Shadow Witch (The Witches of Hollow Cove Book 1)

by Richardson, Kim

  The Unseen called Emmet shrugged. “Of course I did. I happen to like this house.” He raised his chin. “It calls to me.”

  Marcus smacked his forehead. “Why me.”

  “I can help you with that.” Pulse throbbing, I stepped down the front porch and walked up right in Marcus’s face. “Because you hired them. That’s why.” You big, stupid, stupid, man.

  Marcus’s jaw clenched. “I’m not having this conversation again with you. The Unseen are here to stay.”

  “Not in our house, they’re not,” I said.

  Marcus looked at Emmet. “What gave you the idea you could just take this house from its owners?”

  Emmet smiled, his teeth white and gleaming in the soft light of the porch. “The Unseen take what we want. And we want that house.”

  “Well, you can’t have it,” said Marcus, raising his hand and cutting Emmet’s protest short. “You’ll have to find other lodgings for now.”

  “Where?” Emmet growled. “There’s no other lodging in this crappy little town. No hotel. Motel. Nothin’.”

  “You can sleep in the park for all I care,” said Marcus. “Your sleeping arrangements weren’t in the contract. They’re not my concern.”

  I cocked a brow. I was surprised the chief even cared enough to be on our side for our house since he’d been quick to remove the Merlin Group from paid employment.

  Emmet narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t over—”

  “Help! Help me! There are demons on the loose! Loose!”

  I turned to the sound of the terrified howl and let out a laugh.

  “They ate Mrs. Bright! Ate her!” said a man in his fifties running across the lawn of Davenport House. Which wasn’t unusual on its own, considering this eccentric town. But what made me smile was the fact that he was buck naked—and wet.

  His hair was wet, either with sweat from running across town, or he’d just run out of his shower.

  “That’s Earl Johnson,” said Ruth, her lips parted in shock. “What in the cauldron’s name is he doing?”

  “Taking a midnight naked stroll.” I laughed, and so did Ronin. He was a great audience.

  “Nothing wrong with showing a little skin,” said Beverly, smiling, her eyes fixated on the naked, but scared-out-of-his-mind man.

  Dolores was silent, her eyes focused on the Unseen. She wasn’t even looking at the naked man.

  “Earl!” Marcus shouted. “Where? Where are the demons?”

  Earl Johnson kept running. He should have been on the Olympic team the way he was running barefoot with everything flailing and swinging—and I mean everything.

  Emmet whistled and four of the Unseen shot after the naked man. After a moment, he crossed his arms over his large chest and stared at my aunts, his expression hard, now that we could see his face.

  “Emmet,” warned Marcus. He shifted on his feet as though he was contemplating whether he should grab the big guy and pull him away by force. “Leave the ladies alone.”

  The big man shrugged. “There’s no law that says I can’t stay here all night and watch the house.”

  “The town’s paying you to protect it,” pressed Marcus.

  “Didn’t I just send four of my Unseen? Yes. Yes, I did.”

  I looked up and met my aunts’ stares, my pulse thrashing. “You guys good?”

  Dolores looked down at me. “I’m not leaving this porch until the filth is removed from our front lawn.”

  “Me either,” said Ruth.

  “You go on ahead, dear,” encouraged Beverly. “We’ve got this covered.”

  I made to move.

  “You don’t work for the Merlin Group anymore,” said Marcus stepping in my way.

  Wow. He was really asking for it. I gave him a bitter smile. “I never stopped working for them.”

  And I wasn’t about to ask Marcus for permission either. I was still part of the Merlin Group, even if the town wasn’t paying us.

  Besides, I’d been meaning to hurt something all day. Now, this was my chance.

  I waited, daring Marcus to say something, but he pulled his eyes away from me. Good choice.

  “Where are we going, boss?” asked Ronin, his tall, lanky body appearing next to me.

  I smiled, feeling a little wicked and excited. “Follow the naked,” I answered and sprinted across the lawn after Earl.

  15

  When I said I went sprinting across the front lawn, it was more of a decent jog, really. Ronin really did all the sprinting with his vampire speed.

  “That’s cheating!” I’d howled after him, owning that I wasn’t known for my sprinting abilities, nor running long distances.

  Ronin let out a laugh as he put on a burst of speed, his legs blurs of black to where I didn’t even think his feet actually made contact with the ground. Now he was just showing off. The bastard was probably gliding. But it made me smile—something I hadn’t done a lot lately.

  I ran past Martha’s salon, Hot Mess Witch. The witch stood on the front porch smoking a cigarette as she eyed the commotion. A quick glance in her direction told me her salon was empty. Guess the pixie attack had been really bad for business.

  My lungs burned and so did my thighs. I could still make out Earl—or rather, his pale butt gleaming in the moonlight—with the four Unseen right on his tail. The man had some serious running skills.

  But I knew I couldn’t run like this forever. And I didn’t want to. If I knew a spell that would sprout me some wings, I would definitely do it. But I didn’t know of any. In my haste, I’d forgotten my loyal Witch’s Handbook in the kitchen. I’d memorized a few power words. I just hoped it would be enough.

  Earl’s butt was still visible as I ran past Gilbert’s grocery store. The lights were on. The shop was still open, and if he stepped out now, I might have to run him over.

  Earl’s shrilling cries sounded over the thumping of my boots. “Where the hell is he going?” I panted.

  And then it hit me.

  I staggered to a slow jog because if I stopped short, I’d pitch myself forward on the pavement.

  Ronin stopped ahead of me and spun around, like his uber vampire senses had told him I had stopped. Either that or he heard me.

  “You can’t keep up?” The vampire smiled as he strutted my way. “I can carry you if you want. You don’t look that heavy.”

  I would not have that conversation. “I’ll tell you why I stopped. By the time we catch up to naked Earl, the demons might have eaten someone else already.”

  “Your point being?” said Ronin.

  I pinched the cramp in my side with my right hand. “If I was Earl, and had just seen a demon that made me run out of my shower, where would I be running to?”

  “In the opposite direction of the demon.”

  “Exactly. I’d be running the hell away and as far as I could. He’s dragging us away from where it happened. So, we need to go the other way,” I said, my heart thumping. “Where does Mrs. Bright live?”

  Ronin flashed me a wicked smile and pushed off on the balls of his feet, racing past me and back down the road from where we’d come.

  “Like I said!” I shouted at him. “Not fair. You’re so at the bottom of my friends list.”

  I doubled back and ran up the same street again. The sounds of naked Earl died out behind me until I could only hear my own laboring breaths and my loud thumping boots.

  Thank the cauldron we didn’t have to go too far.

  Ronin leaned against the wall of a sizeable, gray stone building with his arms crossed over his chest, looking pleased with himself. The words HOLLOW COVE LIBRARY were stenciled above two massive wooden doors.

  “You sure we’re in the right place?” I asked, a little skeptical.

  “Nah, I thought we could do a little night reading,” said the vampire, a cheeky smile on his face.

  I gave him a pointed look and glanced around. I spotted a small apartment above the library. Odd place to live, but when I swung my gaze across from the library, I saw t
he lit second-floor bathroom window where rolls of steam were still spilling out and the bottom front door was standing wide open. I knew this was Earl’s place. He’d looked out his window, saw something, and decided it would be a good idea to run out naked in the streets. Weird guy. Weirder town.

  I pulled my eyes back to the library. As I moved toward the front steps of the building, droplets of dark maroon spotted the concrete mixed in with some strands of blonde hair. Yikes.

  “Looks like Mrs. Bright was grabbed out here and then pulled inside,” I commented, following the trail of blood like a hound and seeing it disappear through the double doors.

  “Look at you… getting your Sherlock on. It’s sexy,” commented Ronin.

  “Man, you’re aggravating tonight.”

  Ronin shrugged. “I aim to please,” he answered, a wicked smile on his stupid face.

  Scowling, I pushed open the doors to the library and slipped inside. I was met with darkness.

  And something else.

  Even though my senses weren’t as attuned as a well-versed witch to demon energies and the vibrations of magic, I still felt an icy transition of energy as soon as I stepped through the entrance—a shift in the air, a cold pulsing, the throb of magic. It was similar to that which I felt from the snake-bear demon I vanquished but different.

  All witches were born with an innate ability to sense all things supernatural and magical though their level of keenness depended on the witch in question and their inner strength. I was still getting used to all these sensations and feelings again, the differing energies from shifters, vampires, and all other half-breeds. But now, all these energies were intensified, and I didn’t know why.

  I blinked, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness until I could see. The lobby was lit only by the fading red emergency lights hanging above the doorways. I tried to peer around but saw nothing other than dim shapes and outlines of what might have been a few chairs and a desk.

  When shapes came into view, I walked inside the entrance lobby and found the main light panel. I flicked them up and down. “Great. The power’s out.”

  “Looks like it’s just the library,” commented Ronin. “The lights are on everywhere else.”

  Alarm washed through me. “I might be a little rusty with my demonology, but I don’t remember demons taking their time to cut off the power of some building. They’re always too busy feasting on innards of some mortal.”

  The darkness created deep shadows around Ronin’s face, making him appear older. “So, who cut the power if not them?” he asked, worry coating his tone.

  “Well, it wasn’t Mrs. Bright.” I squinted in the darkness. I stood for a moment, listening and sending out my senses in search of demon energies. “Maybe we’re not dealing with just demons.”

  Ronin shifted his weight. “Who then? The Boogieman?”

  “Let’s find out.” I moved past the lobby. With no light, it would be impossible to follow the blood trail. So, I opted for the next best thing—my gut.

  If I were a demon, I would want to eat my prey somewhere quiet where I wouldn’t be interrupted. And that somewhere was straight through the lobby to the actual library.

  “Don’t you have some witch light?” whispered Ronin. “I saw you use one on the first night we met. Remember? I was the hot guy next to the dead guy.”

  Damn. I knew I should have brought the book. There might have been a spell in there to cast some light. “It wasn’t mine. The witch orb was my aunt’s,” I answered feeling like a fool. “Casting a light right now isn’t such a great idea. We don’t want to attract the demon’s attention.” It was a half-lie, but Ronin didn’t need to know that.

  I made a promise to myself that next time I wouldn’t leave without that book. Not until I knew it by heart, cover to cover.

  The scent of sulfur—the stench of demons—caught in my throat as we passed the lobby and front desk.

  Ronin moved next to me, a stapler in his hand, holding it up like it was a deadly weapon.

  I halted. “You plan on stapling the demon’s eyes shut with that?”

  “What?” Ronin shrugged. “It’s a weapon if you know how to use it.” He held the stapler like a gun and squeezed. I heard a few staples fall, though I couldn’t see them.

  My pulse raced as we moved inside the library, meeting shadows but not much else. A coffered ceiling disappeared into the darkness, and windows lined the exterior walls, giving us just enough light from the streetlights to be able to make out shapes.

  The library was huge, considering the size of the town—about the size of a gymnasium. I strained my ears for any sudden noise and hurried through the library, past the rows of reading desks and leather-cushioned chairs that were positioned in the middle of the large space and surrounded by countless rows of bookcases. Each shelf was crammed with old books in leather bindings, their volumes neatly aligned with the spines showing a dizzying variety of subjects.

  I smelled the blood before I saw the body. And when I say blood, I mean a hell of a lot of it.

  On the ground next to one of the reading desks was a slop of ghoulish entrails and torn pieces of fabric that could have once been a pair of pants or a shirt with pale white bones gleaming on top of it all. It was like the meat had been picked clean from the bones because I was staring at a complete skeleton.

  The skeleton of poor Mrs. Bright.

  Bile rose fast in the back of my throat as I took the scene in. Blood was scattered all over in thick droplets and splashed in spurts against the desk. The scarlet footprints of something huge headed toward the back of the library.

  Ronin stood next to me. “Where’s the body?”

  “You’re looking at it.” I knew whatever demon had done this—because I was certain it had been a demon attack—had devoured poor Mrs. Bright, leaving only her bones as evidence.

  “Damn.” Ronin whistled. “It was a hungry bastard.”

  “Hungry still,” I said, whipping my head around and searching the shadows as my eyes fell back on those bloody footprints. “It feasted on her and liked how she tasted, which means it’s going to go for more. It’s not going to stop. Come on.”

  Tiptoeing around the blood, I followed the footprints as best as I could in the semi-darkness, my heart thrashing hard against my chest. I weaved a power word in my mind, keeping it there, ready in case I needed it. The scent of sulfur was strong, and I blinked the water from my eyes.

  The air suddenly sizzled and cackled with energy.

  I froze.

  Ronin crashed into me. “What is it?” he whispered. “Why’d you stop?”

  “Magic.” Magic was here. And lots of it.

  Ronin stepped away. “That’s good, right? We like magic. Magic is our friend.”

  I shook my head. “Not all the time. Stay alert,” I said as I ventured carefully toward the wash of magic.

  I came upon three reading desks pushed to the sides, leaving a large open space.

  And in the center of the space were the remains of a large, summoning circle, its three rings of symbols carefully wrought in white chalk upon the wooden floor with burning candles interspersed among the symbols.

  “A magic circle.” Ronin knelt next to a still-burning candle.

  “Not just any magic circle. A summoning circle,” I told him, my eyes on the bloodstained floor a few feet from the circle. “Someone summoned that demon.”

  He looked up at me. “Why the hell would someone be stupid enough to do that?”

  “Good question.” I followed the bloody footprints and my chest went tight.

  “What? There’s more?” came Ronin’s voice behind me.

  Carved into the wood floor a few feet away from the summoning circle was a triangle within a circle. This wasn’t a summoning circle. This was a ward. I was sure of it. Not that I was adept in wards, but I could still recognize one when I saw it. A part of me knew this was one of the wards put here by my aunts to protect the town.

  But that’s not what had ic
y pricks crawl up my neck.

  It was the fact that this one was dead.

  16

  “Are you going to tell me what I’m staring at or do I have to guess?” Ronin gazed at me, the stapler still gripped firmly in his hand.

  I sighed. “A ward—one of my aunts’.”

  “So, why do you look like you just took a cold shower?”

  I met his gaze. “Because it’s been lifted.” At his puzzled expression, I added, “Someone destroyed it.”

  Ronin’s mouth fell open. “The same someone who summoned the demon, I presume?”

  “Pretty sure. Yeah.”

  I edged closer to the ward. I felt none of the familiar pulsing magic of a protection ward, but I felt something. The cold remnants of foreign forces that had attacked the ward, like someone took a sledgehammer to the ward on the floor, rippled through my senses like a prickling, pulsating sensation—faint but still there.

  Creating wards took some serious magic. Not all witches could create them, let alone such complex ones with so much power they protected an entire town.

  And it took even more magic to destroy one.

  Crap. This was worse than I thought. This wasn’t just a case of random demons slipping through the Veil and eating a few mortals. This was planned. Careful, flawless planning was required to pull off something like that. I was dealing with someone powerful and schooled in the arts of magic, possibly more powerful than my aunts.

  Ronin fiddled with his stapler. “Any ideas why this crazy-ass person would want to do this?”

  “Wards protect or keep certain things away from a specific place.” I sighed. “The only reason you lift a ward is for the reverse.” I looked at Ronin. “Whoever did this wants to kill everyone in this town, or something along those lines.”

  Ronin screwed up his face. “That makes no sense. We’re nobodies. We’re the half-breed community’s rejects and castaways. Why would they want to kill us? Most of the time they pretend we don’t even exist.”

  My muscles stiffened in tension. “Can you think of anyone who would want to harm you? Kill you, even? Or anyone here? If Hollow Cove is made up of castaways and loners, someone here may be hiding from this very person trying to kill them.”