Page 69 of Witches of Dubious Origin
“Among other reasons.” He rose to stand and held his hand out to me. “Come on, let’s get this bugger buried and get some food. I’m famished.”
Jasper propped his flashlight on the headstone and stood with his arms wide. As I watched, he gestured to the mounds of dirt that surrounded the grave, and like a maestro conducting a symphony, he guided the piles of earth back into the grave, burying Mr. Milton David Moran for what I hoped was the last time.
• • •
We arrived at the penthouse looking rough. The doorman, upon hearing our destination, remained impassive, leading me to suspect that Olive had warned him that we would look worse for wear, or maybe that’s just how doormen in posh hotels responded to people covered in leavesand mud with the lingering scent of a graveyard about their persons.
The elevator opened into a lobby that had only one door. We crossed the marble floor and Jasper turned the knob and pushed the door open. I froze in the doorway, taking in the opulence before me.
The floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of the Boston skyline in the distance. The furniture was sleek and modern and mostly white. I glanced down at my dirt-encrusted clothes, afraid to step inside.
“There’s a laundry bag in each of your rooms. Use them, and we’ll have your clothes washed tonight and returned in the morning. I took the liberty of buying you each some clothes from the spa. They’re nothing fancy, but they’ll do.” Olive was seated at a large table with a laptop in front of her. She was peering at the screen, not bothering to look at us.
“Brilliant, thank you,” Jasper said. “I, for one, am going to take the longest, hottest shower of my life.”
“You have thirty minutes. I’ve ordered room service for you,” Olive said. “They’ll be here in half an hour.”
Jasper started across the room and, realizing I wasn’t moving, paused and turned around. “All right, Zoe?” His tone was gentle, as if he expected the teeth-chattering disaster I’d been in the grave to return.
I nodded. “Yes, I’m just getting my bearings.”
“Leave her with me,” Olive said. “I want to talk to her.”
Jasper glanced from me to Olive and back. He lifted his brows, silently asking if this was okay. I nodded.
“Bedrooms are up there.” Olive gestured to the spiralstaircase at the end of the room. “Yours is the second on the right.”
I watched Jasper climb the stairs and disappear down the hallway before I spoke. “Did you want to know how it went?”
“You’re both here, so I assume it went well.”
“Moran woke up.” I strolled across the room and stood beside the table.
“Did he?” Olive turned away from the computer and glanced at me. Her gaze lingered on my neck. “I see there was a bit of a struggle.”
I covered what I was certain were bruises with my hand. “How is it possible that he woke up? And, bigger concern, will he wake up again?”
Olive leaned back in her chair. “These are very good questions to which I have no answers.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because necromancy is your gift, not mine.”
“Surely you’ve come across this sort of thing before.”
“Sorry, no.” Olive looked very matter-of-fact about it. Why this irritated me so much, I had no idea, but it really peeved me.
“It’s possible that the necromancer who raised Moran the first time raised him again in the cemetery,” Olive said.
“You mean they were in the graveyard when we were there?” I asked.
Olive shrugged. “I have no other explanation for how he woke up.”
“Then they could raise him again!” I was freaking out. I knew it. Olive knew it. There was no use trying to pretend I wasn’t.
“Why would they when it seems they only raised Moranto kill you and he failed?” Olive asked. “Now that you’ve sent him back and buried him, they’ll likely raise another corpse to try to kill you.”
She said this so matter-of-factly as she turned back to her computer that I wondered for a moment if the metaphorical heart encased in ice inEl Corazónin the BODO collection wasn’t Ariana Darkwood’s but rather Olive’s, because clearly she didn’t have one.
