Pretty When She Destroys (Pretty When She Dies #3)(51)

“I’m tired of us not doing anything, Aimee! We just sit around and collect all this useless information. We don’t do anything but wait to die!”

“Actually, I work all damn day preparing spells,” Aimee retorted. “While you’re sulking, I’m doing something.”

The witch rarely raised her voice, but the steel in it now silenced the entire room. The only sound was Samantha’s spoon scraping against the edge of her bowl as she ate.

“Well at least you have something to do while you’re waiting for the end of the world,” Benchley spat out.

Samantha plopped some of the warm chili in her mouth and chewed. It killed her to admit it, but it was better than any she’d had at a chili cook-off. Baptiste gave her a knowing smile and a wink. She stuck her chili-laden tongue out at him.

There was a loud pop and a wash of glowing white energy flowed through the kitchen, pierced the walls, and vanished into the backyard.

Samantha twisted about in her chair. “What was that?”

“I just reinforced the ward,” Aimee answered.

“How are the perimeter alarms working?” Jeff asked.

He appeared just a tad grumpy. Samantha knew he hated that he couldn’t see the magic taking place around him. Samantha had to admit it looked really neat and wished she could share it with him. Instead, she tried to describe what she saw to him when he asked.

“Any supernatural crossing Austin’s city limits will trigger the alarm and a tracking spell attaches to them immediately. Cass took out two vampires last night in Oak Hill. We think they were a scouting team.”

“Why didn’t anyone say that before?” Benchley exclaimed.

“I was waiting to report it to Cian,” Aimee answered.

“Jeff’s the one in charge!” Benchley glowered.

“Cian’s the master of the city,” Aimee stated calmly and started to eat, not looking directly at Jeff.

“But Jeff’s the leader of our hunting group!”

“That consists of you, your sister, Eduardo and Jeff.”

“And Samantha!” Benchley thrust a finger in her direction and Samantha batted it away. “Right, Samantha?”

“Why can’t we all be one big group?” Samantha asked.

Her boyfriend was slowly ruffling his hair, his expression tense. Jeff and Cian did work together, but Jeff was bullheaded about acknowledging Cian as their official leader.

“We are one big group consisting of two factions,” Baptiste said calmly. “And we answer to Cian. Even Jeff. Because in the end Cian has hundreds of years of experience and knows The Summoner better than we do. He also knows all our strengths, our weaknesses, and how to utilize us. Jeff, you lead our research, but you’re not the military leader of this outfit.”

“True,” Jeff admitted, though his expression was sour.

Under the table, Samantha propped her bare feet on his leg and caressed his knee with her toes. She smiled when his hand settled over her ankle and squeezed it lightly.

“This is bullshit,” Benchley growled and stormed out of the kitchen.

Silence fell over the remaining group. After a few seconds, Jeff started to get up to follow.

“I need to discuss something with you, Jeff,” Samantha said, her tone quite serious. “I came up with an idea on how I can gain more control over the ghosts.”

“Oh?” Jeff sat back down. “What did you come up with?

While Amaliya continued to grow in power, Samantha was feeling stuck of late. Though she constantly saw ghosts, she found it difficult to control them the way she was supposed to be able to. Only when Amaliya was with her was she able to get the ghosts to do her bidding. Alexia and Benchley had provided a lot of information for her to read and she was sure she had finally found a way to get her abilities firmly under her dominion.

“I want to go find Roberto in Fenton.”

“Roberto?” Baptiste cocked his head. “Who’s Roberto?”

Samantha saw Jeff flinch. Taking a deep breath, Samantha said in a rush of words, “He was Cian’s bitchy human right-hand dude that drove me f*ckin’ crazy until he betrayed Cian and Amaliya to The Summoner. He became a vampire and betrayed them again, then got himself staked by a zombie under Amaliya’s control. Then he survived this epic ghost apocalypse when The Summoner basically used all the ghosts in the graveyard in Fenton to infuse himself into Bianca all the way over in Louisiana. So he’s still out there and cranky.”

“And you want to go talk to him and then what?” Baptiste looked skeptical.

“Get him to come with me,” Samantha said, avoiding Jeff’s look of disbelief.

“You hate Roberto,” Jeff said.

“Well, yeah. He’s a snarky bitch,” Samantha said, “but he’s the only ghost I know really well. We kinda have a connection. He’ll totally want out of that town and I can offer him a way out. Aimee is going to make me a foci.”

“It’ll tether him to Samantha,” Aimee explained.

“Can you do that with another ghost?” Jeff leaned toward Aimee to emphasize his next words. “Because any other ghost may be a much better option.”

“Well, yeah,” Aimee said, “but then she’d be stuck with a ghost who may not be sentient or cooperative.”