Chapters (42)
- EVERY
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- 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
- The Undead Pool: An Excerpt
- Chapter 2
- About the Author
- Praise for KIM HARRISON’sprevious Rachel Morgan novelsDEAD WITCH WALKING andTHE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNDEAD
- Also by Kim Harrison
- About the publisher
“It will be okay,” he said, his voice a black-earth, rich rumble that went to my core and gripped my heart.
“How do you know?” I whispered.
A blond-dyed eyebrow shifted up so slightly, I wasn’t sure it even moved. “Because if they kill me, then I’d be dead and I’ll hunt them down. They want to—talk. Stay in the car.”
He got out and shut the door. The car was still running, the thrum of the engine tightening my muscles one by one. Falling snow hit the windshield to melt, and I turned off the wipers. “Stay in the car,” I muttered, fidgeting. I glanced behind me, seeing the three guys from the BMW moving closer. Kisten was lit to a stark severity as he crossed in front of his lights, approaching the four men with his palms forward with a casualness that I knew was false. “Like hell I’m going to stay in the car,” I said, reaching for the handle and lurching into the cold.
Kisten turned. “I told you to stay in the car,” he said, and I pushed down my fear at the starkness in his expression. He had already divorced himself from what was going to happen.
“Yeah, you did,” I shot back, forcing my arms down. It was cold and I shivered.
He hesitated, clearly torn. The approaching men spread out. We were surrounded. Their faces were shadowed but confident. All they needed was a bat or crowbar to thump against their hand to make it complete. But they were witches. Their strength was in their magic.
My breath came slow, and I rocked forward on my flat boots. Feeling the stir of adrenaline, I moved into the car’s headlights and put my back to Kisten’s.
The black hunger in his eyes seemed to pause. “Rachel, please wait in the car,” he said his voice making my skin crawl. “This won’t take long, and I don’t want you to get cold.”
He didn’t want me to get cold? I thought, watching the three guys from the BMW behind us settle in to make a living fence. “There are seven witches here,” I said softly. “It only takes three to make a net, and one to hold it once it’s in place.”
“True, but it only takes me three seconds to drop a man.”
The men in my sight faltered. There was a reason the I.S. didn’t send witches to bring in a vampire. Seven against one might do it, but not without someone getting really hurt.