A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel)

by S. M. Blooding

  “Witch.” Paige headed for the door.

  “Shifter,” Dexx offered, following close on her heels.

  “Hey,” King called. “Are we all coming?”

  “Don’t see why not.” Paige didn’t know what she was doing. She’d never headed a team. She’d been lead investigator before, but that was not this.

  The drive through Dallas didn’t take a lot of time. They were in Heather’s residential neighborhood in no time. She’d had to look up the address in the file. She sucked as a best friend. What kind of best friend didn’t even know where her bestie lived?

  Heather’s apartment was on the third floor in the middle of an immense apartment complex. The place was a maze. Paige led the way up the concrete stairs to the door that was taped off.

  Gomez moved to the front and opened the door with the key. “Came with the case.”

  Paige hadn’t even thought about that. She switched into witch vision, scanning the door for anything her normal eyes could not see. A few smudges like smoke, but nothing definitive.

  “If you go into the shifter vision,” Dexx muttered on his way past her, “give me the heads up.”

  “I won’t make eye contact.” She wasn’t thinking straight and that was the only warning she could really give him.

  He grunted.

  In witch vision, she saw the outline of the threshold pulse faintly. It was nearly marred in shadow, likely because the heart-power that the threshold thrived on was no longer beating. She didn’t see physical shapes. No outlines. Her legs found the edge of the sofa right next to the door as she stepped through.

  The threshold hummed as she passed through it. “Threshold was untampered.”

  “Good to know,” Dexx said.

  “What does that mean?” Parris asked, his tone low.

  “When you live in a place, you give it power,” Dexx explained, his voice distant as if he was in another room, like an open dining room or a kitchen with a breakfast bar, not on the other side of a wall. “That power flows and protects the door, usually because that’s where we direct our fear. Look at the locks. We lock our front door really well, our back door partially well, and our windows little if at all.”

  King pulled a face. “Who doesn’t lock their windows?”

  Paige didn’t.

  “So that whole Buffy thing?” Wrick asked, his voice to the left but close enough that he could have been in the same room.

  “The vampires not being able to enter unless invited?” Dexx grunted and a cupboard door closed. “True enough. Though, we’ve discovered that vampires don’t really need to be invited.”

  “They do,” Paige said, continuing to scan the room, “create havoc on the threshold if they enter by force. Anything with magick does.” Or at least she assumed it did. She knew about demons. Everything else? Still really new.

  Everything in the apartment was dark, for the most part. A few things gave soft glows. A picture of two women, though in witch vision, Paige couldn’t make out who the people were. A sea shell. An old rooster and hen salt and pepper shaker. An afghan.

  “Are you picking up anything?” Paige asked, directing her question to Dexx.

  “No.” His voice was closer. “I smell the blood, but it’s hard to pick up anything over that.”

  I might be able to help, Cawli said in Paige’s mind.

  Paige shrugged. Okay. How?

  He crept to the front and with his presence came other things like the remembrance of sounds, and smells, and feels. He reached through the ends of her fingers, pushed through her nostrils. I cannot see this way.

  “Dexx, switching to shifter vision.” It’s what they called her half-in, half-out of witch vision.

  He grunted. “Heading into the other room. Let me know when you’re done.”

  “Roger that.” She focused on her eyes and shifted the focus. The shadows dispersed and became objects. The picture with the faint golden glow was of Heather and Paige on the day they’d graduated college. The sea shell sat on the entertainment center that was covered in dust except for right in front of the X-Box. Lines were drawn in the dust like tracks in a snowstorm. Heather had played the game sometime within a few weeks.

  Do you sense anything? she asked.

  Smell that?

  She still had a hard time distinguishing his smells. He used her nose, which was insufficient at best as he repeatedly told her. However, he knew odors far better than she did, likely because he actually paid attention where she didn’t. She wanted to know when to take out the trash or when she was close to stepping on fresh dog poop. That’s what her nose was good for.

  His, though?

  Follow the information I’m giving you.

  He’d tried to give her plenty of knowledge over the span of the last few days, but it was sent on levels she still didn’t understand. She understood the speaking language. What he gave her was more intuitive.

  She shook out her shoulders and forced herself to relax. Opening her mind to her sense of smell, she concentrated.

  Blood. She didn’t need Cawli to tell her that one. It wasn’t fresh. It was a day old, at least, but there was older blood there as well. Layers of blood on a long time-frame.

  Can you help me pin this down? She asked her spirit animal.

  He paused, then shook his head. Weeks?

  That’s not even possible. She was just in the hospital two days ago.

  I cannot say for sure, but some of this blood has lost its intensity. We also do not track time the way you do.

  Which was something she didn’t quite comprehend. She had a hard time with dates and times as it was, but with Cawli riding shot-gun in her head, that was getting even worse. There were times when she looked down at her phone to catch the time and didn’t even comprehend what it meant.

  I would still say it has been weeks. Perhaps only a week and a half.

  That’s still not possible.

  Then we look for what might be probable.

  Paige nodded once to herself and set her shoulders.

  Wrick’s aura pulsed a steady blue. A few stray shoots of white light escaped, but for the most part, he remained constant. He searched the living room, maneuvering around the couch and the coffee table. He straightened, the blue in his aura setting off definitions of musculature he didn’t have. “This is where she was held.”

  Paige stepped closer, careful not to step in the middle of the dried blood on the pale carpet.

  Feces.

  She didn’t want to know.

  She was held here for days, Paige. She wasn’t allowed to get up.

  Paige swallowed hard and took in a ragged breath. Who would do something like that?

  There are many who would.

  “What was she tied to?” Paige asked.

  Wrick got down on one knee and peered under the belly of the coffee table. “I would say this. Those look like rope markings, as though someone had been tied and struggled.”

  Someone. Her best friend. Whom she’d forgotten about.

  Tied to the coffee table? She lifted a corner of it. Something else had to have been there to leave Heather unable to break free from the coffee table.

  “Anything else?” Paige asked. “Anything that could give us a clue?”

  “I’ll keep searching.”

  Paige saw nothing in her scan that gave her any indication of identity. This couldn’t be happening. First day back and she landed this case? What was the likelihood? Was this Sven? So soon?

  No. Sven was an issue, but this didn’t have to be him. This could be his henchmen. It could be Oriel. After all, he’d been the one to kill the shifter on her first day back in Denver.

  Fuck!

  Wait. Pull your head out of your ass, she said to herself. What if this wasn’t about her? What if this was about Heather?

  Blinking, Paige refocused, her heart slowing minutely. If this wasn’t about Paige, there would likely be no demon markings. So, she would find what she’d been looking for.

 
; What could Heather be into?

  During school, Heather had been curious about witchcraft and what Paige and her family could do, but she’d never been odd. She’d always only ever been a muggle. One of those rare, Catholic-and-still-loves-thy-neighbors muggles. She’d been curious about the Craft, but not fearful. She’d believed Paige when she said her magick didn’t come from the devil because, as Heather said it, she’d looked into Paige’s eyes and saw a human being.

  Paige couldn’t see Heather being into demon trouble, unless she was on the opposing side. What about something else—

  Opposing side.

  Angels.

  I might not be able to help with that.

  Paige understood. Use your nose.

  What am I looking for?

  Anything that smells…wrong.

  The others had been talking, but Paige barely heard them. She saw King’s blood red aura pulse as she went around the room methodically grabbing samples. Paige vaguely recalled hearing King say she was going to take more of them now that she knew they had a special lab tech on the case.

  Parris was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps in another room with Dexx? She didn’t know. Really didn’t care.

  There was something…off.

  It’s not an odor.

  It wasn’t. It wasn’t something she could see, either.

  Sound.

  Paige frowned and listened, but all she heard was Wrick talking to King who hmmed to him and nodded occasionally. Parris and Dexx talked quietly on the other side of the wall.

  Listen to the tone.

  Clear. Crisp. Exactly what she thought she’d hear.

  No. Not exactly what you would hear. Step outside.

  She followed Cawli’s direction. As soon as she stepped across the door, the sounds of conversation ceased.

  What’s going on?

  Their voices sound like they’re coming from a tunnel.

  A tunnel. Something registered in her mind. All those sleepless nights watching the Science Channel were finally paying off.

  Einstein. Time travel. Space continuum.

  Paige didn’t pretend to understand even half of it, but those were the puzzle pieces clicking into place.

  She took her phone off her belt, checked the time. 3:42. She set it on the concrete outside the door and stepped back into the apartment.

  Wrick and King were no longer in the living room. Several bags were carefully stashed inside the evidence case on the dining room table. Dexx stood with his back to the front door, his saber toothed cat’s head raised like a wisp of smoke above him.

  Paige raised her eyebrow and stepped back outside the door to retrieve her phone.

  3:18.

  She stepped back inside only to nearly collide into the team as they were leaving.

  Dexx threw up his hands in front of his face. “Sight!”

  “I never turned it off.”

  The thing she discovered in Nederland was that if she was in what they now called shifter vision, the spirit animal of the shapeshifter would react, moving forward and taking control of the human body without having to shift. That worked well for most shifters.

  But Dexx was different. He was new and his animal was considerably bigger than most. He was bigger than the bear and the moose combined.

  “We’re done.” King raised the evidence case. “I don’t know what you were doing outside for so long, but we’re done in here.”

  “What time is it?” Paige asked.

  “Check your own phone.”

  Paige raised her eyebrow. “Humor me.”

  Parris pulled out his phone and looked up at her with his pale eyes. “It’s almost four o’clock.”

  Paige held up her phone which wouldn’t unlock. “I stepped outside for a few seconds. Left my phone outside, came back in, then went back out.”

  “We did see that,” Wrick said.

  Dexx sighed, his back turned. “Vision?”

  “Keeping it on.” Paige scanned the room and took a step toward the dining room. “That all happened in a matter of seconds.”

  “We’ve been at this for almost forty-five minutes, Paige.”

  She shook her head. “Step outside and check your phone. Tell me what time it is.”

  Dexx huffed and stepped out the door.

  He appeared to be frozen in time.

  Gomez rubbed her chin, her mouth and eyes open as her orange aura flared.

  Paige walked into the small hallway that led to the bathroom and the single bedroom. Something tingled along her skin as she entered the bedroom. She looked down at her phone. It leapt to 3:29.

  Walking back into the living room, she discovered the team standing at the front door.

  “Whatever did this created a time warp.”

  “And we’re still experiencing it,” Gomez said, pointing toward Dexx. “He hasn’t moved for the last fifteen minutes.”

  Paige bit her lip and shook her head. What could do this?

  She had no idea and had no clue how to figure it out.

  Paige couldn’t discover any new information from the scene, though she reviewed it several times, looking for anything that would lead her to Heather’s killer. Finally, she exited the door, locking it behind her, putting the crime scene tape back in place, and joined everyone else back at the car. It was barely 3:30.

  King shook her head. “This one’s got me.”

  “It’s got me, too,” Paige muttered.

  “Great, all powerful witch like yourself?”

  “Hey. I can suffocate you where you stand—” Which might not have been the best thing to tell anyone else. “—but even I have my limitations.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” King grumbled.

  As the team climbed into their black SUV with all the evidence and gear, Paige’s phone rang. She checked the number, but it came back unavailable with the a Texas area code. Frowning, she swiped the green answer button. “Whiskey.”

  “Is this Paige Whiskey?” a soft-spoken female said. She didn’t have that saccharine sound to her voice that would have tipped Paige off as a telemarketer or a debt-collector.

  “This is she.”

  “I’m afraid I have very bad news to tell you.”

  “What?” Paige’s heart raced. If she had any more bad news that day, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  “Heather Blackwell is dead.”

  “Oh.” Paige released a sigh of relief. “Yes. I know. Who are you and why are you calling me?”

  Dexx opened Jackie’s driver’s side door and propped his foot on the floorboard, gesturing to her with his chin.

  Paige shook her head with a shrug.

  “I’m Susan Russell with Social Services. I’m calling because Heather named you as next of kin.”

  She’d what? Paige was the horrible ‘best’ friend who’d had to look up Heather’s address in her case file after she’d been murdered. “I don’t understand.”

  “She had a baby recently. A boy.”

  “Yes. I know. My sister was in the hospital with her at the same time.”

  “Oh. Congratulations.” Her tone turned up, but not quite enough to make the statement a question.

  “Thank you. Are you trying to tell me that her…” Paige ran through Heather’s family in her head. Her mother had died a few years ago. Her father had never even been put on her birth certificate. She’d had no brothers or sisters. Her grandparents weren’t in the picture. Heather had no family. “What about the boy’s father?”

  “He wasn’t named.”

  Paige closed her eyes. “What do we do?”

  “I have an address here. Walnut St?”

  “Yes. That’s where we live.”

  “Excellent. I can be there in thirty minutes.”

  “I’m in Dallas. I can be there in forty.”

  “I will see you there.”

  Paige frowned down at her phone, trying to get the screen to come up so she could hang up the phone. It remained black until the other woman hu
ng up the phone.

  “What was that?” Dexx asked.

  “Um.” Paige turned to Gomez who was standing closest to her, waiting to get in the SUV. “Go ahead and take the evidence to Ethel. Then, do some research on what could create a time warp like that.”

  A frown flickered between Gomez’s brows. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to go home.” Paige blinked, shoving her phone in her pocket. “Heather—the victim—had a baby and named me next of kin.”

  “You can’t work the case.” King walked over, her hand out.

  “No. It appears not.” Her gut was so knotted, she thought was going to throw up. “Not that I should have been anyway. However, you will need someone with a better understanding of the magickal world. You’re still going to need me and Dexx. So, I’ll discuss it with the chief and we’ll come up with a game plan.” It might be time to see if Tony had been serious about wanting Paige’s old job.

  “We don’t work cases we’re emotionally tied to.”

  “And in this field, this side, sometimes we don’t have that kind of luxury.” Paige opened Jackie’s door. “I’ll see you all in the morning. I’ll expect information and I’ll see what I can bring that might be helpful.”

  Dexx sank in the seat behind the driver’s wheel. “Home?”

  “Alma’s? Yes.” It felt weird calling it home, though, why she really didn’t know. Her family was there. She’d been officially welcomed into the house. The wards thrummed with the pulse of her soul. She needed to get over that.

  She needed to stop telling herself she had to get over being human. All she needed to do was to not kill anyone. She could feel whatever the hell she damned well wanted to.

  Truth be told, she was still reeling from Heather’s death. Guilt wracked her. If only Paige hadn’t pulled Heather into her world.

  She had to stop.

  This might not even be about Paige. Yes. Her world was crashing down around her. But there was a big, big world out there filled with all kinds of other troubles.

  What if this really was about Heather? She’d been tortured in a time warp. Something powerful had kept her trapped inside her living room, trying to pry some kind of information from her. Why would anyone in Paige’s world think Heather would have anything of worth on Paige?

  No one in her world would think that. Not Sven. Not Oriel. Not…anyone else.