Grizz watched with patience, still holding the witch by her hair despite her lack of struggle. Until the witch ceased moving altogether.
“You can let her go,” Val told him, her voice echoing from realm to realm.
Grizz released her and cocked his head. “It didn’t hurt when you released me, but she seemed to feel pain.”
“You came willingly.” She smiled at him. “And I still thank you for your sacrifice.”
Though everyone regarded necromancers as evil, Val liked to treat others as she wanted to be treated. Most people she left alone. Assholes, like this witch, got what was coming to them.
Grizz, an honorable warrior, had been given a choice. Like Val, he wanted to go out fighting. At his age though, he wouldn’t have lasted much longer battling the strigoi. The Crimson Veil clan of vampires near his home were twice as vicious as they’d been before losing their last patriarch.
In any case, Val gratefully accepted Grizz’s pledge of loyalty.
Before she stepped fully back into the world of the living, she took the essence of all the dead, only reanimating the lead witch since the rest of the coven had been too weak to meet Val’s standards.
“What’s your name?” Val asked her.
“Ashia Cane.”
“Well, Ashia. You are now mine. You will obey me in all things. Got it?”
“Yes, mistress.” Ashia looked duller than she had when living, her eyes clouded over the only visible sign she was no longer alive. She cast no scent and emanated no magic, banked under Val’s protection of undeath.
Feeling generous, Val stepped back fully into the living realm and smiled. “Call me Val.”
“Yes, Val.”
“What next, Val?” Grizz asked.
“Now we clean up the area and have Ashia gather her supplies for us. Where are you located, Ashia? And will anyone miss you now that you’re mine?”
“We have a hideaway in the city no one knows about. The mages have been trying to get rid of us for a while, because they think we’re in league with the warlocks in Mt. Baker. They won’t miss us.”
Interesting. Ashia’s personality tried to slide back in, but Val didn’t want that. So she sipped the last bit of, not soul, exactly, but spiritual essence, from the woman. Black mist seeped from Ashia’s eyes and mouth, and Val inhaled it.
“Ah, there we are.” She reshaped that energy, took a small bit of herself and bound it to the ball of power, then released it back into Ashia’s mouth.
The witch stilled then relaxed.
“Ah, better,” she and Val said together.
Val nodded at her to continue, and Ashia said, “Apologies. I’m the new head of the coven, and I had a lot of inferiority and shame to work out. I killed my previous leader to take her place.”
“Noted.”
“Anyway, the coven’s hideaway is ideal. It’s right near the bazaar. We have access to a lot of the ingredients and potionsfound in the underground. That’s the section of the bazaar hidden from most of the magir.”
Val had heard of the underground, but since the magir bazaar was hidden in the middle of the humans as it was, she’d always thought “underground” stood for the bazaar. Notanotherlevel of secrets.
“Have you ever heard of a sorcerer named Vladimir?”
“No, but there’s a new warlock by the name of Spectre. He’s powerful and destructive, and he’s made a name for himself in the underground.” Ashia paused and looked at Val with dead eyes. “No one has ever seen him and lived to talk about it.”
“I know.” So frustrating.
“A witch who used to be part of our coven saw him then died right after.”
“How do you know?”
