Witch on a Roll

by Evelyn Snow

  Holden had lobbied in favor of bringing his grandfather’s rifle and silver bullets. I’d put my foot down. What would happen if the highway patrol stopped us? How would we explain why we were operating a World War Two-era sedan wrapped in chains? The scary part was, the troopers had likely seen crazier things.

  I reached inside the trunk, pulled out the tire iron, and waved it at the dead wizard. “If your memories haven’t returned yet, you’ll have plenty of time for a good long think in here.”

  “Cold iron!” Horror contorted his features into a ghostly mask. “You wouldn’t!”

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to make faces? It’s worse when you’re dead. You’ll be stuck that way for all eternity.”

  “It’s not right to tease the dead,” Holden said wearily.

  “He won’t have to stay in cold iron forever,” I replied. “It’ll be like spending a vacation at a crummy hotel that turned out nothing like the pictures you saw online when you booked the trip—not what you expected, but not the end of the world, either. I mean, he’s already dead. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “I didn’t plan to die, and death isn’t a vacation,” Dead Guy shouted. “Thanks, anyway, but I’ll pass. My current lodgings are depressing enough, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay where I am. You don’t look smart enough for the spells required. I can’t imagine why I should worry.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. I’m sure it will help.”

  Ignoring a slew of new insults from the ghost, I tossed my backpack over my shoulder and pushed the trunk closed.

  “You’re being too hard on him,” Holden said.

  “How do we know this joker didn’t steal dark magic in the first place? He could be a sorcerer. Maybe the woman who died was in on it, too, and things went sideways. Or what if he stole a device he ultimately couldn’t control, and both died as a result?”

  “So, that’s it? I’m evil or stupid—one or the other?” Strangled sounds of indignation burst from the wizard along with a few choice curses.

  Holden shrugged. “No matter what happened or how things went down, he paid for it with his life.”

  “Oh, yeah, because he’s so …” My voice trailed off as I let the retort die. Kindness lived inside Holden Blackwood. He was my best friend, and he’d spent all day helping me when he didn’t have to; helping me while a problem was brewing with his dad.

  “You’re right,” I conceded with a sigh. “We don’t know what happened. No one will know until there’s a full investigation.” Too bad I was the least-trained and most unprepared MBI agent in two worlds. Go me. Trying to do the right thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  I crossed the sidewalk, heading for the house. Holden hung back by the car where he leaned against it with his arms folded. He wasn’t relaxed. He still believed it was only a matter of time before trouble arrived. Behind that lazy stance, his wolf was ready to rock-and-roll.

  Unlike Holden, I was more worried about the actual evil already here. The moment my feet hit the grass, I felt the first unwelcome tingle.

  “Are you all right?” Holden called. I’d warned him about the nasty side effects.

  “I’m good.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready.” We’d agreed to keep the window of time while the car was partially unchained as brief as possible. That meant Holden wouldn’t start removing the lengths of chain until I was done recording the scene and ready to gather the magic.

  Dead Guy retreated as far as his etheric tether allowed. With a trembling hand, he pointed at the tire iron I carried. “Oh, no you don’t. No way are you putting me in that thing. You can’t. I know my rights.”

  Did the dead have rights? It was possible, I supposed, although what I didn’t know about the MBI, magical law, and a hundred other subjects could fill a shelf of encyclopedias.

  “How about something like this: You have the right to remain magical. Any spell you cast or entity you conjure could be used against you in proceedings before Rhiannon’s Wheel. You have the right to an advocate. If you cannot afford an advocate, one will be provided for you.”

  “I don’t want an advocate,” he complained. “Why can’t I have an attorney?”

  “You’re dead, which means you don’t have corporeal status. No body, no attorney.”

  “What? I don’t know why I’m even listening to you. You’re not a lawyer. You’re barely a witch.”

  “Don’t worry.” I dropped my backpack on the ground well away from the swelling tide of dark magic, keeping the tire iron in my hand. “I made it all up. There’s no such thing as a magical Miranda warning.”

  “Doesn’t mean I don’t have rights.”

  “Here’s the thing, Bob—do you mind if I call you Bob?”

  “That’s not my name.”

  “What would you like me to call you?”

  “I, um … I don’t know.”

  “Well, it seems rude to keep calling you Dead Guy, so can we go with Bob for the time being?”

  “Who’s calling me Dead Guy?” he demanded.

  “I am—in my head.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Which is it going to be? Dead Guy or Bob or how about Dead Guy Bob?”

  “I suppose the last would be okay,” he relented. “Three names are more impressive than two.”

  Or maybe I should drop the whole thing.

  “Why don’t you know my name? You should.” If he was faking confusion, he was doing an academy award-winning job. “If you don’t know, the least you could do would be to conjure it.”

  “I’m not an elemental witch.” Technically, my statement was true. My status as an elemental witch wasn’t the point though. To conjure the name of someone tethered to his surroundings, I’d have to tap into the location. Call me crazy, but that didn’t seem like a wise move in the middle of a ton of dark magic.

  “Figures,” he scoffed. “Even when I’m dead, I have to do everything for myself.”

  “Did you whine this much when you were alive?”

  “Let me out of here, and I’ll tell you.”

  Like that would be fun.

  Stupid or evil, I had a hunch my dead wizard wasn’t either; just new or inexperienced or poorly trained or all of the above. Except for being on opposite sides of the line between life and death, we were in a similar fix. It wasn’t much to base a connection on, but as Holden had reminded me—something was better than nothing.

  In high school, I’d done some babysitting, although I’d never been what the school counselor liked to call a “people person.” Skills were skills, I figured, and they might be transferrable as long as the recent dead weren’t any more difficult than the average three-year-old. If I got Bob to say yes, a few times, I’d have a shot at convincing him to slide into his temporary holding cell on his own. If he refused, I’d have to do it the hard way. I didn’t want to have to pull out a big spell if it wasn’t necessary. He’d been through enough.

  I also needed to save my energy for collecting the dark magic. That job would be like taking a bubble bath in poison while a plugged-in electrical appliance balanced on the edge of the tub.

  Before starting the clean-up, I also wanted to learn more about the wizard. Sooner or later, I’d have to turn everything over to Devi and Sullivan. Any additional information I could offer would help.

  “There aren’t that many wizards in Montemar, so I’m curious what you were doing here last night. How much do you remember?”

  “No one was supposed to know. That’s as much as I can tell you.”

  I raised a brow. “Not supposed to know you’re a wizard? Or that you were here in the house?”

  “Wizard. It was a secret.”

  “Ordinaries might not recognize what we are, but we know. We’re alike in that way.”

  He released a long-suffering sigh. “Is this your attempt to convince me to trust you? Because if it is, you’re pathetic.” What was this guy’s problem? Toddlers loved me
, and it had nothing to do with candy.

  “Let’s go with what we know. I’m a witch, and you’re a wizard. I suspect you’ve known quite a few witches in the past. That means you know how witches think. If you know how I think, you don’t have to trust me. What do you say?”

  “Witches…” His ghostly face scrunched. “Echo was a witch, but she was sick.”

  “What was wrong with her?”

  He pointed at what remained of the house’s stone foundation where the scorch marks gave way to blasts of neon green, orange, yellow and purple.

  “Did she have spectral disorder?”

  He remained silent but regarded me with more intensity than before.

  While his silence wasn’t an admission, it was clear he was beginning to get his memories back. “If you’re putting things together, we can work this out. That way you’ll only have to stay in cold iron for a little while before moving to a better place. I can’t imagine you’d want to stay where you died for all eternity.”

  He drifted closer, studying me and frowning. “There’s something wrong with you.”

  “If you’re worried, I have spectral disorder, I don’t. I’m fine.”

  “You’re hiding something,” he pressed, “just like Echo.”

  “I do have a secret. If you tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine.” And I would tell him, assuming I could invent something remotely plausible in the next thirty seconds.

  A gust of dark magic billowed around his knees. A spasm rippled through him. “There were so many secrets, it was hard to keep track of what I as allowed to say. Some people knew I was a wizard, and they were okay with it.” He shook his head as if struggling to remember. “Others didn’t know. They weren’t supposed to know. Something bad would happen if they knew. Everything is all jumbled in my mind, and it’s driving me crazy. There was something…”

  “The secret?”

  “Yes! That’s it. What was it?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  “What kind of witch are you?” He made a noise of disgust and kicked at the ground. The ashes and debris didn’t move. His shoe slid right through them. A puff of noxious dark magic bounced upward and flew towards me. I ducked, barely avoiding a direct hit. It splattered into the grass and spread. To keep my distance from it, I had to move.

  Everything I said about toddlers—I take it all back. The average ankle-biter was smarter than a dead guy who thought three names were cooler than two. I had to grit my teeth to stop myself from firing off the containment spell and sucking him into the tire iron then and there.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me your secret,” I insisted, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

  He glared at me. “This is a nightmare.”

  I had a feeling turning up dead with no warning often worked out that way.

  “Better hurry it up,” Holden called. The chains were still in place. There’d been no sign of Sarrath or any scavs, so we still had time.

  “What’s his problem?” Dead Guy Bob asked, craning his neck and peering into the distance behind me.

  “He’s worried about all that dark magic you’re swimming around in. I am, too. We need to get it cleaned up soon. Even though you’ve lost your body, I can’t imagine it’s doing you any good to be doused in it. Do you know why there’s so much here?”

  “Oh, that’s easy—it’s Echo.”

  “You said something about her last night. Were you able to remember any more about her?”

  “She was a witch, but she was more than that—so much more.”

  “What does it mean to be more than a witch?” I was genuinely curious how someone could be more than a witch if she had an illness that whittled the afflicted by inches, stripping them of power until all that remained was a husk of their former selves.

  “Echo didn’t bother with spells or incantations. She said they slowed her down.”

  Interesting.

  The bright scorch marks on the foundation wall suggested Echo might have had a seizure sometime before or close to the time of the gas explosion. Occasionally, spectral disorder seizures could be dramatic. That was why patients were stashed in a dungeon where they couldn’t hurt anyone.

  “Are you saying Echo caused the explosion?”

  Chapter 20

  Knowledge brightened the wizard’s eyes and brought an energy to him I hadn’t seen so far. “She was amazing. Echo was so much more than a witch. It was something you had to see to believe.”

  “What was the last thing you saw?”

  “Echo. I told her she had nothing to prove. She wouldn’t listen.”

  I couldn't buy his vision of Echo as an overachiever. Magical seizures potentially damaged walls, furniture, or other people in the vicinity. Alone, spectral disorder couldn’t explain what happened. The foundation of the house at 1712 Mulberry Street was roughly forty by fifty feet. With two floors and a basement that would have been six-thousand square feet—vaporized. No magic I’d ever heard of—outside of balefire—could create that level of destruction.

  Explosions from gas lines caused devastating destruction. News archive photos of past events showed entire city blocks flattened. It had looked like Armageddon. Yet here, the houses on either side hadn’t been touched. How did that happen?

  Gas needed a trigger like a spark or too much pressure in a pipe or a utility employee cutting the wrong line. A spell could be a trigger. Even then, Echo would have had to time the spell to release exactly when she had a seizure. Timing a spell was easier said than done—ask Marley—and I hadn’t been sick at the time.

  What were the odds Echo had kept enough of her wits to cast a spell while having a seizure in a house that happened to have an existing gas leak? I didn’t need to check with guys at The Demon’s Horn to know they were astronomical.

  “There’s no way your girlfriend could have done all this by herself—even if she was more than a witch.”

  “You’re wrong, but it doesn’t matter,” Dead Guy Bob said with a huff. “You wouldn’t believe me no matter what I said. I can’t tell you any more than I told the other guy.”

  “Other guy? Did you talk to someone else today?”

  “Yes, and he was much nicer than you. Better dressed, too.”

  “Who was it?”

  He put a hand to his mouth and his brow furrowed.

  “Did he give you his name?” I asked.

  “No. I’m not sure if…” His frown deepened. “I’m thinking he might have been someone like me, but I don’t know what that means.” At least we agreed on something.

  Holden had come up beside me. I could feel his impatience, but I wasn’t ready to give up yet. An answer was close. I could feel that, too.

  “This much dark magic will attract attention,” I said, “possibly other ghosts. Let’s worry about the living. If you can tell me how you and Echo came to be in possession of the magic or what went wrong, the information might prevent anyone else getting hurt. That’s what you want, right?”

  “I wanted to … and I would have if she hadn’t …” His gaze fell as more of his memories returned. He was so transparent it was like watching a progress bar on a digital download. Too bad I couldn’t read the content at the same time.

  When his gaze met mine again, it was clear and direct, stronger than ever. “This is Echo. It’s all that’s left of her.”

  Was he being meta—the remnant magic was an echo of a dead witch whose name had been Echo—or was it simply her name? I could be wrong, but he didn’t strike me as a hipster wizard.

  In literal terms, his statements didn’t add up. Even the most powerful sorcerers called magic from outside themselves; they were channels, not sources. All supernaturals drew from the world. Power flowed to a witch or wizard, not the other way around. Those who were considered “powerful” were simply more effective conduits.

  I took a step closer, readying the tire iron in my hand. “Did Echo conjure dark magic?”

  “No! She would never
dabble in incantational magic. She was … a goddess.”

  “Is that what you meant when you said she was more than a witch? How does a witch become a goddess?”

  Holden tapped me on the shoulder. “Okay, that’s it. Story time is officially over.”

  Turning my back on the wizard, I whispered, “Can you hear him? Because if you can’t, your timing is terrible. He’s almost ready to talk.”

  “I don’t have to hear him. Listening to your side of the conversation is enough. It’s obvious he’s messing with you—claiming some chick with a fake name is a goddess—please. He’s got eternity to play games—we don’t.”

  Glancing over Holden’s shoulder at the Ford, I saw that he’d removed the padlock. While the chains were still in place, he'd loosened a few lengths. To stay on the safe side, the plan called for releasing them enough to open the trunk and one door to load the magic. I'd have to ensure my aim was true, and I didn’t miss the car and spray dark magic all over the neighborhood.

  Behind me, Dead Guy Bob paced back and forth over the wreckage. It wasn’t until I half turned and could hear him that I realized he was muttering to himself. “By time and tide…? No, that’s wrong. What was it? Hag and kale, I shall never fail. Pathetic. What about…? Oh, here we go: Stag and horn, I am as I was born. Yes!”

  Holden must have registered my look of alarm. “What is he doing now?”

  “Trying to escape.” I raised the tire iron and felt it warm in my hand.

  “Can he do that?” Holden eased a few steps backward.

  “Not on my watch.”

  “Stag and horn, I am as I was born!” The wizard’s shiny black oxfords vanished, replaced by bare ghostly feet. Energy rippled through him.

  I called power. “Storm and fire—”

  “NO!” He raised his hands in protest. His form was becoming more solid with each passing moment. “Wait! You don’t understand…”