“Thanks for all your help,” Jess ground out. “You saved my life, short stack.”
Bea’s cheeks flushed with pleasure. “You’re welcome.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me,” Jess said. “And it’ssafer if fewer people know what happened tonight. Can you help keep my secret? Wren can explain everything tomorrow, okay?”
Only a desire to keep being helpful could have talked Bea out of staying. She nodded solemnly and held out a pinkie.
“Aw, hell yeah, a pinkie promise,” Jess replied, managing a smile. She hooked a shuddering finger with Bea’s, and they shook on it. Then Bea rounded on me.
“Tomorrow?” she prompted, holding out her pinkie again.
“Absolutely. All the details. I promise, too.” Taking that pinkie felt like swearing a blood oath, but I had no intention of breaking it. Bea had earned the right to know what was going on. I just had to figure it out for myself first.
“Zale, are you good to walk?” Nova asked, giving Zale a skeptical, sideways look as he pulled himself gingerly out of the car.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement. “I’m only a block from here. I think I just need the fresh air.”
“I’ll drop him first,” Eva assured us, trying not to smirk. “I guess we can rule mortician out for your future career prospects, huh Zale?”
Zale flipped Eva a single, enthusiastic digit. Bea giggled, and the three set off down the sidewalk.
“Right,” said Nova when the others had disappeared around the corner. “Let’s get zombie woman inside, and then maybe she can tell us what the actual hell is going on.”
13
Jess’ fingers were still too stiff to manage the key, so I took it from her and let us in. We tiptoed through Priscilla’s doily-covered sitting room and up to Jess’ room on the second floor. I winced at every creak of the antique staircase, and almost cried when I saw there was a beaded curtain hung in the doorway at the top, but no one came out to investigate. With the massive influx of October tourists, Priscilla must be used to the sounds of constant coming and going, even late at night. The sign outside had announced there was no vacancy, as was usually the case all through the summer and fall, until after Halloween.
The longer she walked, the better control Jess seemed to get of her own limbs, but she was still shaking and shuddering like mad, and so I unlocked her room and let us all in. The place was a mess. The bed was rumpled and unmade. A pair of pajama pants hung over the back of a chair. At least six half-drunk iced coffees crowded the bedside table, along with an unopened bottle of water. She hadn’t bothered to unpack her suitcase—it lay open on the window seat with a jumble of wrinkled clothes piled on top of it.
“Look, I know I owe you an explanation, but I’m still teetering on theverge of hypothermia here. I’m going to take a hot shower. Can you wait here for me?” Jess asked.
“We can wait,” I told her. We watched her scuttle around, grab a bathrobe, the pajamas from the back of the chair, her cell phone, and a toothbrush. She shuffled out the door to the hallway bathroom she shared with the other guests on the second floor. When the door shut, Nova rounded on me.
“Wren, what the actual fuck is happening?” Nova hissed. “We’ve got her back in her body, so it’s time for answers. Who is this woman?”
“I told you, I don’t really know. She just showed up on our doorstep and handed me the lost Vesper family grimoire.”
“But whoisshe? She’s not a Vesper too, is she?”
“No. She says she’s not a witch, but if that’s true, I’d like to know exactly what she is.”
“Oh, come on. She’s got to be! How can she possibly explain tonight if there wasn’t magic involved?”
“She didn’t say there wasn’t magic involved. In fact, she mentioned a “Casting”, which sounds like spellwork to me. But if she’s a witch, why wouldn’t she just say that? I mean, she’s in a town full of witches. Where better to tell the truth?”
“But that’s just it, Wren,” Nova said, and she dropped her voice even lower, so that I had to lean forward to hear her. “This could be the most dangerous place for her to tell the truth.”
“You lost me,” I said.
“Look, you already know about the Kildare Coven. They were banished forever from Sedgwick Cove because of the kind of magic they practiced. And as for my family, well…” Nova made a face. “We easily could have been booted as well, if they hadn’t determined Sarah was the exception instead of the rule. But what we saw tonight?” Nova shook her head. “That kind of death magic is dark shit, Wren. Seriously dark shit.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t seem scared while you were watching it. If anything, you seemed… hyped.”
Nova shrugged. “Well, yeah, it might be dark as fuck, but it was still awesome.”
“Look, she said she was going to explain, so maybe we should just let her do that.”
“Yeah, or maybe we should bounce before she unleashes some more unhinged death magic on us.”
