“You have a gift for cutting to the heart of the matter.” He grimaced, tightening his fingers as if afraid I would pull away from him. “Forgive my poor choice of words.”
“Trust me.” The pinch in my chest eased at his earnest apology. “I’ve heard all the jokes.”
A jiggling noise caught my attention, and I spotted Colby in the window, working to open the front door.
“I’m done packing.” She flitted out to light on my shoulder. “I have everything I need to kick orc butt.”
For a second, I got confused what orcs had to do with zombigos, but I put together she meant her game.
Mystic Realms.
An MMRPG, or massive multiplayer role-playing game.
Her attention shifted to where Asa held my hand, and her antennae quivered with interest.
“Clay and I should be going.” Asa rose with fluid grace. “We’ll pick you two up first thing.”
“Okay.” I let his fingers slide out of mine. “We’ll be ready.”
Heavy footsteps tromped out of the house onto the porch as Clay joined us.
“This kid is brilliant.” He gave Colby a miniature high-five with his pointer finger. “She would give the Kellies a run for their money.”
Flushed with praise, Colby glowed. Literally. She had been doing that a lot lately. “Thanks.”
“I’ll send you the files on the wendigo case.” Clay patted my head on his way past. “Night.”
Colby and I kept our spots while the guys exited the yard and climbed into the SUV.
The wards blipped as they passed through them, sealing us in until morning.
“Want to bake some cranberry-orange scones for breakfast?”
Angling my head toward her, I pursed my lips. “That’s an oddly specific request.”
With her restricted diet, she didn’t much care about baking. It was all pollen and sugar water for her.
“Clay said it wouldn’t hurt his feelings if we baked them.” She twitched her wings. “So, can we?”
“Why not?” I had a lot to think about and a case file to read. “We need to use the eggs before we go anyway.”
While Colby ran her mouth a mile a minute, explaining in great technical detail what she and Clay did to optimize her new laptop, I hummed agreement in the right spots as if I had a clue what any of it meant. I had avoided buying her a laptop for years in order to force her to be present when we went on trips. But I didn’t want to risk her inventing her own entertainment while we were on a case in an unfamiliar area.
Clay was right, she was brilliant, and smart kids tended to make trouble when they got bored.
Sadly, I had the feeling none of us would be bored once we got where we were going.
5
Chattanooga was a reasonable distance away, so it made sense for us to drive. That, and it spared Colby from spending hours pretending to be my hair bow on a plane. She sat hip to hip with Clay, both decked out in noise cancelling headphones. Asa drove, as usual, and I rode shotgun.
The platinum-blond wig Clay wore was a perfect match for Colby’s soft fuzz. That he wanted to give her a safe perch for when we stopped for gas and food was another example of his thoughtfulness.
Plus, it gave him an excuse to buy a new wig. For him, it was a win/win. For us too, really.
The wig promised she could hang with her new BFF in public instead of always being stuck with me.
Once confident little ears wouldn’t overhear, I opened the case file, ready to quiz Asa on a few points.
Before crawling into bed, I had read everything Clay sent me, but I preferred the hard copy for skimming.
“The wendigo killed seven people before you arrived. Three after.” I flipped through the stack of missing persons reports filed by victims’ families at four local police departments. “That qualifies as a massacre.”
The director must be working around the clock to suppress the details, given the high-collateral damage. No wonder he called Clay and Asa away so soon after the copycat case. This case had all the earmarks of breaking human news in the making. Wendigo attacks were often blamed on mountain lions, but no one would buy a single cat had eaten ten people without being hunted down with its head mounted by now.
“We have reason to believe there are more victims. We found several caches in various states of decay.” He switched lanes as storm clouds rolled in overhead. “There will be hikers from out of state who haven’t been reported missing yet. There always are in cases like these.”
Chattanooga wasn’t our destination, sadly, but we would pass through it to find our remote rental.
Flipping to the photo of the decapitated wendigo, I mused, “There wasn’t much blood, was there?”
Lightning illuminated Asa’s features as it forked across the sky. “I noticed that too.”
“Do you think it was already dead?” I thumbed through more photos. “You just…killed it some more?”
“I’m not sure.” Asa switched on the windshield wipers as light drizzle hit us. “It’s possible.”
A reanimated wendigo would be easier to control, subject to its master’s whims, not dissimilar to Clay.
Necromancers were the only supernatural faction able to fashion new life from an existing creature who rose with their own free will. Even then, their vampires were clannish and could be subdued by their own masters. But those masters were vampires, leaders of their clans, not the necromancer who resuscitated them. That autonomy might explain why humans were resuscitated but everything else was reanimated.
Still mulling that over, I asked him, “Any signs of other wendigos in the area?”
“The scat smelled the same, but that could be credited to a shared food source. The territorial markings, what few we located, were left at identical heights on trees. Only an alpha claiming land for their clan or a loner protecting their cache would scent-mark an area, so it’s not unusual for them to be uniform.”
Closing the file on my lap, I watched the swish and flick of the wipers. “What did you do with the body?”
“Another team was staying in Chattanooga. We buried the remains, since it’s a high-traffic area this time of year, then called in the coordinates to them. They were to cremate it and clean up the noted caches.”
Fire was the go-to method for destroying paranormal bodies, evidence, and dangerous objects of power.
Ideally, each team was assigned a witch to reduce documented evidence to ash, eliminating the need for clean up later. Except in cases, like the copycat, where large-scale exposure to humans or para lives were at risk. Then the preservation of evidence became a top priority. This case, thanks to its high body count, was fast becoming the latter.
“If it was alive to start,” I mused, “the witch could have followed you, dug it up, and reanimated it.”
The idea of them following him unnoticed caused his eyes to flash from green to burnt crimson.
“For her to exert control over such a primal creature, she must have spelled it into compliance. If, as you say, it was alive when Clay and I arrived. She could have tracked a vestige of her magic to locate it either way.” His eyes returned to their natural color. “The traceries would be stronger if it were already dead?”
“The more magic you sink into a person, place, or thing, the stronger your bond to it grows.”
The use of mind control magic on sentient creatures was big magic, and a huge no-no.
I skirted the edge with the teas I brewed for the girls. I had learned from my own experience with having memories erased where the line was drawn and how to avoid crossing it. Thanks, Gramps! But true mind control magic, where a person’s thoughts and actions were wrested away from them, was taboo.
So, of course, black witches had elevated the practice to an artform.
“Let me know if you catch a whiff of black magic.” I fiddled with my seat belt where it cut into my throat, uncomfortable with any comparison made between the director and me. “I still have trouble noticing it.”
&n
bsp; To put it mildly, my own stink from practicing black magic for years clogged up my nose.
“The more practice you get in the field, the easier it will be to identify. You need exposure to other…”
“Pungent practitioners?” I chuckled at his discomfort for any perceived slight. “I’m okay with being ripe.” It wasn’t like humans could sniff me out that way. “Actually, I’m developing a charm to keep me funky.”
“You don’t want the other agents to know you’ve switched disciplines,” he realized. “That’s smart.”
“I stepped on a lot of toes, crushed a lot of hands, kicked a lot of people in the face, to climb the ladder.”
And the director patted me on the head like a good girl each time I stabbed a potential ally in the back.
“I debated telling you this earlier.” His lips thinned. “I see now I should have as soon as I noticed it.”
The muscles in my lower stomach clenched in preparation for bad news. “Oh?”
“Your scent is changing. That night, when you tapped into Colby’s magic, you began to smell…”
“You won’t hurt my feelings.” I had already granted him permission to speak the hard truths. “Tell me.”
“You smell like hydrangeas, under the black magic.”
Hydrangeas.
A faint memory whispered through the back of my mind, and I swear floral perfume tickled my nose.
Shaking off the peculiar sensation, I asked, “Is that how Colby smells to you?”
“Colby…” He angled his head. “It’s hard to put into words. I sense her brightness, her purity.”
“You read the goodness in her the way I’m beginning to pick up the stain of darker magics in others.”
“Yes,” he agreed with relief I understood what he struggled to articulate. “This new scent is you. It’s how you would have smelled, had you been a white witch from the start.” He adjusted the wipers. “The more you work with Colby, the more taint will burn out of your soul. I can tell you’ve practiced while Clay and I were away. The impression is stronger now than when I left.” He colored slightly beneath my stare. “As a child, I helped Mother in her flower garden. That’s why I recognize the scent.”
His quick defense of how he came by the knowledge made me wonder who had poked fun at him for being a momma’s boy. Had that taunting forced him into the role? Or did his dutiful nature stem from guilt over his conception? And who burdened a kid with that information?
Probably his father, who would have tried driving a wedge between mother and son at a malleable age.
“I can almost remember my mother smelling like flowers,” I murmured, poking at my sore spots to avoid his. “I thought it was her perfume.”
“Magical scent tones tend to be hereditary. There’s every chance she had a floral power signature.”
Leaning back, I rubbed the tender skin over my heart. “Thank you.”
Eyes on the road, but his focus on me, he spoke softer than the rain. “You’re welcome.”
To go so long with nothing to remind me of my mother, I had given up hope of being more than my father’s daughter. But to learn that beneath the blight on my soul, I had scraps of her down deep? It reaffirmed my dedication to the path I had chosen to walk, not the one I had been led down as a child.
Closing my eyes against the sting, I breathed in deep, smelling hydrangeas.
I must have fallen asleep, because a ten-pound moth to the gut rocketed me straight out of my dreams.
“What?” I clutched Colby to my chest in a death grip. “Where?”
“Who?” Her muffled response huffed against my shirt. “When?”
The engine snarled as Asa punched it up a steep drive, and it all came back to me. “Smarty fuzz butt.”
“You slept the whole trip.” She shoved against me to get breathing room. “I was worried about you.”
“You couldn’t have—I don’t know—tapped my shoulder or tickled my ear? You had to cannonball me?”
“I didn’t want you to miss the big reveal.” She looked mighty innocent when she lied. “A real cabin.”
“Safer than a hotel.” Clay leaned forward for a better view. “Closer to the action too.”
Arms still linked around Colby, I frowned at him. “How close to the action?”
“About twenty minutes. We can hike to the kill zones from here.”
The term kill zone turned her tiny face solemn. “Where do you want me?”
The fact she asked, instead of demanding to go out with us right off the bat, gave me hope that she was figuring out these cases weren’t all fun and games. They were life and death. For us, and for the victims.
“Let’s go in and check out the place, then we’ll talk strategy.”
A fraction of her earlier excitement returned as we pulled into a circular drive before a two-story cabin. I had to admit, it was beautiful with its aged logs and wall of glass windows overlooking what must be the foyer. The landscaping was minimal but tastefully done, blending into the forest that encircled the home without standing apart from it. The glass made me nervous, but I could spell it tinted until we left, to keep anyone from peering inside while we were in residence. I would ward the area too, just to be safe.
No snow on the ground, but that was a lucky break for us. It would have been fun, yes, but it would have also made hunting the zombigo extra brutal. Maybe we could do a boys-versus-girls water balloon fight when we got home. It was chilly here, but there it had been plenty warm enough.
“This is amazing,” Colby trilled after we punched in the code the owners texted us. “Look at this ceiling.”
We stood in the entryway, watching her soar. There was a small loft set in the peak of the home, and I had no doubt Colby would claim it the second she calmed down enough to spot it. Light and airy was a theme for sure. Skylights peppered the roof, allowing moonlight to filter in through the trees overhead.
“This is a nice place.” I patted Clay’s shoulder. “Good job.”
“There’s a hot tub out back.” He rubbed his hands together. “I call dibs.” He eyeballed Asa and me. “And no shenanigans in the water we’re all going to be using.”
“This place is a rental,” I said slowly, “on a website where anyone can book it. Like honeymooners. Like couples. Like, I don’t know, groups of swingers who want to leave their dirty little secrets in the mountains.” I hid my smile while he paled. “I wouldn’t dip a toe into that DNA pool.”
The edge of Asa’s lips twitched in the beginning of a smile. “Who knows when it was cleaned last?”
“I hate you both.” Clay stormed outside to get his bags then yelled back, “For that, I get the master.”
“I can spell it clean,” I confided to Asa, tapping a finger on my bottom lip, “but do I want to?”
“You’ll cave.” He turned to follow Clay out to the SUV. “Eventually.”
“Stay put,” I called to Colby. “I’ll grab our bags and be right back.”
She had, as predicted, located the loft, and was busy exploring it. “Mmm-hmm.”
Outside, I noticed Asa had claimed our bags while Clay struggled with his hatboxes.
Who needed six—no, seven—wigs to hunt a zombigo in the mountains where no one would see him?
The fact I had that many paperbacks and a new cookbook hidden in my luggage was beside the point.
“Gimme.” I bumped my hip against his, already regretting the bruise it would leave. “Let me help.”
“How can I trust you?” He clutched his babies to his chest. “You’re a monster.”
“Yes, well, I’m a monster who can magically sanitize the water. I do it all the time for Colby.”
Any time I mixed her sugar water, I started with a sterile base to ensure she only drank the good stuff.
“Oh, really?” His earlier good mood returned in full force, and he grinned wide. “You’re forgiven.”
Forgiven, but not forgotten, as evidenced by the fact he continued to juggle his boxes solo.
Empty-handed, I turned to fiddling with my bracelet out of habit, drawing Asa’s attention like a magnet.
“We paid the owners to stock the fridge and pantry.” Asa stilled my hand with his. “You can bake to your heart’s content.” He bit his bottom lip, revealing a hint of fang I was certain hadn’t been there until now. Except in his daemon form. “I should have explained myself before I gave this to you.” He lifted his gaze. “I didn’t want to risk losing you. To someone like Nolan Laurens, who fits more easily into your new life.”
Those fangs were distracting. Sure, the daemon had them, but this was Asa. He made them look good.
“I could have said no.” I studied his earnest expression, a dangerous man with questionable morals who, for some reason, wanted me enough to get crafty. In more ways than one. The guy had impressive skills, and the credit belonged to his mother, which didn’t fit with how she policed his appearance. Unless that had been the point. Making him fae inside and out. Teaching him a lost art in order to hold him up as the ideal fae son, with respect for their heritage. Had she done it to combat his father’s daemon influence? No wonder Asa felt torn. His parents’ expectations were tearing him down the middle. “I had an inkling of what it meant, and I chose to accept it.”
To accept you went unsaid, because I would have choked on those words.
Rolling his thumb over my wrist bone, he soothed the skin beneath the bracelet. “I can remove it.”
A twinge in my chest that he would suggest it left me uncertain. “Can we still do…this…without it?”
“Yes.” Heat simmered in his gaze when it clashed with mine. “We can do…this…however you like.”
“I’ll keep it.” I had to work to swallow when he looked at me like that. “For now.”
Oh, how the bracelet must have laughed as I stood there with the perfect opening to get it removed and turned down the one man capable of taking it off me intact.
Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau Book 2) Page 6
