Dayna’s brows shot up. This was excessive, even for Sam. Maybe it was something other than his desperate attempts to apologize. “I think something might be wrong with Sam.”
Reagan snorted, still leaning over the desk to try to peer into the back. “Understatement of the century.”
“No, I mean, he’s tried to call a million times—” She blinked down at the phone as it started to vibrate again. “He’s calling now.”
Reagan gave her a look, but Dayna answered anyway. “Sam? Is everything okay?”
There was a relieved sigh from the other end, and then Sam said quickly, “Where are you? Are you somewhere safe?”
Dayna frowned. “What? Of course I am. What’s the matter?” He sounded completely out of breath.
“It’s Harriet King,” he said, and Dayna’s mouth dropped open. He pressed on before she could say anything. “She was a victim in the last cycle. He’s trying to get to her, finish what he started. She’s not safe to be around, Dayna. You’re not with her now, are you?”
He sounded panicked at the very thought. “No,” she said hastily. “No, I’m just with Reagan. Sam, how did you know—”
“I need to meet with you. Like, right away.”
Dayna hesitated, glancing over at Reagan, who had made her way around the desk and was frowning down at something on the floor behind it. “Uh, sure, want to meet at the Coffee Bean? I’m right— Reagan! You can’t just go back there.”
Sam was still talking, asking her something, but Dayna wasn’t paying attention anymore. Reagan’s eyes were wide, and she had one hand pressed to her mouth.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” Dayna hurried around the side of the counter. Behind the desk were several piles of papers scattered on the back counter, and a garbage bin had been tipped over and its contents spread across the floor. Patches of blood were splattered across the rug where Margery usually stood.
“Nosebleed…maybe?” Reagan looked around, expression uneasy.
“Maybe,” Dayna said, but the sight of the blood made her mouth dry. She let her gaze drift across the pattern of splotches on the floor, drops of blood leading from the back of the desk to the crack in the door.
“Dayna? What is it? What’s going on? Are you at Reagan’s place? I can come over—”
“I’ll call you right back, okay?” Dayna hit the off button, cutting off Sam’s protests.
“We should check on her.” Reagan started for the door, and Dayna hurried to follow. The back was a spacious concrete room full to the rafters with cardboard boxes, and a wide wooden table with jars of herbs and twisted pillars of beeswax stacked across it. But no Margery.
“Should we call the gardai?”
“I don’t know yet, just keep your phone handy.” Reagan crept forward, footsteps light on the concrete floor.
“Hey, wait.” A bar of light falling across the back end of the room had caught her eye. The back door was open. “I bet she’s out for a smoke.”
“If she is,” Reagan said, and her voice was slightly uneven, “she needs a cloth, because she’s still dripping blood.”
She was right. When Dayna glanced down, she saw a scattering of coin-sized blood droplets leading to the back door. As she followed Reagan, she slid a hand into her pocket, pulling out her phone. A wave of cold panic spread through her.
The back door led to a porch that looked out on the woods, and when Dayna stepped outside she felt a surge of relief. There was an ashtray balanced on the railing, and Margery had propped her cigarette up on the side, where it was sending up gentle spirals of smoke. A red sweater hung on the post nearby.
“Margery?”
“What did she—” Reagan stopped. “Oh my god.”
She saw it a second later. At first glance it looked like a pile of black fabric at the bottom of the stairs, or a garbage bag maybe, if she looked quickly out the corner of one eye.
But it was Margery. She was lying on her back, left arm stretched out, as if she’d been reaching for someone. Her black dress flared out around her body.
“Oh my god.” Reagan’s hand was over her mouth, half muffling her words. “Oh my god, Margery.”
“Did she fall?” Dayna pushed past Reagan, her heart beating wildly against her rib cage. She hurried down the steps and then skidded to a stop at the bottom, seizing the railing as a scream tore from her throat. Close up she could see a series of bloody stains on the front of Margery’s dress, and more horrible still…
The woman’s eyes were nothing but two empty holes in her chalk-white face.
Dazed, she grasped the railing with shaking fingers. Reagan stayed where she was, still frozen. “Dayna, wha— You shouldn’t—”
“Margery?” It was stupid. There was no way the woman was alive. She moved closer, off the last step and onto the small patch of grass along the edge of the backwoods. “Reagan, call the gardai.”
“Oh Christ. Aye, I’m—I’m calling. You shouldn’t go down there. What if whoever did this is still here?”
The tightness in Dayna’s throat increased, and she felt a stab of cold panic as she turned back to Reagan. The bone necklace felt heavy against her chest. Would it protect her from a murderer? She searched her memory frantically for spells of protection, but the panic seemed to have wiped her mind clean. Her blood was suddenly thundering in her ears, and each breath burned in her chest.
Reagan had begun chanting under her breath—so mote it be, so mote it be, so mote it be—her voice trembling.
There was an awful, rattling gasp from behind them, and Dayna jumped. She turned, clutching the railing, pulse stuttering wildly.
Margery was blinking, slowly, very slowly. Dayna realized with a sense of dull horror that her eyelids were somehow still intact. She opened and shut them in a slow, horrible movement, her eyelids sagging inward each time. She let out another rattling breath, and Dayna scrambled forward. “Oh my god, she’s still alive.”
Margery’s face was porcelain pale, and when she opened her lips the inside of her mouth was stained red. “First we were gods,” she mumbled.
Dayna sank down beside her. Tears stung the backs of her eyes, and her voice trembled. “You’re okay. Help is coming.”
The woman’s eyelids flicked open again, and Dayna shuddered at the gory emptiness of the sockets. Incredibly, Margery’s lips twitched in a smile. “Gods and then saints”—she took a shuddering breath before continuing—“and then…witches, and now this…” Her hand flopped forward, and at first Dayna thought she was gesturing, but then Margery’s eyes fluttered shut and her chest sank and didn’t rise again.
Dayna’s breath seemed to stop. She clenched her fists around handfuls of grass. “Margery? Help is coming—” She faltered. “Oh god.”
“Is she…” Reagan’s voice cracked. “Is she gone?”
Dayna stood up, breathing hard. Something along the edge of the forest caught her eye, a blur of movement just beyond the tree line. She jerked, muffling a gasp with one fist. Maybe it was just a bird or a racoon, or…
The trees. There was something wrong with them.