Jenna Wright

HELLION: THE DEAD HEX

First published by Jenna Wright in 2018

Copyright © Jenna Wright, 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

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Contents

1. ALSO BY JENNA LYN WRIGHT

2. HE WANTS YOU BACK IN PANDEMONIUM

3. THE DEAD HEX

4. GOBLIN IPA

5. FRIEND OR FOE OR DEMON

6. THE WORST WITCHES

7. YOU NEED A NECROMANCER

8. NICE NIGHT FOR A RESURRECTION

9. THE DAUGHTERS OF THE DEAD

10. THE BONEYARD

11. ANYA

12. THE HAUNTED

13. MAD'S NOT WHO YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS

14. YOU'D BETTER RUN

15. HOUNDS OF HELL

16. DOUSE THE TORCHES

17. NO PRISONERS

18. SHE'S MAD, AND YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE

19. YOU CAN'T BEAT THE DEVIL

20. A HEARTBEAT

21. SLOANE

22. A GOOD OLD FASHIONED SEANCE

23. THANK YOU!

ALSO BY JENNA LYN WRIGHT

THE HELLION SERIES

HELLION: ASYLUM OF ASH

HELLION: THE COUNTERFEIT CITY

HELLION: THE DEAD HEX

This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Cover Design by Karl Slominski

1

HE WANTS YOU BACK IN PANDEMONIUM

“You realize this is the last place I want to be, right, Gray? I still have pieces of zombie in my car axles.”

Runner is staring up at Lilah’s mansion with a scowl on his face. I don’t blame him. I’m not particularly thrilled to be back here either.

The smoke from Lilah’s spell to raise the dead has dissipated, and the grounds of her estate are an eerie sight. Dozens of open graves dot the lawn and the rotting corpses of the newly re-dead litter the driveway and the stairs leading up to the front door. The air smells musty and sour like laundry left wet in the washer overnight. And he’s right about the car: bits of graying skin and spatters of coagulated blood mar the grill and tires of the hearse we borrowed from Erin. An unfortunate side effect of mowing down the undead.

“I’ll make it quick, I promise,” I say, and head up the front stairs, carefully picking my way around the tangled limbs of Lilah’s fallen army.

Inside, more bodies lie in the cavernous hallway that leads toward Lilah’s Artifacts Room, as she’d called it. The place she’d kept the objects I’d stolen for her that were too precious, too valuable, or too dangerous to re-sell.

Also, as it turns out, the objects she’d planned to use to raise a demon army to overthrow Lucifer.

Avoiding the corpses, Runner and I enter the Artifacts Room to find the fire still crackling in the hearth and the lowball glass containing the mixture of Lilah’s blood and black water from the river Styx on the mantle.

Runner sweeps his gaze around the room, coming to a rest at the pile of dead bodies near the window. “They’re all dead, right? Or, dead again, like they’re supposed to be?”

“I killed them myself,” I reply, remembering the weight of them on top of me as I sliced through them with my dagger. Their fetid breath and papery skin. The snapping of their teeth and the cracking of their disused joints. Death-by-zombie would’ve been a terrible way to go.

He doesn’t seem satisfied, but this is as good as it’s going to get. He moves toward the dozen or so glass display cases that line the far wall and peers at Lilah’s stolen goods. “I’m guessing these aren’t family heirlooms.”

“Not exactly. And don’t touch them. Now that I know I probably stole them from an angry god or sorceress or… who knows what…” Exasperated, I run my hand through my hair. The missions Lilah had sent me on, I’d assumed they were on the level in terms of stealing from humans. That, I could deal with. Thanks to the tiny bit of knowledge Lucifer has given me, I now know that I stole from some of the worst supernatural creatures in Counterfeit City, and they’re none-too-pleased with me.

“Trust me, touching them was never part of the plan. I don’t even like the fact that the soles of my shoes are touching the floor in this place. So why don’t you tell me what we need to do to get out of here so we can, you know, get out of here?”

Warmth blooms in my chest at his use of the word we. Assassins and thieves don’t make many friends, and Runner risked his afterlife to help me take down Lilah and bring the Dagger of the Fallen back to Lucifer. I’d call it good luck, but luck doesn’t exist. Not only did Mina point me in the direction of the Dagger of the Fallen, she had Runner sent to me. Whether it was the luck of the draw or she knew it would be this antsy Phantom driving the cab that scooped me up on the side of the street, I owe her. Big time. And a big-time gift is what she’s going to get.

“First things first, that demon army resurrection juice needs to go. How would one dispose of this?” I ask, picking up the lowball glass from the mantle.

“Depends on what it is.” Runner eyes the glass warily and makes no move to get a better look.

“Lilah’s blood and water from the river Styx.”

He jerks back, waving his hands and shaking his head. “For starters, you can keep it right over there with you.” Runner stares at the glass for a long moment, finally deciding. “And I have no idea. But I wouldn’t leave it here. Obviously. Just because we… you… wiped out most of Lilah’s demons doesn’t mean one or two aren’t still out there causing trouble. Who knows what they could do with that stuff?”

He has a point. “Then I have to run upstairs to get something to put it in. Grab that book and I’ll be right back.” I point to the leather-bound book that sits at the foot of the hearth. Its gilded pages glint in the firelight, and if it’s possible, it looks even more ancient than when I brought it to Lilah to complete my last mission for her less than a week ago.

As I’m making my way around the corpses and out of the room, Runner calls, “What is it?”

“The Codex Malum,” I call over my shoulder. When I’d murdered ten or so criminals to get it, I hadn’t realized the text had been part of the Counterfeit City underworld that ran under the noses of a human like me. Former human, now. Goddamn Lilah for not telling me what I was getting myself into.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” he responds, and I get the feeling that it won’t be the last time he says that if he decides to keep hanging around with me.

I don’t know this place well enough to waste time searching, so I make my way up the grand staircase to the second level and return to the room where I first broke into Lilah’s mansion: a makeshift greenhouse with a glass ceiling that gives me a flawless view of the twilight sky and the full moon overhead.

All manner of plants and flowers grow and bloom, stretching their spindly limbs toward the ceiling and casting strange shadows on the floor. I give the greenery a wide berth, as I’m fairly certain each and every thing growing here is some shade of poisonous, and move toward one of the long tables that stretches through the center of the space. Bowls, burners, and beakers are strewn across its surface, and after a bit of looking around in the dim light, I finally find a silver vial with a cork stopper.

Racing back downstairs, I find Runner holding the Codex Malum at arm’s length. The minute he sees me he practically jogs over. “It won’t bite you,” I say. “It can’t do any damage unless you read from it. I think.”

“And yet, I’d prefer if you held it.”

Waggling the vial at him, I maneuver around him without taking the book. “Just one sec…” I need to take care of the lowball glass first.

Heat from the fire warms me as I move toward the mantle. The liquid in the glass swirls, bits of silver inside sparkling like stars in the night sky, and I am hypnotized as I gaze at it. I’m not sure how long I’ve been staring when Runner says, “What did Lucifer say to you when he summoned you back?”

Hearing the name of the Devil snaps me from my reverie. “That he’s keeping me on his payroll for my own good.”

Runner snorts with derision. “Gray. Come on. Do you really believe that?”

“I believe that it’s partially true, which makes it the worst kind of lie. I can’t wholly dismiss it.” I pick up the lowball glass and begin to tip its contents slowly, carefully into the vial. “You seem to have a special, angry place in your heart for him specifically. What did he do to you?”

Behind me, there is nothing but silence. Finished pouring, I plug up the vial with the cork stopper and turn to Runner. He’s staring down at the book, forgetting that it scares him. Eyes unfocused, he’s deep in some memory that paints his features with sadness and regret.

Tucking the vial into a pocket inside my jacket, I move to him and gently take the book from his hands. “I’m sorry, that was personal. I shouldn’t have asked…”

“Lucifer took my wife from me. Not as in she left me for him, but she…” He trails off as if the pain that’s evident on his face has stolen his breath and his will to continue. “She’s gone. We still have a chance with you. So,” he gestures to the book, “where are we headed with that?”

His smile is broad but doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and I can see him work to box up the memories he’d let overtake him just now. “Mina’s,” I respond.

“Excellent. I could use a drink.” He bounces on his feet, and I get the feeling that he’s as eager to get out of this house as he is to put distance between us and our conversation about his wife. “Shall we?”

The edges of the room start to blur and darken, and a white-hot stinging sensation radiates from my wrist.

“What is it?” He asks.

“I don’t know.” I glance down at my arm to find that the brand Lucifer gave me is changing from black to an angry red. “It hurts…”

Runner snatches the book from me. “He wants you back. I’ll meet you at Mina’s.” The room is a pinprick in my vision now. The last thing I see before it drops into full darkness is the sadness that Runner hasn’t quite managed to erase from his eyes. I vow in that moment that when I escape Lucifer and Pandemonium for good, I’m bringing Runner’s wife with me.

2

THE DEAD HEX

I’d like to say I’m getting better at that teleportation thing the Devil insists on doing to me every time he wants to send me somewhere or call me back to him, but that would be a lie.

I’m back in Pandemonium lying face-up on the floor of Lucifer’s lair. Not the office, though, or wherever we conducted our previous business. Here, skylights are carved into the cathedral ceiling above me, and outside, ash sifts down onto the glass from clouds veined with red lightning. The room is lit with flickering firelight, both from torches affixed to the walls and from a large fireplace at the wall a couple dozen feet to my right. A massive canopy bed sits to my left, the interior shielded by thick, black drapery.

I have to admit that Lucifer’s bedroom is the last place I was expecting to end up when he summoned me, but I’m too irritated and achy to really care. Twisting my arm, I press my branded wrist to the cold stone beneath me and let out a sigh of relief as the burning subsides to a dull ache.

The soles of Lucifer’s shoes crackle and spark on the stone floor as he approaches. He stops at the top of my head, popping into my field of vision to peer down at me from above. “You’ll get used to that,” he says with a smirk.

“Which part?” I say, rolling over and pulling myself to my feet. The floor still feels like it’s swaying beneath me and I reach out to use one of the posts on Lucifer’s bed to get my bearings.

“Both the summoning and the tell-tale burn,” he replies, fastening a button on the cuff of his dress shirt.

“Does it ever hurt less?”

He arches an eyebrow at me. “No.”

Of course it doesn’t.

“I’m the Devil, Gray,” he continues.

It was a stupid question.

“I delight in your misery.”

“It’s not that bad,” I retort, my temper flaring. Not wise to get angry at Satan, I’m sure, but here we are.

“Is that a request for more?” he asks. He’s finished buttoning his other sleeve and glances back over his shoulder at me as he moves toward a large, black armoire that sits against a far wall. “Because this is kind of what I do, and I’ve gone quite easy on you. What you’ve been through is nothing..”

Feeling more steady I release the post and stand without aid, stiffening my spine and throwing my shoulders back. The last thing I want is for him to see any weakness in me. “You must’ve called me here for a reason.”

“And you’d like to work off your debt to me as quickly as possible, yes?” he says, his words muffled by the cloth as he rummages through what looks to be an endless supply of black suit jackets.

Yes. I want to scream it at him until I go hoarse. This is a conversation I shouldn’t even be having. I should be back on Earth… the real Earth, not this Counterfeit City bullshit with its nightmare creatures lurking in every shadow and its magic running through the streets and its never-ending twilight sky. I need to be working off my karmic debt to society, not running jobs for the Devil. When I brought Lucifer the Dagger of the Fallen, and Lilah, no less, I should’ve earned my freedom and my chance to be good. My chance to see David again. Instead, the Devil did what the Devil does, which is twist our bargain into a deed of sale for my soul.

And I have nobody to blame but myself. That’s why I don’t scream at him. It’s my fault. His offer at giving me a chance to make up for the evil deeds done during my human life and somehow end up with more good than bad on my final spiritual tally, once I completed my mission for him, of course, blinded me to the fact that I was entering into a deal with a creature that would never let me win. The Father of Lies.

Well, he’s not the only one who can lie. Lilah taught me that and a whole lot more, and when I get out of here I’m going to leave this place nothing but smoldering embers and ash.

“I need you to bring me the Dead Hex,” he says matter-of-factly as if I should know what the object is.

Seeing as how I’ve been a part of the Counterfeit City for about a blink of an eye and that expectation would be absurd, I silently wait for more information. He continues to paw through his clothes until finally selecting a black blazer with silver threaded through in thin-slice pinstripes. He shrugs it on and turns back, blinking in surprise.

“You’re still here.”

“Where would I go?” I respond. “I don’t even know what the Dead Hex is.”

He rolls his eyes at me in dramatic exasperation. “How is that possible? You’ve been part of the Counterfeit City for over a week.”

“Running a job for you while dodging demons and werewolves and…” I trail off as he waves a dismissive hand at me.

“The fact that you’re calling them werewolves instead of Lunatics tells me all I need to know. Werewolves,” he mutters. “Do you want everyone to know that you’re new?”

Again, I bite back my anger. My next stop is Mina’s and she’s promised to give me an education in all things Counterfeit once I deliver the Codex Malum. This back-and-forth with Lucifer won’t be an issue again.

“So,” I say, gesturing for him to continue, “the Dead Hex…”

“…Is a ring made of cold iron.”

“Like that you’d wear? Or that you’d toss.”

He stares at me as if I’m dull. “Are you being willfully obtuse?”

“Like you said, Lucifer, I’m new. The more information you give me now the less I have to scramble for it later. And do you know what scrambling does? It takes time. Do you want the ring as soon as possible? Or do you want it after I’m finished researching what it is, where it might be, how to get there…”

“Stop talking,” he says, holding up a palm to me as if he’s a crossing guard and I’m not allowed to approach. “The Dead Hex is a ring that you’d wear. But not you, specifically. Don’t touch it.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so should be enough,” he huffs. “Trust me when I say that it’s better for everyone if it’s not out on the streets for just any Counterfeit to stumble onto. So, bring it to me and don’t touch it in the process.”

Trust him. Right. I’m not going to get any more from him, though, so I say, “Bring you something I can’t touch. Check. Where is it?”

“Gray, how much use are you to me if I have to do all of your work for you?” he asks, moving to the ornate, gilded mirror that hangs next to the black-lacquered door to the room. Smoothing his obsidian hair back, he grins at his reflection, quite pleased with what he sees. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is where the term handsome devil came from. He is the most striking man I’ve ever laid eyes on, and oh do I want to strike him.

“You managed to survive your first venture out into Counterfeit City,” he continues, “but if you’re going to thrive here you’re going to need to take some initiative to learn the customs, nomenclature, et cetera and so forth. Imagine that you’ve moved to a new country. You wouldn’t expect the locals to drop everything to educate you, would you? No. You’d take that upon yourself. Just do it quickly. A wrong move here won’t get you lost down a quaint little street, it’ll get you killed. Again.”

“I think the fact that I not only managed to survive Counterfeit City but did so with no help or information from you, shows that I’m already way ahead of the game. Like you said when we first met, I’m quite good at what I do. So why don’t you let me go do it?”

My temper is in check, barely, and if Lucifer doesn’t show me how to get out of here I can’t promise I won’t lose it. Prior to my death, I’d had masterful control of my emotions. When your job is literally to kill or be killed, keeping a cool head can and does save your life.

But pulling the sheet down from David’s beautiful face, seeing my fiancé cold and dead on a mortuary slab, has ripped away my equilibrium and I’ve been scrambling ever since. Here in Pandemonium with my captor is the first moment of something resembling quiet I’ve had since waking up in a body bag, and I realize now how raw I am.

He must see something in my expression because instead of opening his mouth to toss out some smug comment, he opens the door that leads out of his chambers and gestures for me to pass through.

“That might let me out of the room, but I don’t know how to get out of…” I gesture around me to Pandemonium in general, “here.”

“Look again,” he purrs.

The hallway beyond the door has disappeared, and a black void stretches out from the threshold of the door. “Goddammit,” I mutter.

“Gods, Grey. Gods dammit. Plural. Again, you should know that by now. Denying the existence of everyone aside from…” he whistles as he points upward, “is just going to make you more enemies than you already have, and you have quite a few…”

I don’t hear the rest of his lecture because I stride right by him and fling myself out into the darkness. Anything is better than one more word from that man, or demon, or god, or angel, or whatever Lucifer is. I twist as I fall and look up at him, silhouetted in the doorway in the middle of nothingness, and I swear he blows me a snarky kiss.

The gesture I make in return is quite a bit more vulgar, and his laughter rings out into the emptiness as I plummet into the black.

3

GOBLIN IPA

That bastard drops me into the center of the busiest street in midtown six feet from an oncoming taxi.

As quick as I was in life, and even quicker now in death, there’s still no way I’m going to avoid being crushed underneath the wheels of the car. I tense and reflexively squeeze my eyes shut, only to feel my long hair fly around my face, caught up in the draft as the cab passes a fraction of an inch to my right.

Cracking open my eyes, I watch in astonishment as the next car does the same. And the next. And the next. There is no squeal of brakes. No cacophony of horns. The drivers smile and speak to their passengers and don’t see me at all, but they skirt around me like water passes by a rock in a river. I reach out and trail my fingers along the side of a sedan as it drives past.

Humans don’t register Counterfeits. Easy to remember when you’re walking past people on the street. Harder to remember when a vehicle is bearing down on you. A stunned and relieved giggle escapes my lips.

I toss my head back and do something I’m certain I’m the first to do: take in the neon insanity of the city from smack in the middle of the road at rush hour.

Billboards flash and traffic moves and tourists and city-dwellers alike crowd the sidewalks, and it is magic to behold from my tiny island on the asphalt.

I should wait for a break in the traffic to get out of the street. A red stoplight or a crossing pedestrian to hold up the constant line of cars. But I’m also curious to know how far I can push this. Counterfeit City is still mostly a mystery to me. Why not do a little research?

Taking a tentative step toward the sidewalk, I watch with glee as the cab barreling toward me veers a few inches to the left and misses me completely. Through the windshield, I could see the driver’s hand twitch on the wheel. Their face showed no recognition of the course correction or why it was happening, but they did it just the same.

I step onto the curb and the spell is broken. Safely out of traffic, I’m just like anyone else in this city now, except for the whole demon-back-from-the-dead thing.

Turning in the direction of the park, I make a mental note to ask Mina about all of this. Once you know the rules of your world and your situation, the better you know how to bend them to your advantage.

***

I make it through the empty park in the middle of the city without having to dodge a single bullet or blow.

In my old human life as an assassin, once you’d completed enough jobs you gained a reputation. Even better, make a splashy debut and you’d be a legend spoken about in hushed tones in the darkest corners by the worst people. Your name and what you could do would spread like wildfire. Maybe something like that happens here in Counterfeit City; a whisper network to let you know who the easy marks are, and who to stay away from if you value your afterlife. Perhaps the creatures that populate my new home, my temporary home, have wised up to the fact that they should be frightened of me.

After taking out nearly all of Lilah’s demons, they should be.

Nearly all.

Not Ciaran. The man who carried me into Lilah’s service. Out of one fire, literally, and into another.

There’s a large part of me that hopes that he’s human, but a tiny spark in me that desperately wants him to be a demon. I can’t recall there being anything out of the ordinary about him, but Nico’s words come back to me… people have an infinite capacity for lying to themselves. And Lilah, insinuating that I was part of the Counterfeit City long before it existed, a creature that belongs here… With her trapped in Pandemonium, there’s no chance of getting answers from her.

The demons she sent to kill me, I trained with them for years thinking that they were human. Doesn’t that prove that I am, as well? Or have I been something other all this time, and kept that part of me boxed up and buried until I couldn’t anymore?

Ciaran helped me survive Lilah’s, teaching me much of what’s kept me alive for years, and if anyone can help me figure out who and what I am, it’s him.

As long as he doesn’t want to kill me like the rest of my former colleagues did.

Ciaran is a wildcard to me.

I step up to the massive oak a dozen feet off the main path. Split down the center, its gnarled halves stretch up toward the twilight sky. A metal door with an intricate, inlaid pattern gleams dully between the two trunks.

The entrance to Mina’s still makes no sense to me. It will, though. Just as Nico transformed me into a walking arsenal for my last mission, by the time I’m eventually done with Mina I expect to be a walking encyclopedia of all things Counterfeit.

Placing my palm in the small, smooth square of metal in the center of the door, I wait for the sting as whatever lives in or controls the door pierces my index finger to take my blood as payment for entry. It never comes. Instead, the door swings open silently, revealing not the forest behind the tree, which would make sense, but a staircase lit by bare bulbs that leads down into the earth.

I descend toward the thumping bass beat that echoes up and off of the staircase’s brick walls, and the door shuts behind me of its own will.

***

My first thought as I twist the crystal knob on the door and push into the club is that the place is dead, and I hate myself for the pun.

The dance floor is empty, though the music plays on. The poles are sans dancers. The poker tables sit unoccupied aside from one, where two vampires with loosened ties and bleary eyes toss golden coins onto the green felt.

I find Runner nursing a pint at the nearly-empty bar three stools down from the only other patron, an angry looking man swirling a lowball glass half-full with brown liquid. My silver-eyed friend glances over as I pull up a stool next to him and takes a long pull from his beer. “Want one?”

He gestures to the bartender, who turns away from the shelves she was stocking to take his order. It’s the ethereal woman who tried to poison me on my last visit. Her long black hair brushes her shoulders and sways up and away from her head, caught in some unseen tide. Her crimson lips twist into a smile. “Same as last time?”

Hilarious. “Pass. I’ll have what he’s having,” I reply.

She shrugs as if I’ve just taken all the fun out of everything.

Runner has the Codex on the bar next to him, and I slide it toward me. “You see Mina yet?”

“Nah, she’s in the back with someone and I figured I’d wait for you.”

I nod toward the bartender and, careful to keep my voice lower than the music, I murmur to Runner, “What kind of Counterfeit is she?”

A pint appears in front of me. “I’m a ghoul. A little like a spirit like him,” she flicks a glance at Runner, “but more fun.”

“Ha. Ha,” Runner snorts. “She means more dangerous.”

“Like I said. More fun,” she sniffs, and turns back to lining up crystalline decanters of booze on the shelves behind the bar.

I take a sip of my pint and I’m surprised to find that it tastes like any old beer. Runner must see my nose scrunch up because he asks, “What, something wrong?”

“Just beery,” I say. “Everything else in Counterfeit City has been a few inches away from normal. I guess I thought the drinks would be, too.”

“They are,” he replies, taking another long drink. “That’s a GIPA. Goblin IPA. I’d suggest you start slow. A human gets two sips of that, they’ll be up there trying to swing from one of those poles.” He points to where a fairy has just started a lonely striptease for a single, leering serpent-type creature. “You’re a few weeks past dead,” Runner continues, “so I’d say finish maybe half and give me the rest.” He shoots me a grin and I can’t help but smile back.

“You take a look at this?” I ask, flipping open the Codex Malum. The pages are yellowed with age, soft and worn, and a good portion of the text is faded. Diagrams and charts are interspersed between the paragraphs, and from what I can tell it’s written in a handful of languages, none of them English.

“Nope,” Runner says adamantly. “Even if I could understand what’s written in there, I wouldn’t take the chance. That book can raise armies of the dead for starters. I don’t even want to know about the advanced stuff. I’ll just continue to play the part of chauffeur, thank you very much.”

“Looks like she’s finished,” the ghoul behind the bar says and nods toward the back of the club.

Runner and I turn on our stools to find the door to Mina’s office open. Someone is standing on the threshold with their back to us as they toss one final word back inside to Mina.

Snatching the book up off of the bar, I slide off of the stool. “You coming?”

“I think I’ll just keep an eye on this for you,” Runner says, picking up my pint glass. “Like I said, I’m happy just to drive.”

“Then your next drink is water,” I say, and he nods good-naturedly.

I’m halfway across the dance floor, colored lights sweeping and swirling across the pitch-black flooring to the beat of the bass, when I stop in my tracks.

The person who’d just been speaking to Mina has turned to leave, and they’re frozen to the spot where they stand as well.

Two dozen feet away, Ciaran has just stepped from Mina’s office, and he’s looking at me with murder in his eyes.

4

FRIEND OR FOE OR DEMON

The music and the sudden roaring in my ears drown Ciaran out, but I watch his mouth form the word Gray and his brow furrow in confusion.

I should race toward him. Take him off-guard and get the upper hand before he tries to kill me.

I should back up, scramble toward the door and try to outrun him before I have to fight my closest friend to the death.

I can’t move.

So he does.

He stutter-steps toward me as if in a dream, and all I can do is clutch the Codex Malum tightly to my chest and let him come. He is my friend. The only friend I made while working for Lilah. He would never hurt me…

One of the swirling colored lights sweeps over his face, turning his shock of silver hair a brilliant crimson. He is only a handful of years older than me, but he’s aged since the last time I saw him, as if he’s been dragging around a terrible burden of heartache and worry. His cheekbones are sharper than I remember and he has dark smudges under his haunted eyes.

His fathomless black eyes.

The eyes of a demon.

The revelation hits me like a nearly-physical blow, knocking me out of my haze and setting my blood on fire. I drop the book on the floor, the impact cracking like a gunshot, and ball my fists as I step back into a fighting stance.

He stops immediately, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Gray…”

“Your eyes,” I hiss.

After a moment of confusion, understanding washes over him. “Now that you’re fully Counterfeit, you can finally see me for what I am.”

Quick footsteps slap toward me, and Runner appears at my side. From the corner of my eye, I see him look from me to Ciaran and back, working hard to understand. “What? What’s happening? Who is this?”

I never take my eyes from Ciaran. Betrayal and elation war within me. Betrayal that he didn’t tell me what he was, and elation that he’s supernatural like the rest of them, and that he might be able to help me figure out what I am. Lilah wasn’t my only hope.

“He’s one of Lilah’s,” I manage to grit out. “A demon.”

In the battles I’d fought since coming to Counterfeit City, Lilah’s demons had regarded me with hatred, fear, or cool indifference. Now, Ciaran looks at me with something like pity, and that is something I’m not prepared for.

“So are you, Gray,” he says, and though he’s quiet, the words slice through the thumping music and plunge like a dagger into my heart.

“Once I was murdered, yes. But before that…” I shake my head. “I saw demons. I wasn’t one of them…”

“Why do you think you were in that asylum?”

Runner spins to face me. “You were in an asylum?”

“Before I worked for Lilah,” I say. “Ciaran saved my life the night it burned down. He brought me to her.”

Ciaran takes a tentative step toward me. “And why do you think I was there that night?”

“Stay there!” I bark, and again, he stops.

The memories have been tugging at me since I was tossed into Counterfeit City, struggling to break the surface in the dark corners of my mind. I’ve been getting brief flashes, but never enough to tell me anything or give me a complete picture.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Runner stoops to pick up the Codex Malum from the floor and clutches it to his chest like a child taking comfort in a stuffed animal. “Why were you in an asylum?”

Finally, I drag my eyes from Ciaran and look at Runner. “Because I killed my parents when I was seventeen.”

“And why did you kill them?” Ciaran prompts.

I keep my eyes on Runner as I respond, “Because they were demons.”

His jaw drops. “That doesn’t happen… humans seeing demons, or any Counterfeit, not unless they cross the veil and are revived, or… no,” he shakes his head, “it doesn’t happen.”

“They twisted me around in there,” I say, and I hate the desperation in my voice. “I was certain I saw them, but then who says that unless they’re crazy, right? And…” A memory emerges, tearing itself from the fog and haze of my forgetting. “…They tested on us in there.”

I turn to Ciaran in confusion. “Right? You saved me from the testing.”

“I saved you from the humans,” he says, nodding. “They didn’t test on you to get to the bottom of some mental illness, Gray. They tested on you to figure out what made you Counterfeit.”

“You were born a demon,” Runner says, and I can feel the truth of it in my bones. “That’s… rare.”

“Lilah knew the whole time. All those years. And she didn’t tell me?” My gaze burns through Ciaran, and he simply nods. “And neither did you.”

“With what they injected into you over the weeks you were at the asylum, and that night especially, it erased you, Gray. You were incoherent when I dragged you from that place. Close to death. And when I brought you to Lilah…”

“On her orders, because she knew and she wanted to use me,” I interrupt.

“You were a natural-born demon. Do you remember getting headaches? That was the start of you becoming a full-blown Counterfeit. You just didn’t know it. And most traces of the asylum were wiped from your mind due to the drugs and the trauma.”

The screams of the other inmates echo and bounce inside my skull, and I’m certain there is so much more that I need to know about that place and the people that were in there with me. It’s too much to process. It’s all too much.

He gentles his voice as he says, “Why do you think you succeeded in so many missions that would’ve seriously injured or killed a normal human?”

“I don’t know, the fact that I’m good at my job?” I scoff.

“You’re weirdly good, though,” Runner says. “You fought your way through the last few days like someone who belonged here, someone who had been here for a lot longer than a week.”

Ciaran points at Runner to emphasize the point. “That. Yes. You know how word travels, especially in what we do. What we did. You woke up after that last night at the asylum thinking you were human. The mind is powerful, and your reality is what you believe it to be. You believed yourself to be human, so that’s who you saw and who you interacted with. By keeping what you were hidden, Lilah kept you safe from Counterfeit assassins. She wanted to keep you her secret weapon.”

I’m afraid that if I open my mouth I’ll scream until the blood vessels in my eyes burst, so I clench my hands and grit my teeth until my jaw aches. Ciaran seems to wither under my furious gaze, and then Runner steps into my line of sight, breaking the contact and snapping me back to the present.

He holds out the Codex Malum and says, “That’s fucked up.”

It’s so absurd that a laugh explodes from my chest, and I giggle in a way that’s just this side of hysterical as tears of frustration and loss well in my eyes. My parents died… no, I killed my parents because of what they were, and it turns out I murdered them for being what I am. They were probably going to tell me that night. Instead, they got butchered.

My entire life since then has been nothing but deceit and death. I want to blame Lilah for that, but who’s to say it would have been any different if I’d grown up in my nuclear demon family?

Runner wiggles the book, pushing it into my hands. “Is he going to kill us?” he asks, nodding back toward Ciaran.

“He’d have done it by now,” I respond, taking the book. Stepping around Runner, I address Ciaran directly. “You should have told me. Everything.”

“I thought I was helping to keep you safe.” He casts his eyes downward as he says, “But you’re right. You deserved to know.”

“Deserved to know what?” a familiar, smoky voice interjects, and Mina appears from behind Ciaran like some slinky, unearthly goddess. Tonight she is in white cigarette pants and a fitted white blazer with the sleeves rolled up and no shirt underneath, revealing a slice of flawless dark skin all the way down to her navel.

“That she’s always been a demon!” Runner says.

“Obviously,” Mina responds distractedly. She’s got her eyes locked on the Codex Malum in my hands. “Is that what I think it is, little demon?”

“A promise is a promise,” I say, and hold it out.

“You bring that on back with you. We have things to discuss,” Mina says and turns on her heel, crooking her finger and beckoning me to follow her as she returns to her office. Runner follows her immediately, but as I move to stride past Ciaran, avoiding him, his arm shoots out and he grabs my bicep.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help you. To save you.”

Right now, there’s only one more question that matters, and how he answers it will determine if I ever speak to him again. “Did you know what she planned to do with David?”

His black eyes bore into me as he says, “I would never hurt you or anyone you loved, Gray. I knew about David, but I had no idea what Lilah was planning. I think that’s why she sent me away on a job overseas, so I wouldn’t be here when she carried out her plan. Word of your death traveled, and I came back here as soon as I could…” He shakes his head. “If you hadn’t killed Ruby and Lilah, I would have.”

His eyes are bottomless black and full of sadness, and he pulls me into his arms, crushing me to his chest. I stiffen, still raw and angry and reeling from everything I’ve learned, but he holds me until I soften and hug him back. “I was afraid you wanted me dead, too,” I say.

“I am always on your side, Gray.” He pulls back from me, gripping my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length.

“Good, I didn’t want to have to kill you,” I say, working up a smile and wiping a dark tear from where it’s tracked down my cheek.

That gets a genuine laugh from him. “There are fires I have to put out due to everything that’s happened, but we’re not done. There’s so much you deserve to know.”

“You, too,” I say as I back away, and watch his jaw drop as I add, “Lilah’s not dead, and Lucifer’s my new boss.”

5

THE WORST WITCHES

“She survived the night!” Mina crows as I enter her office. She sits in her office chair, the Codex Malum lying closed in front of her, peering at us over the piles of yellowed papers that are stacked on her desk.

“I like to think I had a little something to do with that,” Runner says, running his hand through his unruly dark hair and preening a bit.

“More than a little.” Taking a seat next to Runner in one of the two chairs set on the other side of the desk, I nod to Mina and add, “If you hadn’t called him, I might’ve had to walk to the Eternal Cemetery.”

His smirk falls as Mina lets out a throaty laugh. “I’m glad you’re the one they sent, Runner,” she says. “And I’m glad you stuck around after the job was done.”

“We’ll see how long that lasts,” he mutters, and I pick up the words “ungrateful” and “jerk demon” as he mumbles, but there is a smile in his voice and I can’t help but crack a small smile of my own.

Mina leans back and gets comfortable in her chair. “I’ve gotta admit, Gray, I didn’t think you’d succeed in getting the Dagger of the Fallen, let alone take out Lilah.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” I reply.

“Yeah, and desperate people usually make stupid, rash decisions that end up in chaos and death, sometimes for others, usually for themselves.”

“That’d be me, then, yes,” I say. “Got David killed. Got myself killed. Made a stupid, rash decision to go into business with Lucifer. Got a whole bunch of demons killed. Stirred up all sorts of trouble. I’d say you’re right on the money about all of this.”

“And who is this David fellow?” she asks as she absentmindedly runs a finger along the binding of the Codex Malum.

Runner shoots me a wary glance but I don’t meet his eyes. Mina’s into information. It’s power to her. Currency. I think that David is something I’m going to keep to myself for a bit.

“How do you know Ciaran?” I counter, and I can see that my attempt at deflection works as she rolls her eyes and fixes me with a look of pure pity.

“Oh, honey. The better question here would be who don’t I know.”

“Fair point,” I admit. “What mission was he on when I was murdered?”

“Nothing that matters now,” she replies. “Lilah’s little criminal empire has crumbled, and if I’m not mistaken you and Ciaran are the only ones left of her band of merry murderers.”

Runner slides a paper from the top of one of the precarious stacks on Mina’s desk and starts to read. She leans forward, snatches it from his hands, and sets it back on the pile. “It looks like we’re boring poor Runner, here,” Mina purrs, “and we’re square now, so why don’t you go grab another GIPA at the bar? You both did such a good job, it’s on the house.”

“Not square,” I respond and point at the Codex Malum. “I did what you asked and delivered one book containing all sorts of dangerous goodies right to your doorstep. You told me that if I managed to survive that you’d give me a Counterfeit education that, and I quote, would melt my little demon mind.”

Mina watches me with those hypnotic, starry eyes for a heavy moment before responding, “Indeed I did.”

“What exactly does that entail?”

Mina runs a hand over the cover of the Codex Malum. “That entails me telling you anything you’d like to know about your old boss Lilah and her nefarious deeds.”

“What if she’s not the only person or thing I want to know about?”

A slow smile spreads across Mina’s face. “Are you saying you want to make another bargain with me?”

Runner stiffens and makes a choking noise. It’s possible he doesn’t think this is a good idea. I lean toward him and say, “Do you have the information I’m going to need for my next mission?”

“Depends on the mission,” he hisses.

“He won’t know,” Mina adds helpfully, and Runner scowls at her. “What? Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Is she wrong?” I ask him.

Runner tips his chair onto its back legs and crosses his arms. After a moment of pouting, he spits out, “No, she’s not wrong. I just don’t think…”

“Noted.” I turn back to Mina. “Yes, I’ll bargain. Just tell me what you want and I’ll figure out a way to get it.”

Mina’s smile is wicked. “Done. Now, what can I help you with?”

“I need help finding the Dead Hex.”

The back legs of Runner’s chair slip and he topples backward, hitting the floor with a terrible clatter. He rolls ass over teakettle and comes to a stop against one of Mina’s card catalogs. Sitting up and rubbing the back of his head, he says, “You can’t get that, Gray.”

“Can’t as in I’m not allowed, or can’t as in it’s not possible?”

“I mean it doesn’t exist. Lucifer gave you an impossible mission.” He pulls himself to his feet, rights his chair, and sits back down, wincing as his ass hits the padded seat.

It sounds ridiculous, but then again I wouldn’t put something like that past Lucifer. “Is he right, Mina?”

“Of course he’s not right. I told you he wouldn’t know.”

Runner gingerly presses his fingertips to the back of his head. “Gods dammit that hurts.”

Mina gets up, strides around the desk, and opens the door to her office. Sticking her head out into the club, she yells, “Can I get some ice in here?”

“The Dead Hex is a myth,” Runner says to me quietly, and I can tell he believes this with one-hundred percent certainty.

“It’s not,” Mina says, and takes a small towel from the bartender that’s appeared at the threshold. Shutting the door to block out the thumping music once again, Mina hands the bundle to Runner and bends down to meet him at eye level. “I’ve seen it.”

Runner takes the towel from her with one hand and frustratedly waves her off with the other, but his eyes roll back with relief as he presses the ice to his head.

“And getting it isn’t going to be easy,” Mina continues, snatching the same pair of glasses from the desk that I saw her wear when she found the location of the Dagger of the Fallen for me. The lenses flash briefly, and she smiles. “But that’s the fun part, right?”

“Depends on your definition of fun,” Runner says. “You probably thought sending us to Baron was fun, too.”

Mina moves to a what looks like a stack of thick photo albums piled one on top of the other in the far corner of the room. “I’m sure it was fun for Baron. I heard there was quite a massacre and you know how he loves to keep busy with the burying and the corpses and whatnot.” She grunts as she pulls the book second from the bottom out of the pile, and the stack wavers precariously behind her as she spins and brandishes it at us. “Here we go. If I’m right, I’ll know exactly where to send you.”

She slams the book down on the desk, sending a puff of dust swirling up around us. “Any creatures I should be worried about where we might be going?” I ask. “Last time I wasn’t allowed near the Pixies or the docks because I was still just newly dead and too close to human.”

“Smart move,” Runner mutters. “Pixies are vicious.”

“Lots of creatures you should be worried about,” Mina says quietly as she turns one thick page after another. It’s like no album I’ve ever seen before. More like an interactive journal of sorts. Scrawled handwriting and pockets for snapshots and dried flowers pressed in the pages.

She must find the page she’s looking for because she stops flipping through and instead slides her finger down the page as she reads, her nose inches from the paper. For a second I’m not sure what’s happening, because it looks like she’s convulsing, and then I realize it’s not some sudden medical emergency: it’s silent laughter.

It shakes her from her very core, and when she manages to look up I can see tears streaming from her eyes behind the lenses of the glasses. Laughter, smoky and rich, pours from her and I can’t help but smile and chuckle along with her. “What?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s just too good.” She takes the glasses off, tosses them on the desk, and wipes the tears from her eyes. “Runner, you sure you wanna stick with her through thick and thin? Good missions and bad?”

“One, we’re not, like, getting criminal married,” Runner says as he pulls the ice pack from his head, “and two, I’m invested now we’ve had a lot of bonding time in the car.” There is the slightest edge of exasperation in his tone, and I have to admit it endears him to me.

“Positive?” Mina asks, and she is getting way too much enjoyment out of dragging this out.

“Where are we going? Where’s the Dead Hex?” If the thought of us going wherever she’s sending us is giving her this much entertainment, maybe it can’t be all that bad?

“Runner, what is your least favorite type of Counterfeit?” Mina waggles her eyebrows and wipes a lingering tear from her midnight skin.

His brow furrows in confusion. “I like everybody… I don’t…” His eyes go wide, and he looks from her to me and back again. “No. No witches.”

“Yes witches!” she screeches, nearly dancing with glee. “And not just any witches! The worst witches!”

Runner slumps further down into his chair and returns the ice pack to the back of his head. “I’m concussed. I can’t drive. No way I can go to wherever it is that the witches are.”

Mina calms herself enough to wave him away. “Well, not all of the worst witches. Just one really bad one. Like, remember how I told you to avoid the Pixies, Gray? This is like that, but more terrible.”

Of course. Mina wouldn’t take glee in letting us off easy. She’d relish the thought of throwing us into as much mayhem as possible. “Which witch is it?”

Mina blinks. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you? The which witch thing. Good. Keep your sense of humor. You’re gonna need it, because you have to go to Salem, Massachusetts and steal the Dead Hex from Trivia.”

There’s a thunk as Runner drops the ice pack onto the floor. “You’re kidding.”

“Who is Trivia?” Nobody offers up anything in this place without being specifically asked and I’m really starting to hate being left out.

Mina’s night-sky eyes dance as she says, “The Goddess of Graveyards. Specter at the Crossroads. The Queen of Ghosts. Trivia will fuck you up.”

Runner moans, and I don’t think it’s from the pain in his head.

“You’re in luck, though,” Mina continues. “I know someone who might be able to help you avoid an untimely second death, and it just so happens he’s getting drunk at the bar.”

6

YOU NEED A NECROMANCER

“Luke! Look sharp!”

The only patron at the bar jumps when he hears his name, but he doesn’t turn or acknowledge our approach. He simply lifts his now significantly less-full glass of liquor so that it catches the lights from behind the bar and says, loudly, “Not in the mood, Mina.”

“Tough shit, Spooky.” Mina grabs one of my hands with her left and one of Runner’s with her right and drags us behind her as she strides across the dance floor.

The man, Luke, spins around on his stool to face us. His chestnut hair is mussed and disheveled, his top two buttons are undone, and he hasn’t shaved in what must be almost a week. He’d be a disaster if he weren’t so handsome, and yet something about him sets off an alarm inside me. As we get closer, I realize that it’s his eyes. They’re light, too light, like glacial ice. Animalistic. It puts me on edge even as I get the feeling that there’s something about them that’s familiar.

“You know I hate that nickname.” He sips, the ice clinking in his glass.

“But I love that nickname. Hence, why I used it,” Mina counters as she stops directly in front of him. “I need your help.”

“I need another drink.”

“Nope, I’m gonna need you sober-ish for this. This is my friend Runner,” Mina says, waving Runner’s hand in front of Luke’s face, “and this rookie demon right here is Gray Carver,” she says, holding my hand up in a vise-grip like I’m a prizefighter who’s just won the title belt. “Gray and Runner, this is Lucas Thorn, Professor of Occult Studies at Ash City University and knower of almost as many things as myself.”

“Nice to meet you,” Luke says, nodding to both of us. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” He moves to spin back around on his stool.

Mina wedges her stiletto-spiked foot on the rung between his legs to keep him from turning. “Your tab at this bar is worth more than your life. These two fine specimens need a witch. Or, to be more specific, they need a necromancer. You’re in good with the Daughters of the Dead, aren’t you?”

“It’s complicated,” he says. “What’s in it for me?”

“Tee. Bee. Dee. To be determined.”

He lets out a weary sigh and lifts his glass toward me, and then Runner. “Like I said, nice meeting you both. Mina, I could do with less of you,” he mutters, and this time he does turn around, giving us his back.

“Rude,” Mina huffs, but there’s no anger behind her words. I disentangle from her grip and lean on the bar next to Luke.

“If you help us, I’ll owe you,” I say to his profile.

Runner makes a strangled sound behind me. “Gray, you’ve really got to stop doing that.”

I’ve caught Luke’s attention, though. He slides those unnerving eyes at me and raises his eyebrows. “What makes you think I want anything?”

“Okay, maybe not want. But when was the last time you looked in the mirror? Because you definitely need something or you wouldn’t be here forgetting yourself at the bottom of a glass.”

From the corner of my eye, I see Mina mouth the word wow at Runner, who in turn mouths I know.

“That’s awfully direct, seeing as how I’m a stranger to you,” Luke says, but he’s not angry or even annoyed. He’s defeated.

“I don’t have time to dance around the point. The longer I’m here, the longer I’m away from someone very important to me, and I don’t think I can get back to him without your help.”

He watches me for a long moment, long enough that I begin to worry that I’ve overstepped a boundary or caused him to shut down even further. But then he spins back around to face Mina and says, “She’s not the normal type you hang around with. She’s telling the truth.”

Mina shrugs and says, “They can’t all be winners,” and shoots me a wink.

“She owes me,” Luke says to Mina, “and you knock the last six months off of my tab.”

“Absolutely not,” Mina responds.

“Then no deal.” He leans his back against the edge of the polished-wood bar, crosses his arms, and waits.

Mina stares him down, and to his credit, he does not break eye contact. If she’d have turned that starry gaze on me, I’d have become a pile of ash on the floor. “Fine,” she mutters, throwing her arms up in exasperation. “I can’t believe this…”

Her stiletto heels click click click as she stalks back across the dance floor, strides into her office, and slams the door behind her.

“She’s not actually angry,” Luke says.

“Looked pretty angry to me,” Runner responds, still watching the doorway as if she might come back out and cut us down where we stand.

“The Daughters of the Dead,” I say, trying to steer the conversation back to what’s important. We need to get out of here before Mina changes her mind and Luke drowns himself in booze. “What is that?”

Luke flashes me a mirthless grin, and the effect is utterly wolfish. “More like who is that. A coven of necromancers, and if Mina wants me to take you there, then you must be in some serious shit. Are you?” he asks, looking from me to Runner. “In serious shit, I mean.”

“She is,” Runner responds. “I’m just the driver.”

“I’m fine. He’s concussed,” I say, and gesture toward the door. “Shall we?”

***

“Make a left here,” Luke says, pointing out the windshield of the hearse.

From my seat behind them, I can see the confusion on Runner’s face in the rearview mirror. “That’ll take us out of the city.”

“Nothing gets by you,” Luke mumbles.

I poke my head through the space between the passenger seat and driver’s seat. “Is that a problem?”

“No, I just… that was more for me, I guess. I can’t remember the last time I left the city.”

“And you?” I ask Luke, who’s staring stoically at the road.

“I get out of that hellhole every chance I get.”

“Yeah, but you like nature,” Runner says.

“You two know each other?” I can usually pick up on these things, and the fact that I might’ve missed this has me thinking I need to step up my game.

“No,” they say in unison, and then Runner adds, “but I know what he is.”

Again, my rookie inadequacies stand out like a gods damned beacon to everyone else. The minute I’m done with this mission I’m going straight back to Mina’s and I’m not leaving until I know enough to not be completely incompetent.

“And what is he?” I ask.

Luke shifts to better face me and for a moment I’m confused because he says nothing. Then, quick as a blink, his eyes flash an unearthly neon-blue, and when he smiles at me his canines are the slightest bit elongated. “Lunatic,” he growls, and just as quickly as he went wolfish on me, his eyes are back to icy and his grin nothing more than amused. “How new are you?”

“Less than a month,” Runner interjects.

Luke lets out a low whistle. “And who are you again?”

“Gray Carver. Nobody you’d know. I’m too fresh. Practically human, aside from the demon thing.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “your name is ringing a bell. Why do I know you?”

“You hear about what went down with Lilah?” Runner asks.

“Who hasn’t?” Luke replies, and then those light eyes go wide with understanding and he turns them on me. “That was you?”

“I helped,” Runner chimes in, like a kid who hasn’t gotten credit for setting the table for a five-course meal he didn’t prepare.

“That was me,” I confirm.

“Well, this certainly makes things a bit more interesting,” Luke says. “I didn’t realize I was traveling with a mass murderer and her chauffeur.”

“Right-hand man,” Runner says.

“Really? Because you’ve been insisting you’re just the driver from the moment I met you in the bar,” Luke counters, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“I’m a man of many talents. Some known. Most unknown.” Runner makes a show of leaning forward and squinting out into the murky twilight in an attempt to seem like he’s very busy driving and can’t possibly pay attention to further questions. It hits me that watching Luke bust Runner’s chops is the most entertainment that didn’t involve some sort of violence that I’ve had since I ended up in Counterfeit City, and I decide I like our guide. “How much further?” Runner asks.

It’s then that I realize the bright lights of the city have faded and the concrete jungle has given way to thick forest on either side of the road. The sky out here is a deeper shade of purple, bruised and dark above us.

Luke glances out his window and says, “Get ready.”

“Ready? For what?” Runner and I both follow Luke’s gaze, then glance at each other in confusion. There’s nothing to the right but nature.

“Turn right,” Luke says.

“Where?” Runner yells. “There’s no road!”

Luke reaches over and yanks the wheel toward himself, sending the hearse careening toward the forest. Instinctively, I throw my hands up as Runner jerks back, trying to get as far from the windshield as possible to protect himself from the glass that’s going to go flying when we slam into a tree.

And then we don’t.

Slowly, I lower my arms to find Luke driving one-handed down a smoothly-paved one-lane road that slices through the trees and snakes back into the darkness. “You want the wheel back, Right-hand Man? Or should I keep driving?” he asks dryly.

Hands trembling, Runner takes the wheel back from Luke. “If I’d made that turn without you in the car, would we be on this road?”

“You’d be wrapped around a tree,” Luke admits. “It’s like that scene in Indiana Jones where he has to cross that invisible bridge. Lack of faith means you step out into nothingness and plunge into the chasm below. Faith means your foot hits solid stone and you continue on your journey.” He waves a hand at the windshield and the forest outside. “I knew this was here. So it was.”

Runner white-knuckles the steering wheel, clearly unhappy that we have to take our navigator’s directions on faith. “That is a bad system,” he mutters.

“Or is it the best?” Luke counters.

“What do I need to know about the Daughters of the Dead before we get there?” I ask, steering the conversation back to what’s actually important. “Because I’m fairly tired of looking like a jackass to all you seasoned Counterfeiters.”

That gets Luke to crack a smile. “They’re necromancers, they’re the best at what they do, and she scares the hell out of me.” He frowns. “They scare the hell out of me,” he corrects. “As for the details, you can ask them yourselves.”

Ahead, the trees fall back to reveal a three-story gothic estate. It reminds me of Lilah’s, but it’s older, the stone darker and dirtier, and it one-hundred percent does not belong smack dab in the middle of nowhere. This is the kind of old-money building you’d see in the fanciest parts of the city, protected by landmark status while futuristic skyscrapers of glass and chrome pop up around it over the years. It’s like Dracula’s vacation home, perfect for when he just wants to get away from the urban hustle and bustle but doesn’t want to give up the creepy creature comforts and aesthetic he loves.

The base of the estate is glowing, blue light flickering and flashing through small windows set just above the ground. From somewhere inside a shriek cuts through the night, audible even through the thick stone and the sound of our engine.

Luke chuckles low. “Looks like you two are in for quite the show.”

7

NICE NIGHT FOR A RESURRECTION

Our knocks go unanswered. The thief in me begins to surreptitiously scan the outside of the mansion for a place to break in.

“There’s a window cracked open on the second floor,” I say, stepping back and pointing up. “If you two can boost me I can probably…”

I trail off at the looks on their faces. Runner’s amused and maybe a bit scared by my instincts, but Luke is looking at me like I’ve lost my damn marbles. He digs into his pocket and produces an old skeleton key, darkened by oxidation and time. “I have a key. I was just being polite.”

“Right,” I say. “You know what they say about old habits.”

“They get you imprisoned?” Runner offers helpfully.

There’s a terrible crash from inside, loud enough to make the heavy wooden door before us rattle on its hinges. Luke turns to us and holds up the key. “You’re sure you want their help?”

I nod. “Mina hasn’t been wrong with her suggestions yet.”

“You’ve only been on one mission,” Runner says.

“She sent you to me, Runner. Was that a bad idea?”

“Not so far,” he says, “but this is different. These are witches.”

“And what’s so bad about witches?”

“They’re scary!” Runner yelps, throwing up his hands in exasperation. “Feeders and Lunatics are only mildly upsetting because they’re only scary in basically one way. No offense, Luke.”

“None taken.”

“They can bite you, or tear you apart, and that’s bad, I know. Fairies and Pixies and Goblins and Ghouls, Spirits like me, we all have our thing. One thing. Witches, though,” he says, and visibly shudders, “they can do everything. There’s no telling what they’ll get up to, how they’ll get up to it, and what the damage will be.”

“He’s not wrong,” Luke admits. “Witches are wily. They all have their specialties, of course. The necromancers you’re about to meet obviously specialize in working with and through the dead…”

“Obviously,” I parrot, sarcasm dripping from the word, and Luke glares at me.

“But they all have a proclivity for magic, and magic is ethereal and intangible and runs through each and every thing in this world. They are powerful, and the thing you most need to understand before we walk in there is that you need to respect that power.”

“I would like to respect it from the car,” Runner says.

“Understood, Luke,” I say, grabbing Runner by the elbow of his jacket to keep him from escaping. “Let’s go.”

Luke inserts the key into the lock, twists, and pushes the door open.

It’s dim outside, but across the threshold, the inside of the estate is a spectacular kind of dark. Once the light crosses the line from outside to in, it seems to get absorbed and diffused, lending the shadows a thickness and a weight that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The clattering and shrieking from inside has gone silent, and the only thing I hear is a faint crackling.

Luke disappears inside.

I move to follow him, but Runner hesitates. “This is a bad idea,” he says quietly.

“It’s the only idea we have. A bad idea is better than no idea,” I respond.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” he says as I yank him inside after me.

***

“You’re not going to find them in there.”

Luke shakes his head at Runner, who’s wandered into the massive living area off of the foyer we’ve just stepped into. Runner traces his fingertips along the arm of the plush, overstuffed leather sofa that faces a roaring blaze in the fireplace.

“I could get used to this place,” Runner says.

“I thought you had a thing against witches,” I counter.

“I do. I do not have a problem with their furniture.”

“This way,” Luke says, waving for us, and we follow him through the living area and down a shadowed hallway lined with black and white photographs of empty cemeteries. The sound of the crackling fire fades, only to be replaced with a low humming that gets louder as we move toward the back of the estate.

“What is that?” I whisper.

“They’re working,” Luke says over his shoulder, “and we can go down there, but do not draw attention to yourself in any way. And you…”

“Runner,” he responds dryly.

“Sure. Don’t touch anything.”

The hallway ends in an ornately-carved door, gouged lines twisting and snaking along its surface like geometric snakes. I expect Luke to have to do some sort of incantation, or at least produce a key as he did outside, but he simply twists the knob, pulls the door open, and gestures for us to go ahead.

“Huh,” Runner breathes. “I thought it would be locked.”

“Nobody aside from us would be stupid enough to come in here when they’re working,” Luke responds.

My twitchy fingers brushing over the hilt of the dagger sheathed at my thigh, I slowly descend into… I can’t call it a basement. That’s too bland and conjures up images of ratty sofas and old televisions and makeshift rec rooms. This is more like a chamber, or a catacomb.

Instead of support beams, thick stone pillars rise from the finished cement. Polished black cabinets and apothecary tables with dozens of drawers line the wall behind us. An altar across the room holds burning candles and yellowed bones, and more bones are visible in the walls around us. I’m awed to find that the foundation of the estate is literally created from stone and remains.

All of this would be jaw-dropping in its own right, but it is nothing compared to what’s happening directly in front of us.

Four women hold hands, creating a circle. This is where the humming is coming from. They chant as one, their voices low and atonal, and the air around them shimmers and crackles and smells like ozone, the way it smells just before a soaking summer rain. It’s dirtier, though, earthier, as if we’re waiting for that oncoming storm at a freshly dug gravesite.

They don’t see each other, or us, or the room around them. Their eyes are a cataract-like milky white, and with a jolt, I recognize that as the haze that forms on a corpse’s eyes.

Runner’s fingers dig into my shoulder, pulling me toward him and shifting my perspective so that I can see what lies in the center of the witch’s circle. What has him so scared.

A dead man groans on the floor. His fingers twitch and his legs bounce, and a memory surfaces from my days at the asylum. A girl, telling me she… saved her cat. No, she reanimated her dead cat. Her green eyes wide with wonder at the act, and anger that it got her locked away in that terrible place.

The chant grows louder and faster, but the man still hasn’t fully reanimated. The witch directly in front of him says to the others, “It’s not working.”

“Don’t stop,” comes a command from the witch that has her back to us. A mass of curly hair obscures her face and she is smaller than the rest. “I can do this.”

As I watch, the palms of her hands begin to glow. The other witches glance at her with worry, but they hold fast, trusting her. Their chant reaches a fever-pitch, and with a burst of light from the curly-haired witch’s palms the dead man sits up like he’s been shocked back to life and bellows in rage and pain. It’s then that I see that the back of his skull is missing, blown out by a bullet, a crimson crater of bone, blood, and brain.

Runner stumbles back, but Luke catches him, holding him fast, and shakes his head at my skittish friend. “We wait,” Luke mouths, and Runner looks like he’s about to vomit.

“Why!” the dead man screams, and his pain echoes, the question repeating and repeating and repeating off of the stone walls.

The woman directly in front of him crouches down, the white in her eyes fading away to reveal a golden hazel hue. Her voice is low and soft as if she’s calming a spooked animal, when she says, “That’s what you’re going to need to tell us.”

The man’s milky eyes dart from her to the others, confused and uncomprehending. “Where am I? I have to… close up the shop…” His voice is shredded, both because of the screaming and because of the being dead, I’d imagine.

A second woman crouches down, sweeping her long, black, pin-straight hair away from her face. Her eyes narrow as she focuses her attention on him like a laser. “You’re not going to want to hear this, but you’re dead, and the sooner you tell us who did it, the sooner we can find them.”

A third woman leaves the circle and makes her way to one of the apothecary tables, where she begins to mix various powders together in a small bowl. She is a walking ray of sunshine, petite and blonde. She even whistles while she mixes, and the contrast between her and this dark place is startling.

“This is where you’ll want to run,” the curly-haired woman says. She kneels and places her hands on his shoulders, holding him down. “But you can’t.”

“I’m not… I’m not dead,” he stutters.

“I’m afraid y’are, hun,” the blonde tosses over her shoulder, “but we’re gonna take good care of you while you’re here with us, and then track down the bastard that did it! Sound good?”

“Ben, get over here,” the angry one with the black hair says, and waves toward a dark corner of the room. “Maybe he’ll believe you.”

A man emerges from the shadows. The navy blue of his uniform blended nearly perfectly with the darkness in the room, and that’s the excuse I’m giving myself for not seeing him there earlier. That, and it’s hard to keep your eyes peeled for threats when a coven of women is raising someone from the dead right in front of you.

He strides toward them, spine straight and fists clenched. In the flickering candlelight something about his face looks wrong, and as he gets closer I can make out three terrible, slashing scars that run from his ear, down his jaw and throat, and disappear beneath the collar of his shirt. It’s as if someone… something… dragged their claws across his face. There is a badge on his chest. He’s a cop.

He stands just outside of their circle and introduces himself to the newly-resurrected. “I’m officer Benjamin Shaw of the Ash City Police Department, and I’m afraid that you were shot tonight as you were locking up your pawn shop. I need you to answer some questions for me.”

The dead man slowly turns his head to look at the people surrounding him, the bones in his neck cracking and popping. He can’t quite seem to get his bearings, and I sympathize. I’m sure his mind is racing, what’s left of it anyway, while he works to comprehend his death. His resurrection. It can be overwhelming. I know these things now.

The angry one stands and says, “You’ve got about ten minutes with this one. Make them count.”

The blonde one saunters over and hands Officer Shaw the bowl full of powder she’s mixed. “You know what to do, darlin’.” He takes it from her as if he’s done this dozens of times before, and maybe he has. Maybe the Ash City PD has a magical division I know nothing about. It wouldn’t surprise me. Not much would anymore.

The women back away from the officer and the corpse, leaving them to the task at hand, and all four turn and approach us. They must’ve known we were here the entire time.

“Bit late for a visit, isn’t it, Spooky?” the angry one says.

“Not my idea, trust me,” Luke counters.

“Then whose idea was it?” the one with the hazel eyes asks.

“Mina’s,” I say, and the blonde one gasps. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one who has a visceral reaction to Mina. “She thinks you’re the ones I should see to help me get to Trivia.”

Luke jerks back as if he’s been slapped, holding up his hands as if to wave away blame. “I didn’t know.”

And I can see why he’s scrambling: the witches have gone tense and an electricity crackles around them. The one with the hazel eyes has tiny sparks flying from her fingertips, and her voice is low and deadly when she says, “Say that name again. I dare you.”

It’s then that the one with the long, curly hair steps out from behind the other three. When she sees me the glow in her eyes dulls, revealing them to be a clear, deep green. Her already pale skin goes even whiter, and her hands begin to shake.

“Gray?”

I should be focused on the furious witches, the magical sparks, or the dead man giving a statement ten feet away. But the more I study this witch’s face the more it seems familiar. Like I know her from a dream, or from another life. The feeling is a wisp of smoke, though, and I can’t grasp it.

“I’m sorry, I…”

She lunges at me, and before I can grab my dagger she has her arms wrapped around me in… a hug? Her body shakes as she’s wracked with sobs. “I never thought I’d see you again,” she mumbles into my jacket.

The witch pulls back and wipes tears from her eyes. “It’s me. Mad. Best roommate you ever had at Ash City Asylum.”

8

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE DEAD

The Daughters of the Dead are less than pleased.

The one with the hazel eyes, messy auburn ringlets, and a frown creasing her otherwise flawless honey skin is Bex Emerson, and she seems to be the leader of this operation. She’s currently pacing in front of me and Mad as we sit on the massive leather sofa in front of the fire in the living area. She’d dragged us up here seconds after hearing Trivia’s name, sparks still flying from her fingertips, mumbling about how mentioning that witch’s name would ruin the mojo of their ceremony if we continued talking downstairs.

The blonde ray of sunshine is Delaney James, and she’s just brought us both tea. The moment we came upstairs she darted out of the room as quickly as possible yelling something about refreshments over her shoulder as she disappeared down a darkened hallway. I get the feeling she needed to get away from us. To compose herself.

The one that I’m keeping my eye on is the angry witch currently perched on an overstuffed armchair, motionless and silent: Kara Kitamura. There is a storm brewing inside of her, a simmering fury that has me more on edge than anything else that’s happened since we arrived, including witnessing the resurrection downstairs.

Luke had made the hasty introductions on our way up the stairs. “Just so you know who might kill you,” he’d said with no hint of humor. He’s currently sipping whiskey by the fire and I’m not sure if it’s out of habit or necessity. The mention of Trivia’s name has him just as off-kilter as the witches.

Runner, for his part, is hovering near the threshold to the foyer. Close to the front door in case he needs to escape, I’m guessing. Thanks for the solidarity, buddy.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning, Mad?” Bex asks, “because you’ve never mentioned a long-lost demon best friend, especially not one who’s involved with Trivia.”

“We’re not involved,” Runner yelps from the far side of the room.

“Shut up, Phantom,” Kara growls, and he shuts his mouth so fast his teeth clack together.

“It was nine years ago, and I thought she was dead,” Mad replies. “There was nothing to bring up. The asylum burned down. I barely escaped.” She turns to me, her eyes pleading. “Do you remember anything about that night? That place? About me?”

I look around at these strangers and I don’t want to confess a thing, but if Mad can help me remember my past… “Almost nothing,” I admit. “I was sent there for something terrible, and I was carried out by Ciaran as it burned down. I don’t know how long I was there for, I don’t remember what happened inside, and I don’t remember getting to Lilah’s.”

“You ended up at Lilah’s?” Bex says, awe in her tone. “That’s…”

“Brutal,” Kara quips.

No shit.

“Shhhh, y’all, I want to hear this,” Delaney hisses. “Mad’s never told us…” she gestures as if to say the big picture.

“I’m sure Luke knows,” Kara says, which earns her a growl from the man himself.

“Whether I do or don’t, it wouldn’t be my place to say anything,” he says and takes a sip of his drink.

“Wait, you knew Mad knew me?” I ask.

“No. I knew she spent time at Ash City Asylum, had a demon roommate, a Feeder friend, and almost died trying to save a Lunatic.”

“That… seems like an awful lot of Counterfeits for a human asylum,” Runner says. “Not to mention, one of each? Is that weird to anyone else?”

Mad itches her wrist, her features tight with anxiety. “That’s because it wasn’t run by just any old humans. It was run by The Enemy.”

The room goes still at the mention, and Mina’s words bubble up in my mind. I’d almost been poisoned by her bartender on my first visit to her establishment because they couldn’t be too careful with rookie Counterfeits. The Enemy liked to take fresh ones and use them for nefarious purposes, whatever that meant.

“They tested on us in there,” Mad says, her voice wavering. “It was… bad. Bad enough that we started to lose ourselves, our memories, our minds. The trauma of it…” She looks up at me with those big, green eyes. “You weren’t there long, but they gave you something terrible on that last night. It must’ve erased everything. Do you remember Kavanagh?”

I’m about to say no when the name sinks in and unlocks something in me, something long-buried, and I see her smug face in my mind like it was branded there. I hear the tapping of her pen as she waits for me to talk in our therapy sessions. I see the glasses perched on her head and the iciness of her smile and the glint of the lights off of the syringe in her hand as she injected me with black poison.

“Gray?” Runner asks. I hear the thump of his boots growing closer, and I realize that I’ve slid from the couch and dropped to my knees. “Are you okay?”

I hold up a hand for him to stay away from me, and he does. They all just watch and I don’t care. I let the memories come, and they crash into me, one after another until I’m certain my skull will split and they’ll pour onto the ground for everyone to see.

“They wanted to kill us. They wanted to find out what made us what we were, and then they were going to dispose of us,” I say, and Mad nods, holding up the wrist she’d been scratching. There’s a small scar there, and I look down at mine to find an identical scar. “I thought this was from a job, or an injury in my training.”

“They put chips in us to download biological data.”

I expect a snarky comment from Kara, but even she is shocked into silence by all of this.

“Ruby dug hers out and killed two doctors while she was trapped in solitary,” Mad continues. “And that’s when you decided to rescue her. You, me, and Winter.”

“Ruby…” I murmur, remembering my friend. “The werewo… Lunatic. And Winter is a Feeder. Was. Is?” I look to Mad for guidance.

“They both survived the fire,” she says, beaming.

“The fire that Lilah started,” I say, remembering Ciaran carrying me out into the cool, dark night, the asylum ablaze behind us. “She’d had spies inside… had been watching us and… she chose me.”

“And it’s a good thing she did,” Mad says. “If she hadn’t come that night, we wouldn’t be here right now.” She looks to everyone around us and says, “Gray found out that they planned to eliminate us. Ruby was locked in solitary. We went down there to rescue her.” She shakes her head. “We were only teenagers. There’s no way we could have succeeded, Counterfeits or not…”

Mad slides off of the couch and crouches in front of me. “You remember it all now, yeah?”

I look up at her through unshed tears and nod. She pulls me into a fierce hug, and I hold onto her so tightly I’m sure I’ll squeeze the life right out of her. “Lilah never told me any of it,” I whisper, and pull back to look up at all of them. “I didn’t even know I’d always been a demon until earlier tonight.”

“How is that possible?” Bex asks.

“The poison they gave me that last night… The Enemy?” Mad nods and I continue, “It erased my memory. I woke up thinking I was human. And Lilah let me go on that way. Kept it all secret… When I woke up in Counterfeit City…”

“Wait,” Delaney says, setting her own teacup down on the table in front of her, “you woke up here?”

“She’s Lucifer’s,” Kara says. “Look at her wrist. He must’ve brought her back as one of his Hellions.”

Their eyes go wide when they see my brand.

“And that brings us back to why we’re here,” I say. “Lucifer.”

“This just keeps getting better and better,” Kara says. She rises from the chair, swipes Luke’s drink from his hand, and finishes it in one gulp. “Lucifer. Trivia. The Enemy. Got any other walking evil you’d like to let us know about?”

“I have to get the Dead Hex,” I respond. “It doesn’t walk but I’m pretty sure it’s evil. Does that count?”

Bex chuckles. “I don’t know what Lucifer’s playing at, or Mina for that matter. The Dead Hex doesn’t exist.”

Runner snorts. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Trust me, I wouldn’t be here bothering you very nice witches if that was the case. Mina’s seen it.”

“Mina thinks she knows a lot about a lot, but Mina’s not infallible,” Kara says.

“Luke, you also know a lot about a lot, and I like you a whole lot more than I like Mina,” Delaney says. “Is it real?”

Luke stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. The professor in him makes an appearance as he says, “Details are sketchy at best. There are numerous references to a ring that controls and manipulates demons in various texts throughout the ages, but there is no concrete proof, no photograph, sculpture, painting, or drawing of it, to say for certain that it exists.”

The entire time that he speaks, I notice that he makes a point to look at each of us. Each of us, that is, but Mad. And she keeps her face turned from him as well. There’s something there, but before I can ruminate on it, Bex says, “No proof. There you go.”

“If Lucifer says it exists, it exists,” I say. “He wouldn’t send me off on some bizarre mission to get something he didn’t actually want.”

“I don’t know,” Kara counters, “isn’t fucking with people kind of what Lucifer does?”

Of course it is. I know this first-hand. But I have to do what he says until I figure out a way to break free of him, so I have no other option. I stand. “If you won’t help me, I’ll find her myself. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

Mad jumps to her feet. “Wait!” She looks to Bex. “We have to help her.”

“We have to do no such thing,” Kara says.

“We should, though.” Delaney moves next to Mad in solidarity. “If we let them go off looking for Trivia on their own…”

“You of all people should know what happens when you cross Trivia’s path,” Bex bites out. “You want to potentially sacrifice another one of the Daughters?”

It’s then that I see the pain that runs just below the surface in all of these women. They wear it in different ways, but it’s chipped away at all of them. Mad must see the confusion on my face because she says, “The last time we had to deal with Trivia, we lost one of our sisters.” Mad takes Delaney’s hand and squeezes, and I watch as silent tears stream down Delaney’s face.

“So you realize that if I’m the one saying it, then it must be important,” Delaney says, her voice soft, but clear. I’m not sure if anyone hears the undercurrent in her words, but I recognize it immediately: she wants revenge. Delaney might be sweet as honey on the surface, but in this moment I have no doubt that she can also be vicious.

“I will help you destroy her,” I say, and when Delaney meets my eyes I see the slightest glint of hope in hers, and it is heartbreaking. I turn to all of them. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? And if you could’ve done it before this, I think you would’ve. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that Mina has a knack for connecting people that need each other.” As I say the words I feel the rightness of them in my gut, and I go out on a limb. “I think you might need my help just as much as I need yours.”

I’ve hit a nerve and the bullseye. I can see it on their faces. “I saw your expressions when I mentioned I’d been one of Lilah’s crew. You were impressed, and you were scared. Well, I wasn’t just one of her killers, I was her best. Now that I’m fully demon, I’m even better. You help me take Trivia’s ring, and I’ll help you take her life.”

Bex stares at me for a long moment, fuming, before finally saying, “Delaney and Mad are obviously for this idea. But we must all be in agreement. Kara?”

Kara’s been staring at me this whole time, and I can’t tell whether she wants to high five me or bite my head off. “I say we kill the bitch,” she finally says.

“Uh, Trivia or Gray?” Runner stammers from somewhere behind me.

“Let’s start with Trivia,” Kara says and turns to Bex. “I’m in.”

Bex nods. “Let it be known that I go along with this with heavy reservations. That said,” she smirks, “I would like another shot at Trivia.”

“You all scare me,” Runner says from the doorway. “This scares me. I’m scared.”

From his spot at the fireplace, Luke mutters, “You should be.”

9

THE BONEYARD

“I like being outside even less than I like being inside,” Runner says, and as we follow the four witches through their backyard, I have to agree. The night air is cool and the grass soaks the bottoms of our pants with dew. Up ahead, a waist-level wrought iron fence splits at an ornate gate, and the sign above the entrance is made of metal spokes that are twisted and bent to form the words The Boneyard.

It’s not exactly warm and cheery.

Luke stayed inside with a second beverage of choice, muttering something about Kara finishing his drink. I’m sure that was part of it - the man seems to love his booze - but I get the distinct feeling that he’s trying to keep his distance from Mad. She’s glanced back at the estate more than once, sadness and longing in her eyes.

“What are we doing?” I whisper to her, this place seeming to demand hushed tones and reverence.

“The Boneyard is the graveyard of our ancestors, the first members of the Daughters of the Dead, and where we will all be buried someday,” she answers. “It’s where we go to ground ourselves, charge our magic, and ask for guidance and blessings.”

“You guys are powering up?” Runner asks, stumbling up behind us. “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t know much about witches because every time I learn something new it makes me more nervous and then I have to stop.”

Mad smirks. “Something like that. We’re going to need to be at full strength to take on a witch like Trivia. And maybe you wouldn’t be so scared if you spent more time learning rather than less. Ignorance breeds fear you know.”

“Well consider my going to Trivia’s a witch school field trip. I am looking forward to it,” he says, mustering all the bravado he can.

She leans toward me and says, low, “He’s going to end up more scared.”

Ahead of us, Bex reaches the gates. She lowers her head, as do Delaney, Kara, and Mad, and so Runner and I do as well. Bex speaks in a language I don’t understand, but inside the gates, the grass begins to stir with a faint breeze and the branches on the trees sway and creak. Runner’s hand shoots out, gripping my wrist with bone-crunching force.

As the last words leave Bex’s lips, the gates swing open of their own volition. Bex heads straight on while Kara veers off to the left and Delaney to the right. “Everyone has their own place they go to to get right,” Mad says, and points. “I go this way.”

“I’ll wait here,” Runner says. “I mean, I want to be involved, but maybe not walking-through-your-ancestor’s-graveyard involved.”

So I follow Mad as she heads deeper inside and we pick our way among a few scattered tombstones and piles of rocks and branches. “Those are grave markers as well,” she says as we pass a set of rocks in a geometrical pattern. “It just depends on the witch.”

“What happened back there, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“You mean in the basement,” Mad says. “The resurrection?”

“I mean the fact that you basically willed that man back to life yourself,” I say.

She looks at me sheepishly. “I don’t know. I’ve been getting these… bursts of feeling and energy. It’s actually… it’s starting to scare me a little, but in a good way. It’s been helping us with our work, so I choose to accept it as a gift.”

We stop underneath a lonely oak tree whose branches loom over us in a natural canopy. Mad sits cross-legged at its base and gestures for me to sit across from her. “Close your eyes and open your center,” she says, and I quirk an eyebrow at her. She smiles. “Trust me. Just imagine it happening.” I close my eyes and do my best.

“Stop trying so hard,” she says, and rather than respond, I relax. “That’s it,” she murmurs. “Let your mind quiet. Let it drift. Feel the moonlight on your skin and the earth underneath you.” She takes my hands and presses my palms into the dirt.

Mad begins to chant in a low voice, words of power and wisdom, and I open myself to it. And in my mind’s eye, I see David. His smile as we shared a joke. The love in his eyes when he asked me to marry him. The breeze shifts and the life in his face drains. His eyes close and he is on a mortuary slab. I am kneeling at his grave. My fingers are not dug into the soil in The Boneyard, they are buried in the earth above his grave.

“Gray!” Mad barks, yanking me from my vision. My cheeks are wet with tears and I’m trembling. “What is it? What did you see?”

I wipe my dirty hands on my pants and wipe the tears away with my sleeve. “I saw the reason I’m doing all of this. I saw my purpose.” A coldness in my gut has me turning around, and I find Delaney a few dozen feet away, her blonde hair silver in the moonlight. She chants, and she is crying as well. “The witch you lost to Trivia, she meant a lot to Delaney, didn’t she?”

“Anya meant a lot to all of us,” Mad says. “But she meant everything to Delaney. She was her wife.”

I watch the heartbroken witch commune with her goddess or her ancestors, or whomever it is that she’s drawing strength from, and I vow to myself in that moment that I will not fail her.

“I have to go,” I say. “Your rituals here, they are for you alone. The place where I need to prepare is a little bookshop in Counterfeit City, and my rituals involve blades and poisons. I will meet you back here in twenty-four hours.”

***

We drop Luke off at the University. He exits the hearse and begins to walk away before turning on his heels, striding back, and gesturing for me to roll down the window. I do, and leaning on the edge of the door he says, “Don’t underestimate Trivia. I’ve heard about what happened with Lilah, and I’m certain she was no walk in the park, but Trivia…” he runs a hand along his scruffy jaw, “she is ancient evil, and very, very dangerous. Don’t be a hero. If you can’t follow through, then run.”

“If you know so much about her, then why don’t you come?” Runner asks.

After a long moment, Luke says, “I don’t think they want me there.”

“You don’t think Mad wants you there,” I correct.

His silence is all the answer I need. He simply backs away and says, “Don’t get them killed. Please.”

Runner pulls away, and we’re half a block from Nico’s before he speaks again which is the longest I think he’s ever been silent. “Do you really think we can do this?” he asks.

“I don’t have a choice,” I answer. He nods and pulls to a stop in front of the bookshop. “But you do,” I continue. “You were hired by Mina for one job, and you saved my ass, Runner. Multiple times. But you don’t have to stay or continue on. If you just want to drop me off and pick up your next fare…”

“Do you think that little of me?” he asks, his silver eyes wide. “You needed my help. So I helped. And you took down someone that made life a living hell for more than a few Counterfeiters. You might work for the Devil, but you’re one of the good ones as far as I’m concerned. Yeah, I could get a new cab and take another fare, and I could continue on doing that forever. For what? Driving you… I feel like it matters.”

As he’s spoken, warmth has filled my chest, and deep gratitude threatens to overwhelm me. Then he ruins the moment by saying, “Besides, you said it yourself: I saved your ass. You need me, rookie.”

“Get out of the car, Phantom,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“There’s that sass,” he says, and I shut the door on his cackling laughter.

***

Nico shoos the last customer out of his store, flips the CLOSED sign, and spins to us with delight on his face. “I nearly dropped a vial of poison when I heard the news,” he says, clapping his gnarled hands together in glee. “You got her! Lilah!”

“Thanks to a lot of help from you and the arsenal you’ve got locked up back there,” I say, hitching a thumb behind me toward the secret room that Nico revealed to me on my first mission for Lucifer. “And I’m going to need your help again, I’m afraid.”

His smile falters a bit at that, but I can tell that he’s not surprised. “Yeah,” Runner chimes in, “the Devil didn’t keep his promise. Go figure.”

Nico nods and waves for us to follow him. “How’ve you been, Runner?”

“Dodging bullets and killing demons. You know me.”

Nico chuckles. “Indeed.” He leads us through the piles of books that are stacked on and stuffed into every available surface and into his workroom, where he stops at the fuse box on the back wall. Swinging the cover open and flipping a few switches, he says, “So what insanity does Lucifer have you doing now?”

“Stealing the Dead Hex from Trivia,” I say, and watch as his jaw drops in concert with the bookshelf next to him sliding open to reveal his hidden apothecary and weapons room.

Nico recovers himself quickly but remains pensive. “You’re not going alone…?”

“Nope!” Runner says. “We’ve got witches. Lots of witches. Daughters of the Dead, in fact.”

“Their last meeting did not go well. But the Daughters are strong and very, very good at what they do.” He nods as if satisfied and ushers us back. The room is still as awe-inducing as the first time I saw it, with it’s hanging weaponry and rows of glass cabinets filled with daggers and swords. The long table in the center of the room is strewn with beakers and vials and bubbling concoctions, and colored smoke drifts into the air. “You still have your diamond dagger?” he asks me.

“That, and the one Lilah gave me,” I say, patting the zippered pockets at my thighs.

“They won’t do you much good against magic,” he warns. “But you will need what I’m about to prepare for you if you have any hope of succeeding.”

He moves back to the apothecary tables and begins pulling out paper packets and glass jars, setting them on the table in front of us in quick succession. Grabbing a mortar and pestle, he dumps their contents into the bowl and begins grinding the mixture to a fine powder.

“What’s it for?” Runner asks. “Do we feed it to her? Inject her?”

“You feed it to her ghost dogs,” Nico answers.

“Ghost dogs,” Runner parrots.

“You say that like it’s not possible, Phantom,” Nico counters. “Two ghost dogs, to be exact. They are the manifestations of restless souls that accompany her wherever she goes. Be aware of all canines once you enter her space. The barking of dogs heralds her approach.”

He pours the mixture into a beaker and adds a clear liquid that begins to bubble and smoke. Stirring vigorously, he adds, “This will incapacitate them, at least for a short time.” The bubbling subsides, and he pours the doggie tranquilizer into two vials, handing one to each of us. “You’ll have to rely on the witches for most of this mission, I’m afraid. This is the best I can do.”

As we both tuck the vials away, Nico says, “And you, Runner, take special care.”

Runner immediately tenses. “Why me?”

“You are dead.”

“So is she!” he says, pointing at me.

“Yes and no,” Nico responds. “She is a demon. You are a Phantom. You are dead dead. And Trivia is the Queen of Ghosts. She may have a special pull over you, and you need to be prepared.”

“Excellent,” Runner huffs.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I say to Runner. “If anything goes sideways, it’s my turn to help you.”

He nods, but he swallows hard, and I hope to hell I can keep my promise.

10

ANYA

There was no magically witchy way to get us to Salem with the snap of a finger or the blink of an eye. We didn’t even fly, by broom or by plane. Four witches, one Phantom, and one demon all piled into the hearse, which now lies abandoned in a thick copse of trees off the side of the road on the outskirts of Salem. Hidden by the shadows and a shower of leaves in a riot of orange, red, and yellow hues, only a bit of its shiny chrome bumper is visible in the dim twilight.

“You sure nobody will find it there?” Runner asks.

“The only way somebody sees that hearse is if they’re looking for it,” I say, squinting to get a glimpse of it myself.

“This way,” Bex says, waving all of us deeper into the woods. “First, we go to the graveyard.”

“Another graveyard?” I ask Mad, who does her best not to trip over fallen branches and knotted roots as we make our way down a dirt path.

She nods, never taking her eyes off of the ground. “We’re necromancers. Hanging out in places with dead people is a lot of what we do. Again, we’re communing with those who came before, paying them respect and asking for blessings.”

“How did you find the Daughters of the Dead?” I ask. “What happened after the asylum? How did you escape?”

“Winter dragged me out. Dragged both of us out, actually,” Mad says. “Me and Ruby. She didn’t need to breathe, being a Feeder and all, so the smoke from the fire didn’t overwhelm her. She got me out onto the lawn, and by the time she reappeared with Ruby, the paramedics were there taking care of me. I’m a witch, but I’m not, like, genetically different than a human, so going to a hospital wouldn’t raise any red flags for me. With them…” she shrugs, “I saw Winter carry Ruby off. It’s not like they could just go to the doctor, you know?”

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know,” Mad admits. “I thought about trying to find them, but getting together again seemed like it might raise a red flag for The Enemy. If they found us all once, who’s to say they couldn’t do it again?”

“The Enemy…”

“Is too much to get into right now. But I’m not going anywhere,” she says, glancing up at me with a smile. “I’ll tell you everything once we get out of here, I promise.”

I nod, and to know that I have someone on my side comforts me in a way I hadn’t realized I’d needed. “The Daughters…”

“Found me. Word of the fire spread fast, and word that The Enemy had been working at the asylum in secret spread even faster, thanks, I think, to your old boss.”

“Well, she is the one who discovered their dirty little secret, so that would make sense,” I say.

“Kara broke me out of the hospital,” Mad continues. “The Daughters thought it would only be a matter of time before The Enemy came for me again, so she got me out before they had the chance. I’ve been with them ever since.”

We come to a small clearing with a smattering of old, weathered gravestones scattered in the grass. Some have toppled, others have worn down so that the engravings are barely visible, and all of them are covered in moss and mold. We follow Bex to the center of the cemetery and she gestures for us to form a circle and join hands.

“Close your eyes and ground yourselves. Feel the night around you. Feel the presence of our ancestors with us. Quiet your mind. Open your heart. And listen,” Bex says, her voice soft and lilting. We bow our heads, and she begins to murmur words of thanks to those that came before.

Runner squeezes my hand hard enough to cause pain. “Gray…” he whispers, and I shush him and try to focus. “Guys,” he says a bit more loudly, and I squeeze his hand back and will him to shut the hell up.

“Guys! Daughters! Witches!” he yells, and I open my eyes to find the air in the center of the circle shimmering like heat above asphalt on a summer day. “What’s happening?” he asks.

“Many times, we ask for blessings and we accept them on faith, without any sort of contact. Tonight, we are lucky enough to be visited,” Bex says. “Appear,” she coaxes, and we wait for the apparition to coalesce.

The wind kicks up and slowly, so slowly, the mist and smoke before us solidifies into a human shape. Delaney falls to her knees. “Anya!” she cries, and on either side of her, Kara and Mad make sure to hold her fast, keeping the circle intact.

“My Delaney,” the ghost says. “I’ve missed you.” Her voice is hollow, seeming to echo in a chamber that doesn’t exist on this plane, and her brow is furrowed with worry.

“Let me go to her,” Delaney pleads, but the other witches redouble their efforts to keep her still.

“Stop, Delaney,” Kara barks. “You know what happens if we break the circle.”

Delaney stops struggling, but she shakes like the leaves on the trees as silent tears stream down her face. “Are you okay, Anya?”

It seems like a strange question to ask someone who’s died, but Runner is a Phantom and I’ve certainly seen him experience pain. Maybe Anya does as well.

“I wish I could say yes,” Anya says, her form flickering for a brief moment before solidifying again, “and I can only stay for a moment.”

“What are you doing here?” Bex asks, astonished.

“Anya is buried in The Boneyard,” Mad whispers to me, her eyes shimmering with tears. “She has not appeared to us since her death.”

“I heard you call, and felt you all so near to this dangerous place, I had to see…” Anya locks eyes with each of the Daughters, and as they look back at their fallen friend I can see tears shimmering in their eyes.

“Why have you come here?” Anya asks. “It’s not safe for you.”

“To kill Trivia,” Kara growls.

Anya shakes her head, and the ends of her hair float and swirl around her face. “That’s not possible. She’s even stronger than she was when we faced her together.”

“We have help,” Bex says, nodding to me and Runner.

Anya slowly turns to face us, and the outline of her image blurs as she frowns at us in anger. “Was this your doing? Your idea? You shouldn’t have come here. You shouldn’t have brought my sisters back.”

“It’s my fault they’re here, but I didn’t force them to join me,” I say. “And I wouldn’t be here if I had a choice. I lost my David like Delaney lost you. And if I complete my mission here, I…” I can see Runner shaking his head at me out of the corner of my eye, and I don’t care. “I might be able to get him back. Please help us, if you can, and I’ll do what I can to help Delaney and the rest of the Daughters get revenge.”

Anya watches me for a long moment, and having a ghost give you their undivided attention is one of the most unnerving experiences I think you can have. It’s like she can see through me the same way I can see through her, and I get the distinct feeling that I’m being judged. “Revenge doesn’t erase the past.”

“You’re right, but it sure as hell feels good for a few seconds.” When I’d killed Kira, the assassin that Lilah had ordered to murder me and David, I’d reveled in her death, even if it had done nothing to close the empty space in my chest left by David’s absence. “I’m not trying to erase the past. I’m trying to help the Daughters move forward.”

“You truly believe you can bring Trivia down?” she asks me.

“With their help? Yes,” I say, and I mean it.

And then Anya surprises me. The strong facade she’d displayed cracks, and she wails in agony, her form flickering more intensely, so much so that she almost winks out of existence.

Delaney tries to dart forward, and again the Daughters hold her back.

Anya recovers herself, solidifying once again, but it’s clear that it’s taking all of her effort to stay here. “Trivia is draining us,” she says weakly.

“Us?” Kara says.

“The witches she’s murdered,” Anya says. “I’m not the only one. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. She holds our spirits fast and drains us, bit by bit, to feed her power. Soon, there will be nothing left of me.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Bex breathes. “We respect the dead. Revere them…”

“Trivia lost her way a long time ago. The Queen of Ghosts has become their tormentor,” Anya says.

“How can we stop her, Anya?” Delaney pleads. “Have you learned anything since you…” It’s too terrible for her to say, so she lets the thought hang. Since you died. Since you were taken.

Anya flickers, not fully solidifying again, and her voice is strained as she says, “If you want any chance of succeeding, you must douse the torches that blaze in her chamber.”

“Don’t go…” Delaney yelps. “Please, Anya!”

But she fades, the smoke dissipating and swirling away on the wind. Before she is gone completely, I swear I hear her say, “My Delaney…”

The breeze stills and the rustling of the leaves falls silent. We break the circle and Delaney curls into a ball, sobs wracking her small body. Bex and Mad stoop to comfort her, helping her up from the cold ground. Runner crouches down, running his shaking hand through his hair and doing his best to hold himself together.

Kara strides over to me. She’s clearly shaken after seeing her dead friend, and she jabs a finger at me and says, “You’d better not fail us, demon. Not after that. Not after…” She can’t get the words past the lump in her throat, and I hold up a hand to stop her.

“I won’t fail.” I look past her to Delaney. To her credit, she is back on her feet and wiping the tears from her eyes. When she turns and catches my eye, I don’t see sadness in her anymore. I see anger, and I see resolve. She nods at me, and I nod back.

“Lead the way,” I say to her. “We’ve got a wicked witch to kill.”

11

THE HAUNTED

We’ve been traipsing through the woods for what feels like hours when Bex finally holds up a hand, gesturing for us to stop. There’s a break in the trees up ahead with what looks like a clearing beyond, but in the low light of dusk, I can’t be sure.

“Once we breach that tree line, we’re going to need to move fast. I’ll take lead, Kara and Delaney will flank both sides, and Mad will bring up the rear,” Bex says. “Gray, you and Runner need to stay within our circle at all times.”

“You make it sound like she’s got an army out there, just waiting for us,” Runner says.

“Worse,” Kara says. “An army-on-demand.”

“Trivia has wards that trigger when another Counterfeit, especially a witch, crosses the boundary she’s set around her property,” Delaney explains.

“But, they’re everywhere,” I say, confused. “Counterfeits, I mean. Every human town has that parallel world running beside it, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t this boundary get crossed all the time?”

Bex nods. “But nobody goes to see Trivia unless it’s to get into more trouble than they’re already bringing with them.”

“She’s paranoid. And she should be,” Kara mutters.

“The last time we crossed onto Trivia’s property, it was…” Delaney shudders at the memory. “Overwhelming.”

“It was an ambush, and we weren’t prepared,” Kara continues. “We aren’t going to make that mistake again. We’re ready.” As she speaks, her eyes take on that familiar glow. Whatever they did in The Boneyard clearly worked, because suddenly the air is filled with the scent of incense and freshly dug soil, and I can’t help but feel that we’re preparing for Trivia’s burial. That she’s already dead and she just doesn’t know it.

“But are we ready?” Runner asks, his voice an octave higher than normal. “Because I don’t feel ready. I feel one-hundred percent not ready.”

Before we’d left Nico’s he’d given us a few additional weapons to take with us with the understanding that they probably wouldn’t do much good, but that they were better than going in empty-handed. Runner pulls one of them now, an azure dagger, and though it’s small and efficient, it looks clumsy in his grip.

“Just don’t leave our circle, and use that if you have to,” Bex says, gesturing to his dagger, “but hopefully they won’t get that close to you.”

“And who or what are they, this army, specifically?” I ask, pulling a dagger of my own. The diamond blade catches the tiny bit of light that manages to sift through the leaves above us, and it feels good to hold a weapon again.

“The Haunted,” Delaney says, her fingertips sparking. “The lost souls she’s gathered through the years. Usually, those that have come to her for some sort of help, or favor. When they couldn’t pay her steep price, they were… recruited…”

“Enslaved,” Kara interjects.

“She owns them,” Bex says. “And they have to do her bidding. And Trivia’s bidding is to keep Counterfeits who try to get to her uninvited from reaching her doorstep by whatever means necessary.”

“We’re ready for them now,” Mad says, and though there’s steel in her words, she can’t fully keep the sadness at bay. “It won’t be like last time.”

Runner peers through the trees. “There’s nothing out there, though. I don’t see a house, or a castle or any of the mansions you guys seem to live in. I see grass.”

“Another layer of security,” Mad says. “Invisibility wards.”

“We won’t be able to bring them down until we’re closer,” Delaney says. “And we’ll most likely have the Haunted chasing us.”

“That’s why Bex and I will hold them off, while Mad and Delaney do the damn thing,” Kara says.

“We move fast, stay close, and keep the circle tight,” Bex says. “Trivia’s house is two hundred feet ahead, just past the crossroads. If we’re lucky, we won’t run into the Haunted until we’re at least halfway across the clearing. Ready?”

We get into position, with me and Runner in the center of a witch’s circle, and in unison, we step out from the protection of the trees and into the clearing. There is nothing to hide us, not even a cloud across the moon. It might as well be a spotlight on our position.

We make it five steps before our luck runs out.

“Runner, get ready,” I say as mist begins to seep from the ground. It rises and swirls, eerie in the silvered moonlight.

He holds up his dagger in his trembling hand. “What good am I with this, Gray? I’m not a fighter, I’m a driver!”

“Just don’t cut me with it.”

“Is it poisoned?” he asks, his voice hushed.

“No offense, but you don’t get entrusted with poisoned daggers,” I respond. “It just hurts.”

The mist is so thick now it’s hard to see the tree line not a dozen feet behind us. Mad points toward the empty stretch of grass ahead of us. “Keep your weapons up and keep going. We won’t leave you unprotected.”

Her hands are up in a defensive position, and the sparks from her fingertips have turned blue. It’s the same with the others. It would be pretty if it weren’t so terrifying.

From somewhere in the distance, a terrible, low moan cuts through the swishing of the grass against our feet. It’s joined by another, and another, until it becomes roaring and oppressive and I have to shout at Runner to move his feet.

Ahead, the mist begins to sway and separate, and shadows become visible in the ever-thickening clouds. They’re not moving toward us, they’re waiting for us to come to them. In all my years of working for Lilah, I’d never hesitated in running toward a fight, but there is something about the sounds and the shapes in the darkness that makes my black blood run cold and my anxiety spike.

The mist finally parts, and I realize that I wasn’t nearly scared enough. Dozens of people stand waiting for us. They don’t wear uniforms, or armor, or even hold weapons. They are motionless, thin and wasting away, their jaws dropped so low as to appear unhinged, and their eyes are blank. Soulless. That’s the word that hits me, and that’s the only word that fits. This is what it looks like when you have your soul ripped from your body.

Lucifer owns me. I had assumed he owns my soul, but I don’t resemble the members of this army and I don’t know why. Perhaps because he needs me to be more than a mindless drone. When I complete whatever missions I have left for him, will he turn me into one of these wretched husks?

In unison, the Haunted scream into the sky, and Kara yells, “Now!”

The world goes blindingly bright as pulses of blue light fly from the fingertips of Bex, Kara, and Delaney. Mad comes up behind us and shoves us forward. “Go go go!”

Their magic slices through the Haunted and the first line of Trivia’s dead soldiers go flying through the air, screeching. I grab Runner and drag him forward behind our battering ram of witchy magic. I can’t see. I can barely move, but I can feel the Haunted pressing toward us, their rage and anger coming off of them in waves.

A crush of them move forward, and our circle is ripped apart. Each witch fights for themselves, and I see Bex levitate two of the Haunted while Kara knocks back three more. Delaney shrieks with rage and effort, pushing back a dozen of Trivia’s army and forcing a path for us.

I don’t wait for Mad to tell me this time. I just go, dagger raised and ready. And they come for us, never stopping. I slash with my blade, and to his credit, Runner does too. I manage to get one of the Haunted across the neck, and it falls, its wound bloodless and its cracked skin crumbling to dust as it hits the ground.

“Gray, look out!” Runner yells, and I spin just in time to see three of the Haunted coming for me, eyes empty and jaws snapping. I manage to take one out, but the other two swarm me and drive me to the ground and they are strong.

They descend upon me, and I struggle to protect myself from a blow or a bite, and then I realize that they don’t mean to make this quick. They mean to tear me apart. They grab my arms and legs and they’re going to snap my bones from the sockets when one and then the other go stiff and silent. They fall on top of me, crumbling to dust like the others, and Runner looms over me with his azure dagger held high.

“I got them,” he mumbles in a daze. Then with more confidence, “I got them!”

The mist glows with that otherworldly blue light as Bex, Kara, Mad, and Delaney throw spell after spell, pounding the Haunted army back and away from us, but there are too many of them. We’re going to have to run.

“Get to the crossroads!” Bex says as she races past us, taking Haunted after Haunted out as she goes, and I snag Runner’s sleeve and pull him along behind her. Once again, Kara and Delaney flank us, and their faces are strained with the effort of holding back the soulless army. Mad…

Where’s Mad?

I look back to see that a Haunted has her by the ankle, and she shrieks as she’s dragged back toward a mob of Trivia’s soldiers.

I run for her, snagging her hand before she’s swallowed by the horde.

“Don’t let me go,” she begs, and I drop my dagger to grip her with two hands.

The others aren’t coming to help. I can hear them calling to one another, and they are being overwhelmed. Cries of “behind you!” and “there are too many!” and “I can’t stop them!” ring out over the misty field, and we are about to be overrun. Runner bellows with pain, and the sound cuts me to my core.

The Haunted are breathing down my neck and I am about to be consumed, so I focus on Mad. “I won’t let you go,” I say, even as they try to pull us apart, to tear her apart.

We lock eyes, and I see hers begin to glow the same shade of blue as the magic that spills from her fingertips. “Not again,” she growls, and her voice sends a shiver down my spine. Her hands grow hot in my own, and my nerve endings begin to sizzle and my bones rattle in my body. Something is happening and I can’t… I can’t hold on…

She is pulled from my grasp and I go flying backward as she’s swallowed by the mass of the Haunted.

A rumbling comes from deep within the earth, and the absurd thought that we’re having an earthquake ricochets around my mind. Startled, flocks of ravens alight from the trees, but they don’t scatter, they circle above us, sweeping and swirling the mist up toward them. They caw and shriek and then there is something like a thunderclap, a bomb blast, and hundreds of the Haunted are thrown up and away from us, flying back toward the trees, crumbling as they hit the ground.

The ravens scatter and the clearing goes silent as their calls fade away. The mist settles and begins to dissipate.

And Mad, my newly-discovered witchy friend, sits at the center of a patch of charred grass, smoke rising from her in tendrils and lines of shimmering electricity running up and down her body.

We pick ourselves up from the ground, me and Runner and the witches, and stare at her in awe.

“What was that?” I say, because in a million years I don’t think I could put the way the energy in this place feels at this moment into words.

“I don’t know,” Mad says, “but it felt great.”

“I knew it,” Bex murmurs as she comes up beside me. She cannot take her eyes off of Mad. “You’re descended from Trivia.”

12

MAD'S NOT WHO YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS

We’re standing at the crossroads and I’m not certain that we’re going to make it across without these witches tearing each other apart.

“I’m sorry, you knew it?” Kara growls, and if looks could kill Bex would be a pile of ash on the ground with the rest of the Haunted. “You knew Mad was descended from Trivia and you didn’t tell us?”

“I’d suspected, but…” Bex holds out her hand to Mad and helps her up off of the ground. “I wasn’t certain until now. Until this.”

Mad brushes herself off, all the while staring at Bex with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “It was just another one of those… surges or something, like I’ve been getting at the resurrections.” There is uncertainty in her voice, though, and that says more than her words ever could.

“I’ve never had a surge like that,” Kara spits. “Have you, Delaney?”

Delaney shakes her head no. “You could do that the entire time, Mad?” Her words are edged with hurt, and I know exactly what she’s thinking: if Mad had that kind of power in her the whole time, why didn’t she do it when it might’ve saved Anya?

“No! I don’t know why that happened. It just did.”

“You were already strong when you came to the Daughters of the Dead,” Bex says. “But you’ve taken to magic, and especially necromancy, more quickly and with more skill than any of us. Am I wrong?”

I watch as each witch shakes their head in turn. Even Kara, who clearly hates to admit it. “We held the Haunted off, but there’s no way we could have destroyed them, not even with all of our magic combined. That battle should have taken hours. The only person who could’ve had that effect on the Haunted was Trivia herself, or someone with her blood in their veins.”

“Hours?” Runner hisses into my ear. “We barely lasted five minutes! The potential duration of the battle would’ve been nice to know!”

“Would you have still fought if you’d known the odds?” I ask.

He looks at me for a long moment before shrugging, which is his way of saying maybe when he really means no, not in a million years.

“So what does this mean for us? For the Daughters?” Delaney asks.

“Yeah,” Kara says, “Trivia is straight evil. Does that mean Mad is going to turn into some sort of…”

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Bex says. “We all have the blood of our ancestors running through our veins, but it doesn’t make us our ancestors. We are our own witches.”

“Except for Mad’s ancestor happens to be a serial murderer of witches and literally one of the worst creatures in Counterfeit City,” Kara spits.

“Here’s what I know for certain, Kara. Mad used whatever power runs through her to help us. To save us. You want to discount that, fine. But do it later.” Bex crosses the dirt path and I follow, one: because she’s been the de facto leader this entire time, and two: because I want to get as far from the angry witches as possible. Runner trails after me, and Mad crosses as well. The other two pointedly stay on the other side.

Mad doesn’t notice. She’s still in shock. “I have a mother, though. A human. And my grandmother had talents, but…”

“I’d be willing to bet your mother wasn’t as human as you thought,” Bex says, digging into a pouch that hangs from her side. She pulls out a handful of soil and begins to sift it along the edge of the road. “Are you two coming, or have you abandoned your sisters?” she says, glancing up at Kara and Delaney. “Mad didn’t know. I didn’t tell her because I wasn’t certain. If you’re angry with anyone, be angry at me, just do it later. This is too important. This is about Anya.”

At the mention of their fallen sister their anger and betrayal seems to deflate a bit, and they both join us on the other side of the path. All four pull handfuls of soil from their own pouches and continue the line for a dozen feet in either direction.

“What is that?” Runner asks.

“Dirt from The Boneyard,” Delaney says, sifting the last of it onto the ground. She gestures for him to approach her, and when he does she grabs his hands and wipes some of the remnants onto his skin. “For protection. The Haunted, if any more appear, won’t be able to cross that line and surprise us from behind.”

He looks down at his dirty hands, and to my surprise, he doesn’t wipe the soil off onto his pants. Despite everything that’s happened that should rightfully scare him, I get the feeling that his fear of the witches is turning into fascination.

“Once the house appears, Bex and Kara will surround it with the rest of the soil,” Mad says, wiping graveyard dirt on my hands as well.

“About the house…” I say, looking around at the empty clearing. “How much further?”

“We’re here,” Kara says. “It’s right behind you.”

Delaney and Bex pull small daggers from the sheaths strapped to their thighs and kneel on the damp ground. Chanting under their breath, they begin to slice into the soft soil, drawing an angled pattern with their blades.

Kara and Mad stand on either side of them, their arms outstretched and their eyes closed, chanting those same words in unison.

Runner grabs my arm in what I assume to be a rush of panic, but when I turn to him he’s got the tiniest smile on his face. “Do you see it?” he asks quietly.

A shimmering catches the corner of my eye, and I watch in wonder as, from thin air, a three-story house appears as if its a mirage made real. Its paint is peeling, its shutters are broken and hanging askew, and a weather vane at the peak of the house squeaks on a rusty hinge as it gently twists back and forth. The only word that comes to mind when the house solidifies is haunted.

“This seems too easy,” I say, years of training and instinct tugging at me and telling me to be wary, be careful, and be ready.

“I agree,” Bex says as she stands, wiping the dirt from her blade on her pants before she re-sheathes her dagger. “Eyes open.”

That’s when a light begins to emanate from the attic.

“She’s conjuring,” Kara says.

“There they are,” Delaney adds, pointing out to the clearing past the crossroads. Mist has begun to rise from the ground again, and dozens more Haunted appear as if from thin air.

“It’s fine. They can’t get to us,” Mad says.

“I don’t think that’s the point,” I respond. “I don’t think she means to use the Haunted to attack us anymore. I think she’s trapped us.”

We can’t escape, not with an army waiting to tear us apart on the other side of the crossroads. Mad might have been able to destroy the first wave in a rush of… magic, or whatever it was… but she can’t control that reaction, and we can’t count on her to do it again.

We have to stand against Trivia.

And we have to win.

“I wasn’t planning on running,” Kara says. “Were any of you?”

The answer from each of us is a resounding no. Except for Runner, who, to the surprise of no one, mumbles a weak I dunno, maybe. Even Kara smirks at that one, but I watch her face fall as she looks past me, and I turn around to find the Haunted, one after another, throwing themselves at the invisible barrier that the graveyard dirt has created.

They bounce off of it, but rather than back off, their attack becomes more vicious. They snarl and snap, sacrificing what’s left of their bodies for the chance to tear us apart.

Bex points toward the house and barks, “You four. Go. Kara and I can handle this.”

Delaney and Mad hesitate, and I can tell that the last thing they want to do is leave their sisters to fight the oncoming army alone. “Go,” Bex orders. “If something goes wrong, you’ll know.”

I’m not sure what she means, but Mad and Delaney seem to understand. They take off, and Runner and I have no choice but to follow.

We race up the stairs of the rotted old porch, the boards loose and squeaking under our boots, and reach the front door. Delaney and Mad brace themselves, arms extended and fingertips spitting sparks, ready to use magic to force our way through the entrance.

That’s when the door swings open of its own accord.

It’s nearly pitch black inside, the dim light failing to penetrate even a few inches beyond the threshold of the doorway. Anyone or anything could be waiting for us in there and we’d have no way of knowing.

“I don’t like the looks of that,” Runner mutters, and for once, I have to agree. Never walk into the enemy’s chambers. Especially when they invite you.

“Mad, you go first. I’ve got our back,” Delaney says, circling around us. Out on the lawn, the cries of the Haunted grow louder, and I glance back to find Bex and Kara already using their magic to shore up the invisible barrier. “We don’t have much time,” Delaney says. “Go.”

And against all my instincts, we do.

13

YOU'D BETTER RUN

The moment the last of us crosses the threshold to Trivia’s home, the door slams shut behind us.

Runner opens his mouth to speak and I cut him off before he has the chance. “Don’t say it might’ve just been the wind.”

“I work through my nerves with humor, Gray,” he says, jittery. “You know this.”

Delaney yanks on the doorknob but to the surprise of absolutely no one, it remains shut fast. Locked. Mad lifts her hands, mumbling a low chant, and the knob begins to glow orange as if it’s heating up from the inside. “Now try it,” she says. Delaney does, and our predicament remains the same.

We’re trapped.

Trivia must be confident that she can overpower us. She’s all but asking for a fight. “So we go up,” I say, pointing my blade at the stairs just across from the door. I lost the diamond dagger out in the clearing, but the one I’ve had since I started killing for Lilah feels good in my hand, and I’m itching to use it.

“Why aren’t there any of her army in here?” Runner says, squinting into the living room off to our left. The twilight outside barely penetrates through the grime-coated windows, but I can make out threadbare rugs and ratty furniture. Wallpaper peels away and water stains mar the ceiling.

“She doesn’t need them,” Mad says. “Think of them as a fence meant to keep people out. Should someone happen to get in, well…” Mad trails off as she steps cautiously toward the stairs. “Trivia takes care of them herself.”

Delaney’s fingertips spark as her anger flares. “Not this time.” Her sweet-as-pie voice takes on an icy edge as she says, “I’ll go first,” and tries to push past Mad.

“No,” I say, grabbing her wrist. She spins, her eyes flashing with that eerie glow, and for a second I’m sure that I’m about to be magically annihilated. Note to self: do your best not to anger witches in the future. But for now, she’s going to have to deal with it.

“You can’t go up there all fired up and ready to burn her down. If Trivia is as dangerous as you say…”

“She is,” Mad interjects. “And Delaney knows that.”

“Then you also know that you have to stay cool. Ruthless. Don’t get reckless now, not when you’re so close. I know what I’m talking about. Please,” I say, gently letting go of her.

I’d nearly been undone by my anger at Lilah. When I’d confronted her at her estate, wildly firing bullets that she batted away like the nuisance they were to her, I’d been impetuous. I’d been stupid. And she’d gotten me back on my heels and nearly gotten me killed. Again.

The glow in Delaney’s eyes flickers. She tries to hang onto it, but it sputters and dies as what we’re saying registers through the haze of pain and fury she carries with her. She takes a deep breath, rolling her head to relieve the tension in her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m better. I can do this.”

I nod. “Then lead the way.”

The stairs are narrow and rickety and with each step the wood groans and creaks, all but announcing our presence to the witch waiting for us two stories up. As we creep toward the landing, I ask, “What did Bex mean when she said you’ll know if something goes wrong with her and Kara outside?”

“When you join the Daughters of the Dead, there’s a ceremony,” Delaney answers. “You become bonded.”

“We can sense when one of our sisters is in trouble, or in danger, or in pain,” Mad adds. “It’s helpful, but also…”

“Invasive,” Runner says. “I mean, to be what, psychically connected like that? Wouldn’t it screw with your internal…” he waves his arm to indicate his entire body, “compass or whatever? How would you know which emotions were yours, and which were someone else’s?”

“You can tell,” Delaney says, “though sometimes it gets complicated.”

“When we lost Anya, it was very difficult,” Mad says, her voice going soft with sadness.

Delaney reaches the landing, and we follow up behind her. She’s struggling, but I realize she’s stronger than I gave her credit for when she manages to box up her pain just enough to let a small smirk through and say, “And it’s hell when one of us stubs a toe.”

Mad smiles and puts a comforting hand on Delaney’s shoulder. “Almost there, okay?”

“Okay,” Delaney says. “One more flight.”

A moan filters down from upstairs, low and hollow, and it freezes the marrow in my bones.

“Have your weapons ready,” Mad says to me and Runner. “I don’t know how much good they’ll do. We’ve only come at her with magic before. Still, they can’t hurt.”

We take the next flight quickly, trying to be as light on our feet as possible, though I know it doesn’t matter. Trivia knows we breached the line of her property. She knows we’re inside. She knows we’re coming for her.

At the top of the stairs, there is a single door, and a weak blue glow seeps out from the crack between its bottom and the floor. The wood is coated with dust, and cobwebs made by long-dead spiders hang in every crevice and crack in the rotting wood.

“Delaney, you go low. I’ll go high. And you two,” Mad says, glancing back and me and Runner, “you’re defense. Back us up if things go wrong, and only if you see a clear, easy shot do you go in and take it.”

“Nothing about this is going to be easy,” Runner murmurs as he tries to get a better grip on his blade, but when you’re as unfamiliar with weapons as he is there’s never a right way to hold it. It feels wrong until you’re comfortable enough with it that it feels right.

I raise my dagger.

Nod to Delaney and Mad.

They lift their hands, their fingertips and eyes going neon blue right along with the doorknob.

The door rattles in its hinges, the wood threatening to splinter when…

It flies open with a terrible crack and we thunder up the stairs, racing inside, hands and weapons at the ready.

We spread out in a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, ready for whatever comes.

What we find is a nearly-empty room.

An altar set with black candles, their flames burning white.

A rocking chair.

And a ghost.

Anya.

She is so faint as to nearly be translucent, and she floats six inches off of the floor. Her bare feet point toward the hardwood, and her dress is dark with dirt and blood. Her arms float near her sides, and her head is tipped back at a painful angle.

Delaney begins to shake, but she does not move forward toward the apparition.

“How are you here?” Mad breathes.

“Punishment,” Anya replies, and her voice is weak and thready. “This is my punishment… for helping you.”

“No…” Delaney moans. “Anya… I’m so sorry…” The glow fades from Mad’s fingertips and she holds Delaney because without that support I don’t think Delaney could stand.

“Where is Trivia?” My voice sounds harsh even to me, but this is bad. Very bad. It feels like a trap. Or a diversion. If Trivia’s not here…

“She’s at the unmarked graves,” Anya whispers, her figure going even dimmer.

“It’s too fast,” Delaney yelps. “Why are you fading so fast?”

“Because of my betrayal,” Anya says. “I can’t hold on much longer.”

I step between Delaney and Anya, severing the view they have of each other. There’s no time for their questions, as cold as that seems. The only way we help Anya is if we do what we came here to do, and fast.

“Where are the torches?” I ask.

“In her chambers,” Anya responds.

“We followed the glow here!” I growl, my frustration is threatening to overwhelm me. “If they’re not here, then where?”

“Below,” Anya says. “Her magic is strongest when she’s under the earth, so that is where she practices.”

I spin and begin to herd everyone toward the door. “We have to go. Now.”

Anya is just a collection of wisps and tendrils behind us. Delaney reaches for her but lets herself be dragged toward the door all the same. “I will save you from this, Anya.”

Her words echo the sentiment I spoke at David’s grave, and the instinct to move grows stronger. I won’t break my promise to David, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure Delaney doesn’t break hers to Anya, either.

Once we’re on the small landing outside the attic I reach back and pull the door shut, cutting off Anya’s faint glow.

Delaney’s breath hisses out from between her clenched teeth. “I’m going to the unmarked graves.”

“You can’t,” Runner says, anxiety lacing his words. “She said Trivia can’t be beaten if we don’t take out the torches.”

“Then you’d better run,” Delaney says, “because I’m not waiting another second to get to her.” And without another word, she spins on her heels and races down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Mad looks back at me, torn.

“Go with her,” I say. “Or she’s going to get herself killed. We’ll find the torches. We’ll take care of them.”

Mad nods and runs after her sister.

“How are we going to douse the torches without magic?” Runner says.

I wish I had an answer for him.

14

HOUNDS OF HELL

I’d like to get out of Trivia’s house as soon as possible. The few seconds it took us to get to the first floor were uneventful, but this place has an aura about it, a coldness, and it seeps into your bones and leaves you longing to escape its dark interior.

“You see anything?” I call to Runner, who, like me, is searching for a door that leads into the basement.

“Not yet,” he answers, and he sounds strangely out of breath. His heavy footsteps thump and echo as he moves from room to room.

I walk by the stairs for the third time, running my hands along the dusty wood looking for a crack or a handle, and startle when my fingertips brush over a small latch. I fumble and twist the small metal tab, and a door that had previously been invisible in the shadows swings open.

Blackness yawns before me. The kind of blackness that it would be ludicrous to enter willingly. And yet, it looks like Runner and I are up for another dimly-lit adventure into the unknown.

“Runner!”

“Yeah,” he says, and I spin around, startled to find him right behind me. “I don’t feel so well.” I peer at him and am surprised to find that he does, in fact, look oddly pale.

“Can ghosts get sick?” I ask.

“Seems silly, right? I mean, I don’t think so. But I’ve only been dead a few years longer than you have. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about most of the time,” he answers. He lifts his arm and wipes the side of his sweaty face with his sleeve. Again, odd. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ghost perspire.

“Stay here, then,” I say. “I’ll find the torches.”

He shakes his head. “I’ll be fine. We go together.”

“I’m a killer, Runner. I know how to take care of myself.”

“Nobody’s doubting that, Gray. I don’t want to stay in this house alone,” he says, and gestures for me to lead the way.

Fumbling along the wall, I find a light switch and flip it up. Bare bulbs strung along the ceiling below us flare to life, throwing the concrete floor and old stone slabs of the wall into stark relief. Each step down the stairs creaks and groans with our weight, and rather than try to hide it I simply descend as fast as possible. The element of surprise has long gone.

The basement is plain and littered with belongings covered with sheets. The bulbs above throw small pools of light at various intervals, but it’s not enough to show us our surroundings. We’re at the mercy of whatever could be lurking in the shadows.

“It has to be this way.”

I turn to find Runner pointing toward the back wall of the basement. An open arched doorway is carved into the solid stone, and a tunnel extends back from it at a slight downward angle, leading back so far that I can’t see its end. I pull my blade out, he does the same, and we creep toward the unknown.

“Can you go faster?” he asks.

His voice is raspy now, and has taken on an urgent tone. I glance back to find that his hands are trembling slightly.

“I just think the sooner we get out of here, the better.”

I nod and pick up my pace. I’m not sure it’s the we we should be worrying about. It’s the him.

The air around us grows colder as we get further underground, and my skin begins to crawl with the sensation that we’re going to be trapped down here. I’ve never been claustrophobic, but my mind fills with images of entombment, being buried alive, screaming for someone to dig me up from a grave I’ve been falsely buried in.

A faint greenish glow becomes visible ahead. It flickers and dances like a flame.

“Whatever’s down here, we’re almost there. You ready?” I murmur.

Runner grunts, and I’ll take it as a yes.

We breach the line that demarcates the tunnel from Trivia’s chambers, and I instantly regret it.

A wave of grief over David’s death crashes into me like a wrecking ball, and I curl into myself, dropping onto my hands and knees. I let go of my dagger, but it doesn’t matter to me. Nothing matters to me. It’s magic, some sort of spell Trivia must’ve conjured to turn trespassers to her chambers inside out and leave them wishing themselves dead. I find that there’s only the tiniest spark left inside of me that wants to continue on, and it’s fading fast.

Tears flood my eyes, and I blink wildly to try and clear my vision. “Runner,” I gasp out.

He doesn’t answer, nor does he help me to my feet. With Herculean effort, I manage to raise my head to find him slowly walking toward the altar at the far end of the room. It is massive and ornately decorated with memento mori. Skulls and bones litter the ground, poking up out of the dirt. Black candles with white flames decorate every surface in the room.

The green glow comes from two black torches that flank the altar, and beneath each of them is what must be a hound from Hell. The dogs are black, so black as to be smudges, soaking up all the light that should reflect off their coats and making you feel like you’re looking into twin black holes. Their eyes glow red, and when they open their jaws to growl and snap, their fangs ooze black drool.

There are thick chains around their necks, which is the only thing keeping them from ripping our heads off at the moment. Their claws scrape up the dirt as they pull and struggle against the metal, their barks echoing off the chamber’s walls.

“Runner, the vial,” I manage to wheeze as I gather every ounce of strength and pull myself to my feet. I pull my own vial from the inside of my coat, the one that Nico gave me, and stumble toward him. Runner still isn’t acknowledging me. He’s simply moving forward as if in some sort of trance.

I grab his coat and spin him around. His eyes don’t focus on me, and his skin is no longer just pale, but ashen. The silver in his eyes has dimmed as if cataracts have grown over his irises, and his jaw is slack. “Runner. Runner!” I cry, but my pleas fall on deaf ears.

I shake him. He does not respond.

I slap him. His head jerks to the side as he takes the blow.

Whatever spell Trivia has put on this place, it’s poisoning him in a different way and I have no idea how to break through to him.

I drag him back the way we came, digging into his jacket as we go. Finding the vial Nico gave him, I pull it out and shove Runner back into the tunnel, hoping that severing his contact with the chamber will help his catatonia.

A cracking has me spinning around, and I’m horrified to find that the bolts holding the dog’s chains to the stone wall are coming loose. There’s no way the hounds are going to let me get close enough to poison them. They’ll tear me to pieces.

Frantic, I look around the chamber for something, anything to use to deliver the tranquilizer.

There’s nothing, not even a bowl of water to dump the vials into. Another wave of sadness washes over me and I stumble backward, hitting the far wall and sliding down to curl up into a ball. Something round and hard pokes into my back, and I turn to find a bone sticking up out of the ground.

A bone.

Scrambling to my knees, I dig it up, the cold earth wedging under my fingernails and tiny stones slicing into my flesh. Then, I find a second one and do the same. It’s my only chance and my only hope.

I open the stoppers on the vials and pour the liquid onto the bones. It sizzles softly, and smoke wafts up around me, acrid and tacky in the back of my throat.

Crack.

Crack.

The chains are barely fastened to the wall anymore, and with a few more lunges, the dogs will be free.

I throw the bones just as the hounds tear themselves away from the wall and race toward me, their massive paws pounding into the dirt and their jaws snapping hungrily.

Each of them snatches the bones I throw out of the air, snapping them in half with their wickedly sharp teeth. It doesn’t stop them from coming. They don’t even slow. There’s no time to run, and nowhere to run to. I back myself against the wall and throw my arms up in a weak defense when they both fall, mid-stride, and slide to a stop at my feet.

Bits of bone fragment litter their snouts, and just the tiniest amount of poison must’ve seeped into their systems from the slivers they ingested. I owe Nico my life. Again.

I move away from the wall and approach the torches, uncertain if I can even touch them, let alone douse them.

That’s when I hear the slap of soles on the dirt behind me.

They are so inhumanly fast, I don’t even have the chance to turn. I’m hit from behind by what feels like a freight train, and I manage to twist as I fall so I land on my back. Kicking my assailant up and over me, I scramble to my feet and spin to face my attacker.

“…Runner?”

15

DOUSE THE TORCHES

Runner is going to kill me.

His eyes are filmy white, vacant, and filled with hatred, and he cannot tear them away from me. There is nothing of the kind man who sped through the streets of Ash City with demons on his cab to get me to safety. Nothing of the person I’ve come to know as a friend who vowed to accompany me on every adventure until I could free myself from Lucifer’s bargain.

I do not know this Runner. And I don’t think he knows me.

“Runner, listen to me,” I say, keeping my voice low and soothing. “This is Trivia working through you. It’s this place. It’s poisoned you somehow. We were warned this would happen, remember?”

A low growling comes from deep within his chest, and his lips peel back from his gums in a vicious snarl. “You do not belong here,” he says, and his voice is gravel and raw emotion.

He’s right. I don’t belong here. I should give up. I should let him end me. The thoughts are seductive and threaten to lull me into a state I cannot come back from, and the moment I realize I’m slipping I redouble my efforts to stay strong against whatever curse or ward that Trivia put on this place.

To see this normally sweet man turn violent and cruel like this is profoundly disturbing, and it only serves to stoke my anger at Trivia to a white-hot blaze.

“You don’t belong here either, and the sooner you help me douse these torches, the sooner we can leave,” I say, pointing to the twin flames behind him.

“I cannot allow that,” he says, shaking his head. “Surrender.”

“Don’t you want to help the witches?” I ask, my tone like honey. Slowly, so slowly, I get on the balls of my feet, ready to dart out of his reach should he lunge for me. Before he came for me he must’ve tossed his jacket away, because he’s in only a t-shirt now, and I’m surprised to find that his muscles are ropey and lean. He’s strong, stronger than I thought he was, and with whatever toxic spell is racing through his system now I could be in real trouble.

“I am helping a witch. I do as Trivia bids,” he responds, and he launches himself at me, a snarl bursting from his lips.

I slide to the left to avoid his swinging hand, the breeze of the near miss ruffling my hair and sending it flying around my shoulders.

“No, you promised to help me. Gray.” I put a hand on my chest. “Your friend.”

“There are no friends when you deal in death,” he says, lunging again. Again I just manage to avoid his attack, but he’s getting better, more agile.

“I thought that too,” I say. “And then you destroyed your car and nearly got yourself killed to keep me safe. You’re my friend whether you like it or not, and I always protect my friends.”

He blinks at me, and for a brief moment hope flutters in my chest that somehow I’ve gotten through to him.

Then the cataract covering the silver in his irises floods inky black, and he comes at me for the third time. I’m as quick as I ever was, but this time it’s not quick enough. He tackles me to the ground and we roll along the dirt, the bits of bone that poke up out of the ground digging into my flesh through my clothes.

He snags one of my arms, pinning it to the ground, and I claw at him with the other, running my nails down his cheek and spattering us both with his silver blood. “Don’t do this!” I scream at him.

He doesn’t hear me. He only hears Trivia’s song in his ears and feels Trivia’s poison in his blood, and her hold is too strong for me to break.

So I stop trying, and I start fighting.

Runner straddles me, pinning both of my arms above my head. I have no leverage. No advantage. My only chance is to get him off-balance before he can rip my throat out with his teeth.

I drag both of my arms toward each other as hard as I can, the hard-packed dirt on the floor scraping against my skin. He fights against me, struggling to get his balance, when I suddenly yank my arms out away from my head and duck to the right, the sudden change in direction sending his forehead slamming into the hard ground next to my face.

Momentarily stunned, he lets me go and I throw his body off of me and scramble out from underneath him.

Without waiting to see if he’s okay, I race toward one of the torches and, throwing caution to the wind, I yank it off of the wall and spin around, brandishing the lit end at him.

He’s swaying on his feet, silver blood streaming from a gash above his eyebrow. “That wasn’t very nice,” he says.

“Neither is trying to kill me.”

The fire at the end of the torch throws green light on his already sickly skin, making him appear eerie and ghoulish in the way I’d always imagined a ghost should look. He smiles, and it makes it worse.

“You have no magic to douse the torches,” he says, “this is a futile battle.”

“Then you should give up,” I counter, and I will him to listen to me with every fiber of my being. I don’t want to hurt my friend. I certainly don’t want to kill him. But he may leave me no choice.

On the far side of the room, a gurgle and growl breaks the tense silence. The dogs are starting to stir.

Runner uses the distraction to come at me again, and with no time to react, I do the only thing I can think of: swing the torch at him, only pulling it at the last second, and nailing him right across the face with the edge of the burning end.

He drops to the dirt floor like a sack of flour, his limbs splayed and his jaw hanging open. His eyes flutter, and then close, and I’m certain that I’ve hit him at just the right angle to kill him. Or that the blow to his head when he fell has cracked his skull. Or that…

I drop the torch and run to his side, despite every instinct in my body telling me to deal with the torches and run. I can’t though. I won’t. The old Gray would’ve smirked down at the fallen assailant and sliced his throat for good measure. This Gray, the Gray I want to be for myself and for David, cares about the people that she hurts. Especially if they’ve only been kind to her. When they weren’t possessed by evil witches, that is.

Runner is unconscious, but not dead.

Unfortunately, so are the dogs, and they’re coming out of their haze quickly.

Beside me, the torch slowly rolls toward us, unstable in the uneven dirt floor, and comes to rest with the burning end in a small puddle of Runner’s silver blood. The flame crackles and smokes as it hits the liquid, and seems to dim ever so slightly.

I snatch the torch up from the ground, and with nothing to lose, I dip the burning end fully into Runner’s blood. The flames wink out in a puff of thick, green smoke, and the light in the room is halved. I stare at the blackened and silvered end of the now useless torch. Whatever evil Trivia has spiked his blood with, it’s somehow managed to douse the flame.

From somewhere above me, a faint scream cuts through the layers of earth to ricochet through the chambers.

Can Trivia sense that one of her torches has been snuffed?

One of the dogs sits up, shaking its head groggily, and I have no time left to wonder about whether I’m in trouble for pissing the worst witch in the world off.

I grab the second torch off of the wall and place the burnt end in the same pool of Runner’s blood. It sputters out as well, and the only light left in the room is from the white flames on the black candles.

And the red eyes of the hellhounds.

Shit.

They’re both on their feet now, and though they sway and seem to have a hard time keeping their balance, it won’t be long before they’re fully aware and looking at me as a tasty snack.

I can’t carry Runner with me, and even if I could he’d still be under Trivia’s spell. We’ve doused the torches, not killed her. Yet. And while he’s still part of Trivia’s world, he should be okay down here with the dogs. I hope.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and, snatching up my dagger from the ground as I go, I run from Trivia’s chambers, leaving him behind.

The minute I cross the threshold into the tunnel the weight of a thousand years of grief lifts from my heart and my blood spikes with adrenaline and energy.

It’s only a few seconds before I hear the sound of heavy paws echoing through the tunnel behind me.

The dogs are back to their vicious selves, and they’re gaining on me.

Pushing myself to go farther, faster, another scream rings out from somewhere above me, and I realize that it might not be Trivia screeching in anger at what I’ve done. It might be Bex and Kara under attack from the Haunted.

I burst into the basement, the hot breath of the dogs at my back, and take the stairs two at a time, spinning around to slam the door shut and latch it just as they throw their massive bodies against it. The wood bends, sending up puffs of dust, and the hinges rattle, but the lock holds fast.

Racing to the front door, I twist the knob and yank, fully expecting to have to break the damn thing down to get out, seeing as how we were mystically locked in here from the moment we entered. To my surprise and relief, the door swings open easily.

Flashes of blue light streak across my vision as I move out onto the porch, and I find Bex and Kara beating the hell out of the Haunted. Trivia’s soldiers swarm on the witches, only to find themselves thrown back, obliterated, or disintegrated by bright balls of magical energy.

Jumping off of the porch, I run down toward the crossroads and the line of graveyard dirt keeping these necromancers safe. “You two okay?”

“Up until a minute ago, no,” Bex says, flicking a wrist and sending a Haunted slamming into a tree.

“Then these guys seemed to weaken. Get less focused and more reckless,” Kara adds, holding off three Haunted with one glowing palm.

“I think it’s because I doused the torches,” I say, and Kara’s eyes widen in surprise.

“No shit,” she says, and I think she’s impressed.

Bex frowns at me, glances back up at the house, and asks, “Where’s Runner?”

I hate to think of him down there, trapped in Trivia’s chambers with those beasts, but there’s nothing I can do for him now besides take Trivia out.

“He’ll be fine,” I say. “I hope.”

A third scream rings from somewhere in the distance.

“That wasn’t you guys before?’ I ask, suddenly very, very worried.

Bex shakes her head. “We thought it was you guys taking care of Trivia!”

“She wasn’t inside. She’s at the unmarked graves.” I watch their faces fall as I say, “And I think those screams are Mad and Delaney.”

16

NO PRISONERS

“You didn’t see them go past you?” I yell as I dodge the swinging arm of a particularly angry Haunted.

“Obviously not!” Kara yells back as a burst of blue energy shoots from her palm. The Haunted who’d tried to take me out flies backward, crashing into two of her fellow ghostly soldiers, and they land in a heap in the clearing.

The moment I mentioned the unmarked graves, Kara and Bex had shot each other an oh shit look and raced across the graveyard dirt barrier directly into the furious horde. With the Haunted weakened thanks to my dousing the torches, knocking a path through them had been like slicing a hot knife through butter.

Kara’s in the lead, a battering ram powered by magic and fury, and she’s bulldozing over Haunted without breaking a sweat. Bex is behind me making sure no Haunted take us by surprise. She yells, “The woods are full of dark magic, and Trivia controls all. It would’ve been easy for her to cloak Delaney and Mad’s passage, especially if she wanted to keep us separated.”

The Haunted are beginning to thin out, and with one last burst of magic, Kara tears herself free of the onslaught, racing through the open grassy field toward the tree line.

I’m right on her heels, and Bex tosses one last bolt of blue behind us to erase any thought the Haunted had about following us. If they could think. Which I’m pretty sure they can’t. Trivia drained their critical thinking skills along with their free will a long time ago.

With the magic Bex and Kara had been doing, their light had been at a blinding fever pitch, blotting out everything else. Now that there’s no need for it, the blue glow fades and we’re left with the eerie twilight of the Counterfeit sky.

It makes it all the easier to see the streaks of red light in the distance, back through the trees and toward the graveyard we visited when we first arrived in Salem.

“Why would she come back here?” I ask, panting as I do my best to keep up with Kara, who must’ve been a track star before she became a Counterfeit because gods damn is this woman fast.

“Why not? She’s run us around in circles, keeping us occupied for who knows what reason. Maybe just for her own amusement. We should’ve known,” Kara says, and frustration bleeds through every word. “We should never have assumed this would go the way we thought.”

“If she’s draining witches to siphon their power, it’d make sense that she’d come to the place where the witches are buried for an infusion,” Bex adds.

“And if she realized we were coming for her, she’d want as big a hit as possible,” I realize.

“Bingo,” Kara says.

She slows as she approaches the tree line.

“What? Why are we stopping?” I glance behind us to find that, despite the last blast of magic, the Haunted continue their torturous march toward us. There’s no point in going back to fight. The only way to stop them is to stop their maker.

“Her magic has grown stronger. Do you feel it, Bex?” Kara asks.

Bex nods. “Even with our combined magic, we’re at a major disadvantage here. She’s been playing us this whole time. To go in there without a plan…”

“Our plans are for shit. They’ve always been for shit,” I spit. “We keep our wits about us, we get the ring, and we get Trivia. By any means necessary. No plan. Just outcome. And Trivia’s in there, most likely torturing your sisters,” I say, pointing toward the red glow. “So what the hell are you waiting for?”

I plunge into the forest, leaving them behind.

Bex mumbles a curse behind me, but the witches follow all the same. The flashing grows brighter as we pick our way through the underbrush and thick foliage, and moans of pain from up ahead punctuate bursts of illumination.

“We’re all agreed that this is a kill situation, yes?” I ask, wanting confirmation. “Not a let’s take her prisoner type of deal.”

“Yes,” Kara says without hesitation.

“But that’s assuming we can kill her,” Bex adds. “Trivia is strong. Stronger than any one of us alone.”

“But combined?” I say. “And with what Mad showed us she can do back there against the Haunted?”

“I want Trivia dead,” Bex says, her voice low and deadly. “There is no confusion here.”

The red glow flares, and we slow, crouching low as to not be seen. I get the feeling it doesn’t matter, and I’m proven right when a deep, raspy voice rings out through the trees. “No need to make yourselves smaller. You’re already insignificant to me. Step out into the light.”

Jaws clenched and spines straight, arms raised with fingertips sparking blue, Kara and Bex stride out into the graveyard and face the evil witch that killed their sister. Dagger clutched at my side, I follow.

I breach the tree line, and what I see nearly brings me to my knees.

Trivia stands smack dab in the center of the graveyard, enveloped by a crackling field of electricity that snaps and pops around her. The red glow of it is hellish, and it’s as if Lucifer has sent her to us straight from Pandemonium.

Her robes twist and float on a breeze that seems to surround only her, and the ends of her long black hair sway up around her head like hissing snakes. Thin dark lines zigzag across her skin as if she has sludge running through her veins, and her eyes are a poisoned green. A thin crown with a crescent moon fashioned at the brow sits atop her head.

Trivia is every bit the evil queen incarnate, and it is terrifying to behold.

What’s worse is seeing what’s become of Mad and Delaney, who are also encased in that terrible red glow.

Delaney levitates next to Trivia the same way we saw Anya floating in the attic. Her feet are six inches above the grass, her back arched and head upturned toward the sky, her mouth twisted in a silent scream.

Mad is on her knees in front of the evil witch. She’s fighting with all of her strength to rise, to fight, but Trivia, her hand outstretched as if looking for Mad to kiss her ring, holds my friend down all the while looking quite bored with this whole affair.

And they are not the only witches held captive.

Dozens upon dozens surround them, the graveyard teeming with the spirits of the witches buried in the ground we now walk upon. Their apparitions flicker and fade, with wisps of smoke and ether floating from them toward Trivia in an endless tide. She’s draining their energy, the red electricity around her growing brighter with each passing minute.

Trivia is relishing it, a small smile pulling up the corners of her cruel mouth. She fixes her gaze on Bex. “You again. I guess this is a lesson that needs to be learned twice?” She points at Mad, and then Delaney. “Which one would you like to lose this time? Or maybe both? Two witches as the price paid for your second offense.”

Next to Delaney I see the faintest of the spirits and realize with a shock that it’s Anya. She is barely visible now but clings to her wife with everything she has left.

I feel helpless. With no magic in my blood and my dagger seeming small in my hand, I am at a loss as to how to help. “What can I do?” I whisper to Kara through gritted teeth.

“You,” Trivia says, her eyes locking on me. “You’re the nuisance who poisoned my dogs and doused my torches, yes? That wasn’t very hospitable.”

“Gods damned right I am,” I say, fury sparking in my gut. How dare she hold my friends hostage like this? How dare she cause these witches so much pain? Cause Runner to lose himself in such a terrifying way?

“Then I will punish you last,” she says, chuckling softly. “And I will enjoy it most.”

“Let them go, Trivia,” Bex says, the energy in her palms glowing brightly enough to rival Trivia’s. “This is your last and only chance.”

“Before you what?” Trivia responds. “I have two of your necromancers incapacitated, their lives in the palms of my hands. The only thing you can do is stand there, watch, and hope that I have mercy.”

My grip tightens on the hilt of my dagger. Trivia is going to destroy us all. She’s toying with us now, and when she tires of it she will obliterate us. I have to take her by surprise. While her attention is taken by Bex and Kara, I slink toward the gravestones to my right, out of her direct field of view.

“I’m not feeling very merciful, though,” she continues. She closes her right hand into a fist, and Delaney’s body jerks, tensing, her face twisting into a rictus of pain.

“Stop!” Kara yells, and I drop to my knees to keep a tombstone between me and Trivia, blocking her view of me.

“No, I don’t think I will,” Trivia responds. “You are the ones who have come here challenging me. You are the trespassers. And you expect me to let you attack? After the unfortunate incident with your sister Anya, I let you go on the condition that you never return. You are the ones who broke the truce. Why come back here? Why now?”

“You are draining the energy of your dead sisters,” Bex says, nearly shaking with fury.

“And what is that to you?” Trivia challenges. “I have kept my word. I have left you alone.”

“It’s blasphemy!” Kara yells, and with the sparks coming off of her fingers I’m shocked that she doesn’t accidentally ignite the grass at our feet.

“It’s smart,” Trivia counters.

I need to figure out a way to incapacitate Trivia without killing her. Bex and Kara are nearly incandescent with rage. If they get a shot at her they won’t hesitate, and I can’t have that happening until I find out where the Dead Hex is.

I peek around the tombstone and find that Mad has somehow wrenched her head to the side and is watching me intently. She’s in terrible pain, it’s written all over her face, but she’s concentrating on me, looking at me for… something. She slowly moves her eyes back toward Trivia. More specifically, back toward Trivia’s outstretched hand.

I follow her gaze and my jaw drops.

Trivia is wearing the gods damned Dead Hex.

17

SHE'S MAD, AND YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE

The Dead Hex glints on Trivia’s forefinger, the silver sparkling red in the electric current. It’s here, everything I need. I just have to take it, except for…

The Dead Hex controls and manipulates demons.

Luke’s words come back to me. That could be a problem.

Don’t touch it.

Lucifer’s warning doubles down on Luke’s sentiment. Okay, it’s definitely a problem. Shit. It’s never easy with him. And why would it be? The Devil lives to make things obscenely difficult for people. No matter. I’ll chop off Trivia’s hand and drop it on his dinner plate for all I care.

I crawl through the damp grass, careful to keep behind the crooked gravestones and out of Trivia’s sight. Mad’s gaze follows me the entire time as if I’m the last thread of hope that she’s clinging to.

Delaney shrieks in pain, the sound ripping itself from her lungs, and I swear it sounds as if she’s being torn apart. It makes my stomach turn, and I can hear Anya moan right along with her. I don’t know if it’s the magic swirling around us or the strength of their bond, but the air sizzles with their agony.

Kara launches herself at Trivia.

Bex follows right along with her.

Now is my chance.

While they attack Trivia from the front I race around the side and come up from behind, my dagger brandished and gleaming red in Trivia’s electric light.

Trivia swings her arms around, releasing her immediate hold on Delaney and Mad, and shoots a blast of red magic toward Kara and Bex. It hits them and it is catastrophic. I swear she pulled it back at the last minute, though, because my new necromancer friends aren’t dead. They’re limp on the ground, groaning and shaking their heads, but they’re alive.

Trivia chuckles, and I am reminded of a cat batting a mouse. She’s toying with them until she tires of them, and then she will destroy them, and me.

I don’t stop my approach. I leap at her, bringing the dagger down into her back, slicing through the red energy and feeling every nerve ending in my body sizzle and snap.

She roars as the blade pierces her skin, but it doesn’t go as deep as it should. The magic protects her, dulling my assault, and she whips around, tossing me off of her with a twist of her body. I go flying, my spine cracking into the dull edge of one of the tombstones, and I collapse in a heap at its base.

For a moment I’m sure I’m paralyzed, and all I can do is listen to her laugh at my agony. Then I realize that I don’t feel numb, I feel pain, and if I feel pain, then… I wiggle my toes and relief washes over me. It’s short-lived; I may be able to walk, but I certainly can’t attack her again. Not yet.

We are all incapacitated. I don’t know why we thought we could take this woman on. My own ignorance, certainly, and the others were blinded by their wanting, their mission of revenge. I was, too.

“I was looking forward to a challenge,” Trivia says. “A little girl’s night out that ended with a bit of murder. Instead, I find that I can still overpower you so easily…”

Her cold gaze pins each of us, one by one, as she makes her point.

“I would’ve had more fun conjuring in my chambers, to be honest. Ah, well. You’ll all be the crown jewels of my collection. That is something I suppose. You must’ve been working hard on your craft; I can feel the energy coming off of you in waves, and I do believe that once I siphon you all dry, I’ll be the most powerful witch in the Counterfeit world.”

Blinking hard, doing my best to tamp down on the pain, I roll over and pull myself to my hands and knees.

“Except you,” Trivia continues as she looks down her nose at me. “Little demon. You and your sidekick don’t belong. Stupid, really, to bring a Phantom to me. What did you expect to happen?”

I don’t bother to answer her. Instead, I focus on gathering my strength and slowly stand to face her. I swipe at the liquid that trickles from my forehead and pull my hand back to find it black with my blood.

Trivia’s face twists in disgust. “So vile,” she says and raises the hand with the Dead Hex on it to reach out to me. “I can’t even take your energy, not when Lucifer has your soul. Useless,” she says, shaking her head. “At least I can have some fun with you for a while. I think I’ll make you kill your friends.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” I say, bringing up my blade. It doesn’t matter whether I can beat her or not. I’ll die again trying.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Trivia says.

A blue glow begins to emanate off to my left, and I find Kara and Bex kneeling on the ground facing each other, holding hands to form a small, two-person circle. They chant, the light from their hands glowing brighter.

“Quaint,” Trivia snarks. “You all are nothing more than a small annoyance to me, a blip in my otherwise serene day. Chant all you want, it won’t change a thing.” She looks back at me. “Kill this one first. She bothers me.”

Trivia is pointing at Mad, who still cannot rise from her knees. Mad looks up at me with fear in her eyes, and I look back at her in horror. There’s no way I’ll hurt my friend. And yet…

I walk toward her on wobbly legs, my hand gripping my dagger so tightly my muscles ache.

“No,” Mad whispers. “Gray, don’t…”

“Do go on,” Trivia says. “I should at least get some thrill out of this waste of an evening.”

There is so much I wanted to ask Mad. So much I can learn from her. But if Trivia has her way…

Sinking to my knees, I bring the blade up to Mad’s throat.

“Please…” she whispers, tears in her eyes.

Bex and Kara’s chanting grows louder, and I feel a tug on my arm trying to draw it away from Mad. I fight it.

“That’s it,” Trivia murmurs.

“Remember who you are,” I whisper to Mad, and she blinks in surprise. “Remember what you did to the Haunted?”

She nods ever-so-slightly.

I press the blade tighter. A tiny bead of blood trickles down Mad’s neck.

“Go on…” Trivia says, and I can hear the edge of impatience in her tone. She won’t let me drag this on much longer.

“Her blood runs in your veins,” I say, my hand trembling as the dagger presses deeper. “Don’t fight it. Use it.”

“How have you not killed me?” Mad whispers, astonished.

“I don’t feel a gods damned thing from that ring,” I say, and Mad’s lips part in shock. “I just needed to get close to you. To remind you of who you are and who you can be. Save us. I’ll help you.”

Hope sparks behind her eyes, and it’s glorious to watch. “Make it look good,” I say and swipe the blade across her neck, just a hair’s breadth from her skin.

She topples forward, collapsing onto the ground.

“Excellent,” Trivia says. “This is quite fun. Now do them,” she says, turning to Bex and Kara. And yes, it is excellent, because turning her attention away from Mad is just what I hoped she’d do.

I stride toward them, stronger now. I lift the blade and they turn on me, their arms outstretched and their palms glowing like fire, but they don’t hit me with magic. They both look confused.

“I didn’t feel it,” Bex said. “Mad… I didn’t feel you hurt her.”

Kara’s eyes glisten with tears as she says, “Neither did I.”

“That’s because I didn’t,” I say, and spin to face Trivia. “And I don’t think I’m going to kill Bex and Kara either.”

“That’s not possible,” Trivia says, looking down at the ring as if it’s incomprehensible that it hasn’t driven me to murder these insolent witches. And I suppose it is. “You do as the Dead Hex bids. You do as I bid.”

“If I were you, I’d spend less time worrying about what I do, and more time worrying about what she’s doing.”

Trivia spins to find Mad, on her feet, her palms glowing and her fingertips sparking red. The confusion on Trivia’s face is nearly comical.

“What?” I ask, “You don’t recognize your own great-great-great-great-great-whatever granddaughter?”

Trivia cackles at that. “I have no descendants. You’re mad.”

“No, she’s Mad,” I say. “And you’re in big trouble.”

Whether Trivia believes me or not, she must decide that offense is better than defense. The glow around Delaney abruptly goes out and she drops to the ground in a heap as Trivia brings up her hands to fling magic at Mad.

With a roar of rage, Mad channels her own magic, and the streams that explode from each of their palms meet in the middle, the spot where they collide blazing like fire and lighting the graveyard like it’s the middle of the day.

I fling an arm over my eyes, shielding myself from the sudden light, and crawl to where Bex and Kara are dragging Delaney away from Trivia and the chaos. “Is she okay?” I ask, and they both look at me with uncertainty.

“You’re not strong enough,” Trivia says to Mad, low and deadly.

“But I’m stronger than you thought,” Mad responds, her voice strained from the effort. “Stronger than I should be.”

“And with all the energy you’re using to fight her,” Bex says, lunging at Trivia and striking her in the middle of the back with a stream of blue energy of her own, “I don’t think you’ll be able to fight us off this time.”

Kara braces herself against one of the tombstones and lets loose with a blue streak of magic of her own. Trivia arches as the stream hits her in the gut. “I hope it hurts,” Kara hisses, and the agony on Trivia’s face is enough proof of that.

She doesn’t drop, though. Or die. She’s simply incapacitated. Shrieks echo in the woods. The sounds of the Haunted still shambling toward the graveyard.

“Do it!” Mad shrieks. “Get the ring!”

I get as close to Trivia as I dare. She’s suspended in mid-fight, their magic encasing her, and the air smells of ozone and sulfur and the hair on the back of my neck raises.

“We won’t let it hurt you,” Bex says through gritted teeth, “but you have to hurry, Gray.”

I trust them. So I reach out and slip the Dead Hex from Trivia’s finger. Her eyes are wide with pain and surprise. “How are you doing that?” she asks.

Slipping the ring on my finger, I answer truthfully: “I don’t know.”

Mad screams, channeling every last ounce of energy into the stream of magic coming from her hands, and the last thing I see before the necromancer’s combined conjuring becomes blinding is Trivia arch back in a silent roar of agony as the red energy around her crackles, falters, and winks out.

18

YOU CAN'T BEAT THE DEVIL

Trivia lies on the ground at our feet, and from here she doesn’t seem nearly so frightening. She’s just a witch in chains, the picture of defeat, surrounded by the specters of the women she murdered.

She hisses at us, sputtering about how none of this should be possible. When we don’t respond, her anger turns to wheedling. “We’re sisters, you know. Necromancers need to stick together.”

“You murdered my wife!” Delaney screams. She is on her feet, and though she’s weak, her anger fuels her. I know what it’s like to run on rage.

“We all have to go someday, sweetie,” Trivia purrs, condescension dripping from her words. “Why not die to serve a greater purpose? I’m many times the witch any of you will ever be. She should be grateful that I chose to drain her.”

Delaney lunges at Trivia, and it takes me, Mad and Kara to hold her back. “If you’re so powerful, why are you the one in chains?” Delaney hisses.

“It’s time, they’re ready for us,” Bex says, stepping in front of Delaney and cutting her off from Trivia’s position. “It’s time, Delaney. She will be punished. Believe it.” Slowly, Delaney regains a hold of her emotions and finally relents. Bex gestures for the four witches to join hands.

“You don’t have to do this,” Trivia’s voice rises with each word as if it’s because she’s been too gentle with her words that we’ve been ignoring her pleas, not simply that we choose to.

“No, we don’t,” Kara says, “but we sure as hell want to.”

“Demon, undo these chains right now,” Trivia orders. She’s been bound with metal that Bex had pulled from a pocket inside of her jacket, and it’s like no handcuff or binding I’ve ever seen. It seemed to fuse with Trivia’s wrists and prevented her from doing any sort of magic. When she’d tried, her fingertips had fizzled and sputtered out.

Smirking down at her, I say, “Like I told you before: I don’t take orders from you.”

The witches join hands, and where their palms meet the air around them turns blue. They chant low, and the space Trivia occupies in the center of their circle begins to waver like a television channel with bad reception. She screeches in anger, cutting off abruptly as she disappears in a small poof of black smoke. They finish their chant, release hands, and open their eyes.

“Where did you send her?” I ask Mad.

“Tartarus. It’s like Alcatraz for Counterfeits, but instead of being surrounded by water it’s surrounded by a lake of fire.”

“She’ll get out of there at a quarter to never,” Kara adds, flipping her middle finger at the quickly dissipating smoke.

“Thank you.” A hollow voice floats toward us, and we all turn in unison to find the dozens of ghosts that Trivia had been siphoning from hovering over their graves. They seem to have regained some of their essence, and perhaps, in time, will come back to full strength. Maybe now that they can rest, I guess. I hope.

“I’m so sorry we didn’t come sooner,” Bex says. “We didn’t know.”

“We owe Anya,” Delaney says. “She’s the one who betrayed Trivia, who suffered most for this.”

Anya’s faint spirit floats mere inches from her wife, and it looks as if she’s reaching out to hold Delaney’s hand. It’s just vapor, an inconsequential apparition, but Delaney seems grateful and at peace for the first time since I’ve known her. Anya isn’t recovering like the other ghostly witches, though, and I worry that the damage done to her has been too great.

One by one, the witches sink into the ground, back into their graves, and soon we are alone aside from Anya’s spirit. Delaney murmurs to her, words of love and devotion, and we watch as slowly, Anya’s form dissipates before our eyes.

Delaney joins us, wiping tears from her eyes. “She’s gone to rest. I think… I think she’ll be at peace now.” The other necromancers pull her into a hug, and she seems to gain strength from it.

Pulling back, Mad frowns. “Where’s Runner?”

Runner… shit, in all of the commotion I hadn’t had a chance to…

I take off at a run, and they follow, tramping through the underbrush, thin tree branches whipping at us as we race by. We burst into the clearing in front of Trivia’s house to find it empty aside from scattered piles of ash where the fallen Haunted lie, no longer marching for a witch stripped of her magic.

I take the porch stairs two at a time and burst inside, only to hesitate at the door underneath the stairs.

“What, where is he?” Mad pants. “Why are we waiting?”

“There may be two magically-rabid dogs down here,” I say. “You might want to charge up some of that mojo.”

Kara, Bex, Delaney, and Mad stand at the ready, palms lit, and I yank open the door to reveal… nothing. An empty stairwell. Single-file we descend and I lead them back down the tunnel toward Trivia’s chambers. The space feels lighter, without the weight of her dark magic pressing down on me anymore.

We cross into her conjuring space to find the doused torches strewn by the altar and Runner sitting cross-legged on the floor. Trivia’s hellhounds have their heads propped on each of his knees, and he’s scratching both of them behind the ears. “Thanks for leaving me with the angry pooches,” he says drily. He’s still pale, and his hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, but his eyes are silver again, and his skin is less ashen.

“Thanks for trying to kill me,” I toss back.

“What?” Kara says. “Him?”

“I… wasn’t myself,” he responds.

“They didn’t hurt you, though?” I ask, pointing to his new friends.

Runner shakes his head. “I was under Trivia’s control and not a threat, I guess.”

“We shouldn’t have let you come,” Mad says. “With her controlling the dead…”

“You couldn’t have stopped me,” he says. “It’s my own fault.” There is unfathomable sincerity and remorse in his eyes when he looks at me and says, “I’m so sorry. I could’ve killed you.”

I crouch down, petting the pooches as I lean close and say, “Not a chance you’d have succeeded, Phantom,” and pull back, smiling.

He smiles in return, and Kara snorts. “All better? Good. Now for the real question: how in the fuck are you wearing that ring, Gray?”

Runner’s eyes go wide when he sees that I’ve got the Dead Hex on my finger. “You found it? You’re wearing it?”

“Guys, I have no idea,” I say, rising to my feet. “Lucifer told me I wouldn’t be able to touch it.”

“Liar,” they all say in unison. “Not you,” Runner adds quickly. “Him.”

“But why? Why lie about something that ridiculous?” I ask.

“You need to stop listening to Lucifer. Period,” Runner says, and I’m taken aback by the anger in his voice. “How many times do you have to hear he’s a liar to believe it? How many times do you have to see it? If he didn’t want you to touch that ring, it was for his own gain. Trust me.”

“Forget the whole touching it thing,” Mad says. “You have it. He wants it. Use that. Don’t give it to him.”

“I don’t have a choice,” I say.

Kara coughs under her breath and I’m pretty sure I hear the word bullshit.

“Don’t you?” Runner stands, and I can’t help but notice that he’s shoulder-to-shoulder with the witches. I’m alone on my side of Trivia’s chambers. It’s me versus them. “You’ve told me that before, and when you kept your end of the bargain where did you end up?”

“Right back in Counterfeit City,” I admit. “You don’t understand. This isn’t even about me.”

“Enlighten us, then,” Bex says, her hand resting on one cocked hip and her eyebrows arched.

I don’t want to talk about David. Seeing the love and pain shared between Delaney and Anya has brought everything I felt for him, everything I felt when I lost him, to the surface, and I am an exposed nerve. My throat tightens as I picture his beautiful face, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep the tears from my eyes.

They wait patiently, and I don’t think they’re going to let me out of here unless I give them something.

“You helped us,” Mad says. “We wouldn’t have beaten Trivia without you. So let us help you. Please.”

“When Lilah had me murdered, I wasn’t the only one who lost my life. She killed my fiancé as well. David.”

Delaney’s hand flies to her mouth to stifle a gasp, and even Kara looks taken aback.

“Lucifer promised me that if I brought Lilah back to him along with the Dagger of the Fallen, he’d give me a chance to leave Counterfeit City. To live out my life on earth in the normal, human realm. And if I could make up for my past, maybe I’d get a chance to reunite with David someday.”

Anger at Lucifer’s betrayal bubbles within me, and I work hard to tamp it down. “Obviously, I did my part. Lucifer did not do his. So I’m stuck in this loop, taking on these missions, and biding my time until I can figure out a way to get away from him. It’s only been a couple of weeks. I just need time.”

“You can’t beat the Devil,” Bex says quietly.

“Maybe I can’t,” I say, “but I will spend eternity trying.”

“Wait,” Kara says, “wait, wait wait. You brought him the Dagger of the Fallen?”

I nod.

“And now he wants the Dead Hex?” Her brow furrows. “So once you deliver that to him, he’ll have the one weapon that can turn an army against him, and he’ll have a ring that can control and manipulate demons? Can’t he already do that? Isn’t he, like, the lord king on high of demons?”

Bex’s eyes widen. “Lucifer is a demon himself. If someone had enough power to back it up, they’d be able to use the Dead Hex on him.”

“He’s playing defense,” Mad says, waving her hands excitedly. “He’s sending you to get the things that could keep him in check.”

“He could be plotting an uprising,” Bex says, her voice laced with horror. “If he’s got all of the things that could keep him locked in Pandemonium in his possession, they can’t be turned on him…”

“No, no way, that can’t happen,” Kara says.

“Shit,” Runner breathes. “You can’t give that to him, Gray. You can’t.”

“If I don’t, then this is the last we see of each other. He told me if I don’t complete my missions he’ll toss me out into Pandemonium where I belong, and you know what? He’s right. I do belong there for the things that I’ve done. So I have to give him the ring.” I start to pace. “What else would he need? These can’t be the only two things.”

“I don’t know,” Bex says, and the others shake their heads.

“Then I keep doing what I’m doing, and we figure out a way to stop whatever he’s plotting before he gets a chance to carry it out. I’ve dealt with shitty bosses before. I’ve learned my lesson,” I say, turning my gaze to Runner. “You don’t have to tell me he’s a liar again. I believe you. We’ll figure out a way to stop Lucifer.”

Tears well in Mad’s eyes, and she rushes toward me, pulling me into a fierce hug. “Be careful, okay? I can’t lose you again, not when I just found you.” With her body pressed against me, I feel something hard against my chest. I move l back from her and search the inside pocket of my jacket.

Behind her, Runner rolls his head around to stretch out his neck. “My head is killing me, and I’m already dead. I thought not getting headaches might be a feature of not being alive. I’m gonna need to hit up a White Skull when we get back to the city and get myself fixed up. Get something that’ll bring me back to life, so to speak.”

I produce the silver vial of liquid we took from Lilah’s estate. Her blood mixed with water from the river Styx. The metal is cool in my hand, but his words about the White Skull echo in my ears and my blood feels like it’s on fire as I realize what I have here.

My gaze burns through Delaney as I hold up the vial. “I have a proposition for you.”

19

A HEARTBEAT

I’ve spent nearly a decade putting my safety and my life on the line. I’ve gone into situations that rightly should’ve killed me many times over. I’ve been to Pandemonium and met the Devil. And yet, standing here in The Boneyard with Mad, Bex, Kara, Delaney, and Runner, I’m not sure I’ve never been more nervous than I am right now.

When I told them all my plan they were stunned silent, and the first to find their voice used it to shoot me down.

“No, absolutely not,” Kara sputtered. “That is possibly the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

“Could you really do that, Gray?” Delaney’s eyes had been wide with confusion and hope.

“I don’t know,” I replied, and I meant it. It was a total flier of an idea.

Lilah had used the elixir I held in this small silver vial to raise her army of the undead. Unlike her, I don’t plan on using the Codex Malum to turn anyone against Lucifer, but with a coven of necromancers at my side what’s to say we couldn’t use it to bring Anya back to life? And not a mindless zombie, but Anya back to the way she was. The way I want to be.

I’d like to say I’m magnanimous and that the first thought that came to mind when I realized what I had in the vial wasn’t me drinking the potion myself, but that would be a lie. I’m not free of Lucifer yet, and therefore this liquid is no good to me. There’s no point in getting out of Counterfeit City and back to earth if the Devil is just going to destroy me as soon as I get there.

“Yes, I want to do it,” Delaney had said quickly, her eyes darting to each of her sisters. “We have to do it.”

“No,” Kara repeated, turning to Delaney. “We’ve all felt the pain of Anya’s loss, but you, Delaney… you’ve come so far. When she died I didn’t know if you’d be able to put yourself back together again. And you have. You’re here, and you’re whole.”

“I’m not, though,” Delaney said. “I’m here, but a piece of me is missing. And if there’s a possibility I can have Anya back, the only answer is yes.”

“Every ritual has an uncertain outcome,” Bex said. “There is always a slight chance for disaster.”

“A chance I’m willing to take,” Delaney said.

“Me, too,” Mad had added. “When we were battling Trivia, I felt the change in myself. My magic… it held hers off. I rivaled her. With everyone’s help, we defeated her. We can channel that again. Don’t you want to try?” She had looked to Bex. “Don’t you want Anya back?”

“Of course I do, it’s just…” She had searched for a reason and then landed on the truth. “I’m scared.”

“We’re all scared,” I’d said, and Runner had chimed in, “Me especially, let’s be honest. And I’m in. I’ll help however I can.”

He’d put a comforting hand on my shoulder as all the witches had turned to him in surprise, and then he’d said perfectly what I’d been struggling with. “I lost someone too. If I had the chance to bring them back, there would be no hesitation.”

I was terrified, but every single second since I’d been in Counterfeit City had had the potential to spin out of control, the unknown was everywhere, so why not embrace it here and see if something wonderful could come out of it?

Now here we are, standing in a circle around Anya’s exhumed coffin, and the reality of what we’re about to do is hitting me like a gut punch and suddenly I’m not so sure this was a good idea.

“I feel very awkward saying this,” Runner says, “but… what are we going to find when we open the lid?”

“She will look the same as she did the day she died,” Bex says. “We’re strongly connected to the magic that runs through all things, especially nature. Trivia practiced her conjuring underneath the earth because that’s where we as necromancers are strongest. Burying Anya, it will have kept her in a kind of stasis. It takes us a very long time to fade away.”

“Her spirit was only weak when we saw her last because of what Trivia did to her,” Mad adds.

“She’ll have returned to her body to rest,” Delaney says quickly. “Now that Trivia can’t hurt her anymore… you saw the others, they had already started to strengthen once Trivia was sent to Tartarus. We have a chance…”

The hope in her voice is heartbreaking, and it only strengthens my resolve not to fail her. Lilah was nothing but evil, and I’m hoping like hell that the magic she’s done with this liquid in my hand will result in something good. It has to. If this works, then deep inside me I feel like I can make getting back to David work too, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

“When Lilah used this, it was on humans. They reanimated, but they were not themselves. Not the same as they were before they died. When she used it on herself, her injuries healed. It restored her. With Anya being a Counterfeit, I’m hoping that that’s what happens here as well, but I don’t have any guarantees.” I look to Delaney. “Are you absolutely sure you want to try this?”

Fresh tears spring to her eyes as she nods and says, “Yes. I know nothing is certain, but I have to see…”

“If this doesn’t work, it will destroy her,” Kara whispers into my ear, “and then I will destroy you for hurting her.”

“Join hands,” Bex says, and though I know it doesn’t beat anymore I swear my heart thuds anxiously in my chest.

Everyone creates the circle except for Delaney, who kneels at the foot of the grave and begins carving a symbol into the wood of Anya’s coffin with a thinly-bladed dagger.

Runner leans over to whisper, “What is that shape…?”

“A sigil,” Kara hisses. “Be quiet.”

Bex, Mad, and Kara begin to chant, and Runner and I both gasp when our hands, locked with theirs, begin to glow blue. Mist rises from the ground, swirling around us, making it feel like we’re in some gothic dream.

I don’t understand the words that fall from their lips but I open myself to what they might mean, and I can feel a warmth spread through my chest, a hopefulness, and an emptiness. I want to cry and scream and laugh. Instead, I clench my jaw and will Anya to return to us, whole.

Their words die out and the mist hangs, the sounds of nature in The Boneyard gone silent as if each creature is holding their breath and waiting to see what happens next.

“Help me,” Delaney says, sliding to one side of the coffin. Mad quickly moves to the other, and they slide the top to the side.

Inside, Anya lies with her eyes closed, and even in death, she is breathtaking. Long lashes. Tumbling hair. Her cheeks are hollow, though, as if she’s malnourished. That’s Trivia’s doing, I’m certain.

“Rise,” the witches say in unison, and Anya’s eyes flutter open, at first unfocused, and then darting around in confusion until they land on Delaney. She struggles to draw herself up.

“Here,” Delaney says with all the love in the world and helps lift Anya into a sitting position.

Anya coughs, a harsh, scraping sound, clearing years of silence from her throat. “What’s wrong?” she asks, and it seems it’s all she can muster. Her breath wheezes in her lungs, and it’s clear that the energy Trivia drained from her has devastated her. “You wouldn’t have raised me unless something terrible…” Her eyes dart around, painfully bloodshot. “Trivia. Is Trivia back somehow?”

Delaney smooths Anya’s hair back. “No, sweetheart, Trivia’s gone for good.”

“And good gods damned riddance,” Kara adds. As she takes in the state of her friend, her smile wavers as she fights to control her emotions. “It’s good to see you again, Anya.”

Anya smiles back, and despite her exhaustion, she is radiant. “How long do I have?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Bex says, crouching next to Anya’s coffin. “We’re not sure.”

Anya’s brow furrows in confusion. “I’m lost. Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?”

I hold out the silver vial, and the glint of it catches her eye. “I took this from Lilah’s estate after I killed her.”

“Lilah’s dead?” Anya’s jaw drops.

“And if what we’ve got planned works, I’ll have all the time in the world to tell you about it. All you have to do is drink what’s inside here,” I say, shaking the vial. “With the magic in here, and the magic these fine ladies plan on conjuring up for you…” I take a deep breath and hope that I’m not full of shit, “I think we could bring you back from the dead. Permanently.”

Anya breaks into a grin, but it doesn’t quite wipe away the hesitation and fear in her eyes. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Runner says. “I took out dozens of zombies that Lilah resurrected using that stuff. Not that you’re a zombie. You’re a very lovely witch.”

“They were human,” I interrupt. “Lilah used it on herself as well, and all it did was heal her injuries. It… rejuvenated her. Made her strong, stronger than she already was. The Daughters here have already brought you back to life. I just want to help keep you that way.”

I expect her to be overwhelmed. To need to take her time to process what I’ve said. Instead, she whoops with glee. “Give it to me.”

Mad claps with delight and Delaney is nearly incandescent with joy.

I want to be as happy as them, but I’m so scared that this won’t work. “I’m not certain what will happen when you drink it…”

Anya holds out her hand. “Then I absolve you of all blame if this goes wrong. You’re giving me the chance to be with my sisters again. To be with Delaney. I would do anything for that. Please,” she wiggles her fingers, “give me the vial.”

I uncork the stopper and hand over the small silver tube. Bex grabs Kara’s hand, who in turn grabs Mad’s, all the way around the circle until we have enclosed Delaney and Anya again. There’s a charge in the air, and my breath catches in my lungs.

“I love you,” Anya says to Delaney, and tips the contents of the vial into her mouth. And almost instantaneously her eyes roll up into the back of her head and she slams back into her coffin, convulsing.

“Control it!” Bex screams, and the air around her begins to shimmer as she chants. The others join in, with Delaney squeezing both of Anya’s hands in hers, their palms glowing blue.

This is wrong. Terribly wrong.

Mad takes my hand and joins it with Kara’s, slipping herself out of the circle and moving to Anya’s coffin.

“She’s been dead too long,” I say. “Or Trivia draining her made her too weak…” I don’t know why this isn’t working. All I know is that this will shatter Delaney all over again.

Mad leans over Anya’s trembling form and places one hand on Anya’s chest and the other on her forehead. “I can feel the liquid trying to move through her veins. It just needs a little help is all.” Her voice is calm and soothing, and she is the eye of the storm for all of us.

She closes her eyes and her palms glow red, then her forearms, up to her shoulders, and soon her entire form is enveloped in a soft crimson light. I watch in astonishment as that glow begins to pulsate in a familiar rhythm. Slow at first, then steadier.

A heartbeat.

Anya stills.

The chant ends.

Delaney stands, her cheeks wet with tears, and stares down at her wife. I know that look. I’ve given that look. She is willing Anya to open her eyes.

And Anya does.

Her skin, once sallow, is pink with life. Her cheeks are no longer hollow, but round and dimpled when she smiles. Her eyes are clear and bright.

The red glow fades from Mad, and as it winks out she steps back from Anya. “How do you feel?”

Anya sits up and beams at us. “Never better.”

20

SLOANE

The brand on my wrist is on fire. It’s only a matter of moments before I’m ripped away from the Daughters of the Dead and sent back to Pandemonium to deliver the Dead Hex to Lucifer, and I am pissed.

I’m not ready to go, not nearly done with Mad and these necromancers and now that Anya is safe there’s something I have to ask of them but there’s no time now.

“He can’t know that I can touch the ring,” I say.

“He probably already does,” Kara says, sipping whiskey as she sits by the fire. She is completely unconcerned about this situation, and if she hadn’t been such a bad ass during this whole mission I’d be tempted to hurt her. “How else would he know to call you back?”

“I think it’s arbitrary,” Runner says. “As in, she’d better have gotten it now whether she’s done or not.”

Bex and Mad are the only two who can, or are willing, to help me. Anya had leaped out of her coffin and dragged Delaney back to the estate, practically sprinting across the cool, damp grass. They’d retired to the room they used to share and now share again. We haven’t seen them in an hour.

“So let him see,” Bex says, sitting back in the overstuffed leather armchair. “The stronger you are, the more valuable you are to him.”

“Or the bigger threat,” Runner adds. Always the cheerful one, that Phantom.

“I need something to put it in!”

Mad dashes from the room. “I have something!” she calls over her shoulder.

“Faster, please.” My jaw is clenched so hard my teeth ache, and I can feel the pull of Pandemonium in my core.

Moments later Mad reappears with a small leather pouch with a thin drawstring. “This has strong containment wards. We use it when we carry our most dangerous tools. He’d believe you’d use it to protect yourself from the ring.”

Snatching it from her, I drop the ring inside just as I begin to feel myself tearing apart. “Runner, I’ll meet you…”

“It’s all good, Gray, I’m used to this by now,” he says.

“We’ll keep the Phantom occupied,” Kara says, cackling, and the last thing I see is the thrill and fear that war on Runner’s face as the room disappears around me and I’m sucked into a void as black as pitch.

***

“Tell me you haven’t failed me, Gray,” Lucifer says around a mouthful of steak. He’s dropped me into a high-backed chair at the opposite end of a dining room table that must seat two dozen, and the jolt as I hit the seat compresses my spine and makes my teeth clack together. “Failure causes me to lose my appetite and this is a fine cut of meat.”

Wincing, I bring my hand up and drop the leather pouch on the wood, the surface a dark shade that has me uncertain as to whether it was finished with varnish or blood. Flickering candlelight from three black glass candelabras set at intervals on the table sets quite a romantic, if gothic, tone, but as far as I can tell he’s been dining alone.

“Well, go ahead,” he says, gesturing with his wickedly sharp knife, “open it.”

I do, tipping the bag so that the ring drops onto the table with a metallic clink.

“Hmm,” he says, savoring another bite.

“Something wrong?” I ask.

“I just…” he circles the blade in the air as if trying to conjure a word, “I thought it would be more. It seems so insignificant, doesn’t it? And yet…”

“And yet what?” He already thinks I’m dumb, might as well use that to my advantage.

“And yet it’s not,” he finishes.

So much for my information gathering.

The knife scrapes against the china of his plate as he cuts another bite, and the high-pitched sound is my own personal Pandemonium. I want to rip my ears off and throw them at him. “I don’t suppose bringing you the Dead Hex completes my part of our bargain?”

“If I had a sense of humor I would laugh at that until I choked,” Lucifer says drily, looking at me for the first time since he dragged me here. The firelight dances in his eyes and his lips are red from the bloody steak.

“Well, if that’s all for tonight then I guess I’ll be going to… I don’t know, do I have a room here? Or this place seems like it would have some sort of chambers?” I’ve never actually been inside Lucifer’s home long enough to figure out where I stay. If I stay.

“Indeed. You are on a number of Counterfeit hit lists and this is the only place they and their assassins cannot reach you,” he says. “Do you remember the last hallway we walked down when I sent you off to say goodbye to David?”

The sound of my love’s name on Lucifer’s lips makes my skin crawl. I swallow back my anger and nod.

“Those rooms are the quarters I keep for my Hellions. The symbol on your wrist will correspond to the symbol on the door to your room. I’m sure you’ll find it quite homey.”

I shudder to think what homey means for the servants of the Devil.

A woman strides into the room like she owns the place, and the utterly bizarre thought that I have actually interrupted some sort of dinner date with the Devil rattles around in my brain. Lucifer sits back, setting down his fork and knife and giving the woman his full attention. I would, too. She is stunningly pretty, tall, and lean, clad in black from head to toe, and her olive skin sets off her… silver eyes.

Silver like Runner’s. Could she be his wife?

“Sloane. Is there a problem?”

The woman, Sloane, answers Lucifer’s question with one of her own. “Did you think Trivia would take her incarceration well?”

“She’s stripped of her magic,” Lucifer scoffs. “How bad could it be?”

“Tartarus is in Pandemonium?” My question is apparently silly, because Sloane looks at me with something like disdain.

“Of course it is,” Lucifer says. “Where else would it be? Excellent job, by the way, Gray. Trivia is quite the get for us.”

“Did you know she was the one I would have to go after?”

He shrugs at me. Because of course he does. “It was a possibility.”

Sloane pins him with an ice-cold stare, and I decide in that moment that I probably like her. “Just because she’s lost some of her bells and whistles doesn’t mean the Queen of Ghosts can’t be a handful if she wants to.” She’s animated when she talks, gesturing to paint a picture in the air along with her words, and I catch a glimpse of a tattoo on her wrist. A symbol that’s different from mine, but branded on her all the same. She must be a Hellion like me.

I need to know more about her. About this place. About everything.

Pushing my chair back, making quite certain that it causes maximum commotion as it scrapes along the floor, I stand and clear my throat. “I’ll just get going. I’m sure that hallway is around here somewhere…”

“Absolutely not,” Lucifer mutters. “Sloane, will you show Gray to the Hellion’s quarters?”

She turns that glacier gaze on me, and I swear I can feel Hell freezing over. “I don’t have time for this.”

“That was less a question than an order,” Lucifer says in a low voice.

Teeth clenched hard enough to make a muscle tick in her jaw, Sloane nods. “Follow me.”

“Am I stuck here?” I ask Lucifer as I move to join Sloane. “Or am I free to come and go?”

“Why? Are you eager to go traipsing around Counterfeit City surrounded by a multitude of creatures that wish you dead?”

“I’m eager to get back to Mina’s. If you’re going to keep sending me on missions to find objects that are a complete mystery to me it’s going to be a huge pain in my ass, not to mention cost you time. I need to learn about this place if I’m going to be any good to you.”

I think my answer surprises Sloane because she blinks at me in surprise before turning to Lucifer to see what hell he’ll rain down upon me for my sass.

“Fair point,” he says, shocking us both. “No, you are not stuck here. You can come and go as you please. That brand on your arm lets me keep track of you anyway. The door at the end of the hallway, the one I tossed you out of, it will take you anywhere in the Counterfeit realm that you wish to go.”

“I’m supposed to step out into thin air and hope it drops me where I want to go?”

He nods, a massive grin on his face, and yanks another hunk of steak off of his fork. “Just put the destination in your mind and have a little faith.”

The Devil is telling me to have faith.

The Devil.

“I don’t have all night,” Sloane mutters. “This way.”

***

We wind our way through Lucifer’s castle, and I’m certain that if I didn’t have Sloane as my guide I’d turn down one of these hallways and disappear forever, lost to the maze of stone and glass.

Silence is normally fine with me, and she certainly has no interest in chatting, but that’s not going to get me what I need.

“You work at Tartarus, then?” I ask.

She glances over at me, her eyes suspicious slits. “I run Tartarus.”

“You must’ve been here for quite some time, then.”

“Long enough.”

Excellent. She’s of the Lucifer school of information distribution: give crumbs to those who would converse with you, and leave them frustrated and cranky.

“Are you a Phantom?”

She rounds on me, walking backward so she can talk to me without prolonging our journey. “How long have you been here? You’re his newest, right? So you know nothing?”

“Like I said upstairs, I have a lot to learn.”

“Well, I’m not the one to teach it to you. It’s not worth my time.”

We come to the hallway Lucifer led me down while he was stealing my hopes of seeing David again from me. Anger churns in my stomach as we pass door after door cut into the rough stone walls, and I have a moment of Deja vú as we pass a door with three interlocking circles burned into it. The last time I was here, someone was inside. They’d slapped the window as we’d passed. They had been awaiting their punishment.

We finally come to the door that has my matching symbol burned into it. Sloane reaches to unlatch the lock, and I see that her wrist is branded with three interlocking circles.

So she’s a troublemaker, like me.

“You stay here,” she says, pushing open the door.

“No locks?”

“No need. Nobody disobeys Lucifer.”

“You did,” I counter.

Sloane tenses and steps toward me. I think she expects me to back up from her, be intimidated by her, to let her crowd me into feeling small and weak and inadequate. Instead, I jut my chin out and meet her gaze. “How did you know that?” she says.

“Bad timing. You were awaiting your punishment at the same time Lucifer dragged me down here after I completed my first mission for him.”

I’ve intrigued her, and I can tell that it pisses her off. “What did you do for him?”

“Brought back two things he lost: the Dagger of the Fallen, and Lilah.”

Her silver eyes go wide at the mention of my former boss. “You got Lilah back here?”

“Do you know her?”

“She is one of my prisoners,” Sloane responds, but her eyes dart away from me as she speaks and I’m certain that’s not the whole story. “And I have to get back to work.”

She backs away from me and turns to leave.

“What happened to the last Hellion in this room?” I ask.

“He disobeyed Lucifer,” she calls over her shoulder. “Speaking from experience, I don’t recommend it.”

And then I am alone.

I peer into my room, and it’s about as comfy as I expected: twin bed, stone walls, as sparse as Lucifer’s chambers are luxurious.

No matter. I’m not planning on spending much time there anyway, starting now.

Shutting the door to my room, I move to the end of the hallway where the door to Counterfeit City sits waiting. I pull the handle to find it locked. ‘Gods dammit,” I mutter, “can nothing be easy here?”

I crouch down to get a better look at what I’m dealing with, and the strangest tingling sensation spreads out from my wrist as I fiddle with the lock. On a hunch, I press my wrist to the keyhole and a thunk sounds from inside the door. Trying again, I find that the door swings open easily.

“Lucifer wants me to figure things out myself? Done,” I say.

That horrible black void lies beyond, and the last thing I want to do is step out into the nothingness. Everything Lucifer has told me has been a lie, so who’s to say this is any different?

It’s just one tiny step into thin air.

All I have to do is trust the Devil.

I close my eyes, think about where I want to go, and let myself fall.

21

A GOOD OLD FASHIONED SEANCE

I expect to fall forever.

Instead, I shock the hell out of myself and everyone else in the room when I land right where I want: the living room in the house of the Daughters of the Dead.

Runner jumps up from the couch in a fit of panic. “Where in the good gods damn did you come from?”

“Literally Hell,” I say from the floor, my face on the cool hardwood. “Pandemonium.”

“But you’ve only been gone for thirty seconds,” he says, reaching down to help me up. He gives me a pat on the back and a smile that tells me he’s happy to see me. I’m dying to tell him about Sloane, but only once I’m sure it’s his wife. I can’t get his hopes up like that without being certain.

“Time must work differently down there because I feel like I’ve been gone for a year,” I say, brushing myself off as I stand on wobbly legs.

He’s right, though. Kara hasn’t even finished her whiskey. Mad enters from a hallway on the far side of the room and her jaw drops when she sees me. “You’re back!” She rushes over and wraps me in a fierce hug. “That didn’t take long, did it? Good. We have so much to talk about…”

“We do. And I want to,” I say, “but… I have to ask you a favor.”

“Here we go,” Kara says. “I knew it. This wasn’t a one-time thing, was it? You being here? You’re going to become a regular, you and the Phantom.”

“Gods damned right she is,” Mad says, moving to the couch and gesturing for me to sit between her and Bex.

Bex nods. “Anything you need, Gray. If we can help you, we will. You helped bring our Anya back. We are deeply indebted to you.”

“It’s about David,” I say, pacing because this is one of the rare instances where I can’t seem to control my emotions. It’s too important. He’s too important. “I’ve watched you resurrect people. I wondered…”

“If we could do the same for him?” Bex asks gently.

I nod because the words are stuck in my throat.

“Oh, Gray,” Mad says, and her eyes are sad and I think I have my answer. “What we do is only temporary. The only reason Anya is still with us is because of the liquid you gave her.”

The liquid wouldn’t have worked on David, with him being human. It would have only created a monster. It’s silly, but at the moment I’m cursing him for not being a Counterfeit because if he had been, I’d have saved half of that vial for him.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t try and talk to him,” Kara says over the rim of her glass, and we all turn to her in unison.

If she’s fucking with me, I swear… “What do you mean?”

Kara sets down her glass on the mantle and cracks her knuckles. “I mean, we haven’t done a good old fashioned séance in years, and I for one could use some practice.”

Not willing to take Kara at her word, I turn to Mad. “You can raise his spirit?”

She nods, and her face is alight with hope. “It’s normally just one of us channeling a message, but if we’re really lucky, you might even be able to see him.”

“Will I be able to… touch him?” I ask. The thought of being able to feel David again is so overpowering that it nearly drops me to my knees. “Will he be like Runner? You’re a Phantom…”

“It’s not the same,” Bex says, “I’m sorry. If anything, it will be an apparition. Like the first time you saw Anya.”

“And let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That’s assuming he even shows,” Kara adds.

“He’ll show,” I say. “Yes. I’m in.”

Wood creaks and Anya and Delaney descend from upstairs. They are smiling, Anya holding tight to Delaney’s arm, and their hair is mussed and their cheeks are rosy and they both wear satisfied devilish grins. I envy them.

Bex waves them over. “You’re just in time. We have a request.”

***

We are back in the basement, and this time there is no corpse.

Delaney is at one of the black apothecary tables mixing various liquids and powders together in a small stone bowl. Kara sets a large blanket down on the floor, and Anya lights the candles on the altar at the far end of the room.

Mad takes my hand. “This is going to sting,” she says as she produces a small dagger from nowhere and slices it across my palm.

“Shit, Mad!” I say, yanking my hand out of her grasp. Black blood wells and oozes from the cut.

Delaney comes over with the bowl. “Ah, it’s just a scratch. Gimme,” she says, taking my hand and turning it so that my blood drips into the concoction she’s put together. The liquid hisses as my blood hits it, and a thin trail of smoke wafts from the bowl. “Perfect,” she says, then dips two fingers in the bowl and smears the liquid down my right side of my face from my cheekbone to my jaw. Moving from witch to witch, she does the same to each of them.

“There is nothing more powerful than the blood of someone we’re working with, or on,” Mad says. “It’ll help us make contact.”

“Little warning would have been nice!” Runner calls from across the room, where Delaney has just smudged him with the mixture. “Just saying.”

“Come,” Bex says, and we move to the blanket and sit in a circle. She gestures for us to join hands, and when Runner takes mine he squeezes it just a little to let me know that he’s here for me, and my heart nearly bursts with gratitude.

Mad lights a stick of incense and places it in the center of the circle, setting it so that the ash will fall into the bowl with my blood.

The five necromancers lower their heads and close their eyes, and with one last glance at each other, Runner and I do the same.

“David, we have someone here who would very much like to speak with you. To see you. If you’re there, we are open and waiting for you to join us.”

I no longer need to breathe, but if I did, this would be the moment where I held my breath. Unable to help it, I crack one eye open. The rest of the circle still has their head bowed and their eyes closed. The smoke from the incense floats lazily above the bowl. There is no breeze to stir it. No change in the air pressure or change in the way I feel. I close my eyes again and will him to appear.

“Gray, why don’t you try calling to him?” Bex suggests.

I open my mouth, but the words catch in my throat. What do I tell the man who was murdered because of me? Then I realize that there’s only one thing I can say that actually matters. “David, I’m so sorry. What happened to you is all my fault, and if you’re staying away from me and from us here now because you blame me, well… I don’t blame you.”

Hot tears slide down my cheeks and I let them fall. “Please forgive me. I should’ve left Lilah sooner. I should’ve protected you. I should’ve done a lot of things differently. And I’m going to make up for the wrong I’ve done and the hurt I’ve caused.”

Still, there is nothing. My heart shatters in my chest.

“He’s not coming,” I say and open my eyes, and that’s when I see that all five necromancers are frowning.

“Do you feel that?” Mad says, and the other four murmur an agreement.

“That’s not right,” Kara says. Her eyes pop open. “What are you playing at, Gray?”

“I… what do you mean? Nothing! What’s wrong?”

“He’s not here,” Anya says.

I swallow hard, tears welling. “I know. He doesn’t want to see me…”

“No,” Bex says. “He’s not here. In the spirit realm. Gray, he’s not dead, at least not in the way you’re thinking of it.”

“There’s only one way to think of it,” I say, my voice low and nervous as I try to comprehend what’s happening. “I woke up in a morgue. His body was on the slab next to mine.”

Runner shakes his head at them. “After the Lilah incident, I picked her up at his grave. He is absolutely dead.”

I don’t feel him here, though. At every conjuring that the Daughters of the Dead have done that I’ve been a part of, I’ve felt something. Something I couldn’t explain, maybe, but something every time. Now, there’s nothing, and it feels wrong.

“You’re taking us to that gods damned graveyard and we’re figuring this shit out now,” Kara says, and I couldn’t agree more.

***

An hour later we’re standing in a cemetery over my fiancé’s exhumed grave.

I am not ready for this.

I lift the lid.

And look into David’s empty coffin.

My legs go out from under me and I lean on his gravestone to keep myself from falling.

“Lucifer,” Runner spits under his breath. He spins on me. “Again! He’s a liar, Gray, and now you’re stuck in some hellish bargain with him over a man who’s not even dead!”

“Well, that might not be true,” Bex says. “Just because he’s not buried here doesn’t mean he’s not dead.”

“What, you think he’s buried somewhere else?” Delaney says.

“No,” Mad says, and I see a lightbulb go on for her. “He’s not buried at all.”

Kara snakes an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in tight like we’re pals. “Demon, what we’re getting at here is that there is a very good chance that your precious David is a Counterfeit, and that he’s somewhere in our realm, alive-ish and well, right this very minute.”

THANK YOU!

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for picking up HELLION: THE DEAD HEX. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, please consider leaving a review here.

Next up is book three in the Hellion series, coming soon!

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Notes

Table of Contents

ALSO BY JENNA LYN WRIGHT

HE WANTS YOU BACK IN PANDEMONIUM

THE DEAD HEX

GOBLIN IPA

FRIEND OR FOE OR DEMON

THE WORST WITCHES

YOU NEED A NECROMANCER

NICE NIGHT FOR A RESURRECTION

THE DAUGHTERS OF THE DEAD

THE BONEYARD

ANYA

THE HAUNTED

MAD'S NOT WHO YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS

YOU'D BETTER RUN

HOUNDS OF HELL

DOUSE THE TORCHES

NO PRISONERS

SHE'S MAD, AND YOU'RE IN BIG TROUBLE

YOU CAN'T BEAT THE DEVIL

A HEARTBEAT

SLOANE

A GOOD OLD FASHIONED SEANCE

THANK YOU!