Page 31 of Cold Sacrifice

I paused before going outside. “Why are you up so early, Zach? It’s barely dawn.”

“I crashed early last night,” he said. “I got hired to bag a rogue over in Chester County today. But I’ll sleep before you take off tonight, because I’m going with you.”

“Because wherever she goes,” Lucy said, “there’s likely to be a fight.”

Zach grinned. “Yeah.”

I shook my head and opened the door. “I’ll tell you about the vampire-killing necromancer over breakfast.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “You found her?”

“She found me,” I said, and went into the early, peaceful dawn to let my wolf out so she could take away the pain in my face.

Less than forty-five minutes later, I sat at the table with Zach, my face considerably better. It was hard to talk when I was eating Lucy’s delicious food, but I’d just shoved my plate away and opened my mouth to begin talking when I heard Remy’s car roar up.

“I’ll get him a plate,” Lucy said.

“The necromancer took control of Joe,” I told them, once Remy had joined us.

Zach grimaced, and Remy paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

“Oh,” Lucy said. “No wonder he was acting strange. What did she make him do?”

I told them everything.

“There’s a mass grave of necromancers on this property?” Zach asked, somewhat skeptically.

I shrugged. “That’s what she said.”

“Wouldn’t you feel their spirits?” Lucy asked. “Or see their ghosts?”

“Yeah,” Remy said. “You’ve been all over these woods.”

“The necromancer said they were stuck in there. She needs me to free them.”

“How will you do that?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Hopefully I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

“You don’t even know where the grave is,” Zach said.

“I meant to call Bastien before dawn,” I told them. “He can find it.”

“He’s not going to want to,” Remy said. “Fucker killed a bunch of women and threw them into a mass grave. He’s not going to admit to any of that shit.”

“Why, though?” Lucy asked. “Why would he do that?”

“He wasn’t the only one,” I said. “It was a very long time ago, judging by the woman’s clothing. He wasn’t master then.”

“Frederick Axton,” Zach said.

I nodded. “He’d have been afraid of them.” Then I paused, frowning. “She said something like the vampires created them, then betrayed them.”

Zach leaned forward. “Maybe they weren’t just necromancers,” he said. “When they put them in the ground, they were vampires.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make sense. Vampires don’t want necromancers to exist. They’re not going to make more of them.”

“Unless,” Remy said.