By now, I should have been used to such odd statements, but magical buckles which were objects of awesome power and also needed a bit of a break now and then, well … I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to the weirdness that was Samhain Street.
The door was closed because, according to Hamish, Bradley only took customers by appointment. There was a lovely old chain-pull bell, and I tugged at it, hearing it chime inside the shop. A few minutes later, we were still waiting.
‘Something is off,’ said Hamish. ‘He told me my hat would be ready this afternoon. It’s a good one, too. A dark shade of blue, covered in stars Bradley managed to source, which are all quite magical themselves, so that they’ll give me some extra channelling power. He was as excited about this as me. There’s no way he would have forgotten.’
Just as I lifted my fingers to ring the bell once more, I heard the sound of groaning inside the shop. ‘Help me!’ a male voice cried out. ‘I think I’m about to …’
I peered in the window and saw a guy sprawled out on the floor. He was wearing a rather dapper-looking waistcoat, some expensive leather brogues, and a tweed cap. But he wouldn’t be able to take any of his fancy clothing where he was going. He had been clutching at his chest, but now his arm dropped to his side, and he lay unmoving on the floor.
‘What is it?’ asked Hamish. ‘Why has your face gone all pale?’
I moved away from the window. ‘Is Bradley a guy who likes to wear waistcoats and tweed caps, by any chance?’
Hamish nodded worriedly.
‘Well then,’ I said, ‘I think he might be either very sick or very dead. We should call the Wayfarers.’
He jumped up beside me and stared through the window, before letting out a long and mournful howl.
≈
We stood back while the Wayfarers examined the scene. I couldn’t see the cute brunette, but Hamish informed me that it was because Wanda was a student as well as a Wayfarer. That sounded like far too busy a life. I was struggling with just the secret sleuthing part of my new job. Having to write essays on top of it seemed like a bit too much work.
Finally, one of them approached. He had a jam sandwich in his right hand and a notepad in his left, and he seemed to be having trouble distinguishing one from the other.
‘Hamish,’ he said. ‘Hat’s off to you, buddy. It’s a surprise to hear you called the Wayfarers.’
Hamish scowled. ‘Not funny, Todge.’
The Wayfarer he’d called Todge looked puzzled. ‘I wasn’t joking.’
‘You said “Hat’s off”,’ I pointed out. ‘That could be construed as kind of poor taste, given the situation.’
He scratched his head, leaving a smear of jam behind. ‘Oh, sorry.’ He quickly swallowed the rest of his sandwich before it could cause any more trouble. ‘I didn’t mean to make a joke of this. I don’t find murder remotely funny.’
I groaned. Sure, I had a feeling he was going to say it was murder, but that didn’t make it any less troubling. And if Bradley was a friend of Hamish, then no doubt he knew Diane too. Just how many more guys was I going to let her kill before I finally tracked her down? It was time to stop playing around. Shopping with Hamish had been fun, but it wasn’t going to get the job done.
‘Is your friend all right?’ Todge waved a hand in front of my face.
‘She’s fine,’ Hamish assured him. ‘She just goes off into her own world every now and then. You were saying?’
‘I was saying that Bradley Oster was murdered. With a death spell, no less. And you, an incredibly powerful wizard, just happened to be in the vicinity. A bit convenient isn’t it Hamish?’
Hamish growled. ‘What would be convenient is if one of your people could figure out who turned me into a dog, and how to turn me back. But me finding the body of one of my closest friends … no, that’s definitely not convenient.’
Todge put his hands to his waist. ‘Well, you’ve been at the scene of an awful lot of murders. Maybe you and Diane Carey are working together, killing off all her ex-boyfriends one by one. She did have a dalliance with Bradley a couple of years ago, didn’t she? And it’s well-known that you had a bit of a thing for her.’
Hamish growled again, louder this time. ‘Just go and eat another jam sandwich, will you Todge?’
The Wayfarer scowled. ‘I don’t have another jam sandwich. So I think I’ll just stand here and keep an eye on you instead.’
While we were in the middle of this standoff, Captain Finn Plimpton marched towards us.
‘I heard the tail end of that little argument, and I happen to think Todge is right,’ he said. ‘You seem to find an awful lot of dead bodies lately, Hamish. It’s beginning to look like you’re not only covering up Diane Carey’s whereabouts, but maybe you are an accomplice, too.’
‘I told you, Captain Plimpton,’ said Hamish. ‘I have no idea where Diane is. But I do know this – if you think she, or any of her friends, are responsible for these murders, then you’re barking up the wrong tree.’
Captain Plimpton smirked. ‘Seems to me you’re the only one barking around here, Hamish. Maybe if you didn’t hang around with a bunch of Samhain Street scumbags, you might not have wound up stuck as a dog.’
‘That’s hardly helpful, is it?’ I said, doing my best to glare at the captain. It was difficult, considering I’d quite liked him when we met yesterday. I just hoped my display wouldn’t prompt him to tell Ned that I’d informed him of Guillermo’s current address. ‘Diane is Hamish’s friend. He’s just as worried about her whereabouts as you. You know, I might not have been in Samhain Street long, but I sure can see why the residents of this enclave have problems coming to you.’
He quirked a brow, and his upper lip seemed to be having trouble remaining in line too. Whether he was trying to quell a scowl or a smile, I wasn’t quite sure. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Katy Kramer with a K,’ he told me. ‘Oh, and a word of warning – if you keep hanging around with these sorts of people, you’ll soon find the Wayfarers focusing some unwanted attention your way.’
17. My Thoughts on Hunting
‘Wow, thanks for sticking up for me,’ said Hamish.
I stroked his head. ‘And why wouldn’t I? You were obviously upset about your friend Bradley. They didn’t need to rub salt in your wounds.’
‘Huh.’ He gave me a scrutinizing look. ‘When I first saw you I thought “now there’s a woman who’s one day going to stab me in the back” but you’re actually kind of all right.’
‘Why thank you,’ I said with a guilty swallow. ‘So what do you want to do now? You’re probably too upset to go and look elsewhere for a hat. Maybe we could grab a drink?’
He gave me an apologetic smile. ‘I’d love to, but Ned and I have plans. She does these private visits some evenings at people’s homes, and I go along with her. We help to set things up for when they try to call their loved ones back from the dead. I’d ask you to come but … it’s quite a sensitive part of Ned’s business. I don’t think her clients would like having a stranger around. Do you think you’ll be all right on your own?’
‘Oh, I won’t be on my own. I’ll have Cleo.’ Unfortunately.
He shook his head. ‘You won’t, actually. Cleo can communicate with the dead. She always comes to these home visits with Ned and me.’
I did my best to appear disappointed. ‘Oh, that’s such a shame. Well, I think it might be a bit weird being on my own in a new place but … I’ll manage.’
≈
Ned and Hamish left shortly afterwards, with Cleo tucked under Ned’s arm. I waited a few minutes just to be sure they wouldn’t return for some forgotten item, and then I got to work, climbing up to the attic. There was a single bed up there, an old wardrobe, and some boxes filled with junk. It was clean, though, especially when compared with Uncle Faster’s attic.
I searched it from top to bottom, even checking for loose floorboards and hidden panels in the walls. I used Aunt Jude’s magnifying glass, too, just in case it revealed anyth
ing strange. But after an hour I hadn’t found anything up there – other than an awful lot of wizard hats and dog hairs.
The rest of Ned’s flat was just the same. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that they were hiding Diane Carey. But there had to be something I was missing, surely. I made myself a strong cup of tea with three sugars, and thought long and hard as I drank. I was just on my very last slurp of tea when it came to me – Aunt Jude’s notebooks.
Excited, I went to my room, unlocked the Toolkit, and pulled one out. I flipped desperately through, skimming a few passages as I went. For one thing, she knew (unlike Faster) that weredogs were peace-loving vegans. She also knew what warlocks were, and wizards.
I silently cursed myself, wishing I hadn’t wasted so much time reading Uncle Faster’s manuals. Finally, I came to a section that might be of use. It was called: My Thoughts on Hunting.
I leafed through. It seemed to be a series of essays, and some of them were just rough drafts. There wasn’t a single page that actually detailed how to find a witch. I was just about to pack it away and reach for another notebook when I noticed the name of the last essay in the My Thoughts on Hunting section. It was entitled: Witches Do Not Have Green Skin or Warty Noses.
I began to read with interest:
It’s high time that we witch hunters got our facts straight. Yes, witches are capable of using glamours and doppelganger spells, with which they can change their appearance. But their everyday appearance is not the result of such an enchantment. Witches look just like you and I. They’re not hiding some demonic true-self beneath.
The aim, for this hunter, is not to track down all witches. I am only interested in tracking down witches who have actually done wrong. And honestly? The ratio of bad witches to good witches is about the same as the ratio of bad humans to good humans. The only way to get to know which witches are worthy of punishment is to spend time with them, become part of their world. Before we even think of using our most damaging and lethal measures, we–
I broke off reading, hearing a sudden crash coming from outside my room.
‘Fluff!’ I said in a whisper, sitting up. It could be Ned, Hamish and Cleo, but for some reason I didn’t think so. For one thing, they’d be chatting. For another, if it were them, then why were the hairs on the back of my neck straightening up in panic?
My mind raced as I decided the best thing to do. This could go wrong. Very wrong. If it did, then I didn’t want Aunt Jude’s Toolkit falling into the wrong hands. I carefully placed everything back in, and closed it tightly. I hoped Uncle Faster was right when he said no one but a hunter could open a Toolkit.
The Soul-Sucker and the navy binder were both in my handbag, so I slung the bag over my shoulder and crept out of the room. I saw her straight away: the beautiful Diane Carey, standing by the fridge.
She jumped, bumping her head and spilling a carton of milk, turning around with a little shriek.
For a moment, we just stared at one another. Finally, Diane said, ‘Well. So you’re Katy, then.’ Her eyes were round with fright. ‘Although I have to say, I expected you to capture me, not to point that sharp-looking knife my way.’
My eyes widened. I hadn’t even felt my hand go to the hilt of the Soul-Sucker knife, but I was holding onto it, just like she said, and pointing it her way. And there was something very, very wrong about that. Uncle Faster said that all I’d have to do was throw this in a witch’s direction, and the witch would automatically catch it and feel a deep, dark well of soul-sucking depression, a depression so severe that they would use that very knife to cut their own throats. But what he didn’t tell me was that it would give me the urge to let such a horrific thing happen.
‘I know what you think,’ she went on, nervously. ‘You think I’m the bad guy. You think I’m a murderer.’
Well, duh. Witches are supposed to be the bad guys, right? I mean, that’s what my uncle taught me. Witches hurt people. They have hearts as cold as ice.
I bit my lip. If that were really true, then how come the ones I’d gotten to know seemed, well … kind of all right? I thought about the fun I’d had with Hamish. I thought about Ned, and her heartbreak over Guillermo. I thought about the Wayfarers, and how they only seemed to want to do right. I thought about Aunt Jude, and the fact that she knew so much more than Uncle Faster, or any other hunter in our family. She was who I should be learning from.
And as for the one I was about to kill? I might not know her, but I was getting a strong and unignorable feeling in my gut, a feeling that everything I knew about this woman was wrong …
Unfortunately, the knife didn’t seem to agree with me. Although the only thing I wanted to do right now was call the Wayfarers and get out of here for good, thoughts were beginning to form in my mind – thoughts that were definitely not my own. Something was twisting my feelings, making me want to chuck the knife her way. All I had to do was slide it along the floor, and then she’d do the rest herself. She’d …
I shook my head, tightening my grip. But the knife … it began to whisper in my mind, telling me everything Uncle Faster had told me. That witches were the bad guys. That they needed to be eradicated, at any cost.
I shook my head again, banging at my ear. ‘You … you killed all those guys,’ I said to Diane. ‘Almost every guy who’s ever gotten close to you winds up dead. You’re telling me that’s a coincidence?’
‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Well … no. I mean, I doubt it’s a coincidence but it’s also not my doing. I didn’t do it. Any of it. You have to believe me, Katy.’
‘You called me Katy a minute ago as well. How do you know my name? You have been here all along, haven’t you? Ned and Hamish have been hiding you somehow.’
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied, not very convincingly. ‘You can do whatever you want to me, but please don’t bring my friends into this. They have no involvement whatsoever. They’re good people.’
In my mind, a hissing voice began to say, ‘Good people? A necromancer and a dark wizard, that’s what they are. And this one … this one is the worst. Throw me, now. Just gently throw me along the floor, and I’ll make Diane do the rest.’
With my hand shaking, I squeezed the knife harder.
‘You have to believe me, Katy. Someone is setting me up. I’ve tried to stay in hiding so I can find out who it is. And I’m so close to the truth. I can’t be captured by you. I won’t be captured by you.’
Just as I was wondering what the heck to do, I felt my body grow suddenly sleepy. Before I knew what was happening, I was falling to the ground.
18. Demon Detector
I blinked awake. Something was binding my wrists – an old rusted pair of manacles by the looks of things. I was seated on one of Ned’s comfy armchairs, and the air in front of me shimmered.
‘Didn’t take long for you to come to, did it?’ said a male voice.
‘Jonathan?’ My eyes were heavy and clouded, but they were beginning to clear. It was definitely Jonathan. He was pacing up and down a few feet in front of me.
‘You won’t be able to move from the chair,’ he informed me with a smirk. ‘We’ve got you in an Insitu spell.’
‘I have no idea what that is,’ I said, struggling to sit straighter. ‘What did you do to me? Did you knock me out with something?’
‘Don’t come the innocent with us. You probably know a lot more spells than we do.’
‘We?’ Still a little groggy, I looked around the room. Although Jonathan was the one doing the talking, he wasn’t alone. Ned, Hamish and Diane were standing huddled at the kitchen counter. Cleo was sitting on top of the counter, staring curiously at me. As for the others … I couldn’t tell what they were thinking right now.
But I knew what I was thinking. I was thinking that I was an idiot. Diane’s sudden appearance had been a trap. I’d gone from being the hunter to the hunted, and it did not feel good.
‘Probably wondering how we just sprang upon you, all of a sudden?’ Jonathan moved closer to me
, his smirk growing all the more irritating. ‘We were here the whole time, matter of fact. Used a spell of Ned’s to conceal ourselves, so we did. We watched you searching the place top to bottom, and then we saw you waving this thing at Diane.’ He was holding the Soul-Sucker knife in his hands. ‘That’s when the others finally started to believe what I’ve been telling them all along. You, Katy Kramer, are a Wayfarer spy.’
‘What?’ I gaped around, trying to wrench my wrists apart, but all I did was hurt myself some more. ‘I’m not a Wayfarer. What are these things you’ve got me in? They’re like some sort of medieval torture device.’
‘They’re disempowerment shackles,’ said Jonathan. ‘We might not have fancy-schmancy devices like you Wayfarers, but we make do.’
‘Why would you disempower someone who doesn’t even have any power? And why do you keep calling me a Wayfarer?’
Hamish padded his way to the rug and looked up at me. ‘I didn’t want to believe it, but I saw you turning this place upside down with my own eyes, Katy. You’re a Wayfarer spy, sent in here to find Diane and arrest her.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I wanted to trust you, I really did. I had so much fun with you today. And when you defended me to Finn Plimpton … boy that felt good. But it was all just part of your act, wasn’t it? Jonathan was right about you all along. It was his idea to set you up, and I’m glad we did. If we hadn’t, you would have arrested Diane.’
A Magical Trio Page 42