by Holly Ice
They talked for another few minutes. ‘Jonathon Goode,’ Shauna said, slipping the phone back into her bag.
I whistled. Gossips existed everywhere. ‘So who’s Jonathon Goode?’
She grinned. ‘The man we need to ask for answers. Let’s go.’
‘You know where he lives?’ Shane asked.
Yeah, surprised me, too. The rumour mill wasn’t usually that accurate.
‘Throw a stone from the busiest witch bar, and you’ll always find a Goode,’ she said.
Brilliant. An alcoholic. My day was getting better and better.
Chapter 18
The nearest witch bar was three towns over and more club than bar.
From the faded lettering, the tall stone building used to be a factory, but the windows now had curtains to keep out the outside world. Bass thumped through the tag-covered walls, a sure sign you’d lose reality within.
All the graffiti didn’t bode well for the clientele, but they had a bouncer – a witch in his thirties with jet-black hair and a human familiar, who lounged around the side of the building, watching the other door.
‘Adam, how is your sister doing?’ Shauna asked, walking around him to open the door.
He caught her wrist. ‘You’re never that nice to me. And you never slum it all the way out here.’ He narrowed his eyes at the rest of us. ‘What are you up to?’
Ivy flicked her hair back. ‘A party, stupid. This place is the only thing to pass for entertainment out here. Who’s singing tonight?’
‘I don’t buy it.’
She was laying it on a bit thick.
He crossed his arms and blocked the door. His familiar did the same on the side door, more for effect than any practical use.
‘I think you’d better go,’ Adam said.
Shauna squared off with him. ‘You have no reason to block our entry.’
‘And I don’t care. You’re up to something, and I don’t want to deal with it.’
I moved under the security light, giving him a good view of my face. ‘How about you let us in?’
His eyes boggled. ‘You! You shouldn’t be anywhere without your guards.’
Well, so much for the fear factor.
Shane stuck to my side, while Shauna ran for the side door and burst through Adam’s familiar to enter the building.
Scowling, the familiar tore after her.
‘Where is your guard?’ the bouncer snapped, his phone already in his hand.
I waved Inzi out from the shadows.
She showed him her WMCF badge. ‘Present and accounted for.’
That threat dealt with, the bouncer cursed and chased Shauna, but she was already lost in the crowd, with a head start. If she evaded his familiar, she had a decent chance of pulling this off.
I wavered. Should I go in and help?
Shane put his arm around my shoulders. ‘I know you want to join the fun, but you’re better off on the sidelines for now.’
He was right. There’d be hundreds of witches in there who might do far worse than yell at me.
‘This way,’ Ivy said, ‘we wait in the car.’
We piled in and waited. And waited.
Fifteen minutes later, Adam reprised his role on the door, looking a wee bit sheepish. But there was no sign of Shauna.
Twenty minutes later, Ivy’s phone chirped. She unclasped her hands long enough to read the message and then drove at speed to the side door.
‘Open the back door!’ Ivy yelled.
I opened it just in time.
Shauna dragged a man who matched the one from my vision of Valerie. She stuffed him into the car ahead of her and clambered in. It was a tight squeeze with six of us, and now we had a seventh, unconscious over our laps. Definitely not legal.
Ivy drove off as Shauna was shutting the door.
Our new lead wouldn’t talk for a while. He was out cold. ‘What did you do to him?’
She shrugged. ‘Tequila. Didn’t take much. He was already a mess.’
I sighed and buckled my seatbelt around him with some work. I didn’t want him flying through the windscreen. Without me, he’d be safely enjoying tonight’s music rather than speeding down a highway.
We stopped the car on an empty stretch of road and dragged our hostage out, propping him against the tyres.
Shauna tapped his face.
He didn’t wake, so she kicked him.
Still no joy.
Inzi smacked the guy, whipping his head to the side.
He called out, his eyes snapping open, and rubbed his jaw. ‘I can pay next week!’
Shane and I glanced at each other. How had this wretch come to be holding that letter?
‘You’re in luck,’ Shauna said. ‘We’re not here for your money. We might even pay you for the right information.’
He straightened. ‘What’d you lovely ladies want from me?’
Gross. I dangled the envelope in front of his nose. ‘Seen this before?’
He went to take it, but I snatched it back. Couldn’t have him contaminating the evidence.
‘Looks vaguely familiar.’
Inzi slapped him again. ‘We’re not paying you anything until you tell us what you know.’
He rubbed his head and frowned, eyes squinted as if trying to remember. ‘I met someone. He got between me and a beating, gave them money to leave me alone. He asked me to deliver that letter.’ He smirked. ‘Course I had it arranged.’
‘With your ex-girlfriend. How’d you do that, cretin, hit her?’ Shane asked. ’She’s terrified of you.’
He spat on the ground. ‘Asking the whore nicely has no effect.’
Now I wanted to slap him. ‘What did the guy who talked to you look like?’
‘I dunno. Dark hair. Kind of tall.’
‘Descriptive.’
‘Shit me, I was drunk, woman! I can’t catalogue everything about everyone I meet.’
And there were his true colours, shining through. ‘Not even the man who gets you out of a beating and a debt?’
He shrugged.
I’d think he was lying, but he hadn’t recognised me yet.
Inzi unsheathed a knife and placed the tip under his chin. ‘You got a name for this man?’
‘Didn’t ask.’
Blood trickled along her blade. ‘You’re sure?’
He swallowed hard. ‘Positive.’
‘And you have nothing he gave you?’ I asked.
We still had the penny-pinching tracker, snoring in the back seat. If he had anything, we could use it. Either to track it or to try for a vision.
‘No. He paid the guys who were after me. He only gave me the letter.’
I wouldn’t trust this drunken dobber to remember where to take a letter. ‘Search him,’ I said.
Inzi dragged him to his feet. Shane held him still while she searched him, pulling out all his pockets.
He had ten Euros on him and scrunched receipts.
Inzi went through them. ‘All for the pub… wait. This one has handwriting on the back.’
Our captive cursed and twisted in Inzi’s hold, stretching to grab it back.
Inzi kicked him in the balls. He collapsed to the ground, spent.
I was so right to like her.
I’m glad she’s on your side.
Me, too.
‘You didn’t want us to find that note?’ Shauna asked. ‘Why not?’
‘He said it had to be secret,’ he gasped, cradling his groin. ‘Couldn’t trace it back to him, or I’d pay for it.’
Inzi waved the note with a flutter. ‘Then this is exactly what our tracker needs.’
‘Mabel! We need you!’ Ivy yelled.
Inzi shook the older lady awake and put the note in her hands.
She yawned and turned it over. ‘Different signature. Faint, like they kept from touching the note, but I can follow it if we go now.’
Ivy jutted her chin towards our rubbered friend. ‘Do we still need him?’
I blew out my breath. Getting
rid of him saved us time and energy and freed much-needed space in the car.
‘Leave him here,’ Shauna said. She got in the car.
Sounded good to me. He’d dug his own hole with his debts, drunkenness, and dumping his problems at his ex-girlfriend’s door.
The rest of us piled in the car and drove off before our drunk friend tried the handles. With a bit of walking, he’d get to a village and find his own way home. He might even be sober by then.
* * *
We drove most the night, Shauna and Ivy taking turns to kip or drive, the tracker often turning us around or sending us back on ourselves.
The note writer had disguised their trail. Or our tracker was trying to get more money again. Hard to tell. But I doubted she’d try that twice in one job. She’d ruin her reputation.
But I finally felt like we were getting somewhere when we turned off a back road and onto a muddy track that ended in something like a car park. Couldn’t be much farther now.
Shauna stopped the car, and we all got out, staring at our tracker.
She turned full circle, pausing at a number of points, checking, rechecking.
‘This way,’ she said.
She led us into the trees on what was nothing more than an animal track. Shauna walked with her, using her phone to light the way.
A car park in the middle of the woods gave me the creeps. Where we were going now was anyone’s guess.
‘I don’t like this,’ Inzi said. ‘We should’ve come back in daylight, with Perry.’
‘He’s not a big fan of road trips,’ I said.
Shane grunted beside me, his gaze glued to the trees. He didn’t feel comfortable here either.
He was a great protector, but I wouldn’t have said no to Grim’s help if he was willing. I didn’t want to see Shane get hurt again, chasing whoever sent this letter. But we hadn’t had time to ask Grim and wait for his arrival. The signature was so faint we couldn’t afford to wait.
We still might lose this guy and we didn’t have the resources for a wider, more intensive man hunt. Those women were relying on us to fix this. To find them and show the whole community what the McKees had done for power.
Our tracker hesitated. ‘The trail is so, so thin here…’
Inzi blinked away from my side and reappeared by Shauna, then to each side of our group. ‘I don’t see anything. You’re sure it ends here?’
‘Well, I can’t see another track. So yes. And don’t think I’m lying. I’m not walking into the woods in the middle of nowhere just to stand here all night. It’s freezing.’
Ivy looked to the clear night sky. ‘They must be loving this, leading us on this merry chase. They probably even have cameras, watching us.’ She waved at the trees. ‘Hello! Do you see us? You enjoy this, do you? Well, I’m going to find you. It may take a while, but I will. Avery didn’t die for nothing.’
Shauna caught her sister and pulled her into a hug. ‘Of course she didn’t die for nothing.’ She eyed me over her sister’s shoulder. ‘Avery made sure the people held with her would be found, that her being held would be taken seriously. She saved so many by running, Ivy.’
Ivy sniffed, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Not herself, though. Why couldn’t she do that?’
My heart broke for her.
Shauna kept her arm around her sister and helped her back to the car. ‘I think it’s time to call it a night.’
‘I’m done tracking?’ Mabel asked.
‘For now.’
Inzi led us, eyeing the trees. ‘No sign of cameras or anyone else out here.’
The trees stopped at the car park in a set line, and my gut stayed on the line when I walked into the open. There had to be something here for someone to go through so much effort making a clearing.
‘Is there anywhere else they’d have gone? Anything on a map or online?’ I asked.
Shane checked his phone, the light on his face ruining my night vision.
‘Either way, enough for one night.’ Shauna unlocked the car and bundled her sister into the passenger seat, but I couldn’t leave until I knew what aether wanted me to.
I searched for Inzi. A thump drew my gaze. She’d crumpled to the ground, out cold.
All my hair stood on end, every shadow in my frantic glance around looking like teeth or a towering man. Who the hell took Inzi out?
Her hands clutched at her throat, but her chest was still moving.
I ran for the car, but Shauna and Ivy were slumped over the passenger side, darts sticking out of their chests. And no footsteps ran with me.
No.
Shane was on the floor, his phone just out of reach. Mabel sprawled beside him, her head bleeding.
They’d picked them all off. I wanted to scream, but I could barely breathe. They’d left me for last. And I could only imagine what they wanted me for.
I stole the car keys out of Shauna’s hand, yanked open the driver’s-side door, and froze at the sound of footsteps. Close footsteps.
Slowly, I turned to find three stone-faced men. Who the hell were they?
All wore black. Not the same gear as the WMCF, but they were dangerous. They’d taken Inzi out with ease, and the air around them prickled like it had with Grim.
The first punched my nose.
My head spun. I stepped back and bounced off the car but I didn’t have time to recover.
Another man kneed my stomach.
I doubled over, gasping.
The third smashed my face into his knee.
I threw my hands out. Air pushed my attackers back a few metres.
One stared at me, a furrow in his brow, and I couldn’t breathe. Not from panic. I tried to heave in breath but got no air. He must be blocking my oxygen.
I fought his steely control but got nowhere. This must be the man who’d bested Inzi.
His lanky height and those strangely narrow shoulders tickled something in my memory.
My heart pounded, a flash of a photograph slamming over my mind’s eye. He looked like the other suspect in Justin’s murder.
I threw fire, but it hit an invisible barrier. If I went with them, they’d kill me. I had to do something.
A dart pinched my shoulder.
I tried to scrunch the ground beneath their feet, knock them off balance, but they barely moved.
The men advanced again.
I had to keep them away. But my hands weren’t working, or my legs. I tried to imagine the magic I wanted, but my vision was going fuzzy at the edges, and I couldn’t connect to Lyall.
A moment later I was on the ground, my muscles crying out at the hard jolt. I was so weak, so defenceless.
Footsteps rushed forward as the world went black. But I was as trapped as I was the day Justin found me and forced me on the plane to magic school.
Chapter 19
I gagged hard, the salty, back-of-the-throat stench of human waste clogging my lungs. That reeked. So bad it seared my nose and I tasted it on my tongue.
What happened, and why did it smell so bad?
My face felt puffy and stung, but I prised open my eyes. My chest tightened. No, not this. Not again.
I was alone, trapped in a cell identical to the ones in my visions. I couldn’t go back to being a prisoner. Especially like this.
Not even Lyall was here. Where was he? I tried to connect to him and failed.
Then the night came back to me.
Groaning, I rolled to a sitting position and prodded my bruises. I grunted. Not good. They must’ve wailed on me after I was out.
But somehow I wasn’t dead. I’d faced Justin’s murderer and survived. Why? The photo the human had taken was blurry, but he had to have known there was a chance I’d recognise him. The resemblance was loose enough not to matter in court, but why risk it?
I shook my head. They wanted to catch me. The letter trail was too obvious, and the fading signature was a dead giveaway. They didn’t just arrange delivery of the letter days in advance, they’d planned this whole thing –
to draw us into a trap.
Why not just kill me? And where were the others? Were they here? In their own cell with a thin foam mattress that gave me serious déjà vu?
‘Hello? Can anyone hear me? Shane? Inzi?’
Nothing. Had they left my friends behind?
The cell didn’t tell me much. A bucket by the bed held leftover waste from the previous resident, whoever had been chucked out to make room for me.
The room was smaller than I remembered, the walls glaring down at me. But from all the similarities to my visions, the McKees had to have me.
But again, why capture me? They hated me. I should be dead.
I shivered, my skin pimpling. ‘Why am I here?’
My shoes were missing and the floor was biting cold without them, but I hauled to my feet and walked the perimeter of my cell, searching the corners for cameras.
I didn’t find anything. I guess watching their captives all day wouldn’t be much fun.
‘Hello?’ I pounded my fist on the spelled door.
Still nothing.
I even tried throwing magic at it, but the tiny fireball dispersed on impact, useless.
Energy flagging, I fell against the wood. The room spun. Whatever was in those darts had to be strong.
Wobbly, I returned to the bed and leaned on the wall until the world stopped moving.
This place was smaller, and colder, than my prison cell. My heart squeezed. I couldn’t go back to that place again. Never being sure from one minute to the next what my fate might be, all those questions about how I came to be there and how I’d get out scarring ruts into my brain.
And yet here I was. I bit my lip, closed my eyes, and took deep, slow breaths, until the panic went.
Then I sank into my meditative state, but there were no lights. Darkness, as far as I could reach. No one to call for help.
I smacked the bed so hard my hand thumped. That’d bruise.
Lyall? Can you hear me?
The drugs had to be affecting our connection, but they were wearing off. And he could boost my power to help me look farther away. If I got through.
Are you done sulking?
Lyall at full volume. Good.
Where are you?