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The Kid had a listing of places where dead humans had been found since sundown--three ho Park And hts had been seen and horrible smells of smoke had been detected--four locations that were near water The Kid had hacked the NOPD network, which no one mentioned because we needed the intel he had discovered He pinpointed the sites on a map and sent them to our cells Each location was farther from the park, as if the stink of burned flesh and odd, unexplained fires had been leapfrogging,uptown and beyond, toward the Garden District, whichin the back of my mind feel all squirrelly, as if that direction made some kind of sense that I didn’t want to think about

The Kid stayed busy uploading all the intel to our cells as we debriefed and reweaponed up and found new boots Blades clicked and slid into sheaths, the schnick of cha closed punctuated the coave us the short version of his time in the pokey It was succinct "I was taken in" Schnick, snap, slide, tap-tap, clack, schnick "Made my one call to HQ" Repeat of same sounds but faster "Leo overnor" Soft slide of blades being checked and repositioned, leather against steel "I was let out"

I couldn’t be as succinct, but I told the guys about the failure of the snare of thorns trap, about Molly trying to get to the blood dia Santana I ended with, "I can’t trust my best friend and I don’t knohat to do about it Or about anything else either"

The Kid said, "The first tiarden, fighting her sister off She stole the life force of every living thing in the garden to keep her sister fro us all"

"And the blood diaelina was using it at the ti on the couch to pull on my last pair of combat boots All I had left after this wereto ruin the pretty boots on a hunt for a big-bad-ugly Boot shopping was in my near future "She had already called the de on it"

"Molly’s arden, before she ca the un into and out of a holster That state a cohesive whole in the front ofclose to out of control"

I nodded "The angel Hayyel did good stuff and bad stuff to us all It see to Molly"

"That we know of," Alex said "Anything ht have happened then"

"And KitKit?" Eli asked "Was the cat there tonight?"

I had forgotten about the cat "No" I sat back on the couch and closedthis in front of the boys, as I breathed in, sniffing for the cat I placed the highest concentration of cat scent at the stink of the litter box in the back, in the utility/laundry rooest concentration of cat pong cah the kitchen into the butler’s pantry The cat was curled, asleep, on the top open shelf, aate, her s room, I said, "Molly doesn’t want the other witches to know she has a fa "She’s afraid they’ll h it fit

Eli said, "She needs to take the cat with her all the tirows every tiic just like her death ics, and they feed off each other"

I looked at er who, until recently, knew nothing about reed "The cat has a den on the top shelf of the butler’s pantry Alex, can you handle Molly if she coone?"

Alex lifted a shoulder "When I hear her co, I’ll throw the cat at her If that doesn’t work, look for a warty frog hopping on the keyboards when you get back Find ue"