Hopping onto his laptop, she used his password to get into Bard Net. She updated him on the case and uploaded her crime scene photos from her phone. They weren’t easy to look at. The victim had been strung up by the wrists between two oaks for sixty-one hours before he had been found. Researching, she paused only when the food delivery came.
Chomping on a burger, Vic read over her shoulder, pointing at the symbols on the purpled and swollen torso. He chewed loudly before swallowing. “Those Druidic?”
Nudging him away from her ear, Red scanned through an entry on Egyptian hieroglyphics. “That’s what I am trying to find out. The Brotherhood has a reference guide to different runes, but whatever these are, they aren’t on it. I’m shooting for ancient alphabets now. That ritual was not New Age for sure.”
She tapped onto the next entry—Etruscan. The angular marks in the fuzzy picture made her squint, looking back and forth between the torso. “I think we have a possible match. And you’re ready to sleep, mister.”
Vic flopped on the bed. “Even if Lashawn doesn’t talk to me tomorrow, make sure he meets Jackson.”
Hating his forlorn expression, Red promised and left to go to the diner. At her usual booth, discretely hiding her laptop’s disturbing screen contents, she wrote out the symbols from the crime scene photos into her hunter’s journal. A perky pop song was a curious soundtrack to the morbid sight. On the far less graphic Bard Net browser, she tried to match the marks from the ritual sacrifice to the Etruscan.
“Glad you texted me back at least, haven’t heard from your friends,” Callaway said by way of greeting as she sat in the diner booth.
“We were supposed to have coffee, weren’t we?” Red smiled. “I don’t know who the sacrifice was for yet, but…” She boiled down the supernatural lore to regular human-speak, then name-dropped the local mages that Stace and Zach found suspicious. “There’s also a coven in town for a reunion. The police station should have a file on a murder at their sorority house years ago.”
“Is this just another Tuesday here?” Callaway shook her head, sipping her coffee. “It would be nice if Bonner could fill me in on this stuff.”
“Doesn’t seem like they had the best relationship with law enforcement in the past.” Red filled Callaway in on the secret history of Charm. “…if you wondered how a village had so many amenities—college, port, unusually large blood bank—it was built for demons to feed on. Prince Marek is the longest lasting supernatural power in the area since Stace fulfilled her destiny, probably because he lives out of town. He stays out of her way if she stays out of his.”
“So, the mayor is almost certainly a demon’s pawn.” Callaway shook her head. “I came here to get away from that life. This job is never simple.”
“Hunting never is.”
“Not exactly what I mean.” The sheriff stood, changing the subject. “I’ll look into those witches. If you find anything more, let me know.”
Red said her goodbyes and returned to her laptop, educating herself on the ancient Etruscans before the culture had been consumed by the Romans. Bard Net chronicled its seer-priests who worshipped veiled gods, bargaining for favor with offerings. She had cracked some of the code, but she still didn’t know who the offering was for… or why.
9
Interrupted later by Zach with French fries, Red closed her laptop and gave him the highlights on her findings. It took the duration of the basket to brainstorm what it could mean. “The ritual had a simple set up, but a mage would still need to prepare themselves or cleanse afterwards. Might need special ingredients.”
Suddenly, he tapped his forehead. “You just reminded me. I haven’t taken you to your favorite place yet—the magic shop. When you said you fought against having magic, I couldn’t believe it. You loved this place when we were kids. We can ask around there about any unusual purchases.”
“Can you play hooky?”
“I’m the boss.”
In his old SUV, dented on the side by what looked like curled Skilosh demon horns, they drove into the village over a small river bridge and passed the brick high school. He parked in front of a stately library with white pillars and a wide lawn. The sun peeked through the clouds.
He gestured to an Irish pub, The Winded Whaler stamped on its green striped awning, between a florist and a hair salon. “That’s my competition. They tried to do a Taco Tuesday once. I was embarrassed for them.”
Red chuckled as he took her down Main Street, the historic buildings maintaining their pre-World War II glory. It looked like a Norman Rockwall painting of the good old days. In the sunlight, it was hard to believe that the reality was so dark.
Door chimes drifted on the breeze as people bustled about the shops. An elderly couple walking fluffy Pomeranians chatted with a teenager balancing on a ladder who changed the black sign letters on an art deco-style theater. Charm was lively, unlike some small towns Red had passed through where everything was closed besides the vape shop and post office. The death count coupled with low profit margins probably convinced executives to keep the big box stores out of town.
Zach nodded to a wide window where a bearded clerk in a Spiderman shirt waved at him from a comic shop. “Saved Josh once from a literal manic pixie dream girl, wings and all. She was a hair puller.”
“Hey!” Josh came out, drawing first Zach and then Red into an excited sweaty hug. “Good to meet you. I’d ask if you’re Marvel or DC, but I should probably welcome you to town first.”
“Thanks. So many people out today.”
His cheerful smile flickered. “Folks like to get their shopping done by sunset in a town like this.”
“What kind of town is it?” Red asked, unable to stop herself. What did the civilians know about this place? The weirdness had started at the village limits for her.
“I’d tell you, but I spotted bad seeds.” Josh gestured to three teens slinking into his shop with shifty glances. He waved goodbye.
“Were we the kids sneaking in to read comics for free?” Red asked Zach, thinking about Vic and his Millennium Falcon. It wasn’t hard to imagine always finding her way to the fanboys. Or had that been a coincidence?
It was strange to think of the differences between herself and who she had been. Basil had used her as an example of how souls, how people, were effected by their experiences. As Emma, she had been raised by an archeologist. As Red, she’d had Vic for guidance, and he was more of a wacky older brother. She’d be a great case study for nature versus nurture.
“We were geeky misfits, the nerdy girl and the goth boy, but we couldn’t be kids like that. It’s why we got along. You knew what it was like.”
“What do you mean?”
“Losing a parent. I wasn’t the last, but I was the first in our class. I lost both in one go. You moved to town, and I finally had someone to talk to. Not just that. I had someone who believed me about all the weird shit in this town. Middle school would have been hell without you.” He smiled, wistful. “I wish I still had my old tapes. Did I tell you that your mom gave me the camera?”
“Why don’t you make movies anymore?”
“I stopped after high school.” Fidgeting, Zach turned a corner at the town hall, rebuilt like a perfect replica of the original Edwardian construction she had seen from old photos. “We’re almost there.”
Letting him deflect for now, Red filed another question away for later. How did an empathic goth boy become a hardened hunter?
They entered a side street between a bowling alley called Pin Heads and the back lot of the government building. A glowing hand, outlined in red neon, was the only sign on the fire-scorched brick store front. Damage from the town hall fire ten years before, Red guessed. The windows were painted black, and wooden beads obscured the open door. Zach brought her inside.
Fluorescent lights flickered in the long narrow room lined with mismatched shelves and tables. Rabbit’s feet and children’s grow your own crystal kits crowded the front tables. Porcelain unicorn figurines and
common crystals twirled in motorized cases.
“We got a special on dreamcatchers,” the shopkeeper said as she watched a small TV at an oval counter in the center of the shop. Draped in black tourmaline necklaces, she reclined back in an office chair. Someone had painted a warning line on the floor behind her with a message—don’t cross unless you know what you’re doing!
“I’m good on that, Wendy.”
Whirling her chair around, Wendy muted the low volume but didn’t stand up. “Oh, it’s you, Zach. What’cha need?”
“The usual. Any strange purchases or stranger buyers?”
“Nothing besides being backed up with orders for ghostflowers.”
“That problem has been taken care of.”
“Don’t spread that around, or people will want refunds.”
Wandering away from the conversation, confident that Zach would get more out of a townie than she could, Red stepped over the line into the back area. Struck bowling pins echoed through the wall. Thin tables ran between the shelves to create two narrow aisles. Despite the cramped space, the merchandise was better organized than in the front section.
Shelves of wide-mouth potion jars and baskets of herbs filled the left wall. A white name card reading Ghostflowers sat on an empty space. There had been a run on rose oil too, with only one bottle left. Other white placeholders were labeled Hawthorn Berry and Moonlit Harvested Ginseng for blessing and healing. Round tins of herb-flecked salts crowded a plastic bag dispenser and a scale on a sagging plastic table in the center. A powerful detoxifier, the Dead Sea salt and rosemary blend was empty while the others were still more than half full.
Red passed by the crystal collection, doubling back when she noticed it. The out of stock card looked tiny compared to the wide blank spot for the selenite pyramids. The missing stock assembled into a suspicious pattern in her head. She trotted across the warning line. “Hey, who bought out all your supplies for a major purification ceremony?”
Zach put his hand on the counter. “I thought you didn’t have anything unusual.”
The shopkeeper shrugged, leaning back in her chair. “In a town like this, that kind of stuff runs out.”
Obviously versed in the supernatural, Wendy said the phrase in a town like this with resigned implications much like the comic book guy. It probably made it easier to live in Charm when you left all the weird stuff unsaid. No wonder Zach had felt like he was crazy before he met the young witch Emma Peters.
Red lifted eyebrow. “That’s enough to cleanse the auras of everyone on the block. Those crystal pyramids aren’t cheap.”
“Oh, I think it was Olivia Benston and her friends a few days ago, said something about a spa day. I haven’t seen her since, but we’re connected on social media. She’s blowing up my feed today with a million selfies on a vineyard day trip out of town.”
“Can you bring up her order?” Zach asked.
Spinning in her office chair to a laptop, Wendy logged in. “She paid with a card.”
Pulling Zach aside, Red leaned into whisper to him, “Dark magic takes a toll on a witch. She’d need more than a spa day to cleanse herself of a human sacrifice.”
He nodded. “Check if anything else is missing.”
Red did another loop through the back area, finding only one more blank spot amid a line of stone busts and figures, curiously without an out-of-stock sign. “Did you sell her a statue too? There’s one without a label.”
In the middle of writing a list on a note pad, Wendy frowned. “I always put a card.” She stood from her chair and walked from behind the counter to the emptied shelf. “There should be a statue to Janus here.”
Nodding grimly, Red wasn’t surprised. Janus was the god of beginnings, doorways, transitions, and time. He appeared in pantheons across the Mediterranean. According to the Etruscans, he was one of Orcus’s pals in the underworld.
“If you find anything else missing, let me know.” Thanking the shopkeeper, Zach took the note and walked outside with Red.
“Magic and bowling in one building. I can see why I liked that place.”
“It’s always good for a lead or two. We’ll be able to pick up more at the diner rush tonight.” He led the way out of alley to walk back to the SUV.
“We might not have to wait. Where’s Olivia staying? We can get a look around while she is out with the girls.”
“With her mom, Claudia, who is also a witch. The Benstons are an old family in Charm. I don’t know what kind of warding they might have.”
“Yeah, I think I read about them in my research. They own all the trees or something?” Weighing the risks in her head, Red crossed the street to his vehicle in front of the library. “Let’s do a drive-by, and I can see if my spider-sense picks anything up. Dark juju from a ritual sacrifice leaves a mark.”
Smiling, Zach opened the driver’s side and got behind the wheel. “Sure.”
“What’s that face for?”
“It feels like old times.” He started the engine and merged into the mellow Main Street traffic, the distant sun-drenched river peeping between the store fronts.
Commercial buildings gave way to a neighborhood where each house was statelier than the last. Grand oaks and trimmed hedges gave privacy to the homes built on money from the timber and fishing industries at the turn of the last century, testaments to the winners of the Industrial Revolution. The success of their decedents was indicated by which had peeling paint on the elegant architecture.
Zach turned right on a street named Benston Court and pointed to a well-kept neoclassical mansion behind a black wrought iron gate. A smooth asphalt driveway curved to a carriage house and looped around a wide fountain. “Can you sense anything?”
Buried crystals channeled a protection ward stronger than the fence. Sigils, invisible to human eyes, glittered on the distant windows. Housing generations of mages gave the mansion a faint shine to her spirit gaze. She struggled to pierce through the layers of spell work. “The yard is huge. I can barely sense anything besides they’re rich.”
Driving around the block behind the house, he parked in a side road obviously used for the trucks of landscapers and not the BMWs of the homeowners. Trees blocked the sight from the house. “We’ll take it on foot. The driveway is long enough that they’ll see us even if we go through the gate.”
A fresh burst of magic entered her awareness. Head cocked, following the trace out to the sidewalk, she analyzed the earthy essence. Even compared to the high-class neighbors, the expansive lawn was vividly green without a single weed or dirt spot. Flowering rose bushes were evenly spaced two yards apart along the iron fence posts as if the gardener used measuring tape to be sure. Zach walked beside her, but she didn’t notice him, lost in seeking the energy.
The word growth popped into her mind as she found it, looking down at the source of the magic.
Crouching at the base of a rose bush, a middle-aged woman stared back from under a floppy sunhat. Red recognized her as a socialite who graced the local paper frequently for her parties and prize-winning garden. Her blue eyes widened as she stood. In a weather-beaten hat and gloves, her tight jeans and white blouse were designer. She wore lipstick and an heirloom pearl necklace for yardwork. Spotting Zach, she murmured to herself. “I knew Olivia shouldn’t have come back to town.”
Red took a stab at guessing that this was the Benston matriarch. “Why’s that, Claudia?”
She lifted her eyebrow, forehead barely moving from the magic of Botox. A poker face in an injection. Red hoped Zach was getting something off the other woman, because she wasn’t sensing anything beyond an enchantment to make the roses bloom.
“Hi Mrs. Benston. Is Olivia home?” He waved. Eyes darting to Red’s for a moment, urging her to be cool, he radiated calm with his empath magic. Subtle. She only felt it because she was already on guard for magic. He continued, pulling a story out of his butt without missing a beat. “I heard that the venue for the reunion canceled at the last minute. I was going to offer Li
li’s as a substitute.”
“I’ll tell her when she returns, Zach.” The elegant woman nodded stiffly, feet shifting to point toward the house. The rest of her didn’t seem to want to go. “Something happened last night, didn’t it?”
“How’d you guess?” He asked.
“Because the dead are walking.” Claudia tossed a suspicious glance at Red. “What other ghosts will come back? Is Barbara next?”
“In a town like this, you never know,” he said, turning to walk away, gesturing for Red to follow. “Thanks for passing the message along.”
“Wait!” Claudia lowered her voice, mouth pursing, brows furrowed as much as her plastic surgery would allow. “What should I be on guard for? I’ve felt the barriers thinning for weeks. It’s not natural. Last night… I haven’t felt anything like that in ten years. I assume that’s why little Emma Peters is back.”
“Unrelated,” he said shortly. His expression softened. “Be careful who you invite inside, Mrs. Benston, we have more… tourists in town. It’s why I’m offering my diner and all the protection that comes with it.”
Paling, she nodded. “I’ll tell Olivia.”
Leaving the witch by her roses, Red and Zach returned to the dented SUV. She waited until the mansion disappeared from the rearview mirror. “I’m new to town, so I didn’t catch all that subtext. Who’s Barbara? What else happened ten years ago?”
“Barbara Benston was her mother-in-law. Killed by Alaric, right in front of Olivia, during his last stand. That wasn’t a good year for anyone.” He drove toward Main Street. “Did you feel something off Claudia?”
“Nothing dark. She cheats in those gardening competitions, though. Maybe she knows something about Olivia, but she wasn’t involved in the ritual. It definitely spooked her.” Red fell silent. Was it because vampires were in town or because her wayward daughter was?
Waiting at a stop sign, he asked suddenly. “Hey, do you want to go bowling? I can’t stop thinking about it since we passed Pinheads.”
Small Town Witch: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 5) Page 10
