Cut to the Crone (A Spell's Angels Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Amanda M. Lee

  I moved forward before Zoe could start blasting magic and drew the woman’s eyes to me. “Their child is missing. It would be best if you didn’t poke them right now.”

  She sighed. “Why do you think I’m here? I warned you the other night to keep an eye on the child.”

  “Um, no. You most certainly didn’t warn me to keep an eye on Sami.”

  Exasperation rolled over her smooth features. “I did so.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did so.”

  “You did not.”

  “Of course I did.” She threw up her hands. “Why do you think I asked so many questions about the child?”

  “Because you’re a busybody.”

  “Right. That sounds plausible. I went through the trouble to contact you from another plane because I’m a busybody.”

  Zoe muscled past me, her hand extended. She moved to wrap her fingers around the woman’s throat, perhaps to shake information out from her, or maybe even to behead her for all I knew— but she never made contact. Instead, her hand went through the mysterious woman as if she were nothing more than a ghost.

  “What the ...?” Zoe stared at her empty hand and then swiveled quickly to find my dream visitor watching her with an amused expression. “What are you?”

  “Someone who doesn’t want to be trifled with.” She wagged her finger at the furious mage. “If you want your daughter back, you will stop acting out and start listening.”

  Zoe opened her mouth to argue what I was certain was a righteous diatribe on her lips, but Aric cut her off by slapping his hand over her mouth.

  “Tell us where Sami is,” he insisted grimly. “If you’re here to help us rather than playing games, then you’ll tell us where she is.”

  “Who says I’m here to help?” She looked curious. “I don’t believe I ever used those words.”

  I wanted to strangle her. My fingers actually ached to do the same thing Zoe attempted. I sucked in a steadying breath. “If you have nothing to offer, why did you hijack their dream walk? Why interfere?”

  “Because your friends were in danger of losing themselves if they continued on their intended path.” Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “You’re not the only one who can plane jump, mage. Scout isn’t the only one who can assist you. There is another.”

  That’s when the unsettling truth smacked me across the face. “Emma.”

  The woman held Zoe’s furious gaze for a moment longer and then turned to me. “She’s aware how powerful the mage is. She knows about the dream walking.”

  “How?” Aric asked. “We haven’t exactly broadcast that little tidbit.”

  “No, but those who can walk between planes can identify others who have the ability. Your wife has that ability thanks to the book.”

  Aric worked his jaw, clearly conflicted.

  “I can’t understand how the two of you are still alive,” she lamented. “Seriously. You’re the most feared creature in your world, mage, and yet you don’t understand hardly anything you can do. It’s a real shame.”

  “Yes, I’m crying in my fake dreamscape.” Zoe’s face flushed. “If I understand what you’re saying, you stopped Emma from hijacking our dream. Why?”

  “Because if the dream can lead you to the child, it can lead her to the child, too. Right now, your Sami is safe. Oh, she’s angry and pouting, and there might be some creative curses flying around, but no one can touch her where she is. If you’d found her in the dream, Emma would’ve known where she was, too. As it is now, Emma has no ties to the child, so she can’t find her.”

  “Well, great.” Zoe pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and expended a decent amount of pressure. “What am I supposed to do now? If I can’t search for Sami, I won’t find her.”

  “You will.” The woman, for the first time I could remember, was earnest. “You’re her mother. You’ll find her when the time is right. You need to be more careful, though. If Emma gets her hands on that child ...”

  “Then I’ll kill her,” Zoe hissed. “I’ll rip her entrails from her stomach and feed them to her over and over again, healing her each time so I can make her suffer.”

  I cringed at the visual she painted while the dream interloper stood straighter.

  “You have a creative mind, mage.” The woman smirked. “Perhaps Cernunnos was right about you after all.”

  Now I was really confused. “Cernunnos? Are you talking about the horned god of fertility?” I’d studied mythology a bit in my down time — who didn’t love a good legend? — and he was always one of the gods who stood out to me.

  “That would be the one,” Zoe gritted out.

  I was flabbergasted. “You know him?” A story niggled at the back of my brain. “Wait. He’s the one who razed Covenant College for you.”

  “Cernunnos is one of the overseers of this realm,” the woman explained. “He’s wise of words and deeds. He deserves respect and reverence.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “He lives in a hole in the ground and talks in riddles. Bob is not all that.”

  “Bob?” I asked. “Who is Bob?”

  “The god,” Aric replied. “He’s not important to this story. If you want to talk about him later, more power to you. I want to talk about Sami right now. Do you know where she is?”

  “No, but the good news is that Emma doesn’t know where she is either,” she replied. “She’s determined to get that book. She’s convinced herself that Sami is the only one who can deliver the tome to her. That’s why she wanted the girl in the first place.”

  Zoe’s head slowly dipped back and forth as she moved in a circle. “Emma wants the book because ... well, it doesn’t really matter why she wants it. She wants ultimate power, or to smite some enemy. All the excuses are the same. The vampires from Covenant College joined with the vampires who settled here. She took control of the survivors from your massacre and mine and made a new army. Then she threw in some displaced shifters for good measure because that allowed her soldiers who walked in the day. She sent the vampires after us in an effort to get us to come here. She leaked the information about the vampire army because she knew we would want to fight it rather than sit back and wait. She set all of this up.”

  “Not for Sami,” Aric noted. “She never wanted Sami.”

  “She understood that Sami was the one thing that would get you to act,” I surmised. “It’s all been about the book.”

  “A book that no longer exists,” Zoe muttered, shifting from one foot to the other. “Somehow she found out that we had the book and assumes we still have it.”

  The woman arched an eyebrow. “Are you saying you don’t have the book? If so, that would solve a lot of problems.”

  “I’m saying that I understand what’s going on now,” Zoe replied, forcing a smile that resembled a grimace more than anything else. “I appreciate the warning. You didn’t have to insert yourself into the situation and you did. Because of that, Sami is safe. Sure, she’s still alone and plotting some fantastical prison break to get her vampire back, but she’s alive. We have to figure out a way to find her that won’t tip off Emma. If she gets Sami, she’s going to have all the power.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” the woman agreed. “What are you going to do now?”

  Zoe rested her head against Aric’s chest and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted, as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. “We’ll figure it out, like we always do.”

  WE WOKE IN THE SAME POSITION as when we’d drifted off. Aric was already consoling his wife when I opened my eyes. My dream stalker hadn’t said goodbye. She’d merely offered up a wave and a nod and sent us on our way.

  Now we were back on our plane and had no idea how to find Sami Winters. It was the middle of the night and yet we were a long way from respite.

  I jerked when the storage room door swung open and Raisin entered. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told me it was well past four in the morning, which meant Raisin should have been returned to
her grandmother’s house hours before.

  “What are you doing here?” I blurted out, confused.

  Raisin pulled back in surprise and gave me a long once-over. “Are you just waking up from that thing you were doing? That was like six hours ago.”

  “Time isn’t always a flat line,” Zoe said as she stretched. “Is something wrong, Raisin?” She didn’t sound impatient as much as curious. “Did you remember something?”

  “No, but I heard something.” Raisin lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I heard something in my head.”

  “What?” I asked, curious. “What did you hear?”

  “Sami. She’s been talking to me. At first I thought it was a dream or something, but now I’m not so sure. She wanted me to find you and tell you something. She said it was important.”

  If Zoe was dubious, she didn’t show it. “Lay it on me.”

  “She said the eclipse is coming and that everything would happen then. She said to look to the sky when it happens because the moon is going to turn red. Then she said a bunch of other stuff that made no sense.”

  Aric leaned closer to Raisin. “Are you sure that’s what she said?”

  Raisin gnawed on her lip and nodded. “Yeah. She said the moon is about to run red and to take shelter. She said her mom would know what to do.” The look the teenager shot Zoe was hopeful. “So, do you know what to do?”

  Anger replaced hope on Zoe’s face. “I have no idea. I’m totally going to kill that kid!”

  Twenty-Six

  “Is there an eclipse today?” Zoe asked as we strode into the bar. Nobody had left during our downtime, although Bonnie, Marissa, and Doc were curled up on booth benches. Whistler remained behind the bar and Rooster was on his usual stool.

  “Hey.” Gunner stepped around the pool table. He looked to have been playing a round by himself. I knew what he was really doing; he was worrying about me. “Are you okay?” He tilted up my chin so he could study my face and covered my mouth with his before I could answer.

  I was breathless by the time he was finished. “I ... um ... what did you ask?”

  He offered up a cheeky grin. “I asked if you were okay. Then I kind of lost myself for a minute.”

  He wasn’t the only one who felt temporarily lost. “I’m okay.”

  “How did the dream walking thing go?” Rooster asked, his eyes shifting to Raisin, who stood next to Aric. In her fuzzy pajama pants and oversized T-shirt, she looked several years younger than she was.

  “Not how we expected,” Zoe replied, patting the bar stool next to Rooster in an attempt to entice Raisin. For her part, the teenager looked mildly fearful of the tempestuous mage. “I think our young friend needs a treat.”

  Whistler nodded, smiling indulgently as Raisin edged over. “I know what she likes. How does a root beer float sound?”

  Raisin’s eyes went wide. “Grandma says I can’t have any sugar after ten because it makes me hyper.”

  “That’s the rule in our house, too,” Aric said, helping Raisin onto the stool. “It never sticks. I think this once, your grandmother would be okay with a sugar overload.”

  Raisin didn’t look convinced. Her eyes darted toward the door. “Is she still in the parking lot?”

  Rooster shook his head. “We weren’t sure how long this would take. I told her to head back home, get some sleep. I’ll take you back when it’s time.”

  Raisin grinned. “Can I really have a root beer float?” She directed the question at Rooster, who was something of a father figure to her. “I’ll only have one scoop of ice cream if you think that’s best.”

  Rooster’s chuckle was dry. “I think three scoops is called for.” He flicked his eyes to Zoe. “You were asking about an eclipse?”

  Zoe nodded. “Raisin said that Sami came to her in a dream and mentioned a bloody eclipse. Is there an eclipse tomorrow? Er, well, it would be today now.”

  “There is,” he confirmed. “It hits at one. Why?”

  “Because Sami said something was going to happen during the eclipse,” Aric replied. “She didn’t say what, though.”

  “None of what she said made sense,” Raisin said. “She was talking really fast, and she was excited.”

  “Excited or afraid?” Aric queried, shaking his head when Zoe shot him a look. “What? She’s my baby. I want to know. If she’s frightened, I’ll tear apart this entire town to find her.”

  “I happen to agree.” Zoe adopted a pragmatic tone. “I don’t want her frightened either. She did this, though. She took off even though she knew it would drive us crazy. I’m so mad at her right now.”

  “You want her back as much as I do.”

  “Of course I do. Then I’m going to ground her. Or worse, I’m going to make her watch the Kardashians and block her from watching Outlander.”

  “She likes Outlander?” From the table behind us, Marissa suddenly perked up. The eyebrow she’d so laboriously drawn on her face had smudged during the night so she partially resembled a deranged clown. “I love that show.”

  “Do you watch it for the history, too?” Aric asked dryly.

  “I watch it for the sex.”

  “Ha!” Aric jabbed a finger at his wife. “I told you we shouldn’t let her watch it. Nobody cares about the history.”

  Zoe merely rolled her eyes. “Why do you think I’m going to block her from watching it? If it was about the history I wouldn’t care. I’m also blocking that Witcher show. She’s all hot for that dude, too.”

  “Superman?” Aric looked horrified. “She can’t make Superman dirty. That’s un-American.”

  I made a sound in my throat to get their attention. “I know you guys get off on the banter but we need to focus. What sort of eclipse are we talking about here?”

  “It’s a total eclipse,” Rooster replied. “Though as we all know, that doesn’t mean total darkness.”

  “It can.” I thought back to something I’d read in a book when I’d first joined Spells Angels. “Witches can enlarge the shadow if the magic surrounding the eclipse is strong enough.”

  “I’m guessing that the magic surrounding this eclipse is going to be off the charts,” Zoe groused.

  “What makes you say that?” Gunner asked. “Do you know something about this eclipse?”

  “No. That’s just the sort of luck I deal with.” Zoe blew out a breath and planted her hands on her hips. “Okay, we have to work under the assumption that whatever Emma has planned, it’s for during the eclipse. There’s probably some ritual she wants to work with the Archimage at the exact moment when things go dark.”

  “How do you know that?” Rooster challenged. “That seems a bit specific.”

  “Because I’ve been around enough maniacal idiots over the years to know that all the crap television tells us, like on Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is all true. I’m not saying that pouring salt around you will keep out demons or anything, but the other stuff, the ridiculous stuff, all comes to fruition at some point. If there’s a moment of total darkness associated with this eclipse, that means she’s going to want to conduct a ritual at that exact moment. That means she’ll try to set up a meet a full hour before.”

  “Why an hour?” asked Whistler. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to set up the meeting in the morning? Too much could go wrong if she leaves herself such a small cushion.”

  “In theory, yes,” Zoe agreed. “In practice, however, she knows that as soon as I have Rafael back, I’ll try to reclaim the book.”

  “There is no book,” I pointed out. “You said the book no longer exists. How are you going to trade an invisible object for your vampire?”

  Zoe snorted and strode behind the bar, grabbing a leather-bound book from the counter and holding it up. “What do you mean? It’s right here.”

  Whistler made a face. “That’s my drink ledger.”

  “Now it’s the Archimage.” Zoe was calmer than I would have expected under the circumstances. “She won’t be able to tell the dif
ference. I simply want her to believe I have the book. Once I see Rafael, it’s on.”

  “She’ll assume that Rafael is like her vampires,” Aric noted. “They’ll be able to run free as long as the eclipse shadow is big enough. As it shrinks, they’ll have to take cover. Rafael will be able to join the fight. She won’t be expecting that.”

  Zoe turned thoughtful. “Yeah. We have no way of knowing what sort of shape he’s in, though. He might need healing.”

  “Sami will most likely be there,” I pointed out. “Can’t she heal him?”

  Zoe’s scowl was pronounced. “If anyone sees Sami, I want you to put her in a pair of handcuffs and lock her in the truck.”

  “Um, I don’t think that’s going to work out well during a to-the-death fight,” Gunner said.

  “Probably not.” Zoe looked resigned. “She’s going to pop out at the exact wrong moment and put herself in danger. When that happens ...”

  “She’s our top priority,” Rooster promised, awkwardly patting Zoe’s shoulder. “We’ll keep her safe. Your focus has to be on Emma.”

  “Actually, Scout’s focus is going to be on Emma,” Zoe countered, shooting me an apologetic look.

  “Me?” I wasn’t expecting her to cede control. “Why is it going to be me?”

  “Because she’s marked you as her equal. For better or for worse, you’re the one she wants to face off with. You’re the one she’s going to be focused on. We need to give her what she wants.”

  “If you mean you want us to sacrifice Scout, I won’t sit back and allow that,” Gunner snapped. He was almost snarling he was so worked up. “I understand you love Sami but I’m not just going to sit back and let Scout be hurt.”

  Rather than be offended, Zoe smirked. “You don’t have to worry. We’re not sacrificing Scout. There are going to be a lot of creatures there to fight, though. Even with everybody participating, the bulk of the work is going to land on Scout and me. For whatever reason, Emma is fixated on Scout. That works in our favor. I’ll be able to take out most of the vampires and shifters while Emma is focused on Scout. She’ll never be alone. She’ll have all of us with her, including me, the entire time. There’s no reason to fret.”