“I’m coming.” Mario stood.
“No, you’re not. I need you here with Liz. Merick is coming. He’s going to be my back up.”
Mario sat back down on the couch. “I’m trusting him.”
“Yeah, me too. If I’m not back by sunrise, send Nick.”
Both of them wrinkled their noses. “PIB case, he’ll want the glory. Just trust me.”
Liz sighed. “Okay.”
“I’m going to go talk to him now. Mason, I need you to stick with Nick.”
“Got it.”
I walked out the door and hiked up the pathway that led to Nick’s truck. When I approached, he rolled the window down. “I thought you were going to leave me out here all night.”
“Well, settle in. I’m going in, and I need you here in case you get an SOS, or I don’t return by sunrise.”
He raised his brow. “I’m not the type to just sit around, and you know that.”
“Listen up, Nick.” I stepped up to the window, so we were almost nose to nose. “I’m going in after a lady who is using black magic to bring her victims back to her. She’s damn near immortal, and in case my ass gets caught, I need someone to have my back. I don’t know why you can’t cross this circle, or what your end game is, but I know you won’t fuck up a PIB case because you need to be in PIB. You need the cover it provides for your little death stunt.”
He stared at me for a moment and then nodded. “I’ll wait here to save your ass.”
I smirked. “Thanks.”
Merick appeared next to me. “Let’s go.” I jerked my head toward the road. “It’s about four city blocks away and into the forest.”
He nodded, and we both started that way without a word.
Merick and I approached the house and stopped. “I can feel the magic,” he muttered, and so could I.
Something dark marched up my skin. It was almost thick enough that I swore it was physical and not magical. It reached out to that darker side of me, calling to me. Merick paused, and I assumed he felt it too.
“Dark. Careful, sometimes temptation can be stronger than your will to stay on the lighter side of things.”
I glanced at him and wondered if he’d been there before. What could call to someone enough to make them change their ways in a split second. When the magic crashed over me, I realized what could.
Power.
The promise that you could change your fate if you just gave in to it. I swallowed at the thought of being able to live forever. I didn’t want that. It was the reason I didn’t want to become a vampire.
I glanced at Merick and wondered what he would do. Did the idea of being immortal call to him?
“Don’t worry, Abigail. There’s nothing this witch could offer me that would make me betray you.”
That was comforting. I reached out with my magic and took a deep breath as it pressed against the circle. “She wanted us to get into the last house,” I muttered. “There wasn’t a circle up like this one. She’s strong enough she could have left a circle up if she wanted to.
“Why, is the question.”
There was a strange sensation crawling through my body, and I started to feel like I was using the transportation spell. But it wasn’t me, and by the look on Merick’s fading face, it wasn’t him either.
“Abigail!” His voice faded as the world did.
When the world reappeared, I was standing in front of a woman who was covered in blood. The blood was thick enough that I couldn’t tell what her hair color actually was, but it was tied back in a tight bun. Her skin was covered in dried brown blood, but her green eyes were very clear and terrifying.
When she saw me, she titled her head to the side. “You’re not her.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure who you were trying to summon, but you picked the wrong fucking witch.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I was pretty sure this was going to be the end of the line for me. I stood in front of Adrianna, who was just as confused as I was. I pulled my gun, but my arm stopped moving halfway up.
“Oh no, little witch.” She shook her head and walked up to me. “You used your blood to track me, didn’t you?” She put a hand on my cheek. “It was your blood, but it was her magic.”
Realization dawned on me. The tracking spell that Liz and I did. Oh shit. She was expecting Liz, not me. I tried to move my arm, but she touched it, and I dropped my gun as her magic crawled through me.
“You can’t defeat me. You are useless against me.” She waved her hand, and I went flying back into a cage, and the door slammed shut. “I’ll be back, little witch.” She walked out of the room.
With her gone, I could move again and take a look at my surroundings. The silver bars of the cage blocked some of my view, but I could see the table in the middle of the room with blood on it. I heard a whimper that drew my gaze to what was next to me. Another cage, like mine, tall enough to stand in, wide enough to sit in, but that was about it.
A pink-haired woman had her head down on her knees and her arms wrapped around them. “Gabby,” I hissed, and she looked up at me in surprise. Like she hadn’t been paying attention to the commotion that happened right in front of her.
“Agent Collins.” She looked up and had a gash
