Page 78 of Cold Sacrifice

“Wait,” I told Bastien, when he stiffened and started to move forward. “We’ll need to go in quiet if we want a single chance of catching her.” I finished buttoning up the shirt and then stopped to gape at Remy when he pulled what appeared to be a pair of thin boxer briefs from one of the pockets of his cargo pants—another style choice he’d recently made.

He grinned. “Don’t worry, they’re clean.”

I took them and pulled them on quickly. “Remy,” I murmured. “Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Let’s not make a whole thing out of it.” Then he handed me my boots, which always survived my shift.

I absolutely did not want to fight and run and jump and do all manner of things without clothes. Sometimes I had to, but this would not be one of those times, thanks to Remy—a man who, not long ago, had contemplated killing me when he’d discovered I was a supernatural.

I pulled my blade. “Spread out. We’ll surround them. Bastien, you’ll get Farrow out of here while I distract Jolene. The last thing we need is for her to latch on to you and start compelling you to fight us.”

“Farrow knows I’m here,” he said quietly. “She will run to me the moment you go for the necromancer.”

“I’ll get as close as possible before she becomes aware of me,” I said. “Zach, Remy, if you see a chance, stake her. Otherwise, don’t risk yourselves. We ready?”

They nodded, and we began to move—except for Bastien, who would stay as far away as he could, lest Jolene make him hurt his precious Farrow.

Jolene didn’t want to kill Farrow, but she wasn’t hesitant about hurting her. She was beating the girl viciously with what appeared to be a club of power instead of the whip she’d used on me.

And Farrow was still fighting.

She was not only physically fighting but would likely be attempting to fight off the lingering effects of Jolene’s sway. But she would have felt Bastien’s presence the second he arrived, and that was all she needed to fight harder.

I slipped up on the necromancer’s back while Farrow kept her attention, my blade out and smoking hard. It was that smoke that alerted Jolene to our arrival. And just like that she dropped Farrow and turned to face me.

Farrow was gone almost instantly, running full out to Bastien. She’d somehow broken the necromancer’s sway, which told me that even if Jolene held a vampire, she couldn’t hold him or her for long.

Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t kill the vampire or, more likely, have him kill himself before he wrenched himself free of her influence. She’d already done that. Still, it was a relief knowing that if only a vampire could maintain some control and not kill himself, the influence could fall away.

Once again, the necromancer brought out her whip.

Tonight I was learning a lot about the necromancer. She wasn’t the infallible, mind-controlling power I’d thought she was. She had weaknesses. I just had to exploit them.

Somehow.

I couldn’t let her go into the ground to escape me. If she kept doing that, I was never going to end her. She would just keep coming back. And I was sick of the necromancer.

Her whip of power slapped my chest, then came back to wrap around my forearm, burning as it sank into my flesh like liquid silver, and I thought for a minute that it would simply cut off my arm.

Panicked, I brought my blade up and sliced it into the rope of power—and the blade severed the rope. Just cut it right off, and with a scream of pain, Jolene pulled the remaining power back into herself. I realized then that the whip, or whatever other magic she used, was part of her body. It wasn’t just magic she sent out to hurt people. It was actually part of her, like an arm or leg.

And it bled.

The severed end of the whip, still clinging to my arm, was spewing thick, red blood like a water hose that had sprung a leak.

Her magic was why she needed to feed so much and so often. Not only because the vampire part of her needed the blood, but because her magic did.

That was why she was afraid of my demon blade. Most weapons would have had no effect on her magic, but thankfully, my blade was not most weapons. It might not kill her body, but it could potentially kill her magic. And what would she be without magic?

Dead.

She wasn’t quite ready to give up, though. She’d worked so very hard and for so long to return to the world that had betrayed her, and getting her vengeance was the only thing that made sense to her.

I understood that, and I understood that putting her down would be the merciful thing to do. Because damn me if I still wasn’t feeling sorry for her.

Remy and Zach were slipping in behind her, stakes in hand, and though I wanted to yell at them to stand down, I didn’t. They couldn’t be compelled, and they could fight. It was why they were there.

Between the three of us, we could take Jolene out.