore a ragged and ripped light blue top with a high neck and long row of mostly missing buttons, a long, once-white skirt, and a pair of shoes that looked like they might have been created in the early 1900s. Her clothes were ripped and filthy, her hair was tangled, and her skin…her skin was the worst of it.

“Stay out of this fight,” she said. “If you come for me, if you help Bastien Martel, I will take control of this one. I will force him to kill you right before he kills himself. And I can get to him no matter where he is. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I understand. Release him.”

To my utter shock, she did. “Walk to your mistress,” she told him. “By the time you reach her side, you’ll be free of my sway.”

Joe immediately did as she said, and when he was at my side, his rage burst free. He was tired of being used to control me. But he couldn’t do a thing to her. She was the boss of him.

“Necromancer,” I realized. “You really are a necromancer.”

Max had been right.

Vampires hated necromancers because necromancers controlled the dead, and technically, vampires were dead. But I’d never heard of a necromancer being able to control a vampire to the extent that this one was controlling them.

She was a necromancer, but somehow, she was more.

“I’m not the bad guy,” she said. “Bastien is the bad guy.” Then she shrugged. “One of them, anyway, and I’m going to make sure every single one of them suffers for what they did.”

“What did they do?” I asked. I realized I was gripping Joe’s arm tightly, as though he might lose his mind and attack her. I let go of him and caressed the hilt of my blade.

“Ask Bastien,” she murmured. “Ask him about the purge. Ask him about how they created us, betrayed us, killed us.” She took a step toward me, and despite himself, Joe cringed. “I need you to go to the grave,” she told me. “Find the grave where we were buried and free the spirits. Help them cross over. They’re trapped there.”

I shivered, chilled to my bones. “You’re not dead,” I said. “But the others are?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “I was a mistake. They left me for dead, but all these years I lay there soaking up the power of the dead and dying. Now I am this thing, made for vengeance. When I finish, I will give myself the true death. I want to rest.”

I had to clear my throat twice before I could speak. “Where’s the grave?”

She smiled, and the terrible thing that was her face slid around like someone had draped a dried skin over a frame of bone. “The grave,” she murmured, “is in your woods, Kait Silver. The master can take you there. He has not forgotten us.”

Then she seemed to simply melt into the ground beneath her feet. She didn’t walk away or disappear into the shadows.

She slid into the ground. Through the pavement, and through the ground below it.

Joe and I stared at each other, neither of us ready to speak.

Apparently there was a mass grave in Silverwood, and I needed to dig it up to release the spirits there.

I got into my car, one side of my face numb from her attack, and as soon as Joe was in the passenger seat, I got us the hell out of there.

Chapter Ten

“Is she alive, Kait?”

We were halfway to Silverwood, and it was the first time he’d spoken. The shock of the necromancer was finally beginning to ease for both of us. I didn’t know what to do. I had to keep Joe safe, but I couldn’t let the necromancer kill all the Jakeston vampires.

I couldn’t let her kill Bastien.

No matter how sorry I felt for her, or how ragey I would get on her behalf. And I was pretty sure I was going to get very ragey on her behalf. I just had a feeling.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I think she’s alive but in a way I can’t comprehend. She was in that grave with a bunch of corpses for God only knows how long. And somehow she survives it, soaks up their magic, then digs her way out and comes for revenge.”

“You need to talk to Bastien,” he said.

“I know. But I need a minute before I confront him. I’ll call him when I get to Silverwood and tell him what he’s up against.”

“If he doesn’t know already,” he said.