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If the worst happens, I need to be close enough to ensure your soul moves on rather than linger. Besides, I’m already in Newstead.
Then pull over once you near the road that runs alongside the reservoir—it’s close enough to help, but far enough away that you won’t get caught in any magical backwash.
A compromise I can live with. Be careful.
Ashworth swung left and dove into a thick clump of trees. I followed, raising an arm to protect my face from the backlash of low-hanging branches. But we weren’t exactly quiet, and the sound of us crashing through the scrub echoed across the otherwise silent day.
The dark flow of magic stopped with a suddenness that sent me stumbling.
Ashworth swore and plowed on. I had no choice but to follow. He might be the stronger witch, but he couldn’t face this threat alone. Not when the dark witch up ahead appeared to be far stronger than even he.
The trees drew closer together, the scrub thicker, tearing at my dress and leaving bloody scratches across my arms and legs. It didn’t matter; nothing did except reaching the dark magic’s ignition point before the witch disappeared.
We scrambled on. Up ahead, beyond the tree cover, came the sound of an engine firing up—and it very much sounded like a motorbike rather than a car or truck.
Then, above all that noise, came another.
A short, sharp crack.
One that I was all too familiar with thanks to a very recent encounter.
It was a gunshot.
Ashworth swore and—with surprising dexterity for a man in his fifties—spun and launched at me, hitting so hard we crashed to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. My breath left in a gigantic whoosh, my head cracked against something solid, and stars danced briefly.
Neither of us moved. I could barely even breathe, my body tense and my heart pounding somewhere in my throat as I waited for either a second shot or someone approaching.
Neither happened.
The motorbike was revved and then left, the sharp drone of its engine quickly disappearing.
Ashworth swore, untangled himself, and then pushed up.
Belle, I said, as I scrambled after him, any sign of a motorbike coming your way?
No. I’ll go back onto the main road and see if it makes an appearance.
Be careful.
As someone else has been known to say, careful is my middle name.
I snorted but didn’t reply, trying to catch Ashworth while avoiding as many of the slashing tree branches as was feasibly possible.
Five minutes later, we hit a clearing.
In the middle of it lay a man.
A man whose brain matter was spread all around his head like a bloody halo.
Chapter Two
Bile surged up my throat and I swallowed heavily. In truth, this actually wasn’t the worst thing I’d seen in recent months—that honor went to the teenager who’d been made a zombie by a vampire intent on revenge, and whose disintegrating body Aiden had been forced to destroy.
I slid to a halt well short of the dead man’s thin and somewhat wrinkled body. A multitude of hurts instantly raised their ugly heads, but I did my best to ignore them and scanned the nearby ground. There was no sign of additional blood, no sign of any sort of animal sacrifice, and no immediate source for the foul magic that still pulsed around me.
Just the almost faceless remains of an elderly man. Whether he was even our practitioner or not, I couldn’t say. “Can you see—?”
