Witch on Third (A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 6)

by Juliette Harper

“Correct,” Greer agreed. “However, we are discussing something unique, the plotting of time jumps like a course on a map.”

  “Is this a power Chesterfield gained when he became Creavit?” I asked.

  Greer shook her head. “No, based on what Grayson and I learned in our research, coupled with what Glory has shared with us, Chesterfield has gone to some lengths to cultivate his temporal magic,” she said. “The DGI’s files on the man are sketchy at best before 1936, but what we do have indicates that he was once a human who dabbled in alchemy. I believe that is the skill set upon which he has drawn to craft this new ability.”

  “What a minute,” I said, “don’t all alchemists have magical powers?”

  “No,” Greer said. “The alchemists you know are all descended from Fae lineage, which is the source of their magic. We have every reason to believe that Chesterfield was purely human before he bargained for his powers.”

  “Who was he” Mom asked, “before he became Creavit?”

  “Rather an ordinary man for his station in the 12th century,” Greer said. “He was associated with a wealthy family, which afforded him the opportunity to develop his alchemical interests. We also believe he went to the Crusades.”

  I ran the math in my head. “You can’t be serious,” I said. “That would make him more than 800 years old.”

  “True,” Lucas said, “but he only lived 50 years as a human before gaining Creavit immortality. We’ve verified his birth in Derbyshire in 1130.”

  “Where?” Tori asked.

  “The East Midlands,” Lucas said. “Think the middle of England, a little better than half way up on the map.”

  The DGI seemed to know a fair amount about the start of Chesterfield’s life and what he had been doing for the last 80 years or so. Beyond that, huge gaps riddled the wizard’s biography. Their best guess had him leaving Europe in the early 1930s, possibly to escape the political unrest on the continent preceding World War II.

  Then, in the mid-Eighties, he created a new identity for himself, posing as his nephew — conveniently with the same name. We all agreed that he’d probably reinvented himself many times over the centuries.

  “Given all that,” Greer said, “coupled with Chesterfield’s rather meek acceptance of his punishment following the incident in which Festus was injured, things do not paint the picture of a penitent Creavit minding his own business.”

  “I tried to tell Barnaby that slimy Creavit was up to no good,” Festus grumbled, edging closer toward the warmth of the fire. “For the life of me, I have never understood why Barnaby let Chesterfield off with probation.”

  Festus was right. Barnaby’s leniency made no sense under the circumstance. We were going to have to take up that very subject with him. Everything Greer and Lucas said convinced me that my grandfather had seriously underestimated Chesterfield. We couldn’t afford to let that happen again.

  We couldn’t afford to underestimate anybody.

  I knew Chase wasn’t going to like what I had to say next, but I said it anyway. “Does it bother anyone else that Chesterfield and the Strigoi Sisters popped in and out of sight right outside the Stone Hearth Pizzeria?”

  Ex-boyfriend or not, I know my man. Chase chimed in right on cue with a note of exasperation in his voice that set my teeth on edge.

  “Oh for God’s sake!” he said. “Let it go, Jinx! There isn’t a shred of evidence that Pete is somehow in collusion with Irenaeus Chesterfield!”

  I didn’t have to reply, Greer did it for me with that deadly, arched eyebrow of hers. “Is that so?” she said coolly. “Perhaps you should let us be the judge of that. Is there some issue with the owner of this eatery?”

  In my opinion, there certainly was.

  I believe Pete told Malcolm Ferguson that Chase and I intended to visit an isolated waterfall outside of town to speak with the ghost of Knasgowa.

  The genealogy would make your head swim, so let’s keep this brief. Knasgowa is the founder of our magical line. We’re all her descendants by blood — me, Mom, Gemma, and Tori. Collectively, we’re called the Daughters of Knasgowa.

  Chase and I talked about going to the waterfall over lunch at the pizzeria. Pete was the only person outside our immediate circle who could have possibly known about our plans.

  We came back to our car after seeing Knasgowa to ripped up upholstery and a threatening note from Ferguson.

  Chase thought I was being paranoid, but when I finished telling the story, the others didn’t agree with him.

  “You’re sure that no one else outside the group here could have known you were heading out there?” Lucas asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “But Pete had the perfect opportunity to hear us discussing the visit when we were in the pizzeria. I’m positive he’s the one who gave Ferguson the information.”

  Chase made a dismissive sound in his throat. “Pete is no more Fae than George and Irma at the corner grocery.”

  “No one suggested he’s Fae,” Lucas said, leveling his gaze at Chase, “but someone or something could be manipulating him. Did you ever think about that, McGregor?”

  Was it ever going to be possible for these two to be in the same room without verbal sparring?

  Chase started to bristle but caught himself when both Festus and I looked daggers in his direction. “I suppose that could be possible,” he admitted grudgingly, “but if that’s the case, Pete is a victim who needs our help, not some villain.”

  “And help him we will,” Greer said, “as soon as we determine what, if any, association he has with Chesterfield. Now, let’s have a look at the drone video of the confrontation with the Strigoi Sisters. If I’m right, we may be able to discern the instant when Chesterfield rescued them.”

  3

  When we watched the encounter with Seraphina and Ioana on the big screen, I tried to pretend the chilling events were scenes from a movie. Oddly enough, however, the longer I watched, the more empowered I became.

  Even as the storm’s fury built to its peak, cruelly buffeting the microscopic drone, the camera caught everything that happened.

  The moment when I stepped out of the store with Tori, Mom, and Gemma.

  Our walk across the street.

  The face-to-face with the Strigoi Sisters.

  Anton Ionescu appearing out of nowhere and tasering Ioana.

  My mother rushing past me to snatch a child out of harm’s way.

  Gemma tackling Seraphina.

  And then the four of us clasped hands and called to the lightning.

  I was standing behind the couch with my hands resting on my mother's shoulders as we watched the video. The bolt of electricity falling from the sky made the screen flare white. When the picture cleared, the girls were gone and Anton lay dying on the grass.

  As I watched myself comfort the fallen man, Mom rested her right hand over my left. Fighting to swallow the lump that instantly rose in my throat, I looked at Greer.

  “It all happened too fast,” I said. “The video doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “To the contrary,” Greer said, “I think the video tells us a great deal.”

  The look of compassion from the baobhan sith comforted me as much as the weight of my mother’s hand, but the admiration and empathy in her gaze startled me.

  “Am I missing something here?” I asked awkwardly.

  “Only that last night we witnessed four of the Daughters of Knasgowa standing together for the first time,” Greer said. “The moment is worthy of recognition.”

  “It is, indeed,” Festus agreed. “Chesterfield may not know it yet, but he’s taking on more than he can handle this time.”

  I started to squirm away, but to my surprise, Mom’s hand tightened on mine. “Own your power, Jinx,” she said. “Own your ability to unite our powers.”

  Through the thick knot in my throat, I said, “Thank you. Thank you all.”

  I couldn’t manage more than that. I shot Greer an imploring loo
k, and she gracefully picked up the beat.

  “Let’s examine this sequence in greater detail,” she said.

  So, we watched it again. One painful image at a time. That’s when we saw what really happened. A fraction of a second before the screen flashed to white, Seraphina and Ioana disappeared.

  Greer moved to shut off the video, but to my surprise, Dad stopped her. “Would you let the rest of the tape play?” he asked.

  “Of course,” Greer said, “but may I ask why?”

  Dad sat up straight. “Because I’ve never seen my wife and daughter in action,” he said, “and when you did your thing with time, you froze the Colonel and me along with everyone else. I want to see all of it.”

  My heart swelled with love for him. Dad may have to be a bystander in our magical world, but he’s cheering from the sidelines.

  Even though I had been right in the middle of the events, I saw things on the screen that surprised me. Greer held time still until Anton’s people removed his body from the square. As the human carnival goers began to wake up, Greer and Lucas moved among them, talking.

  “What were you saying to them?” I asked.

  Lucas grinned. “We were using a little bit of psychology,” he said. “When humans are confronted with the unexplained, they’re highly receptive to the first likely story they hear. So we told them a likely story.”

  “Which was?” Tori asked.

  “That the entire crowd was experiencing disorientation from the static electricity generated by the lightning strike,” Lucas said. “Mixed in with some healthy exhortations to be grateful for their good luck.”

  “Exhortations, huh?” I said, grinning back at him in spite of myself.

  “Yeah,” Lucas said. “You can’t sell a story without the right degree of enthusiasm, salted with a little embellishment for flavor.”

  “I’ll remember that the next time you’re trying to sell me a story,” I said mischievously.

  Let me tell you something about flirting. There’s more than one way to do it, but the basic forms are intentional and unintentional. I had just flirted with Lucas Grayson in front of Chase McGregor as naturally as I would have taken a breath. One man liked my answer a lot, and the other one didn’t. If I have to tell you which one was which, you haven’t been keeping up.

  Several things happened next. Chase stiffened. Festus said something sharp in Gaelic. Greer laughed, and Chase blushed to the roots of his hair. The rest of us wisely decided to let it go.

  Beau got us back on track. “Miss Greer,” he said, “do you also have an ability to travel through time?”

  Greer shook her head. “No,” she said. “I only possess the ability to halt time. Temporal magic is rare. It’s unique to the practitioner and only works in the realm of the humans.”

  “Why is that the case?” Beau asked.

  “The Fae accept the fluidity of time,” Greer said. “We work with that flexibility naturally. Humans, and consequently their reality, depend more on the concrete and the known. That is why we can so easily explain away any time anomalies they experience. Humans possess a willingness — a need — to accept pat explanations.”

  Beau considered the information. “If Miss Tori is correct in her assessment of the dangers of creating a temporal paradox,” he said, “and your supposition that Chesterfield executes lateral movements is true, does that preclude an attempt on his part to go back in time?”

  “It does not,” Greer said. “I believe, in fact, that he did precisely that, and that Jinx and Tori saw him do it.”

  “We did?” Tori said. “When?”

  “When you and Jinx psychometrically experienced the car accident in which Seraphina and Ioana were first killed,” Greer answered.

  Short explanation. I touch things and get visions. When I tried to use my power to derive information from the girls’ mangled car, I inadvertently pulled Tori into the vision with me. We relived the whole accident as if we were there — and we saw a figure standing at the top of the cliff looking over the wreckage.

  That’s when it hit me. I knew Chesterfield looked vaguely familiar. Greer read my expression.

  “Was Chesterfield the man you saw in your vision?” she asked.

  When Greer first mentioned Chesterfield’s temporal magic to us, she said she believed he was present the day of the accident itself and in the psychometric vision of the wreck Tori and I experienced.

  Now that I knew more about her theory, those two possibilities confused me even more. When did we see him? At the moment of the accident? When he spied on our vision? Both?

  “I think it was him,” I said helplessly, “but I can’t be sure, and I don’t know when he was there.”

  Glory piped up with a completely unexpected, but brilliant idea. “I can be sure,” she said. “At least about whether it was him or not. Is there some way you can show me the man on top of the cliff? You know, like the way they do instant replays at football games?”

  “I don’t know that either,” I admitted.

  Mom patted my hand. “I do,” she said. “My mother had the gift of psychometry, too. She replayed visions for me many times. Come around here and sit with me.”

  I did as I was told, taking the seat beside my mother when Gemma scooted over. Mom held out her hand to Glory, who immediately settled on the edge of her palm. She brought the little witch up to eye level with me.

  “What do I do?” I asked uncertainly. “I don’t want to hurt Glory.”

  “You won’t,” Mom assured me. “Put your hand out. Glory, take hold of one of Jinx’s fingers.”

  Glory’s hands rested as light as a whisper on my skin. The look of complete trust on her face only made me more nervous.

  “Both of you close your eyes,” Mom ordered. “Jinx, find the part of your power where your psychometry lives. Imagine your visions like cards in a file. Riffle through them, just like the old card catalog at the library. Remember? Look for the vision of the wreck and when you find it, bring it out. Let the scene rise in your mind’s eye.”

  Her voice took on an almost hypnotic, sing-song quality. My psychometry stirred, sending me flashes of Glory’s life. Her apartment filled with Elvis memorabilia. Her desk at work. The park where she liked to feed the squirrels. Her fears and uncertainties.

  Before my mind could probe further, I pulled back. I had no intention of using my powers to invade the privacy of Glory’s thoughts and memories. Mom saw me tense.

  “I know,” she said. “Your power will go first to the thing or the person you’re touching. Don’t let it. You are in control of the ability. It does not control you. Focus. Look for the visions that live in your memory.”

  Drawing in a deep breath, I tried again, imagining an antiquated card catalog, seeing myself open the long, narrow drawer, feeling my fingers sorting through the cards. I sensed my power smoothing into a steady stream rather than thrumming against my awareness.

  Intuiting, rather than understanding what I needed to do next, I touched the imaginary card in my mind, and I was once again in the car with Seraphina and Ioana — and with recorded images of myself and Tori.

  The thought crossed my mind that there was no room for me in the backseat. That’s all it took for my perception of myself to shrink down to something close to Glory’s size. I saw myself perched on the headrest behind Ioana, a vantage point that let me survey the entire interior of the car.

  “I’m there,” I whispered.

  “Good,” Mom said. “Now give the vision to Glory.”

  “Don’t be scared, Glory,” I said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Join me.”

  And like that, she was in the car, too, sitting beside me.

  “Whoa!” she said, swiveling her head back and forth before stopping to stare at me. “We’re the same size!”

  “There wouldn’t be room for us in here any other way,” I said, nodding toward the reflections of Tori and me in the backseat.

  “What happens now?” Glory asked.
<
br />   “In a few seconds the car is going to go over the cliff,” I said. “Maybe we should find something to hang on to.”

  The suggestion came too late. As the car went over the edge, I caught hold of Glory to try to shield her, but instead of experiencing the rough and tumble of the crash, we hung perfectly suspended in air while the vehicle rolled around us.

  “This is like being inside a Mixmaster,” Glory said. “But without all the eggs and the gooey stuff.”

  I started to ask her if she’d ever actually been in a bowl of batter and then thought better of it. I’d learned the hard way to roll with the flow of Glory’s metaphors rather than try to apply logic to the garbled imagery.

  This time, I used an intentional thought rather than a random one. “We need to get out of this car.”

  That’s all it took to put us outside the crumpled wreckage, where we waited until my image and Tori’s appeared beside us.

  “Okay,” I told Glory. “This is it. Wait until they — we — look up. Then the man will be at the top of the cliff.”

  Even without looking myself, I knew Glory recognized the figure. The waves of tremors wracking her body said everything. Realizing I couldn’t let her be the only one to face her fears, I let my gaze furtively track toward the looming figure in the black hat and raincoat. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew he was looking right at me. The knowledge flooded me with a cold wave of panic. I broke the connection fast.

  It wasn’t my most graceful exit from a psychometric vision. I gasped as the lair came into focus around me. Glory was breathing hard, too, and she was still shaking.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her. “It wasn’t real.”

  That may or may not have been the truth. I still don’t know, but Glory needed it to be true, so she nodded in agreement.

  “It was him,” she said shakily. “That man on the cliff was Mr. Chesterfield.”

  Greer knelt beside the couch and rested her hand on my knee. “Think,” she said. “The rain in your vision, did it strike the man on the cliff or did it fall around him?”

  “It fell around him,” I said. “The same way it fell around us. Why?”