Page 8 of Adepts and Alchemists

“What?” I nearly veered off the road.

“It’s a type of energy vampire, and it can take a person’s entire essence.”

“And this energy vampire lives in Haven Hollow?”

“No. Her name is Andrea Reyes and she works for Murrain—she’s one of the monsters.”

“The terrorist monsters?”

“Right.”

“So, what did she do to Lydia?”

“She calmly and deliberately swallowed Lydia whole.”

“But Lydia’s back there?” I asked, frowning

“That’s not Lydia.”

“Then who—“

“—thething,” Angelo said, lips lifting from sharp teeth as he flicked a hostile glance in the rearview mirror. Neither of us could see the women bundled up in blankets back there, but we could hear things shifting as we took a turn at speed. “—in Lydia’s body is a parasitic spirit named Indigo. She’s been plastered onto Lydia’s body since you first met Lydia. Until the vampire came along, Lydia was the one in control of her own body.”

Ah. So that was why Lydia hadn’t looked like herself in my bathroom. She literally hadn’t been. I was staring at a stranger, not the sexy librarian-type I’d been secretly mooning over for months.

“So... Lydia’s gone?” I asked. “Gone as in like… dead?”

Another snarl. This time I was prepared for Angelo’s shift in mood. The sound didn’t scramble my brain the way it had only a few minutes ago. It was still piss-your-pants scary, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t claiming to be a bastion of courage. But theanger didn’t have the same impact when I realized its source. He wasn’t madat me. Not really. He was upset with himself. The world. The situation. I knew that posture well. Before I’d met the guys and really found my groove in Haven Hollow, I’d felt like that a lot. Lost. Helpless. Lonely.

“No, she’s not dead,” Angelo said, the words coming out from between his teeth. “We’re going to get Lydia back.”

“Okay,” I agreed easily. “How are we going to do that?”

To that, there was no reply.

Chapter Five

Indigo

I’d become a connoisseur of awkward silences over the years.

I’d never met someone quite as adept at producing them as I was. Lucretia Boline and her deputies had greeted me with enough stony silence on our first meeting to wall me in solitary confinement. I’d had my share of silences with Anthony in the time we’d been together. Especially when the magnitude of what I’d been involved in stole even the most ardent spark of desire from his eye. I’d had them with Lydia as well, when she’d been too outraged and disgusted by what I’d dragged into her life to speak to me. But this quiet was the coup de grace. The eternal stretch of permanent silence.

Lydia would never break the through the barrier between us again, offering me another chance that I did not, in any way, shape, or form, deserve. She couldn’t. She was gone. Dead in my place, if Murrain had his way. And even if she didn’t remain a mass of energy in the Mananangal’s stomach, she was now barely more than a ghost. The reversal of our fortunes was so incredibly unjust that I wanted to scream.

We were now taking up residence in a motel about a half an hour outside of Haven Hollow. We needed to hide at the same time that we needed to plan our next steps. This was one of the temporary safe houses on my list of safe houses.

I buried my face in the overstuffed pillow to muffle the groan that escaped me. Reconstituting, even in a new and relatively healthy body, had been hellish. There wasn’t an inch of my body or soul that didn’t ache. Not to mention the extra damage I’d incurred during the hour and a half we’d spent driving down a pockmarked road, hitting every speed bump the mundane driver could find. Even with layers of fabric in the way, all of uswere so tightly piled in, elbows and ankles dug into the witch lying next to you. Depending on how harsh the bump was, the seating arrangement could change. I’d started the journey lying alongside Wanda so she could hiss furious follow-up questions in my ear. I’d ended the drive wedged between Poppy and Olga.

Both had rooms down the hall from mine, as the coven tried to figure out who I should bunk with. Rightfully, none of them trusted Angelo to take the queen-sized bed next to mine. Even if the demon was as sold on Lydia as he claimed to be, it didn’t make him safe to be around. If anything, my presence might be a temptation too great to bear. He blamed me for what had happened to her. I knew that if there was no way to get her back, he’d kill me. Or, at least, he’d try. And maybe I’d let him succeed. Of all the things I’d done in my life, this was the worst.

The monsters had come for my friend, and I hadn’t been able to protect her. For all my power and knowledge, I hadn’t seen the trap coming in time. I hadn’t stopped it from snapping closed on her, extinguishing her life. It was my fault she was dead. Permanent or not, it was unacceptable. I deserved a thousand hells for it. Maybe that was why I hadn’t been allowed to move on. Maybe it was the goddess’ unique and horrifying punishment for someone who’d transgressed as badly as I had. Maybe I’d be stuck like this for all eternity, unable to move on. Always here. Always hurting.

That seemed about the right speed, given how my life had gone thus far.

I hunched in on myself, arms winding around my knees when no glib teasing wafted out of the darkness to chase away my pessimism. Lydia wasn’t a beam of concentrated sunshine, the way the other gypsy woman was, but she was delightfully free of the kind of nihilistic attitude that had eaten me alive for years. Looking at life from her eyes, I’d half-begun to believe the world might be a place worth saving. Without her here, the grimthoughts were circling, ready to prey on me in my nightmares tonight. After the day we’d had, I was doomed to have at least one. It would be the first time since my end that I’d have to experience the terror alone.

I should have gotten up to shower. Washing away the blood and filth of the day wouldn’t solve the issue, but it would make me feel better. Instead, I stayed where I’d fallen, face-down on the bed in this motel in the middle of nowhere, my limbs feeling impossibly heavy. It should have been exhilarating to move on my own. But I could only focus on the heartless toll it had come at. I really ought to have been planning. Strategizing. Trying to make allies. But doing any of it felt hopeless. The odds of success were laughably slim, even if we managed to do everything right. What did it matter if the coven liked me when one of their own was at stake? I didn’t belong here. I knew it. They knew it.