Missing, Suspected Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective

by Rachel Graves

  He collapsed on top of me, his skin sweaty, his hair standing up in a thousand unruly spikes. He held me where he fell, moving his arms under us, pulling me close. It was different than usual, normally he turned over, cleaned up, then we held each other. This time there was nothing to clean up, no condom to take care of. I marveled about the difference while he panted. Had it been better because of the danger of being here, the feeling of skin on skin, or some other thing? Had it really been better or did it just seem that way? I didn’t know but I knew I wanted to try all of that again, and if it meant getting tested for a thousand diseases or taking a birth control pill, I didn’t mind. In fact, I was suddenly wondering why we bothered with condoms at all.

  Above me Edward’s face looked more troubled than anything, and though I hated to come down from cloud nine, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “They probably heard us.” He shifted off of me, breaking the embrace to roll away from me.

  “They’re not even on this floor. Besides, I don’t really care.”

  “I do.” He used my T-shirt for a towel to clear the sweat off his skin, then balled it up and threw it away, angry. “You’re mine, I won’t share you with them. They can’t have you.”

  “I promise all they can do is listen.”

  “That’s still too much. We leave today, not tomorrow. Hell, we leave this morning. I don’t like what happened in the hall.”

  “I didn’t like it either, but I think Jason’s learned his lesson.”

  “We’re not going to stick around to find out. I want you armed until we get out of here. I’m going to get a shower, can you pack us up?”

  I nodded, not sure what to say. I wanted to tell him how great he had made me feel. I wanted to hold him and reassure him the wolves wouldn’t take me away from him. As he walked to the shower, I didn’t say anything, I couldn’t really, and it didn’t matter: nothing I said would help.

  Our bags were packed by the time he came out of the shower. I went in after him, not ready to leave. Sure yesterday had been strange, the confrontation with Jason, the mystery I wasn’t solving, and William singing lullabies. The last one alone would have thrown me for a loop; as it was, I was down the rabbit hole. But I’d come here to do a job, one Ted wanted me to do. I didn’t want him to have any regrets about when we left.

  He was going through the room, piece by piece, opening every drawer, checking under the bed. “I’m going to talk to my mother. Why don’t you go shopping?”

  “Because I don’t like shopping?”

  “I know. Go exploring? Outside the hotel?”

  I didn’t even consider the idea. “I don’t want to leave you alone here.”

  “I’ll just be in her office.”

  “Then I’ll just be outside the door.”

  “She’ll hear you. It’ll complicate things.”

  “Okay. How about I poke around downstairs instead?”

  “How about you not?”

  “I’ll stick with the public areas. I’ll carry my gun. If you shout, I’ll hear you.”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  He would worry, no matter what I told him but eventually he said, “Fine. I won’t be long.”

  “And I’ll be safe.”

  As I took our bags to the car, the fog outside sat around cars and tree trunks, masking everything in white-gray fuzz. On Saturday the neighborhood looked just as run down, but better populated. I recognized a few people walking down the street from dinner last night. They smiled at me, and I smiled back, trying not to feel the weight of their hopes. They weren’t the old Pack. They didn’t feel evil. I hated letting them down.

  Inside the hotel again, I checked out the public areas. The lobby and the kitchen didn’t hold much of interest. The only thing to recommend in the dining room was a fresh pot of coffee and an assortment of breakfast pastries. I helped myself and sat, chewing and thinking. Sue was posted at the front door, and all of the victims had been stone cold killers at some point. Not the kind of people to make stupid mistakes, like heading into dark alleys or taking a drugged drink from someone they didn’t know. It had to be an inside job. Edward leaned toward Jason, and while I liked it, I didn’t have any proof.

  After cleaning up my crumbs, I went across the hall to the library. My magic told me most of the floor was empty so it was no surprise when I found myself alone. My fingers trailed over the books, not picking up any particular vibe. The emptiness of the room almost made me miss LaRue’s office with its Easter egg assortment of emotions. I wondered how Jo was doing, what her talk with LaRue had turned out to be. I smiled at the memory of her dressing him down. I’d known drill sergeants in the Army that couldn’t shout that way. My smile turned to a frown as I felt something coming from one of the books. At first I thought it was a magical vibe, but as I picked the book off the shelf I felt an actual vibration.

  When I opened it I saw why. Someone had neatly glued all of the pages together, then cut out a hollow spot to hide a cell phone. A smaller model, the kind you bought at a drug store that didn’t require a contract to get service. It buzzed at me silently. If I hadn’t been touching the book, I doubted I would have guessed. I wondered if werewolf hearing would have. Curious, I picked it up.

  “When are we doing it?” a male voice asked me.

  “Doing what?” I asked in return. My only answer was silence. The caller had hung up. I flipped the phone over and noted the number just as it disappeared. A quick check of the phone’s settings told me someone didn’t want their calls tracked. Incoming and outgoing call logging had been turned off. That made me curious, and more than a little anxious. I stepped through the adjoining door to the classroom repeating the number over and over again in my head. The kids’ desks were neatly shut, no paper sticking out, so I went to Vincent’s. I left the phone on top of a stack of papers as I pulled at the top drawer. It stuck a little, so I yanked. Paper spilled on the floor and I grabbed a blank piece. I wrote down the number, seeing the familiar LA area code, then grabbed the other papers, gathering them up.

  As I put them back in the drawer, a tiny vial rolled forward. The clear glass contained an amber-colored liquid. I sat in Vincent’s chair and titled the jar back and forth. I’d seen something like it not so long ago when I packed up our stuff. Wolfsbane. Except maybe not. Maybe it was just vitamin E. Maybe it was from the chemistry lab behind me. I shook my head. I had nothing on the disappearances, and going after the only werewolf who was a decent guy wasn’t going to help. I replaced the vial along with the papers just as Ted found me.

  “You ready to go?”

  “Would it bother you if I wanted to see your mother before we left? Just for a minute.”

  His blank look told me it would bother him, but not enough for him to say something. I grabbed the phone from Vincent’s desk and left before he got a chance to change his mind.

  We stopped by Sue’s room, and she called out for me to come in even before I knocked on the door. As Ted and I came into the room, she clicked off the TV. Sitting in sweat pants, she looked more like a soccer mom curled into the couch, defenseless. I wondered if Ted saw it but his eyes roamed the room, not bothering to rest on her.

  “I found this cell phone in the library.” I held it out to her. “Any chance you recognize it?”

  “No, but it’s probably Jason’s. He was fixing lights over there yesterday.”

  I shook my head at her casual dismissal. “It wasn’t just on a table, it was hidden. Any scents on it?”

  “Lots of them: you, the classroom, even Edward’s a little.” Her voice struck me as bitter, perhaps even beaten. “Have you checked the numbers?”

  “It’s set up not to store them.”

  She shrugged. “Leave it with me. I’ll get it back to whoever owns it. Like I said, it’s probably just Jason’s.”

  I almost asked how Jason was doing but stopped myself for Ted’s sake.

  “He’s fine now. Last night we had to rebreak h
is kneecap to get the bullet out but today, all healed up.”

  Ted didn’t flinch. I wasn’t about to say I hoped Jason felt better or I was glad he healed up okay. The silence got long enough to be awkward, so I found something to fill it.

  “What does wolfsbane do to werewolves?” I asked Sue.

  “Makes us loopy, like being drunk or when you get gas at the dentist. It varies though, some people turn mean, some get turned on, others just sit and smile. We don’t use it here because you don’t know how someone will be until they take it.”

  “Anything else about it I should know?”

  She glanced at the wall, then back at me, thinking it over. “It doesn’t really have a taste, not a strong one, so most people take it straight. Some people brew it with tea.”

  “What does it do to you?”

  “I don’t know, never tried it. I’m not a fan of losing control.”

  14

  We were quiet for the beginning of the drive. That ended when we pulled off for lunch at a place with an amazing view that served high-class California cuisine. The good food broke through the tension and got us talking about vacation plans. After that the miles went by fast; we were almost home as sunset painted the sky in lines of bright orange and gold. Vampires everywhere were waking up. As much as the vacation talk lured me, I had some work to do before I packed my bags. I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Calvin’s number.

  “Remember that trick you did for me?” I asked when he said hello.

  “Which one?”

  “The ‘find a phone number’ one, only this time I need the opposite.”

  “You got a number?”

  “And I need a name. Can you help?”

  “As long as LaRue doesn’t need me to do something tonight. Give me the number.”

  I gave it, thanked him, and hung up. I turned back to Ted, curious about how much he cared.

  “This thing with the wolves, do you want me to keep you in the loop?”

  “Not really. But if there’s something dangerous, I want to back you up.”

  “Always,” I promised.

  When my cell phone rang early the next morning, I hoped whoever it was had a really good reason for calling.

  “Lizzie? Are you going to eight o’clock mass or ten-thirty?”

  It was Mom. Never mind the drama with Ted’s mom, the werelion issues, or even that I was supposed to be out of town. It was Sunday. In Mom’s mind, unless there was a nuclear attack, I was going to church. Scratch that, in the event of a nuclear attack she would want me there even more.

  “How about noon?”

  “Oh, you’re going with Jeremy and Gina?”

  I swallowed hard. I was in Ted’s bedroom, with the soothing fountain and the calming décor. None of that helped. “I thought we could all go as a family.”

  “That’s fine, but why don’t you pick me up? I’d like the two of us to talk alone.”

  My mouth went dry. “Uh, okay, I’ll come by the house at 11:45.”

  “Make it 11:30,” she replied. I told her I would, because really, what else could I say? I ended the call worried. I’d dropped the “I’m a witch” bomb and ran on Thursday. Now I’d have to deal with it. I swallowed again, the dryness making the motion scratchy. If only it was as easy as shooting something. A text popped up on my screen, “H. Svart” with no other explanation. After a quick check for sunrise, I called Calvin.

  “You got this name for me?”

  “You got the message, right? H. Svart.”

  “Yeah, I got it but…what kind of a name is that?”

  “No idea. Swedish, maybe? It would mean Black.”

  I thought about it for a minute, a conversation I’d had with Jeremy tickling at the back of my mind. “Black.”

  “Yup. Like the opposite of white? Like blackbirds?”

  “And ravens,” I replied more to myself than to him.

  “Well, yes, them, too.” Calvin clearly didn’t get it.

  “Thanks. That’s exactly what I needed.”

  “So you know the guy?”

  I flashed back to the Predator Breeders Associated office. “I think I do. I need a little more to go on, but I can get it myself.”

  “Have fun,” Calvin told me.

  I dialed the Predator Breeders Associated main number counting all the ways this wasn’t fun. Surprise, surprise, they weren’t in the office. But the receptionist had told me she fed the big cats and a tiger’s stomach didn’t take Sunday off. I grabbed a very fast shower, kissed Ted goodbye, and sped down the highway. Without traffic, I made it there just after eight. Down the dusty road through the front gates, my car was only the second one in the parking lot.

  The woman I’d spoken to was in there, somewhere but no one answered my knocks. Good thing my favorite lock picks came along for the ride. The inside was a bit of a maze but after going from room to room I spotted the woman I’d met before in a stainless steel cave of a room.

  “Good morning,” I said cheerfully. She jumped about six feet in the area.

  “Jesus!” A plastic container and the contents of a bloody cutting board fell on the floor. For a second we both looked at it.

  “I’m sorry. Let me help you with that.”

  “Yeah, fine, whatever. You shouldn’t be back here.”

  “I know, but it’s urgent. I need to know about that guy.”

  “What guy? The French guy? La-something?”

  I shook my head and handed her a hunk of meat. We straightened up together, and while she went back to preparing tiger breakfast, I took the liberty of washing my hands at the sink.

  “When I was talking to you a guy came in. You said he buys the animals for people that…” That slept with them. I remembered it clearly; really I would have said people that fuck them, but she didn’t want to hear that.

  “Him.” She sounded like she’d eaten something that didn’t agree with her.

  “Yeah, I think his name was Raven?”

  “Hank, Hank Raven,” she told me. “He’s bad news.”

  “I was worried about that.”

  She put both her hands on the steel table, her fingers leaving sticky prints on the clean surface. Her eyes locked on mine, and she took a deep breath before she spoke. “Whatever was so important that it got you out here on Sunday, it’s not important enough to mess with him.”

  I drove back even faster than I had driven there. That gave me enough time to enjoy a fresh cup of coffee before the big talk with Mom. Letting my fingers drum idly on the counter while it brewed, I cataloged what I knew: the inside job at the Pack and the phone call from H. Svart, who was almost definitely Hank Raven and maybe Henry Black. The same man who had the big bucks to buy tigers and lions. Even before the perking stopped I decided to call Ted.

  “How was the early morning fact-finding?” he asked me.

  “I found some facts.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Maybe.” I paused to pour the coffee. “I know you said Jason could’ve done it.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “What about Vincent?”

  “I guess, possibly, but why? He’s already alpha male. What would he have to gain?”

  “What about money?” I added up his lies in the classroom and the visit from social services. “What if this isn’t about pack positioning or being alpha at all? What if it’s about the money he needs to keep the current pack together?”

  “I’m not so sure. What do you mean by ‘together’?”

  “There was someone from social services there, he was talking about taking the kids.”

  Ted paused, thinking about it, when he spoke again he sounded resolved. “Vincent has a soft spot for kids. I mean, he wouldn’t step in when someone was punished—”

  “You mean beaten,” I interrupted.

  “Same thing.” He said it off-handedly, making the correction even more cringe-worthy. “The point is, he liked teaching. He liked showing us there was a world outside of the Pack, one where we c
ould be better, be more than animals.”

  “And the ones that were taken, they were all people that didn’t want to be better, right?”

  “I guess you could say that,” he wavered. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Not yet. I’ve got a few more rocks to turn over.”

  “Don’t forget you’ve got church.”

  I looked at the kitchen clock. “Thanks for the reminder. Talk to you later.”

  My head buzzing with possibilities, I went into the bedroom looking for church clothes. Instead, the way the light came in through the blinds caught my attention and I sat on the bed. I was missing something, something important. I took a second to calm my mind; what was it about this space that I couldn’t quite remember? It was something with the werelion, but Nala had never been in the room, and baby Leo only briefly. So it was…

  Then I got it. The bloody spirit that visited me, the guy that had taken the baby, he’d said the name Hank two or three times. I struggled to come up with his exact words but failed. He’d mentioned Hank at least twice. Another confirmation but I wanted more before I dialed the number for this mysterious man. I was going to dial it soon, though, because I had the feeling someone’s life depended on it.

  The house I’d grown up in, the one that had looked safe and comforting in the middle of the night, looked ominous now that I knew my mother was inside waiting to yell at me. Okay, that was a bit unfair. It was unlikely she’d yell. She’d just tell me, calmly but with great sadness, that she was disappointed in me. Those words would hurt more than anything she could scream. I’ve always known I couldn’t be her perfect daughter, but I thought someday I might come close. Being a witch ended any chance I had of even a gross approximation of the perfect suburban wife and mother she wanted me to be. I emptied the last swallow of coffee from my travel mug, seated it firmly in the cup holder, and then headed inside, scared in a way that having a gun wouldn’t help.