by Arthur, Keri
“You’d think there would be,” Belle said. “University is a five-year commitment for any witch, after all. I bet they learn all sorts of interesting shit we don’t know about.”
“We do have one advantage over them, though.” I licked the last bit of melted cheese from my fingers and then picked up my coffee and leaned back in my chair. “We have all your grandmother’s books.”
“We do indeed. I might go check the index and see if there’s anything on locating specific spell elements we might be able to use.”
“It’s worth a shot.” I paused as a phone began to ring. “Is that mine?”
Belle snorted and thrust to her feet. “You know damn well it is.”
I grinned as she dug it out of my bag, tossed it across the table, and asked, “You want a bit of cake?”
“I’ll have some pud and custard if there’s any left.”
“Shall I reheat it in the microwave?”
“No, thanks.” I glanced at the phone’s screen, saw it was Ashworth, and hit the answer button. “If you’re calling to bitch at still being in hospital, I will hang up.”
“I’m not in hospital nor am I ringing to bitch.”
I frowned at the edge in his voice. “What’s happened?”
“I just got a very strange call from Chester.”
“He’s a strange man,” I said, amused, “so that’s not unexpected.”
“True, but this was something else. It had my trouble radar stirring.”
My amusement died. I wasn’t about to discount Ashworth’s trouble radar any more than I would mine. “What did he say?”
“That he’s not dead. That he’s still fucking alive,” Ashworth replied. “I can only think he’s talking about our dead witch.”
I frowned. “But our dead witch is dead—we have his body in the morgue to prove it. Unless he’s risen as a zombie, that’s impossible.”
And even if he had become a zombie, he still couldn’t be called alive because zombies were merely reanimated flesh. They had no soul, no willpower, and no capacity to think or act. Their “life” was totally dependent on the strength and skill of the witch who’d raised them.
“I know, and I’ve tried ringing the morgue—”
“It’s close to ten. There’s not going to be anyone there at this hour—this isn’t Melbourne, you know.”
“I’m not a damn fool,” he snapped. “There’s been another skinning, has there not? I thought there was a chance someone was there to receive the body.”
“You’re right—sorry.”
He grunted. “Anyway, working on the presumption that he’s not a zombie, we have something else going on. I need to get over to Chester’s, and I need you to drive me there.”
“Me?” I asked, surprised. “Why?”
“Because I’ve a shattered right arm and can’t drive.”
“No, I meant why me specifically? Why not just grab a cab?”
“Because instinct is saying I may need a second set of eyes and ears familiar with magic, which means you’re it, I’m afraid,” he said. “And yes, before you say it, I’m well aware you’re underpowered, but you have a link with the wild magic of this place, and that may yet come in handy.”
My pulse rate leapt several notches. “You don’t think whatever is happening has something to do with the wild magic, do you?”
“Anything is possible at this stage,” he growled. “Especially when we’re dealing with a powerful wellspring that’s been left unprotected for far too long. How soon can you get here?”
“Ten minutes?”
“I’ll be waiting out the front.”
He hung up. I downed the rest of my coffee in several gulps that nigh burned my throat and thrust to my feet. Belle came out of the reading room with the backpack. “It’s still stocked and ready to go.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed my purse, dug out the keys to Aiden’s truck, and tossed them to her. “Do you want to move the truck so I can get the wagon out?”
She nodded. Five minutes later, I was pulling to a halt outside the short-term rental Ashworth was using while he waited for the council to make a decision on a full-time reservation witch. It was a basic two up, two down building, with both ground floor apartments having big picture windows and their own front doors. The top floor apartments were reached by stairs at the rear of the premises, and had the additional benefit of wide balconies that enjoyed good views over Castle Rock—a fact I knew because Belle and I had inspected one of them before we’d decided to buy the café and live there.
“Chester’s staying in a boutique hotel over in Rayburn Springs,” he said, as he climbed in. “I think it’s called The Randley—it’s just up from the Motor Inn there.”
“Why there? Castle Rock has more than one upmarket boutique hotel if that’s his style.”
“He’s a heretic hunter and they tend to take lots of precautions, lassie. He’s not even staying there under his own name.”
I took off while he battled to get his seat belt on. I would have offered to help but he’d undoubtedly tell me he wasn’t an invalid and to concentrate on the goddamn road.
It took us just on thirty minutes to get down to Rayburn Springs. As the Motor Inn came into sight, I slowed down and said, “Which side is it on, left or right?”
“It’s just up ahead, on the left. You have to park in the side street.”
I caught sight of a sign three quarters hidden by a graceful old willow tree and turned into the street just beyond it. Ashworth was clambering out of the car before I’d turned the engine off. I cursed, grabbed the backpack, and hurried after him.
The Randley was a sprawling—and very beautiful—old Victorian building surrounded on two sides by a cream picket fence over which a vivid red-leafed hedge hung. The wrought-iron gate situated on the corner of the two streets creaked as Ashworth thrust it open, and a light came on, highlighting the path up to the front door.
As Ashworth strode toward it, energy stirred through the night. His, not Chester’s or anyone else’s. I had no idea what type of spell he was creating, but it gathered in a tight ball around the fingers of his left hand. I studied the pulsing patterns, seeing some familiarities in the structure of the threads. It was a glamor of some kind of—but not one designed to conceal. It was, I suspected, instead meant to deceive.
“Press the doorbell,” he ordered.
I did so. Inside, the strains of “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” rang out and I couldn’t help but smile. As musical doorbells went, it was certainly better than some of the ones I’d heard over the years. For several seconds, nothing happened, and then the sound of footsteps could be heard. The door eventually opened, revealing a man who was short and thin, with a long gray ponytail and round, hippy-style reading glasses perched at the end of his large nose. “I’m sorry, but we’re—”
The rest of his words died as Ashworth’s spell settled around his shoulders. Ashworth raised his hand, palm up, and then said in a rather stern voice, “Is Raymond Chester staying here?”
“Yes, he is.” The thin man’s gaze darted between the two of us. “What is this about, officers? Has there been some kind of trouble?”
It was interesting that he saw us as police, not rangers, if only because it suggested he hadn’t been living in the reservation long. A deceiving spell generally worked with whatever vision the recipient was most likely to accept.
“No,” Ashworth said, “we just need to speak to him as a matter of urgency.”
“Of course.” The thin man unlocked the screen door and then stepped aside. “He’s in 3B—take a left at the end of the hall, and it’s the second on your right.”
“Thank you.”
Ashworth strode down the hall. I hurried after him, the sound of my steps lost under the clomp of his. We found the room easily enough but the door was locked and Chester wasn’t answering. There was no sound coming from within the room and nothing to suggest there was anything out of place or wrong.
But trepidati
on crept through me anyway, though whether that was due in part to the tension gathering in Ashworth I couldn’t say.
He glanced past me and said, “Have you got a key?”
“Yes, of course.” The short man disappeared briefly into another room and then hurried down to hand Ashworth the rather old-fashioned brass key.
Ashworth shoved it into the lock, turned the key, and pushed the door open.
The room was a mess. Chester’s bag had been upended, his bedding torn apart, all the drawers in the dark-stained TV cabinet pulled out and lying in an untidy pile on the floor,
As was Chester.
His hair was wet, and he was naked except for the white towel wrapped around his waist. There was no surprise in his expression, no shock, and if not for the puckered red wound on his chest, right above his heart, it would have been easy to think he’d simply fallen asleep.
But he wasn’t asleep. He’d been shot.
Murdered.
Chapter Eight
“Oh my God,” the short man whispered. “Is he—?”
“I don’t know,” Ashworth said, even though Chester very obviously was. “You’d better call an ambulance, though.”
“Of course, of course.”
As the short man hurried away, I said, “Is it not a rather odd coincidence that first our heretic is shot, and now his hunter has been?”
Ashworth snorted. “I’m thinking coincidence has nothing to do with it. In fact, I bet when the rangers run their tests, they’ll find both bullets were fired out of the same gun.”
“If that’s the case, then maybe we’re dealing with nothing more than someone out to kill witches.”
“I doubt whatever is happening here is that simple.”
A statement I agreed with, if only because none of the killings in the reservation of late could be described as simple. “How could he have been shot without anyone here knowing about it, though? You’d think someone would have heard something.”
“Not if a silencer was used.” He knelt beside Chester and felt his neck.
“But silencers don’t suppress all sound, do they?”
“No, but they reduce it down to what you might hear if you were wearing ear protection. In this case, that was obviously enough.”
“Obviously, but it’s still rather odd, given the place is so damn quiet.”
“The owner might be the only other person here, and he did take a while to get to the door.” He looked up at me. “There’s no pulse.”
“Which is no surprise given where he was shot.” I scanned the room, looking not at the mess but for something far more ethereal. “I’ve no sense of a soul or ghost in the room.”
“No. This is obviously another death that was meant to be.” He pushed to his feet with a grunt of effort. “You’d better call in the rangers.”
I did so. To say Aiden was less than impressed with the news we had another body would be something of an understatement. I tossed my phone back into my handbag and then said, “They’ll be here soon.”
Footsteps once again echoed out in the hall. The short man stopped beside me, his expression anxious. “The ambulance is on their way.”
“Thank you, Mr.—”
“Joseph. Joseph Hardcourt.” His gaze went to Chester. “Is he okay?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Hardcourt,” Ashworth said. “Tell me, did Chester have any other visitors this evening?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but I can check the security cameras if you’d like.”
“The front desk isn’t manned at night?” I asked, surprised.
He looked up at me. “Until seven, yes. After that, guests use their own key to get in. Late arrivals must buzz, as you did.”
“Is there a separate guest entrance, or is the front door the only one?” Ashworth asked.
“There legally has to be at least a separate fire exit—it’s around the side of the hotel—and there’s also a rear entrance for guests using the parking area.”
Meaning our killer more than likely had come and gone through one of them—and done so without setting off alarms or alerting Hardcourt.
“I’m afraid we’ve had to call in the rangers,” Ashworth said, “so if you could go out front and wait for them, that would be appreciated.”
Hardcourt nodded and hurried away. I met Ashworth’s gaze. “Chester would have felt the approach of another witch, so whoever did this was either human or wolf.”
“Yes, but I still think we’re looking at a professional hit. It’s not easy to get silencers in this day and age.”
“No.” Not with the strict gun laws we had in Australia. “It appears he wasn’t expecting to be attacked, given he answered the door in a towel.”
“Which makes me wonder if this hit has anything to do with our dead witch, or perhaps a past case. Heretic hunters aren’t the most popular folk around.”
“He’s the first one I’ve met, but if he’s a good example, I’m not surprised.”
“He’s actually one of the better ones.” Ashworth studied the room for a moment. “I know your ranger would prefer us not to touch anything but I want to check if Chester has hidden any information.”
I frowned. “Why would he have done that when he wasn’t expecting to be attacked?”
“It’s nothing more than a gut feeling, and the fact he sounded unusually anxious and out of sorts on the phone. He mightn’t have been expecting a visit from a hit man, but he was expecting something.”
“And yet I’m not feeling anything in the way of wards or protections in the room.”
“No, and that makes this situation a whole lot stranger.”
I hesitated, and then said, “You know, there’s one way we can find out for sure—ask the man himself.”
Ashworth glanced at me. “Newer souls are notoriously difficult to contact.”
“Belle specializes in difficult.”
He raised an eyebrow. “She must be a pretty damn strong spirit talker then.”
“She is.” One of the strongest in recent history, if my mother was to be believed—and I certainly did. It wasn’t like compliments to either of us had ever dripped easily off her tongue.
“It’s certainly something we can try, then, but I’d still like to see what we can find here first.”
I glanced around the room again. “I guess given the state of the place, Aiden’s not really going to know if we’ve interfered with anything. Just be sure not to leave fingerprints everywhere, because that will both tip him off and piss him off.”
“I’ve been doing this job and working with rangers and the law for more years than you’ve been alive, lass, so don’t be telling me how to do things,” he growled. “I’ll check in here—do you want to take the bathroom?”
I restrained my smile and headed across the room. The bathroom styling could be described as both over the top and “manly.” The slate wall tiles were a mix of heavy browns and gold, the floor tiles were black, and so were the bathroom cabinet, the washbasin, and the toilet. All the taps were a gleaming gold and had to be hell to keep clean. There was no window—there wasn’t even a skylight—so the only thing that saved the room from looking like a cave was the white-painted ceiling.
There were wet footprint puddles coming out of the shower, and a white towel lying on the floor near the washbasin. But the whirlwind of destruction that had hit the main room had also ventured in here—Ashworth’s health bag had been emptied out and the bathroom cabinet’s drawers and cupboards were open. Even his shampoo and conditioner hadn’t escaped—they’d been slashed open with a knife and were currently sitting in a broken pile in the screened-off shower area.
I ran my hand across all the bits and bobs scattered across the washbasin. None of them held any sort of magic, which again spoke to the fact he wasn’t expecting trouble. Not even the most blindly arrogant blueblood witch would risk confronting an unknown—untested—witch without taking steps to protect themselves. Not even if said witch was thought to be friendly.
<
br /> And we certainly weren’t dealing with friendly here.
I kept checking, looking in the open drawers and cupboards, and even shaking out the towels still sitting in the rack. Nothing.
I went back out. Ashworth was peering under the bed. “Did you find something?”
“There’s a very faint wisp of magic coming from under the bed.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I can’t see anything and it’s too awkward for me to climb under.”
“Which is the polite way of saying, lassie, get your butt under there and check it out for me.”
He chuckled softly. “I think you’ve gotten more of my measure than I’ve got of yours.”
“I had a grandfather very much like you.”
“I didn’t think there was anyone as grumpy and as frank as me.”
“You obviously didn’t live in Canberra long enough.”
“Only for as long as it took to get through university.”
“I take it you weren’t born there, then?” I hitched up my jeans to give my knees more bending room and then peered under the bed. I had no immediate sense of magic, so it was indeed faint. “Whereabouts did you feel the spell?”
“Middle of the bed, around the butt zone,” he said. “And no, I was born in Brisbane. Lived there until I was seventeen, then got a scholarship to the uni.”
I swiveled around and then edged under the bed on my back. “Did you join the RWA straight after you’d finished?”
“Again, no. I traveled a bit, as you do, until I met my partner and decided I wanted to settle here in Victoria. He got me into the RWA.”
“Is he still working with them?”
“No, he retired a few years ago. Have you found it?”
“There’s not exactly a lot of moving room under this bed,” I muttered.
“Another reason why I didn’t go under—I’ve got a bulkier frame.”
“Yeah, but I have boobs.” Magic whispered past my nose. I narrowed my gaze and studied the bed’s metal struts. Finally, I saw it—the spell was little more than a spark of violet-black hidden in between two of the cross-struts. “Got it.”
