Deathly Magic

by Kessler, A. L.

  I shrugged and regretted it. "Check in on the case, make sure Levi knows I'm alive. Hopefully not have to look over any more dead bodies or deal with any more blood-starved vampires."

  "Do you think you're up to walking the territory today to try and track our wolf?" He asked gently.

  Did I really want to tromp around a forest? Not really, but it needed to happen. "Yeah, we can do that. Let me grab a few things and we can head that direction."

  He nodded. "Okay, sorry, Greg just wants her found."

  So did I. "Don't be sorry. Duty calls. You're going to be with me, right?"

  He nodded. "I'm not leaving your side. Greg wants me to be with you any time that you're working on finding her. He's not thrilled that I know and he also thinks you're not taking it seriously."

  "I wouldn't insult Levi like that, I work under him, and he's the one Greg went to." I moved the cat off my lap. "Let's go before I decide I'm too sore for this."

  Simon nodded and walked me to the door. I paused for a moment. "Where's my Hummer?"

  "Still at the station, why?"

  "My blade is in it, so we either stop to get it, or I get to bring my gun." Last time I had been on pack grounds the only weapon I had been aloud was my blade. I wasn’t going in without a weapon.

  He licked his lips. "It's only the pups up there right now, so you can bring your gun. What else do you need?"

  "There's a bag with the woman's clothing in my second bedroom, grab that and the knife near it, please."

  He nodded and gathered the items. I was hoping this was going to work and I could at least get a lead on the woman. Simon returned in a moment. "Shall we?"

  I opened the door and motioned to it. "After you."

  Last time I was on pack grounds, the wolves tried to eat me. I was unable to save my witness and ended up with a naked Simon in the car. This time when I stepped out of the car, the air felt different, less threatening. I assumed it was because we were further away from the full moon. Simon led me down the path that darted from the edge of the road; I could feel the magic resisting me. A witch had protected the grounds with a circle and I wasn't a welcomed visitor according to the spell.

  My stomach lurched as I passed through the barrier of the circle and I took a moment to steady myself. The circle surrounded a clearing in the woods, the trees making up the physical lines of the magic. I looked up at the log house that stood in the center of the clearing. I knew from experience that the inside was all sleek and modern design despite the rustic look of the outside. Three people stepped out of the cabin, two men and a woman. The men wore nothing but torn up jeans and the woman stood there in a pair of shorts and a sports bra. It was summer, but even so, the mountain areas tended to be cool.

  "Simon, we weren't expecting you today." The woman said and put her hands on her hips.

  I studied the way her short blonde hair managed to tuck just behind her ear. Her keen blue eyes stared right at me. She crossed her arms and her lips rose in a snarl. I didn’t know if she was attempting to scare me or not, but it didn’t work.

  "You've brought a human, how cute." She said.

  I raised a brow. "I'm a witch, Abigail Collins." I reached my hand out to shake hers.

  She ignored it. "I heard Simon had a witch lover. I'm Rachel, this is Taylor and Abe." She motioned to the two men. "They're the pups right now."

  Which meant she wasn't a pup. "Nice to meet you, now if you would excuse us? I came up here with a mission." I gave her a sweet smile.

  "Does Greg know she's here again?" Rachel snapped.

  I turned my back and ignored her. I knew it would show that I didn't see her or the pups as a threat. I could trust Simon to keep me safe; he had proven that the last time I was up here. I opened the Ziplock bag and heard a snarl behind me.

  "Why does she have something with Martha's scent on it?"

  I paused at her words. I now had a name to go with everything. That would help me with the spell. There were beliefs out there that the name was truly what made a person who they were, it was part of the soul.

  "She's here to help." Simon said easily. "Greg hired her to help find Martha."

  A howl tore through the air and sent a shiver up my back. I turned and met Rachel's gaze, her face crumpled into a look of grief. "You were close to her." I said easily.

  "She's my sister, a pup." Which meant that she was at least six months new to being a lycanthrope.

  Lovely, so we had a missing werewolf with a lack of self-control. "I'm doing what I can." I promised. "Take the pups inside and I'll get started out here."

  She nodded and turned; the two men following her back inside. I looked at Simon. "Greg said that I had to find this wolf ASAP and alive. There was a very strong sense of urgency to him. Why is she so important?"

  "She's pack." He said simply as if it explained everything to me.

  I nodded. "Greg didn't strike me as the caring type."

  "Pack is family, no matter your views or beliefs, where you came from, or where you want to be in life. You're family. Martha and Rachel don't have blood family, so if not us, who is going to care for them?" He met my gaze. "I don't expect you to understand, but if Levi went missing?"

  "I'd tear the world apart to find him."

  He nodded. "Then you understand."

  I did, it made a lot of sense to me. Greg was a hard-ass and maybe even an asshole, but he cared for his people. All of them. I sat on the ground and pulled out the t-shirt. I put up my own protective circle around myself. I cut my forearm and pressed the fabric into it and muttered a spell. This one was different than the tracking spell. If I were lucky, it would show me the course the woman had taken that night.

  I opened my eyes and saw a faint red line leading towards the forest. I stood, still holding onto the shirt. The shirt acted like a tether to Martha's aura. I pulled my circle down and looked at Simon. "Ready for a hike?"

  "Lead the way."

  I walked into the line of trees and followed the red line. It wound and curved and in some places it doubled back. The longer she stayed in the area the brighter the line.

  "What on earth are you following?" Simon asked as he climbed over a fallen tree.

  I smiled. "You can't see it, but I'm following traces of her aura."

  "How are you not even flinching on this trek? You've climbed over stuff, and ducked under."

  I stopped at a rock and looked back at him. "I'm running on magic and adrenaline, it tends to take the edge off the pain." I started again.

  "You're going to feel it when we're done." He said with a laugh and I had no doubt he was right.

  I followed the red through the trees and into another small clearing. It abruptly ended right there. I growled.

  Simon started to say something, but I held my hand up to hush him. I walked in a circle right where the line ended. It was brightest there, so she had spent some time in the area. I knew the line wasn't physical, but I went to nudge it with my toe. My toe acted like it hit a wall.

  I tried again, and it still kept my foot out of it. There was a protection circle here and for some reason it was still active. Unlike the circle around the cabin, this magic recognized mine as a threat and it was meant to keep all threats out, not to just warn them off. It didn’t have a physical form, like the ones I could summon, and no one had called the magic back so it remained active.

  "What's up, Abby?"

  "Remember when I said we were dealing with someone stronger than me?" I turned and faced him.

  He nodded. "Yes."

  "We're dealing with someone that also has a similar talent. We have an active protection circle. Whoever or whatever it was protecting had to have left willingly or the witch had to remove it." I clenched my teeth. "And in doing such, I've lost my trail."

  I didn't want to return with that news, but it gave me a few clues. If Martha had been in that circle, then chances were it was someone she knew who had cast it and convinced her to leave it.

  I didn't know why someo
ne had left the circle active though; it felt like a giveaway to me. Something was off.

  "The sun's going down, let's get back before it gets dark." Simon put a hand on my arm and guided me back towards the cabin. I had no idea how I was going to explain this or what had happened. If I knew what had happened in that clearing, then I could solve everything. Damn me for not having the power of foresight. The pain started to settle in again as we made our way back to the cabin. Simon had been right, the adrenaline faded and now the discomfort was taking over.

  We broke through the tree line of the big clearing and I heard snarling. I looked up just in time to see a huge black wolf jump at me. Simon moved in front of me and threw it away.

  "No, Rachel." He snarled. "Stand down."

  I put a hand to my chest as my heart tried to escape. Nothing like a raging werewolf to bring back the rush of adrenaline.

  The wolf in front of me started to flow and melt away, revealing Rachel on her knees. She hung her head. "She didn't find her."

  I could hear the tears in her voice. I swallowed. "No, but if you're up for it, I have some questions for you. I just need to make a phone call real quick, then we could sit and talk?" I offered gently.

  She nodded and walked back to the cabin. She showed no signs that she was uncomfortable with me seeing her naked, but I hoped she put on some clothes before I got in there.

  "You okay?" Simon asked.

  "Yeah, I just need to call Levi to let him know I'm alive. I want to ask Rachel some questions about her sister. It might give me an idea where the trail picks up at."

  "How long does your spell stay active?"

  "Typically it's up to a week, but I have to have the shirt with me." Which I would keep in my bag, just in case I stumbled across somewhere she might have been. A lapse in magic, something, anything that led me to her.

  "Okay, so there's still hope."

  I nodded. "If the line had been black than she would be dead. There's always hope until they die, then there's only grief."

  He kissed my cheek. "I'll be inside. You call Levi and come join us." He walked towards the cabin. Most people took a hike in the woods to enjoy the outdoors, have some good company. Not me. No, I went hiking with a broken rib looking for a missing werewolf.

  I pulled my phone out and called Levi.

  "Are you up and walking?" He asked without even saying hello.

  "I'm alive and I'm back to work already. Leave it to me to become a target for a crazy group of vampires, eh?" I joked and he made a noise that sounded halfway between a snort and laugh.

  "Out of all the things to almost kill you, rogue vampires and a car accident. We were lucky your uncle was there."

  We were. It’s a good thing he has a strange tendency to be at the right place at the right time. "He only healed some of the damage because he doesn't want to draw extra attention to the situation."

  "What did he leave you with?" He didn't sound happy.

  "A broken rib and some scrapes and bruises. I'm fine. I promise, it's enough to make it believable, but not too much to affect my job horribly. But I have to go; I need to talk to the sister of the missing wolf."

  "Are you making progress?"

  That depended on how he defined that word. "I've learned a few more things, but I don't know how much closer I am to finding her."

  "Greg is worried."

  "I know he is, but I'm out here working with a cracked rib, I think I've got my priorities straight. I'll talk to you later."

  We disconnected without him saying goodbye and I walked into the cabin. The front door led into a common area with a huge couch and a wall mounted TV. To my right was a stainless steel kitchen with a breakfast bar. Rachel and Simon were sitting there, I was glad to see she'd put her clothes back on.

  I came and sat down on the third stool. "Did your sister have any friends who were witches or warlocks?"

  "She said she'd met a couple when she was in town for a party. We don't normally let the pups attend parties in case they lose control, but she was close to her six-month mark and she'd managed to talk Greg into it. She came back a bit drunk, but didn't mention that anything strange happened." She wrapped her arms around herself.

  But she had contact with a witch. "Greg mentioned that the pack was having a bit of a civil war. Those who split off, do they have a witch on their payroll? Would there be a reason that they would have targeted Martha?"

  "Not that I know of." She looked to Simon and he shook his head.

  That was good to know and now I caught myself wondering if we were dealing with something completely different. My experience told me that it had to do with the pack, but there was a little voice inside of me that told me otherwise and that I needed to start looking into other things that it could have been.

  "If you happen to know the names of the people she hung out with that night, please let me know." I licked my lips and thought. "Did her phone get left behind?"

  She nodded. "We were all in wolf form when she was taken."

  Perfect. "Can I have that as well? I don't know why Greg didn't give it to me. It could be a major help."

  "He expects you to use magic to solve the case. Isn't that what you do with PIB?" She slid off the stool.

  "No, I use magic to help me, but rarely is there a case where I just use magic." I shook my head. "Technology helps me out a lot."

  "Let me grab it for you." She disappeared down the hall.

  I turned and faced Simon. "You sure about the other part of the pack not having a witch on their payroll?"

  "Yeah, unless they got one recently. Bringing a witch into a pack squabble is a bad idea because of the power involved." He held his hands up. "Greg probably thinks you can hold your own. If the other part of the pack knows you're trying to find Martha and aren't interested in the dispute between us, that's good. If they think you're getting mixed up in it you might become a target."

  I glared at him. "Shouldn't someone warn me if a few werewolves might try to kill me?"

  "I thought Greg would mention it." He shrugged. "Or Levi."

  Yes, someone should have mentioned it, but it was all in a day's work for me. Raging werewolves, missing people, and let’s not forget the people showing up dead with a connection to the recently deceased. I took a deep breath and then cringed when it hurt.

  "Take it easy." Simon reached over and put a hand on my knee.

  I gritted my teeth. "I'm fine." I made a mental note to text Clarissa about something for the pain. I needed something that wouldn't knock me out cold and I could function on. Or maybe I'd ask Oliver to heal that too. "Once we get the phone, I need to head home."

  "I think that's a good idea." He leaned back onto his stool.

  Rachel returned and handed me a phone. "I hope you can get into it. I don't know the password."

  "Don't worry, I have a tech person back at the PIB that can help with that." Hopefully she was in the office tomorrow. I put the phone in my pocket. "It's been a long couple days, so we're heading back. Thank you."

  Martha nodded. "Sorry about attacking you."

  "I feel like if I had a sister who went missing, I probably would have reacted the same way."

  Simon snorted. "You'd probably do worse."

  I wasn't sure what to say about that, because it was most likely true. I shrugged and stood. "Let's get back. I'm ready to go back to sleep and maybe take some pain killers."

  We walked out and took the trail back to the car. The wind kicked up and I shivered, wondering what the night had in store for me.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Simon insisted on walking me to the door. He had moaned and groaned about how I looked pale and I was tense the whole car ride. I allowed him to walk me to the door to make his manly pride feel better. I stepped up the two steps that led to my door and saw the doorjamb was splintered. I had a protection spell on the house, but it only warded against spells and hexes. No one is stupid enough to break into a witch's house and those who do normally just want to speak with m
e. I thought about Merick from the Cult and wondered if it was him.

  No, he was too sophisticated to just break my door. I unholstered my gun and Simon stepped back, giving me space. I nudged the door open with my toe. There was nothing in my immediate sight. I listened and didn't hear anything, and stepped in. Simon put a hand on my shoulder.

  He pointed to his ear and then to the left, where the bedrooms were. He heard something I didn't. I nodded and swept the room with my gaze then went to the left. I could hear Osiris hissing and something else growling somewhere in the house. I now heard what Simon did. There were gurgles and growling noises that made no sense. I nudged the bedroom door open. Someone was standing against and trying to climb the wall. Skin dangled off the boney arms that reached up towards a floating shelf above my bed. Nails scratched at the walls while Osiris growled and hissed down at the person. Thin hair clung to the scalp in patches, the places that didn’t have hair were missing skin. The clothing clung to the skeleton and was covered in dirt.

  No, not person. Zombie. There was only one way to make sure a zombie died and that was to either destroy the person who created it, or make sure the body was burnt to a crisp. Both were not an option at the moment. It turned towards me. Dead eyes rolled around in sunken sockets as it shambled towards me.

  "What do we do?" Simon asked.

  I didn't quite have a plan, but we needed to get it out of my house so that I could set it on fire. Hopefully without catching the whole neighborhood ablaze.

  "I'll distract it, you go find something to set it on fire." I started to back up. Zombies didn’t move fast and since they were animated by magic they didn’t have the same logic as a living person. The problem was that the magic made them very determined murderers.

  "Really, on fire, Abby?" I heard him retreating behind me.

  "Yes, make a Molotov cocktail for all I care. Just make it happen." I backed out of the room and then ran towards the exit of the house. The zombie almost caught up to me, which made me wonder if the magic animating it was stronger than what I’d read about with zombies, or if I was moving a lot slower than I wanted to admit. I made it outside with it on my heels.