Raising Innocence: A Rylee Adamson Novel(53)

Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open, but the girl caught on quick. “He scared the shit out of me.”
I reacted the way Giselle would have when I was young. “Language. You can use whatever bad words you want when you’re an adult. Not when you’re a kid.”
She blushed, and I leaned back in my chair, fingers laced behind my head. I Tracked the missing kids, getting a bead on them almost instantly. They were way the fuck out there now, way far south; we’d scared the bloody Necromancer something fierce. Good and bad. He knew we were coming now, but shit, we needed him to hold out, to stick around in one place for a while.
Will finally took the bait. “What vampire?”
“Hmm? Are you talking to us now?” I fluttered my eyelashes at him.
Pamela twiddled her thumbs all innocence and sugar. “I didn’t think he liked us anymore,” she said softly. Score one for the kid, Will’s face drained of colour.
“Nah, he’s just pissed that we didn’t take him with us. Thinks that we should just trust him implicitly though we’ve known him for less than forty-eight hours.” I gave Will a look, the one that had cowed many a man, many a supernatural, for that matter.
It worked like a charm. He let out a sigh. “Listen, you just made our job that much harder—you erased evidence, all those kids’ bodies gone.”
I shook my head. “You and Denning and Valley are so busy being angry you didn’t bother to ask if I learned anything.”
Will’s eyes widened, bleeding from brown to green. “Did you?”
I nodded and put my feet up on the desk. I had to play this right or we’d never find the kids, not with half the fucking task force tagging along. Sure, I’d made a mistake. I wasn’t fucking perfect. But now I had an idea of what we needed to do in order to catch the Necromancer.
“You in or out, Will?”
There were no other words needed. He grimaced and then nodded. “Yeah, I’m in.”
“Good, because the first thing I need you to do is find someone who can help us with the Veil. We need to block an exit if we’re going to catch this bastard. He can jump through the Veil without leaving a trace behind. I can’t stop that, neither can Pamela.”
“Block the . . . is that even possible?”
I wasn’t positive, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. “My Shamans back home could do it. You got anything comparable?”
He frowned. “Yes . . . there is someone I know that should be able to help. But we’ll have to get past my Destruction and that could be tricky, they aren’t happy with me right now.”
I stared at him blankly, and then lifted one finger to stop him as he moved to leave. “I’m sorry. Destruction? Are you in a demolition crew that I don’t know about?”
Will laughed. “A group of wild cats is called a Destruction of Cats. Apt, considering just who it’s applying to. Try to stay out of trouble until I get back. I need to check it out with my contact first, and I don’t want them to get spooked by you.”
I laughed and stood as he moved around the desk and headed for the front door.
“You don’t think you’re going without us, do you?”
Will shrugged, and then snorted softly to himself. “Suit yourself, but not all the cats are as sweet as me.”
Touching Pamela lightly on the arm, we headed out after Will. It seemed that London had shown me a lot of the backside of Will, and while it wasn’t a bad view, it did nothing for me. Pamela, on the other hand, seemed more than happy with the view we were given.
“He’s kinda cute, isn’t he?” she said, her voice low.
I had to clamp my teeth hard, remembering at the last instant how fragile young girl’s egos could be. In that moment, I missed Giselle more than ever. She would have known what to say, how to handle Pamela so that she wasn’t completely fucked up by the time she was an adult. Poor Pamela, all she had was me.
“Yeah, I guess. If you like a scrawny kind of guy.”
She giggled into her hand, and I did my best not to roll my eyes. God save me from witches; maybe they were all libido driven? Shit, the only thing I could hope for was that she didn’t turn out like Milly.

17
The boat rolled as they crossed the channel, the waves crashing against the sides, sprays of salty water bursting up and over the guardrails where Milly leaned over, heaving her guts out.
O’Shea smiled, or at least tried to. If he thought he could push her over the edge, he would; if he thought he could get close enough to get some of the salt water on his torc, he’d go for that too. As it was, he’d tried to do both several times to no avail. The witch groaned and started to come back up over the railing, then shook her head and heaved again, long dark hair getting caught up in her vomit. The night sky was brilliant overhead, and it was probably the only thing that kept Milly from completely humiliating herself. There just weren’t that many people up at this hour.