hoping if I could take her down quickly and without fuss, the others might turn and run, leaving us to hand-deliver Odessa to the police.
But that’s not what happened.
I estimated we were about fifteen feet away from Odessa when a commotion started up at my four o’clock—in the direction of where Tobias and Lily would have entered the cemetery. There were some indistinguishable shouts, a yelp of pain, and then two small lightning bolts lit up the sky . . . only these weren’t lightning at all, but Lily electrocuting someone with magic. Screams started up from that direction, and then I heard the first gunshots.
Chapter 41
We’d talked about this: if one team got caught before the other, the team that was still loose would make their best move on their target. I jumped—okay, staggered—to my feet, with Simon right behind me, and we hurried toward Odessa’s voice, doing our best not to trip on the gravestones. No matter how fast we moved, the Unsettled seemed to flow out of our way like water. It didn’t look quick so much as smooth and eerie.
When we got a little closer, I could see Odessa above the heads of the Unsettled. She was standing on top of something, probably one of the many bench-shaped monuments. She had an umbrella in one hand and an open hardcover book in the other, with the book tilted toward a nearby lamppost.
Her voice had broken off when the gunshots started, and now she saw us rushing toward her. I raised the Sig Sauer. “Odessa, come down,” I yelled. “You’re done.”
The girl threw her head back and laughed, paying no attention to the skirmish happening to the east. She closed the book on her finger and tossed her hair over her shoulder, her eyes blazing at me. “So you did survive. I wondered.” Looking at Simon, she batted her eyes. “Hello, I haven’t had the pleasure—”
Simon threw a catapult spell at her. It succeeded only in knocking the book and umbrella out of her hands. Odessa frowned as the misting rain began to darken her hair. “Rude.”
“She’s wearing a witch bag,” I said out of the side of my mouth to Simon.
“Worth a shot,” he muttered.
We were six feet in front of her now, and the Unsettled had parted enough for me to see the empty glass bottle on the ground in front of Odessa, with a cork stopper next to it. I paused, the gun pointed at her head. “It’s over, Odessa. Come down so I don’t have to shoot you.”
Moving slowly, Odessa put her hands in the air, grinning at me. “I’m not armed,” she said. “Don’t shoot.”
But she still had something in her hand—something that had been hidden underneath the book. “What is that?” I demanded.
“Oh, this?” Her voice was all innocence, but when she brought her hand forward, I recognized the device. I’d seen them in Iraq. “I think it’s called a dead man’s switch. My friend Peter hooked it up for me.”
I narrowed my eyes. She wasn’t wearing an explosive vest under her formfitting raincoat; I was pretty sure about that. “What happens if you let go?” I started sidling forward, as though I were just trying to hear her better.
Odessa gave a careless shrug. “Then the spirit bottles I planted all over the city all go off at once. I couldn’t sneak one onto Beau’s property, thanks to your stupid werewolf prowling around—that’s close enough right there,” she said sharply, and I stopped moving. “Anyway. I have one at each of the three news stations that will be reporting on the video of Promenade, plus one at the mayor’s home.”
All the people who were questioning Beau at that moment. “You’re setting him up,” I said.
“Of course I am. If I can’t kill him right now, I can make it incredibly difficult for him to stay in Atlanta. Beau might be able to mind-fuck a few city officials or cops, but not the entire city at once. He’ll have to run.”
“What about your buyers?” I asked. “You’ll be all out of product.”
She laughed again. “Oh, we can always make more. And”—she checked her watch—“that’s enough stalling. Take the shot.”
She said it in a normal voice, but there was a sharp pop from the small patch of trees to my left, and Simon did something quick with his hands. Because of the sporadic streetlights, the fog, and the misting rain, you could actually just make out the invisible shield as the first bullet