The witch pointed her wand at Shay’s snowmobile and blue stones floated in front of it. This time, several nested hexagonal blue patterns winked into existence. Ice coated the snowmobile for several seconds and finally formed an almost solid block.
Yulia waved and hopped on her own vehicle. She drove away laughing.
“You should have killed me, bitch. This isn’t over.” Shay took several deep breaths and ran toward one of the ice walls. She pushed off and leapt, using the momentum to carry her up to the top, freeing herself from her ice prison.
Her elation was short-lived. She ran to Lily and dropped to her knees, feeling for a pulse. She was still alive. She gently shook the teenager till she opened her eyes and helped her sit up.
“We’re in a situation.” Shay didn’t have a chisel or hammer to free her snowmobile, and even if she had, the witch had probably killed the vehicle.
Lily tried to sit up but cried out in pain, holding her arm in front of her. “I think it’s broken,” she said between clenched teeth.
“I shouldn’t have brought you.”
“Fuck that, I’m not complaining.” Lily winced and squeezed her eyes shut. “Do you have something I can use for a sling?”
Shay pulled off her scarf and tied it around Lily’s neck, helping her ease her arm into the makeshift sling. Lily blinked back tears and let Shay help her to her feet. “Most fun I’ve had in a long time and still better than living in the pipe.”
“That is really saying something, kid. You will make a great tomb raider.”
Lily smiled despite the pain and leaned on Shay as they started walking. At least Shay could see the airport in the distance and wouldn’t die in the middle of Antarctica.
Eh. Lily has a point. Still better than bleeding out in my kitchen.
An hour passed as Shay and Lily trudged toward the airport, occasionally resting for a moment as the chill seeped into every part of Shay’s body despite her layers of clothing and parka. They marched straight toward the parked plane but didn’t see anyone in the cockpit. Shay left Lily resting inside. “It’s okay, you saved my ass back there. I’m glad you’re here.” Shay brushed the gray hair out of Lily’s face. “Rest and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Shay headed into the hangar connected to the only building present.
Once inside, she cautiously opened the door leading into a hallway. She savored the warmth for a minute before continuing. A male voice sounded from ahead, and she hurried toward it, reaching inside her parka to pull her gun if she ran into the witch.
The only people she saw were the pilot and another man she didn’t recognize. They were sitting in a waiting room with two tables and chairs.
Shay lowered her hand. “Is Doctor Petrova here?”
The men exchanged glances, uncomfortable expressions on both their faces.
“It’s important,” the tomb raider barked.
“She…was here.”
“Did she go back to the Repository?”
Shay could still catch her. The woman was powerful, but she’d be more limited inside a building compared to an ice and snowfield.
“No, she didn’t. I don’t even get it. Some unscheduled plane suddenly showed up. The pilot was a crazy son of a bitch. Petrova pulled up on a snowmobile and rushed onto the plane before the guy had even stopped, and…”
“And?”
“She lifted herself to the plane on ice. And had a wand. Pretty sure she was a witch.”
Shay sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Thanks.” She snorted—might as well cover her tracks. “Pretty sure she stole something from the Repository.”
“That would explain a lot.”
The tomb raider slumped into a seat at the other table.
Even though she’d survived, she’d failed and would come back to the client empty-handed. Her reputation would take a hit, and even worse, a lot of things still didn’t make sense.
A mercenary witch shouldn’t have shown up in the middle of nowhere to snatch magic beans.
Shay still didn’t know what the beans even did, or what the implications of Yulia having them were.
Is that bitch a tomb raider, or is all this shit connected?
Chapter Eleven
The Ice Witch still haunted Shay’s thoughts a couple days later. Peyton hadn’t been able to track down any information, and the great Aletheia had had to admit to a client she wouldn’t be able to deliver.
Lily’s arm was a clean break and would heal nicely. She had a cast that Peyton quickly decorated in different colored pens and had set her up in his old space, even resurrecting some of the cubes. He had fussed with the pizza oven, trying to make Lily a pizza but so far the results were a lot of smoke and an oversized burned cracker.
Shay reassured Lily’s worries about going out again by buying Lily her own tomb raiding belt, with a few accessories.
“You’re just like Robin, now,” said Peyton. “Your own utility belt.”
As much as it bothered her, Shay didn’t have time to fixate on the failed mission, or even Lily because the Professor had contacted her for another quick job. Quick, but not necessarily safe, or so the man had told her.
She patted the bag of salt in her pocket. It wasn’t all Morton’s.
The salt had been mixed with the remnants of an enchanted stone allegedly used by a Renaissance-era wizard who had dabbled in spirit-summoning on the down low. It had kept him from the hangman’s noose or worse.
Don’t worry, Miz Carson. Just sprinkle a little of this on them and the spirits will go running. Not saying there will be any, but better safe than sorry, right?
“Your shit better work, Smite-Williams,” Shay muttered to herself as she parked her rental truck in front of the decaying mansion.
Weeds and shrubs had long since completed their invasion of the yard, and holes marred the one proud Tudor-style mansion. What had once been a slice of elite living in upstate
