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I sat in the darkened living room, on a chair across from the cold fireplace, staring at a dead girl who was still dying. She was vastly different from the picture I had seen of her in her abandoned bedroom, in her mother’s house outside Asheville, North Carolina, and in the NOPD’s woo-woo room. Older than the photos, indicating that she hadn’t been turned immediately after they were taken. Skinnier, paler certainly. Probably a bit taller. Her hair was a browner shade of red than Molly’s.
She didn’t move with vamp grace, the way they do when they want to charm or disarm, but all lizard-y, bird-y, snake-y, the way they do when they’re fearful or angry. Or sick. She was sitting on the sofa, her spindly legs drawn up onto the cushion, arms held up in the air, the skein of magic still working, providing the only light.
“Where’s Molly?” Eli asked. He was standing in the corner, weapon at ready, ocular perched on top of his head like a science fiction cyborg.
“He took her today while I was sleeping, after Bliss got sick,” Shiloh said, still staring at me. It wasn’t the regard of a predator with prey in sight; more like being regarded as uninteresting, unnecessary, and I remembered her question at the door, “What took you so long?”
Beast padded slowly forward, into the front parts of my mind, studying her. Witch-vampire. Dying, Beast murmured.
“Your eyes are starting to glow, just like Aunt Molly-Lolly said they would,” Shiloh said.
Molly-Lolly? I hadn’t heard that name before. I took a breath and pulled myself together. Someone took Molly. I had work to do. “You look sick,” I said. “Bliss is sick too?”
“Yes. Something’s wrong with Aunt Molly-Lolly’s magic. Jack is a witch like me. Or not like me, but he’s a witch. He got Aunt Molly-Lolly blood-drunk, cast a spell, used his compulsion on her, and redirected her magic. With the death magics, he can make people sick and kill Mithrans. He’s going to use it on Leo Pellissier, as soon as he gets him away from his power base.” Shiloh smiled, the skin of her face pulling into wrinkles, as if she was badly dehydrated. She looked worse, if possible, than she had when she answered the door, but maybe it was the lack of light. She still hadn’t turned any on.
“Death magic,” I said.
“Yes.” She took a breath and her fingers, still manipulating magic, trembled like dried sticks in a winter wind.
“That’s why the grounds are dying. Because of Molly,” I said.
“Yes. If it isn’t used, it spills over. She’s fighting him, but he’s draining her, and when she fights him, other things die and people get sick. She can’t last long.” Shiloh chuckled, and there was nothing amusing in the laughter. It was raspy, dry, the laughter of the grave, full of despair. “She’ll give up soon and let him use her. She’ll have to. And then I’ll be dead.”
I pointed at the magic she was doing. “You’re fighting the death spell.” When she nodded I said, “If it can be fought, it can be defeated.” I pulled my cell and dialed Big Evan.
“Stop,” Shiloh said. “Don’t. He’ll know.”
I looked at the cell and back to the girl. And it all made perfect sense. “Someone is telling him stuff about us. Stuff we say on our cell phones.”
Shiloh nodded, her neck like a thin stem, overbalanced by her head.
“Did he use the name Reach, by any chance?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have time just now for vengeance. I would take care of Reach later. Once I found him. I pulled a burner phone from my pocket and dialed Evan. When he answered, I said, “Jane here. Don’t talk. Just listen. Jack Shoffru has Molly, but I have Shiloh. Molly’s magic went bad and turned into death magic.”
“Magic doesn’t go bad. It takes—”
“I said shut up.” He did, but I didn’t have time to enjoy it. “Shoffru is directing Molly’s magic against her will, killing vamps and making humans sick. Shiloh is fighting it, but she’s losing. I need you to play something disruptive. And now.” It took a few seconds, but over the cell connection I heard the first strains of flute music. It was a melody similar to the one he had devised for Rick LaFleur, and tears prickled under my lids. But I didn’t have time for grief either, not for Rick, and not even for Molly. I held the cell to Shiloh, forcing all emotion down inside, where it raged and shrieked and slashed at the cave walls where I confined it.