spell woven into her soul so her spirit would be magically transported the moment she entered New Orleans?” The necromancer said.
My guts about jumped out of my mouth. “And? What’s your point? You . . .” That’s when it hit me. He didn’t know where she was. The homing spell he was talking about had whisked her away from him. Oh, time for some epic putdowns.
I lifted both brows as high as I could and pointed a finger at him. “You lost her, didn’t you? What kind of necromancer are you that you lost my gran’s spirit? Have you been taking lessons from Louis?”
The hooded head whipped from side to side, and Louis writhed on the ground, a low moaning growl escaping him as if he were in great pain, his hands flexing and spreading as he clutched at his clothes. The necromancer fisted his hands. “You dare to challenge me? You dare to insult me? I, who taught these foolish witches how to steal the powers of others?”
The witches gasped and Penny clutched at her skirt. So that was how they’d learned—from a necromancer.
“Louis is a better necromancer than you!” I snapped, anger fueling me. Shit, Louis was about as good at being a necromancer as I was at being quiet once I was riled up. “Are you seriously telling me you lost her? YOU LOST MY GRAN?”
A roar rippled out of him, and Louis and Jacob both fell flat to the ground, shaking. “I will not be spoken to as if—”
“You’re a damn child!” I pointed a finger at him again, and Penny might have giggled. “Taking other people’s things and losing them like a toddler who doesn’t know any better!” Gawd in heaven, all the fear had leaked out of me, leaving behind the kind of righteous indignation that only shows up after you turn forty. Trust me on that one, it’s a powerful blend.
From the corners of my vision, I could see the witches from the Coven of Darkness circling around us. Well, that was just ducking awesome.
The necromancer jerked his hands above his head, and both Louis and Jacob were yanked to their feet as if by marionette strings. Jacob’s eyes were wide, Louis’s were shut tight, his lips moving in what was no doubt a whispered prayer.
Tension filled the air as we stood across from each other, the lines drawn in the sand. Me, Robert, and Penny against a monstrous necromancer and an entire coven of witches.
I swallowed hard. “Robert?”
“Yes?” He adjusted his stance.
“We’re gonna die, aren’t we?”
“Well . . .” He glanced at me, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You might, I’m already dead.”
Leave it to Robert to crack a joke right when we are about to go into a fight. I laughed. “Okay, will I at least be a badass skeleton like you? We can hang out in a graveyard together then, right?”
He shrugged, his blue eyes serious. “Only if you get cursed.”
I blinked and stared at him. “What?”
Of course, that’s when the coven came at us, cutting off the explanation I was now desperate to hear.
The witches lifted their hands, and a boom filled the air—not a thunderous sound, more like the ground itself was letting out a massive belch. The air grew thick, and the humidity suddenly ramped up over an impossible 100 percent, yet somehow it wasn’t raining.
“Damn it all. I told you to wait for me!”
We all twisted to see a figure I’d have rather not seen. I think. Missy strutted up the path, her own cane swatting at anything in her way. “Penny, I see the children are acting out again.”
Penny sighed. “It’s the same with every generation. In a hurry.”
They faced the coven together, Missy putting a hand on Penny’s shoulder as she drove her cane into the ground. Fissures shot out around her, a spiderweb of cracks, and a glow rolled around the two older women, lighting them up. Those fissures? They shot toward the different coven members. Whatever was in them packed a mighty wallop, because the witches yelped and danced backward, a few even passed out, hitting the ground with heavy thumps. The two old gals had given us a bit of breathing room.
“Won’t buy us much time,” Penny said as if reading my thoughts.
Missy dusted her hands in the air. “They don’t know what they are up against.”
I lurched forward and grabbed Penny by the arm, ready to take off, but the sound of leather on cement turned me around.