AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hush.”
He motionedfor me to pause. “Roll out your grave magic. Visualize the grid. How wide can you take it?”
“A mile.”
“Better. Concentrate on the streets, the river. . . can you follow them past that?”
As he spoke, I tried. Iwasgetting better, but I sometimes felt like I had a map that was only able to be seen on a zoomed-in screen. We tried to push it wider, but even after several weeks of trying, I felt like the edges of my map faded to emptiness whereThere be monsters!or some such was mentally etched at the borders.
“Come now, Hexen. Adjust your vision for one more block.” Iggy’s voice felt like it was magic itself, as if he were dropping the knowledge inside my head.
When I opened my eyes, as usual, I saw the traces of deaths in purple splotches over my mental grid. I looked to the left, the right, and then pivoted to take in the other two quadrants of my map. Green was moving dead, and purple was a trail of death. Gold, apparently, were my loved ones. That was a new development the last week, and I felt vaguely irritated that my magic decided to “adopt” people.
“Draugr?”
“Not a one.” I frowned. That was weird. I knew it, and Iggy knew it. Maybe my Grandmother Beatrice had told all the biters to behave as a wedding gift to me. They’d been quiet lately.
“Where are your people?” Iggy pushed, as if I could hold my map indefinitely. “Locate them. Follow their recent trails, like footprints in ink on the map, andseethem. Jesse. Sera. Christy. Alice. Lauren.”
As he spoke, listing names one after the other in rapid fire, I followed their trails, seeing Jesse at Tomes and Tea, the bookstore I technically had a share in, and Sera at her coffee shop. Christy was at the bar, Bill’s Tavern, which she managed. The bar was owned by Eli, who was there, too. Allie was at her house. My mother was with Beatrice—safe in The Outs far beyond the . . .
“Wait . . . Iggy!” I dropped the map and stared at him with a smile wide enough to hurt.
“As I said, youcansee beyond the mile.” Iggy’s tone was nonchalant, as if he hadn’t tricked me into making a leap of progress. “You think yourself into walls, Miss Crowe. I simply find ways to remove them. You are a talented hex—”
His words stalled as I threw my arms around him in a hug that left us both awkward.
I stepped back just as quickly as I had stepped forward.
“You are on the grid, too, you know,” was all I said. “If I had to find you, I could.”
Despite the pleased look that came over Iggy’s face, he said, “Is that a threat?”
“You know it, Iggypoo.” I shoulder-bumped him, but there was an undeniable comfort in owning the friendship we had created.
Assuming Chester didn’t murder either of us, I could learn a lot with his guidance.
3
ELI
Eli became prickly the later it grew. Perhaps, he was perpetually prickly lately. He felt . . . settled being married, bonded with the one being in all of creation who completed him. Onthatfront, he was content.
On the other hand, he had fallen impossibly in love with a woman who had a metaphorical ax ever-poised over her throat, and it wore on his mind. He hated that it was true, but he felt as if there were an endless sea of monsters that periodically found the mouth of the Mississippi River and lurched into New Orleans.
And Geneviève seemed to have a magnetic allure to them. They either wanted to worship her or destroy her. There was little middle ground.
He glanced at the door again. She wasn’t late.Yet. He poured another drink, smiled, and reminded himself that she absolutely detested his tendency to hover.
“Boss? Do you want to call backup?” Christy, the bar manager but also one of the finest pool sharks in the city, gestured to the door where a pair of visibly intoxicated women were wobbling.
“Serve them water or soda.” Eli grumbled at the drunk women.
The city had become increasingly intoxicated as the fangers started minding their behavior. It was great for tourism, but Eli suspected it looped right back to the aforementioned ax. Eli had suspicions as to why they’d done so, but he wasn’t yet certain.
Beatrice gave Geneviève a crown.
The queen of thedraugrgave the co-heir to the throne ofElphamea crown in public. And since that day, the biting in this city had been restricted to random barely-awake dead folk. There were nodraugrto behead here.
