Page 62 of Witch Queen

“You gave the giant a name?” Jared said leadenly.

“He told Brimstone that’s what he was called in Hell,” Abraham muttered. “He’s quite sweet actually.”

A couple of figures squeezed past Frog Guy.

“Mom?!” Miles mumbled at the sight of a woman accompanied by an iguana.

“Oh. Hi, Miles.” Miles’s mother dug her elbow into the ribs of her companion, a witch with a ginger cat. “Psst!Check out those Ming vases!”

The witch with the ginger cat sniffed. “Told you she was loaded.”

Frog Guy was studying Nadia with bright-eyed interest.

“Hey, Uncle Floyd?” he said to Parrot Guy out the corner of his mouth. “Do you know that hot chick with the desert fox?”

Nadia narrowed her eyes, Sun Magic glinting dangerously in her pupils.

Barbara met Bryony’s gaze steadily over the heads of the squabbling Regina and Ludmila. “We have a lot of work to do, old friend.”

* * *

Bile burnedthe back of Oscar’s throat as he watched the Sorcerer King absorb the powers of the men and women he’d had his foul troops massacre.

This was ten times worse than the incident in Philadelphia, when Barquiel had raised an army of ghouls to possess the sorcerers and witches they had kidnapped so as to transmute theBook of Light’sgrimoire into its true form.

Vedran’s jaws opened to inhuman proportions as he sucked in the black magic he had ripped from the cores of the corpses amassed before him, the bodies adding to the festering piles of the dead that had accumulated in the days they had been trapped inVoid. He twitched and jerked, body rigid and expression glazed while the corrupt mist infiltrated his mouth and nose.

Oscar’s gaze dropped to his father’s cloak. He could see the bulge of the compass. He fisted his hands.

This might be my only chance to get it from him. Maybe he won’t find it if I hide it inside one of those bodies!

He hesitated before approaching the Sorcerer King, conscious of the watchful stares of the monstrous army lurking in the shadows.

Black magic washed over him in sickening waves that raised the hairs on his skin. He stopped beside his father. He could smell a stench coming from him.

It evoked old, rotting meat and an evil that could never be purged.

Oscar’s hand trembled as he reached for the artifact that would allow his father to become a God. His fingers brushed the cold metal.

Yes!His heart pounded wildly against his ribs.Almost there!

Freezing fire scorched his wrist in the next instant. He cried out, the smell of seared flesh filling his nostrils while the excruciating pain of the deadly black magic piercing his body almost rendered him unconscious.

Vedran looked down and met his stricken stare as he swayed in his father’s unyielding grip. Terror robbed Oscar of breath.

The Sorcerer King’s eyes were black from edge to edge. A vile magic bubbled in his pupils and enveloped him in an inky aura.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked Oscar icily.

“I—” Oscar’s nails sank into his palms. “It looked like it was going to fall.”

Vedran’s dreadful gaze found theBook of Lightwhere it half tilted out of his pocket. He released Oscar.

Oscar stumbled back and clutched his wrist to his chest, the taste of blood on his tongue from where he’d bitten the inside of his cheek to stop himself from screaming.

“I see.” Not an ounce of pity showed on Vedran’s face when he observed the horrific burns on Oscar’s arm. “Let me fix that.”

Blood pounded in Oscar’s skull. He forced himself to stay still while his father took his arm and cast a healing spell on him, his face a stiff mask that concealed his fear.

---