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“Lead with ‘she’s not at the bar’ please,” Christy asked quickly. “I don’t want fangers chasing away paying patrons. They can look for Gen elsewhere, but . . .”
“Agreed,” he called as he headed to the door.
If Eli had developed an over-protective tendency toward any person other than Geneviève these last years, it was Christy Zehr. He’d hired her as manager because he trusted her implicitly—and for one of his kind that was a rare thing. Christy was a towering, brilliant Black woman who still worked freelance when the mood struck, and on more than a few off-shifts still hustled pool.
Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe she was asleep or working or . . . There were plenty of possibilities that included her being perfectly fine, but a nagging feeling persisted. He pushed his car as fast as was safe, and then he pushed it a little bit faster.
She’s alive.
He knew that, at least, with surety. They were bonded. If she died, he died.
Alive means I can find her.
7
GENEVIÈVE
Iwoke hip-deep in a vat of water, strapped onto what felt like an old-fashioned chair.
From my half-submerged seat, I tried to take in my surroundings. Stone room, circular well of stones, no light save a few steel-enclosed fixtures, and from the feel of the room when I sent out magical feelers to search for the dead, my odds of an army were terrible. I found nothing dead that could hear me other than a few random mice.
The most troubled thing in my prison was directly overhead—a structure that honestly looked like a cross between a trebuchet and a child’s teeter-totter on an old playground. In essence, it was a leverage device that had a fulcrum. The basic design enabled the person not soaking in a vat of cold water to plunge the victim—me—into the water.
“Dunking stool,” I muttered.
The graveyard grannie smiled approvingly. “Well spotted, Geneviève. Ours is modelled on the Scarborough model.”
“An educated kidnapper, how lovely.” I tried to convince the dead wood of the chair to respond to my will, hoping my fae magic would deliver what I wasn’t able to do with necromancy.
Nothing.
I tried to push through the chains, convince metal to answer me. That was a long shot, but I was lousy at being a prisoner.
No luck there either.
I looked at my captor and said, “Why?”
Honestly, there were a lot of things I could ask, but really, they all boiled down to that one question. Maybe if I understood, it would help me figure out what to do. Word games weren’t high on my skillset, but I was desperate.
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” she said cheerily. “You, Geneviève Crowe, are a witch. Your unholy congress with the Lord of Flies, Satan himself, is an offense to--”
“I only have congress with myhusband,” I interjected. “My lawfully wed, triply wed spouse. We had three weddings. I mean, really, I’m extra married if you--”
“To an unholy minion of the deceiver,” she said, still sounding remarkably pleasant. “Prince of the deceivers. The fae are an aberration. Thedraugryou slay bought you some grace, but . . . Witch? Fae? Protected by the walking dead? You must confess, so you can die in a state of absolution.”
“Murder is fine with you, I guess?”
“Oh, Geneviève.I’m here tosaveyou from the prince of deceivers!”
I blinked at her, opened my mouth to ask whether she was saying Eli was a prince of deceivers or Satan was, but she dropped the lever and I sunk into tepid water.
Mouth full of saltwater, I thrashed, not able to do much other than panic.
I sucked at panic.
Give me a target, and I was happy to go forth into battle. Being helpless was really not my gig. At all.
“Where are you?” Beatrice’s voice slammed into my mind.
