Page 78 of Wicked Witch of the Wolf

“Face me,” Desmond said.

I began to sink.

“Cecil, Fennel, time tomove.” I leapt onto the crumbling concrete front step.

Cecil and Fennel darted out from behind the tree, circled the hole where I’d been standing, and joined me.

The hole widened, and the voice called out again. “Face me, coward.”

Desmond had never sounded this strong. Something was off here. The rest of the coven was pathetically weak, yet he had this much power?

His gray-blond head popped out of the hole he’d started beneath my feet, followed by his spray-tanned face and those beady blue—no,black—eyes. All black, including the sclera. They looked inhuman, as if he were possessed by something demonic, something dark.

“TheWeret-hekau Maleficium,” I whispered.

Fennel’s tail swished. Cecil rooted in his backpack.

The rest of Desmond’s body broke free of the soil as if the earth itself had birthed him. His grin was maniacal, unnaturally stretching from ear to ear, and the sound he expelled was more like a succession of clicks than a laugh.

He halted in front of Gordon Lu’s head. “Failure?—”

“Sir, no, I?—”

“Will not be,” Desmond bent his body in series of bone-crunching, awkward jolts and stared directly into his coven brother’s face, “tolerated.”

“Coven Father, we tried to kill her as you commanded, but she was too strong.” Gordon’s voice shook. “You said she’d be weak! She was stronger than you?—”

“Failure will not be—” Desmond said.

“Please.” Gordon’s voice was whisper-weak. “Sir, I’m begging you to listen.”

“—tolerated.”

Desmond straightened, bones crackling, popping. He shuffled back two steps, and with the moon behind him clearly illuminating his actions, charged forward and kicked Gordon’s head off.

Chapter

Seventeen

Off.

Like a football on a tee at the thirty-five-yard line. Laces out.

“Why? No, no, no.” Words kept falling out of my mouth. I was so shocked I couldn’t make them stop.

Desmond’s head swiveled to the left in the direction of Carolina and Aldrich.

I’d left them vulnerable. Not that they didn’t deserve it, but—I stared down at Gordon’s severed head—not like that. I couldn’t be responsible for that.

There was no time to chant. I had to do something. Fast.

The charm Margaux gave me kicked in, and her face suddenly popped up, blocking my vision. I forced the vision to minimize and threw power behind the word, “¡Levántate!”

My body convulsed as magic pulsed out of me.

Gordon Lu’s dead body was instantly expelled from the ground. I sent a silent supplication to the goddesses that Carolina’s live one had done the same.

Aldrich’s predicament was more complicated. I had to have himin my line of sight to counteract his spell, and I wasn’t stepping off this concrete step. Not until I had Bronwyn and Margaux, and certainly not for a man who’d tried to kill me.

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