“Okay.” She rose to her feet. “I’ll show you where I buried the bones.”
We walked together, side by side, and I kept a close eye out for her onryo. I used the time to check the wound in my side. It wasn’t deep, but it leaked goop. It also tingled while the raw edges knit themselves together. Black, white, or gray, spontaneous healing wasn’t in the witch repertoire. I hadn’t done it, which meant it had been done to me. But how? Or worse, by whom?
Was the grimoire responsible? The choker? The pendant, at least, wasn’t capable of magic.
Or it hadn’t been. Until I fed it a grimoire. And it ate a blessed choker.
As the kids say…FML.
“Do you like being an agent?”
The question caught me off guard, but I wouldn’t lie to her. “It has its moments.”
“Will I have to kill anyone?”
She didn’t sound excited by the prospect of a license to kill, merely curious.
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to sugarcoat that either. “In the field, it’s kill or be killed on most cases.”
The conversation orbited the history of Black Hat and the duties of the agents. I answered all her questions to the best of my ability without allowing my relationship with the director to taint the facts. Mostly. Impossible to wipe the slate clean between him and me, even for her benefit.
“There.” She indicated a point between two trees. “Under the poison oak.”
“I’ve got your first assignment.” I jerked my chin toward the spot. “Start digging.”
“Can’t you magic the dirt out of the way?”
“I’m not a magical excavator, no.” That would be a handy talent, though. “But I can heal you after, so don’t worry about a rash.”
“You’re a black witch.” She stared a hole through me. “How can you heal?”
“I’m a gray witch,” I reminded her. “I was a black witch, but I embraced light magic. Except it doesn’t quite work like that after you’ve been tainted. Now I’m stuck in the middle.”
“You can do that?”
“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s worth it.”
Unlike me, she didn’t have Colby lighting a path back to white magic. But maybe, if she showed signs of a genuine desire to change, I could help guide her onto steadier ground. Right now, she was dizzy with the information I had given her. Probably terrified of what it all meant. She might think she wanted to be good, in light of getting caught. But only time would tell. I could ask Colby to keep tabs on her, but that was the best I could do until Trinity had fully assimilated into Black Hat and proven what type of agent she would become.
Wrinkling her nose, Trinity knelt among the weeds and began scooping the soft dirt with her hands. A few inches into her hole, she produced the first bone, and I inwardly sighed with relief that she had been honest about this much anyway. As the pile grew higher, I rolled my shoulders to dispel a prickling down my spine.
A smudge of blue teased the corner of my eye, and I whirled in time to duck the punch Malcom threw at me. Even less of him was present than the last time, which made me think the more you exploded them, the harder it was for them to come back together.
Good to know.
“You’re not rolling over for her,” he barked at Trinity. “Put those bones back where you got them.”
“I control you.” She dug faster, her breaths coming quicker. “Not the other way around.”
Malcom lunged for her, and she screamed, but he pulled up short, unable to harm his summoner.
“You think she’s going to let you go after what you’ve done?” He growled. “You’re going to burn, witch.”
While he was distracted, I rushed him, jabbing my wand into his wiggly mass. “No, she’s not.”
Magic burst forth, and he melted into a puddle at my feet.
“That’s new.” I put Trinity back to work. “Maybe there’s a limit on how many times they can reform.”