by Anna Abner
Reluctantly, the quartet and their spirits departed, even Stephanie, the most unwilling to leave.
The moment the door closed on the last of them, Talia whirled on Cole. “What the hell just happened?”
Because almost nothing made sense, and she was dying to know why.
Her previous assignments had been supervised by her creepy handler, the Carver, and at least one other necromancer. This was her first solo task, and rather than impress the cabal, she found herself preparing to thwart them in whatever small way she could. So, if the DC wanted Burkov, then she wanted to hear what he had to say first.
Cole’s eyes glazed over as if lost in his own world.
“Who were those people?” Talia pressed.
“My friends,” he mumbled, and then roused himself.
“Geez, if those were your friends…” She’d hate to meet his enemies.
Apart from the ones she’d already met. Herself included. She was technically one of his enemies because not that long ago she had meant to do him harm. She was an awful person and the realization struck hard and fast.
Pushing the guilt and shame further down where it hurt less, she approached Cole cautiously, taking in the most obvious details. Black, messy hair. Old scar down his bare chest. Faded bruises on his face. Black, hospital-issue scrub bottoms.
“Why couldn’t they see you?” She hugged her middle, her tank top and teeny shorts feeling suddenly inadequate. “I thought your vanishing spell only worked on spirits.”
“Maybe it got screwed up.”
“And you’re invisible to casters, too, except me and Hugh? Because we helped you cast it?”
“Am I?” The possibility seemed to invigorate him. He wrestled his shirt, stiff with dried blood, back on. “I need to know for sure. Do you have neighbors?” But he didn’t wait for an answer before hurrying out the front door as his friends’ taillights disappeared at the end of her road.
“Hold up.” Talia chased him across her lawn, skidding on dew-covered grass, and up Mr. Everly’s porch steps.
Cole banged on the screen door.
Lights blinked on in the small house, and then the locks clicked open.
At the sight of the old man’s pinched face in the open door, Cole exclaimed, “Fire! Your house is on fire! Come with us right now before you burn to death!”
“Is that you, girl?” Mr. Everly squinted sleepily at Talia. “Did something happen? It’s awfully late.”
She blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I smelled gas. Sorry to wake you.”
“Gas?” He shook his head. “I don’t smell anything. Go back to bed.” He closed the door and turned the locks.
“That is,” Talia decided, staring blankly at aluminum siding as lights flickered out one by one, “without a doubt, one of the creepiest things I have ever seen.” She swung her eyes toward Cole. “You made yourself invisible.”
* * *
Cole stood in a strange woman’s living room, tense as any changeling before their first transformation. “I’m invisible.” What did it mean? What should he do next?
With her handler missing, Talia was his one and only link to the cabal.
“Do you know the identity of the Dark Caster, or not?” he asked, his tone rougher than he intended. “The only reason I’m here is to meet him. Face-to-face.”
She kept tugging at her shorts as if hoping they’d magically cover more area, but the more she did the more his gaze was drawn to her legs. She wasn’t particularly tall, but she had nice legs. Long, lean, and tan.
“Like a super-villain, no one knows the Dark Caster’s real identity,” she said, crossing her arms and forcing his eyes upward.
“So, the answer’s no?” he guessed. Just great. He’d wasted a lot of time messing around with this woman and her uppity British spirit.
“Look, something’s going on at headquarters,” Talia said. “My handler’s dead.” She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you hiding from your friends? Did you take out the Carver?”
“Things are kind of running together right now. Anything’s possible. And I’m not hiding from them,” Cole said. “But they’d try to stop me.”
Where to go next? Back to the meetinghouse? No. The burned shell was a dead end. A locator spell? A loud plea to heaven?
“Stop you from doing doing what?”
A spirit appeared near the sofa. “The Carver’s dead, and Jeff has vanished.”
Cole didn’t think the guy in the cargo shorts saw him, but he stayed real still just in case.
“I heard, Rob, but I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Talia said.
Cole had a difficult time believing she was a cold-hearted mastermind of evil. She seemed scared of the spirit and a little defensive. But lots of evil people looked like sweet-faced women. And they weren’t.
“I haven’t seen either of them since last week,” Talia added.
“I’m here to assign you a new task.”
“Which is?” she asked.
“Your new target is named Georgie Potts,” Rob said. “She works at Happy Trails Day Care in Springfield. Your task is to cast a rotting spell on her. A quick one. When you’re done, we’ll let you know who to target next.”
“Is that completely necessary? Couldn’t I just follow her around and report—”
Cargo Shorts talked right over her as if she wasn’t worth his time. “You’ll do what you’re told, or you’ll never gain trust. Do you understand?” When Talia stuttered to answer, he added, “I’ve seen Sylvester. He’s not happy where he is. Should I tell him you don’t care enough to get him home again?”
Talia’s chin quivered ever so slightly, and Cole approached. He stopped short of actually touching her, though.
“I’ll do whatever I am asked to do,” she said. “My loyalty is with the Dark Caster. I serve him and no other.” The words were spoken with no emotion, as if she’d memorized the phrase out of a book.
“That’s better. I’ll tell the master how cooperative you were today.” Rob vanished, and Talia visibly deflated.
“What was that about?” Cole asked.
The woman must not have seen him advance because the sound of his voice startled her.
“Stay back,” she shouted, aiming her palms at him as if arrows might shoot from them at any second. But, even scarier, her spirit companion appeared at her side, ready to cast any of a thousand unpleasant spells on him.
Cole didn’t get any closer, but he didn’t back up, either. His thoughts were still muddy, but it appeared as if this woman did have a direct line to the Dark Caster. If she was doing his assignments, speaking to his spirits, and calling him “master” they were more than passing acquaintances. Perhaps she could be useful, after all.
* * *
Any and all curiosity that may have motivated Talia to drag Cole around Auburn at two in the morning had morphed into extreme annoyance and frustration. She wasn’t a babysitter, damn it.
“Why don’t you sit down and go back to sleep,” she suggested. “Someone will be here to talk to you soon.”
“You’re in the cabal,” Cole said, ignoring everything she’d just told him. “You’re one of his followers.”
“Of course I am.” Talia rushed around him, gathering her phone and her keys. She had a forty-five minute drive to Springfield and a woman’s flesh to rot. “I’m about to do his dirty work right now.”
“Hold up.” He trapped her in the narrow hallway, forcing her to stop or shove him out of the way. “Who is Sylvester?”
Guilt, her faithful companion, sliced through her chest. The worst part was the pain never lessened. Thinking of her nephew always hurt.
The sweetest boy in the world, was her initial thought. But she went with, “None of your business.”
“You and your master seem pretty close,” Cole observed. “He must trust you or he wouldn’t have sent you to the meetinghouse tonight.”
“I do jobs for him,” Talia admitted, feeling the old familiar shame tha
t she’d ever agreed to start. Not that it had been much of a choice. Do what the DC told her to do or find Sylvester’s body parts on her front stoop.
She tried to duck around Burkov, but he was very tall and very male, regardless of how much blood he’d lost. She was stuck in the hall with him until his interrogation was over.
“You’re not going to rot an innocent woman’s flesh. I won’t let you.”
She blinked. That’s what he was worried about? A strange woman in Springfield? If she were Cole she’d be much more concerned with what the DC had planned for him.
“Tough,” she bluffed. “No one tells the big boss no.”
“Perfect,” he said, his voice like the pop of a pistol. “Let’s see what he does when I take something he wants. Maybe he’ll agree to meet me then.”
He spun and marched for the kitchen, yanking at the vertical blinds. Talia didn’t fully understand his intention until he faced her with the thin ropes in his hands.
“Palms up,” he ordered.
“What?” she squeaked. He was kidnapping her? “Have you lost your mind? I’m in charge of you.”
“Last chance to do this the easy way.”
“You can’t even cast,” she remembered. “You sent away your spirit companion.” Ha. She had him cornered. She and Hugh would eviscerate him.
“I don’t need magic to kidnap you.” He grabbed her hard by the upper arm. Talia danced on her toes. “See how easy that was?”
“Miss?” Hugh’s voice, as always, was calm and emotionless. “Cast on him. Please.”
He sent her buckets of tingly power, but she’d never cast on the fly before. She’d never needed to. She’d always used magic the way she was supposed to. On her knees in a hand drawn spell circle. Not dangling from a lunatic’s grip in her kitchen.
Wait. Her kitchen. The emergency spell circle under the rug.
Talia swung her oversized purse at Cole as hard as she could. Unfortunately, it didn’t incapacitate him, but it stunned him long enough to fling herself onto the floor. She scrambled for the rug. Her fingers grasped the woven fabric at the same time Cole clutched her ankle. And pulled. She skidded backwards on her belly.
“Just stop,” he said, crouching over her. “You’re not real. None of this is real. Not this house. Not the spell circle you’re trying so hard to reach. None of it. And if I kill you the same way I killed the others, it won’t matter. So, don’t tempt me.”
Talia stopped fighting. The others? How many people had he killed? “Okay. I’ll stop. But if you abduct me, he’ll think I ran away and he’ll hurt my nephew.”
Cole crossed her wrists over her belly, tied them together, and then lifted her to her feet. “Where are the keys to your car?”
“Did you hear me?”
She couldn’t let him take her. She just couldn’t. The cabal would kill Sylvester.
Her adrenalin spiking into the red, she tugged at his shirt, ripping seams. “A child’s life is at risk,” she screamed. “You have to at least let me contact someone.”
He found her keys on the coffee table.
“No, wait, my purse!” She jerked hard, but he was stronger. Her phone was in there. She could call for help, send a message, something.
“Forget it.”
“Please!”
Grumbling, he lifted her shoulder bag off the floor. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed. “This isn’t a purse, it’s a suitcase.”
“It’s mine.” Talia took it from him, and he let her. Holding it tight, she hissed, “You’re a cold-hearted bastard if you do this to me and my nephew.” She attacked him with her infamous teacher’s glare.
Unfazed, he adjusted his grip on her upper arm and dragged her outside. She didn’t make it easy for him, though. Digging in her feet, she fought him every step of the way from her door to the car. He’d already passed out once. If she were lucky, the strain would cause him to keel over.
No such luck.
Inside her Honda two-door, he tied her bindings to the gearshift, despite her best efforts to thwart him.
Fine.
Maybe the White Wraith would understand. Though she’d never struck Talia as a necessarily understanding kind of girl.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
No answer.
“Cole, how many people have you killed?” What was she dealing with? An angry amateur or a soulless serial killer?
“Three, four, five. It doesn’t matter. It’s all part of the nightmare.” He aimed crazed eyes on her, and she flinched away. “I don’t have to tell you. You’re part of it, too.”
How quickly his sanity had evaporated. “You’re not in a nightmare anymore,” she assured, twisting her fingers into knots. She had to get out of the car. She had to lose Burkov. She had to confess everything to the DC. “This is real.”
“No.” His laugh quickly devolved into a pained groan. “If this is real then I’ve hurt people I love.”
Hollywood movies had taught her to keep madmen talking. Convince him she was on his side.
“Tell me what you did. Maybe I can help.”
“You can help me not kill my mom?” he snapped. “My sister? My friends? Huh?”
She quivered at the ferocity in his voice. “You did those things?” He was as bad as the cabal. No wonder they wanted him.
“Just be quiet.” His shoulders drooped. “We’ll be there soon.” Cole dialed the radio to a hip-hop station and twisted the knob to full volume.
Talia tried to remain calm and think things through logically. If he wanted her dead, he’d had enough chances to do it already. He’d be forced to stop the vehicle eventually. She could be patient for a while longer, and then she’d escape the moment he took his eyes off her.
Her damned walk on the wild side had gotten her into this. She’d been coerced into casting black magic, but part of her had expected to like it. After all, every choice she’d ever made, up to a certain point, had been the right choice.
But being a bad girl wasn’t nearly as much fun as people pretended. She felt icky and guilty and as dirty as the inside of a hospital bedpan. How her sister Adrian lived with her choices, Talia didn’t know.
“Miss,” Hugh said, appearing in the backseat. He filled her with oodles of tickly power. “There is a circle above your head. Please use it.”
The spell circle on the roof of her car.
She turned on Cole, but she only got the S out of a down-and-dirty sleep spell before his hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off her words.
“Take your filthy hands off her, you scoundrel,” Hugh exclaimed.
“Don’t even think about it.” Cole rooted around in her purse, steering erratically with just his knee on the wheel. “There must be something useful in here.” He pulled a pink and white bandana from her bag. The one she wore when it rained and her curls frizzed.
But Cole didn’t tie it over her head. He stuffed it in her mouth.
She deserved this. She’d taken so many wrong turns recently and they’d all led her to this moment, a prisoner of the necromancer she was supposed to collect. She never should have agreed to cast black magic in the first place—she didn’t even believe in it—and she wouldn’t have, if they weren’t holding her innocent nephew’s life as ransom.
Wherever she’d expected him to drive her, this wasn’t it.
Cole swung right at a mailbox, and Talia peered through the rain-dotted windshield at the imposing silhouette of an old, colonial farmhouse at the end of a gravel driveway. The white clapboard siding was graying, and the second floor veranda sagged like an ancient castle battlement. No one was caring for the place. Opaque, empty windows stared back like dead eyes in a drooping face.
Cole didn’t bother with verbal instructions. He parked the car, leaving the keys jangling from the ignition, and hauled her out of the passenger seat. They moved awkwardly, stumbling together on the uneven ground. Under their combined weight the front porch creaked like an accordion. Talia stepped cautiously in case the e
ntire structure collapsed beneath her.
When he opened the door, no key required—who would ever bother robbing this dump—a stale, slightly moldy puff of air wafted over her, and she gagged on her bandana.
“Miss, I am begging you,” Hugh said. “Do not enter his home. Nothing good can come of it.”
Cole jerked on her bindings, forcing her into a dark foyer.
Talia fought him, straining at the ropes and chafing the tender skin of both wrists, but he was stronger.
The interior surprised her even more than the outside. It wasn’t the house of horrors she’d pictured. On the contrary, the floor was swept and visible surfaces had been wiped clean. Some pieces of antique furniture remained, giving off a lonely, forgotten vibe, but other than that it was just an old house.
Cole turned on a single overhead bulb, which improved the house’s charm a fraction.
He guided her past a parlor populated with a student desk straight out of the 1970s and a single wooden chair.
“Stand there,” he ordered, pointing at the staircase’s banister.
She refused to go along with his plan. When he moved to force her, she swung at him. If she wasn’t so clumsy from the bindings, she might have given him a nosebleed. But he wasn’t as weak as she’d hoped and easily avoided her blows. Silent, he tied her to the solid, wooden post.
While she pulled at the ropes, he rummaged through kitchen drawers.
“Now what?” she mumbled through the cloth, but he didn’t elaborate.
He stomped outside into the gray pre-dawn light.
Talia believed in taking opportunities. As long as Cole remained outside she could cut herself free and escape in her car. The keys were still in the ignition.
First, she plucked the rag from her mouth. “Hugh,” she whispered. “Get ready. I’m going to make a run for the roof of the car.” And the spell circle atop it.
“Excellent idea, miss.”
She twisted at the knots until her hands turned purple and tiny bolts of pain shot up her arms, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. Then she spotted a bit of splintering at the section of the post closest to the stairs. It wasn’t exactly a pair of scissors, but she was willing to try anything. She dropped to her belly and sawed at the ropes.
