No Humans Involved

I strode forward until I was close enough to see uncertainty flicker in her eyes.

"She's down," I said. "You got her. Now what are you trying to do? Kill her?"

Sava

"Maybe right now it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. She did kidnap me. She could pose a threat. But can you justify it to Paige?" I paused a beat. "Can you justify it to yourself?"

She flushed, raised her hands and cast again. For a second, nothing happened. She cast again, faster, eyes bright with worry, and I knew the first cast had failed. I held my breath as she finished the second. A seemingly endless pause as Molly clawed the air, face going blue. A second thunderous clap. A second red flare in the sky. And the spirits vanished.

Molly fell forward onto her hands and knees.

"They're just koyut," Sava

"Are you sure?"

She flushed and I knew she wasn't.

As Sava

"Good idea," Sava

"Now we need to take her into the forest to question her, in case anyone drives up."

A smile. "Yes, ma'am."

She grabbed Molly's left arm. I took the right, and we hauled the witch into the woods.

HUMAN MAGIC

WE FORCED MOLLY TO KNEEL. She wasn't gagged or silenced by a spell, but she hadn't said a word. Hadn't tried to escape. Just watched us warily, tensed for a fight, but making no move to start one.

I waved Sava

I stood over Molly. "You screwed up. You've been on the dark side so long, you think everybody is just as devious and dangerous as you. I was telling you the truth. All I wanted was information, and I was offering a fair deal in return. I had no idea what really happened to Mike until you got paranoid and started confessing."

"I never admitted-"

"True. We can go that route. I take you into custody. You plead your i

Molly's eyes narrowed.

"Or we can leave the council out of this. Killing Mike wasn't the solution I'd have come up with, but from what you've said, it wasn't completely unjustified. You had a good reason-"

"I did. That bastard tried to-"

Sava

I glanced over at the young witch. She'd settled onto the grass, cross-legged, leaning back on her hands. A cocky pose-as if so un-threatened by Molly she might as well make herself comfortable. Molly's lips pressed into a thin line. I strolled behind Molly and motioned for Sava

"The council doesn't know I'm here," I said. "The werewolf is only coming as unofficial backup. Friendship, not duty."

Molly's gaze slid to Sava

"I'm the unofficial unofficial backup," she said. "I sent Jaime to see you because I thought you'd help her. Then, after she left, I had second thoughts. So I followed."

"Do they know you're here?"

By the contemptuous twist Molly gave "they," she meant Paige and Lucas.

Sava

"So, Molly, your secret is safe… if you want it to be," I said. "We can back up and start over. Pretend we're in your living room again. I just told you my problem and you want to help."

"In return for…"

Sava

"I'll offer the same deal," I said. "If you help me, I'll contact Mike."

Molly scowled.

"In that case, how about this deal: you answer my questions in return for me forgetting who killed him."

I TOLD her the story again.

"First piece of advice?" she said. "Go back and take a hard look at whoever is giving you this cock-and-bull."

"Cock-and-bull?"

"Someone's having you on. Feeding you bullshit."

"I've tried contacting these spirits myself and-" A brittle smile my way. "Step one, then, would be to find a better necromancer. Either there are no spirits or they're in on the game. Whoever came up with this story doesn't know jack shit about magic. They trolled the Internet or maybe checked out a few reference books at the library. What they researched isn't our magic. It's human magic."

"Human magic?"

"In human folk magic, you kill someone to drain his energy, his power, and take it for yourself."

Sava

"But human magic doesn't work," I said.

Molly pi

I looked at Sava

"She's right about this not sounding like a sacrificial ritual. Same as Paige and Lucas said. But if you've tried contacting them yourself, then it's not a problem of power."

Molly rolled her eyes.

"Could the ghosts be playing a trick?" Sava

"A trained necromancer can tell if she's being played."

A sniff from Molly.

"You say it sounds like a human's version of magic," I said. "Could that be what it is? The results of humans sacrificing people in some kind of fake black-magic ritual?"

Molly and Sava

"What does happen when humans play at ritual sacrifice?" Sava

Molly said, "If it did, necromancers would have seen this kind of thing before."

"So maybe it doesn't happen every time. But under certain circumstances…"

"Who can tell with humans-the lengths they'll go to in pursuit of magical powers. Sacrificing babies? Children? Torture? We have nothing on them."

So said the woman who, less than an hour ago, had been ready to put out my eyes with a red-hot stick. But I knew even Sava

Sava

When we finished, the sun was setting.

Sava

She nodded.

"So they'll be fine if you're later than you expected. Here's what I'm going to do. First, I'm not untying your hands. That's your job. Second, I'm leaving you in a binding spell. When I'm far enough away, it'll snap and you can walk to the parking lot, find your phone, make that tow-truck call. But if you come after us-now or later-you're launching a council investigation into Mike's death."

AS WE drove to Molly's neighborhood to find Jeremy, Sava

"What gave it away?" I said. "When she loaded me bound and gagged into the back of her truck? Or when she actually said 'I am now ready to kill you and throw your body in the swamp'?"