Slightly Spellbound (33 page)

“Where in the world are we going?” I demanded.

Mercutio didn’t answer.

“Well, wherever it is,” I said crossly, “I hope they have pastries.”

 • • • 

BRYN’S MAGIC AND I guess my own witch magic seeped back into me on the drive because I felt more emotional and a little feverish by the time we stopped for gas. I bought a packaged brownie. It was full of disgusting preservatives that made me frown, but the rush of sugar did perk me up.

I leaned against the car, and Zach and I exchanged glances.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, yourself,” he said, swiping his credit card.

“Bryn thinks we might be headed to Evangeline’s apartment in Dallas. Since Edie’s body was left in her apartment, maybe he finishes them off at home where there’s a concentration of their magic.”

Zach tipped his cowboy hat back an inch and nodded. “Makes sense.” I caught him looking at my legs. I’d gotten rid of the torn sweatpants, so my dress covered my thighs but my calves were bare. The red wounds had scabbed over, but the dark circles had grown again to the size of silver dollars.

“These teeth marks might scar,” I said, glancing down. Normally I healed so well my skin wasn’t left with evidence of my misadventures.

“Something to remember the gator by. He’s luckier than most,” Zach said, filling his tank.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there’s a part of you that’s obviously Teflon-coated. Maybe you were just killing time with me until you could afford a shinier pair of shoes.”

I sighed. “You can’t listen to her.”

“To who?”

“To the faery girl. I think there’s something kind of wrong with her. Hate to say it, but she’s maybe a little bit of a sociopath.” I chewed on my lip.

“She’s a part of you,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” I said with a huff of breath. “It’s worrisome.” I walked around the pumps to his truck and leaned against it. “The regular part of me loved you and always will. The faery girl part of me doesn’t seem to know what love is.”

“She likes Lyons well enough.”

“Well, she likes pretty shiny things. He fits the bill. Plus, he doesn’t wear an amulet that repels her.”

“That amulet may have saved your life.”

“It did. Thank you for that,” I said softly.

“You’re welcome.”

“Bryn’s okay, you know. I think he’d be your friend if you’d let him.”

“Oh, darlin’, that friendship’s about as likely as the devil getting invited to a prayer revival.”

“If you guys both tried—”

“Not going to happen. Lyons is too smart to forget we’re rivals. He’s okay with me coming along today for two reasons. First, because I’m wearing an amulet that worked against the undead wizard’s magic. And second, because you chose him, and he wants to rub my nose in it so I don’t forget.”

I sighed, knowing Zach might be right. I rested my hand on Zach’s forearm and kissed him on the cheek. “One day you’re going to fall in love with someone else, and I’m going to hate her guts.”

“Promise?” Zach asked with a smile.

“Yep.” I walked around the pump to Bryn’s sports car and climbed in.

Mercutio licked my hands and made a noise of satisfaction. “Yeah, Merc, it’s me,” I said, bending my head and touching my nose to his fur. “And I think we’d better get a move on. My leg’s starting to ache again something fierce.”

Bryn returned to the car with a cup of coffee for each of us. Mine was a mocha, and I licked the whipped cream off the top.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Everything all right between you and Sutton?” he asked.

“Nope,” I said, taking a swig. “That was a consolation kiss.”

“So where’s my real one?” he asked.

“The car has tinted windows. If I kiss you, he won’t even know.”

“I don’t care if he knows or not.”

I rolled my eyes but leaned toward him and brushed my lips over his.

“You call that a kiss?” he demanded.

“We’re on a timetable, Bryn. I promise if we survive, I’ll kiss you a whole bunch.”

Bryn’s hand slid behind my head and held me in place while he gave me a deep kiss that made our magic twist all through me. Afterward, I had to gasp to catch my breath.

“If we don’t survive, I want the last real kiss you ever gave me to have been memorable.”

“And longer than the one I gave Zach?”

“And longer than the one you gave Zach,” he agreed.

I smiled. Bryn started the car, revved the engine, and zoomed us out of the parking lot. I rolled my eyes, swigged my mocha, and watched Zach and the gas station disappear from the rearview mirror.

Bryn’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “That’s probably Zach, wanting to know what’s up,” I said, reaching into Bryn’s pocket.

But the text wasn’t from Zach. It was from Rollie.

SOB undead wizard in Dallas commands the dead. Call so strong am leaving home without tweezing brows. Help! RIGHT THIS MINUTE!

“Holy smokes,” I said.

“What?”

“Rollie’s in trouble.”

“Rollie?”

“How many vampires are there in Dallas, Bryn?”

“I don’t know. I’d guess forty or fifty.”

“Oh, boy,” I said.

“What?”

“We’ve got a new problem. I think the lych wants protection. He’s drafted a vampire army.”

35

AS WE APPROACHED the exit for Vangie’s building, my jangled nerves had me squirming in my seat. Bryn pulled off the road so I could take over driving and he could check in with witches and wizards in Dallas. Most of them weren’t friends with Vangie, but they did respect Bryn and pledged their help.

Bryn texted Vangie’s address to Zach and included a warning about the text from Rollie, but when we reached the turnoff to Vangie’s place, Mercutio put a paw on the wheel to keep me from turning. He batted the dash.

“Wait, where are we going?” I asked him, not leaving the expressway.

“Farther west,” Bryn said, watching the signs. “Maybe to her father’s house.” And sure enough we exited on a road that drove out into the country where there was only an occasional huge house.

Bryn sent texts updating everyone just as a winter storm rolled in. I shuddered. I’d hate being out in a downpour. Probably suffering from post-traumatic-magical-storm-floods-Duvall syndrome.

Streaks of lightning filled the sky. I jerked at the thunder. “Not again,” I grumbled. Bryn looked tense, too.

I drove partway up the dirt road leading to the ranch and pulled over. In the distance, we watched figures milling about outside Vangie’s family mansion.

“Those vampires aren’t nearly as graceful as Rollie.”

“That’s because those aren’t vampires,” Bryn said.

“What? What are they?” I asked.

“Zombies.”

“No!” I yelled. “Not zombies! Zombies are almost unstoppable, and I didn’t bring any passion flower potion with me.”

“Passion flower potion?”

“It’s what I used to put Mrs. Barnaby back in the ground.”

“Mrs. Barnaby was raised using your blood. These zombies weren’t.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning no potion you made would put them back in the ground. To put the zombies down, the master must be defeated.”

“I—well, how could Skeleton Guy raise them using his own blood? He’s all bones and squishy Jell-O flesh. He doesn’t bleed. I doubt there’s been any fresh blood in him for a long time.”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ve got arrows and bullets, but they won’t work that well against zombies. What we really need is a flamethrower.” I licked my lips. “You didn’t happen to bring one, did you?”

Bryn gave me a look and ran a hand through his hair.

“So, um, what’s the plan?” I asked, peering out the windshield at the loping zombies. I didn’t let their shuffling fool me. Behind the blank expressions was a gonna-tear-you-to-pieces attitude that was really irritating.

“I suppose, as usual, we’ll have to improvise.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. “All right.”

“We can mow them down,” he said, but I started the car and drove it off the road, scraping the expensive undercarriage on the tall grass.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m driving us to the barn.”

“Why?”

“Because any Texas barn worth its salt will have things we need. Like axes for chopping up wood . . . or zombies. And cans of gas.”

Bryn grimaced. “Let’s try really hard not to light anyone we care about on fire, including ourselves.”

“I like the plan so far.”

 • • • 

IN THE BARN, we worked quickly. I collected rope, small jars used for canning, gasoline, and two axes. I put gas in the jars and used bits of unraveled rope as wicks.

A group of sea sparrows swooped in. Freddie Greer’s legacy?

“What are you doing? Get out of here!” I said, shooing them even as the zombies watched their flight path. “Go on!” But it was too late. The zombies headed straight for us.

“Damn birds. How’d you like to be extinct for real?” I yelled, looking up. In an instant, I realized that when Edie had tried to warn me about the lych, she’d looked up, too. When she’d said she remembered them from the night she died, she meant the birds. She’d seen the sparrows.

The zombies cut us off on our way to the car, and we had to hack at them with axes. Just as we got overwhelmed, Zach’s truck barreled in and ran over several of them.

Cracked bones slowed them down but didn’t destroy them. They crawled toward us, dragging their rotting bodies.

“Gross!”

I lit the wick on a jar and flung it at a pair of half-broken zombies. They exploded into flames that blazed ten feet tall.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You’ll thank me later!”

The birds circled, like an avian beacon. The lead bird’s glowing green eyes gave me pause. Clearly supernatural.

I raced over to the car, got my bow, nocked an arrow, and shot it. It skewered the bird, which fell from the sky.

“Whoa,” Bryn said, putting out a hand. “I felt the lych’s power lessen when you shot the bird. What made you do that?”

“They’re troublemakers. I thought they might be his eyes out here.”

More zombies lumbered toward us as the sparrows scattered and dive-bombed the ground, the zombies, and us. The attacking birds seemed excited about the potential feast. I swung my bow, knocking them away from me.

I hurried to the downed bird. I didn’t have a lot of arrows and needed to reuse them. When I reached it, a couple of wisps of breathlike mist rose from the bird. A green orb formed and my jaw dropped. The glow took on an Edie shape and then she appeared.

“There you are! I was so worried about you,” I said. “But what were you doing leading zombies to us?”

“I couldn’t control myself. That bastard has so much power! Stolen power, I might add.”

The sound of flesh thumping flesh made me spin to the right. Zach and Bryn fought the zombies, throttling and hacking them up while trying to avoid coming within reach of their bone-crushing grips. Zach spotted some downed branches. He cut them into three-foot clubs, doused them with gas, and lit them. He rushed back to Bryn and handed him one. Flaming torches were a better weapon than axes. I rushed over to grab a branch, so I could help before rain put them out. There’d been only a few drops so far, but I expected a shower any minute.

“Tammy Jo, wait. Don’t waste time with the zombies. Come this way. Bring that rope. You have to get to the second floor.”

“Why?” I asked, running after Edie as she floated toward the house.

“I know him! I recognized the birds, but he’s become so powerful. He was obsessed with birds, especially the sparrows that were going extinct. He was determined to preserve them. That fixation with a dying breed came from the fear of his own mortality. Freddie had hemophilia, like the Romanovs. He’d even consulted Rasputin, looking for a cure. In the end, he took a skeletal form as his salvation. He killed me to do it.”

I jerked toward her, nearly tripping on uneven ground.

“I was so drunk after the party. He knocked on the door. It was strange for him to drive into the city so late at night, but I let him in. Then I passed out. And never woke again. He stole my life.”

A zombie lurched out from the corner of the house. I dropped to the ground and rolled to avoid getting grabbed. They’re strong, but not as fast as faeries or vampires. I jabbed it in the neck and knocked it down. The rotting smell stunk to high heaven, and I had to resist the urge to pinch my nose.

Zach sprinted over and swung the axe. The zombie’s severed head fell off its shoulders, and he set the pieces ablaze with his torch. Bryn sent a flash of magical fire to burn others that stalked toward us.

“Edie, you all right?” Zach asked. It began to drizzle.

“For the moment,” she said. Another zombie surge made Zach turn away. “Tammy, come on. Freddie’s got vampires on the main floor guarding the stairs. You’ll have to climb.”

“Climb?” I murmured, following her to the house.

“He’s up there,” she said. “In the library. It’s full of power. There’s very little time left. If he gets Evangeline’s soul and her magical legacy, you won’t be able to stop him.”

“I might need Bryn’s help to defeat that lych. Normal weapons can’t defeat them. Not having flesh and blood makes them invulnerable and immortal. Bryn’s got a spell to draw the celestial magic away to weaken him.”

“It won’t work. Freddie’s real power is from death magic now.”

I knew it!

“The candylegger won’t be able to pull it away. It’s woven into his bones. This way,” Edie said. “Hurry. I need you to distract him.”

A group of vampires spilled from the house. “Wait!” Rollie yelled, tackling a thin young vampire whose fangs were bared. A blond vampire with high cheekbones and sleepy eyes barreled toward me. Others rushed at Zach and Bryn.

I raised my bow.

“Don’t hurt them!” Rollie yelled at us. Bryn leveled spells that knocked over some of the vamps like bowling pins, but I felt a waning of Bryn’s energy. Fighting with magic expels so much of it.

The blond vampire’s long legs ate up the ground.

“You have to shoot him,” Edie said.

The boy’s glazed eyes were as blank as a zombie’s. I hesitated, lowering the bow a fraction of an inch. “I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”