“Could it have been sold perhaps?” Sheriff Black Water asked.
Penny shook her head vehemently. “Not that necklace. It’s not for sale. That one has a history and none of us would dare sell it,” she replied. “This will have been the second time it’s been stolen.”
Immediately a memory of the necklace Crow Woman had worn flashed in my head, a large amber setting that had contained her power. Her body hadn’t been found. Only that necklace lay in the place where we had seen her die. I knew in an instant that that was the necklace Penny was talking about. I’d heard the elders hadn’t been sure what to do with it once they brought it back. Thinking it now void of magic, apparently they’d put it beneath the counter in the shop with the turquoise in hopes of keeping it safe. And now someone had stolen it. Someone who knew its history.
Someone who wanted the power it once held. Every fiber in my being warned me that it had to be someone I knew.
8
A COUPLE OF hours had passed before I finally made it home. In an effort to help, I’d stayed at the gift shop while the sheriff and Anita dusted the glass cases in hopes of finding fingerprints. When they finished, I helped Penny put the gift shop back in to place. While she straightened out the jewelry and arranged the displays, I lifted the book rack off the ground and picked up the contents off the floor.
As I smoothed the cover of one crinkled book, I remembered the strange second copy of The History of Bland County that was still in my backpack and promised myself that when I got a chance, I’d look at it more closely.
When I made it home, my sister met me at the door.
Emily’s nose crinkled as she took a long breath. “At least that one doesn’t smell.”
“Wait, what do you mean?” I called after her as she turned and headed toward the kitchen where I could hear my mom rattling dishes.
She looked over her shoulder and gave me a slight shrug. “The book that’s in your bag. It doesn’t smell as bad as the last one did.” And with that, she disappeared through the doorway.
As if on cue, my book bag felt about ten pounds heavier. I took it off my shoulder and sat it against the wall before heading after Emily. My mom was standing over the stove, stirring spaghetti sauce.
“I thought you’d still be at work,” I said as I crossed to the refrigerator and grabbed a coke. “That was you I heard on the sheriff’s radio earlier, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that was me,” she replied, “but I was at the end of my shift and the next dispatcher came in right after that.” She turned, her brows knitting in worry. “How did you hear me on his radio? Did you and Adam see the police cruiser and stop by to see what had happened?”
I was in the middle of a long gulp when she asked that question and it caught me off-guard enough that I nearly choked. Emily hopped up from her seat and came over to give me a few helpful whacks as high as she could reach on my back. When I quit hacking, I told her thank you and she went back to the table and sat on a chair and began swinging her legs.
“Yes, I stopped by and helped Penny clean up,” I replied, hoping that she didn’t realize that I had omitted a good bit of my story.
The stove began popping and sizzling as the sauce started to burn.
“Oh no!” Mom exclaimed, her attention turning to save our supper.
Saved by the sauce, I thought, then shot a quick, uneasy look over to Emily, hoping that she wasn’t going to pop up with information that I’d have to explain in some strange manner. Luckily for me, she had crayons and was coloring a picture of a puppy. If she’d picked up on anything, she wasn’t letting on.
“Em, put your things away. We’re almost ready to eat,” Mom instructed. “Nikki, can you please set the table?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
And as easily as that, my afternoon was forgotten and we all sat down to eat. I managed to divert attention over to Emily, who had a part in the school play the following week. I asked questions about it and her face lit up as she chattered excitedly about it. Each kid was in charge of their own costume and she’d been given the part of a pixie. No one mentioned anything about the gift shop again.
After supper, I hauled my book bag up to my room and shut the door. I sat on the bed for a long moment, listening to the muted voices of Emily and my mom as they planned out a pixie costume. Then I unzipped my bag and took out the book.
I’d checked out the other edition of this book several times and had held it enough that I knew that this one felt heavier, even though it looked like an exact replica.
The cover felt different too. Though the jacket of the book looked smooth, it felt rough beneath my fingertips.
Remembering the last strange book I had found in Wynter’s library that had a tendency to erupt into flames with anyone not meant to touch it, I carefully laid this book on the bed in front of me and used my index finger to flip the cover open.
I heard someone knock and then heard Adam’s voice as Emily opened the front door and let him in. I hopped off the bed and leaned over the banister at the top of the steps.
“Want to come up and give me a hand with my homework?” I grinned.
“Sure.” He froze for the barest of seconds and the look on his face told me that he was still speaking to me, expecting me to pick up on his thoughts.
But I didn’t hear anything. When I shrugged, the familiar dent creased between his brows. The same worrying expression that I’d seen on his dad’s face earlier that evening.
He waited until we were in my room before asking, “Is everything all right? I haven’t been able to pick up on where you were all day, but the moon probably is messing with things. Erik told me what happened at the gift shop when I came back from making my run. Are you okay?”
“I haven’t been able to pick up on anything from the Keepers—or anyone magical,” I admitted. “Emily seems to be doing better with that than me lately. And as far as the thief goes, yeah, I’m fine.”
He reached out and brushed a curl back from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “The eclipse will be over tomorrow night. Hopefully everything will get back to normal then.”
I laughed and it came out as a weird sort of snort. Normal for me would be considered completely insane by anyone else. Still, I did find myself wishing the eclipse would end soon. I’d grown accustomed to the thoughts and feelings of the Pack and now that I only had my own thoughts for company, I was missing everyone.
“Did you find anything in the forest when you checked on the scout parties?” I asked, hoping to turn his attention and worry off of me and onto something else.
“A group of the Woodsburls found another body, skinned like the other one. The blood was still fresh, so it hadn’t happened long before they found it.” The silver in his eyes darkened, appearing to be a nearly dark gray. “It was a wolf this time.”
And I’m not doing anything to help, I thought, ashamed. As the Seer, I was supposed to be able to foresee things that happened. I wasn’t doing my part and innocent animals were losing their lives because of it. A coyote, a bear, and now a wolf. A Spriteblood too, if I was being honest with myself, but I had a hard time lumping Frollock in with those I was supposed to help protect.
While I was in the middle of my inward battle, Adam sat on my bed. His gaze wandered to the open book and he leaned forward to get a better look.
“What kind of book is this, Nikki? I’ve never seen one that had a blank first page,” he reached out, fingertips a mere inch from touching it.
“No! Don’t touch it!” I exclaimed, slamming my body into his in hopes of throwing him backward.
It was like hitting a brick wall and I felt the air whoosh out of me. “Don’t touch it,” I croaked. “I don’t know what it is.”
“Okay, okay! I won’t touch it,” he promised, palms out, as if wanting to show me that his hands were nowhere close to the book. He lifted a brow when I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I take it you’ve discovered something?”
“I don’t know. I ha
d just started looking at it when you knocked. Something feels off about it, but I haven’t figured out what yet.”
“Then let’s take a look,” he said, scooting over to give me room to sit. I didn’t have to read his mind to know that he hoped to find something within those pages that would help find the killer in the woods.
I looked at the sheet of white paper. He was right. Where most books at least had a title page, this one was blank. I reached out and placed one finger experimentally in the center, fully expecting to get zapped by some unseen current.
Instead, a splash of ink floated out from beneath my fingertip, coloring the page as it went along.
“Well, I’ll be a…” I murmured, looking at a replica of myself on the page.
“Seer,” Adam said, though I wasn’t sure if he’d meant to finish my sentence for me, or if he was only reading the word that had been written over my finger.
Within a second, more than that single word flashed across the page. Adam was reading as quickly as the magic wrote. “One who can see past, present, and future events of those who have magical qualities…” he paused, then looked at me. “This book caught on to what you are quicker than we did.”
“It would seem so,” I muttered. “I don’t know why I’m surprised that Wynter had more than one magical book.”
Seeming not to care that it was being talked about, the magic in the book continued, writing a few other tidbits about me before it finally went still.
I moved my finger from the page, then flipped the corner to the next one. It was as blank as the previous one had been.
“This book is different from the last one,” Adam said, leaning forward to place his own hand on the paper. In an instant, it began sketching his picture and information. “The last one was already written. This one hasn’t been.”
When he moved his hand away, I traced the lines of his face on the page.
Adam gasped, then bolted from the bed, his back pressed against the wall. Black mist was rolling off every visible inch of his skin, leaving him—and heading right toward me. A faint, ghostly cry of a wolf echoed in the space between us. When the first bits of his mist touched me, I knew what was happening.
I took my hand off the picture and slammed the book shut and just as quickly as it had come, the blackness left and Adam’s magic went back to him.
His voice was shaky once the mist dissipated. “You took my wolf.”
He hadn’t meant for his words to sound accusatory, but I couldn’t help bristling at them. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. It’s just that no one has ever done that before…” He came back and sat on the bed beside of me, taking care not to get close to the book. “At least we know what this book does now.”
I nodded, staring down at the book whose pages were all empty but for the two we had touched. “It records everything about those with magic…and whoever has it, can take their magic away.”
His nostrils flared and he leaned forward just a bit, staring at the binding in the book’s spine. “The last book was made from the magic of someone adept with fire. This one takes magic away from others, just as a Skinwalker would. Does that bit of fiber in there look familiar to you?”
I picked up the book and flipped back to my own page before inspecting the place where the pages met. There, woven into the binding, were gray and white strands of what appeared to be hair.
“I wonder,” I mumbled as I saw the end of one hair protruding from the bottom of the book. I carefully broke it off and flipped to a blank page and then dropped the hair into the center. Ink spread out and we found ourselves staring at a picture of Crow Woman, the title of Skinwalker over her head.
“My nose was right.” Adam leaned back against the headboard of my bed and crossed his arms over his chest. “That explains why we didn’t find her body. Wynter took it and had her Bog Elf make a new book.” He scowled when he spoke her name.
“But she never used it. There wasn’t anything written in the pages until we touched them. I don’t know why she had this book made, but she’s never done anything with it but hide it away in her library,” I countered, suddenly feeling the need to defend Wynter, though I didn’t know why.
“Well, we do know one thing for certain. If she ever returns, she can’t have it back. Not with our magic named in there,” Adam said, his gaze still locked onto the book. “She could take it away whenever she wanted.”
I groaned. I knew where this was headed. I’d already been the keeper of the last book, now I was going to be stuck with another one. But he was right. There was no way I was going to be able to return this book to the school’s library.
Emily’s words echoed in my head. At least this one doesn’t smell.
“We’ll figure out some way of destroying it before anything happens,” Adam reassured me as he reached out and rubbed my back.
I stared down at the description of the Skinwalker, quickly skimming the information. “This book really does know more than we do. Listen to this. ‘The magic of the Skinwalker can be taken by speaking its name at the height of its power.’ Too bad we didn’t know that when we were fighting Crow Woman.”
“But it might help us when we find the one who is trying to become the next Skinwalker,” Adam replied, straightening as if he’d suddenly had an idea.
For the hundredth time that day, I found myself missing my abilities as a Seer. Normally, I’d have known what he was going to say and do without having to wait for him to tell me. This blood moon wasn’t going to be over soon enough for me.
“I’m going to run out to the places that the animals were killed and see if I can find something…anything that we can use to find out who the murderer is,” he nodded at the book. “If I can even find a bit of fur or a track of some sort, the book might tell us what we need to know.”
He hopped up from the bed and started for the door. “Be careful,” I said, reaching out to take his arm. “I still can’t see what might happen when you’re gone, so I can’t warn you of anything. But promise me you’ll be careful.”
He stopped and leaned forward, brushing a kiss against my forehead before gathering me up in a huge hug. “Always. I’ll always be careful. I promise.”
THAT NIGHT THE nightmare returned and once again I was caught in the endless loop of a coyote’s face pressed against the window, followed by many others that I knew. Over and over they played in my head with Emily’s voice echoing around me. Be careful.
When I woke the next morning, the last face stayed with me, so vivid that I recalled everything about it—including the dark blue jacket that was pulled up around his neck.
I ran down the steps to the living room, just as the phone rang. I heard Mom pick it up in the kitchen, then after she said hello, went quiet for a few seconds, then hung it up without saying goodbye.
She looked up at me as I came through the doorway. “That was the automatic messaging service from the school. Seems that there’s some kind of issue with the ventilation system. They called off school today.”
I didn’t believe that for a second, so I didn’t say anything. I just shrugged.
“Yay! No school!” Emily cried out as she ran around me.
“No, not you, young lady. Just your sister,” Mom swatted Emily’s butt as she ran past her to the table. “You aren’t so lucky. You still have to go, so sit down and pour your cereal.”
As I sat and ate breakfast with them I found myself wondering what had happened that school would be called off. I hoped it didn’t have anything to do with the blood moon, but everything in me told me it was.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. No sooner had Mom left to take Emily to school, I spotted the wolves, just at the edge of the woods.
Adam’s black wolf loped up onto the porch, shifting the instant he reached the door. Erik, Tommy, and Michael weren’t far behind him.
“Hey,” he said, greeting me with a quick kiss on my cheek.
“Hi. You’re just the person I wanted to see,” I told him.
“And what are we? Chopped liver?” Tommy joked.
Michael nodded in agreement.
“I’m glad to see you guys too. Come on inside.” I opened the door for them.
Once everyone was in the living room, Adam told me the reason school had been canceled. “The blood moon is still doing weird stuff to the magicals. More than half of our scouting parties have lost part of their power and are completely defenseless. Putting them out in the forest without their magic would make them sitting ducks, so Giles called off school so that the ones who needed to stay home would stay safe. I came to see if you wanted to go with us today,” he frowned, his silver eyes holding a faraway look. “We have to search for missing people.”
“Of course I want to come, but I need to tell you about something I dreamt last night. It was the same as before, but this time I saw Darren. He had a dark blue jacket, just like the one I saw outside the gift shop. I think he’s the one responsible for the animals and Frollock,” I admitted, feeling slightly guilty for accusing someone who wasn’t here to defend himself.
Adam’s frown deepened and small lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes. “Darren is one of the ones we’re going to search for. No one has seen him since we got back from school yesterday.”
“Yeah, Tommy and I stopped by our houses long enough to drop off our stuff, then we headed to his house to help him catch up on some schoolwork, but he wasn’t there.”
“Did you have any luck finding anything near where the animals were killed? Anything that would help us figure out who it was?”
Adam shook his head. “Nothing. But if you think Darren is the one we need to find first, then we will. With the way he’s been acting, we thought maybe he just needed some space and hadn’t worried about looking for him until this morning when we realized he still hadn’t been home all night.”
Blood Moon Rising Page 6