I looked farther up. There was a ledge going most of the way around the dome, six feet from the top. A werewolf I’d never seen before was lying on the ledge at an angle, watching me lazily with its head resting on its enormous front paws.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Morgan looked around with obvious pride. “I was skeptical at first, but it’s really come together.”
I snorted. “A cave lair, really? Did you watch too many Bond movies as a child?”
Her smile didn’t waver. She tilted her head toward the exit on my left. “If you don’t like it, we could go back down to the hallway.”
That exit must lead to the wraith tunnel. I closed my mouth. The ghosts hadn’t been able to follow us in here—they were apparently limited to the area where they’d died—but the memory of their pain was fresh in my head, and I had a feeling it would be a long time before it faded from memory. Shuddering, I pulled my knees close to my chest and tucked them between my bound arms. I felt weak and achy. Was it possible to get a psychic hangover? Or some sort of brain flu?
Morgan sighed down at me, shaking her head. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
I said nothing.
“All you had to do was run an errand with your niece,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I’m not a vindictive person; I was willing to let go of everything that happened between us in the past. But you just couldn’t be a grown-up, could you?”
“How long was I out?” I asked, hoping it was past sunrise. I never saw ghosts during the day, not even wraiths.
Morgan smiled, reading my thoughts. “Only about fifteen minutes. Still plenty of ghosts in the hall, if you’d like to run the gauntlet again.”
I blocked the thought, trying to stay focused. “Why am I not dead?”
“Because,” she said pleasantly, “there’s something Keith would like from you first.” Her eyes flicked sideways. “We had hoped your aunt might be able to help us, but she either doesn’t know how or is too stubborn.”
“What do you want?”
“Why, for you to lay the ghosts, of course.” Morgan pointed to the other side of the chamber, and I followed her gaze to a waist-high hole in the stone. “They’re right on the other side of that.” She made a little disgusted noise. “I thought you would do it the moment you saw them, but apparently I overestimated your resolve in the face of tunnels.”
“That’s what this was all about? Laying ghosts?”
Morgan shrugged. “I did want you to bring Charlie. It would have made things so much easier later this morning. But I can find another way in. A deal is a deal, and Keith wants those ghosts laid to rest.”
“Why?”
She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest, her message clear: I was just the help. The help didn’t require details.
“Knowing what happened might affect whether I can lay them,” I told her. I was counting on her not knowing anything about boundary magic.
“Do I really have to spell it out?” she said impatiently. “He killed them.”
I stared at her for a moment. “He was an engineer,” I said slowly, “for the department of transportation.”
She waved a hand in a circle. “Yes, yes, there was a terrible accident, the city hushed it up, you get the idea. He says they haunt him in his sleep, whatever that means.”
Ghosts aren’t only tethered to places. When Keith had been asleep at the lodge, I’d seen a ghost practically on top of him.
The people Keith had killed were anchored to the tunnel, but somehow they were also haunting him, and not in a metaphorical way. I lifted my head to the ceiling, not caring who heard me. “Goddammit, Sam,” I said loudly. “Thanks for all the no help.”
Morgan was bending down, taking hold of the zip-tie handle again and pulling me up. “Come on, now, we’re running out of time. Sunrise is in forty minutes, then you’ll be of no use to me.”
“Just kill me,” I said tiredly. I’d like to say I was being brave against a hostile combatant, but mainly I was terrified of trying to lay the wraiths. If Morgan was going to kill me either way, I’d rather she just got on with it.
Morgan stood again, throwing up her hands. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about! You’re so pointlessly obstinate!” Raising her voice, she added, “Keith! You’ll have to bring them in!”
There was another shuffling noise, this time coming from the exit at my four o’clock. It was a short, narrow gap that would require a human to turn and crab-walk at an angle. There was some grunting and snarling, but then Mary edged into the room sideways, her hair mussed and wild. She was still wearing the silver handcuffs behind her back, and I thought I could smell the skin on her wrists burning. When she was all the way in the room, she fell to her knees, her teeth gritted against the pain.
There were more noises, and then a body was shoved through the gap behind Mary, instantly crumpling onto the cave floor. At first I thought it was a dead stranger, but then I recognized the hairdo. Parts of the braid were still holding together.
“Katia!”
I tried to army-crawl over to her with my hands and ankles bound, but Morgan said impatiently, “Oh, for God’s sake, this could take all day. Just bring her over.”
Keith, who had shoved Katia’s body through, emerged from the gap and grabbed her by the waistband of her pants, hauling her easily toward me. When they were still four feet away, he tossed her, and she slid across the rough sandstone floor to rest at my side.
I looked right into his eyes. “I will kill you for this,” I said coldly.
Keith swallowed, his eyes darting to Morgan. From the floor, I heard Mary’s soft, pained voice, forced through her teeth. “Get . . . in . . . line.”
Katia groaned softly and I scooted closer, shocked that she was still alive. Her arms were bare, and her torn shirt had ridden up, so scraping against the floor must have hurt like hell. Awkwardly, I rolled her over so I could see her face. It was puffy and swollen, her lower lip the size of a banana.
Mary had been watching all this, and she knee-walked closer, meeting my eyes. “Pulse and breathing are strong,” she muttered, trying to look as though she weren’t in agonizing pain. “I think . . . mostly cosmetic injuries. To upset you.”
“Well, it worked,” I said through gritted teeth. Rage erupted in my chest.
I glared up at Keith again and he actually flinched. “Let them go,” I snapped. “Let them both go.”
Morgan sighed. “Here we go again,” she said to the heavens. Then she dropped her head to look down at me. “Don’t be so dramatic. No one’s going anywhere. After you perform your little ritual, I’ll send her to the ER.” She gestured at Katia. “You’ll stay here until my mother drops the barrier to Colorado, and for a full day afterward. Then you’re free to go.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious,” Morgan insisted. “I’m still willing to deal, Lex. I was always willing to deal. I heard you quit working for Maven, which means I’ve done absolutely nothing to her or her people.” She allowed herself a tiny smile. “Certainly nothing anyone can prove.”
I was suddenly really proud of the punch I’d managed to land on Morgan earlier. “Why would you let me go?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Despite your efforts, I’m still confident I can convince the Colorado witches to put their trust in me.”
“That’s why you didn’t take Lily hostage until your mom dropped the ward,” I said, understanding. “You still want all the witches to love you.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t deny it. “As I was saying, once I’m leader, Maven will have no choice but to work with me. And you’ll have to either leave the state or beg for your job back. Either way, you won’t be a threat to me.”
“Morgan, you tedious bitch,” I said conversationally, “I will always be a threat to you.”
As if I hadn’t spoken, she sashayed over and crouched in front of me again, resting her elbows on her knees. She smiled at me and confided, “Personally, I hope you decide to run. There would be a delicious poetic justice to you being forced away from your home, cut off from your family.” She flipped her hands, palms up. “But I’m good either way.”
I tried to keep my expression level, but Keith said to Morgan, “Her pulse is picking up.”
“And Mary?” I said to Morgan. “What happens to her?”
Morgan stood up, waving a hand as though Mary were an inconvenient rash. “Mary will stay with Keith until she learns some manners.”
It probably seems silly, after everything Morgan had already done, but this actually startled me. “You’re just . . . giving her to him?” I said. “I knew you were twisted, Morgan, but I didn’t think that included selling other women to be sex slaves.”
Keith began to protest, but Morgan waved him away. “She’s just stalling for time,” she told him. “Go get the supplies we discussed.”
He looked unhappy, but he bobbed his head and disappeared through the opposite exit.
Morgan eyed me imperiously. She was definitely getting a kick out of looming over me. “They’re werewolves, you twit,” she said, in a low voice filled with disgust. “They’re not even people. At best, they’re tools.”
I raised my eyes to the ledge above her head. “Did you hear that?” I called up to the wolf on guard duty. “She called you a tool.”
He or she—I couldn’t tell from this angle—actually opened their mouth and yawned, displaying twin rows of teeth, each one nearly as long as my fingers. For some reason, it was the whiteness of the teeth that creeped me out most—natural wolves didn’t have that.
“Oh, Declan?” Morgan said, looking up at the wolf. “Declan is very well paid, aren’t you?” Without waiting for a response, she looked back at me and added, “He’s also quite strong, I’m told. And very willing to recruit new followers and send them into battle. We have an understanding.”
I thought of Simon wanting to ask the dead werewolf where Morgan was getting her money. From him. I opened my mouth to ask, but at that moment Keith came edging back into the room, holding a plastic grocery bag weighed down by something. He tossed it at my feet, keeping a few feet between us. “There you go.”
I looked in the bag and found my pocketknife, a stick of chalk, a few votive candles, and a plastic safety lighter. There were also a few vials of herbs I was probably supposed to recognize, and a plastic camp lantern.
“What’s this crap?” I asked Morgan.
“I wasn’t sure what you use for spells.” She pointed to the waist-high hole. “Better get started. You’re running out of time, and the longer it takes you to lay the ghosts, the longer Katia will suffer.”