AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Geneviève?” the woman said again.
I didn’t reply because a) there was no one I was expecting to see in among the graves and b) anyone I bumped into here among the dead might not be a friend.
“Itisyou!” she said.
Despite her tone, the woman approaching me from the shadows of the cemetery was not a familiar face. She was in her late-sixties, possibly seventies, hair set in the sort of old-fashioned rolls that came from goodness-to-Becky hot rollers. Support hose covered remarkable calves, and her plain black dress was topped with a sensible cardigan with big wooden buttons. She appeared to be a grandmother who still did a lot of walking to have legs like that.
“Ma’am?” I eyed her warily. “Are you lost?”
She tutted at me. “Do you know how many nights I had to prowl these wretched places to find you?”
I sent out a zing of magic, not attacking her of course, simply testing heralive-ness. One could never be too sure of heartbeats in a city with a soliddraugrpopulation, and grandmothers as old as she looked rarely had such shapely legs.
She smiled. “I’m not vermin. My ticker is still beating, and it doesn’t even need a pacemaker to jolt me.”
“Er, if you wander around in the dark too often, it’ll need a lot more than a jolt.” I motioned around the cemetery. “Things around here sometimes rise.”
The stranger gave me the sort of smile typically reserved for the daft or drunk. “If that were the only dangerous thing out there, life would be easier. Things worse than fangers lurk, Geneviève.”
And that’s when I started to get worried. I glanced around, half-expecting to see members of the local hate-group, S.A.F.A.R.I., or maybe even an angry fae soldier. The former hated me, and the latter were determined to keep me safe at any cost since I had become their future queen. We’d recently come to an understanding about when and where I needed an entourage, but they were creatures who played word games, so rules were complicated.
“Who—" I didn’t get a second word out.
When the taser hit me, I felt like the biggest fool I knew. Obviously, I had been looking in the wrong direction. That’s what I got for underestimating a grannie who traipsed around graves.
I should’ve known my streak of no attempts on my life wouldn’t last.
“The nice young man said that this model was enough juice to take down a rampaging bear.” She crouched over me as I was trying to stop my body from vibrating on the ground like live wire.
I glanced back at her and muttered, “Badger balls.”
Then I slammed my fingers into the soil and shoved magic into the ground. The electricity was making it hard to focus, and I didn’t feel entirely at ease trying to grab a sword to stab ahumanold lady—despite the fact that she was continuing to shock me with more voltage than an average human body would be able to endure.
“To me,”I ordered, summoning whatever dead were near, and here in Saint Louis Number One, there were quite a few corpses to raise. I concentrated on pushing my magic into the earth rather than trying to summondraugr.It took them a few moments to reassemble from the moldering bones and rags in the grave.
As long as I could stay alert long enough . . .
“Ah-ah-ah.” She pulled a damp, stinking cloth out of her handbag and covered my mouth and nose. “That’s not fair.”
“Fuuuck . . .” My magic stopped mid-summoning, and my dead army fell back into their graves as I slid into unconsciousness from whatever nastiness was over my face.
The last thing I heard was atskand, “Language, Geneviève.”
6
ELI
Eli watched the door with a growing anxiety. Geneviève was rarely late, and if she was going to be late, she let him know. He looked at his phone. It was an expensive thing, modified to be used by one who was unable to handle steel or iron. No new texts. No calls. Nothing.
“Christy? Any calls on the bar line?”
Christy met his gaze. “No. Were you expecting Gen to call?”
“I’m going to the house. She isn’t answering. Have the guards escort you home if Jesse isn’t here—or . . .”
“Got it.” She gave him the sort of commiserating smile that reminded him that she’d been through as many sleepless nights worrying over Geneviève as he had. It was oddly comforting. “I’ll try Allie and Sera and Jesse to see if they heard anything.”
“And Iggy,” he added. He might dislike the formerly-dead witch, but that didn’t mean he was unaware of the fact that Iggy was dedicated to Geneviève’s safety, too. “I’ll call Beatrice.”
