“We know very little about the other travelers. We lived our own lives and went our separate ways,” Marvin said.
“That’s what I’ve been told.” Honora remembered that Hexer Min said the same thing.
“There was another witch who was involved with dangerous Otherworld creatures, but she isn’t part of this,” Sky said, shaking her head slowly.
Honora’s stomach jumped at the possible lead. “How can you know for sure? Anyone could have been swayed or manipulated. I need to check her out.”
“I didn’t want to say anything, but if you insist. Her name is Elspeth Mayhem. The witch is your mother.” The professor’s brow creased, her expression filled with pity.
“That’s a lie.” Honora gave Sky an annoyed glare. “Do you have proof, or is it just speculation?” This was the second witch accusing her mother of being involved with Otherworld creatures, but she refused to believe it. “I know my mother, and she would never do anything to harm our world.”
Marvin took a step toward her, but Honora backed away. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have said anything. Witches change after ten years in the Otherworld. It’s a powerful place. I’m sure your mother is a good witch at heart. Everything she did was to learn as much as she could about the Otherworld in an attempt to help Everland, I’m sure. Right, dear?”
“Of course,” Sky said.
“If the council needs anything else, they’ll be in touch.” Honora spun on her heels. She couldn’t get out of the company of the professors fast enough.
17
Sometimes, eliminating a suspect was just as important as identifying one. At least, that was what Honora reminded herself as she sat in the cramped living space of the third traveler—a gypsy witch who’d trekked across Everland and the Otherworld in a trailer towed behind two magically enormous horses. The trailer was as humid as a greenhouse and reeked of plant material. Honora could barely breathe, and the sticky air entering her mouth was leaving a thick coating in her throat. Innumerable specimens surrounded her. The witch had reached the hag stage in her life, and her hunched back and wizened body barely left the comfort of her tiny trailer. The most dangerous activity of her day was pruning, which she needed to work on.
“Witch Cleo, did you ever interact with the other witches and wizards from the Travelers Program? Elspeth Mayhem, perhaps?” Honora asked with a sneeze.
“Oh, no. I spent quiet days in the Otherworld. Horticulture is my passion. I’m afraid it didn’t interest any of the others. I never spent any length of time with any of them. I don’t recognize the name Elspeth Mayhem, either. Perhaps I met her when we first left, but I’m not sure.” The hag smiled kindly. “Can I make you some tea?”
“No, thank you. I should really be going,” Honora said politely and stood to leave. “Thank you for you time.”
Having gleaned little information from the elder witch, Honora made a quick exit and headed to the city to meet up with Hexer Min and Jenny. She was early getting back to her office, so she stopped by the corner deli to pick up sandwiches for lunch.
“I’ve got some bad news.” Sawyer’s face was ashen, his fingers smeared with ink. Honora handed him his favorite, beef brisket.
“What? I don’t know how much more I can take.”
“You remember my friend, Bailey, who works at the police department?” He took the food bag from Honora and pulled out his sandwich.
“Sure, the cute witch you’ve been secretly dating for months. I remember meeting her. Go on.” Honora smiled coyly.
“I asked her to let me know if anything happened with Rainer. She sent me an urgent note about ten minutes ago.”
“And?” Honora unwrapped her tuna salad sandwich. How bad could it be? “Sit down. We still need to eat.” She opened a back of kettle chips.
“They’re releasing the body,” Sawyer said, putting his lunch on the desk.
“When?” Honora’s heart leapt to her throat. No, no, no.
“In an hour.” His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t know what to do. I thought about calling Harper to see if the council was aware, but then I remembered we didn’t tell them that Jonathan Rainer was still alive.”
“They can’t do that. It’s too soon. It hasn’t even been a full day. That’s not like them to be so speedy; usually they’re painfully slow and methodical. When have they ever worked this fast on anything? What gives?” Honora crumbled up her sandwich wrapper and tossed it into the garbage.
“From what Bailey told me, the police are getting a lot of pressure from his wife. She wants her husband’s remains immediately and didn’t care about the protocols or paperwork. So they’re delivering the body to the funeral home for cremation. Today.” He stared at his sandwich.
“That’s fast. I’ve got to think. We’ve got to come up with a way of getting to him before the ghoul does. I can’t let that thing cremate him.” She was up and out of her chair, pacing the office. “He’s still alive!” Her voice was a high-pitched squeal.
“We know that, but they don’t. Maybe you should call the council and come clean. Where’s that Hexer when we need him? He has to have connections.”
“Where is he? I can’t believe they’re not back yet.” Honora spun around the room, as if Hexer Min might suddenly appear.
“He and Jenny are still out tracking down the travelers on their list. A messenger delivered a note.” Sawyer pawed through the papers on his desk and handed Honora a piece of parchment with a scrawl across it. “It says they’ll be late for the meeting. They got hung up in interviews.”
“This is weird. I thought with two of them they’d beat me back.” Honora tossed the paper on her desk. Great, just great.
“Well, they didn’t, and now we’re in trouble. Is there anyone at the station you can call and get them to hold the body?”
“I haven’t exactly been honest with them, either.” She leaned back in her chair. “There’s only one thing I can think of.”
“What’s that?”
“I have to steal Jonathan’s body out of the morgue and replace it with another one, so his fake wife doesn’t find out.” Honora bit her bottom lip. “It could work. Right?”
Sawyer’s eyes bulged. “Are you crazy? I know you’re desperate, but that’s really illegal, and even if it weren’t, there’s no way you can pull off a body snatch. Where are you going to find a body just lying around the morgue? Well, I guess technically the morgue would be the place to find a body, since they are all lying around, but the security will be tight, and they frown on bodysnatching. I don’t see it happening.”
“That’s why I’m not going to do it alone. I’m going to get help from the inside.” Honora stared thoughtfully at Sawyer.
“Don’t look at me. Bailey is tapped out.”
“I’ve got to go much higher. I need someone who’s fearless verging on cocky, charming verging on hypnotic. Someone with advanced subterfuge skills.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I need to enlist the help of our favorite detective.”
“Good luck with that.” Sawyer rubbed his hands over his face.
“One more thing. Do you still have your hover truck? Because I’m going to need to borrow it.”
With focused gaze and squared shoulders, Honora made her way through the police station and marched over to Detective Corder’s desk. She received a few narrow glances from his coworkers but brushed them off. Convincing the detective to help her wasn’t going to be easy. “I need to talk to you, alone. It’s serious.” She put her hand on top of the casebook he was reviewing.
“Not now,” he huffed, peeling her hand off the page. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I have a job to do. I don’t have time to chitchat. You finished your part of the Jonathan Rainer case and got paid, but my job doesn’t end with one dead wizard hiding out in the woods. How was I supposed to know he was in the North Woods? No sane wizard goes to the freezing forest,” he ranted, wild-eyed. His hair was disheveled, tie loosened. Andreas was in a sour mood. Honora was guessing the sudden appearan
ce of Jonathan Rainer’s body had not sat well with the detective’s superiors. She was about to make his day even worse, but his wounded pride would have to take a back seat to saving Rainer.
Honora grabbed his arm and squeezed hard. “I’m not joking. This has to do with the recent case. I need to talk to you, and I’m not leaving until I do.” Her voice was low and gravelly, her stare intense. “I need your help.”
With an annoyed sigh, Andreas waved his wand and uttered a spell. The air surrounding them wavered, and they were suddenly encased in a soundproof sphere.
He yanked free of her grasp. “This better be good, Mayhem. You have two minutes. Now what do you want?”
“Jonathan Rainer isn’t dead.” She glanced around, making sure no one heard.
Andreas rolled his eyes. “I’ve got a corpse down in the morgue ready to roll out of here that says otherwise. This case is finally closed.”
Honora explained everything that had happened in the past couple of days as quickly as she could. “I desperately need to get Jonathan back and not tip off Ghoul Jane. You’re the only one who can help me save him. His life and the safety of Everland are in jeopardy. Please, Detective.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose with his eyes squeezed shut. “How in Everland do you get yourself involved in these messes?” He slowly opened his eyes. “It’s the Mayhem curse, isn’t it? I never believed it, but I’m starting to think it might be true.”
“I don’t know. But I can’t tell the council yet, and they won’t arrest the impostor Jane because we’re trying to catch the traitor, and she will hopefully lead us to him or her. I know it seems difficult, but really we just need to do a switch. Get Jonathan’s body and replace it with another one, so when it’s delivered to the fake Jane, she won’t suspect anything.” Honora clutched the edge of his desk. Her body was tense as a spring.
“Where am I supposed to get a spare body?” He threw up his hands. “It’s not like I have a collection just hanging around for this occasion.”
“The morgue.” She shrugged. “There must be some poor unclaimed body that you don’t need. We could borrow one and wrap it up. The ghoul would never know.” That sounded better in her head than it did out loud. Sawyer was right. Her idea was crazy. “I know this is going to be hard.”
The detective leaned back in his chair. “Are you delirious? I can’t just give you a body. I’d lose my job. I’d go to prison.”
“We can’t let one of the most important wizards in Everland be cremated. Ghoul Jane will burn him alive.” A cold sweat washed over her. “Please, Andreas. I’m begging you.”
He jabbed his finger at her. “We?! This is all on you. You came up with this plan. A divine corpse potion.” He shook his head, and then miraculously the tension in his face softened. A long sigh followed. “Let me think for a minute.”
“Technically, we don’t need a real body, just one that looks real. And we’re going to need a distraction.” She grabbed the leather cord from around her neck and fingered the tiny potion vial Vivi had given her for her birthday.
“I might have an idea,” he said. “But you are going to owe me big time.”
On the way to the morgue, Honora sent word to Sawyer to bring the truck around back to the delivery zone and get ready. The heist was on. Detective Andreas had given her strict orders to follow his lead—no improvising, grandstanding, or overreacting. “Play it cool,” he said as he pushed open the door, and they walked into an invisible wall of security spells. Goosebumps raced up her back, but they were quickly waved through the morgue security.
The halls were clean white marble and practically deserted. The operating rooms were empty, lights dimmed. There was no way they could swap Jonathan with another body. Even if they could find a John Doe, stealing a corpse was career suicide, and Andreas wouldn’t do it. Honora realized she’d been foolish to even ask him.
Honora followed the detective into a storage room. They dug through a half-dozen boxes of training supplies until they found a wizard mannequin, which had been folded up and jammed into a box. At least, if they got caught stealing a resuscitation dummy, Andreas probably wouldn’t lose his job. Honora loaded the dummy onto a table, stripped it down, and wrapped it with white gauze.
Andreas wisely reminded her that the switch had to happen after the morgue released the body, but prior to it being loaded into the truck. There was no way a morgue tech was going to sign off on a dummy. Honora wheeled the dummy through the empty hallways and made it as far as the loading area, before the detective stopped her.
“This is as far as you go. I’ve got to take it from here,” Andreas said.
“Are you sure? I can stay and help.”
He straightened his jacket. “No. I don’t want to have to explain your presence to anyone. Just wait outside with the truck and be ready to go.”
She handed him the potion. “Here, this is all we’ve got for a distraction. It’s called midnight mist. It should provide cover so you can get the body out.”
He eyed the potion warily, but took it anyway and disappeared through two swinging doors. Honora peered in through the window in the door. The medical examination room was lined with rows of metal drawers. One was open and ominously empty, Jonathan’s cocooned body already inside of the pine box that he’d been placed in up north, ready for transport. A shiver cascaded over her. She rubbed her arms.
“Good afternoon, Detective,” a chipper voice said.
“Cassie. How’s my favorite tech doing today? You look lovely as usual. How’s the transfer going?” Corder’s charming voiced filtered beneath the swinging door, but Honora didn’t wait to find out how he was going to pull the switch. With a uniformed wizard stationed at the loading dock, she had to race back through the building and take the long way around to the parking lot.
Sawyer’s truck was parked in the alley. He was leaning against the side of the shiny black hovercraft, watching the morgue.
“Back it up to the door.” Honora waved him over. “We need to be ready.”
Her pulse raced. Suddenly, plumes of dark blue smoke billowed from underneath the doorframe.
“What the heck is happening?” Sawyer pointed at the coils of smoky clouds, dumbfounded. “You didn’t tell me there was going to be an explosion.”
“That’s not an explosion. I think those are midnight clouds or smoky, misty atmosphere enhancers. I don’t think that’s supposed to happen. I was desperate. At least it’s a good distraction.” Honora shrugged. “The potion was a birthday gift from my sister.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a gag gift?”
As if on cue, an alarm blared from inside the building. Strobes of flashing red lights illuminated the suddenly darkened facility. The back doors swung open, and a cool, gray mist spilled into the parking lot. Honora raced into the building. The tech guarding the door was gone. The lights were out; the hallway was dark as midnight. A pale moonlight glow hovered around the ceiling. Damp mist clung to her arms and face. It felt like walking through a wet spring shower. Andreas’ voice barked orders, and suddenly she saw a dark figure running toward her. Honora turned on her heels, racing out of the building.
“He’s coming!” She swung open the back of the truck.
Andreas burst through the doors with a cocooned body cradled in his arms. Honora couldn’t tell if his face was covered in sweat or misty dewdrops, but his coloring was bright red.
“That potion is causing a mess. You didn’t tell me it would take over the entire floor. It overloaded the illuma light system in the morgue, setting off the alarms.” He heaved the body into the back of the truck, shut the door, and pounded on the back.
“Sorry,” she said, remembering Vivi mentioned the potion was still in the testing phase. “Hopefully they won’t be able to trace it back to you.”
He wiped his brow and smiled. “That was a rush. I haven’t pulled anything like this since I was a young cadet. I swapped out the dummy for the real body and sealed the coffin. I doubt they’ll
open it again to check.”
Andreas’ smile was a relief to Honora, but not as much as having Jonathan Rainer out of the coffin and in the back of the truck. “Thanks,” she said.
“Just get out of here.” Andreas hurried back into the morgue.
Honora climbed into the front seat as Sawyer spelled the craft to life, and they glided off. She slumped down in her seat. “That was a close one.”
Once back in her apartment, Honora and Sawyer laid Jonathan Rainer’s body on the sofa and loosened the cotton burial shroud. A few of his possessions had been wrapped up with him—a corduroy jacket, a pair of glasses, and a pocket watch. His skin was waxy and cold to the touch. Unfortunately, they didn’t have time for him to revive naturally, forcing Honora to pour the reversal potion down his throat.
“I hope that potion works. No offense, but the last potion of your sister’s I saw in action wasn’t very encouraging,” Sawyer said with his wand clutched in his hand, ready for anything. “I know a few basic resuscitation spells and some basic first aid, but that’s as far as my healing training goes.”
They waited a few achingly long minutes. Honora rubbed Jonathan’s arms, trying to get him warm by circulating his blood. His body temperature slowly rose, going from icy cold to slightly chilled. Finally, his body jerked. His eyelids fluttered, and he leaned up on his elbows. A milky film covered his eyes, taking a few blinks for it to clear. He didn’t speak for a couple of minutes, just nodded his head as Sawyer and Honora shouted questions about his well-being at him.
Jonathan gave them a weary smile. “I was dead, not deaf.”
“At least we know he can still tell a joke,” Sawyer said.
After waking fully, the resuscitated wizard sat huddled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, sipping a cup of hot tea. She and Sawyer filled him in on what they’d learned about the Ghoul Jane since he’d been out. Once Jonathan was out of danger, Honora shifted her worry to Jenny. She’d had no update from her or Hexer Min all day. “I can’t understand why Jenny and Min aren’t back yet.” She bit her lip.
Fly By Midnight (A Sister Witches Mystery) Page 18
