A Witch's Trial (Witch's Path Series: Book 3)

by N. E. Conneely

  "Why didn't the protections stop it?" Landa asked. "Several of us have layered this area in spells, charms, enchantment, and nature magic. It shouldn't have been able to get to the building, never mind scratch Michelle's window."

  Julius's wings drooped. "Perhaps that would have worked on a regular ghoul, but greater ghouls are resistant to all types of magic. Had the spells turned it away, it would have terrorized anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path."

  "Can we protect her?" Elron asked.

  Landa and Mander were focused on Julius, as were Paxton and Baden, which surprised me. Elron had all his attention on me, and I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. I felt bad for Julius; it wasn't fair to expect him to have an answer. He was a gargoyle, not a god.

  He bowed his head. "True evil is a difficult foe. It's doubtful that she could survive its undivided attention."

  "It doesn't matter. I have to stop Gremory." I took a deep breath. It sounded fatalistic when I said it like that. "Not because he wants me dead but because he's killed children and innocent adults."

  The group looked at me with varying degrees of shock on their faces, except for Julius, who was smiling ever so slightly, and Elron, whose pursed lips and dark gaze reminded me that he was as driven as I was, though for different reasons.

  Before they could recover from the surprise, I continued, "Don't get me wrong. I'm invested in my own survival."

  "Can the demon be killed?" Mander asked.

  "Yes," Julius said.

  "How?" several voices piped up.

  "I do not know. That was never my duty."

  "Do you know anyone who does know how to kill a demon?" Elron asked.

  Julius' shoulders dropped. "Again, no. It is my hope that such knowledge has not been lost."

  I studied Julius. He spoke of demons as if they had been here only last month, whereas the rest of the people I'd spoken to thought they were stories told to scare children, with little fact in them. How old was Julius? What did he know that he wasn't willing to share with the group?

  "Did we dispose of the body properly? Do we need to do any more cleanup out here, or can we go back inside?" I asked.

  "It was a satisfactory disposal. If you drop the shield, I will purify what remains and we can return to the lodge," Julius said.

  I did as I was told, and a white light emanating from his palms bathed the area. While Elron checked the perimeter, I went to pet Ty. After chin scratches and numerous good-boys, he settled down and I followed the group back inside.

  The light inside didn't flatter any of us. It made Julius look a bit like dirty concrete. Mander, Landa, and Baden were in varying stages of undress, ranging from boxers to a nightgown and robe, none of which had enjoyed the evening jaunt. My pajamas were covered in dirt, and my slippers hadn't held up to the stones. Only Elron and Paxton were truly dressed, and they both had leaves and dirt clinging to their pants.

  The group clomped down the hallway, and I followed them, not because I wanted to be with people but because I didn't want to go back to my apartment and I could make tea in the kitchen. If there was ever a night that called for tea, this was it.

  Turned out Landa had a similar idea. A steaming teakettle, a box of teas, cups, a bowl of sugar, a pot of tea, and a bottle of blood floated out of the dining room and into the parlor. Apparently I wasn't the only one who needed a drink, because all of us followed the tea service. Landa assumed her customary seat, and the tea set settled onto the table to her right.

  I went for the love seat, and Elron claimed the spot next to me. The rest of the group settled down, with Julius curling up on the floor. Baden returned from the back of the parlor with a tumbler of whiskey.

  The bottle of blood remained in the air, floating over to Paxton once he took a seat. One by one, Landa took requests, and cups of tea floated across the room. I'd yet to get the hang of accepting floating beverages. It wasn't something I had practiced, and the two different methods—grabbing the item out of the air or waiting for it to come to rest in your hand—weren't interchangeable. As usual, I sloshed when Landa released the cup, letting the full weight settle into my hand.

  "What time is it?" Elron asked.

  "Not long before dawn," Paxton answered.

  "Five in the morning," Landa said.

  I whimpered. Before the demon started making trouble, only the police would wake me up in the middle of the night, and they'd usually been kind enough to wait until after dawn.

  This was getting out of hand. The ghoul was the third attack at the lodge, and it was sheer luck no one had been injured. Without Julius, the spirit would've… Well, I didn't know what it would've done.

  "Julius," I said, "what would the vengeful spirit have done if you hadn't killed it?"

  He was saved from answering by two loud stomps and the front door opening. A few footsteps later, Liam strode though the door.

  "What's this?" Liam asked.

  "You missed the memo about the early-morning tea party," Elron replied.

  Paxton snorted and Baden rolled his eyes before finishing the whiskey.

  Landa glared at Elron before turning to Liam. "We had an unexpected, violent, late-night guest. Would you like tea?"

  "Please, something soothing." He scrubbed the top of his head with one hand.

  "How is the pack?" I asked.

  "Better, but it was a rough night." Liam accepted a cup from Landa and found a seat. "We have some personal issues to work through, but I was able to help out the worst of the… afflicted. A few more days and they'll be back to normal."

  Too tired to say meaningless things, I nodded.

  Liam's eyes roamed the group. "What really happened?"

  Three mouths opened, and I shot out of my seat. "If you are going to retell this story, I'm out of here. Thank you for the tea, Landa." With that, I bolted out of the room.

  It said something that I'd pick going back to my room and showering over staying in the cozy parlor. Not that there was anything wrong with my apartment, but the revolving door of uninvited visitors was wearing me thin. Perhaps I'd be more tolerant if they would pick a different window, but the awakening to nastiness at my window was freaky.

  A board squeaked behind me and I whipped around, wand in hand. My shoulders dropped and I took a deep breath to relax. It was only Elron.

  "Following me?" I prodded.

  "Yes, but with the best of intentions. You are more than welcome to clean up in my apartment, or I can keep watch while you attend to your needs in your own home," he offered. "It is difficult to relax when you are looking for the next bit of danger."

  It was the eyes, clouded with ghosts of days past, worry of days to come, and overflowing with need, that got me. He could put up a good front, letting people see the powerful elven warrior or sarcastic gardener, but right now he was the same friend who'd fallen into my arms asking for help.

  "All right, come on in."

  Chapter 8: Michelle

  I tiptoed through the living room and out the front door, breathing a sigh of relief when I didn't hear Elron stir. Even if he was awake, he was resting, something I should've been doing after the hectic night. A nice cup of tea would have to do instead. Wells had called and wanted to talk.

  The lodge's front door closed behind me, and a glowing blue ball zipped across the lawn.

  "Fehu," I snarled. The orb crusted over with ice and fell to the ground with a satisfying thump. Wells and the demon were more important, and I didn't have it in me to listen to another round of threats and bribes.

  As frustrating as the harassment was, the clans weren't my biggest problem right now. An endless slew of nasty-grams was frustrating but not harmful. The clans could stay at the bottom of my list as long as they kept their antics to paper and holograms. I'd deal with them after Gremory was good and dead.

  The drive to Ellijay went by in fits and spurts. Some sections of road seemed endless, and others vanished between thoughts. Nothing about this meeting excited me. Wells was going t
o ask questions, good questions that deserved answers, and I didn't have any. I didn't even know where to find them.

  I parked, walked into Coffee Time, and waved to Wells. He'd claimed the table in the back that we'd used before. After a quick trip to the bathroom, I ordered, picked up my tea, and went over to Wells.

  "We need a better place to meet. This is a bit cliché for my taste," I said as I sat down across from him.

  Wells shrugged. "I have a desk in a room full of officers, criminals, victims, and concerned citizens. This is significant improvement on the privacy scale."

  "True." From this distance, I could see the bags under his eyes and the pasty quality of his skin. "Are you felling okay? You don't look good."

  He snorted. "Of course I look bad. I read that book. You owe me answers."

  "Ask a question and I'll try, but I don't have much in the way of information."

  Wells glared at me, not pleased with my response. The problem was that I didn't have what he wanted. There wasn't a solution in my back pocket.

  Wells set the book on the table. "Is this the same Elron who was with you when Amber was rescued?"

  Narzel fart, I'd wanted to skirt around that topic. There was nothing to be done but dive in. "Yes, and I've spoken to him." I held up my hand before he could interrupt. "You can talk to him and verify all this, but be gentle. This hit him hard, and he hasn't had the easiest time lately."

  "I'll put it on the back burner since I talked to him a few days ago," Wells conceded.

  Since that was the best I was going to get, I nodded and continued answering his original question. "Elron had no idea she was still alive, but he says she's the only one who could've written the note to him. There's information in it that they never told anyone else. He's not involved, Wells."

  "How would you know that?"

  My shoulders dropped. "Elron wouldn't harm children, and I don't see him hunting down people to settle a score. However, if he was going to get revenge or settle a vendetta, he'd kill the people he held responsible, no more."

  I couldn't paint him as an innocent, harmless elf. Wells wouldn't believe it, and it wasn't true. Sure, Elron was caring, thoughtful, and protective. He'd demonstrated on several occasions his lack of desire to cause harm, but he was capable. Elron preferred to be the sarcastic gardener, but he was a well-trained fighter too.

  Wells tapped his fingers on the book and took a sip of coffee. The corners of his lips weren't as pinched, and color had crept back into his skin. "Let's say I believe you and Elron is innocent."

  I liked that idea. If he believed me, it would be the one thing that had gone right today.

  He continued. "Do you think this is a hoax, set up by Sylvia or someone pretending to be her?"

  That wasn't the direction I'd wanted to take this conversation. Too much of my time had gone into that debate, and there wasn't a good answer. "I can't say for sure—there simply isn't much information about demons floating around, but no. I don't think this is a hoax."

  "Go on."

  It took me a moment to gather my thoughts, and he started tapping his fingers on the table. "I have no way of knowing if a demon or something else I haven't encountered is responsible for the recent events, but the demon theory fits. A few weeks ago, Jerry, the hedge-wizard from Cobb County, and I found a hybrid woman-bird thing breeding magical creatures. She worshipped a demon, Gremory. Then there were the trolls. Elron believed trolls killed Sylvia. I know a sorceress helped free the trolls in Forsyth County. Not many things can make a sorceress, but a demon has that ability. Then there's the way she died, alone in a jail cell, brutally torn apart. Do you want me to go on?"

  "Not particularly." Wells fortified himself with a swig of coffee. "I'm not sold on this demon idea—I thought they were myth. Why wouldn't we see them for a very long time and then have one come out of hiding now?"

  "I think that's why," I said.

  His brow scrunched.

  "Think about it. The demons were hunted and killed. Why wouldn't one of them go into hiding? It has the time and can wait for the people who knew how to kill it to die. When demons are nothing more than a story, it has the best chance of success."

  Wells lost the color he'd gained. "If that's true, then we're in a bad spot."

  "Yes, we are. There's an enemy, demon or not, who is evil and powerful, roaming through Gilmer County." There was more I could've said, but he didn't need to hear it now. Wells was a smart man. It wouldn't take him long to realize that something as pervasive as this demon and the evil he'd done wasn't going to surrender meekly.

  Not to mention, if legend was to be believed, the demon was a spirit who could slip from body to body. Jails weren't set up to imprison spirits. If the police tried common ways of capturing and holding the demon, he could slip into another body and be free to continue making trouble.

  Wells's hand trembled as he drained his coffee and returned the cup to the table. "Michelle, I have to add the book to the evidence collection. I shouldn't have let you take it to begin with, but I had suspicions…" Clearing his throat, he picked up where he left off. "I love being a police officer, but when it comes to this stuff, our system fails. We evolved out of a system of governing and enforcement that was unique to humans. The rules that worked for them don't work for witches, vampires, giants, or nymphs. President Ederin is the only reason our system works as well as it does."

  President Ederin had a way of inspiring an orderly and law-abiding populace. It could've been his age; he was old even by elven and vampire standards. Maybe it was his size; he was a large dragon, needing the equivalent of six football fields to lie comfortably. My theory was it was a bit of both, mixed with a healthy respect for any creature that could incinerate you with a cough and had the biggest teeth on the continent. President Ederin didn't just intimidate the bipedal population into good behavior; dragons and their kin had a healthy respect for him too.

  Wells continued, "In the past thirty years, everyone has gotten better at looking to the police rather than their kindred for regulation, but we aren't set up for demons and sorcerers. Maybe one day we will be, but I don't think that's today." He dropped his head into his hands with a soft groan, all twelve of his fingers digging into his scalp.

  The feeling of dread his words should've inspired never came. Sitting there, watching him cope with a fight he wasn't prepared for, brought the entire situation into sharp focus. "You are going to put that book in evidence and make it part of the investigation. Then we do research. I don't know if we can fight Gremory, but we should be able to identify him and his allies."

  Wells pulled his head out of his hands, confusion written all over his face.

  My lips stretched into something resembling a smile. "At least four different counties have files on activity related to Gremory. That doesn't even include what the ATF and FBI have thanks to the trolls. There has to be something there."

  His eyes sharpened, and for the first time this morning I saw the intelligent man I'd met a few days ago. "I'll get those files. We'll track down his support system and buy ourselves time."

  "Exactly."

  "I'm glad you're on our side," Wells commented.

  Before I could answer, both of our phones rang. I answered mine. "Oaks Consulting. This is Michelle."

  "Hi, Michelle. This is Officer Brown with the Gilmer County Sheriff's Office. Would you be able to assist with a situation?"

  "Yes, what's going on?" I shoved a finger in my ear to drown out Wells's shout. Call me crazy, but I had a feeling we were getting similar phone calls.

  "Could you come to the jail? Gremlins are attacking, and we can't fend them off."

  "Attacking? How many?"

  Before Officer Brown had time to answer, Wells pulled my finger out of my ear. "My car. Now."

  I nodded and bolted after him. The other customers dodged out of his way, leaving a clear path for me.

  "It looks like several hundred. How soon can you be on scene?"

  "I'm in town w
ith Wells. I'll be there soon."

  I gave my car, and all my supplies, one wistful look before belting myself into the police cruiser. Normally I wouldn't budge without my bags, but I had my wand, and that would have to do. Wells had us out of the parking lot and zooming down the road before I even got around to stuffing my phone in my purse and taking my wand out of the wrist sheath.

  "What did you hear?" I asked.

  "Nothing useful. Gremlins everywhere and backup is needed at the jail. Hush." He flipped on the radio and a voice crackled to life, repeating what he'd just said.

  We clung to every word coming out of that radio for the ten minutes it took us to reach the jail. The jail had been locked down, with prisoners in their cells and armed police watching the perimeter. During the trip, we learned that there were packs of gremlins all long the fence and some had gotten inside the jail. The front gate had a crowd of them. Estimates on the number of gremlins varied, but the fence was beginning to buckle under their weight.

  At this point, the police had a tactical problem. Backup was stuck outside the gate, and if an escalation in force was necessary, which was rapidly becoming the case, the two groups were in each other's line of fire.

  Wells took a right, taking us up a hill. Partway up, he parked the car behind a line of police vehicles. As soon as the car stopped moving, we were out and sprinting up the hill. Cresting the hill, we found a milling group of policemen studying the mass of gremlins in front of them.

  Personally, I didn't think the reports coming over the radio painted an accurate picture. However, it was hard to describe the scene. The last tenth of a mile of road was packed with squarely built, eighteen-inch-tall, semihuman-looking things swaddled in all types of dirty, ripped clothing. Not a one of their bulbous, squished faces was turned in our direction. In the distance, I could see smaller groups against the fence.

  "Michelle, what do we do?" Wells asked.

  "Um."

  "Come on, this is your department."

  "Give me a minute." Even though there was a small army of gremlins on the road, they weren't doing anything overly impressive. The crowd in front of me was simply pressing forward. The metal groaned, and I could see the fence sagging. The gremlins were slowly breaking the gate, but it wasn't a smart or efficient plan.