“Me? Got away from the great Raynor?”
He shot me a warning look as he walked up the steps to Birdie’s house.
I waited until he was inside before striding over to find Birdie slumped against Madge’s tomato planter. She held a tomato in one hand, regarding it as if it were a crystal ball that held the secrets of the universe.
“Come on,” I said softly. “I’m bringing you home to my place.”
She let me help her to her feet but didn’t put down the tomato. “I’m so confused.”
I spun the weak threads of my power into a hiding spell around us and guided her into her own backyard just as a car roared up to the house in front.
“I know,” I whispered, supporting her weight as we walked toward my house. “I know.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
It was the next day, just after sunset, and I’d driven down again in my Jeep. Raynor sat behind Lorne’s old desk, and a female app in gray robes I didn’t know sat beside me, taking notes. I hadn’t seen Lorne since I arrived, and nobody had mentioned him.
“When she’s strong enough to travel, Phoebe will be moved to Los Angeles,” Raynor said.
“For treatment?” I asked, knowing the most prestigious witch clinic on the West Coast was down there.
“For reassignment,” Raynor said. “Given her family connection to the ex-director, it was thought best to give her a fresh start in a new location.”
As much as I disliked Phoebe, she hadn’t been responsible for any of the actual crimes in Silverpool. “She didn’t know Jasper had done anything wrong,” I said.
“She should have.”
“I didn’t figure it out until last night.”
“Understandable. He was a friend of yours,” Raynor said. “And you weren’t on duty. She was.”
I nodded and looked at my hands. The fight with Jasper had left a black tattoo on my left wrist—an arc like the ones he’d had on his arm to mark the passing years. Would I have another one appear next year? Already I was dreading my birthday.
“Speaking of duty,” Raynor continued.
“I don’t want a job,” I said.
He smiled. “It’s been a stressful few days. We’ll talk about that later.”
“Only if you happen to be in Silverpool,” I said. “Otherwise, I doubt we’ll be talking about anything again.”
He flattened his lips, but I could tell he was humoring me. “Of course. Now, since you’re so eager to leave, you can begin giving your formal statement and return to your lovely, fae-infested backwater.”
“Don’t knock it. It would be on the cover of Sunset Magazine if they could find it.”
The app next to me snorted, and Raynor pointed at her pen and notebook. “You don’t need to write that down. Only the statement.” He turned his gaze to me. “Begin. Please.”
“Did Jasper kill Nick Takata? And if so, why?”
“After you tell us what you know, then—”
“No, you have to tell me now. It’s the final piece of the puzzle. Then I’ll tell you everything.” Mostly.
After a long pause, he took out his herb case and snorted a pinch up his nose. “Nick Takata once dated a witch named Sheila Zalek.”
“Lorne asked me about her. He said she was a Freewitch.”
“As a hobby more than a vocation,” Raynor said. “She seemed to have gotten bored easily. She’d inherited the Zalek fortune but worked as an interior designer, staging big, fancy houses for sale, which is how she met Nick Takata. Like Tristan and her father, she had a love of beautiful, unusual things. That turned into a preference for Shadow artifacts, which led her to a Freewitch meeting in Berkeley. That was years ago, but recently she got more involved. She’d been on our radar on and off for years, but last June she began going to meetings every week. Right around the time she began taking advanced potion lessons from a tutor in Silverpool. She paid for the lessons by decorating his house for him.”
“Jasper,” I said.
He nodded. “I was assigned to track her last June, which is how I know so much about her. I followed her to Silverpool but unfortunately was too stupid to notice anything suspicious about Jasper Holland. He never attended a Freewitch meeting himself, never left a trail online.”
“He was good with computers,” I said.
And he’d had a rotten soul I’d never suspected. When he’d seen me talking to Nick at the memorial service, he must’ve panicked, afraid I might connect him to his secret life and therefore the murder.
“So Jasper had a fairy run Nick off the road,” I said softly. “But why leave the necklace on the body, which led you to a known Freewitch?”
“It told us nothing new. They were inciting war between humans and fae. But it didn’t explain who had killed Tristan. Sheila Zalek was dead.”
“How—” I began. But I knew.
“Poison,” he said. “In her coffee.”
I gripped my knees. If only I’d seen what was right in front of me. If only I’d paid better attention to other people instead of moping around in a self-centered funk after the Protectorate had canned me.
“I had no idea he was so… hateful,” I said.
“He applied to the Protectorate every year for a decade,” Raynor said. “Many who join the Freewitches are merely nursing a sore ego after being rejected by us.”
“Maybe you should’ve let him in,” I said. “He’s got the bloodthirsty instinct you guys seem to go for.”
Raynor stood up and went over to the small wet bar under the window, where he lifted a water pitcher and filled two glasses. As he brought one over to me, I could feel the buzz of sweet, delicious wellspring water.
“It’s just a drop,” he said, taking a sip, perhaps to show me it was safe.
I’d never been affected by the springwater like everyone else, but I didn’t want him to know that. I pretended to be eager as I took a mouthful and smiled as I swallowed.
Within seconds I could feel Raynor’s truth spell hit my bloodstream. Expecting the famous demon hunter to have done something like it, I’d lined my bra with oak leaves. Itchy but effective. I didn’t plan on lying, but I liked the option. “Thank you.”
“Oh, by the way,” Raynor said, shifting in his seat. Turning to the app, he made a spiral gesture in the air. “You and I share a secret in common.”
“You and me?”
Raynor leaned back in his chair and stared at me. “Yes.”
I looked at the app, who now had a slack expression on her face. A string of drool hung over her lower lip, which kind of ruined the effect of her carefully applied makeup.
“You blanked her,” I said.
“The first time you give your statement, you will include all details.” He nodded at the notebook that had fallen into the app’s lap. “The second time, you’ll exclude the details that expose your gift of fairy sight and sound. Neither you nor I want others to be aware such an ability exists.”
I stared at him as the app snored softly. Interesting. Maybe he’d heard how I walked through the fairy mob on the bridge or had seen me watching Launt.
Did he know why we had this ability? I was tempted to lie, to hide my precious secret, but I was too curious.
And so was a certain witch who lived next door.
Without speaking, I glanced at the painted-over window next to Raynor’s desk. He saw the direction of my gaze and smiled.
“Dr. Helen Mendoza can’t hear what we’re saying.” He took out his herbs again and pinched a small amount between his fingers.
“You can’t be sure of that.”
A grin flashed and was gone. “She hears something. She just doesn’t know it isn’t everything. Eventually, maybe, she’ll figure it out. But not yet. So please, before my app falls on the floor, tell your tale.”
“What does it mean that we can hear and see the fae?” I asked.
“If you come work for me, I’ll tell you.”
To hide my annoyance, I squeezed the glass in my hand and kept my
face bland. Shadow’s balls. I wouldn’t pay that price.
I took another swallow of the springwater to enjoy its healing properties, even with the truth spell embedded in it. “I don’t know how much you already know.”
“Don’t worry about that. I won’t be bored.”
I looked down at the black ring tattoo on my wrist and rubbed my thumb across it. “It was the fairies who woke me up. I’m usually aware of them in the back of my mind, their singing and arguing, but this was…”
Raynor leaned forward and clasped his hands together on his desk. “Yes?”
“It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. They were…”
“Angry?”
“Afraid,” I said. “And one of them was calling for help.”
“Help from whom?”
“I don’t know. Me, another witch, anybody. I followed the voice and found Tristan on the bridge.”
“We found no trace of you on his skin.” He arched an eyebrow. “No recent trace.”
“I didn’t touch him. I knew— I knew he was dead.” I paused to swallow over the lump in my throat. And then I told him everything.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Jasper had studied fairies for a long time and apparently hated them. He also hated the Protectorate for having rejected him year after year and for having all the power and prestige he lacked as a witch without family, power, wealth, or connections. Sparking a war between them would be a personal triumph. Having a reason for it—the Freewitch movement—wasn’t necessary. He would’ve done it anyway. But it gave him an excuse that what he was doing was for a greater good, and Jasper, even at the very end, was still arguing that he was a good guy.
The night of the murder, Jasper poisoned the river, probably by pouring his potion off the bridge into the shallow water below. He wouldn’t risk climbing down to the riverbank, not with the green-faced river sprite there all the time and other fairies who already hated him for the experimentation he’d been doing near his house.
The potion he used that night didn’t work right away. If it had, I would’ve felt it sooner. Instead, he must’ve developed a spell that unfolded slowly so that when he finally poisoned the wellspring itself at the winter solstice, which I believe was his plan, he would’ve been far, far away with an unbreakable alibi.
Tristan had already noticed some of his experimentation and reported it to the Protectorate. If he’d suspected Jasper, he never told me. But that night as Tristan was walking across the bridge to meet Malcolm Bellrose at Cypress Hardware, which was spelled with magic that teleported desired objects into it, he saw for himself what Jasper was doing.
I don’t know what Tristan said when he confronted him, but I can imagine it was charming and persuasive, just like Tristan was. He was a popular man, and he wouldn’t have expected Jasper, or anyone, to lash out with violence. Jasper had put on a convincing show of being a nerdy, unassuming guy who kept to himself and didn’t have many ambitions. Tristan wouldn’t have had his defenses up for magic intended to kill.
Probably via one of Jasper’s potions, Tristan’s heart stopped. But then Jasper was stuck on the bridge with the Protector’s dead body. Had he known about Malcolm and the torc, he might have fled immediately, leaving Tristan there as he fell, not attempting to divert attention from himself. He didn’t know Malcolm was coming to Silverpool to see Tristan, and he didn’t know I could hear the wail of the grieving fairy beneath his feet. He couldn’t hear it himself. So he decided to take the time to set up a scapegoat.
One fairy he could see was Launt, who had lost his human body at birth to the changeling Seth Dumont. Launt was twisted from his own life experiences and was willing or eager to serve Jasper as he killed the fae. When Jasper killed the Protector himself, Launt must’ve felt liberated. There was nothing to stop him now.
Jasper told the eager Launt to steal Birdie’s car and drive over Tristan’s body. One of his students had been an estate lawyer in Santa Rosa, and with everything else Jasper was doing, using truth potions on his students had to be one of them. He undoubtedly collected the secrets of every witch who came to see him. I shuddered to think what he knew about me that I hadn’t intended him to know. Tristan’s will, which left everything to a nonmag clerk at the hardware store, would’ve been the kind of prime secret he could’ve plucked out of a student’s brain.
With his fairy gifts and human abilities, Launt stole Birdie’s car, drove it over the body, and returned it to the garage without her noticing. And then, while Birdie was playing Yahtzee and I was stirring in my bed, hearing the cries of the fae, Jasper and Launt left Tristan on the bridge. Compelled by the cries for help, I ran to the bridge and found Tristan. Then I talked to the river sprite and went home.
Because I was delayed by the emergency crew, my father had time to get into my house before I did. He had a knack for teleportation and obviously burglary. Spooked by Tristan’s body and the police, he would’ve wanted to unload the stolen torc as soon as possible—and what better hiding place than his own daughter’s home?
He tucked it away—I still don’t know where—and helped himself to my leftover pizza. When I arrived, he bonded Ethan to me, commanding the poor dog to follow me—not yet, in the morning, in his natural form as a mixed-breed black dog—until he could retrieve the torc for his master.
Unfortunately for Malcolm, Seth Dumont, who had been chasing Launt, came to see me at my house. The magical scent of the torc must’ve drawn him, and he stole it for himself. He said it was for me, but I didn’t believe that for a minute.
In the morning, Ethan—Random—appeared as a dog, and with my father at a distance, was happy to enjoy life as nature had intended. Until he met Seth, he was just being the good dog he truly was. Once he’d smelled the torc on Seth, he was reminded of his commands, and when Seth actually pulled it out of his pocket, and then Malcolm told him to seize it, he did as he was told.
I didn’t know if Random survived that battle with Seth, if he was in pain, if he was disabled, but I knew my father deserved what would be coming for him. Namely, me.
The day of the memorial service, Jasper must’ve thought he was in the clear when the police arrested Birdie. But then I rushed after her, obviously not believing she could be guilty, and he had Launt run me off the road before I could hire a lawyer, bail her out, or confirm her innocence with magic. He later pretended to have had his wallet emptied by fairies, just as mine had been, so that he couldn’t help me.
He’d also seen me at the memorial service talking to Nick. Nick, who wore the silver chain of his ex-girlfriend because without it, he could’ve told everyone about the Freewitch movement she’d always talked about, the one that her tutor Jasper belonged to as well. But the chain ensured his silence only so far. Jasper obviously thought it hadn’t been insurance enough and had Launt push his truck off a cliff.
And all for what? To trigger a war that would’ve died out within a week. The Freewitch meetings in Berkeley were famous for their bake sales, not their hard-core dedication to overturning the Protectorate. All Jasper had done was hurt a few dozen fae in the North Bay, and they were more like rabbits and kindergarten teachers than demons. Launt was the only fairy I’d ever met who would kill a human being—and no surprise, he was one himself.
When I was done speaking, Raynor locked his gaze with mine. “You’re going to come to work for me,” he said. “You belong here at the Protectorate.”
“No way. No way on this fine planet, my demon-hunting friend.”
“You have gifts.”
“I have an Incurable Inability,” I said.
Raynor shook his head slowly. “Thanks to you, Jasper Holland is dead.”
“By his own hand,” I said. “His own magic. If I’ve ever wanted to kill anyone, it was him at that moment—and I couldn’t. I’m not like him, Raynor. I’m not like you.” I slapped my hands on the armrest and stood up to go.
“You forget, ex-Agent Bellrose,” he said, holding up a hand. “You need to rep
eat everything you just said, minus the parts about hearing and seeing fae who don’t request to be seen, for the recording app.”
I groaned. My dry throat burned from speaking steadily for the past hour.
“Unless,” he said, “you answer one small question. Then I might be able to have your words recorded magically as I would like them to appear in the formal statement. The app won’t remember either way.”
I glanced at the app. Her head was slumped forward, and the drool had puddled on the notebook like a miniature, bubbling wellspring.
Because I knew what he was going to ask, I sighed. “Yes?”
“Where is the torc now?”
I stared at him, trying to keep my face as blank as the dazed app next to me. In my account, I’d try to suggest my father had reclaimed it when he took Random. But it was too risky to give a wrong answer to a direct question—the oak leaves might work on a little lie but not that.
The app let out a loud snore that made me feel sorry for the other agents upstairs who shared living quarters with her. It was hard enough to sleep under a desk without such a horrible sound interrupting the few hours available for sleep.
“You can wake her,” I said. “I don’t mind repeating myself.”
He pursed his lips but didn’t seem surprised. “As you wish.” He made a reverse spiral in the air with two fingers and then clapped his hands. “Act lively, Flint! What’s the matter with you?”
The poor woman jerked upright, grabbed her pen, and surreptitiously wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
When I thought she’d recovered enough to write, I took a sip of water and got comfortable in my seat.
“Jasper had studied fairies for a long time,” I began.
Chapter Forty-Nine
When I got home around midnight, Willy greeted me at my back door with a basket of blackberries, apologizing for the two gnomes, his friends, who had attacked me the night before.
Dead Witch on a Bridge Page 27
