Ama raised an eyebrow. “What do you plan to do?”
“Enjoy myself. If he’s useless, there’s no point in keeping him.”
Oswald sighed. “Freya, is this necessary?”
I grinned. “Not at all, but I’m still going to do it. Assuming Nolan is OK with me taking over control of his captive?”
The big boss had followed in behind me, looking at me curiously. “Technically, you haven’t yet proven you’re the killer I wanted to hire,” he said.
No one doubted that, at this point. I’d be thrilled to prove it once and for all, though. “So he’s mine, then?”
“Yours.”
Amabella released the last of her magic, and the vampire slumped in his seat, panting. I wasn’t sure what she’d done to him, but I assumed he’d been in some sort of illusion where wolves like Clement had been tearing him apart. She’d used the shifter to enhance the integrity of the spell. Clement trotted out of the room to shift back into his human form, and Ama retreated to the doorway, leaning against the wall. “Is it OK if I watch?” she asked.
“If you can stomach it, and if you swear on your life you won’t breathe a word about this to Mabel,” I said.
Releasing a delicate snort, Ama nodded. “I’m not going to traumatize my poor girlfriend by regaling her with stories of her cousin killing people.”
“This won’t just be killing.”
I grabbed the hem of my big shirt, tying it in a knot and tucking it so it wouldn’t get too bloody. I’d probably have to toss it anyway, but I’d prefer not to drip. Then I stretched my wrists and rolled my neck like I was about to begin an athletic event. “Do you want assistance, or am I useless to you as a person?” Ozzy asked.
Laughing, I nodded. “Of course you’re helping. It’ll be better this way. You can pass me torture implements instead of just getting fur all over my stuff. I have no idea what’s happened to my wand since I’ve been here, so I’ll have to manage without help focusing the spells.”
Amabella placed one hand warily on her wand, but she wouldn’t need to step in. Some witches needed a wand to focus their magic. For me, it simply helped.
Drawing a few glowing runes on the floor with the tip of my finger, a suitcase of implements appeared on top of them. Normally I would be hesitant about giving away our location by leaving a magic trail, but we had no secrecy left. With the commotion, the Next Life Company probably knew where we were too. They wouldn’t intervene, though. Not yet. It was better if we took each other out, so long as the realm’s secrets weren’t at risk of being revealed to the Nulls.
I flipped open the top of the suitcase, grinning at the rows of silver instruments.
Oh, how I’ve missed you.
“You have an entire torture kit?” Nolan asked, sounding impressed.
His warmth came close to my back as he peeked over my shoulder. Interesting. He hadn’t gotten within a foot of me at any point up until now.
“Yep. I had a few different locations I’d scoped out and spelled to be secret, too. My concealment magic is probably fading by now, though.”
“No wonder you never got caught.”
“I’m good at what I do.”
I got the feeling these men assumed I’d only killed out of necessity. No one but Oswald realized how much I enjoyed the process itself.
Grabbing a small throwing knife from the kit, I flung it in the direction of the captive, whispering a spell in Latvian. It stuck in his thigh and he screamed.
Nolan was still close to me, and I was enjoying our fucked up version of intimacy. “Why is he screaming so much?” he asked when the captive hadn’t stopped with a few seconds.
“I spelled the knife while it was in the air. There’s a poison coating the blade that’s running through his bloodstream right now.”
Humming, Nolan reached around me to grab a scalpel from the kit. If he’d been anyone else, I would have smacked his hand away, including Shan. With Nolan, I was just kind of excited he was getting close to me. “I pictured you as more of a traditionalist,” he said. “A thousand tiny cuts until they can’t take it anymore.”
He ran the blade of the scalpel across the pad of his finger without a flinch, closing the cut with his tongue. “Is that what you would do?”
“No, I use my air magic. I’ve been told not being able to breathe is one of the most horrible feelings in the world.”
“I would imagine it is, after a certain point.”
