“No, we need to see if we can figure out the best way in and out, where Frank will place his friends, and see if we can find out where the witches are exactly.”

The threads of the coven were growing stronger, getting closer with each step we took. There was very little time before we’d have to go in and face the black witches, rescue the two kids who hadn’t been possessed, and kill the one who had been taken over by a demon.

Yup, good times ahead.

Tracking the witches was easy. Simple. And we found them at the Navy Shipyard.

Contrary to the name, there was no navy waiting for us. A shipyard for repairs and construction on big boats. Yeah, I know, not very technical but I was no boat buff. The docks were not active; the night had cleared out most of the humans. Good and bad, it was harder for us to blend in when it was just us walking the docks as compared to say the bustle of mid-day.

“How close are we?” Erik asked, breaking the silence.

I stopped and looked to the far end of the docks, an old navy ship in the farthest berth bobbed lightly in the water. I squinted, using my measly second sight, and could see the lay of spells on the hull. They shimmered and danced in the blowing snow. If I didn’t know that it was black magic and witches, I would have thought the boat almost pretty. “That one, at the end. Why?”

Erik didn’t answer me. Instead he asked Frank a question. “How many dead can you sense?”

The kid cocked his head to one side, as if listening for voices only he could hear. “There’s a lot of dead people around here.”

But I had a suspicion I knew what he was talking about.

“In the water?”

He nodded and pointed to a rope ladder that spun down to touch the dark water. “Yeah, there are a lot in the water, but to get them up to the dock might take a bit of work. Zombies aren’t known for being coordinated.”

“I can lift them if there is a part of them dry from the salt water,” Pamela said. “But like I said, the other witches will be able to sense me working my magic, so I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

Berget tipped her head. “If there was something solid for me to stand on, I could throw the zombies onto the boat.”

Neither option looked good.

Crap, without a secure way to bring the zombies out of the water, I wasn’t sure it was going to be worth it.

“Frank, are there any dead bodies closer? Some from dry ground, perhaps?”

He rubbed his forehead. “No, sorry there aren’t.”

I wanted to groan and beat my head against the dock. “Well, we’ll just have to run with it and hope the gods are looking out for us.”

Frank and Pamela nodded and Erik lifted an eyebrow at me. I lifted an eyebrow right back at him.

“Let’s get closer, find a spot to hunker down and get a good look at these fuckers.” I led the way, finding a small alcove about a couple hundred feet from the boat. A part of my brain was ticking away at a small problem, one that no one had pointed out.

“Why the hell would they be on a boat?” I muttered.

Alex lay at my feet, his eyes glowing in the darkness. He tipped his head up, and mimicked Frank, cocking it to one side. “So they can go swimming easy.”

Erik laughed softly, but the laugh on my lips died. “Fucking hell, he’s right.”

“What?”

“Salt water nulls spells. If you were raising demons and running spells that could end your life if you weren’t careful, wouldn’t you want a big ass amount of salt water around?” I crouched, elbows on my knees and hands under my chin. “This is their fail safe, the harbor could save their asses and they know it.”

Pamela’s mouth dropped open. “How did Alex know?”

Alex grunted and rolled to his back, tongue flipping out between his teeth as he grinned up at us. “I is smarty smart now.”

Whether or not he knew didn’t really matter, I was sure it was the reason behind them being here. I stared at the big boat, eyed the only gangplank onto it. It looked about three feet wide and wasn’t secured on either side; just a piece of wood going across a slim portion of water between the dock and the boat.

I gave them all a hard look, one at a time. “You all stay here. I’m going to get a closer look. Frank, if I give you a thumbs up, you start raising your buddies. Let them just float to the surface of the water. Pamela, I’ll give a closed fist for lifting them out of the water and onto the deck of the boat. Berget, you see if you can circle around, come in from a different angle.”

Frank pushed his glasses up his nose and then rubbed his arms. Pamela gave me a grim smile. Some days I thought maybe she enjoyed the fighting a little too much. One more thing to discuss when we finally had our little heart to heart. Berget gave a short nod and with her spooky-ass speed, ran around to the other side of the docks, disappearing as she leapt onto the boat with a single bound.

“I’m going with you, Niece.”

I didn’t argue with Erik—no point—and I didn’t really mind. He was a good man to have at my back. Crouching, I scooted forward until I was behind a set of crates about ten feet away from the gangplank, Erik tight on my heels. From there, I peered around the corner without exposing my body.

Fifteen minutes passed with no movement on the boat, and no feeling of much of anything from the witches or the kids. Everything was pretty quiet. It made me nervous.

The waves splashed against the dock below and I looked back toward my group. On the dock, the snow had accumulated and, fuck it all, Alex crept forward, leaving large footprints in the snow. I glared at him, but he didn’t slow until he was at my side.

“Boss says watch over you.” He sat, wagged his tail and looked up at me. “I keep you safe.”

Nothing I could do now.

The minutes passed and the snow fell, coating everything around us. That would make the plank slick, and even more deadly to cross. I signaled to Frank, giving him a thumbs up.

I didn’t feel anything, didn’t sense a disturbance in the force, as it were. A loud splash from below drew my eyes down. There, to one side of the boat, bodies floated to the surface. And damn they were nasty.

“Stinkers,” Alex grumbled. That they were. The zombies had not been well-preserved, and I wondered how so much flesh remained when they’d been in salt water for hell knew how long. Bones stuck through in a lot of places, flashes of white in the water, dark pits for eyes. I shuddered, remembering the old vampires we’d faced in the Australian desert. They’d started out with dark pits for eyes too.