Dead Witch on a Bridge

by Gretchen Galway

  If the torc could make springwater, that made it valuable to demons and fae as well as humans. Anyone might have taken it or kill to acquire it.

  I stared in frustration at the assorted canisters of herbs, dried fruit, bark, and disgusting mysteries on Helen’s countertop. “But where is it?” I asked. “Everyone seems to want it, but nobody knows where it is. My father’s looking for something. I didn’t find it at Tristan’s house. The fae are forming angry mobs, which isn’t something they would do if they had a wellspring on tap. I haven’t seen any sign of them having a party the way they do at the solstice. Launt—”

  “Who’s Launt?”

  I regretted sharing his name. My instincts told me to keep Seth’s secrets to myself. “A fairy with a bad attitude,” I said. “He’s been causing trouble in Silverpool. And I don’t know why. Again, this isn’t a creature pleased with his situation because he’s got a rare object that could make him rich and powerful among his own kind.” Whichever kind he was, fae or human.

  “Sounds like an unpleasant spirit,” Helen said.

  “Very.”

  “I recommend staying away from him. Even quiet and lovely fairies can lose control of themselves when there’s springwater at stake. A malevolent one—”

  “Yes, I know. Thanks to you, my house is quite secure now. It’s not like he could just climb through a win—” I cut myself off as a terrifying thought struck me.

  Oh no.

  “What?” Helen demanded.

  I stared at her. “If there had been something about Random, would you have noticed?”

  “Who’s Random?”

  “My dog.” I flinched. How quickly I’d accepted him into my life. “The dog I brought here. He just showed up the morning after Tristan’s murder.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Could… Is there any way…”

  Helen pushed to her feet impatiently. “What?”

  “Could Random be the torc? Tristan had been experimenting with shifting when I knew him, and he collected a lot of nasty Shadow magic at his house that I only learned about after he’d died. What if—”

  “No. That black dog you brought? He was a real dog. No witch could create spirit out of a hunk of metal.”

  “But what if…” My thoughts raced. What if the torc was inside him? A shrinking spell, a wad of peanut butter… No. It would’ve gone right through him. But other spells could’ve embedded it among his organs.

  “I have to go.” I felt sick. For that kind of treasure, even a human being might kill a dog. Fae and demon were even less likely to worry about hurting him.

  “How many people know he showed up the morning after Tristan was killed?” Helen asked.

  “I don’t know.” A jumble of memories danced in my head. I had to get to Silverpool. “I can’t remember.”

  If only I’d left him at my house. He would’ve been safe in there. But he was at Birdie’s, as vulnerable as a rotisserie chicken in a swamp full of hungry alligators.

  “You’d better run,” Helen said.

  “I prefer driving.” I raced through the house to the front door.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Under a fresh bubble of invisibility, I jogged up the hill to my Jeep. The Protectorate could track me in whatever I drove, so I didn’t see the point in delaying my escape by looking for something else, like Helen’s old Volvo. There was a spare beaded necklace under the Jeep’s front seat, and my own wheels would make me more flexible to take a sudden detour if necessary.

  Breathing heavily, I approached the corner where I’d parked, searching for any sign of defensive spells. A calico cat sat in a patch of sun on a balcony, licking its paws, and I waited a moment to see if it reacted to my presence before I unlocked my Jeep and got behind the wheel.

  I reached under my seat for the spare necklace. It was worth the five-second delay to get it fastened around my neck before I hit the road, even though it had lost power during the months it had sat unused in my car. After I’d traded my demon-hunting job for quiet Silverpool, I hadn’t expected to need emergency power again. Lesson learned.

  Anything could happen from here on out. Hands sweating, I slanted the wheel and hit the gas to get out of the heavily sloped parking spot, alert for any sign of a magical alarm going off.

  Nothing. I roared up the hill and turned at the corner to double back and head north. In the middle of the day it would take me at least fifteen minutes, maybe thirty, to get out of San Francisco. If I could reach the Golden Gate Bridge, I might be able to block any witches from following me. Boundaries like the Golden Gate had power I could draw upon. And it was always busy, with enough nonmagicals around to prevent the Protectorate from taking dramatic action that might be witnessed, recorded, and uploaded to the internet.

  I didn’t have the same hang-ups about publicity. With every moment that passed, I was less interested in saving the reputation of the Protectorate from anyone, magical or non.

  Perhaps Tristan had put the torc inside Random and sent him to me. His secret had gone with him to his grave.

  And I’d been too stupid to see it.

  Maybe.

  Where did Phoebe fit in? She was probably behind my recent incarceration, and from her presence at Jasper’s house, I feared she’d convinced him to work with her. At the very least, I had to assume he was sympathetic to helping her.

  As I drove, my mind ruminated over everything I’d learned. The fae were gathering in Silverpool and increasingly causing trouble for miles around. They were doing this because somebody had poisoned them. Somebody had also killed Tristan. With Tristan’s death and the revolutionary fae, Lorne would need to install a new Protector in Silverpool as soon as possible, perhaps without vetting the witch too closely. Especially if she was his niece. The authorities might not have time to prevent the assignment or would give her the benefit of the doubt in the short term.

  It was the only way Phoebe, at her age, with so little experience, could achieve so much power and status.

  My thoughts churned and churned.

  With me locked up in San Francisco, Phoebe would be free to cause even more trouble in Silverpool—stir up the fae with another poisoning, perhaps. Then she could whip out the torc—which had never been stolen?—pump out a few gallons of fresh, irresistible wellspring water, distribute it to the fae, and take credit for the peace and happiness that settled across the land.

  The young heroine would be appointed Protector. She would probably claim to have found the torc on my property, guaranteeing my confinement in San Francisco until after a new Protector was appointed.

  But would Jasper really help her do that? He might not know what she’d done to me—at least I certainly hoped not. He was one of the few friends I had.

  With each mile, my suspicions of Phoebe Day seemed increasingly plausible. When she had showed up the morning after Tristan’s death, crying about the theft of the torc, it could’ve been a plot to trick Jasper into helping her. Because of the location of his house near so many fairies, Jasper had developed the skills to bribe and manage them, at least to a degree. He didn’t believe in the honorable history of the Protectorate—in fact, he’d been critical. Jealous. Bitter. He knew I wouldn’t get the job, so why not help a beautiful woman who asked for help? She’d probably offered money and magic. Maybe more.

  When I passed the last exit before the Golden Gate Bridge, I felt the snapping of the last thin strand of magical tension binding me to the house on Diamond Street. My car lurched forward, freed from the magical leash, and I almost rammed a pickup in front of me.

  I hit the brakes. I’d never get to Silverpool if I killed myself on the road.

  By the time I was driving through Riovaca an hour and a half later, I’d mastered a spell that kept the traffic moving. The nightmare image of Random’s disemboweled body kept flashing before my eyes. As soon as I’d passed out of Riovaca, I hit the gas and used my magic to keep me from losing control of the Jeep.

  The road
narrowed, and the redwood, cedar, and pine rose up on either side, throwing me into shadow. I had the first tingling sensation of danger since I’d left San Francisco.

  I was being followed.

  Chapter Forty

  As I sped through the forest, I isolated the sensation to be a human threat about thirty miles behind me on the road. Witches. Powerful enough for me to feel them at a distance. I’d set a boundary spell in Marin, knowing it wouldn’t hold but hoping I’d sense its breaking.

  I did. The Protectorate was coming.

  Thirty miles was better than none. I might have time to get Random safely locked up inside my house. There wasn’t anyone I could trust with him. If his body hid the torc somehow, even Jasper might be tempted to extract…

  I wouldn’t let myself think about it. I took a sharp turn and for once didn’t feel the pull of the fae in the enchanted forest to either side of the road. Their sweet song couldn’t tempt me today.

  Of all the names I’d given the dog, why hadn’t I chosen something luckier than Random? I was practically begging for him to be a victim of fate.

  Before I reached the Silverpool Bridge, I began to smell smoke. Just outside the drive to Tristan’s house, I saw the first flames. The Silverpool Vineyards sign was on fire. Surrounded by gravel and drought-friendly plantings, it hadn’t yet spread to the grass and shrubs along the road—and therefore to the house and winery. But it was only a matter of time.

  A dozen fairies surrounded the blaze, chanting and dancing. I didn’t see Launt, but the snarling little creatures in their human children’s clothes reminded me of him, although they weren’t as tall as him—each was about the size of a human baby. I recognized an apple-green face.

  Without braking, I sent out a hurried blast of cold, wet power, hoping it was enough to dampen the flammable plants and structures near the fire. This time of year, the dry hills could ignite in seconds, and the resulting firestorm might take out not only Silverpool—and her house—but Riovaca to the east as well.

  I turned the bend and saw another fire, this one on the bridge itself. Right in the middle, where I’d found Tristan’s body, a mass of something was burning. A twisted pile of machinery. I recognized a lawn mower, a toaster oven, a rusted-out water heater. The smell was acrid and nasty. Since it was the only road into town, I had to pull over to the shoulder and climb out. The rest of my journey would be on foot.

  Two dozen rainbow-clad wood sprites, the tallest no bigger than a Big Gulp, stood with their backs to me in a semicircle, facing the bridge as they sang for it to burn.

  There weren’t any police or fire vehicles, which suggested the calls for help weren’t reaching Riovaca.

  Three cars were stuck on my side of the bridge, and the passengers were standing outside their vehicles, talking to each other and shaking their heads, blind to the fairies. One guy got back into his car and began turning it around.

  Good idea. It was a good time to avoid Silverpool. The fae were trying to burn it down.

  I walked to the bridge and kept going. The fairies turned, saw me, and danced over with garish smiles on their small green and blue faces. A line of fire ignited at my feet where they pointed.

  I paused. It spread around me in a ring, but the flames were short and flimsy, only as tall as the fairies themselves. A normal human being would respond to the sudden appearance of a wall of fire by running away, but I stepped over it and gave the fairies a little wave of my hand. I knew it wasn’t real. The fae had a talent for deception, but I had a strange ability to see through it.

  Their almond-shaped eyes widened, realizing that I could see them. Their smiles, and the ring of fire, slowly died down.

  “Go home,” I said.

  Startled, they looked at each other. One of them, a small fairy with yellow teeth, flung a burning chunk of metal at me. I recognized him as one of Launt’s companions at the memorial service. I hopped out of the way just in time but was annoyed enough to put my hands together and use a spell to push him away from me. He flew over the railing, farther than I’d intended. When emotions ran high, power could rise to match it, surprising even the most experienced witches.

  The other fairies ran over and peered through the railing at him down below. As river people, they weren’t natural fliers, although they weren’t constrained by the laws of physics as mortals were.

  After a long moment, they turned and gaped at me in horror. A greenish glow formed around each of their quivering bodies, as if their fear had been made visible. Suddenly they ran away, their delicate feet barely touching the ground as they fled to the forest side of the bridge.

  I paused, surprised by their terror. They were acting as if I’d done something worse to the yellow-teethed one than throw him—a spirit creature—into the air. In spite of the bonfire sputtering nearby, I strode to the spot where he’d fallen and looked over the railing.

  Below in the shallow current, the fairy was sprawled face-up, wide-eyed and motionless. The rocks and the shallow current were keeping him from floating downstream. His skin was shrunken and gray, and the distinctive long nose had collapsed upon itself like an empty tube of toothpaste. The yellow teeth were exposed in a grimace, as if his last moment had been torture.

  A wave of nausea overcame me. I’d killed him? But how? He was fae. He had no skin to bruise, no bones to break. Only magic could hurt—

  I stared at his diseased, shrinking body.

  Tristan reported poisoning near the winery, Phoebe had said, but I hadn’t believed her.

  It was true. The river itself must’ve been hexed.

  I ran across the bridge toward town, ignoring several nonmag humans who were standing around, gaping at the bonfire, taking pictures and complaining with one another. I had to get to Random, but I’d just killed a creature in the same spot Tristan had died. The worst kind of karma.

  But I hadn’t meant to kill him. I hope that mattered, karma-wise. And more importantly, fae-wise—they wouldn’t forget, and their natural lives were long.

  I pushed through the summer grass and branches to a dirt path that led down the slope to the river. The fairy who I’d seen the night Tristan died usually slept under the bridge on the Silverpool side, unseen by most, but today he’d been one of the fae I’d seen near Tristan’s winery, setting the sign on fire. That had been strange in itself; he should’ve been bonded to the spot. Something powerful must’ve broken to let him roam.

  As soon as I reached the riverbank, I realized what that had to have been.

  And who was truly responsible for the death of not only the little yellow-toothed fairy. Which meant—

  I had to be sure. If I was right, Birdie might need my help. And Random could be in more danger than ever.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I ran past the nonmag people still watching the bonfire and headed for my house. I wasn’t much of a runner, and the journey up the hill at full speed made me winded. To reach Birdie’s more quickly, and hopefully unseen, I cut across the Sauters’ backyard. The house where Birdie played Yahtzee was the first one on our street, backing onto, as mine did, the bluff overlooking the river.

  Just as I was dodging Madge’s raised bed of stubbornly green tomatoes, a pair of gnomes in black leather jumped out of a towering incense cedar and flung a ball of fire at my head.

  Screaming briefly, I slapped my hands over my sizzling ponytail and extinguished it before I went up like a tiki torch. The two gnomes—a male and a female—began to send another blast at my head, but I released my hair, pointed the water spell at them, and sent them into the air like bowling pins.

  Gnomes hated to be knocked over because it reminded them of the manufactured statuary nonmag humans kept in their gardens. Unfortunately for them, gnomes, like turtles, had difficulty rising from their backs, especially when they were angry and had just used up their energy on sending bolts of fire at a witch.

  I hoped they would be stuck for at least five minutes and then would be too embarrassed to attack me again. Having a
lready killed one of the fae, I refused to hurt another two. What I’d seen at the river justified their anger.

  I maneuvered through several more raised beds of late-summer vegetables to reach the narrow strip of land behind Birdie’s detached garage. I put my hand on the stucco and felt a residue of magic. Now that I’d had the pleasure of spending more time with Launt, I recognized the feel of him in the lingering magic, like burnt rubber on asphalt. An unpleasant member of the fairy population for sure.

  I hurried past the garage toward the driveway, keeping myself out of sight from the house. More than common sense kept me from just walking to Birdie’s front door and ringing the bell. The magic in my veins warned me to stay away—or better yet, run. In cat form, if necessary, and then climb a very tall tree.

  If Random was in trouble, would he bark? Did he know I was outside right now?

  When I turned the corner of the garage and saw the white BMW parked in the driveway, I sucked in a breath. Phoebe was there. Phoebe with the heart as foul and grasping as any demon.

  Speaking of demon-like individuals…

  I retreated behind the garage and put my hand on the new necklace I’d strung around my neck. It wasn’t strong—the Protectorate had taken that one—but I’d worn it when I’d been an agent, and it was still attuned to my one and only prey. Since I’d let him go, we’d interacted—well, I hated to say intimately, but there was a social element to our conversations—and the magic in the beads jumped at the fresh connection it felt inside me.

  It took me less than a minute to find him. I couldn’t see him, but I sensed he was standing near the huge sycamore next to the driveway, less than twenty feet from where I stood. Distinctive power came off him in slow waves, like ripples in a lake. The Protectorate had trained me for over two years to find ripples like that so that I could sneak up behind whatever it was and kill it. “Before it killed you or anyone else,” had been the lesson, but I believed it less now than I’d ever had.