by Arthur, Keri
“I hope not. Is it safe to approach the body?”
I hesitated, testing the air with my “other” senses. “There are still faint wisps of magic coming from the victim’s body.”
His gaze sharpened on mine. “Meaning this could be connected with the shooting victim?”
I hesitated. “Belle asked the same thing, but the two magics feel very different. I think it more likely that this is another example of just how big a draw the unprotected wellspring is to those who follow darker paths.”
“If we are dealing with pelt hunters, they’re likely to be human.”
“Which only means they’re not here for the magic itself but doesn’t discount the fact that the unprotected wellspring nevertheless drew them here, even if they have no idea why.” I swept my gaze across the body again. “I suspect the magic is coming from the silver needle that’s stuck in his flank, but I’d need to get closer to be sure.”
“Are you able to?” There was sympathy in his voice but also determination. This was the ranger rather than the lover speaking, and the ranger didn’t want to wait for Ashworth and the other witches to arrive if he could at all help it.
And considering what had been done here, it was a desire I could totally understand.
I took a deep breath and nodded.
“Thanks, Liz.”
I nodded again and forced my feet forward, keeping my gaze more on the ground than the raw mess of sinew and meat that had once been human. When I was close enough, I took another deep breath and then glanced at Aiden. “You ready?”
He nodded and raised his phone. I squatted beside the body and reached out, letting my hand hover just above the end of the needle jutting out of the wolf’s flesh. Faint wisps of power teased my skin but they weren’t coming from the needle itself. I frowned and skimmed the rest his body. It wasn’t until I reached his front leg that the magic grew stronger. I frowned and, after a moment, spotted a light indentation near his wrist. He’d been wearing a bracelet tight enough to leave a mark even after he’d been skinned, which was rather odd. Werewolves had what was generally called a set point—a natural biomarker that slowly changed as they aged. It meant that no matter what happened in either form, by shifting their shape, their body basically repaired itself back to that set point—with the exception of a fatal wound, of course. Which meant that even if the bracelet had been tight enough to mark his human wrist, it shouldn’t have in any way left a mark on his wolf form.
I shifted slightly and skimmed my hand down the leg. The nearer I got to the indentation, the stronger the sense of magic became.
“You’ve found something?” Aiden asked.
“Yes. Can you come around this side?” Once he had, I added, “Pick his leg up.”
He pulled two pairs of gloves from the apparently never-ending supply he kept in his pockets, offered me one set, and pulled on the other. Then, very carefully, he lifted the stranger’s right leg.
I pressed one gloved hand against the ground to steady myself and peered closely at the limb. After a moment, I saw it—the fading curl of a magical thread; this time, it was attached to an actual thread.
I glanced at Aiden. “Can I have your phone?”
He gave it to me instantly. “What have you found?”
“A thread.”
“What type of thread?”
“Some sort of cotton, by the look of it. The magic I’m sensing is coming from it.”
“How can you attach spells to something as simple as that?”
I took a couple of shots then handed the phone back to him. “You can attach spells to anything at all. All it takes is knowledge and skill.”
“How big a thread are we talking about?”
“Tiny. I’d guess it was part of some sort of charm he’d been wearing that has been left behind when the rest of it was removed.” I glanced up. “Do you want me to pull it free?”
“If it’s not dangerous to do so, yes.”
“It doesn’t feel dangerous.” I carefully touched the tip of the thread with gloved fingers. Magic swirled, whispering its secrets. The tension within me eased. “It’s little more than a magical tracker.”
“Does that mean we have a second unknown witch on the reservation?”
“Not necessarily, because trackers like this can be bought at most craft markets. They’re not difficult to create.”
I carefully gripped the thread and tugged on it. The thread came free easily enough, but the faint wisps of magic slowly spinning around the bloody piece of cotton started fading even faster. I doubted Ashworth or the heretic tracker would be able to use it to uncover its origins, but I just might.
I held up the small piece of thread so that Aiden could see it. “Do you want me to use my psychometry skills to try and track down either the source of this thing or the rest of it?”
“Will it be dangerous?”
I hesitated. “To be honest, I don’t know. I guess it’s always possible this thread was left behind deliberately, but given the magic is fading and appears to be nothing more than a simple spell, I doubt it.”
“Can you nevertheless employ a protection circle? I don't want to be picking up your bloody pieces as well.”
I rose. “It’s not something I particularly want either, given the hole it would blow in future seduction plans. Hold this.”
I handed him the thread, then walked back down the hill until I reached a flat, relatively stone-free piece of ground. I dug my spell stones out of the backpack and then placed them carefully on the ground until I had a circle large enough to sit cross-legged in.
“Right,” I said and held out my hand.
He came down the hill and carefully handed me the inch-and-a-half-long piece of thread. What little magic remained was leaching away rapidly—something that often happened when small magical items were broken.
I frowned and wondered why instinct seemed to think the charm had been pulled off rather than simply unlatched. The indentations on the wolf’s wrist certainly didn’t indicate the former, given such an action would have forced the charm’s threads to dig deeper into the skin on one side of his wrist than the other.
I glanced up at Aiden. “I’m going to have to touch this with my bare hand if I’m to have any hope of dragging information from it. Will that piss Ciara off?”
“I doubt it, as it’s not like we’ll be able to pull prints from it. It’s more about matching that thread to whatever cloth or material it might have come from. Can I film you doing the reading?”
“Once I’ve fired the circle up, yes.”
I sat down and then began to spell, carefully laying the threads of protection across the stones, weaving one upon the other, until the circle was as strong as I could make it under the circumstances.
I told Aiden to start filming then pulled off one glove with my teeth and switched the thread to my bare hand. Even though there was only a tiny amount of blood on the thread, it oddly seemed to burn against my skin, and held within it echoes of the agony the wolf had suffered. My stomach flip-flopped but I narrowed my gaze and tried to concentrate on the remnants of magic rather than the emotions. Whoever had created the bracelet or charm this thread belonged to hadn’t, in any way, flirted with the darker side of the art. The spell felt cool and light, free of evil or taint.
I closed my eyes and unleashed my psychometry skills. For several seconds, nothing happened—no real surprise given how tiny the thread was. But just as I was about to give up, images stirred. But they were faint. So faint. I frowned and tried to pin them down, but I might as well have tried ensnaring a fairy.
“You need to tell me what you’re seeing and experiencing,” Aiden said quietly.
“I’m seeing a teapot.” I tried to adjust the mental dial and sharpen the images but it didn’t work. “A black one. The air is sharp with incense—a protective mix of violet and angelica. The room is small and dark. There’s a woman; she’s got dark brown hair shot with gray and silvery eyes....” The image faded and I s
wore softly. “I’m sorry. That’s all I could get.”
“Do you think it was a memory of where—or who—he’d gotten the charm from?”
“Possibly.” I hesitated and glanced at the body. “I might be able to get more if I tried to read his mind direct, but there’s only a six-minute window of brain survival after the heart stops before memory deterioration begins.” Even then, some levels of memory could be affected, particularly short-term. “And given the way he died, I really doubt I’d get anything more than his agony.”
Not to mention the whole issue of having to touch his skinned body to even make the attempt. My stomach was unstable enough as it was.
“I’m not about to put you through that, Liz.”
“Thanks.” I carefully wrapped the thread in the rubber glove, then made the circle safe and collected my stones. I rose and handed Aiden the glove. “Sorry I couldn’t have been of more help.”
He caught my hand and tugged me close. He didn’t kiss me; he just wrapped his arms around me and held me silently for several seconds. It was nice.
More than nice.
“Jaz, Tala, and Ciara are on the way,” he said eventually. “I’ve asked Jaz to drive you home.”
“I’ll head back to the road, then.” I somewhat reluctantly stepped back. “I’m gathering it could be a long night?”
He grimaced. “More than likely. But if you’d prefer to spend the night on a more comfortable mattress that has certainly seen far less traffic than that hotel bed, you’re more than welcome to go back to my place.”
Amusement twitched my lips. “Given the lack of sleep last night, I might well be snoring by the time you arrive back.”
“Do you snore?” he asked, somewhat curiously.
My grin broke loose. “I guess you’ll discover that one way or another tonight. Is the spare key still in the same spot?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll see you sometime tonight.”
He nodded and walked back up the hill. I shouldered my backpack and left, making my way back to the road and his truck. Jaz and Tala arrived at the same time. After pointing Tala in the right direction, I climbed into Jaz’s SUV and was whisked quickly home.
Belle was sitting at one of the tables, her feet up on a chair and a red leather book sitting on her lap. There was also a rather large, partially eaten slice of banana cake sitting on the table beside her.
She glanced up as I entered. “Whiskey or wine?”
“Given the unsteady state of my stomach, neither. I’m making tea—you want one?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She scooped up another mouthful of cake, and then said, “If this death had nothing to do with the dark witch, then what the hell was the dark witch doing?”
I shrugged. “I guess we’ll know more once Ashworth and the heretic hunter deconstruct that protective circle and the spell inside.”
“The fact that it’s still live bothers me. Magic doesn’t generally last past the death of its creator.”
“Black magic might be a different, though. It’s not like either of us know much about it.”
“No. But Gran has a book on it.”
“Your gran had a book on everything.” I glanced at the one on her knee. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, and it’s actually quite fascinating.”
I tossed some green and pear tea into a large teapot then poured hot—but not boiling—water on top of it. “In what way?”
“Well, did you know that it’s rare for a dark witch to take on an apprentice but, when they do, they’re often used as a quick and easy source of blood for certain rituals?”
“Ashworth mentioned something along those lines last night, but I bet the apprentices aren’t aware of it going in.” I picked up the teapot and mugs and carried them over.
“Except that they are. There’s some sort of spiritual contract agreed to and signed by both parties before the apprentice is taken on.”
I deposited the pot and mugs, then reached across and snagged some of her cake. My stomach might still be a little dicey, but I wasn’t about to ignore cake. “I can’t see a dark witch ever honoring such an agreement.”
“Except they have to, as it’s a binding agreement witnessed in blood and sworn to whatever dark entity the witch is dealing with. If either party breaks it, their soul is basically cactus.”
“Their souls are cactus anyway. They’re dark witches.” I licked the frosting from my fingers then picked up the teapot and filled our mugs.
“Well, true.” She wrinkled her nose. “Another interesting fact is that in order to become a master, the apprentice must first defeat his master.”
I slid the mug over to her and then picked up my own. “Does it say why?”
“Something about it being the only way to fully utilize the onset of power or some such crap.”
I snorted. “I bet it doesn’t actually say that.”
“And you would be wrong.” She flicked back a couple of pages and then raised the book. It did indeed say exactly that.
I snagged another piece of her cake. “I wish we’d had the chance to meet your gran.”
“Yeah.” Belle grimaced. “But for all her knowledge—for all the books she’d studied, collected, and made notes on—she was still caught unawares by a rogue spirit.”
“She wasn’t the only one, though.” That spirit had ended up killing five witches in all before it was taken down. Belle’s gran had been the only lower house witch killed, and there’d apparently been a lot of speculation as to why. Belle’s mom—Ava—was of the theory that it was going after the strongest witches, and while Nel certainly hadn’t been magically strong, her historical knowledge about spells and spellcraft had outstripped any in Canberra at the time.
“True.” Belle snapped the book closed and then swung her legs off the chair. “Anyway, I haven’t yet found anything that relates back to the sort of spell threads you described, but I’ll keep looking.”
I raised an eyebrow. “I take it from this sudden flurry of action that you’re going out tonight?”
“Zak called—”
“Full of apologies for his distance last night and once again willing to bend a knee before your magnificence?”
She slapped my arm. Tea slopped over the rim of the mug and splashed across the table. “Hey, watch the tea, woman.”
“He wants to talk.”
“Horizontally. After sex.”
She grinned. “Possibly.”
“Did he say about what?”
“No, but the gossips were in full flight today, and I couldn’t help but listen in when I heard the Marin name mentioned. Apparently three women have arrived at the compound from the South Australian pack via the exchange program. According to the gossips, Zak’s taken quite a shine to one of them.”
The exchange program was a worldwide agreement between all werewolf packs that allowed those in search of a mate to go outside their own pack to do so. It was a means of stopping the packs from becoming too inbred—something witches also had to be wary of.
I raised my eyebrows. “I wouldn’t have thought Zak the type to be settling down. Not yet, anyway.”
“Love sometimes has a way of clubbing you over the head when you least expect it.” She pursed her lips. “Of course, in your case, it’s been a wet fish, which would explain your many very bad choices over the years.”
“I refute your use of many,” I said mildly. “There’s only been two. The rest were mere infatuations.”
“Losers one and all, and totally undeserving of your heart.”
“So I discovered. But we were talking about you, not me, so stop changing the subject.”
She grinned. “If it is true, then I’ll be sad to lose the good times, but we’ll still be friends. And hey, let’s face it—I won’t be single for long unless I wish it.”
I raised my mug and tapped it against hers. “Here’s to being hotly pursued by even hotter men.”
“Indeed.” She paused, her gaze narrowing. �
�Speaking of hot—or rather, its antithesis—Ashworth is marching toward the café, and he has another witch in tow.”
“Do we know him?”
Her gaze narrowed. “Can’t tell.”
“You can’t read him?”
“No. There’s some sort of magical interference, which is rather frustrating.”
But not surprising if said witch was a heretic hunter. The last thing he’d want was a rogue witch reading his thoughts or possibly even controlling his mind. “You’d better skedaddle.”
“Do you need the car?” She rose, grabbed her cup, and raced over to the counter.
“I’m going back to Aiden’s tonight, but I can catch a cab easily enough.”
“Great.” She grabbed her handbag from under the counter, then snagged keys off the hook and wiggled her fingers. “Have fun.”
“Later tonight, maybe. Right now, unlikely.” My voice was dry.
Her grin flashed, then she was gone. I slid her cake closer and tried to ignore the butterflies stirring in my stomach as I grabbed the spoon and started eating.
But even though I’d been forewarned about Ashworth’s arrival, I still jumped when the bell above the door chimed merrily. I turned and watched him and a second man come in. The other man was a tall and middle-aged, with hair such a deep crimson it gleamed purple and eyes so light the silver of his irises was almost indistinguishable from the whites. His power rolled before him like a wave, a force so strong and heated it snatched my breath and had sweat breaking out across my skin.
Thankfully, he wasn’t someone I knew.
But he certainly was someone I didn’t want to know.
“Lizzie Grace,” Ashworth said, as he closed the door, “I’d like you to meet Chester Ashworth.”
“No relation to Ira,” the taller man added. He strode toward me and stuck out his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
I had no choice but to shake his hand. His energy crawled across my skin, an inferno of magic that tested and tasted mine, causing the charms at my neck to flare in response. Ashworth had done exactly the same thing when we’d first met, but this man’s magic felt more invasive. More knowing.
I tugged my hand free and resisted the urge to wipe my palm. “I thought there was a third witch coming in? One that was supposed to be interviewed for the position here?”
