Bailey, by that point, was too exhausted by it all to really care. She hurried him along and warned him not to summon anything this close to the breach. Her apparent lack of concern didn’t play well among the slowly congealing cliques of practitioners.
“You can’t make everyone happy,” Aiden told her on the third night after they had managed to tuck practitioners into practically every corner of Coven Grove, and then retired to the only part of Aiden’s house deemed to be off limits to the swell of guests they’d taken in. Luckily, most of the witches were happy to camp either in the forest, on the slopes of the Caves, or on the beach. Weather wasn’t something any of them really had to worry about, whereas being too far out of sight of one another potentially was.
Bailey sighed, and massaged her temples as she reclined against Aiden in the bed, leaning the back of her head against his chest. “Sure. I know that. I just wish they could see the bigger picture here. And that I was… I don’t know, having more fun?”
“Fun?” Aiden wondered skeptically. “In all this?”
She gave him a weary smile. “Sure, why not? Think about it. When was the last time this many magical people were in one place? Is there a periodic symposium or something?”
Aiden raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Wizards are known to congregate in rare instances… and I’ve heard that shamans have moots from time to time—but they’d probably never confirm that if you asked them about it. Witches used to, once upon a time, but you hear about it less and less. It’s just been too dangerous for everyone to be in one place of late. Time was, hundreds of practitioners might gather on some mountain and no one would notice or remember, eventually.”
“Now everyone has a smart phone,” Bailey said. “I guess that makes it harder.”
“Before that it was news cameras and such.”
“I’m surprised CNN hasn’t descended on us,” Bailey groaned. She crossed her fingers and held them up for the universe to see.
Aiden chuckled, but it didn’t last. “Likely,” he said, soberly, “the hunters have counseled the city government and the people that it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep it local.”
“We should see if we can get Trevor to publish something,” Bailey sighed. “Some shining editorial.”
“It’ll only be spun as an attempt to sway the public,” Aiden pointed out gently. “The best thing we can do is what we’ve been doing—protect them, gather the stones, follow the plan. Once the Throne is constructed, none of this will matter.”
Maybe that was so; but even one lost life on either side would be too high a cost to get there. “I can feel something simmering, Aiden,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and even reached out with her mind like she might be able to pinpoint it, but it remained an elusive, intuitive feeling that she simply couldn’t shake and couldn’t define. “Something bad is going to happen. I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Let us not drive ourselves mad over a future we can’t predict,” Aiden said.
She snorted. “Irony is what that is.” Bailey turned her head against his shoulder so that she could look up at him. “You’ve been predicting the future for years, haven’t you?”
“I hope not,” Aiden said.
So did Bailey. The details weren’t clear to her—Aiden had good reason not to share his visions of the future with anyone—but she knew that they were not pleasant. She trusted him to keep watch, though, and tell her when he thought they had the opportunity to change what he’d seen. Otherwise, what was the point of knowing the future?
She squirmed more, until she was on her elbows and facing him. “We should do something with all the people we have here now. This many practitioners in one place has to be somehow beneficial, doesn’t it? Pooled knowledge, combined power? It wouldn’t surprise me if we could literally split the Pacific ocean, or raise a new mountain.”
Aiden chuckled nervously. “I think the local ecology would have something to say about that.”
“I don’t mean it literally,” Bailey said. “Not just to do something but… we might be able to temporarily hide the town from more hunters, minimize the risk.”
“And make it impossible for the other stones to make it here,” Aiden pointed out.
“Fine, then… maybe with all of us we could put a stronger patch on the breach into Faerie.”
He shook his head. “That’s quite subtle, focused work. Aside from taking the time to catch everyone up on the various magic they’d need to know, it’s a bad idea to apply a sledge hammer when gluing a vase back together.”
Bailey groaned, and rolled back onto her side. “So… back to the old plan it is, then.”
“It’s a good plan,” Aiden assured her. “And, perhaps, the only viable one.”
“Hmph,” Bailey grunted.
She closed her eyes, and tried to really feel her exhaustion, inviting it up to claim her and give her a few hours of rest.
There was a knock at the door, urgent; not the kind that signaled a friendly visit, but the kind that boded poorly for any rest in the near future.
“I can get it,” Aiden told her.
But Bailey shook her head and sat up. “Somehow I doubt they’re looking for you. No offense.”
“Heavy is the head…” Aiden murmured, and kissed her. “We’ll go together, then.”
They answered the door, as Aiden said, together. On the other side was a worried looking witch—one of the Irish Coven, or… maybe it was the Welsh one. “Miss Chloe’s afront,” the youngish blond witch said. “With poor news. Poor indeed. It’s already getting about, I’m afraid.”
“Fantastic,” Bailey sighed. She turned to step into her slippers. “What is it, then?”
“It’s from abroad,” the young witch said, “in town. There’s someone’s gone missing. And… they seem to think it were one of us, your majesty.”
“Don’t call me—” Bailey froze, and her heart skipped a beat. “Wait—what?”
“Someone missing,” the witch repeated. “A young lad, teenaged. Vanished from his room as if… well, they’re saying… as if by magic.”
Chapter 21
“This is very, very bad,” Chloe said as she and Bailey left Aiden’s house and headed toward Chloe’s car.
Bailey sent her mother a baleful side-eye. “Obviously.”
Chloe stopped, and took Bailey’s arm to pull her to a stop as well. “No, Bailey—it’s not obvious. Think about this. Just the slightest suggestion that it was a witch that stole away someone’s child, and the town will want blood. The hunters will offer to move in and deal with us all. If they at some point return the boy—then they saved him, and they’re heroes. If we find him and deliver him back to his family, we merely Caved under the pressure. This could be spun any number of ways that would be bad for us and there’s almost no way for us to somehow come out on top.”
Bailey did her own math, and had to agree. “So… what? We’re in check mate?”
Chloe spread her hands. “If there’s some way to diffuse this, I don’t know what it is.”
“And what about the boy?” Bailey asked.
“The boy?” Chloe echoed.
“Yes,” Bailey snapped. “The boy, whose presumably been kidnapped either by the hunters—which I don’t doubt they’re capable of—or by one of the many strangers in our town that we don’t know well enough to be sure had nothing to do with it. And let’s not forget that our Faerie neighbors have a sometimes habit of snatching kids, too.”
“What about him?” Chloe asked.
Bailey groaned. “Either someone is using him as a pawn, or someone genuinely means him harm. Either way, our focus right now is not on the consequences of him being taken—it’s on the fact that he was taken.”
Chloe’s eyes dropped. After a moment, she nodded quickly. “Yes. I… of course. What’s wrong with me?”
“We’re all wound tight,” Bailey muttered, and continued on to the car. “We can’t lose sight of what’s important here. One
loss is too many. I… I know that probably that’s going to become less and less possible, but it has to be the line we draw. If we don’t, we’ll say one person is acceptable, and then two, and then three and… that’s not a slope I want to slide down.”
Bailey waited for Chloe to unlock the car and then got in. “We find the boy. And then we deal with whatever happens as a result.”
And if that result was a fight with the hunters? Then Bailey was more than willing to make it a short one.
Chapter 22
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Chloe asked as they pulled up to the home of the missing boy.
“I’m not that worried about the hunters,” Bailey said. “Yet. But if we wait, it’ll be a real problem. The fastest way to find the missing kid will be to get something that belongs to him. Just by asking for it, we might gain a little trust from the family, too.”
“I hope you’re right,” Chloe muttered.
They parked, and approached the house. There were flashing lights illuminating the yard and the front of the house from where the Sheriff’s department had been called. There were also other vehicles; one of them, at least, belonged the family, but the others were probably either hunters or concerned citizens.
Bailey and Chloe ascended the sloped lawn together, and were met with a mix of derision and worry, depending on who was looking at them. Among those people was Sheriff Larson—he, at least, regarded them with a neutral expression, but he put his notepad away as they drew near.
“Sheriff,” Bailey said. Chloe echoed her.
“Miss Robinson,” the Sheriff said. He tipped his hat at both of them. “Miss Minds. I’m not sure this is the best place for the two of you to be seen right this moment. No offense meant; just being honest.”
“None taken,” Chloe said. “We’re here to help.”
“Now that we’re out in the open,” Bailey said, “we may as well do what we can when things like this crop up.”
Sheriff Larson frowned slightly, and looked over his shoulder at the front door. “There’s a lot of help going around tonight, seems like.”
“I expect Mister Wheeler or one of his people is around,” Bailey said.
It wasn’t a question, but the Sheriff nodded anyway. “Showed up straight away. Looking for evidence of, ah… well, you know.”
Bailey looked Larson in the eyes. “And what do you think?”
He shifted uncomfortably, and pushed the rim of his hat up as he grimaced. “Well, now… I’d really rather you not put me in that position. It’s an open investigation, as far as I’m concerned. I’m a law man, Miss Robinson. The Law says we investigate, collect evidence, and come to a conclusion. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
It was comforting to hear, even if it did sound like a rote response.
“I can respect that,” Bailey said. She stuffed her hands in her pockets against the chill, and looked up at the upper windows. “It’s the Clearys’ house, isn’t it? I went to school with Logan, their oldest. It’s his younger brother that’s missing?”
“Xavier,” Chloe provided.
“Yes,” Sheriff Larson said cautiously. “But maybe you ought not say things like that. Most kidnappings are perpetrated by people who knew the victims. Statistically.”
“Of course,” Bailey sighed. “Look, Sheriff… if we can get something that belonged to Xavier—a cherished personal item, a bit of hair, whatever—then we can resolve this very quickly. Unless of course someone has him in a place magic can’t find him.”
“And if that’s the case?” Larson asked.
Chloe and Bailey exchanged troubled looks.
“Then that will eliminate one venue,” Chloe said softly. “But there will still be others.”
“You know what people are whispering about,” Larson said, his voice low, “right?”
Bailey nodded. “We know, Sheriff. Look… I believe you’re a good man, with your heart in exactly the right place. And I think you know us well enough after all this time to know that we don’t want to scare anyone—we want to help, and we have helped before.”
He bobbed his head, but reluctantly.
“We don’t care what people are saying,” Bailey told him, even though it wasn’t entirely true. “What’s most important right now is that we have a missing kid. If we can help, don’t you want us to? The hunters are in there right now, but they can only do what you can do unless, in fact, he was taken by magic. I believe that none of my people did this. But for us to find him, it doesn’t matter who took him. Let us help, Sheriff. Please.”
Sheriff Larson rubbed his stubbled chin, uncertainty plain on his face. There wasn’t a procedure for this, but there was one for letting non-law enforcement individuals into an active crime scene.
Bailey could see him weighing the options and possible outcomes. Eventually, he grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. But he’d decided something—Bailey could feel that without having to get into his mind.
“Tell you what,” he sighed. “I’ll go in there and collect what you need. You said, what—hair? Could anything work? What does it have to be?”
“Something that was a part of him is best,” Chloe said. “But anything important to him, that he handled a lot, or had a strong emotional connection with, will work as well.”
“That seems pretty broad,” Larson complained.
“Look for something near his bed,” Bailey offered. “Or if he has a desk, something close to it. What looks worn with use? What looks sentimental? Something… innocuous, maybe. Not a trophy or something pretty or on display out of pride or expectation—something he has near him just because of what it means to him.”
“Think about things you hold dear,” Chloe added. “We all have something like that.”
The Sheriff’s hand went to his watch unconsciously, and he frowned as he nodded. “Alright. You two stay here. I’ll be back.”
He left them, and as he did someone else emerged from the house, along with Xavier’s parents, Doug and Lauren Cleary. Both of them looked ragged already, and they were still in their night clothes, with bath robes pulled tight around them against the cold.
It was Wheeler who was with them, no doubt whispering poison into their ears.
“I hate that man,” Chloe muttered. “I did the moment I saw him.”
“Don’t,” Bailey said, even as she tamped down the feeling in herself. “It’ll just distract us.”
“…there are a number of ways it could happen,” Wheeler was saying as he descended the porch steps with the Clearys. “What the test determines is just that there was magic present; not what kind it was. But it’s a start and… oh, my.”
He’d stopped when he saw Bailey and Chloe. The Clearys looked when he did, and spotted them. Something bordering on rage crossed both their faces, and they stormed toward the witches.
“Why?” Lauren Cleary demanded. “Why would you people do something like this? I want my son back, and I want him now, do you hear me?”
It looked like Doug was right behind her, but to Bailey’s shock it was Wheeler that stepped in and put a stop to it.
“Now, Doug; Lauren—we can’t jump to conclusions like that,” he said calmly, but insistently, his hands outstretched. “As I said, we can tell there was magic present when Xavier was taken—but we can’t identify whose magic it was. With all the new supernaturals in Coven Grove, it could have been any of them. I’m sure Miss Robinson and Miss Minds here only hope to assist.”
It seemed to stall the Clearys’ anger, but only a bit. They simmered with it so completely that it almost stung against Bailey’s skin. Chloe rubbed her arm, probably in reaction to the same sensation.
“Doug,” Bailey said, looking from one parent to the other, “Lauren—you have to believe us; we had nothing to do with Xavier’s kidnapping. But believe me—we can find him faster than anyone else. We’re here to help.”
“And I guess you think that would make you people look positively saintly, is that it?” Lauren
growled. “Dear God… Xavier… please let him be okay…”
She dissolved into sobs, and turned to all but collapse on her husband.
Wheeler gave the bereaved parents a deeply sympathetic look, and shook his head slowly. “A terrible shame. I’m glad you both came to help.” He turned to Bailey and Chloe. “I’m sure this will go a long way toward shaping your future relationship with the community.”
Chloe brushed Bailey’s arm, and gave her a mental nudge toward the house, where Sheriff Larson was coming out, looking far too casual. He paused when he saw the Clearys and Wheeler, but Bailey waved him down and he crossed the rest of the distance.
“What have you got, Sheriff?” Bailey asked.
“He had a comb,” the Sheriff said, glancing at Doug Cleary, who had a concerned, suspicious look on his face. “It’s got some hair on it but not much. I wasn’t sure what you needed, but there was this, too…” He passed Bailey a comb, and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph that was worn at the edges and slightly discolored where it had been handled improperly.
Doug recognized it, apparently, because he started to lose his temper again. “That’s a picture of his girlfriend,” he said. “You have no right to take that.”
Bailey raised a hand in peace as she took it from the Sheriff. “Mister Cleary, if we’re going to find your son, we need things like this to make a connection to him.” She hated letting Wheeler see her cards like this, but if he was the one that took the boy then there was a good chance he’d have already taken any possible precautions against Xavier being found by magic.
“She’s right,” Wheeler said, again, deceptively helpful. What was his game here? Bailey didn’t think she needed to think to hard about it. The more reasonable and open minded he appeared now, the more weight his opinion would have later when he no doubt planned to suggest that the town take justice into their hands and go after everyone in town that scared them.
“Thank you, Mister Wheeler,” Bailey said, as… professionally, as she could. She turned her attention back to Doug. When she spoke, it was with confidence that was directed at Wheeler. “Believe me, no matter where Xavier is, or what efforts are made to hide him—I can find him.”
Witching for a Miracle (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 7) Page 10
