Page 39 of Mastering Mayhem

“Half of what he says doesn’t make sense,” Gray whispered, hesitating to follow her leader. “Will you…?”

She moved toward me, lowering her voice even more. “I know you don’t owe us anything, but will you cremate him? The thought of him being eaten is…” She visibly shuddered.

I wanted to tell her to go eff herself because she was right. We didn’t owe them a damn thing. But if that were one of my friends laying dead on the ground and I didn’t have the power to do it myself, I’d probably ask the same thing.

Nobody deserved to get eaten.

“We’ll take care of him,” I said.

“On one condition,” Mayhem added. “You must distract Adrian. Do whatever you can to stall him so that we may reach the amulet first.”

“I…” Fear rounded her eyes, and her lower lip trembled.

“Just go.” I rolled my eyes. “Bow to your master, kiss his ring or suck his toes, or whatever the hell it is you do. We don’t need your help.”

She gave me a blubbery nod and scurried away, leaving us to deal with the bodies of an overgrown bug and the unfortunate witch who’d gotten in his way.

14

EMBER

“Holy Hecate. What day is it?” I leaned on the steering wheel, squinting at the sea of brake lights ahead of us.

“It’s the twenty-ninth. Halloween is the day after tomorrow,” Ash said, her voice grim. I had never felt such ominous doom coming from my little sister, but she had every reason to embody it.

Halloween was the biggest tourist day of the year in Salem. The day humans packed themselves into our quiet little town like a can of biscuits waiting to burst. The day the normally thinnest part of the veil became its absolute thinnest, and they had no clue it was all about to fall apart.

I’d seen it. When I’d held Mayhem’s hand and we’d shared our magic, the veil itself had become visible to me. I’d felt it too. Even in Worcester, seventy miles from Salem, the entire fabric of reality was about to unravel around us.

And an effing griffin had taken the one thing that could’ve saved us all.

“How is your shoulder?” Mayhem asked from the passenger seat.

“It’s fine.” I waved off his concern. Yes, it had hurt like a beast while it was dislocated, but once Ash popped it back into place and applied her healing salve, I couldn’t even tell I’d been injured.

It had taken a good half hour to cremate the fae, but Hector had turned into ashes in seconds. I felt bad for using my boot to spread his remains in a cemetery so far from home, but I sure as shit wasn’t packing him into a box and returning him to Adrian the asshat.

“Come on, people.” I laid on the horn, though I knew it would do no good. Traffic inched forward, and my fatigue inched further and further up my spine, threatening to pull me under. If we could just make it two more blocks, I could take a side street and get us home.

In the meantime, we might as well make use of our time. “Tell me what you know about griffins.”

“Who are you asking?” Shade said from the way back seat.

“Anyone who knows anything.” I tightened my grip on the wheel. “Why would it take the amulet?”

“I’m searching the witchy web,” Ash said. “It’s hard to distinguish between what’s real, what’s popular fiction, and what every random Dungeon Master in the D and D world has made up about them.”

“The griffin took the amulet for one simple reason,” Mayhem said. “They like shiny things.”

I barked out a laugh. “Wait. Are you serious?”

“She was probably drawn to its power as well,” Chaos said. “And to ours.”

Mayhem nodded. “Three beings of royal descent in one place. A High Priestess and Priest from rival covens. Air and fire magic. I’m surprised the griffin and the fae were the only ones who got through.”

“I thought the more power a being has, the harder it is to cross over,” Miles said.

I leaned my forehead on the steering wheel and closed my eyes. “Hecate’s hold is slipping. Remember Cinder’s letter? They’re doing what they can to keep it intact, but ‘even the goddess can’t hold it forever.’”

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