and got that little warm push that I sometimes got when a prayer gets a thumbs-up. That was good enough for me. I started to ask for a hammer and then realized that it wasn’t nails or screws, at least not through the bone. He had little racks that the bones were sitting on, with clamps holding them in place.
“Zerbrowski, go stand over there by Nicky.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to take one of the bones down.”
“Anita, just because you were brute enough to withstand whatever he did to me doesn’t mean you can touch this stuff with impunity.”
“Impunity, really?”
He grinned at me. “Hey, Katie reads to me and the kids at night, okay?”
I smiled and shook my head at him. “You go watch over Curtis, and let Nicky be my lovely assistant.”
“I’d usually argue that I’m your lovely assistant, but one magic whammy was enough for today.” The fact that he just did it without arguing meant it had hurt him or scared him even more than I thought. Crap. He was going to need to see a witch and a doctor to make sure he was okay.
“If you touch the bones, I cannot be responsible for what happens. They are powerful magical relics and I cannot control what they will do to you.”
Zerbrowski said, “Are you threatening us again?”
“No, I used magic to ensure my safety when I touched the relics. She’s about to touch them with her bare hands. It’s dangerous.”
“Maybe he’s got a point,” Zerbrowski said. “Maybe we should wait for some more magical backup.”
“This is death magic, Zerbrowski. I’m who they’d call for backup.”
“Just be careful, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. I looked at the bones with that inner sight, and the golden glow was there, but I realized that my hand was glowing with the same glow, except mine was thicker, shinier. What was on the bones was like golden cotton candy—light and full of air. What was on me was more like caramel or the whole apple. It was my magic. I’d never looked at my energy when I raised the dead like that. I’d felt it before but never seen it shine like this.
I laid a fingertip against the arm, and the shine of it merged. The voice was a little louder, Justine over and over in my head, but slower, not as frantic.
“If you take the bones outside the ritual area, you will be struck down,” Curtis said from the bed where Zerbrowski had sat him down. It wasn’t for his comfort; Zerbrowski didn’t want to have to stay on the floor with him. I didn’t blame him.
I picked up a piece of the arm and lifted it off the wall. The glow on it melted into the glow of my power, but it didn’t hurt. It felt right. I carried the arm piece away from the altar and the symbols, and I felt fine. The arm was in the most pieces, some of them still showing the burn marks from the flamethrowers that had been used on them in the cemetery almost two years ago. I carried the pieces back and forth to lay them on a clean sheet that Nicky had found somewhere. With each bone that left the ritual area, the murmur of Justine lessened.
“You should be hurt. You should be screaming. Why aren’t you screaming?” Curtis asked from the bed.
I lifted the big rounded pelvis off the wall and carried it to rest beside the arm bones. The voice in my head was less frantic now, not a plea for help but a lover’s murmur of your name against your hair. I got the jawbone next, and the energy quieted more.
“You should be writhing in pain, or dead. Why aren’t you dead?”
I had to stand on tiptoe to reach the top part of the skull, but I finally laid it beside the other bones, and the constant cry of Justine paused, and then it was like a long-contented sigh and then silence. Maybe they weren’t just bones, but they weren’t his magical battery anymore either.
“That’s not possible, no one could dismantle my spell