“Husband scare Tink,” she whispered. “Husband must never scare Tink again.”
THE COMING STORM
Daryl knelt on the floor of the car, contemplating the large patch of skin that had been blasted off the side of Kali’s ribs. He gave the skin a tug, causing her to wince. Her fists clenched, and she hissed.
“You always impress me,” Daryl told her, pulling a scalpel from the small kit on the floor. “Anyone else would have passed out from the pain.”
“I don’t feel pain.” Her eyes bulged from her head, many of the veins burst from the lightning blast.
Daryl used the scalpel to make a large cut across her torso, removing the ruined flesh.
“Just anger.”
“If anger keeps you from throwing up in my car, then so be it.” He tossed the scrap of skin in a plastic bag. “I’m going to have to regrow it. I’m afraid you’re gonna be mismatched for a while.”
“The new skin will fade eventually,” she said.
Daryl touched the edge of her wound with his wand, muttering under his tongue. Her tattered flesh scarred over, then grew. Daryl directed the growth with his wand, careful not to let any of the edges get away from him. The skin there would be extra sensitive for some time and would be a lighter color than the rest of her for at least a couple of months.
“For one who specializes in death, you are very good at fixing that which lives.”
“My mentor told me once that to truly understand how something works, you must take it apart first.” A slight grin crossed his lips as he scrutinized a gash by her hip. “Let’s get those pants off you.”
Kali obliged, sliding out of her clothes. The town car stank of sulfur, the result of so much burnt hair on her body. The wound on her hip widened, revealing muscle tissue and a small patch of bone.
“You have no idea how grateful I am that you don’t bleed.” He pulled a set of surgical wands out of his pocket. Digging through them, he picked an appropriately thin one and went to work stitching her muscle back together over her leg.
“Leave no trace,” she said, watching him work. She would have eventually healed on her own, but he could do in minutes what it would take her days or weeks to do. “Main ingredient of the most powerful hexes is a piece of the victim, and I am nobody’s victim.”
“I don’t think that’s true today. Explain to me one more time how this happened?”
“I almost broke the geas.” Kali scowled. “At least, I almost broke another layer of it. It was a crucial moment, and they distracted me.”
“By turning the sprinklers on you?”
“I don’t know how they did it. But I bet the nymph was involved.” She wiggled her fingers. “If I get in there first, I might tear her face off with my bare hands.”
“What a waste of a perfectly good nymph.” Daryl halted the growth with the tap of his wand, the gap in her skin almost half an inch across. Using his fingers, he pushed the wound closed. Her skin looked like a burning fuse, the wound cauterizing and healing within a couple of seconds. “Tell you what, I’ll trade you something in exchange for the nymph. If, that is, you beat me to the prize.”
“We’ll see.” Kali lifted her arm. “I need your phone.”
“What’s wrong with yours?”
In response, Kali pulled it from the pocket of her pants and threw it at Daryl’s feet. The metal frame had been melted, the screen shattered.
“Damn.” Daryl pulled out his phone and handed it over. “Who are you so eager to call?”
Kali ignored him, looking at the screen. “You have several missed calls from Sebastien.”
“Yeah, he’s pissed. Something about his homunculus won’t reform, and this is all our fault somehow.”
“We were supposed to work together,” Kali said, dialing a number. “Maybe that should be the way we do this from now on.”
“You all got a turn,” Daryl said. “It’s only fair that I see what my doe-eyed meat puppet can accomplish. If she fails, then we put our heads together.”
Kali held the phone to her ear. A few seconds later, she flinched, and a dark presence washed over the interior of the car, even from so many miles away.
Daryl shivered, realizing she had called the high priest.
“She’s here,” Kali said. “The succubus is in the house with the others.”
Daryl stopped what he was doing, watching Kali. Eventually, she handed the phone back to Daryl.
“What did he say?”
“He is coming.” Kali let out a deep breath. “Here. To the house.”
“Shit.” Daryl looked at the phone. “And you’re sure? The succubus is here? You saw her?”
“I did.”
“Fuck. Then I don’t have a lot of time.” Daryl resumed working on her leg. “If he shows up and finds out we’ve been fighting each other on this, he’ll have our heads. The less we tell him, the better.”
Kali nodded. “All he needs to know is that we spotted the succubus and have had some trouble.”
“Glad we agree.” Daryl took a break from knitting her wound shut to send a text to Dana. “Let’s see if I can speed things along.”
Dana sat in one of the reading chairs in the office, facing Lily, who sat on the desk. Through the window, she could just see the hood of the town car through the gap in the wall at the edge of the property. She had come here from the fountain, intent on asking what Lily had in mind, but the succubus had been staring out the window with an intense look of fear.
In Dana’s pocket, her phone buzzed. Out of habit, she pulled it out to reveal that she had a new text.
Feeling hungry? Results soon or you starve.
Shit. She read the text again and swallowed the lump in her throat. What would happen to her when she starved? She looked up at Lily and then back at
