by Ruby Loren
I opened my mouth and then shut it again. The memory of Jesse panicking when I’d lassoed both Kieran and him with my magic, in the midst of their fight, resurfaced. Something told me that the truth might not be the most sensible option.
“I found it. I was on my way back to the scene of the crime. It was just lying on the ground.”
Kieran gave me a look that let me know he didn’t believe my terrible lie for a second, but all he said was: “Amazing what some people leave lying around in the forest.”
“Why does it smell like demon in here?” Hemlock muttered, trotting into the clearing and stopping. “Forget I asked.”
I pushed past the vampire and looked at the place where Hellion and the monster had previously been. The circle was gone and so was the swirling energy void. To the naked eye, the only thing different about that patch in the clearing was that the grass had mysteriously died, but using witch sight you could still see where the last few remnants of the evil that had been there continued to suck any energy downwards - the same thing that had happened the last time someone had died over a summoning circle.
“What are you doing out in the forest?” I asked Kieran, realising that he’d come out of nowhere.
He shrugged. “I was doing some investigating of my own. You’re not the only one interested in this murder. However, I wasn’t expecting to come across a magician summoning a demon.”
“Hellion always said he was experienced in the dark arts. I don’t understand,” I told the vampire.
He shrugged again. “Even those with experience underestimate summoning. If you’ve worked in hexes and curses your whole life you might think you’ve got what it takes, but you have to be mentally strong to deal with that kind of power. And let me ask you this, do you think that someone who dealt in petty revenge was mentally strong?”
“You seem to know an awful lot about magic.”
“For a vampire, you mean? You forget. I’ve been around a very long time. There comes a point when there’s not much more to do than learn what you can, both about the world and the unseen world.” His black eyes narrowed for a second as he regarded me and the scythe. “But there’s always something new to see. If you look hard enough.”
I deliberately ignored what he was getting at. “I just don’t understand why he’d summon a demon, unless… oh.”
Kieran raised his eyebrows at me.
I debated not saying anything more, especially to the man who seemed to have an axe to grind with Jesse Heathen, but Hemlock was right - what loyalty did I really owe to Jesse?
“I saw Hellion the other day. He said that he’d been trying to curse Jesse because he stole Hellion’s girlfriend.” I rolled my eyes to show what I thought of that. “Apparently, nothing he did worked. Jesse showed no ill effects. Perhaps he got desperate and thought that this would be an answer to his problems.”
“You’re probably correct. Men will go to the most extraordinary lengths for very ordinary reasons.”
“Let me guess… you’ve got to be old to see how stupid it all is,” I sniped.
Kieran’s lips curved up into a smile. “Something like that. At least his death closed the gate. If there hadn’t been a sacrifice, that thing might have gone free, and keeping demons on a leash is not something that you can learn from a spell book. Speaking of which…” He bent down and picked up a small book from the forest floor. I hadn’t even noticed it before, but it looked like something Hellion would have owned. Its cover was blood red leather and there was something about the texture of it that hinted to me it might not have belonged to a regular farm animal.
“I guess Hellion Grey will be one more name on the list of missing persons from Wormwood,” I concluded before looking back up at Kieran. “have fun with the rest of your investigation.” I filled my words with all of the contempt he deserved. We both knew that I was lying to him and he was lying straight back to me. I turned and walked towards the edge of the clearing.
“Hazel! I know you don’t trust me, but I’m not out to do you harm. I could have let you get sucked into that gateway.”
I stopped walking and considered the scythe I was still holding. There was something dark and deadly about it. I sensed that it was different from the other weapons I’d pulled from the other place. This one was special. “You should have left me to it. I might have surprised you,” I said over my shoulder. It was my pride talking, and I shouldn’t have said it, but something about Kieran got under my skin. Especially when I didn’t believe he’d been in the forest to check out the murder scene at all. I suspected he’d been following me.
My grip tightened on the shaft of the scythe. I turned back to him. “What are you really doing in Wormwood?”
“That is between me, the mayor, and Jesse Heathen. Have you tried asking him?”
I stalked out of the clearing with the sound of Kieran laughing quietly to himself in my ears.
“Please tell me you’re not thinking of taking him out on a date?” Hemlock said, trotting to keep up with me.
I frowned down at him. “Did that look friendly to you?”
“No, but… it’s not like you have options.”
I vented my anger by flinging the scythe away into the bushes. It wasn’t like it had been useful. I should have tried it on Kieran, I suddenly thought. Waste not, want not…
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not going to the police about what you found in the cabin?”
I ran a hand through my brown hair. “There are too many unanswered questions. I just need to do a little more digging, then I’ll tell the detective everything.”
“Including the fact you just saw a man dragged down into who knows where by something he summoned to get even with a man, who probably deserved to be on the wrong end of that demon?”
I shot another glance down at my black cat. “Since when are you not Jesse Heathen’s number one fan? I thought he charmed you along with the rest of us?”
“I was never charmed. I’m immune to charm. I’m a cat.”
I snorted. What Hemlock meant was that he had been charmed, and now he hated himself for it… which meant he hated Jesse, too.
“As much as I detest watching you stumble from bad potential partner to worse potential partner, I’m supposed to help you to navigate the stormy waters of being a witch. And I’m saying that Jesse is bad news, and you definitely shouldn’t go to his house to confront him about any of this.”
“What makes you think I’m going there for him? Natalia’s the one who needs to fess up.” I frowned. “I’m not looking for a boyfriend!”
“Right. Because you already have a perfectly nice and perfectly ordinary fake one.”
“Exactly,” I told Hemlock before stalking a little faster. Hopefully some brisk exercise would keep him quiet and stop him from pointing out uncomfortable truths.
I was not looking for a boyfriend - especially not a boyfriend who kept secrets from me. And that ruled out pretty much everyone in Wormwood.
I banged on the door of the Ghoul residence. It was well past the witching hour, but murder couldn’t wait.
Natalia opened the door looking like she hadn’t been to bed yet. In fact, it looked like she hadn’t been to bed for a couple of days.
“What do you want?” she said, her voice even lacking its usual venomous bite. “If you’re looking for Jesse, he isn’t here.” Something about the way she said it sounded final and terrible.
“Did something happen to him?” I asked, completely distracted.
“No, you idiot. He dumped me. Our relationship wasn’t even a real relationship, and he still dumped me! Can you believe that? I’ve been working on a curse to use on him for two nights straight.”
“Don’t bother. It won’t work,” I said, thinking of Hellion’s own attempts and Jesse’s protection charm. “And don’t try to summon anything to do your dirty work for you.”
Natalia frowned at me. “Ew. As if. I don’t even care that much. It’s just, how dare he use me when
I was using him?” She tossed her sheet of shiny dark hair before staring at me. “What are you doing just standing there? Get lost!”
“Are you sure you’re not having sleepless nights because you murdered Bridgette Spellsworth, and your plan to frame Jesse for murder has just been derailed?”
Natalia’s mouth dropped open for a second. “That is so typical. Why would I have wanted that old witch dead? I didn’t like her, but…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but I mentally did it for her. If Natalia decided to kill everyone she didn’t like, there wouldn’t be many people left alive in Wormwood.
“Then why were you paying her off? She was blackmailing you, wasn’t she?”
Natalia folded her arms and looked down her nose at me. “You’re an expert on blackmailing the Ghoul family, from what my mother heavily hints. I haven’t killed you… yet.”
“I’m hoping you’ll try it one of these days,” I said, getting my claws out. “You own that cabin in Wormwood Forest, don’t you?”
Natalia looked confused for a moment. I’d thrown her. But I’d been hoping for guilt. “You mean the place where the witches go for fun and frolics in nature? It’s owned by Heather, but she lets the whole coven use it. Have you not had your invite yet? That figures. No one wants to trust a Salem.”
“Thanks for the help. I’ll let the police know that you were being blackmailed, and that I found something incriminating that points directly to you being the killer. I was hoping that there was a logical explanation, but I suppose it’s as obvious as it looks…” I turned to walk away.
“Stop. What did you find?”
I smiled, my face hidden from view.
“I didn’t do it. I didn’t do anything to her. I just paid.”
“What did she have on you?” I asked again.
Natalia rolled her eyes. “As if I would tell you! If it will get you to go away and stop lowering the house prices in this street with your presence, I’ll tell you this much… When I was young and foolish, I went to Bridgette to learn fortunetelling. Whilst I was there, Bridgette noticed something about me… something I was carrying around, to be more specific, and then she made what I now believe to have been a guess. But… as I said, I was young and foolish. I thought she knew something she almost certainly didn’t know, and I played right into her scaly claws. Since then, I’ve made regular contributions to her retirement fund, as she liked to call it. I never went back for any more tutoring. Over the years I tried to subtly make her life a little more tricky - the way she had done to me. An eye for an eye. I didn’t kill her. She was good at seeing things that other people didn’t notice and spotting patterns that others ignored. Everyone in town’s always known she wasn’t psychic, but no one could say anything against her, or the truth would come out. I’m sure that will all change now that she’s dead.”
“Unless she had some sort of failsafe in the case of her unforeseen death. Blackmailers usually do. She might have something in place to release all of the dirt she has on people a couple of weeks, or even months after her death.” I smiled sweetly at Natalia. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
It didn’t come as a surprise when she slammed the door in my face.
I turned and walked back down the street. The scent of the fresh new morning was in the air, but I felt no tiredness in my bones. The night wasn’t over yet, and I needed to go back to where this mystery had first begun, at the heart of Wormwood Forest. I checked my phone and reflected that I might already be too late. But I had to answer a question that had been bothering me ever since I’d seen the mayor in conversation with the vampire.
I slipped a hand inside my pocket, feeling the cold metal of the silver coin. It was time to return to Wormwood Forest and see if the local devil would come out to play.
It might have been because of the brightening sky, or that I’d left Hemlock at home before going over to confront Natalia, but I found my way through the trees easily this time. It wasn’t long before I was climbing up the steep incline and breaking free of the trees that marked where the Devil’s Jumps began.
Then, with no little trepidation, I placed the coin down on the rock where the cauldron and the coin had been. The more I thought about it, the more certain I was that the cauldron had been old and the deal had yet to be made. Perhaps Bridgette had waited on this very rock, hoping to meet with the same thing I hoped to see before the dawn broke.
I’d been waiting for an hour when I heard footsteps approaching from behind. For one chilling moment, I thought about Bridgette and the person responsible for stabbing her in the back. Had I made a terrible mistake of coming here and waiting for a killer?
“I guess we both had the same idea. Go back and look where it all began,” Jesse Heathen said from behind me.
I turned to face him and picked up the silver coin I’d laid down on the rock. “Or did you come to collect this?”
“You found another coin? Weird.”
“What’s weird is that you showed up after I left a silver coin in a place that the local lore has it a devil must come and exchange an old something for a new something,” I told him.
A slanted smile appeared on his face. “I don’t see anything to exchange, unless you were hoping to exchange yourself?”
“I’m here to exchange lies for truths, starting with what you have to do with all of this. And don’t just disappear,” I said, having been keeping an eye on the way Jesse was moving. I knew the signs.
“Do you think I killed her?” he asked.
“No, I don’t. But I do think that maybe… you’re not who you’re pretending to be.” I still didn’t want to say what I really thought out loud. It sounded too ridiculous.
“What you’ve just said applies to half the population of Wormwood. Who do you think I am?” Something dark flashed across his amber eyes, but I thought I might have finally got the measure of Jesse Heathen.
I bit my tongue and then I finally said it. “I don’t think you’re human. I think you might be a devil, whatever, exactly, that may be.”
Jesse raised his eyebrows. “Interesting theory. Do you have evidence to support it?”
“Well… you’ve just turned up in the middle of nowhere for the second time in a row when a silver coin has been present. Plus, I’ve spoken to my aunts about how easy it is to disappear at will. It’s supposed to require a lot of effort. It should wipe you out magically for a long time, and it’s definitely not a piece of magic any normal magician would use the way you do - which is recklessly and at will. In my mind, that leaves only one more possibility - that for you, it must be a talent. Perhaps it’s the same for all of your kind.”
Jesse’s dark eyebrows rose even higher. “Wow. Is that everything you have? Your magic theory is interesting, but easy to dispel. Look at your own talents… do they fit in with normal witches’ magic?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t even know what makes my magic different, but I do know that I’m just an average person apart from my magical quirk.”
“Really? Because I heard on the local grapevine that you don’t know who your father is.”
“Do you have an idea about that?” I tried to keep the hope out of my voice. This conversation was supposed to be an accusation, an attack that I hoped would push Jesse into telling me the truth that he was hiding. It was not supposed to be about me.
“I know what you’re saying, but I’m guessing we just both got lucky when it came to our unusual eye colour. But… perhaps it does mark us as people with remarkable talents.”
I frowned. “I’ve never seen the colour of your magic. Why not?”
Jesse flashed his white teeth. “I’m just a magician with unusual talents. It’s what makes me such a great private detective, which is why I came up here tonight, by the way. I set up sensors after I was released from police questioning. Did you know that the easiest way to catch a killer is when they return to the scene of the crime? With modern technology, it’s easy to keep your eyes everywhere.” He pulled his
phone out of his pocket and showed me the screen and the notification that read ‘Sensor 4 triggered’ in big red writing.
“How convenient,” I said with a sardonic smile.
“I can’t think of another logical explanation for why I’d be out in the middle of the forest before the break of dawn.” Jesse walked over and sat down, patting the rock next to him.
After a moment of hesitation, I gave in and sat down next to him. I knew when I’d been outplayed. I also had no doubt that Jesse had achieved everything he’d hoped to achieve. He’d placed doubt in my mind, and now I was back to being lost in a mire of possible truths with no concrete evidence or answers.
“I thought Natalia was the one who killed Bridgette,” I told Jesse.
“You tried to point the finger at her as soon as the police asked you if you had any idea who might have wanted Bridgette dead.”
“Sure. But I thought I’d found evidence and a motive.” I looked sideways at him, before stopping myself from saying any more. Jesse was easy to talk to, but it was just another part of his charm. It was as Hemlock had said - why did I keep looking out for Jesse Heathen when I owed him nothing?
“All right, Nancy Drew. I won’t pry into your investigation. Has that vampire given you any trouble after…?”
“…After you were going to kill each other on the roof of the town hall? Kind of. He turned up earlier tonight when I was trying to save Hellion from the demon he’d summoned. Kieran thought he was saving me, but I think I could have saved Hellion.”
“Why? I mean… why would you want to save a man like that?”
I thought about it. I really thought about it. “No one should have to die in that way. Hellion had done some bad things, but it’s never too late for a person to change their ways. It might have been the wakeup call he needed, but now we’ll never know.”