Which Witchery Is That? Read online

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone stand and hurry up the steps to the landing. Dell threw her long arms into the air and spread her bony fingers, smacking the air as if it were solid. “Cessare!”

  The shrieking stopped, and the writhing slimers disappeared.

  The silence that followed was stark.

  Slowly, we rose to our feet and looked around. There was no sign of the things. No slime on the floor. I touched my cheek and didn’t feel any goo there. It was as if we’d imagined the whole thing.

  I frowned at Dell.

  She stuck her nose into the air and marched past Bev and me. “Phantom tricksters. Witchery 101.”

  Bev and I shared a look and she shook her head. We followed Dell into Wanda’s apartment. The apartment was empty, except for the pervasive stench of magic filling the place and a residual malevolence that even I could feel.

  I stood just inside the door, looking around as the witches tested the space, searching for a magic trail or at least a signature they could read. They huddled together across the room from me. They had their heads together, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. There was reluctant excitement in the energy of their movements, but their frequent glances my way did not give me hope for good news. “Okay, just tell me,” I said, narrowing my gaze on the group of women. “Who did this? Where’s Wanda?”

  They stared at me for a minute. Finally, Willy stepped forward. “The crone has her.”

  The way she said it made me frown. “Okay. Is that bad?”

  From their shocked looks, I clearly should have known who the crone was…what she was capable of…whether she was friend or foe. But I didn’t. All I knew was the little bit Layla had told me, and it wasn’t enough. “Is she likely to hurt her?”

  Trish grimaced. “Hurt? Not intentionally, no. But the crone isn’t always…”

  “Rational,” Bev said.

  “Kind,” Pietra said.

  “Coherent,” Mavis said.

  “Cooperative,” Willy said.

  “Sane,” Dell snapped.

  “There’s something else,” Trish told me, her face tight with worry. “We think there was a demon here last night.”

  That made my eyes go wide. “No.”

  Trish winced. “Sorry, Aggy. It’s true.”

  “But who? How?”

  Mavis frowned. “Someone has apparently performed a summoning.”

  Dell shook her head. “Not so fast. You are aware there are earth-bound demons, correct?”

  The other witches winced with embarrassment. Pietra nodded. “That’s true. It could have been an earthbound.”

  I thought about what they’d just told me, weighing the seemingly conflicting information. “So your speculation at this point is that Wanda was taken by a demon and given to the crone?”

  They shrugged.

  “It could have also been a lost one,” Mavis said on a frown. “Their magical signatures are remarkably similar.”

  “Either way, would that be a normal circumstance? Does the crone generally use the demonic to do her bidding?”

  “Not usually,” Pietra admitted. “I’m actually not a fan of that conclusion. I think the demon might have attacked Wanda, and the crone stepped in.”

  I felt my eyes widen. Figuring a fellow historian had to be safer for Wanda, no matter how addle-headed the crone might be, I liked that conclusion better. “What evidence do we have to support either possibility…magically speaking?”

  “None,” Mavis admitted. “Unfortunately, magic doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t really offer clues.”

  I nodded. “Well then, we’ll just have to do it the hard way.”

  8

  The Lares Must See Through the Strife

  I carefully pulled the covers of Wanda’s bed back, searching the sheets and blankets for something that might give me a clue as to what had happened. Bev searched the bathroom, Mavis took the kitchen, and the other members of the coven searched the rest of the place and the landing outside.

  Finding nothing in the bed, I got down on the floor and looked underneath it. Unlike under my bed…guilty flush…it was free of dust bunnies and boxes of sweaters I rarely wore but didn’t want to get rid of.

  Oops. When had I made it about me?

  Wanda’s closet held a few tee shirts on hangars, two pairs of black jeans, also on hangars, a black tee-shirt dress I couldn’t imagine her wearing, and three pairs of black shoes, which included a pair of high-topped sneakers, a pair of boots with a flat heel, and a cute pair of leather Mary Janes I’d never seen her wear.

  I fingered the tunic she’d been wearing the first time Gren and I had met her…in my kitchen. She’d been rummaging through my food looking for stuff to make a PB&J sandwich and had been peeved because she couldn’t find the grape jelly. My chest tightened at the memory, my eyes filling with tears.

  “Aggy?” a voice called from behind me. “We found something out on the landing.”

  I turned to find Willy and Pietra, their expressions grim.

  My heart started pounding against my ribs, dread curling talons in my belly. “What did you find?”

  Pietra extended her hand. Something was coiled in her palm. I reached for it, carefully taking the thick strands of course white hair. I stared at the locks, perplexed. “This could belong to a neighbor,” I offered weakly.

  Willy shook her head. “Doubtful. Can’t you feel the magic in it?”

  “And there’s something else.” Willy said, glancing at Pietra.

  I glanced up, seeing their taut expressions. “Tell me.”

  They hesitated just long enough for Dell to step in. “Blood, Madam Lares.” She stopped a few feet away from me, a small vial held between her long, bony fingers. I focused on the callouses I could see on her fingers rather than the reddish-brown specks, like hideous paint chips, in the bottom of the vial. “If it’s the girl’s blood, we’ll be able to tell by performing a spell,” Dell told me, holding up a strand of black hair. “We found this in the bathroom. We have her DNA.”

  DNA… I swallowed hard, my heart skipping random beats as panic clutched me by the throat and shook me hard.

  The witch appeared oblivious to the way she’d rocked my world. Totally ignorant of how my knees wobbled so hard I had to drop heavily onto the bed behind me. Completely blind to the pallor of my face as all the blood fled out of it.

  Blood. Was it Wanda’s blood? Had the demon hurt her when it took her away? Stars burst before my eyes at the thought. I lowered my head to my hands and closed my eyes, riding out the waves of dizziness that followed.

  The mattress dipped, and I was pulled against a soft body. Mavis’s warm, familiar scent enfolded me as she held me close in a one-armed hug. “We’ll find her, honey. And she’s going to be okay. There was no reason for them to take her out of this house if they intended to kill her.”

  Her words sank in and allowed me to breathe again. She was right. I looked into Mavis’s face. “They need her for something.”

  Mavis nodded. “We know the crone’s involved. That’s where we have to start.”

  I pulled air into my lungs, holding it for a beat to settle me, and then expelled it on a nod. “Let’s head home. I need to call a council meeting.”

  I clutched the coarse white hair in my fist as we walked into the sanctuary ten minutes later. Gren stood by the windowed alcove. He turned as I walked into the room, his dark brown gaze sliding to my face, warm and questioning.

  I let my gaze skim over his tall, muscular form, admiring the glossy thickness of his longish mahogany hair. He’d recently been letting it grow out a bit, and I loved the way it curled at the back of his neck and over his ears. I gave him a smile. “I’m fine. We have a lead on her.”

  Anyone else might have had trouble deciphering my shorthand. Gren was different. He understood what I was telling him. I was upset, but at least we were making progress.

  My protector could read my emotions better than I did and often seemed to know w
hat I was going to do before I did it. We had a connection I’d never had before with anyone. It went beyond romance, though there was definitely the promise of that too.

  “Madam Lares,” Ferral said in greeting.

  I looked into his cold, handsome face. “You heard about Wanda?”

  My advocate wore his customary suit, which was currently a deep, dark brown that complimented his shoulder-length dark blond hair and silver eyes. Clenching his square jaw, he nodded. “I did. I’ve already sent feelers through the magical community. If she’s anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of Rome, we’ll find her.”

  “Thanks.” Gratitude smoothed over some of the brittleness encasing my heart. “Luke and Niele?” I asked the advocate.

  “I’m here, Madam Lares,” the gnome’s familiar voice said from the doorway. He gave me a commiserating look and I reached out, taking his slightly gritty hand. His nails were short and even, well-tended despite the soil beneath them. “Thanks for coming so quickly. I know you’ve been busy in Rome.”

  Our recent battle with the Hellmouth had created some instabilities in my little town. Many of the buildings were in danger of being swallowed by the earth. Some had already started to sag, prompting Rome’s police chief, Davis Marshal, to come to me with his concerns. I’d asked Niele to pull together a team to address the issue.

  Niele had brought together the gnomish community to stabilize the structures and put everything back to rights. It had been hard, tedious work, requiring long hours and a level of frustration that seemed to tax even Niele’s good nature at times.

  I gave him a careful once-over, seeing the lines of strain around his small black eyes and the purple circles beneath them. He also looked like he’d lost weight. “Have you eaten today?”

  He frowned. “I’m fine, Madam…”

  I shook my head. “Let’s move the meeting to the kitchen. We could all use a snack and some coffee.”

  As we headed to the back of the house, the front door opened and closed. For just a beat, I stopped breathing, thinking it might be Wanda. But the steps were too heavy, too quick, to be hers. I tried not to look disappointed when Luke walked into the kitchen. Steeling myself to face his gaze, I forced a stiff smile onto my face. “It looks like everybody’s here. We can get started.”

  “How do we get to the crone?” I asked my council.

  “Not easily,” Ferral all but snarled back. He didn’t support our going in search of the powerful healer.

  I sent him a glower. “Helpful comments only, please.” I was leaning against the counter with Gren, too wired to sit. Trish, Niele, and Bev sat at the table. Mavis was tending the big pot of stew she’d made for our late dinner. The buttery scent of biscuits filled the room, and my mouth was watering.

  The giant bakery box that had been filled with cupcakes for the evening’s dessert was empty. Only a few smears of strawberry frosting were still left in the box. They’d been delicious.

  I set my empty coffee cup on the counter behind me, tempted to have another cup but knowing it would keep me up all night if I did. Then again, if we were setting out after the crone right away, that would be a good thing.

  “She’s across the veil,” Ferral said, staring at his now-cool coffee. “There are limited ways to cross.”

  “What are the options?” I asked, seemingly the only one who didn’t know. As usual, I forced back bitterness at always being the dunce in the room. I’d get there. Eventually, I’d know what I was doing.

  “There’s a gate in the Mystical Wood,” Luke offered. He sent Ferral a tense glance. “But it’s through the Malignant Forest. I don’t recommend we go that way.”

  Even I didn’t need to ask why something called the Malignant Forest was bad. That seemed obvious.

  “There are vessels,” Trish suggested. “Maybe we can call one to us.”

  “Vessels?” Bev asked.

  Halleluiah! For once, I hadn’t been the one to ask the question.

  “Magical creatures who can cross the veil,” Ferral explained, his expression far less arrogant when addressing my sister than it would have been with me. I narrowed my gaze on him, wondering what I’d done to prick his angry bone.

  “Even with a vessel, we’ll probably have to pass through the gate,” Luke said, frowning. “But it will be much easier.”

  Behind me, a bird tapped lightly on the window over the sink. I’d inherited a sparrow that seemed to think he needed to get inside my house for some reason. The goofy thing wouldn’t stop pecking at the glass, despite my campaign of shouting at it to stop.

  “Are they hard to find?” Bev asked, throwing me an amused glance.

  “Yes,” Ferral said. He met my narrowed gaze with one of his own, then looked away, perfect nose lifted with disdain. “The deeper issue is the crone herself. She won’t take well to us trespassing on her land. Bringing a vessel with us just invites trouble.”

  “How so?” Trish asked.

  Peck. Peck. Peck.

  Gren frowned. “It’s possible she will try to confiscate it, leaving us stranded. The crone doesn’t like that outsiders can invade her veil using vessels. If she doesn’t want us there, she’ll consider it a personal point of pride to take it away from us.”

  “So, what type of vessel is the right kind for this journey?” I asked, directing the question at Gren. If the advocate wanted to be snippy, I’d just talk to someone who wasn’t.

  Peck. Peck. Peck.

  He shrugged. “Something large and fast that can run away.”

  Peck. Peck. Peck.

  “Something that can take to the air,” Ferral added, refusing to be ignored.

  Peck. Peck. Peck.

  “I’ve heard of a badger vessel in the Wood,” Luke offered. “Small but mean. Even the crone would think twice about tangling with it.”

  Peck. Peck. Peck.

  “What is that silly bird doing?” Mavis asked. She stepped around me and made shooing motions. “Get lost!”

  The sound of rapidly fluttering wings came through the glass, and I frowned. That sounded like a bigger bird than a sparrow.

  “We actually have a vessel at our beck and call,” Trish said, a mysterious smile on her face.

  Bev’s eyes went wide. “If you tell me it’s that flying rodent, I’m going to put bat guano in your stew.”

  Trish laughed.

  I turned around, just as the pecking started again, catching the culprit in the act. “Ray?”

  “Yep,” Trish said, surprising all of us. “The raven is a strong vessel. I’m surprised you all didn’t know that.”

  “Pee!” Ray shouted from the other side of the glass.

  “You’re not kidding, buddy,” I murmured. “Who knew?”

  “Okay, that settles that,” Ferral said. “Now, let’s discuss our plan of attack once we’re standing in front of Cayleigh Castle.”

  I stared at him for a minute and then sighed. I’d have to be the dope again. “What’s Cayleigh Castle?”

  Disdain dripped…yes, it did…it literally dripped off him. “Madam Lares, how can you expect to do this job if you don’t do your homework? The crone is one of the most legendary magical creatures of all time. She’s a vital part of the magical ecosystem. You cannot continue to be so clueless…”

  I held up a hand to stop him. “I have two words for you, advocate. Seating. Hellmouth.”

  We stared at each other for a long moment, everyone else in the room watching in fascination.

  Ferral slid his gaze away first, a win for me, and then he said, “How long are you going to continue whining about doing your job?”

  I was going to punch him in the throat. My fists were formed, and I was taking a step forward when Gren clasped a warm hand around my wrist. “Steady,” he murmured softly.

  He turned to the advocate. “The Lares is an extremely busy woman who is in charge of an entire town and all of its people, magical and non-magical. If you are not capable of keeping her up-to-date on things she needs to know to do her j
ob, then please tell us now and we’ll find someone who is.”

  The two men locked gazes, both bristling with palpable anger. Ferral’s square jaw was so tight, I was pretty sure he was going to fracture a canine. If he’d been in his moon hound form, his hackles would no doubt have risen along his back.

  Gren’s grip on my wrist was gentle, his body relaxed, despite the hard glint in his eyes. He looked like a man who knew he was right.

  Ferral looked like a man who wanted to lash out at someone. Usually that someone was me, but I was betting he was thinking about whether that would be a good idea. Finally, to my surprise, Ferral inclined his head. “You are correct, Lungren Maker. The Lares is woefully unschooled in nearly everything she needs to know. I will set up a daily training schedule with Madam so we can remedy that.”

  “Gack!” All the blood fled from my face and I made a small choking noise. That had gone so horribly wrong in such a short time. “I really don’t think…” Both Gren and Ferral turned to look at me. The weight of their combined gazes bowed my shoulders. I stood there like a whipped puppy, my hands twining nervously before me. “I don’t think that’s a bad idea at all,” I finally said, forcing what was probably a ghastly smile.

  Across the room, Bev coughed into her hand, no doubt hiding a laugh. I glared at her, and she coughed again.

  Ugh! Just what I needed. Daily one-on-one time with the advocate.

  My life was over.

  “Pee!” Ray screeched through the window glass.

  As usual, the bird was spot on.

  9

  Friend or Foe, They Must Decide

  We set off before sunrise the next morning. I should probably say, we started to set off before sunrise. We actually stood on my lawn glaring at each other for quite a while first.

  “I don’t like it,” Ferral growled out. He glowered at the two lost soldiers facing him. “I don’t trust them.”