“Give who to you? No, never mind. I will give you one warning and only one— You will return the innocent, or I will destroy you and everything around you.”
The laughter grew. “Innocent indeed. I have taken only what has called to me. Bring me the man, bring him to me, and I will let your little darklings live.”
I felt the presence disappear, and my heart fell. Darklings? I might not know all the ins and outs of being a wizard, but I did know if someone had played with the dark, I couldn’t uselight to rescue them. The fact he called Molly a darkling was bad. Really bad.
God, I hoped she hadn’t done anything that would keep me from helping her. Who else was with her? I had no idea. The entity had said darklings, so I had to assume more than one soul was at stake.
There wasn’t much more I could do, so I closed her door and locked it against the nonmagical world. I couldn’t stop the magical ones from coming in and harming her, or hadn’t before it was too late, but I could at least keep the thieves at bay.
I quickly cast a spell over the door to do just that and rushed out of the building, requesting a taxi as I went. When my buddy from my days driving pulled up, he laughed at me. “Did you lose your car?” he asked as I climbed in.
“Hey, Ed, I was just over on this side of town. I need to get to my boyfriend’s office quickly. Can you go down Third Street?”
Ed gave me a side-eye but nodded. “Sure, no problem,” he said and started off. I quickly group texted all our friends, asking everyone to check in and tell me if they’d seen Molly and informing them she hadn’t shown up at work for the past two days.
Everyone except Shadow texted back. Well, at least now I knew who was with her, and Shadow was very likely a darkling. The woman was obsessed with the dark arts, as she called them.
She had no power. Even though I wasn’t with her, I knew from memory at most she was a torch. She was no witch, nomatter how much she wanted to be one. It was very likely that she was a dark source, though, similar to how Owen was a light source.
When I got to the office, I thanked Ed and gave him a hefty tip before rushing inside. “Damian,” Cary said, concern all over his face. “I’m glad you’re here. We need to begin the ritual now.”
Chapter thirty-four
Owen
Ihad no ideawhat was going on. The four witches I worked with each took a corner of the conference room, forcing me to remove my shirt so they could see the places where I’d been tagged and placed me in the middle of the room. “Hold still, we’re going to begin the cleansing process,” Mr. Harrison said.
They chanted, traded places, then chanted and did it again four times. Then Mr. Stages came over, checked my arms, and shook his head. “It didn’t work.”
“We need to wait for the wizard,” Mr. Harrison said, and the other three nodded.
Mrs. Patterson got me a bottle of water and told me to stay put. “We want to get to work the minute your wizard friend gets here,” she said. I made myself comfortable playingCandy Crushon my phone.
Half an hour later, Damian burst into the office. I saw him through the plate glass windows, and he looked concerned. He was pulled into the conference room by the others.
“What’s this?” he asked when Mr. Stages had pointed toward my arms before going to his spot. “What the hell? Owen, when did this happen?” he asked.
“I…um, like the day we met, I think. That’s when the weird man grabbed me. Remember I had bruises?”
Damian shook his head. “No, I don’t remember bruises, but you did tell me some strange man manhandled you.”
Damian leaned back, closing his eyes as if to think. “I need cayenne, and does anyone have mugwort?” he asked.
Mrs. Patterson nodded and dashed out of the room, then returned a few moments later with two small spice bottles. “Okay, you’ve begun the process to remove this with witch magic. I’m going to build upon your spells. That’s the quickest and easiest way to remedy this. Um, Cary, do you have… I-I sense a small container, metal? Tin? I need that,” Damian said, and Cary nodded and ran to his desk. I watched through the window as he pulled a small cookie tin out and dumped the contents into the trash before rushing back to the room.
“I guess I owe you some cookies,” I said, but Cary didn’t acknowledge my silliness.Strange.
Damian took it from him without acknowledgment and lifted me so I stood, then pulled my arms together until my elbows touched. He placed the cookie tin under my elbows and looked at the witches. “You should chant now,” he said,and all four began the same strange chant they’d done before Damian had arrived.
Damian poured the contents of the two bottles into his hand, then waved his other hand over it until it turned into some strange liquid. My instincts told me it would be superhot to the touch, although I had no idea why.
The witches changed corners again. All the while, Damian stirred the contents in his hand. When the witches got to the fourth corner, Damian lifted his hand, and the contents turned to steam. His staff appeared in his hand, the hand that had held the contents just seconds before, and he pointed the staff at my arms, which were beginning to get achy from holding such an awkward position.
The steam began to swirl around my head, then moved down until it reached my arms.
I felt a searing pain in both upper arms and realized it was where the man had grasped me and where he’d tried to grasp me again today. I yelled out as the pain increased.
“What the fuck!” I yelled as the pain ran down my upper arms into my elbows. Then, a thick black tarlike substance poured out of my elbows and into the tin.
