Priceless

easy to take down or be taken by surprise. We’d lucked out that these two were having a lover’s quarrel.
    Another minute passed and she came around, though she tried to hide it. I leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “Unless you want me to puncture and scramble each piece of the rather necessary equipment your body contains, I suggest you tell us where the entrance is.” She nodded, her face white and shocky with blood loss. My stomach turned and I fought with the nausea rising in me. The warmth of her blood on my hands, the pulse of life I could feel because my hand was partially inside of her. Not a good time to want to puke. I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, the pain helping me steer my thoughts away from what I was doing.
    Her whisper was just loud enough to be heard over the thrumming of my own blood as it filled my ears.
    “The break in the rock. That’s the entrance.” Her eyes flicked toward the way she and her lover had come. “You’re the Tracker.”
    I nodded. She took a breath and smiled up at me. “They will kill you.”
    I shrugged and smiled back at her, knowing the smile was anything but nice. “Everybody says that.”
    Rolling her onto her stomach, we used the belt her boyfriend was wearing to tie her up and placed her around the corner where we’d hid, gagging her mouth for good measure.
    “That’s all it takes to deal with a witch?”
    O’Shea’s question made me want to laugh out loud, but I contained it. “Weak ones are incapable of doing magic without their hands.” I wiped the blood off my own hands using her skirt. Her head lolled and she groaned, but it was the best she could do. I shrugged off the guilt and turned toward the direction of the crossing.
    Again, O’Shea followed me, and I wondered at his willingness to let me lead. A quick look over my shoulder showed him gripping his sword lightly, his eyes never resting in one area for too long.
    Three more corners through the Witchlight tunnels and the crack in the wall was right in front of us. It didn’t glow, and in fact, looked a lot like all the other cracks we’d passed, except it was wide enough we could have walked in shoulder to shoulder without bumping the walls—and the Witchlight didn’t penetrate it. That was the clincher.
    “This is it.” Now came the really hard part. Making him stay behind without having him throw a fit and without having to explain what crossing the veil meant.
    “O’Shea. Let me look in first, then I’ll give you the okay.”
    He ducked his head inside the crack before I could stop him. “There isn’t anything, just a slab of rock.” He reached out and tapped said slab with his sword. That would make this easier. O’Shea didn’t have any natural ability to cross the veil, at least not without help.
    “Go check down there.” I pointed to another tunnel off the main branch, one that didn’t have any light going down it, handing him the flashlight. “I’ll backtrack and see what I can find, maybe we missed something.”
    I watched him walk away, his sword raised as if it were a gun. The flashlight held at the handle gave him lots of light as he stepped into the tunnel’.
    Two strides and I was inside the crack I knew was the entrance I needed. Squinting my eyes, I looked past what this side of the veil showed me and got a good look at what was really there. A doorway painted a deep maroon and boasting a large lock stood between me and India. I tried the handle, knowing before I did that it wouldn’t be so easy. It didn’t move, not even a slight jiggle. Fuck, why was I not surprised?
    Putting one hand against the door, wishing I could just bust through, I considered my options. One, I could try to force it, using my sword as a hammer on the lock. But this wasn’t one of my swords Milly had spelled for me, so it was unlikely it would hold up to that kind of abuse. Two, I could try to figure out the spell they had locking this down, but again, without Milly helping, that would be impossible. Unless there was an even simpler solution than that. More mundane.
    “Keys,” I muttered. There had to be a key somewhere.
    Like on the two Coven members we’d dispatched.
    Bolting out of the crevice, I ran back to where we’d left them. The woman was still breathing, but I doubted she’d have the key on her. He was the one in control of things; that much had been obvious. A quick frisk of his pockets and I had a small key palmed, a feeling of relief coursing