Page 29

He grunted, and I followed him across the room, down the stairs, and into the tunnels. We hadn’t walked far down the stone passage, lit with flickering torches, when I heard the growls and howls. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Warrick shoved a door open, and we walked in. Maddox was still chained to the floor, only now, he had one of his arms free, and it ended with a bloody stump.

He stopped thrashing as soon as we entered and his neck twisted, black gaze locking on me.

“Hello, pretty,” he said in a warped version of Maddox’s voice.

This spirit needed to go back where he came from, or be sent to where it was meant to be. It was all about balance. I moved closer. “Tell me where you come from.”

He laughed.

If a soul was here on Earth, it had either been here all along or someone had released it. Souls didn’t just get out of Hell, or Heaven for that matter, and the darkness, the hatred, that came from this one had me thinking that Hell was exactly where it came from. If a soul was sent there, it stayed there. There was no mercy, no change of heart. No transfer to Heaven for good behavior or because some reaper made a clerical error.

“Why are you here?” I tried again.

He licked his lips. “Come here, little girl.”

The voice sounded higher this time, sharper, more urgent.

Warrick moved up beside me. “Is Maddox still in there?”

“Yeah.” But he wouldn’t be the same after this asshole was gone, how could he be? Every sick evil thing this monster had done, past and present, would be in Maddox’s head, every twisted thought seeping deeper and deeper into his consciousness—into his heart and soul.

I wasn’t going to get anything from this spirit, though, and there was no way I could force him to share the information. There were ways to torture a soul, I’d heard of it before, but I didn’t know the effect it would have on Maddox when we were done. And Maddox had been possessed for far too long as it was.

There were two other hounds in the room, standing behind the salt line that was now twice as thick since they’d been adding to it like I’d told them to.

They watched me closely as I took a silver urn from my satchel. I placed it on the stone floor along with more salt peppered with cemetery dirt, the lilies we’d gathered, some moss from one of the ancient oaks, a mortar and pestle, several different oils—Else’s own special and highly potent mixes—and finally some more dirt, also from the cemetery.

I added the lilies to the mortar, crushed them, then added the oils, moss, and dirt.

“What are you doing?” Warrick asked.

“This mixture will act as a barrier when I get the soul out of Maddox. He’ll be on the hunt for a new host and this oil mix will stop it from entering me. The salt across the doorway will keep it from leaving this room.” I opened the lid on the urn. “The only thing available to him will be this dead rat. Silver is also a natural barrier, and this one is smelted with a whole lot of other goodies that will make it impossible for him to break free.” Thankfully, the oil was fine to use everywhere. Gran had made sure of that, after years of using recipes that stung and left rashes in unmentionable places.

“Then what?”

“He’ll possess the rat, and I’ll keep it trapped in the urn until we work out how it got here—if it was summoned from Hell, or some other place, or if it’s been in limbo. Whatever it is, I’ll send it back to wherever it came from.”

Warrick frowned. “Why can’t you just do that now?”

“Because if I do the wrong ritual, things could get messy. We have to keep things balanced. Also, I want to know who unleashed them, if that’s what happened. And if that was the case, we have an entirely different problem on our hands.” I didn’t want to think about that, not yet. One thing at a time.

When I had everything mixed, I stood and tugged off my jacket, then kicked off my shoes.

“What are you doing?” Warrick growled when I undid my pants.

“It’s your lucky day.” I winked. “Getting naked.”

His gaze shot to the other two hounds. “Out,” he barked.

They left quickly, and his gaze sliced back to me. “Why the fuck are you getting naked?”

“I need to rub that oil all over myself. Can’t do that with my clothes on.” I wasn’t a shy person. I didn’t get embarrassed. I was naked a lot—it was a witch thing. A lot of rituals and spells required it. “You should leave, or you’ll be the next vessel.”

“Not leaving you in here on your own with that fucker.”

I tugged my shirt off, throwing it aside. His gaze dipped to my boobs and the deep purple bra I was wearing. He gritted his teeth before his gaze came back to mine and they were even more determined than before. “Not leaving, dove.”