Page 48 of Malice

“Where are we going?” Leo asks.

I stop, biting my lip as I think. I don’t know much about necromancy. It’s considered black magic and in the short time I was trained by actual witches, I was told that the Grand Coven doesn’t even allow it anymore.

“These reanimated corpses don’t seem smart,” I start as I think out loud. “Whoever is casting the spell has to be somewhere safe where they can concentrate and not worry about getting attacked themselves.” I look up and meet Leo’s eyes.

“The old church,” we will stay at the same time.

“Probably should’ve asked your husband where that church is before we took off,” Leo quips.

“Feel free to go back and ask him,” I snap right back. “But I’m not waiting for you.”

“I’m not as familiar with Charlotte as I am with Asheville,” he starts, “but just by the looks of it, I don’t think we’re going to find an abandoned white church with a steeple.”

“This area was recently re-zoned for residential buildings,” I say shocked that something I heard at that boring VC meeting just an hour or so ago is actually relevant. “When the original Tent City was removed a few years ago, a lot of this area was cleared out with the intention of putting in luxury apartments.”

“That’s a really random thing for you to know, but I suppose it helps,” Leo says. “So we’re not looking for a structure, but more of a plot of land that is still protected and blessed.”

“Yes,” I say and take a deep breath.

“Can you sense anything?” Leo asks. He steps closer to me, protecting me as I close my eyes and try to feel for negative energy. The demon’s voice rings in the back of my mind and I open my eyes, scared that if I go searching for it, it’ll be able to find me. The overwhelming sense of needing to run far, far away threatens to take over again , and I press my feet into the soft earth beneath me, trying to ground myself. The last thing I want to do is to continue walking alongside the creek.

So that’s exactly what we do.

“You really trust him don’t you,” Leo asks. “You left Antonio alone with them.”

“Antonio can hold his own against demonic zombies,” I say. “And even if we can’t figure out how to keep them down, I think Xavier can rip them apart enough to make them not be a threat for real.”

“And if we come back and find Antonio is a vampire after all?”

“Will you stop it?” I snap, coming to a sudden halt. “What is wrong with you? We give you real hard evidence that the Order is the piece of shit we’ve always thought it was, and suddenly you’re like a school girl defending your crush on the bully.”

“Larissa is in jail awaiting trial for mass murder because of them and it’s like you just completely forget about it—on purpose! She was awful to you, but she doesn’t deserve to take the fall for what a demon did.”

I don’t know what it’s like to have a real blood sibling, and I certainly don’t know what it’s like to have a twin. Leo and Larissa have always been at each other‘s throats, but I think that’s just part of their bond.

“Sometimes you fuck around and find out,” I say simply, not letting myself get worked up over any of this. Demonic energy brings out the worst in people so anything Leo is feeling is going to be amplified times ten right now.

“I can sit here and wholeheartedly admit that what she did was wrong. But saying she was behind murdering innocent people? She wouldn’t do that.”

“Really?” I say eyebrows going up and voice getting high-pitched. Okay, maybe I will lose this battle with my emotions. “She tried to kill Mabel. She tried to kill me. You’ve met Mabel. Yes, she’s a vampire, but it wasn’t her choice and she’s probably one of the sweetest, most innocent people I’ve ever met.”

“All I’m saying is the punishment should fit the crime. Do you think this is fair?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But it definitely isn’t fair how she treated me my entire life. It isn’t fair what the Order did to me. It isn’t fair that my family was murdered or that I was lied to or that Marco and Vivian drugged me and performed experiments on me while I was asleep. None of that is fair. Life isn’t fair, Leo. We know that more than anyone.” Fear bubbles in the pit of my stomach, letting me know we’re getting closer to the necromancer. “At least she’s safe in jail,” I add, trying to lighten the mood, but it’s actually true. The trail of death and destruction this demon is going to leave behind it as far from over. While she’s sitting in the county jail, it’ll be pretty obvious she wasn’t responsible for any of it. Not that that matters, because her fate seems to heavily rest in Xavier‘s hands.

“I’m sorry things have gotten so messy,” I say. “Really, I am. I don’t know how anything should have gone, it seems we were thrust into this mess from the day we were born. Right now, I really need you to just suck it up, Leo, because I think I hear something.”

He stops, tightening his grip on his dagger and pats my shoulder with his free hand. “I’m sorry, too,” he says and gives me a curt nod, letting me know there’s more to be said in this conversation, but we’re going to have to table it for now. Moving silently along the creek, we can smell the necromancer before we see him. Two bodies lay half in the water, half on land, eyes open, void of any life.

The necromancer sits several feet away, hands out in front of him over a small altar. He doesn’t look anything like I expected. Instead of some movie villain in a brown robe, he’s just a man and maybe in his late forties, dressed in clothes more suited for an office job than raising the dead. His eyes are black as he stares straight ahead, chanting.

“He’s possessed,” I whisper to Leo. “And I think he’s still alive.” Leo gives me another nod, this time letting me know we agree on our unspoken plan to capture the necromancer instead of killing him. The man the demon is possessing has no idea what’s going on and is innocent.

Then it hits me. That’s what the demon was doing when it was jumping from body to body. There are people who walk around every day with no idea they come from magical lineage. People like that might consider themselves lucky, or very intuitive because they seem to know when certain things are going to happen. They’re the social media witches, mixing potions that just kinda work well enough to make them believe in themselves but not outright or obvious enough for the public to fear them as a real witch or warlock.

Before we have time to come up with a plan, the necromancer jerks his head in our direction. The bodies half lying in the creek spring up. If they hadn’t been faced down in water for God knows how long I would think they would still be viable and we could possibly save them. They come at us with jerky, unnatural movements, mouths open, and eyes grayed-over yet bloodshot.

“I’ll handle them, you handle him,” Leo tells me. I throw my right hand out in front of me, sending a wave of energy at the necromancer. It hits him yet he hardly moves. He keeps chanting.