I moved a few feet to the side, keeping my eye on the zombie. Her dead eyes locked on Poppy as she shuffled forward, her head held slightly to the side as if her neck weren’t quite strong enough to hold it.
“Peasblossom, get eyes on Catherine.”
“Right!” Peasblossom wriggled out of my collar and leapt from my shoulder, only the sound of her wings buzzing as she gained altitude telling me what direction she’d gone in.
“Poppy, I don’t want to leave you—”
“Jenkins and I are more than a match for one zombie,” Poppy said, winking at me as she laid the terrier’s bones on the ground. “Even without the sugar rush. Don’t let Catherine get away.”
“I’m not worried you can’t handle the zombie. I’m worried this is too easy and there’s something worse.”
“All the more reason to catch her.”
I cursed and started to run in the direction Catherine had disappeared in, not staying to watch Poppy raise Jenkins.Poppy is a professional,I told myself firmly.She knows what she’s doing.
“Shade, she’s over here!”
I followed Peasblossom’s voice and spotted Catherine up ahead. She’d parked her car behind the line of trees that edged the street where it met the empty lot, and as I cleared the trees, she reached the driver’s side door.
“Not so fast!” Peasblossom bellowed.
I ran faster as Catherine climbed into the driver’s seat, trying to get to the car before she could drive away. I was close enough to see through the windshield as Catherine let out a yelp and clapped a hand to her face. She yelped again and jerked from side to side with the familiar motion of someone being attacked by bees.
Or a pixie with a metal cocktail sword.
I stopped ten feet away from Catherine as she half fell out of the car, trying to get away from Peasblossom, and planted my feet on the frozen ground. My magic roared through me as I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs with red, glittering energy I could see in my mind’s eye. When I couldn’t hold any more air, I opened my mouth and let out a scream.
The force of the sound made my throat raw as it surged out of my chest toward Catherine in an eardrum-splitting shriek. Catherine gasped and fell against the car, clutching her head in her hands as she slid to the ground.
“Peasblossom, get the pouch!” I rasped.
Catherine didn’t hear me, her ears no doubt still ringing with the effect of the sonic spell. Her eyes didn’t even focus as Peasblossom went to work freeing the pouch from her belt using the sharpened edge of her sword.
I kept an eye on the stunned witch as Peasblossom dropped the pouch into my hand and landed on my shoulder.
“Be careful with that,” she warned, rubbing her hands together. “There’s something about that pouch that makes my wings itch.”
I switched my grip on the bag to hold it by the strings. “We’ll have Poppy look at it. She seemed to recognize it, so she should know what it is.”
Saying the necromancer’s name out loud made me look around. “Poppy said the church is less than a block from here. She’ll have to take the zombie there to lay it to rest. Fly ahead and make sure she’s okay? I’ll follow along with our friend here.”
Peasblossom tapped her foot on my shoulder. “Do you need help finding the rope?”
I scowled. “I’ll find it.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Judgy pixie tone aside, it did take me a minute to find the rope in my waist pouch.
Fortunately, Catherine still hadn’t managed to stand up, though a few metallic thuds warned me each time she tried and ended up falling against the car and sliding back to the ground.
Rope in hand, I put the snack pack of pretzels, Ziploc bag of fireplace ash, and handful of cotton balls back into the pouch, zipped it, and moved to tie up Catherine.
“What’s in the pouch?” I asked as I bound her hands behind her back.
“Nothing,” Catherine mumbled, shaking her head. “Nothing in the pouch.”
I pulled her to her feet and jerked her in the direction we’d come from.
