Page 64 of Witches of Dubious Origin
If the ghoul was capable of blushing, I swear he would have been. “Sorry about the…er…I don’t know my own strength.”
“Apparently.” Olive stared at him until he looked away.
“Where’s the service exit?” Jasper asked. He hoisted Moran’s body up over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.
“Follow me,” Malachi said. He shuffled toward the back of the room and we followed, although Eloise kept a body between him and herself at all times.
Malachi led us up a flight of stairs that opened to the delivery area. No one was there, and he strode across the concrete receiving room to the large metal doors at the back. He pressed a button and the door on the left slowly lifted.
Parked just beyond the loading dock was one of the facility’s shuttle buses. It looked like a short school bus but was painted in the same signature teal and purple as the outside of the building.
“I can’t be seen with you,” Malachi said. He gestured for us to go ahead without him.
Olive looked him over and said, “Just so we’re clear, if you cross me, I’ll come back for you and you won’t like the outcome.”
Malachi blanched. “Much as I love your company and your veiled threats, I have a good thing going here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Then be sure that you don’t.” Olive gestured for us to go around her and get in the shuttle. Jasper led the way, jogging down the steps. I hurried ahead and opened the back doors for him. He rolled Moran into the space for shopping bags and whatnot. He stepped back and I shut the doors.
“Thanks,” he said. The man wasn’t even winded.
Jasper turned back around and met Olive at the base of the steps, taking the keys from her. Malachi stood on the loading dock, watching us as the metal door lowered. His eyes met mine, a slow smile curved his lips, and then he pursed his lips and blew me an air-kiss.
My insides shivered with cold. Could ghouls do that or was it my own horror icing my internal organs?
“Ignore him.” Olive took my arm and led me onto the shuttle where Eloise was already seated. “Ghouls are the worst.”
I fell into a seat and rubbed my temples. Ghouls were real. Dead bodies came back to life. Necromancers existed and I was one apparently. And Olive was…I had no idea what Olive was. A witch? Yes, but that seemed too tepid for her. What was more powerful than a witch? A sorceress? Maybe. Okay, I was living in a world where all of this was in-my-face real. Cool, cool, cool.
“Where to?” Jasper asked as he slid into the driver’s seat.
“The Newtonian.” Olive settled back into the seat behind his.
Jasper raised one eyebrow. “That’s rather posh, isn’t it?”
“Four-star hotels don’t ask questions.”
“True enough.” He started the engine and pulled out of the lot. The shuttle bus bounced over a speed bump and we all turned to see how Moran’s body had fared, as if expecting him to groan or something. He didn’t.
“Also,” Olive continued, “Moran’s grave is in the neighboring town, so this will give us easy access for when you two return him.”
“You two?” I asked. I hoped Olive didn’t mean what I thought she meant. After the deranged Viking episode, I’d made a vow to myself not to spend another night in a cemetery until I was six feet under myself.
“Yes, you and Jasper,” Olive clarified. Damn it.
20
“Eloise can’t risk losing another body part,” Olive said. “And I’ll be busy digging through Juliet’s medical records, trying to determine what actually happened to her, so that leaves you two to return the body to its place of origin.”
I wanted to argue that Juliet was my mother, so if anyone should be looking through her file, it was me. Olive’s eyebrows rose as if she expected me to respond that way. If I did, I knew I would have to admit that I had no idea what to look for. I closed my mouth and turned my head to look out the window.
It was late afternoon. The day’s earlier clear, crisp weather had turned dreary, more aligned with my mood, for which I was grateful. We got stuck in rush hour traffic and spent more than an hour in one of the tunnels under Boston.
I frequently glanced at the body bag in the back. I had no idea why. Did I expect him to reanimate? Maybe. I certainly had no idea what I was doing, and who knew how Eloise had pulled that incantation or spell or whatever it was out of her Swiss-cheese brain. What if Moran’s return to rot was onlytemporary and he woke up? The thought was terrifying. As I stared at the body bag looking for movement, something bothered me, but I couldn’t figure out what.
But then it hit me. “How did you manage to mask his smell?”
“Excuse me?” Olive had been leaning against the windowpane with her eyes closed.
