Read Witches of the Deep (The Memento Mori Witch Trilogy Book 3) for Free Online

They started taking our men.”
    “What happens to the men they take?”
    The chipmunk crawled back into her hood. “Most die,” the she-wolf said matter-of-factly. They have to submit themselves to Dagon, and he eats them. Or the Picaroons kill them for sport. Only one or two have made it.”
    “Why can’t the werewolves fight them? There are hundreds of you.”
    “We ain’t like they are. They’ve got a god’s powers.” She thumped her fist into her hand as she spoke. “No one knows how. They don’t carve themselves like your pretty friend did, but they’ve got power all the same. It’d just take one of them to call up a storm that’d destroy all of Dogtown.”
    They crunched through the forest, and Fiona rubbed her arms, trying to sort through the disaster of her life. Mom was being interrogated by witch hunters, she was homeless, and Mariana was barely conscious. There was the torched school, the dead classmates, and the witch hysteria gripping the country. She wanted to go home, back to her mom, but there was no going back anymore.
    She gazed at the night sky. “I can take it from here, Cadonia.”
    A shadow danced over Cadonia’s face. “What are you saying?”
    “There’s no reason for us both to be out here. I can patrol the entire perimeter as a bat. I’ll ring the bell as soon as any pirate ships come anywhere near Cape Ann.”
    With that, she whispered the transformation spell and took flight.

8
    Tobias
    E stelle bent over a cauldron , stirring a pungent, medicinal brew. Long, copper earrings dangled by her cheeks. The sun was setting outside, and golden light streamed through the warped windowpanes, sparking off metal instruments on a medical table.
    Tobias glanced at a book in his lap, but his attention lay elsewhere. He had a bad feeling that Estelle wanted to kick Fiona out of Dogtown, and then she’d be left to the mercy of the witch-hunting Purgators. He’d go with her, but she obviously didn’t trust him anymore.
    He wasn’t sure why Fiona so thoroughly undid him. He couldn’t stop thinking about her: the little quirk of her mouth when she said something clever, the delicate curve of her waist, the way she stared at the ceiling when she was lost in thought, how she blushed whenever he caught her eyes lingering on him too long.
    But apparently, he horrified her.
    For one so scared of monsters, she seemed to have a lot of them in her life. Jack, her father, and now him. She’d never accept him the way he was.
    He couldn’t see how he could have handled anything differently. After all, he’d been trapped in Rawhed’s bathroom by Harvesters hellbent on killing him. Was he supposed to just let himself die?
    He snapped the book shut, a little too loudly. Estelle’s eyes darted to his, irritated at the disturbance.
    “Sorry.”
    “Brooding about something?”
    He took in a breath, steeling his nerves. “What will happen with Fiona?”
    Estelle crossed her arms. “She shouldn’t be here. She doesn’t belong. Even you must be able to see that.”
    “She’s not responsible for what her father did.”
    “She’s his daughter . I could sense the evil in her as soon as I met her. I know you’re fooled by her pretty eyes. I know she seems sweet and innocent. But she’s capable of horrific violence. It’s quite obvious.”
    “What exactly did Danny Shea do?”
    Estelle wiped her hands on a blue cloth and glanced out the window. “Some of our young men want out of here. They go off looking for adventure in your realm. It’s always been that way. Nine times out of ten they end up in jail. This was a little worse than that. One of our men fell in with the Connolly gang. He tried to impress them, bragging about pirate gold in Dogtown. It was all lies. But the lies got away from him, and he led them right here.”
    “He brought them through the veil?” A shudder crawled over his skin.
    She nodded. “The gang set bear traps in the woods. Three men were caught.” Her eyes were on