I vaguely wondered how he could see me on the horse but didn’t have time to question it. Maybe it was a shifter thing? Because Sarge could see Robert. There was no time to wonder more than that.

I pulled a knife and threw it, hitting Sarge in the right shoulder. Down a leg, he howled and snarled. I pulled the solid stone out of my bag and gave it to Robert. “Go, bury it deep!”

Robert slid off the horse.

I had one knife left. And a spell I couldn’t break on Sarge. Which meant I had to try reasoning with him.

“Sarge, this is insane, what the hell is wrong with you? We’re friends!”

His teeth snapped as he lunged at me, and it was then I realized that Luke had a rope around his neck like a leash, although it was barely holding the big werewolf back. With a yank he pulled him off balance, toward the right leg I’d hurt.

“I’ll kill you, he’s mine! I love him!” Sarge snarled, snapping his teeth again.

Crash? “You want Crash, you’re going to have to come through me first, dude. Me and two stupidly beautiful girls with unreasonably perky boobs.” There. I’d said it. I did want Crash, damn it. Jealousy was not a good look on me.

Sarge paused, confusion rippling over his face. “Crash? Not Corb?”

“What the hell does Corb . . . have . . . to . . . do . . . with . . . this?” The words kind of floated out of me. The conversation with him about unrequited love floated back to me. Sarge wanting me to move out and into Crash’s place. Corb’s attention to me. Suzy’s loss of confidence. Luke being more afraid than usual.

The spell took their weaknesses and amplified them, or maybe twisted them. “Holy shit, you really did shoot me, you asshole!” I slid off the horse, strode over to him, and kicked his furry butt as hard as I could. He turned and snarled, and I grabbed an ear. “Listen here. Corb might make a move on me, but he is not for me. You got that?” I tugged his ear hard for good measure. Luke curled away from me like I was scaring him. “You’re acting this way because of a spell that O’Sean put on you. It’s making you an even bigger asshole than usual.”

Sarge tried to pull away from me, but I hung on tight. “I love him. And you’re in the way,” he whispered.

My horse gave a low, wet-sounding nicker that was sort of gross, but it had me lifting my head in time to see Corb himself running our way. “Well, shit.”

Corb tried to hug me. “You’re okay? Jesus, Breena, I’ve been searching the rubble of the restaurant with the emergency crew. I couldn’t find you!”

I grimaced. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

Sarge growled and I twisted his ear further. “Everyone go to the Hollows, okay? We need to discuss a few things.”

Corb tried again to hug me, but I sidestepped him. “Take Sarge and go. Wait for me there. Please get all the mentors and trainees up by the angel. Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Corb agreed slowly. “You’re going to tell us what’s going on?”

“Yes, just ducking go!”

Gawd in heaven, it was like herding cats!

The three men left me there at the gate, and I pulled myself back up onto the horse’s back. “You need a name. How about Skeletor?”

The horse snorted. I’d take that for a yes. “Let’s find Robert.”

Skeletor—yes, that definitely worked—turned on his haunches and leapt to the right, running out to the middle of the graveyard, where Robert stood next to a tombstone. I slid off the horse’s saddle and went to stand next to him. “You think this is a good spot?”

“Friend,” he said softly and tapped the tombstone. I bent to read the name, which was surprisingly still there.

“Evangeline L’Andre.” I didn’t know that name, but I trusted Robert if he thought it was a good place. He wrapped his hands around the stone and slid down into the soil. Minutes ticked by before he pulled himself back out and stood next to me. It had to be closing in on midnight.

“Time for trick number two,” I whispered, pulling my bag around to me and flipping it open. Bob-John’s rhinestone-encrusted box felt heavy in my hand. I lifted it over my head and opened it up.

“Please work, please make me invisible.”

A tingling sensation started at my scalp and quickly shifted downward, rolling down my body like droplets of water instead of powder. I held my hand out and stumbled backward. I couldn’t see me. I closed my eyes and grabbed my bag, then opened my eyes and held the leather surface up to my face. Only I couldn’t see the bag either.

A string of curses left my mouth that made Robert and Skeletor stumble backward. “No, no, I’m not mad. Just shocked. Can you see me, Robert?”

“Friend,” he said.

I’d have to take that as a yes. I didn’t know how long the powder would last—it had only cost twenty dollars, after all—so it was time to hurry. “Come on then. Douche Canoe O’Sean should be there by now. Skeletor, you stick close.”

Robert and Skeletor followed me as I jogged across the graveyard, heading for the angel tomb leading down to the Hollows. As we went, I slid my bag over Robert’s head. “You hang onto this for me.”

As I drew close I counted the people there. The four trainees, five mentors, Missy, Crash, and O’Sean.

“Why the hell are we here?” O’Sean yelled at Crash. “You said that you were taking me to the cross?”

“He did,” I said, knowing that they couldn’t see me. I motioned for Robert to stop. O’Sean whipped around.

“Who said that?”

Trick number three. I softened my voice, allowing the accent I’d lost to crawl back over the words. “Celia O’Rylee. I’ve come back to make right what you’ve wronged for my town.”

O’Sean stumbled back a few steps. “You’re dead.”

“Yes, and you are going to join me,” I said as I worked around the one side of him. He stared at the place where I’d been and threw a spell of black magic that stunk like death. Oh crap. Then it was the worst of the worst, if Gran’s book was right.

“No!”

“Free the Hollows Group from the spells you cast on them,” I whispered right in his ear, then ducked down. He twisted, stumbled back over me, and fell onto his ass. “Free the fae king.”

“No!” he screamed. “You aren’t real.” He scrambled backward, scuttling on his ass. His fear was a palpable thing and hope surged through me. This was going to work. He’d free everyone, and we could all just go home. Hot damn for a plan going right!

“Crash, protect me!” he screamed.

Oh. Shit.

For some reason I hadn’t expected that, and it most surely was not in the plan.

A blast of magic whipped through the air, stripping me of my invisibility.

Douche Canoe stared up at me. “You! How are you doing this?”

“Breena, I can’t defy him! You have to get out of here!” Crash yelled. I twisted to see him pulling his weapon. A sword that was easily four feet long, silver and shining in the darkness.

Well, two could play at this game. “Corb, keep him busy while I deal with Douche Canoe! But don’t kill each other!” I just needed enough time to make Douche Canoe break the spell.

Corb stepped between me and Crash and the clash of weapons rang through the air. I pulled both of my blades and charged O’Sean, who was on his feet once more. He flung a spell at me that smelled like lavender.

Why the hell would he want to knock me out?

To use you, just like Gran warned. You’re a new weapon and he wants whatever you are.

I twisted to the side and brought both blades cutting through air, dispersing the spell into nothing but a few sparkles. “That’s a no from me.”

We sidestepped each other as if were in a ring. “You killed my gran, didn’t you?”

“No, but I was there when she died.” He smiled. “And I know who did it.”

“Mother ducker!” I lunged at him and the tip of my blade slashed through his right arm, drawing blood.

He snarled and flung a spell at me, this one sticky and pink. It hit my feet and locked me in place. A second spell shot at me right after the first, this one that lavender scent again. I barely managed to knock it back as I struggled to stay upright.

“Let us see how you protect your friends then?” Douche Canoe was out of reach of my blades as he prepped a spell that smelled like brimstone—another really bad one. Duck my life. Gray tendrils curled around his hands. “A slow death for them all, yes?”

“No!” I slashed down at the spell that held my legs to the ground, desperation making me sloppy. I cut into my own leg, the wound shallow but deep enough for the blood to flow. Pain rippled through me, and I fell forward onto my hands and knees. My one foot was free. The one I’d cut. I didn’t hesitate to reach down and nick my other leg.

The blood burned away the spell, and I didn’t question why as I scrambled forward. Douche Canoe must have seen me coming at him from the corner of his eye. He twisted, the grey magic hitting me right in the middle of my chest, but I was still moving and I tackled him to the ground.

My heart stuttered. Douche Canoe’s eyes widened as I drove both blades into him at the same time. Heart and neck. We fell to the ground together, and I sat on top of him as the life bled out of him. The same magic I’d seen hit the Hollows Group just a few nights before whipped around him, dispersing in the night air as if it had never been.

I pushed the blades deeper even as my own body began to scream for oxygen. I wasn’t breathing, I knew I wasn’t. But I had to see this through.

Someone behind me was yelling my name. “Free him,” I said the words, and the mark of the crescent moon bloomed over Douche Canoe’s head, dispersing in the same way.

The light slid from his eyes, a film of white rolling over them as the last breath escaped his mouth. He smiled up at me. Because, of course, not all of his spells had been broken. Gran had thought his death would nullify them, but she’d been wrong.