“Mistress June.” Brad bowed.
If the robe and the knife and the bowing hadn’t made me nervous, Brad’s reaching into his glove compartment and pulling out a Venatores Mali ring, which fit him just right, would have done it for sure.
“Cloak the witch. Carry her,” June ordered, and strode into the woods.
How did these people know I was a witch when I’d just found out myself?
Henry! I need you. Now!
I thought the words very hard. No Henry. Did I have to say them out loud? Perform the spell? Perform the spell out loud? I wish I’d known that before Brad had gagged me. I wish I’d known he was going to gag me before I’d gotten in his car. Unfortunately premonition was not one of my superpowers.
Too bad. I would really have loved to avoid the clearing full of naked people, even before they began to chant. I think it was Latin, though it was hard to be sure. Brad hoisted me onto a tall, flat rock. I had no idea why, but I got the gist when Mistress June lifted her athame high above me, point down.
I tried to roll out of the way, but several chanting underlings held me in place. I tried to fling Mistress June with the power of my mind. She took a single step back and cast me a considering look. She tightened her grip on the athame, so when I tried to toss it, nothing happened. I should have paid better attention in tossing class.
If only there’d been one.
The voices rose in pitch and volume and then, suddenly, stopped. The silence was chilling. So was Mistress June’s smile.
“Welcome, master!” she shouted, and plunged the knife toward my chest.
A shot rang out. Her shoulder jerked back. The knife stuck in my arm and not my heart. It still burned like a bitch.
“Let her go.”
Bobby stood at the edge of the tree line on the opposite side of the clearing. How had he found me?
Suddenly the knife was pulled from my arm—ouch!—and pressed to my neck. “Back off or I’ll slit her throat.”
Bobby froze. I wanted to shout bullets beat knives! but I was still gagged.
My arm was bleeding pretty badly. My entire left side felt both damp and on fire.
The naked followers began to chant again, and the world kind of shimmied. My head went light, my eyesight dark. I must have lost even more blood than I’d thought.
*
“What the fuck?” Bobby muttered as the sky above the altar rippled.
Raye had gone limp. He hoped she was playing possum, but from the amount of blood dribbling over the sides of the rock, he didn’t think so. He needed to end this, but he wasn’t sure how.
Though Franklin had no doubt called for backup, Bobby didn’t think help would arrive in time. It was just the three of them. However, if Franklin and Cassandra walked out of the woods with guns, it would only cause the crazy lady to panic. With that knife at Raye’s jugular, panic would be a bad thing.
“He’s coming,” the woman said. “The sacrifice of a witch by a Venatores Mali with the most kills. Add the chants of the worthy believers and our master will rise.”
“You think you’re raising a dead witch hunter?” Bobby knew she did, but if she was talking to him she wasn’t speaking Latin, even though all the rest of them were.
The air crinkled again. Though he shouldn’t take his eyes off the woman, Bobby couldn’t help but stare as the sky seemed to stretch outward, as if something—someone—were, indeed, coming.
“Group delusion,” he said.
The followers chanted louder, faster, and the woman laughed. “You should have killed me right away. Now it’s too late.” She lifted the knife above her head, her knuckles nearly touching the shifting, shimmering air that looked so much like the face of a man that—
Bobby pulled the trigger. Everyone stopped chanting.
The woman stood for another instant, poised above Raye, knife just about to swoop down. Then blood bloomed across her chest, and she fell.
The face in the sky stared right at Bobby. The eyes blazed like stars; the mouth curled. He thought he actually heard a snarl, right before the thing disappeared.
“You bastard!”
Bobby was so freaked by the face that couldn’t have been there but somehow was that he wasn’t thinking, or moving, as fast as he should have been. Brad had his gun pointed in Bobby’s direction before he remembered the kid was there.
He was going to get shot, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.
Then Brad’s gun flew through the air and landed fifty feet behind him in the trees. The officer stared at his empty hand, then his fingers curled into fists. He lifted his gaze and started across the clearing in Bobby’s direction.
Bobby could take Pretty Boy, no problem. Even without the gun.
Then someone jumped Bobby from behind, and he went down in a flurry of fists and feet and fury.
*
I wasn’t out long. I heard June, Bobby, the Venatores Mali. But everything sounded so far away.