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“Len, look out.” I pivot as a rotten, squelching corpse reached for me from the inside of the side room to the right. It's no match for my flame, but by the time I've focused and started it, three more have joined it.
“Just run into the middle room. He's got to be there.” I pushed Chas through ahead of me and lit one corpse on fire, letting it ignite the other two as they staggered after us.
The room we’re in looks like the chapel in the woods, right up to the altar, across which Thorn is bound.
“Hey,kitten,” I quipped as I backed toward him, the flaming corpses still advancing. “You get a long enough nap? Because we have places to be.”
Chas loosened the bonds holding him down, and we helped him off the stone table. “Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “Moira's down the stairs.”
Behind the altar is a stone staircase leading underground.
“I guess it’s good it’s the dry season.”
“We're not going down there.” Chas scoffed.
Thorn shrugged. “Give chase, or come around when she’s beefed up her defenses, it’s up to you.”
We headed down the stairs, Thorn in front, me bringing up the rear as the occasional corpse cropped up. The bottom of the pit the stairs led into is exactly what I expect for a necromancer. A catacomb of possible minions to raise, all neatly lined up on either side of the room, and Moira stood before a stone altar covered in blood.
“We won't fight you, Moira,” I said. “I owe you a favor, and this is it. Tonight, you live, and you get the chance to run. No bodies to raise, no taking grandma with you.”
“You don’t get to choose the favor, and as long as you wear my mark, you can’t hurt me.”
I tossed fire at her…or tried. Nothing happened.
“See?” she cackled. “I almost got you to kill your best friend last night, and you thought you could just walk in here and—” She stopped short as Chas grabbed the gun out of my holster and shot without warning. The gunfire roared so loud that my ears rang. Moira’s body slumped over and hit the ground immediately.
“Laugh now, asshole.” Chas hands the gun back to me and heads up the stairs, stepping over the fallen zombie bodies, no longer animated by their master.
“I…”
Thorn shrugs and offers me his arm. “This plane has taken its toll on me tonight, I’m afraid. Would you ride home with me?”
I draped his arm over my shoulder and hold him up at the waist. “Tonight, I want to sleep in my own bed. But you can come home with me.”
Tomorrow, we'll figure out where Moira hid the last stone.
But for tonight? I want wine, my bed, my best friend, and my demon lover. I still don't know how much of that is me and how much is the mark he's given me, but I’ll figure that out later.
“Do you think the wolves will come for us tonight?”
He cleared his throat. “I don't think they'll come around for a long time. But whatever else we've managed over the last week, it's safe to say that you've only just got a handle on your new powers.”
“What about you?” We exited the way we entered, through the now deserted shop littered with decaying corpses. “How did a witch get the drop on you?”
He paused and gave me a long look. “Those answers can wait a little longer.” We left the shop, and I breathed the fresh air deeply as he rolled his shoulders and stood a little taller.
Fake it until you make it right?
“George’s is open, and I’m strangely famished, considering what we’ve been through,” said Chas. She waved her hand, and the lights go out in La Sorcière, the sign flipping to ‘Closed’ as the gate dropped with a loud clang. “And since it’s been a really weird week, Mr. Thorn, I think the very least that you owe us is a meal and a few drinks.”
“Can't argue with that.”
Chas led the way, and we followed. But a prickly sensation went down the back of my neck, and I pivoted to see a woman with yellow eyes turn away down an alley.
People milled in the streets, and it was probably nothing. But the hand reached out, metaphysical tendrils moving through people until I caught her scent. It was familiar, but not a wolf, at least not one I knew.
Not that it mattered.
I'd find out where my last stone was hidden, and then—I'd hunt.
