“Corb liked you,” Tom said. “He was worried you’d be hurt. If you were kicked out . . . then you would be safe, wouldn’t you? Maybe this was how he figured he’d make you leave and keep the rest of us busy all in one fell swoop.”

I didn’t like the way my guts twisted with that statement. It meant I couldn’t just call Corb the bad guy and let it go at that. He’d been trying to protect me in his own twisted way. Was that possible?

“What about Crash then?” I said. “He made the knife they are going to need to kill Eric with. Which they can’t do because,” I fished the knife out of my bag and held it up carefully by the unfinished tang.

Eammon let out a low whistle. “Good that you have it, but they could use another knife. It just won’t be as effective. If Crash got caught up in something even he isn’t strong enough to deal with, then they’ll be too strong for us to deal with on our own.” He looked at me. “You’re sure it’s Bonaventure and not somewhere else? There are a lot of places that can work for grave magic. That seems almost . . . brassy to head out there.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said.

Only I didn’t know for sure because I hadn’t checked the place out. I was going on what Jinx had told me. A trickster who’d given me the information in exchange for a signed book that she’d promptly eaten. Shoot, I hoped I was right.

I hoped that Jinx wasn’t playing with me, because it could cost Eric his life.

23

Tom drove the three of us to Bonaventure in his low-slung sedan that had a skeleton etched into the side. “Not real subtle,” I said as I ran a hand over the stitched leather interior. The stitches themselves were all bones and swirls that my brain tried to tell me were magical symbols.

“Around here, it’s no big deal,” Tom said. “Tourists just think I’m one of the guides.”

“He does it to impress the ladies,” Eammon shot at him and they laughed like there was nothing wrong, but I could feel the energy pouring off the two of them.

I looked from one to the other. “You two are nervous, huh?”

Tom let out a slow breath. “Louis didn’t just stay behind to watch over Luke. This is a night for the dead. That is Louis’s magic. The problem is there is a bit of madness there too. Old vampire blood runs through the necromancers and if the gateway being opened needs a lot of blood, it could literally set him off.”

I nodded as if yes, of course, that made total logical sense. I mean, it did in a very weird way, but there was still part of me that was like whoa, nelly, this was not what I was expecting.