“We’re going to have to kill the hag,” Jim guessed.
That’s why I loved him. He was smart and quick.
“Mr. Dobrev,” I said. “I need you to fall asleep.”
He shuddered like a leaf. “No.”
“It’s the only way. We will be right here. When she comes, we’ll take care of her.”
“No.”
“You will wake up, Mr. Dobrev. You don’t know me, but trust me, you will wake up. Go to sleep now, while you still have some strength left.”
He looked into my eyes and let go of my fingers.
“Take a deep breath,” I told him, trying to sound confident. “It will be okay. It will be fine.”
The dark magic rolled over him. Mr. Dobrev took a long shuddering breath. He looked like he was drowning.
“It’s okay,” I murmured. “It’s okay. I’m here. I won’t go anywhere.”
“Please,” he said. “Why me? Why . . .”
I felt so terrible for him. He was so scared. But it was the only way. “Let it happen,” I murmured.
Gradually his eyes lost their light and turned glassy. He blinked, then blinked again, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.
“If the myths are true, she has to become corporeal to kill him,” I said. “When that happens, we have to get her first.”
Jim pulled a second knife from the sheath on his hip.
We waited. The shop was quiet around us.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “It has to be connected to Eyang Ida. That’s just too big of a coincidence. But jenglots and the old hag are literally from opposite sides of the planet. No magic user should be able to summon both.”
“We need to look into that law firm,” Jim said.
“He did say he saw the hag in a painting before?” I asked.
“Yes.”
It meant something. We sat and waited.
• • •
I had no idea how much time had passed. It had to be close to an hour. Jim brought my cursing kit to me and I sat with it, my ink, brush, and papers ready, staring at the deli meat cuts behind the glass under the counter. I was hungry. The rest of the shop was filled with shelves crowded with canned goods, Slavic-themed snacks and every fruit and vegetable that could be pickled. I really wanted to try some, but taking without permission was stealing.
A few minutes after Mr. Dobrev’s breathing had evened out, the furry magic began to crawl ever so slowly, shifting from his back onto his chest, and finally now it sat right under his neck, a big ugly blob that took up all of him all the way to the waist.
The roar of a water engine came from the outside. I glanced through the glass storefront. A yellow school bus rolled down the street.
The sack on Mr. Dobrev’s chest trembled.
I leaned forward.
A ripple shifted the fur. Another. It looked like a tennis ball rolling under some revolting blanket.
I pulled a paper out and began writing a curse. The curse had to be fresh, so I would finish it the second before I actually slapped it on her. I paused with my brush in the air. One stroke left.
Outside a boy, about ten or eleven, turned the corner and walked toward the building. Must be Cole and Amanda’s son.
A thin black talon broke the surface of the fur. Something was about to come out.
The air in the middle of the street wavered, as if suddenly a cloud of vapor had escaped from underground and got caught in a dust devil. What in the world . . .
The air turned, twisted, and shaped itself into a car. What the hell? I’ve never heard of a magic car appearing out of thin air . . .
My brain blazed through the evidence, making a connection. My older brother died on his way from school, Amanda’s voice said in my head. He was run over . . . Oh my gods.
The car turned solid. Its engine revved. There was nobody behind the wheel.
“Jim!” I pointed at the boy. “Save him!”
He whipped around, saw the car, the boy, and leaped right through the window into the street, shards of glass flying everywhere.
A knobby elbow pushed its way out of the sack, followed by a bony hand, each finger armed with a two-inch, black talon. The hag was coming.
Jim dashed across the parking lot. The car, a huge ’69 Dodge Charger, snarled like a living thing, racing straight for the boy. Jim sprinted, so, so fast . . . Please make it, honey. Please!
The head of the hag emerged, one baleful pale eye then the other, a crooked long nose and wide slash of a mouth filled with shark teeth.
The muscle car was almost on the boy. Jim was ten feet away.
Please, please, please don’t get killed.
Jim swept the boy off his feet and the car rammed him and smashed into a pole.
It hit him. Oh gods, the Charger hit him. Something inside me broke. I froze in agonizing horror.
The hag crawled out of the magic and perched on Mr. Dobrev’s chest, clutching at him with her long, creepy toes. She was my size but emaciated, bony, her meager flesh stretched too tight over her frame, while her skin sagged in loose folds and wrinkles.
The car revved its engine. It was still there. It didn’t disappear and that meant its target was still alive.
Jim leaped over the Charger’s hood, the boy in his arms, landed, and sprinted to us.
The hag reached for Mr. Dobrev’s throat. I painted the last stroke on the curse and slapped it on her back. “Poisoned daggers!”
Three daggers pierced the hag, one after the other, sticking out of her back.
The Charger reversed and chased after Jim.