“Witch. I wasn’t asking.” There was the sound of a slap, and while O’Shea wasn’t overly fond of the vampire, he wished he could have seen Milly get smacked around.

“You bastard, I’ll make you pay for that,” she screeched. “Liam, kill him!”

He spun and leapt at the vampire, toppling him to the ground. For once, he agreed with the command Milly gave him, and it made all the difference. His body unleashed all the pent up frustration and need to kill, and teeth and claws ripped through flesh as he pummeled the vampire with everything he had. That lasted all of twenty seconds before Faris put an end to it.

Faris laughed, his hands shooting out toward Liam, clamping the agent’s arms flat to his sides, effectively stopping O’Shea from moving. As if he were a child.

“Oh, wolf, if only you knew the power you carried, you’d be a formidable opponent. One worthy of my time and efforts.” The vampire shifted his head to one side. “As it is, you are a royal pain in my ass— and until Rylee realizes you aren’t coming back, I think it’s safe to say you are very much in my way.”

With a quick flick, Faris removed the torc while Milly screamed.

O’Shea scrambled back from him, his hands going involuntarily to his throat. “Why would you help me?”

Laughing, Faris smiled down at him. “Is that what you think I did?”

Before he could say anything else, O’Shea felt it, the pressure that had been unleashed. Milly had made sure the wolf was buried—the wolf and whatever else lay inside of him.

With a pained howl, he grabbed his head, the force of the wolf building until his skin split and the beast roared forward, all sense of humanity fleeing.

Faris continued his lecture. “You see, wolf, when you stop the natural progression of something, particularly in our world, it builds. Like an avalanche growing as it scours a mountainside. And if you unleash it after all that time building.” He made a popping sound with his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

The witch lifted her hand and Faris was suddenly on her, his face inches from hers. “If you want my continued protection, Milly, I suggest you re-think your next action.”

Sniffling, she managed to speak. “It’s been too long, the torc shouldn’t have come off.”

The vampire continued to smile. “I know.”

“Why don’t you just kill him then?”

Faris tsked. “The only reason I don’t kill him now is that I want Rylee to trust me. She can’t do that if I kill the man she loves, can she?”

He turned his face back to Liam. “Happy hunting, wolf. Just so you know, there will be no coming back for you.”

O’Shea’s entire world crumbled as the wolf took full control, wiping out his humanity in one fell swoop. Though he tried to hang on, O’Shea and everything he was got pushed back, deep into the recesses of his mind.

His last human thought was of her. The girl with the tri-colored eyes, the girl whose name had already fled but the scent and image, the touch and feel of her was burned into his soul so deep that even the wolf couldn’t extinguish her. She was his mate, forever, his all, his heart.

Hope flickered.

She would come for him.

*-*-*-*

It felt like a nasty case of déjà vu with a slight twist.

Pamela and I were crouched on the rooftop of an older four-story home in the countryside, the Necromancer below us inside the confines of the home. Now that I knew who she was and had seen her picture, I could Track her as well as the kids. Her mind was a jumble of emotions fighting to be heard, clamouring overtop of one another. I blocked her and focussed on the kids.

“What now?” Pamela asked, her hand gripping the handle of the long knife I’d given her. I pulled my crossbow off my back and set a bolt in the channel.

“We go in quietly, see if we can’t knock her out and get the opal on her. It’ll be the only way without Deanna here to help.”

Pamela nodded. “And there’ll be zombies, won’t there?”

“Yes. But they’re slow. Let me go first, I’ll clear the way. You finish off any that I wound. Okay? But no magic unless you absolutely have to.”

“All right.”

Eve had already headed south, though she’d argued with me about it. Finally, though, she’d agreed when I’d pointed out that Alex, Will, and Deanna had no idea where we were, and there was no way we had to contact them.

Setting the butt of the crossbow tight into my shoulder, I crept forward. The rooftop was mainly an open solarium, half-dead plants wilting in their pots, tile set into the roof for footing and even a few garden statues.

We moved quickly, looking for the way down into the house. Pamela found it after a few minutes of looking, partially buried under a large pot filled with dirt and a withered stick that maybe at one point had been a tree or bush.

“Here, we’ll lift it together,” I said, gripping the edge of the old copper flowerpot.

With a heave, we rolled it sideways with almost no sound. So far so good.

I crouched and slid one hand over the rusted latch. Jaw tight, I pulled it as slowly as I could, praying for a silent mechanism. There was a muffled screech of metal on rusted metal. Wincing, I gave up the subtlety, wrenched the latch open, and jerked the trap door upward.

It gave way, the hinges mercifully silent, though I wasn’t sure how much that would help us now. I peered down into the blackness of what appeared to be the attic. Maybe no one had heard the noise? I Tracked the kids; they were all still here, only a floor or two below us.

“Leave the door open and wait for me to give you the okay,” I said, swinging the crossbow onto my back and then lowering myself through the trap door.

Dropping to the floor below, I waited in a perfectly still crouch. The darkness seemed benign for once.

“Pamela.”

“Coming,” she whispered, lowering herself to hang from the lip of the trap door and then dropping to land beside me.

“Light,” I said, keeping my voice low.

She lifted her hand and a soft pink glow lit up around her fingers.

“Perfect,” I said, getting a good look at the room. Indeed, this was an attic. Across from us was an old steamer trunk, its lid flung open, contents pouring out of it like someone had been looking for something. I looked inside of it, the smell of age whispering up around me.

A name was etched into the underside of the lid. Brittany Mariana Tolvay. This was the daughter’s trunk. I bent and picked up a skirt, far too small for an adult. These were her things.

An idea began to form as I thought about what had brought Anne Tolvay to this point. Giselle had been mad at the end, totally and completely mad. But did that make her a bad person? Was it her fault that the madness had taken over and made her do things that she otherwise never would have?

“Pamela, I think we can end this without anyone getting hurt.”

Her blue eyes flicked up to mine, far too perceptive for her age. “You want me to wear her clothes, don’t you?”

I pawed through the trunk, finding a drab black dress. “You wearing her clothes will do two things. It’ll be a distraction for the Necromancer, and it’ll help to keep you safe. If she thinks you are her long dead daughter . . . .” Bunching up the starchy material I pulled it down over Pamela’s head as I finished my thought. “. . .you will be able to get close to her. Or at least, she won’t bugger off using the Veil as a jump point. If it looks like she’s going to make a run for it, call out to her.”

Pamela wiggled, straightening the dress out. The black old school dress was the right length but it was loose around the slight girl. “What should I say?”

I thought for a moment. “Mother or mama. With you here, if she believes you’re her daughter, I don’t think she’ll jump the veil. Are you ready?”

“Yup, I got it.”

As ready as we could be, I led the way to the door leading out of the attic. Cracking it open a sliver, I could just see the narrow stairwell leading down to the next floor.

“Stay behind me,” I said. Crossbow up and ready to fire, I crept slowly down the stairs.

The air around us seemed to tense the further down we went, or perhaps it was just my nerves. This Anne Tolvay had f**ked off on me once; I couldn’t let it happen again. My gut was telling me it was now or never.

On the first landing we came to, there was only one zombie. I pulled the trigger on the crossbow and the mechanism fired with a soft twang, the bolt taking the zombie between the eyes and pinning it to the wall. It convulsed once and then sagged, what was left of its life leaking out of it and down the paisley wallpaper.

A quick check of the rooms on that level showed nothing. I Tracked the kids; they were still here, all bunched together. Dread slid through my heart, the sick knowledge that we were about to see twenty-plus kids in a state of half decay and worse. Fuck. I tried to shake it off, but the feeling clung to me.

The next stairwell down was empty, and then we were on the landing of the second floor. The kids were across the landing behind the second door on the left.

Of course, that’s when that bitch of a Necromancer sprung her little trap.

And we’d walked right the f**k into it.

24

Zombies poured out from the other three doors, climbed the stairs from below us, and forced us back the way we’d come.

I shot three in the head in quick succession, but it was too tight of quarters for the crossbow to be as effective as it could be. Booting the closest zombie in the chest, I slung my crossbow over my shoulder and pulled my two swords.

“Stay on the stairs,” I yelled, catching Pamela out the corner of my eye doing as I told her. At least she listened.

Then it was all limbs and bodies being hacked, and I wondered if the flood of rotters would ever end. There were too many for me to take on, more even than had been at the police station.

“Rylee, let me help,” Pamela said, the terror in her voice obvious.

“Not yet,” I grunted.

Three more decapitations and I’d made a little room around me, though with the pile up of bodies, it wasn’t much.