Hunter Hunted

by Arthur, Keri

  Belle, I said, as I scrambled after him, any sign of a motorbike coming your way?

  No. I’ll go back onto the main road and see if it makes an appearance.

  Be careful.

  As someone else has been known to say, careful is my middle name.

  I snorted but didn’t reply, trying to catch Ashworth while avoiding as many of the slashing tree branches as was feasibly possible.

  Five minutes later, we hit a clearing.

  In the middle of it lay a man.

  A man whose brain matter was spread all around his head like a bloody halo.

  Chapter Two

  Bile surged up my throat and I swallowed heavily. In truth, this actually wasn’t the worst thing I’d seen in recent months—that honor went to the teenager who’d been made a zombie by a vampire intent on revenge, and whose disintegrating body Aiden had been forced to destroy.

  I slid to a halt well short of the dead man’s thin and somewhat wrinkled body. A multitude of hurts instantly raised their ugly heads, but I did my best to ignore them and scanned the nearby ground. There was no sign of additional blood, no sign of any sort of animal sacrifice, and no immediate source for the foul magic that still pulsed around me.

  Just the almost faceless remains of an elderly man. Whether he was even our practitioner or not, I couldn’t say. “Can you see—?”

  “There’s a protection circle on the other side of the body,” Ashworth said, obviously guessing what I’d been about to ask. “The spell stones are damn massive, too.”

  My gaze jumped beyond the dead man, and my eyes widened. Spell stones were usually quite small—they generally tended to be little more than an inch or so in diameter. These things were huge chunks of black quartz that glittered like diamonds in the fading afternoon light.

  “Why on earth would anyone want to use stones that large?” I asked. “What sort of spell was he even creating?”

  “I have no idea.”

  I narrowed my gaze and studied the stones. After a moment, I saw the shimmer of magic. “There appear to be multiple layers placed onto those stones.”

  “And they’re not all protection, I’d wager. Stay here.”

  A somewhat unnecessary order given I had no intention of going any closer to either the body or the circle than I absolutely had to. “Is there any sign of a sacrifice or blood within the protected area?”

  “Not all blood magic requires a sacrifice.”

  “But it does require at least some blood, otherwise it wouldn’t be called blood magic.”

  His smile flashed briefly as he knelt beside the stranger and placed two fingers against his neck. Why he was looking for a pulse, I had no idea, given it was very obvious the man was dead.

  “Some dark witches do take apprentices,” he said, “and a part of their duty is providing a source of blood for their master’s minor magics.”

  “This doesn’t feel minor.”

  “No.” He thrust back to his feet. “This man’s soul has already risen, so it must have been his time.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You’re a spirit talker?

  “Not as such. I can sense souls, but I’m not at all proficient when it comes to talking to them.” He walked on toward the circle. “Whatever he was doing, it was a nasty piece of work.”

  That was evident from the force of his spell. I shivered and rubbed my arms. “Is there evidence of blood usage within the circle?”

  He hesitated, his gaze scanning the ground ahead. “There’s a large area of staining near the middle of the circle, but I’d need to get inside to know what it is. And I can’t get inside until it’s deactivated.”

  “What?”

  He glanced at me. “The circle’s still active, and there are live threads moving within it.”

  My stomach twisted. A protective circle in which dark magic had been performed was bad enough, but one with a still active spell was akin to a ticking time bomb. Especially when we had no idea why it was still alive or what the spell was.

  I forced myself closer, though I took a somewhat large detour around the body. I stopped on the opposite side of the circle to Ashworth and crossed my arms. After a moment, I saw what he meant. The spell threads were barely visible wisps of pale green smoke, and moved around the confines of the circle in a manner that suggested they were guarding it. I had no idea what sort of spell it was, as I’d never seen threads like it—not entirely surprising given we’d left Canberra well before we could get into the study of darker spells and how to deactivate them.

  “You’ve really no idea what sort of spell it is?” I asked.

  “No, but if our dead man was responsible for it, then it should have died when he did.”

  “Could it be a counter against whoever was here with him—a means of retribution if they betrayed him?”

  “If he mistrusted his partners, he wouldn’t have left the safety of his circle.” Ashworth grimaced. “You’d better call the rangers. I’ll see if I can uncover a bit more about the threads inside this thing.”

  I nodded and dug out my phone. Belle, any luck with the motorbike?

  Nope. It hasn’t come out roadside as far as I can tell.

  I swore softly, even though it had always been a vague hope at best given this area contained a whole lot of nothing into which evil could easily disappear. You might as well head back home, then. You’ve a date to get ready for, remember.

  Indeed I do. Catch you later.

  I hit the number for the ranger station. Normally I’d ring Aiden direct, but I knew he was at the doc’s right now.

  After several rings, a familiar voice said, “Ranger station, Jaz Marin speaking. How can I help you?”

  Jaz was a brown-haired, brown-skinned wolf who’d come here from a New South Wales pack and had subsequently married into the Marins. She and I had become friends thanks to a mutual love of good hot chocolate, cream cakes, and British baking shows. “Jaz, it’s Lizzie—”

  “Oh dear,” she said, trepidation evident in her tone. “There can be only one reason for you to be ringing when you know Aiden isn’t on duty.”

  “And I’m afraid you’d be right.”

  She blew out a breath. “You want to give me the details? I’ll pass them on to Tala.”

  Tala was Aiden’s second, and a straight-talking, no-nonsense wolf. We weren’t exactly friends, but she’d at least come to accept that psychic talents did indeed exist and that they could also be quite useful.

  I told her what we’d found and provided directions, but didn’t bother mentioning the magical elements within the clearing, as they may or may not be relevant.

  “Tala’s in Rayburn Springs,” she said, “so it shouldn’t take her more than twenty minutes to get there. You hanging around?”

  “I daresay she’ll want me to.”

  “Probably.”

  “Then I will. Thanks, Jaz.”

  I hung up and shoved the phone away. Ashworth didn’t look happy.

  “Is there a problem?”

  He rose. “Yeah. The magic inside this thing is active but I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  If Ashworth had no idea what it was, we were in deep shit. “Do you think he was an unvetted witch?”

  Unvetted witches were generally half-breeds who’d somehow avoided the accreditation process that both uncovered their power levels and aligned them to one of the major or minor houses. Belle and I—despite the fact we were full-blood witches—were technically unvetted, as we’d never gone through either the accreditation or registration ceremony that happened when a full-blood witchling reached eighteen years of age.

  “No, if only because there’s too much power and control involved.” Ashworth swept a hand over his bald head, frustration evident. “I think it’s more likely he’s an extremely well-trained full-blood witch gone bad.”

  My gaze briefly swept the body. Again bile rose, and again I swallowed it down. The short crimson-red tufts that topped the remains of the stranger’s head certainly indic
ated he was from one of the blueblood families. The remnants of his features weren’t Asian, which cut out the Kang line but not the Marlowe or Ashworth lines.

  “Does that happen often?” I’d certainly never heard of any such event in my years up there, though that sort of thing was probably only spoken about in hushed voices behind closed doors.

  “More often than people think,” Ashworth said. “Not everyone is happy with the hierarchy situation in Canberra.”

  And much of that discontent, I suspected, came from within the inner circles. While the three royal families were supposedly of equal standing, in reality, the Marlowes held more powerful positions in the capital than either the Kangs or the Ashworths. My parents were considered to be amongst a mere handful of the most powerful witches Canberra had ever produced—a fact that went a long way to explain their utter disappointment in producing such an underpowered witch as me.

  “They keep a log of heretics though, don’t they? Which means you should be able to find his identity through his prints easily enough.”

  “Heretics are treated no different to any other criminal—their prints are only taken after they’re caught and charged.” He grimaced. “And it’s been my—admittedly limited—experience that heretics on the run tend to get rid of as many identifying marks as possible. And what they can’t erase, they conceal.”

  Concealment had certainly worked for Belle and me, but it wasn’t like anyone other than my parents had any reason to bring me home. Heretics were another matter entirely—and had been responsible for many an atrocity committed against witches over the centuries. There’d been more than a few stake burnings that were the end result of heretic interaction with humanity, even if it was something as simple as a spell going bad.

  “It’s easy enough to change your hair, grow a beard, or even use contacts to change your eye color,” I said, “but how on earth do you get rid of something like fingerprints?”

  “They can be surgically removed, burned away, or otherwise mutilated.”

  “All of which sounds damn painful to me.” And from what I could see, the stranger’s fingertips appeared intact—although I wasn’t about to get any closer to check. “Doing any of those things would raise red flags if they were ever stopped by cops, or tried to head overseas, though. I wouldn’t have thought the pain worth it.”

  “That’s because you and I are normal, sane people. Besides, any witch capable of producing a glamor can get past most security checks. They haven’t invented machines that can detect spells as yet.”

  No, they hadn’t, but most major airports these days did at least have witches on staff for that very reason.

  “You know,” I said, “I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve actually said to me.”

  Confusion ran across his features. “What?”

  I grinned. “You called me a normal, sane person.”

  He snorted. “A normal, sane person with a past she doesn’t want revealed.”

  It took every ounce of control I had to curtail my instinctive response—a response that went along the lines of “mind your own goddamn business.” “And what the hell do you think I’m concealing?”

  “You tell me. All I know is there’s a story behind you and Belle, and it’s one that has me intrigued.”

  “Ever think that what we’re concealing might be nothing to do with who we are, but what was done to us?” Or, at least, to me.

  Surprise crossed his expression. “Abuse?”

  I smiled, even though my insides churned and the little voice in my head screamed for me to just shut up. But I had to go on—had to at least give Ashworth some sort of believable explanation. If he kept digging, my parents would come.

  Or my father and Clayton would.

  The shudder that ran through me was horror. Pure, utter horror and fear. I swallowed heavily and said, “Yes, and I have no intention of ever being found by said abusers. So if you can just drop the damn subject, I’d be obliged.”

  He studied me through narrowed eyes for a few seconds, and then grunted. Whether that was agreement or not, I couldn’t say. I took a deep breath and then waved a hand to our dead witch. “He’s got the coloring of the royal witch.”

  “So have you, my dear.” Ashworth’s tone was wry.

  I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, but I’m an underpowered half-breed and I don’t think he is.”

  “I’ll agree with your latter point, but the jury is still out on the former.” He raised his hands before I could say anything. “I saw no lie in your words when you spoke of abuse—quite the opposite, in fact—so I won’t continue my investigations in Canberra. But you should be warned, I will continue to haunt your steps, even if only to satisfy my own curiosity.”

  Which I guessed was at least something of a compromise, and one I could live with. “You think I’m somehow concealing the strength of my magic?”

  “Definitely not, but there is something else going on with you, and it’s not the connection you have with Belle.”

  But did have a whole lot to do with my connection to the wild magic, if I was reading him right. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that, though—nothing I could do to even hide that connection, given most of the time I didn’t initiate contact. And it wasn’t just the wild magic coming from Katie’s wellspring, but rather the larger, older one. It had helped me long before Katie had ever come to my rescue.

  “There really is nothing more going on than what you’ve already seen.”

  “Perhaps, and perhaps not.” He shrugged and motioned to our dead witch. “To get back to our friend here, he’s not someone I recognize, if that’s where you were going with that question.”

  It wasn’t, because I was well aware that it was rare for RWA witches to return to Canberra once they’d left. “I was simply noting that—given the fact he’s obviously from one of the royal lines—it’s likely someone up there will recognize him.”

  “If luck is on our side, yes.” He glanced at me. “But even if he didn’t hold royal witch coloring, I’d have to call this in. As I said, I’ve never seen a spell like this, and I’ve been with the RWA for more than thirty years. Someone more up-to-date with spellcraft is going to have to deal with this thing, and I’m afraid that means Canberra.”

  I half smiled. “The likelihood of that person being the person I’m running from is remote.”

  “I hope so, for your sake.” His voice and expression were grave. “Because that brief glimpse of honesty I got was dark indeed.”

  Suggesting he, like many RWA witches, held some truth-seeking abilities. They might not be able to drag the truth out of people—there were spells designed for that sort of thing—but they could generally tell fact from fiction.

  I hesitated, and then said, “While it is doubtful I’ll know whoever they send, if you could send me a text with his or her name before they gets anywhere near us, I’d appreciate it.”

  It was, after all, always better to be prepared. But sooner or later, the one thing I feared would happen, especially if we remained on this reservation. The wild magic had been left unprotected for too long, and its siren call would still be echoing through the deeper, darker places of the world.

  A sensible person intent on remaining unfound would leave—would get as far away from this place as possible. But we’d been on the run for twelve years now, and I wasn’t the only one getting really sick of it. I wanted to put down roots. Wanted to belong somewhere.

  Castle Rock, more than any other place we’d been to, felt like home.

  Ashworth studied me for too many uncomfortable seconds, and then nodded. “I can do that.”

  “And you’ll not tell Aiden what I’ve said?”

  Surprise flitted across his features. “Aren’t you two involved?”

  “Yes, but I want to find the right time to tell him, and that time isn’t now.”

  He frowned but nevertheless agreed. The relief that swept through me was so strong my knees threatened to buckle.

&n
bsp; I swallowed heavily and said, “How safe will it be to leave the circle as it is until the Canberra witch gets here? I know we’re basically in the middle of nowhere, but I wouldn’t want anyone accidentally tripping the damn thing.”

  “I’ll put a repelling spell around it to stop anyone investigating too closely. Are the rangers on the way?”

  “Tala’s already in Rayburn Springs, so she shouldn’t be too long.”

  “Good. You want to head up to the road to ensure she doesn’t miss us? I’ll get working on the barrier around this thing.”

  It was a dismissal, but one I was more than happy to obey. In all honesty, the more distance I put between me and the brutal, bloody death and lingering threads of dark energy that lay in the protection circle, the better.

  By the time I found my way back to Ashworth’s truck, my head was thumping and my arms and legs had gained a new array of bloody scratches. I found a medical kit in a back storage unit and quickly cleaned them all up, then took a couple of painkillers. The blow I’d taken to my head had left a lump, but it wasn’t that large and there was no accompanying cut. And, hopefully, no concussion.

  It’d be the mother of ironies if Aiden got the all clear only for me to be similarly incapacitated.

  It was fifteen minutes before I heard the sound of an approaching truck. I pushed away from Ashworth’s truck and walked into the middle of the dirt road so that I’d be easier to spot. After a moment, a green-striped white SUV—the standard-issue vehicle for reservation rangers—came into view.

  Tala halted beside Ashworth’s truck and climbed out. She was a Sinclair, and had the traditional dark skin and black hair of that pack, though her hair was shot with silver that gleamed brightly in the late afternoon sunshine. She was only half an inch or so above my own height, but had an air of authority that made her seem so much taller.

  “The boss isn’t going to be happy about this.” Her expression suggested she wasn’t all that happy, either. “Not this close to Christmas.”

  “I’m not exactly doing a dance of joy over here, you know,” I bit back. “Nor am I giddy with excitement over the fact we have another magic-related death on the reservation.”