Behind me, Shelley cheered.
But the witches kept chanting.
One of the six remaining witches, a woman with half of her hair shaved off and the other half dyed green, stood up and stretched. She was wearing a red leather jacket, and it might not have been Chantal’s, but I wanted to tear it off of her anyway.
The cavalry, in the form of Lucky and his team, came pouring into the yard and surrounded the chanting women, but this one didn’t even glance at them.
“You forgot about a witch’s death curse, fool,” the woman told me calmly, as if she were discussing the weather. “Hers was already primed to seek you out.”
I looked down at Olga’s nearly decapitated body. “I don’t think she’s in any shape to curse anybody.”
Green Hair just laughed and then knelt down and put her hands on top of her head when Lucky came running up to her.
“Yes, take me into custody,” she told him. “This is going to be a very bad place to be, very soon.”
I decided to ignore her empty threats and reached back to take Shelley’s hand. I needed to get her away from that horrible shed and the sight of Olga’s body. Across the field, Jack sat up, and I almost cried out in relief. Shifter healing—I’d counted on it.
The commandos secured all the witches, gagging the ones who wouldn’t shut up. When the chanting finally stopped, some of the horrible pressure that had been building and building in the air lifted.
Finally.
The good guys were going to win this one.
But before Shelley took more than three steps out into the sunlight, the coalescing shadows that had been circling Olga’s body packed themselves into the shape of a battering ram and shoved us both back into the shed. This time, when the door slammed shut, I couldn’t get it open again. The screaming pain in my arm was starting to subside, but the arm was still weak, and I had no one-handed tricks for opening sheds up my sleeve.
Shelley and I pounded on the door and shouted for help. Jack yelled at us to hang on, that he’d get us out, and I tried to believe it, but I was running low on faith.
I couldn’t tell Shelley that, though. “It’s okay. Jack will get us out.”
But she didn’t hug me back. Her little body was stiff as a board in my arms, and when I looked down at her, she was staring in terror at the back corner of the shed, where those dark shadows were gathering.
“No, Miss Tess. I don’t think it is going to be okay,” she said, and there was a terrible resignation in her voice.
I opened my mouth to say something—anything—to reassure her, and a thunderous explosion rocked the shed.
“Come on,” I shouted. “We have freaking had enough of this!”
Naturally, that’s when the shed caught on fire.
“Stand back,” Lucky shouted.
I had about three seconds to wonder where Jack was when the enormous tiger smashed through the door, roaring with such primal fury that the shadows apparently figured that they’d had enough too, because this time they didn’t try to stop us. Maybe shutting us in the shed and setting it on fire had been the extent of Olga’s death curse. Anybody who didn’t have a tiger backing her up would have died, after all.
I covered Shelley’s eyes, so she didn’t have to see Olga. The commandos picked the witch’s body up, careful not to touch her skin or her blood, and threw it in the shed, and we all stood back at a safe distance and watched so we could be sure it burned. Jack, still in tiger form, stood between us and the shed, lashing his tail and snarling at the fire.
“So ends the reign of black magic in Dead End,” I said with grim satisfaction.
Shelley, standing next to me, nodded. “I’m glad she’s dead. I hope she goes to Hell.”
I felt the same way, but I also wondered how much therapy this girl was going to need after what she’d been through.
“She killed my mom and my grandparents,” she said, reaching out to pet Jack’s fur.
“I know, sweetheart. But she’ll never kill anybody again.”
Jack roared in agreement, and then he head-butted me to get me going. We left Lucky and his crew to watch the fire, just in case, and we walked around the house toward the truck. I was so exhausted I was tripping over my own feet, but suddenly I had a horrible thought.
“It’s not over,” I said. “Hank got away. And there’s still the sheriff to worry about. He wants to arrest you, Jack.”
Shelley tightened her hand on mine, and she started to whimper.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m sure they’re both far away from here by now.”
Jack’s ears suddenly swiveled forward, and I tensed. I really wanted my shotgun.
It wasn’t Hank, or the sheriff. Instead, Special Agent Vasquez and Deputy Kelly walked around the corner.
“Hank Kowalski did not get away,” Vasquez said, bowing slightly to me.
Jack bared his teeth, and Vasquez laughed.
“I am not flirting with your lady, my friend. I have my own very special white-magic witch at home. I am just telling you both the good news.”
Between one step and the next, Jack transformed back into his human form. “You caught Hank?”
Deputy Kelly grinned and looked at me. “You might say that Ms. Callahan caught him. She parked that truck so badly that he couldn’t get his out of the garage, so he was running down the road on foot when we found him.”
My mouth fell open, and then I started laughing. “Yay, me. Bad parking for the win.”
“If we can weaponize your singing, you’ll be unstoppable,” Jack said, his lips quirking. “By the way, what was the death you foresaw for Hank?”
A bolt of triumph, combined with a twinge of guilt, shot through me at the question. “Actually, I didn’t see his death at all. I was faking the vision to try to distract him.”
Jack stared at me in shock. “You thought of that on the spot? That’s brilliant. That scream—I was sure you saw the worst death imaginable for him.”
“So was he,” I said. “That was the point.” Still, we had a loose end. “The sheriff?”
Alejandro answered me. “To paraphrase a popular song, I shot the sheriff.”
“Good,” I said bitterly. “Is he dead?”
“I never miss, when I aim,” Alejandro said. “It is my own small magic.”
“You didn’t exactly answer her question,” Jack pointed out.
Alejandro raised an eyebrow, the picture of innocence. “Didn’t I? Well, as Ms. Callahan mentioned to me once, there are deep, dark, Black Ops sites in the world.”
I decided to let it go. Shelley was safe, Jack was alive, and so was I. I was sure that wherever Sheriff Lawless was, I’d never see him again.
“Why did Olga’s death curse let us go?” I looked at Jack. “It was like those shadows were afraid of you.”
He shrugged. “A shifter has his own magic, and I’ve already been dead once. Maybe the shadows recognized something in me. Or maybe even in you, with your death visions. When it comes to magic, we might never know the answer.”
I sighed. He was right. I didn’t like not knowing why, but I was glad they were gone.
“Susan?”
Deputy Kelly pointed. Susan was consulting with a group of black-suited men who must have poured out of the five black SUVs that were lined up along the side of the road.
“Your Deputy Gonzalez would be a good choice for Dead End’s next sheriff,” Alejandro mused. “Very efficient, that one. She helped me out of a tight spot.”
That reminded me. “Why didn’t you call me back?”
He shrugged. “I was tied up.”
He didn’t say anything else, but I noticed when he gently touched Shelley’s shoulder in a farewell gesture, and his jacket sleeve slid back, that there were vivid rope burns on his wrist. Somehow, I knew better than to ask about it.
Deputy Kelly headed off to do official things, and Alejandro said he had to get back to his family.
Before he left, he shook hands with me and then with Jack. “So no chance you want a job with P-Ops?”
Jack laughed. “Not even a tiny chance. I’ve had enough of being a soldier.”
“If you change your mind, you know how to reach me,” Alejandro said, smiling ruefully. “I think you would have made a fine partner, my friend.”
Jack looked at me. “I’ve got a partner. I’m staying in Dead End.”
My insides did a little happy dance, but I tried not to show it on my face. Alejandro walked away, sketching us a quick salute, but then Shelley yawned, and Jack scooped her up and carried her to the truck.
Lucky’s truck.
“Oh, I forgot, with everything else going on. I’m going to need a new car,” I told him, remembering the sad state of mine. “I’m thinking that it had better be a Ford, this time.”
“Uncle Mike will be very happy,” Jack said, with a gleam in his eye.
“Sure. Right up till the moment he hears you call him Uncle Mike.”
My phone rang. It was Alejandro. I looked up, surprised, but the federal agent was already in his car, driving away.
“I forgot to ask you if there was anything I could do for you. Anything at all,” he said. “You saved P-Ops from a great deal of embarrassment today.”
“That’s what I live for,” I said dryly.
“Anything at all, Ms. Callahan.”
I looked at Shelley, who was falling asleep against Jack’s shoulder. “Well. There is one thing.”