We’d followed the wolf out of the clearing and into the trees. I knew the actual acreage the bokor inhabited couldn’t possibly be that big. I couldn’t track any scent, because everything smelled like decay, death, and rot. “My guess is she’s either blocking the way to her lair or this realm extends wider than we think.”
“Wait a second.” Marcy held up her hand. “My backside is ringing again.” She reached around and plucked out her phone.
I leaned over to read it with her.
SOUTH.
I sighed. “Seriously? That’s it?” I called into the trees. “I have no idea where south is. We can’t even see the sun from here.” I glanced at the sky to get a sense of our location, but only a sliver of light filtered through the thick overcast.
“Hey, look.” Marcy pointed. “She’s giving us helpful hints.” A tree began to glow off to our left. It was a soft yellow light, radiating outward like someone had turned a nightlight on inside the trunk. “She’s a tricky one, you gotta hand it to her.”
“Tricky, and much too secretive for her own good.” I moved toward the glowing tree, and right as we reached it, another tree in the distance blinked on.
As we picked our way through, Marcy shook her head. “I wish I knew more about this kind of magic. Being able to create an alternate reality is heavy-duty. It’s extremely old magic. This bokor must worship lots of loa to gather that much strength.”
Right as Marcy uttered the word loa, something swished by my face. I batted the air. “We’ve got company.”
There was a short pause, and then a soft voice purred next to my ear. We’ve been waiting a long time for you… female wolf…
I glanced back at Marcy, my eyebrow arched. “You heard that, right?” I asked.
“Heard what?”
“The hot gusty cloud of air that just said, ‘We’ve been waiting a long time for you, female wolf’?”
“Nope,” she said. “But all my hairs are on end again. See?” She held up her arm. “I can sense a presence, but that’s it. I guess those words are only for your ears.”
“But Naomi heard them before. I don’t get it.” I pondered that as another gust blew by me. If I had to guess, it felt like this thing was trying to push me back the way we’d come. “I think the spirit, or whatever, is pissed Juanita is leading us in the right direction. I think it wants me to go back. Something tells me we’re jumping the bokor’s timetable. Maybe she’s not ready for us?” I angled my head up at the treetops. “Is this an inopportune time for you, sorceress?” I called. Hot wind assaulted my body and I stumbled backward, tripping on low-lying branches. “I guess I’m right.”
Marcy was propped against a tree. “If this bokor is indeed trying to steal Naomi’s power and stuff it into a fetish, she’d need to perform some kind of ceremony to do it. That’s a huge magic transfer. It can’t be rushed. If changing Danny into one of her zombie wolves is on the agenda as well, who knows how long that will take? But my guess is she has to prepare some kind of mumbo-jumbo potion first. So maybe you’re right. We are interrupting her and she’s not happy.”
I shuddered, and my arms prickled as thoughts of harm coming to Danny or Naomi washed over me. “I guess that means we double our pace and hurry. Juanita wants us to get there or she wouldn’t be leading the way. Let’s go.”
We maneuvered through the trees as fast as we could manage. We made it about fifty yards when something slammed into me from the side. I was caught completely off guard, and grabbed on to a root to steady myself.
At least I thought it was a root.
When it moved with me, and I fell to the ground, I knew something was wrong.
Marcy shrieked, “It’s unraveling quickly! Let go before it wraps its slithery, awful body around you!”
The thing hissed, its forked tongue inches from my face. I was on my back, but thankfully I had a tight grip on it behind the neck. Its red eyes pulsed, but there was also something else there. “Marcy, I bet we can kill these zombie snakes just like the wolves. Get your knife out!”
She was beside me in an instant, her hand steadily gripping her new best friend. “That thing reeks of magic. It might not work.”
The bottom of the python’s massive body slithered around my legs. It was getting ready to strangle the life out of me. “Marcy, use one of your spells at the same time you stab it. It can’t hurt.” The muscles in the snake’s body were heavy and rigid, like they’d been reinforced with steel. And Marcy was right—there was powerful magic attached to it.
“Okay, but if a verbal spell isn’t strong enough, we’ll have to use one of the dark ones.” Marcy began chanting, and the air around us tingled with power. The snake’s gaze slid toward her as it began to vibrate under my grasp. “Marcy, it’s working! Now stab it and see what happens.”
Marcy was clearly in a zone, but she moved forward, her eyes glazed in concentration as she expertly struck the snake right behind the eyes. She used so much strength, the knife lodged into its brain and she couldn’t pull it out. The red eyes above me began to blink like Christmas lights on the fritz.
Marcy kept yanking at the knife, trying to get it out. “Leave it in!” I shouted. “I can feel the thing weakening. Just keep doing whatever you’re doing with the spell.”
She immediately let go and stepped back, closing her eyes, bringing her hands up in front of her. To my surprise, her hair began to lift at the ends as the air shifted around us.