back and put a forearm against his windpipe. He dropped the rifle and staggered for a moment, just trying to catch his balance. By the time he started to flail his arms at me, he was too panicked to actually aim. Not a fighter.
Then Simon appeared with a rag soaked in chloroform. I moved my forearm, Simon pressed the cloth forward, and the kid gasped in a deep breath. It was over in less than a minute.
Cole, we had learned, could get anything. With really short notice too.
I couldn’t really see the kid’s features, but we got his hands zip-tied behind his back and put more zip ties on his ankles, mostly by feel. A piece of duct tape went over his mouth. I unloaded the rifle and threw the ammunition back toward the city cemetery. I had the Sig Sauer, and it was too difficult to shoot a rifle with my wrist brace.
“You okay?” Simon whispered, and I realized I was listing to the side a little.
I straightened up and nodded, trying not to pant. I felt more or less like I’d just tried to run ten miles after the flu. “Let’s keep moving.”
The plan we’d discussed was for Lily and Tobias to begin disabling the other coven members, while Simon and I went straight for Odessa. We’d take care of anyone in our way as needed. In theory, if one team succeeded and the other didn’t, we’d still break up their operation tonight.
But when we’d been making plans back at Beau’s, I hadn’t known how much climbing through the city cemetery would tire me, and none of us had known about the fog or the mud. I was glad we’d been able to take down this one guy, but I didn’t know if I could do it again, especially if I wanted to retain enough energy to punch Odessa. And I really, really did.
Simon and I went about more three steps before he tripped on one of the Confederate gravestones, and I had to grab the back of his shirt so he wouldn’t fall right on top of the line of them. These were the ones that had looked like dotted lines from the air: only about a foot high and eight inches across. They were low enough that it was nearly impossible to see them below the heavy part of the fog, and easy to bang your toes or ankle on. I motioned for Simon to get low. Staying below the heavy fog seemed like the best idea anyway.
We inched forward through the tombstones, and to my surprise, the Unsettled moved aside to make room for us. They seemed uninterested in touching us, but extra-special interested in staring at us. At first I worried the path they were clearing for us would show Odessa exactly where we were, but then I remembered that Odessa couldn’t actually see the Unsettled. She was counting on Beau’s word that they were there.
Without speaking, I took the lead, picking my way through the fog on all fours—well, all threes—toward the sound of Odessa’s voice. I figured the farther in we got, the better. The guards were patrolling the perimeter of the blood circle, and the coven members wouldn’t want to shoot toward their own people. If we stayed low, we were practically invisible to the coven. I really wanted to draw the Sig Sauer—if Odessa had brought armed guards, I had to assume everyone was armed—but I needed my right hand to crawl.
Working around the gravestones, we practically slithered through the cemetery. We were moving nearly blind, so Simon often touched my ankle to keep track of where I was. If we lost each other in this fog, friendly fire was going to be a serious concern. I was already worried about hitting Lily or Tobias by mistake. Tobias would be fine against a lead bullet, but Lily was another matter.
When we were halfway to Odessa’s voice, I could pick out other voices as they called their responses to her. We’d expected a total of five witches, but if I was at the center of the clock and Odessa at twelve, she was getting responses at two, four, six, eight, and ten. That was six, plus at least one young man playing guard—although if it were me, I would have brought four, one for every side of the cemetery. So between seven and ten people, a lot more than we’d expected.
Odessa was obviously the leader for the magic, so I was