Page 6

Holy hell.

That was the only way to describe her rage—an avenging, dark angel exploding with light. Long, frizzy hair fanned out in all directions like a halo as she lay on the ground, her spine arched and head thrown back in agony. Her eyes were pure white as chaotic white magick leaked from every pore in her body, too much even though she was far from a tiny sprig of a thing.

Thick thighs, big eyes as the humans would say.

Focus, Pride.

I put my hand out to siphon off the excess magick and keep our realm from collapsing. It had happened a rare few times before, and I didn’t feel like doing the paperwork today. Hades trusted me to handle things in his absence, after all.

FWOOM.

The backlash hit me hard, and I almost took a half-step back.Almost. I’d been doing this awhile; a few hundred years, at least. The tang of her magick hit me, pure and untouched.

Ah, that made more sense. She’d died a virgin. That would piss me off, as well.

But it wasn’t just that. There was something else about the magick and how it sang through my veins—how struck I was by her beauty and her pain, even though I saw thousands of humans in various states of agony and wrongful deaths by the minute.

Do your job.

I pushed at the magick, forcing it back toward its source. She screamed, the sound reverberating so badly that Janine squealed and put her hands over her ears.

Pixies had such sensitive hearing.

Images of the girl’s life flashed before my eyes.

“Are you taking notes?” I yelled back to Janine, making sure she was still with us. Raw, white magick sometimes did weird things to different supernaturals.

Janine squeaked, but I heard the scrabble of her pen and clipboard.

“Take notes. A virgin witch,” I dictated, reading her life story as it rushed at me through her magick.

“Tragic indeed. And...oh my. Murdered by her prospective mate. Now, that was truly a tragedy worth the rage of a woman scorned!” I laughed. “Werewolves are such brutes.”

“Marked as unfinished business?” Janine yelled back, pen hovering over the checklist.

It should have ended there. I would confirm the diagnosis, then send her back to the living plane as a ghost until all her extra magick dispersed into the real world, and she’d come back here. Or in her case, she had enough pent-up magick and purpose to do more.

Intriguing.

“Now, what to do with you?”

With a mighty tug I pulled the magick out and held it to my chest like a favored pet, stroking and soothing it as her body went limp. Something cold went through me at seeing her lifeless and dark like that in my realm. I couldn’t imagine her as anything but what she already was. And how fun would it be to see if she finished her business up above?

That could be fun. And I had so few opportunities for entertainment.

“Reanimation,” I stated confidently, making a rash decision.

I felt rather than heard Janine’s pause behind me. Reanimation was rare, and strictly controlled. It would have tobe reported on up above. My brothers would remark on it and possibly tease me.

Why this one? Why is she special?

Let them tease me. I couldn’t explain it, but I had to do it for the wrath inside this soul, for this bit of Witch Hazel in front of me.

I was full of jokes today. I made a mental note to tell a few to Lust. He usually appreciated them, though he preferred smutty quips. Sloth loved my jokes, though.

I needed to visit him.

“Cause of death?” Janine asked, clearing her throat and trying to proceed.