“Every second we stay in this room is time for him to recover,” Grim said, answering before I could.
“Precisely. We need that witch, and we need her now. There’s no telling how long this window will last, and the mission is only half completed as it stands.”
“What are we standing around here for?” Sin asked, bolting past me like some sort of cartoon character.
I rolled my eyes and followed him, the other two on my heels.
“Moira! Hey, Belladonna. Where you at?” Sin shouted.
The tiny witch popped her head out of a doorway, her vibrant pink hair startlingly different from the pure white it had been thelast time we’d spoken. “Exsqueeze me? Put some respect on my name, cowboys. I am the head of my coven. No one summons me.”
“Are we supposed to be impressed? She does know we’re the four horsemen, right? Pretty sure that trumps witch all day long,” Sin asked under his breath.
Chaos slapped a large palm over Sin’s mouth, stopping him from hurling any further insults Moira’s way. “Don’t piss off the one person who can help us, Sinclair.”
The little firecracker of a woman smirked. “At least one of you has some sense.” She eyed Chaos up and down. “Usually the bigger they are, the dumber they are. Way to break the stereotype, beefcake.”
I snickered, but as enjoyable as this was, we didn’t have time to waste.
“Can you perform a locator spell for us? It’s a matter of some urgency,” I said, trying my hardest to be polite.
It didnotcome easily.
Moira sighed. “When isn’t it these days?”
I swallowed my retort and reached for her hand, carefully taking it in mine. “We need you. Please?”
Her expression softened. “That was hard for you, wasn’t it? Okay. Who are we finding? You know the rules by now, right? Someone needs to get me something of your target’s so I can lock onto their location.”
“Fuck, I don’t have anything of Merri’s on me,” Sin said, his eyes wide.
“Here, use this.”
We all turned to face Grim, who was holding out what appeared to be a thin red braid in his gloved hand.
Moira took it and, if she were a character in an anime, her eyes would have turned to hearts. “Aww, you braided strands of her hair and carry it in your pocket? Aren’t you just a big softie?”
Grim cleared his throat. “I thought we may need it.”
“Sure, big guy. Keep telling yourself that.”
Then she turned and gestured for us to follow. “We’ve done so many of these recently, I have a backstock of supplies and a whole altar setup ready to go. If she’s no longer shrouded, we should have her location in just a few minutes.”
The relief I felt at her promise was so potent I nearly crashed into Chaos.
We’d tried to locate Pan and Sunday, but they were hidden from us, much as Merri and Gabriel had been. Fucking Lucifer. It would be a welcome respite to have one of these fucking spells actually work as intended.
A loud crash had all of us stopping and craning our necks.
“What the fuck was that?” Sin asked.
“Alek,” Moira said with a frown. “He’s been in full beast-mode since he heard about Sunday. Tor has been doing his best, but...” She shrugged, drooping a little before she seemed to shake herself out of it. “Come on, the sooner we find your Merri, the sooner we get our people back.”
In mere minutes, we were all stood in Moira’s chambers, watching her perform a ritual we’d now witnessed far too many times. She stayed silent, brows pulled together in concentration, and when she looked up, a wicked smirk twisted her lips.
“Bingo.”
Chapter
