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She’d lost her damn mind. “If you do this, Penny, however you do this, you won’t be bringing him back. He won’t be the man you loved, he’ll be a mindless monster.”

“No! You’re wrong,” she hissed. “Charity knows how to do it.”

Things were clicking into place. When Thomas Eason outlawed dark magic, Charity knew she had to make her move. She took his daughter first, maybe as a warning, or maybe it was revenge. Then all those other innocent witches followed, murdered during her attempts to bring back the three elder crones of Shadow Falls. If she’d been successful, she would have taken over this city. How many covens would have been wiped out in her bid for power? I shuddered at the thought of what could have been. “She practiced on The Missing Maidens, didn’t she? All those years ago.” Then Selene killed her before she could bring the crones back.

Penny laughed again. “You’re such an idiot, watching you stumble around trying to figure this all out has been hilarious. I even helped you, and still you couldn’t work it out.” The laughter in her voice died. “It was me who unearthed Charity’s remains. She told me where she’d been buried, but you showed up before I could take her bones.”

And once I had them in our cemetery, she couldn’t get to them. “So the crones reached out to me.”

“And you took Charity’s remains right to them.” A pause. “They weren’t happy when you got away.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, that Penny was capable of this. “Are the girls alive?”

“For now.”

My pulse thundered in my ears. “Did you kill Imogen?”

“I hadn’t planned on it, but Death had Charity locked in her cottage and she needed a sacrifice to open the door. Imogen walked in while I was putting Amy in a trance after a night out at The Vault.” Penny huffed. “It all worked out in the end, though. Those idiots were so easy to overpower after they’d let vamps feed on them. I just had to hang around and wait for them to stumble out of the club. Kristi was a little more difficult to get to, but again, I was underestimated. No one would ever suspect me.” She outright laughed. “Sweet little Penny wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

She was a monster. Helping Charity in exchange for bringing Elmer back was bad enough, but murder? There was no saving her now. “You stabbed Imogen in Amy’s apartment.”

“I’m not going to feel bad about it,” she spat. “They made a fool of me at The Vault, turning their backs on me, rejecting me. They called themselves the specials, because of their extra gifts, and I wasn’t special enough for them…Well, who’s the special one now?”

If Death was involved, that meant Charity was in limbo. She was in Death’s realm, and still, she’d found a way to pull souls through to the other side.

Even dead, she was incredibly powerful, and now the crones and Charity were channeling what power they could access through Penny to get what they wanted, and it was working.

Death was all about checks and balances, and if a soul escaped his realm, he hunted them down and dragged them back. But that was the same for any realm, balance must always be maintained.

Charity hadn’t taken those girls to practice on, not this time, she needed their souls to replace her and the crones when they were reanimated, to maintain that balance. They had three, but they need a fourth.

They’d almost taken my soul at Shadow Falls, and then they’d tried again when they’d called me to Charity’s cottage.

“Charity wants my soul, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Why me?”

“Because Death’s keeping a close eye on her. She needed a soul from the same bloodline with similar powers.”

If Charity thought she could fool Death, she was wrong. From what I’d read about him, he knew every soul in limbo, and he presided over the land of nothing and nowhere with an iron fist. “We’ve been alone several times, Penny, why didn’t you try and take me then?”

“You were never really alone, were you? If you weren’t with your wolf, he was following you or had another doing it for him. After our last failed attempt, we decided to change tactics. The ritual is time sensitive, and I was concerned that if I did manage to get to you, your mate would get your coven involved and try and ruin everything.”

Even without knowing he was doing it, Draven had saved me. I needed to keep her talking. I had to find those girls before it was too late. “And what does Isaac have to do with all of this?”

“I need his body. Elmer’s bones are warded in his family cemetery, so Isaac will have to host Elmer’s spirit instead,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I’m going to kill Sapphire, say it’s self-defense, then nothing will get in our way when Elmer comes back. Everyone will believe he’s Isaac…you’re not the only one I told about my secret relationship or how Sapphire had it in for me. They’ll believe her murder was self-defense, then once Charity and the crones are reanimated, they’ll bring my Elmer back to me, like they promised.”

My mind was spinning, and my heart was racing. “You just admitted everything to me, Penny. You know I can’t let you get away with it.”

She laughed, a grating giggle. “Oh, you can’t stop me, Iris, and you won’t tell anyone what I’ve told you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because if you do, your whole family will die, screaming in agony. It’s just a little spell Charity taught me. She’s taught me lots of spells.” She sounded giddy, she was so pleased with herself.

She was willing to kill my entire family to get what she wanted. “Penny…”