The Witchkin Murders

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  “Christ Almighty, Kayla,” Ray began again.

  She cut him off before he could get started. “I promise, Ray, I’m not as helpless as you think. I’m not suicidal and I’m not stupid, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, but headed in the direction of the Night Market. Time was nobody’s friend on the murders or kidnappings.

  Irony swamped her, and she grimaced. She’d wanted a purpose after bobbling about like a loose boat on a turbulent sea, and now she had two—saving her grandmother and aunt, and stopping the witchkin murders.

  Determination quickened her steps. She’d be damned if she’d fail either task, come hell or high water. She just hoped the universe didn’t take that as a personal challenge.

  Chapter 14

  Ray

  RAY BOILED INSIDE as he stalked after Kayla. His hands clenched and unclenched, and magic sluiced through him in a hot torrent. It built inside him like steam in a kettle. He couldn’t let it blow. Normally when this happened, he found a way to discharge a bolt of the energy—into the ground or the river or somewhere it couldn’t do harm.

  But here? In his current mood? He’d be guaranteed to kill trees, and the dryads would most definitely take offense to that.

  The myths that said the creatures were gentle beings lied. The best you’d get was live and let live. Fuck with them, and they’d come after you with a vengeance. He’d heard stories of them reaching out through uninhabited trees and plants and dragging people under the dirt and burying them alive. The rest of the time they fought dirty. Which in no way explained why they weren’t going after the witchkin killer themselves instead of demanding help from Kayla.

  He dragged in a deep breath, trying to make himself relax. An almost impossible task with Kayla in front of him. Running away from him. Again. Or at least it felt like it.

  The neanderthal half of himself wanted to shove her up against a tree and kiss the living shit out of her. The other half wanted to throttle her. The fucking dryads knew more about her than he did.

  He had no idea what to make of their claim that she had to hunt down the killer because she was the Guardian of the River. What did that mean? He didn’t think she was suicidal, and yet she was acting like it, thinking she could go up against this killer alone.

  Not that he’d let her.

  A voice in Ray’s head jeered at that. Like he could stop her. What was he going to do? Chain her up when he wasn’t around? What about when he slept? He’d have to handcuff her to him so she wouldn’t sneak away.

  His entire body flushed hot as he imagined her curled up against him, his arms around her. How far gone was he that neither of them were naked in his little daydream? How far gone was he that just the idea of cuddling her made his dick hard?

  God but he was fucked up. The last thing he wanted to do was start something up with any woman, but with Kayla least of all—even if she’d cooperate, which was laughable. Even if he did somehow manage to get her in bed, it couldn’t end well and he’d lose her all over again.

  Talk about a dose of frigid reality. The possibility drove icicles into his body and cooled his magic like it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. Fear stalked across his soul. He wouldn’t let it happen. Four years had taught him he could live without her, but it was a crap life. He had to fix things so he could have her back, no matter how much anger and hurt he had to swallow. He didn’t need his pride; he needed her, and he needed to close the hole she’d left inside him.

  Ray hurried to overtake Kayla, falling in beside her. She cast him a wary look, but didn’t speak.

  “You’re thinking what happened here is related to the killings at Keller Fountain,” he said, deciding to focus on solving the case—the one thing they always did well together.

  “Murders,” she corrected. “And yes, I do think they’re related.”

  “Why?”

  “The way they were pinned up and the missing body parts. Those similarities in the MO aren’t likely coincidence. The timing’s suspicious, too.”

  “The dryad didn’t have any of those symbols around him,” Ray pointed out. Not that he disagreed. Like most cops, he didn’t put a lot of stock in coincidence.

  “Maybe the murders had different purposes. Or maybe he didn’t have time to do all he wanted,” she said. “Hell, the dryad could just have been to get his rocks off.”

  “Okay, say that’s true. What about these other witchkin murders? You think they’re related?”

  “Too soon to say, but it’s possible.”

  Ray’s gut had him leaning toward yes, but he’d let the evidence tell the story. And if they were related? A serial killer was loose in the city and nobody’d noticed. He’d not noticed, and that was going to eat at his conscience a long time. He should have done better.

  They walked in silence for a minute, and then Kayla spoke again, musing aloud. “I wonder what the coroner’s office will learn from the fountain bodies.”

  “They won’t do an autopsy,” Ray said. Before, that fact hadn’t bothered him. He hadn’t even thought about it. But now . . .

  “I know, but Zach thought there might be some sort of clue on the bodies to tell him about the spell casting.”

  Ray managed not to say anything disparaging about the technomage. Iron-jawed, he pushed it away. Kayla’s romantic life wasn’t his business. He had to stay focused on solving the kidnapping and keeping her out of trouble. He had to remember he wanted her back in his life, and getting his cock in a knot over her and Logan wasn’t going to help his cause.

  They emerged from the grove into a broad meadow. On the other side, the lights of the Night Market twinkled in the darkness.

  Ray hadn’t been to the market in nearly a year. Set in a long oval, it had three entrances. Most of the stalls were made of wood beams with oiled canvas or corrugated steel roofs. Vendors frequently shared walls and were organized along crooked walkways. Clustered at the southern side were some permanent buildings housing a few shops, a café, two tiny restaurants, and a post office. A few island natives carried baskets and wandered through the crowd, peddling their wares.

  It startled Ray to see so many shoppers at this time of the night. Or more accurately, morning. There had to be at least a few hundred.

  “I’ve always figured it’s because they have to wait to sneak out so nobody else will see them,” Kayla said when he mentioned it. “Look at how many are wearing hoods and cloaks so they won’t be recognized. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of them are either secret witches, secretly not human, or up to no good.”

  “No good?” Ray repeated, eyeing the crowd speculatively. His cop radar fired up.

  “Humans are always out here looking for an advantage in their lives. You’ll hear them ask for love potions, ways to spy on each other, attack spells, hexes, and whatever else they can dream up. Some salvagers even come looking for invisibility spells in order to bypass some of the magical dangers where they scavenge.”

  “Do they work?”

  “Which?”

  “The invisibility spells.”

  “They say they do, at least some of the time. I’ve never tried one.”

  Though Ray wanted to ask her why not, he didn’t bother since he was certain it was tied to everything else she wasn’t telling him.

  They wandered into the market. Packed stalls crowded close, offering everything from salvaged goods to spell paraphernalia. An archway of vines had been trained over the top of the walkway. Silvery-white flowers gave off a slightly pungent perfume. Gold pollen mashed into the hard clay soil below.

  They entered the enclosure and strolled through the throng. Ray eyed the sale stalls. Not for the first time did he wonder what he might be able to do with some of the supplies and a little training in witchcraft. He shook away the thought. Never going
to happen.

  Kayla paused at a booth selling herbs and a variety of amulets and other jewelry. A weedy-looking man with horn-rimmed glasses, receding brown hair, and ears that stuck out like the doors of an open taxi, negotiated with a pair of witchkin women wearing long white gowns made of a translucent gossamer material. Their bodies were slender to the point of near emaciation. The first had green hair that fell past her waist and reminded Ray of pasture grass. The other appeared to be older, or maybe sick. Her hair hung yellow-brown and brittle. Her hands, when she reached out to pay for her purchase, were gnarled and curled with thick yellow nails sharpened into points.

  Neither one of the witchkin women paid any attention to him or Kayla. All the same, Ray stayed close. His magic bubbled ready inside him. He could call it up and let a bolt of it go with little thought. It was a lesson he taught himself early on. Sometimes as a cop, he had to fight fire with fire, or in this case, magic with magic.

  The two women collected their purchases and tucked them into the woven baskets they carried on their arms. After putting away their payments—not money but some sort of trade items—the seller turned to Kayla and Ray. His gaze settled heavily on Ray, examining him from head to toe. The man’s lips tightened as he turned his attention to Kayla.

  “May I help you?” he asked in a voice that said he had no interest in helping her at all, with a pinch of disapproval indicating he disliked her taste in companions.

  “We are looking for Raven,” said Kayla. “Do you know where we can find her stall?”

  The man began sweeping up bits of leaves and stems that had escaped and now littered the counter.

  “Why do you want her?”

  “I would tell you,” Kayla said, “but I’ve learned that witches aren’t fond of others prying into their business. I have not met Raven, but I’d rather not start out on her bad side.”

  The man’s mouth twitched into a thin smile of appreciation. Brown stains darkened the seams between his teeth. “It is true,” he said as he finished cleaning off the table. “Witches can be a touchy bunch. Which is why I’d rather not send trouble to her door.” He gave Ray a dark look. “We don’t get a lot of cops here, and when we do they are never friendly.”

  “We’re looking into the witchkin murders,” Kayla said. “The dryads told us to talk to Raven.”

  At that bit of news, the man’s brows rose and his face paled. “Go left, far end. It’s the only stall that has a door.”

  He turned his back then, and Ray knew they weren’t going to get any more from him.

  “My name is Kayla. If you hear of anything you think I need to know, this is my number.” She grabbed a paper bag and a pen and wrote her number out on it. “You might let others know,” she added, pushing the bag toward him

  The other man’s lip curled. “Since when does anyone care what happens to witchkin? You humans hate us.”

  “You were our enemies in a war to kill most of us,” Ray said.

  The proprietor tensed as if to argue, and then slumped, giving a resigned nod. “We wanted our world back,” he said. “We wanted to live free again. We wanted to stop being the monsters in your fairytales. We wanted to come and go as we chose. We wanted to live in a world of magic again. Perhaps we should have tried a different way.”

  Ray slid a hand around the back of his neck. In the years since Magicfall, he learned a lot about the way the world used to be before humans overran it and stamped out much of the magic. It wasn’t a lot different from what the whites had done to the Native Americans when settling America. It was hard to blame the witchkin for their anger and for fighting back, but it was equally hard to forgive them for all the carnage and death.

  But now they all had to live in the same world together, and they had to figure out how to treat each other with respect. As a cop, he should be leading the charge. His role was to protect and to serve people, and as Kayla had pointed out at the fountain square, just because they weren’t human didn’t make the witchkin any less entitled to the same rights as humans.

  It was hard to accept. Ray had seen so much death, so much pain, but if he admitted the truth, he’d seen that same death, same pain on both sides. They all had to learn to forgive each other.

  “You shouldn’t have had to fight for it,” he said, dragging his fingers through his hair.

  The proprietor startled, his eyes widening. Ray was aware of Kayla looking up at him. Her fingers touched the back of his hand as if to say well done. Ray stiffened his arm to keep from lacing his fingers through hers.

  “You should go,” the man said gruffly. “Raven’s been known to close up early.”

  Kayla nodded to him, and she and Ray began to walk away.

  “I’m called Silas, by the way,” the proprietor called. “I’m a Deva.”

  When Ray looked over his shoulder in surprise, Silas, the Deva, was looking right at him. Ray tipped his head.

  “Ray Garza,” he said with a nod.

  “You did good,” Kayla said as they cut across the central space.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “You treated him with respect.”

  “That shouldn’t win me any prizes.”

  “Because you shouldn’t have?”

  He gave her a heavy look. “I guess I deserve that. But nobody deserves a prize for basic respect. It should be the rule, not the exception.”

  The corner of her mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “And lo, an old dog learns a new trick.”

  “You calling me old?”

  “I’m calling you a dog.”

  Her grin widened, and he couldn’t help but smile back. “I like dogs. Don’t you?”

  “As long as they don’t bite.”

  If I ever get a chance to nibble on you, you’re going to love it. Heat flashed through him, and his dick went hard. Jesus. He felt like a hormonal teenager on his first date. He told himself to cool off and hoped to hell Kayla didn’t notice the log growing in his pants.

  Raven’s stall was more like a tiny cottage painted sea-blue with crisp white trim. Two small windows faced the commons area, and below each of them colorful flowers rioted in window boxes. The two of them stopped outside, and Kayla knocked on the door. It swung open silently.

  Ray caught Kayla’s shoulder and slid past her to enter first. Inside the place was cozy, looking more like a comfortable living room than anything else. A copper kettle sat on a petrified wood stump with curls of steam rolling out of its spout. Fairy lights danced along the ceiling. Overstuffed chairs filled the rest of the space along with bright hangings.

  The witch sat in one corner. She wore a bohemian-style blouse and skirt with beaded bracelets on both wrists, and a host of rings on her fingers. She held a steaming cup low in her lap, her legs folded up under her.

  “Welcome,” she said in a husky voice as if she had a cold. “Please sit.” She gestured toward the other chairs. Kayla sat opposite to her, and Ray chose a seat where he could watch them both.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  Raven didn’t wait for an answer but turned to a small table beside her and set her cup aside as she poured tea for both Kayla and Ray. It smelled like cinnamon, cloves, and something Ray couldn’t quite identify. She added cream and stirred and passed a cup to each of her guests. Picking up her own again, she leaned back in her chair.

  “How can I help you today?” She sipped, watching Kayla over the rim of her cup. She ignored Ray altogether.

  “You know who—what—I am,” Kayla said.

  Ray leaned forward, hoping she’d say more, but apparently that was enough. Raven tipped her head in agreement.

  Kayla continued, “Then you know the dryads sent me.”

  The witch didn’t waste any time small talk. “The killings started nearly three months ago,” she said. “We
knew right away that these were no ordinary murders.”

  “Ordinary murders?” Kayla asked.

  “Humans don’t like us, and they tell us so in blood in the backs of alleys. Their violence is filled with hate, but these killings have no emotion. They are calculated, clinically performed, and involve magic. Always the victims are missing bones.”

  “Bones? Any in particular?” Kayla asked, her brow furrowing.

  “No. While the choice of bones taken from a victim doesn’t seem arbitrary, neither have we seen any pattern. Sometimes the choice is repeated, but mostly all are different.” A shudder ran through Raven, though neither her voice nor her expression revealed any emotion.

  “How many victims are we talking about?” Ray asked. He pulled his notebook out.

  Raven turned her head to look at him and then turned back to Kayla to answer the question. “There have been twenty so far.”

  “Jesus,” he muttered, hand clenching on the notebook. This guy was a serial killer. Guilt coiled in his chest. He should have seen it. And if he had? What would he have done? He didn’t like the answer.

  The witch reached down beside her chair and lifted up a waterproof plastic food-storage box full of papers. “This contains all we know about the murders, including photographs of some of the scenes.”

  Kayla took the box and set it in her lap. “I’ll find and stop the killer,” she said, her voice thick with anger.

  “We will,” Ray added in a gravelly voice.

  Raven looked at him again. “Your decision is admirable,” she said in a tone so devoid of emotion it was clearly a condemnation. “But the Guardian is better equipped than humans. Witchkin will talk to her.”

  “What else can you tell us?” Kayla asked.

  Raven tapped a finger against her lip, considering. Finally, she lowered her hand, decision made. “Everything about the murders is in there.” She nudged her chin toward the box in Kayla’s lap. “But there’s something else, maybe connected. Maybe not.”