“Oh, great, so we’re meeting her outside?” Peasblossom demanded.
“You have the warming stone. You’ll be fine.”
Peasblossom grumbled but stayed hidden in my collar as Poppy and I made our way to the back door that led outside.
My night vision was much better than a human’s, and I was able to see the woman clearly in the light from the almost full moon. She was short, an inch under my own five foot three, with dark skin and long hair twisted into braids. Her blue jeans had a brown leather pouch hanging from the belt, and her hand rested close enough to it that it felt vaguely threatening.
I let my magic rise inside me, humming directly under my skin, just in case.
“Catherine Scott?” I said, when we were close enough to speak without shouting.
The woman smiled. “You must be Shade and Poppy?”
“Yes. Thank you so much for meeting us on such short notice.” I gestured behind me to the house. “We could go inside and get out of the wind?”
“I’m fine out here.” Catherine looked back at the house. “Any reason you chose an abandoned house instead of a nice warm coffee shop?”
“It will be easier to see if anyone else is around here, and, like I said when we talked earlier, I think I’m being spied on. Someone at work. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“So you said on the phone.”
There was something about the smile that never quite left Catherine’s mouth that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Our friends recommended you,” Poppy added. “Gabrielle and Lauren.”
“So she said on the phone.”
My magic reached through my body to my fingertips.
Something was wrong.
“Lauren said you can raise a zombie,” Poppy said, inserting a hint of excited awe into her voice. “Is that true? Could you do it for me?” She scowled. “You wouldn’t believe what our boss puts us through. He makes everyone’s life hell. He—”
“I could raise a zombie for you,” Catherine said slowly, her eyes never leaving Poppy’s. “But I’m not sure you’d want me to.”
“Why?” Poppy asked.
“Well, what if you didn’t approve of the way I did it?” Catherine pouted. “What if you reported me to the authorities? Tattled to the Vanguard?”
“Shade, there’s something moving by those trees!” Peasblossom hissed.
“Do I know you?” Poppy spoke slower now, a furrow between her brows as she studied Catherine as if seeing her for the first time.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if you did,” Catherine said, stepping farther away from the tree. Her voice hardened. “You are so incredibly nosy, after all.”
Poppy raised her hand to point at the pouch hanging from Catherine’s belt. “Hey, that’s not yours. Where did you get that?”
Suddenly a figure lurched from behind the tree Catherine had just been leaning against. It was a woman wearing a cream-colored dress decorated with roses and a strand of pearls around her neck. Her skin looked like thin papier-mâché, and her long white curly hair shifted in the wind.
I knew what she was even before I saw her milky, unseeing eyes.
Catherine had brought a zombie.
The zombie lurched toward us, and Catherine took off at a run through the empty lot, heading for the street on the other side.
“Poppy, look out!” I shouted.
Poppy was already turning to face off with the woman who’d just shambled from her grave. “Now I know why this place looks familiar. There’s an old church less than a block away. And it has a graveyard. She must have raised the zombie there and brought it with her.” She slung her backpack onto the ground and took the dog skull off the back with one hand while unzipping the bag of bones with the other. “I’ll handle the zombie. You go after Catherine!”
