Reign of Evil

Growling caused Laws and Yank to turn around. Hoover had returned and was pulling the torso toward the stairs. But the torso was undulating, as if unwilling to leave without its other body parts.

“Dog has the right idea.” Laws ran up and cleared Hoover away. Then he kicked the torso down the stairs.

Yank came after.

When Laws got to the first floor, he saw her head lying against the front door. He grabbed it by its hair and carried it into the drawing room. He held the head up by the hair. “Found her.”

He saw that YaYa was unconscious on the floor. Holmes knelt next to Van Dyke. The SEAL team leader had his P229 9mm pressed against the man’s head.

“What took you so long?” Holmes asked without moving.

“Turns out she was a golem.”

“You have to cut her,” Van Dyke said. “You can’t kill her.”

“We found that out.”

Then Van Dyke said the unexpected. “Thank you. Thank you, very much. She was holding me prisoner.”

CHAPTER 20

CHICKSANDS RAF. NIGHT.

The loot from the warlock’s bowling alley HQ was extraordinary. Sassy Moore had spent the night going through the tomes and trinkets, impressed with his ability to collect such a diverse library of the arcane. What the warlock had had before his delightfully untimely but uniquely appropriate demise easily rivaled her collection in its magnitude and scope, but then again she’d concentrated on her own path and hadn’t diverged as much as her dear dead enemy. He’d concentrated most of his efforts on fabrication; at least it had appeared so from the immensity of that gargantuan creature. Had Van McKee spent half his time concentrating on astral battle tactics, she wouldn’t have been able to disembody him so easily.

But at least now he was dead. He’d been a thorn in her side for years. He was a controller and wanted her tidily working for him, whether it was under the auspices of one of the covens or druid circles he belonged to or as his own personal servant. Now that Section 9, with the help of the remarkable Jack Walker, had helped her to remove him from this plane of existence, her path toward her own supremacy was clear.

Normally, she’d take her new things and slip away. She had to rebuild her life and establish a new magical focal point. But with the Wild Hunt running amok and the mysterious Red Grove controlling its actions, she’d have to pretend to be a team player. Oh, how droll it was to smile and grin at mortal humor. She’d much rather poke her eyes out and so much as promised herself that she would if she ever found herself in a similar position—one in which she’d have to go hat in hand to the nice military men for support.

Walker came into the room, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, wiping his face with his hand and yawning. He’d only been sleeping for a few hours. He reached into the refrigerator, grabbed a water bottle, twisted it open, and drank it half down before he noticed the witch regarding him.

He glanced down at his boxers, then back to Sassy Moore. “I didn’t see you sitting there.”

“That’s okay. I was invisible.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

Dolt. “No. I was just teasing. I can’t really make myself invisible.”

Still, he looked at her warily. It seemed to wake him and he regarded a box of books on the coffee table in front of her. He came over and lifted the top one free. “Are these helping? Funny-feeling book cover. What’s it made from?”

“Anthropodermic bibliopegy.”

“What kind of animal is that?”

“Not an animal. It’s a term used to define books bound in human skin.”

He dropped it like a sheet of acid and wiped his hand on the side of his boxers.

“You could tell a guy.”

“You might not just walk up and grab stuff.”

He shook his head and gave the entire box a distasteful look. “What’s it about?”

“The Red Barn Murder. William Corder murdered the mother of his child near Suffolk in 1827. He was later killed for his crime, and a surgeon stripped and tanned his skin to use it as a binding for the book about his deed, the subsequent trial, and execution.”

“Morbidly dreary. What’s it used for?”

“Not sure. My guess is it’s a focal point for someone to contact the soul of William Corder.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Walker thought better of it and waved his hand. “Never mind. It would probably be disturbing.”

She smiled primly. “People sure love to eat sausage, but they can’t stand seeing it made.”

He nodded. “I’ve used that saying before myself. It’s absolutely true.” He drank the rest of the water, then broke down the plastic bottle, the crinkling sounds filling the silence. “I’ve been tossing in bed going over the day’s events. I’ve been especially thinking about Sir MacDonald and why he’d be so keen on shutting down a unit almost no one knows exists. It’s not like he can take public credit for it.”