Chapters (50)
- Cover
- Roc Books by Jacqueline Carey
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
“I don’t know yet.” I switched my hobgoblin-cracked sunglasses for the new ones. “I need to lie down in a dark room and think about it.”
“Okay.”
Jen drove me home and insisted on staying with me while we waited to see if the meds kicked in. She went around the apartment and closed all the shades while I lay on the futon with my eyes closed and held a plastic bag full of ice against my jaw.
“Do you need me to call in to work for you?” she asked softly when the room was as dim as it was going to get.
“Not yet,” I murmured. “I’m not scheduled to go in until this afternoon. What about you? I don’t mean to keep you.”
“It’s okay, I didn’t have anything today but end-of-season cleanup on a couple of places that were just vacated.” Jen worked for the Cassopolis family business, cleaning houses and rental properties. “What about Sinclair? I mean, if this is obeah, he ought to know what to do about it, right? It’s his fucking sister that hexed you.”
“Probably.” It was easier to think while lying prone. “No, don’t call him. Not yet. I need to figure this out on my own.”
“Oh, yeah? How’s that working out for you so far?”
“Ha ha. If I call Sinclair, he’ll confront dear Emmy,” I said. “And I don’t want her thinking I needed her brother’s help to beat this.”
“Even if you do?” Jen sounded skeptical. “No offense, Daise, but isn’t pride one of the Seven Deadlies you’re supposed to worry about?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not just pride. It’s about status, too. That’s a big deal in the eldritch community. I need to show Emmeline Palmer she can’t sail into Pemkowet and fuck with Hel’s liaison without consequences, which means I need to fix this before Sinclair hears about it.”
“How?”
“Good question.”
Now that I was past the panicking stage, my wits were working again. Slowly and painfully, but they were working. Option one: I could try to strong-arm Emmeline into unhexing me. Well, not me personally, not in this condition, but I could call on allies. The fact that Emmeline was wearing some kind of protective ward strong enough to make a two-hundred-year-old ghoul wary was an issue, but I was pretty sure that it wouldn’t dissuade oh, say, Lurine. No matter what mojo dear Emmy was packing, I doubted it was a match for an eldritch being with fond memories of the Bronze Age and the physical capability of crushing her to death one vertebra at the time. Or maybe Gus the ogre. He could always threaten to bash her over the head and eat her.