I soared through the opening and somersaulted onto an expanse of cracked, dry earth—if you could call it earth. It was more like a bunch of accumulated dust. I was up on the balls of my feet in a low crouch before I came to a full stop. In front of me stood an old, dilapidated wooden shack that looked to have been constructed sometime during Prohibition.
The old building was in bad need of repair. There were boards missing, window glass was gone, the porch was decayed and slanting at an angle, and the entire thing was covered in hanging fetishes, old animal parts, dried herbs, and other things I couldn’t—and didn’t care to—identify. They hung from every available space on the house, from the dormer all the way up the roofline, and they chimed together eerily in the soft breeze.
The house is empty, I told my wolf. I didn’t sense any movement. She put her muzzle in the air and scented. Then I heard it.
Chanting.
I spotted a path across the expanse to my right, but before I could take off, Marcy burst out of the trees behind me, panting.
“It’s about time,” I told her.
“Shut it.” She bent over, gasping in a few harried breaths. “Last time I checked, I had no animal in me, but making sure I wasn’t python bait was a big motivator to move quicker than I ever have.”
“Something’s going on over there. I hear chanting.” I gestured to the path across the way and turned to start moving forward when Marcy grabbed my arm once again.
“Hold it, Wonder Wolf,” she ordered as she manhandled me back, tugging at the bag around my waist. “I need you focused. You can’t just barrel in there without protection at the ready. You’re going to need your dark-magic baggies.” She opened the pouch. “We need to throw a wedge into her evil plans, and this is the only way to do it.” She dug her hand in and pulled out two spells. “Perfect.” She set them in my hands, one in each palm. “One stun spell”—she curled my left hand into a fist around it—“and one protection.” She did the same thing with my right. “Once we get in there, I want you to throw these in front of you at the same time and speak both words. I’ll be there to back you up.”
I noted the colors. “Say both words in one breath?” I asked as she made sure the pouch was accessible to my hand.
“Yes.” She set her hands on my shoulders. “And, Jess, it’s not going to be pretty in there. Whatever she’s doing is evil. Don’t let your emotions get in the way. If you have any Achilles’ heel, it’s that you have too much human empathy, something supes who are born supernatural never have. The prime objective is to kill her and eliminate the evil—even if it’s at a cost.”
I nodded. Marcy knew me well. If the cost was Naomi’s and Danny’s lives, it was too steep a price to pay, but I wasn’t going to argue with Marcy. I would make the tough decisions as I went. “The only one who is losing her life is the bokor.”
The chanting picked up, coming faster and in more hurried tones. “It sounds like she’s performing some kind of ritual,” Marcy whispered. “That’s probably why the loa didn’t come back. She’s probably inside the bokor. The best way to stop what’s about to happen is to disrupt the ceremony before they get a chance to finish it. Mess it up completely, which I know firsthand you’re good at.”
“Like physically destroy it?”
“Yes, exactly. There should be an altar, and nearby potions or bowls of blood. Destroy anything and everything you can get your sharp claws on.”
“You got it.” I headed down the path, a spell clutched in each hand, Marcy close behind me.
“Oh, and expect there to have been a blood sacrifice, so don’t let it catch you off guard.”
I started to trot. “What kind of blood sacrifice?” I glanced over my shoulder and grimaced.
“My guess would be human.”
I stifled a gag. “Why not a wild boar or chicken?”
“Because death is the best kind of energy for the darkest magic, and the bigger, and more intelligent, the better. Remember, this bokor is a supernatural without conscience. I just told you we don’t have much empathy as an entire race, but most of us do have a conscience. The evil ones don’t. They kill without thought, vying only for power.”
“If she wanted the strongest magic, why wouldn’t she just sacrifice a supe?” My mind instantly shot to Danny. That’s why she let him in! Before Marcy answered, I shouted, “She would sacrifice a supe.”
We both ran down the winding path. At the end, we came to a wall of trees and nothing else.
“This can’t be a dead end!” I exclaimed. “I can scent her, and I can hear the chanting.” I placed my hands on the bark nearest me and it hummed with magic.
“This is just a strongly warded illusion,” Marcy said, closing her eyes as she began to murmur. “Push some of some of your magic into that tree and see if you can break the ward while I try a spell.”
I closed my eyes. We need Selene’s or Eudoxia’s magic for this, I told my wolf. For the first time, she uncurled the power of five. She grabbed Selene’s red signature and mixed it with Eudoxia’s white. As the magic moved forward, it churned through my body, a ribbon of pink. It was strong. We toss it at the tree all at once. “Marcy, get ready,” I said. “I’m going to blast it on three.”
“I was born ready.”
“One, two… three!” I forced the magic from my body, shocking the ward at the same time Marcy shouted her incantation.
There was one pulse and all of a sudden it burst open. The impact threw us backward. What stood before us was terrible.
“No,” I breathed.