“Forgive us, sister.”
“You were called too soon,” the elder grudgingly admitted. “Your training is not yet complete.”
That perked his ears. The show of force in Atlanta might be just that. A show.
If the coven was drafting novices to beef up their numbers, they were at a bigger disadvantage than he first assumed. They wielded great power, but untrained coven members wouldn’t have access to the archive. It would be too dangerous for the coven to allow in anyone unable to control the soul who inhabited them. Plus, it risked the destruction of the soul itself if it was mishandled or damaged.
This news shifted the odds in their favor.
But there was no way to send word to the others in time for it to matter.
Softly, the chant began again, and the footsteps grew fainter until the ring of metal underfoot reached his ears.
One adversary was no mercy. Armed with the archive, one practitioner could destroy them all.
“I will give you a moment to reveal yourselves to me,” the elder said. “Then I will come and find you.”
Midas pressed his lips to Hadley’s forehead then withdrew, but her fingers dug into his arms, holding him in with her. She refused to let him go, but she was the one who mattered, not him.
“I do not know how you came to be here,” she continued, “but I smell the blood of my sisters on your hands. That, I cannot tolerate. This is a sacred place for my people, and you have defiled it with your presence.”
A sharp exhale, dangerously close to a snort, blasted out of Hadley’s nose.
“You prolong your death needlessly.” The elder clucked her tongue. “I did try to offer you succor.”
Shuffling steps moved closer to them.
Closer.
Closer.
And then she passed them.
“How did you kill one of us?” the elder wondered. “How did you slay one of the many-faced?”
Hadley’s lips moved over the word, filing it away, but no sound passed them.
“It wasn’t all that hard,” Remy bragged from nearby. “Beat one witch, beat ’em all.”
Several impacts struck the loose shale, and footsteps slipped and slid across the stone floor.
Remy must have multiplied, and her selves jumped down to square off against the elder.
With the elder in sight, Remy’s voice and actions were no longer muted but loud in the cavernous space.
“You are not what I expected,” she mused. “Macalla are rare indeed. We do not have one. Yet.
“I do not understand.” Confusion thickened the wizened voice. “What does that gesture mean?”
Midas had known Remy long enough to guess at the gesture she, and her other selves, were making.
“I might not know how to kick your ass, old bat. Two, Three, Five, Six, and Seven might not either. But Four? She’s taken a few centuries of hand-to-hand combat. She’s the muscle of this operation, and she’s willing to beat the curly black hairs off your chin if you don’t stand down.”
“The Mother will be well pleased with you.”
“I’m not the kind you take home to mommy.”
The Mother?
With their witch roots, he couldn’t be sure, but he was willing to bet the coven worshipped an aspect of Hecate. Hadley had been explaining the three-faced goddess to him, but what stuck with him was how she represented the stages of life. Maiden, Mother, and Crone.
A screech from the crone snapped him out of his thoughts, and he grimaced as a Remy yelped.
Unable to bear the sound of her friend’s pain, Hadley fought him to break free.
“The hearts,” she breathed, knowing that would sway him the fastest. “We can’t lose them.”
As much as he wanted to keep her locked in, he agreed with her. The hearts were too valuable.
And Remy deserved a shot at clearing her name before they passed final judgment on her.
He had developed a soft spot for her, and he hoped she had a good reason for what she had done.
Pinning Hadley against the rear of the tomb with his hips, Midas wedged his shoulders into the opposite corner to make space to crack open the door.
“Is that a roll of quarters in your pocket—” Hadley’s eyes twinkled, “—or are you just happy to see me?”
“You’re still not funny.” He kissed her quick, hard. “Sorry in advance to your toes.”
The angle cost him skin as the door scraped over his arm, but he got out without crushing Hadley’s feet and located Remy in seconds. One of them, anyway. Until her speech, he hadn’t realized each part of her had a specialization, but it made sense. He had been in battle with her more squeamish counterparts and been curious how that worked. Now he knew.
“Lady, I’ve got places to go and a city to save.” Hadley stepped onto the ledge beside him. “Let her go.”
“Ah.” The crone flung a spell at a Remy that staggered her. “You’re the little potentate.”
“What’s with the height joke?” Hadley anchored her fists on her hips. “You’re like four feet tall.”
That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say.
The elder withdrew into herself, shrinking in, then exploded into a towering cyclops with a golden eye.
“I never did like Cyclops much.” Hadley met its gilded stare. “The whole Jean Grey thing.”
The creature was twice Midas’s height and four times his width. Its single eye, its most vulnerable spot, was the size of his hand. That should have made it easier to hit, but its lid was reinforced with chitinous plates that would protect it when closed. The coven truly had impeccable, if murderous, tastes.
With the cyclops distracted, three of the Remys moved into position behind the towering figure.
“You rooted for Wolverine,” Midas guessed, diverting its attention. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“I love a good underdog story.” Hadley winked at him. “Plus, Logan is so growly.”
“I will wear your face while your city burns,” the cyclops promised in a thundering voice that boomed through the archive. “The screams of your people will be music to me as the fat renders from their marrow.”
“You had to go and make this personal.” Hadley slanted her eyes toward him. “Help me hold on to him.”
Him?
Ambrose.
“Hadley,” he breathed. “Are you sure?”
“That we’ll die if I don’t have more than my witty geek banter to save us?” She shrugged. “Yes.”
“Witty geek banter,” a Remy echoed from nearby. “That’s an oxymoron.”
Unable to resist the opening, Hadley quoted back at her, “You’re an ox, and a moron.”
The quote was from Oscar, one of Midas’s favorite movies. “How long have you been waiting to use that?”
“Months.” Hadley huffed. “It’s harder to get people to use that word in a sentence than you might think, aside from Linus, and no way was I going to name-call him.”
A shiver rippled through her at the thought of antagonizing him.
Midas still hated that Linus’s grim reaper aspect would forever be her own personal boogeyman, but he had grown to respect the trust and sacrifice required on both their parts to make their friendship work.