Free Taking Back Sunday by Cristy Rey Page B

Friday, and we call Stephen and gather a team. We take her by the weekend, and she’s in the hands of the cult by Sunday.” Cyrus waited until Angel nodded again. Begrudgingly, Angel accepted what Cyrus was saying. It made sense. Having crossed that bridge, Cyrus bought himself a couple of days to do something for himself. He would have to run into her again, orchestrate another encounter that seemed casual and coincidental at face value. The things he’d told Angel had been true. She was undeniably a threat to their safety and to the safety of the people around her, but he didn’t care. Her reaction to him at the club had been anything but malevolent. If they ran into one another again and she responded to him in kind, then he was in no danger of being ripped apart at her hands.
    Thankfully, Angel had just given him a day or two to find out. He just had to work fast.

CHAPTER TEN
    Vicky and Elisabeth Becker. Constance Smith. Michelle Hampstead, nee Singer. Eunice Johnson. Until Sunday could clear their names, they were all suspects.
    The dark magic at the esbatwas precise and potent. Someone was using her friends’ coven to some sinister ends, and Sunday needed to intervene. Sunday didn’t want to think that any one of the women in her friends’ coven was capable of it, but if there was even a possibility then she needed to get to the root of it and stop her.
    The research process was slow going. Sunday began compiling data as soon as she got home the night of the coven meeting. Poring over public records, and whatever else her Internet searching retrieved, Sunday investigated each of the women. She started at the top: Elisabeth and Eunice. They were the strongest, oldest witches of the bunch. Age didn’t necessarily equate to power, but these two held court over the others with ease. Nothing she found in hours of searching tagged either women controversial, however, so Sunday crossed Eunice and Elisabeth off her list. They were powerful, but they were caretakers. The genuine article.
    By dawn, Sunday was exhausted and cross-eyed from staring at the computer screen.
    “Two down, three to go,” Sunday mumbled as she shut her laptop.
    She curled onto the sofa and passed out as the sunrise broke through the curtains.
    For the duration of the next day, Sunday remained locked in place at her laptop just as she had the night before. This time, she started working on Constance. Constance Smith was, like Sunday, twenty-seven years old. She was born somewhere in Florida. Her name was listed on a roster of Art History graduates on the University of New Mexico website.
    Though data gathering on government databases turned up clean, the Internet search hadn’t been so kind to Constance. A refined search of different local interest sites popped up with references to a woman that sounded a lot like her. On a neighborhood watch blog, a woman calling herself Concerned for Cats posted a story about her neighbor whom she identified as Connie Smith.
    “She’s a disgusting, satanic animal-killer,” she wrote.
    She detailed the sounds of animals dying next door in the late hours of the night and the stench of rotting of dog carcasses emanating from Connie’s trashcans. The outraged neighbor provided uploaded pictures of what appeared to be dried bloodstains on her neighbor’s wooden deck in the backyard of her house. Concerned for Cats reported disturbances to the police. In the days after her initial report, she came home to a police car parked on her neighbor’s driveway.
    “The cops didn’t arrest the bitch,” she wrote.
    When a commenter replied that Connie Smith could sue her for libel, the neighbor responded.
    “Let that murderess try to sue me. Give the cops a reason to search that Satan worshipper’s property and find cat mincemeat in some Devil potion in her house. It isn’t just me talking. I’m not the only one who knows what’s going on.”
    At first, Sunday hesitated to believe it. Witches of all kinds, even