After only a few minutes, I stepped back. I didn’t like leaving Pamela on her own, even if she was a powerful witch in her own right.
Leaping and lunging up the stairs to the third floor, I kept a sharp ear for the zombies below me. Upside? They were slow, no fleet-footed runners in the bunch. Downside? They were still coming and wouldn’t stop until they’d been killed or Anne turned them off—which I was betting wouldn’t be anytime soon.
I hit the trapdoor with my shoulder, shoving it open onto the roof, climbing up and through.
Anne had beat me there.
Scrambling, I spun out on the tiles as I slammed the trapdoor shut, my eyes never leaving the scene in front of me. Pamela was backed against the far edge of the roof, and Anne was advancing on her, crooning in Russian.
I lifted the crossbow without a thought. Feeling sorry for Anne didn’t mean I’d let her hurt, or take, Pamela.
The bolt fired seamlessly and slammed into Anne’s spine, right between her shoulder blades. She screeched and spun, her hands curling into hooked claws they twisted so much.
“You would keep me from my child?”
“She’s not yours to take,” I said. This had gone far enough. The kids were returned home and as much as I didn’t want to kill Anne, it had to be done.
“Your mentor would be disappointed in you. Her spirit hovers close, disapproving.” Anne said and the grip on my crossbow faltered.
“She is not here.” My voice, though, was not steady. Fuck, was Giselle really here? If anyone would know, it would be a Necromancer.
Anne shook her head. “You have lost more than I realized. I see the bodies around you now, the death that clings to your shoulders. Those who love you, they die. But you live. I know this pain better than any other.”
I shook, hard—hard enough that I knew I’d never get a good shot off. Dropping the crossbow, I pulled a sword from its sheath. “Life’s a bitch.” I took three running steps. “And then you die.” Before I could slam my sword home, she was yanked into the air away from me, her arms pinned to her sides, a surprised look etched into her face.
Pamela stood across from me. “I don’t think you should kill her. She isn’t really bad. Is she? We can put the amulet on her now.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of what I’d almost done and why. I’d been ready to kill Anne to shut her up, to keep her from saying the things I already knew and avoided thinking about at all costs. And in the past it would have been fine, but with Pamela watching, well, I was going to have to curb my innate tendency to kill first and ask later. Maybe I was going to have to learn to do some growing up of my own.
“No, she isn’t really bad. Just sick.” I lowered the sword and gave Pamela a tired, worn the fuck out smile. “You did the right thing.”
The young witch smiled at me, her face lighting up. She lowered Anne back to the roof.
Anne smiled down on her, a sense of contentment and happiness rolling off her entire frame. “My sweet babushka, saving Mother.”
My fingers went to my pocket and the stone there, the stone that would give Anne lucidity. The stone Giselle had said I would need, and I’d almost ignored. I pulled it out, then without asking, slipped it over her head.
25
As it turned out, Will, Deanna and Alex were a long time in showing up. But with Anne back in full control of her faculties, she put the zombies down. To be safe, though, we waited on the roof. Just in case.
Pamela and I sat playing twenty questions and I spy to pass the time. Now that she was lucid, Anne even joined in. Yes, it was weird to be playing childish games with a woman that only a short time before had tried to kill me via her zombies. Then again, she seemed almost normal. The crossbow bolt had done very little damage. What I didn’t know when I shot her was that Necromancers could pull energy from the dead to heal. Anne explained it all to us while we waited, like we were in some sort of supernatural convention.
“The dead have energy, just as the living do,” Anne said, her head tipped to one side. “It is how we live so long. It is why I could keep the madness at bay as long as I did.”
I lifted my foot and put my boot on the edge of the roof wall. “Brittany was burned, that’s why you couldn’t raise her, isn’t it?”
Anne gave me a sad smile. “Yes, it was the practice then to burn the bodies, cleansing them so the sickness wouldn’t pass. The madness came on after that, slowly, but still . . . .”
Pamela wrinkled her nose and slipped out of the long black dress. Anne’s eyes still tracked Pamela’s movements, though she clearly knew it wasn’t her daughter. The Necromancer’s eyes were full of longing for something she couldn’t have.