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“Genie, I mean this in the kindest way, but if you could shut up for a minute and just let the spell work, that would be great.”
I scowled at him, and wanted to snark back, but unlike my sister I knew there were times for a good one-liner and times to keep your mouth shut.
I just didn’t like being told when to be silent.
I didn’t like being told to do many things.
He closed his eyes and drank the contents of his cup, his nose wrinkling as he did so, making me think it must have tasted just as bad as it smelled. He remained like that for a minute or two then his head slumped backwards, like he’d lost total control over his neck.
A gurgling, wet noise bubbled up in his throat, and he began to twitch. First just his fingertips, then his shoulders and arms, until he was shaking like a puppet whose strings were all atangle.
“Should we do something?” Wilder whispered.
I shook my head. “Just wait.”
Magic wasn’t always pretty to look at, and I had a feeling what we were witnessing was precisely what Santiago had planned to happen. As quickly as the tremors began he went perfectly still, and slowly his head rose back up.
When he opened his eyes, they were milky white.
A croak escaped his throat, and Wilder and I both went stock still at the same time. Huh-huh-huh came the sound, and it was exactly the noise the charred woman on the highway had made the night before when I thought she’d been laughing.
“Genie McQueen,” said a voice that was not even remotely Santiago’s. “The dead are coming for you.”
Chapter Nine
Fucking nooooope.
I dug my fingernails into Wilder’s arm, and the voice coming out of Santiago’s throat continued to laugh in its husky, rattling way.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. You’ll know soon.”
“Why have you been following me?”
“Smart girl, smart girl. You’ve been seeing the dead for a long time now. But now you’re not the only one.”
Santiago’s lips curled into a scary as shit smile that made his mouth a little too wide, his teeth a little too feral. He didn’t look human anymore. The face reminded me of Japanese oni masks. The exaggerated brows and big mouth. There was no way this was good for Santiago’s perfect bone structure.
“Don’t hurt him,” I whispered.
His face returned to normal, but the eyes were still white and unseeing.
“Just a man, just a man. What does he mean? Nothing. Life means nothing to you, Genie McQueen. You only care about yourself.”
Who the fuck was this person? The woman who had been following me for over a year but had, until now, been unable to speak, obviously harbored quite the grudge against me.
“That’s not true.”
“True enough. True enough. But the dead are coming. They’ll have their justice.”
“What doesn’t that even mean?” I asked.
“You’ll see. You’ll see.”
I didn’t want to see.
“What does this have to do with my mother?”
