Page 61 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“The right side being your side.”

“Yes.” Leo looked me in the eye. “It is. We have the numbers. We have the training. We have every tactical advantage it’s possible to have in a situation like this one.”

“Interesting,” said James. He turned to face me. “Are all Covenant operatives this dishonest, or did we get a good one?”

“Be quiet,” snarled Leo.

“Don’t be quiet,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if they had all the advantages he,” James flapped a hand at Leonard, “wants to claim they have, why is this happening? Why is any of this happening? You’re one woman. Granted, you’re faintly terrifying, and I’m not sure I’m going to survive knowing you, but you’re not worth delaying an invasion. He’s either exaggerating his position or downplaying yours.”

“There’s a third option,” I said. “He’s doing both, and he doesn’t have the authority to be here.”

Leo stiffened. I’d hit a nerve. Slowly, I smiled.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re the one who brought me into the recruiting center, even if you didn’t realize you were doing it, and once you realized who I was, you were so excited by the idea of bringing a Price back into the fold that you kept it a secret because you wanted all the credit. Only you lost me, and there were too many witnesses you didn’t want to kill—at least, I’m assuming you didn’t kill your own sister—for you to bury it completely. You’re supposed to be back in England getting punished for your hubris right now, aren’t you?”

Leo didn’t say anything.

I glanced at James. “See, what Leo here doesn’t like to remember is that he’s our age. He’s the new generation, still under supervision, and he’s not supposed to scheme and plot and try to do things without running them through the chain of command. I got away because he wanted to see how much rope I needed before I hung myself.”

“That’s not entirely fair,” said Leo tightly.

“None of this is entirely fair,” I said. “Why should my version of the story be any different? You don’t have any backup, Leo, and it’s pretty clear that while you’re willing to take potshots at innocent cryptids because … fuck, because you’re an asshole, because you’re jealous, whatever. It doesn’t matter why you’re doing this. You don’t have any authority. The Covenant isn’t coming to back you up or solve your problems. I want you out of here. I want you to leave me alone.”

“That’s never going to happen,” he said, and smiled. “I own you. Whether or not you’ve admitted it to yourself, you’re mine. One day, you’re going to see how foolish it is to resist the inevitable, and you’re going to come back to the fold.”

He could do this all day: he’d prepared his supervillain speech, and all I was doing was giving him the material to play off of, allowing him to keep belching forth proclamations about his superiority and predestined victory and blah, blah, blah. Under other circumstances, I might have humored it. People who’ve already mapped out the conversation in their heads can frequently be tricked into giving things away if you let them keep talking long enough. But I was tired, and I was irritated, and I wanted to be safely behind the anti-ghost wards on the house as soon as humanly possible.

I had one injured shoulder and two hands. I threw the knife in my good hand, enjoying the brief second of shocked realization in Leo’s eyes before the blade hit the porch support half a foot from his face with a satisfying thwock sound.

“That could have been your throat,” I said calmly. “I have more knives, and you seem to have misplaced your crossbow. Leave.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“You shot me.”

“I wasn’t aiming for you.”

“You keep saying that, and you keep not understanding why it doesn’t actually help your case.” I took a step forward, proud of the way my knees failed to knock. “Get out of here, or the next knife goes into your eye.”

I could do it. Maybe not with my bad hand, but I always have more knives, and I could draw and throw again before Leo had the chance to do anything other than stand there and get impaled. He knew it, too; with a final frown, he finished descending the porch and started toward the small car parked behind Cylia’s.

“This isn’t over,” he said. “You will understand why I’m the better choice than this menagerie of misfits and monsters before we leave this town.”

“Maybe I’ll also bleach my hair and learn how to walk in heels,” I said. “Go.”

He went. James and I stayed where we were, watching as he peeled out of the driveway and back to the street. Only when he was gone did James look at me.

“Would you really have killed him?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I made the knife in my hand disappear. “He’s set to inherit leadership of the Covenant. Killing him means this never ends. But unless I can find and confiscate whatever it is he’s using to track me, maybe this never ends no matter what I do. So I don’t know. Aren’t you glad we didn’t have to find out right now?”

I started toward the house. After a moment’s stunned silence, James followed.

Sixteen

“There’s nothing like moonlight and monsters to remind a girl why she loves her job.”