So that was why she’d denied responsibility for killing my loved ones. The necro had taken the tonton macoutes and used them as his own personal army. She’d damn well rented them out to him!
I swallowed hard.
Marge was dragging Alan along by the arm of his new body, and he held his free hand out to me and screaming, “Bree, help me!”
“Not this time, Alan. You made your bed, you can sleep in it,” I said. I didn’t know what would become of him, but in that moment, it was hard to care. The last of the bonds binding us had been broken.
Robert stayed where he had been kneeling across from me, rocking side to side. Waiting.
One of the other coven members shot forward and scooped up Beth, dragging her back into the darkness of the tunnel behind us. They were clearly beating a retreat now that we’d been cornered. Penny watched them go, sorrow written clearly on her face. “Another time,” she said. “I will save her another time.”
Missy sniffed and I turned to her, only then noticing what she held in her arms.
Gran’s spell book. Mother-ducking-witch! I glared at her, and she smiled at me, a big, wide smile, as she tapped the cover of the book. And then she turned and walked away. “Nice seeing you all.”
Penny gasped, but I was not surprised in the least. Missy put the bitch in witch.
She hadn’t come to help us, but to follow Gran’s spell book and get it for herself. And when I’d hip-checked her in the dark, she’d taken her chance and snagged it from me.
I just couldn’t be surprised anymore.
The necromancer stood in front of me, waiting. Time to relent to the inevitable: there would be some sort of showdown between the two of us.
I pushed Suzy gently away from me. “Get the others out of here.” I looked her in the eye, trying to will her to understand that I wanted her to follow at a distance. I knew I was outmatched with the necro. I couldn’t do this on my own.
But would my eye charades communicate that?
“We’ll be right behind,” she whispered as she helped Penny step to the side, Jacob following them. He paused next to me and put a hand to my shoulder.
“I do not know what he searches for, but it will not come to any good if he gets it. Fight him with all you have, Bree.”
As if I didn’t know that.
“You.” The necromancer pointed at Louis before he could so much as take a step away from me. “You will also come with us.”
We both groaned at the same time, most likely for different reasons. I, because of all the people who could have come with us, Louis was the least likely to be of any help to me. I’m sure Louis just didn’t want to get killed. “Seriously? Him?”
“As you say, he is less than useless to anyone.” The necromancer laughed. “So he will come and bear witness to this historic moment.”
He snapped his fingers, and Louis lurched to his feet as if pulled from a string at the top of his head. Then his legs, stiff and stick-like, bobbed into action.
“Je peux encore vous aider!” Louis said. I didn’t have enough French in my repertoire to know what he said, but I could guess he was doing some sort of begging. Something about aiding or helping the necro, no doubt.
When he got close enough to the necromancer, the black-robed figure put a very pale, almost gray-skinned hand on him, clamping down hard on his upper arm. They looked more like claws than fingers, and Louis groaned and spoke softly, this time without his accent.
“Come, we will go now,” Louis whispered.
Robert swayed to his feet, and the necromancer threw out a hand, stopping him with just that one move. Robert swayed harder. “Friend. Friend!”
My throat tightened. “It’ll be okay, Robert.”
He let out a low groan as if he knew that was not the case, same as me. But I refused to give up on the small spark of hope inside me that said it would somehow work out, even though dread filled me up to my damn eyeballs.
And just like that, it was the three of us, me with one powerhouse and one useless necromancer.
“You will lead,” the necromancer said.
I sighed and limped out in front of him. “You got a name? Because ‘robed-up dummy’ seems like a lot of words to my tired brain right now.” Mostly