It had been right in front of us the whole time. It wasn’t a descendant of the Cavannaughs that had stolen the Tall Man’s remains. That capering man in the leisure suit was Clancy Brannigan. It was the Tall Man’s sole living descendant that Grandpa Morgan’s duppy had possessed in order to work death magic. Unless I was mistaken, it looked very much as though Clancy Brannigan, former inventor and self-proclaimed man of science, hadn’t been building a spaceship or a new and improved widget in his basement. He’d been welding armor onto the stolen bones of his dead ancestor, now inhabited by the duppy and hell-bent on carrying out the Tall Man’s dying curse.

And not only had we conveniently assembled the parade outside the decrepit old Tudor house, but we’d provided a scion of the Cavannaugh bloodline as a handy target.

“Do something!” the chief shouted at us, then turned toward the crowds and the huddled parade participants, waving his arms. “Clear the street! Get off the street!”

After that, things got chaotic.

The Tall Man lunged toward Stacey Brooks, swinging his axe, and I reacted without thinking, summoning my mental energies the way I’d been drilling for hours. Stefan had made me promise not to attempt using them as a weapon, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t even know if I could do it, but as much as I disliked Stacey, I couldn’t just stand there while the resurrected corpse of Pemkowet’s infamous axe murder hacked her to bits. And so instead of kindling a shield as I’d been taught, I visualized a bullwhip of blinding light and cracked it in my mind, wrapping it around the Tall Man’s right arm and yanking on it.

It worked. The axe didn’t fall.

For a split second, I was suffused with a sense of power and triumph. Sinclair, who was closest to Stacey, sprinted forward to haul her behind him with one arm, breaking her paralysis and backing her out of danger.

And then the Tall Man turned his skull in my direction, gas-lamp blue flames flickering in his eye sockets, the end of my mental bullwhip wrapped around his bony fingers, and I realized I couldn’t retract my energy, realized he was drawing on it, the flames leaping higher, and I could see the malevolent joy of the obeah man’s spirit in those fiery hollows, riding the madness of Talman Brannigan’s ghost like some supernatural jockey, working death magic and sowing destruction, draining my very life essence to gain even more strength.