The Witchkin Murders

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Ray backed up to get a better picture of one and bumped into Kayla who’d come to get a closer look.

  “Have you seen anything like them before?” he asked, stepping aside.

  She shook her head.

  “Could your grandmother or aunt have put these here?”

  “Anything is possible, but like Zach said, if these belonged to them, they’d have used the witch circle. It both protects them and concentrates their power.”

  “You think the kidnapper made them?” Landon asked Ray.

  “It’s possible,” Ray said, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “What’s curious is there’s no obvious signs of a struggle. You’d think two witches would have fought back. Who else has access to this place? Maids? Your uncle?” he asked Landon.

  “No maids. I don’t know about my uncle. I don’t think Grandmother would want him down here.”

  That hooked Ray’s attention. “Did they not get along? Argue?”

  “Not really. Mostly they did their own thing and left each other alone. They had a lot of parties and dinner parties, but mostly they only had meals together because Grandmother insisted.”

  “Does he know that they are witches?”

  It was Kayla who answered. “Yes.”

  When she didn’t elaborate, Ray prompted her. “How do you know? How does he feel about it?”

  “He’s known as long as I can remember. I don’t think Grandmother hid it from him. He hardly ever talks about it, and it’s rare that she mentions anything, but I remember a couple times when he asked if she’d succeeded in her spellcasting.”

  Ray noted that in his notebook. If Theresa Runyon had performed spells for her son’s benefit, then he had a weaker motive to kidnap her. His mother and sister were valuable assets, unless they’d threatened him somehow. Maybe he planned to force them to perform spells they refused to cast. A definite possibility. He couldn’t rule the bastard out.

  “Is there any other way into this place?”

  Kayla nodded. “Two, but both funnel through the same room. I’ll show you.”

  With Landon, Ray, and Logan trailing after her, Kayla walked to a colorful batik tapestry depicting a woman at three different stages of life—young, middle-aged, and old. Arcane symbols had been embroidered on it in gold thread.

  Kayla pushed the tapestry to one side and set her palm against what seemed to Ray a perfectly arbitrary spot in the whitewashed paneling. It didn’t surprise him when once again, magic outlined her hand. She pushed, and a door swung silently open, revealing a kind of preparation room.

  Along the walls hung silk robes in a variety of jewel-toned colors. Empty cubbies waited to be filled. Participating witches would clothe here before entering the casting room. Ray counted the robes, finding nineteen. Twenty-one made a complete witch circle, which meant that there was a good chance Valentine and Runyon had been wearing their robes when they were taken. He hadn’t seen robes in their bedrooms.

  Opposite the cubbies was a row of shower stalls. Blue tile swathed the walls and the floor, with glass-and-steel folding doors framing each stall.

  Something continued to niggle at him. But what? Nothing seemed out of place, and there were no signs of a struggle or any more of the symbols Logan had discovered in the other room.

  A wide flight of steps ran a third of the way up the far wall, then split in two, each set of stairs going in opposite directions.

  “Where do these lead?” he asked.

  “That one leads to one of the reception salons,” Landon said, pointing. “The other goes to Grandmother’s meditation room. The left is where the kidnappers came in.”

  “Show me.”

  Landon led the way up the steps, turning up the left side. At the top, the corridor made a right-hand turn. Landon took the corner with Ray close behind.

  “Jesus.” He stopped. What had been a steel door now lay crumpled and shredded in ribbons, like discarded tin foil.

  “What the hell did that?” Ray glanced at Logan. “Can you tell if it was magic or something physical?”

  The technomage squatted down, trailing his fingers over the crumpled metal. He shook his head as he straightened. “I can’t feel any magical resonance.”

  “It looks like someone punched a hole in it and ripped it down with pure muscle,” Kayla said.

  Something in her voice made Ray look at her. She had her arms wrapped around her waist, and she swallowed as if she was about to puke. Why?

  Ray examined the door again, but he found no clues to Kayla’s unexpected reaction.

  “What are you thinking?” Logan murmured.

  “I don’t know yet. I don’t have a good sense of what went down. If the women were in the casting room as those symbols suggest, then how come that door didn’t end up like this one? Whoever broke in here must have made a racket, and I’m willing to bet there were active wards. Surely the women knew something was coming. Why didn’t they escape the way we came in? Why aren’t there any signs of a struggle? What were those symbols for? And how the hell did the kidnapper get on and off the estate without anybody seeing him?”

  Logan patted Ray’s shoulder. “That, my friend, is why you are the detective and I am a mere technomage.”

  Ray grimaced. “Because I ask questions I don’t have answers to?”

  “Because you’ll find the answers and make sense of all this.”

  Ray rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Maybe.” At least now he had some leads, even if he didn’t know what to make of them.

  “I want to look downstairs again,” he said.

  He took a harder look at the preparation room. He examined every square inch, searching for whatever he’d missed the first time. He had to have overlooked something.

  “He’d have had to take them by surprise,” he muttered. “Except tearing that door would have given the women a hell of a lot of warning. So why didn’t they defend themselves?” That bothered him the most. He was missing a key part of the mystery.

  Ray tried to visualize what might have happened in the context of what he knew. He eyed the closed door into the casting room. Was it soundproofed? If so and if they were inside the casting room at the time, they wouldn’t have heard the door come down. But by that logic, how had the intruder broken through to the casting room without them noticing, and without leaving a mark on the entry door?

  It wasn’t until Kayla spoke that Ray realized he’d been speaking aloud.

  “What if the kidnapper was already inside?”

  He frowned. “Where would he hide? And even if he could have hidden, he’d have had to subdue both women without them fighting back. Even if he’d cleaned up, we’d see some evidence of a fight, and there’s nothing. They didn’t struggle.”

  She chewed her bottom lip, nodding. “Okay. He’s inside and he’s lying in wait. Maybe he’s glamoured. Grandmother and Aunt Margaret aren’t expecting anyone—this is a super safe space for them—so they don’t pay much attention to what could be out of place.”

  She went to the stairs and turned as if she was making an entrance.

  “So, I come down and put on my robe. I already showered upstairs.”

  “What about the ripped-up door? Why didn’t they see it?”

  Kayla looked over her shoulder. “It’s not visible from the right side of the stairs. They must have come in that way.”

  “But they might have come the other way. As well-planned as this abduction obviously was, the kidnapper wouldn’t have taken the chance that they’d use the wrong entrance. “

  “They only came down that way when other witches were here. When it was just Grandmother and mom, they came down through Grandmother’s meditation room,” Landon said.

  “You’re sure?” Ray asked.

  Landon nodded.

 
That meant insider information. “Okay,” Ray said, looking at Kayla. “You come down and put on your robes. Then what? The attacker has to subdue you both quickly.”

  “If they couldn’t see him, he could sneak up and grab one and knock her out, then put a gun to her head so the other cooperates,” Kayla suggested.

  It was feasible. “Okay, then what? Why does he go into the other room? What’s the point of those symbols?”

  “Maybe a spell to help him get out? Or possibly the spell immobilized my grandmother and aunt.”

  Without knowing what the symbols meant, it was impossible to say. Too many damned questions and not enough answers.

  “This guy had to be pretty sure of himself to take out two witches in their own workroom,” Logan said. “You wouldn’t do that if you didn’t have a solid plan to neutralize them and get them out.”

  Ray tapped his fingers on his thigh. “What if the spell he casts lets him control them? Then they’d cooperate and leave with him. Maybe they tell him exactly how to get out and cover their tracks. Maybe he’d make them use their magic to help. Is that possible?” Ray asked Logan.

  “Sure.”

  “It sounds right,” Kayla said.

  Ray nodded agreement. Fuck but he’d missed this give-and-take as the two of them sorted out a scene together. It had always felt like their own special brand of magic. “It fits what we know.”

  “It also means he targeted them. He knew what they were and how to find them. He wanted witches. There had to be easier ones to get to, so why Grandmother and Aunt Margaret? How did he even know they were witches?” Kayla asked.

  “Good questions. Here’s another: what does he want them for? If he’s not asked for ransom by now, he’s got something in mind, and chances are it’s not a pretty fate.”

  Kayla tossed a quick glance at Landon and then gave Ray a speaking look. She didn’t want to raise the more likely and more frightening options in front of the kid. Ray tipped his head in a miniscule nod of understanding.

  “Can you get samples of whatever the kidnapper used to make those symbols?” Ray asked Logan.

  The technomage nodded, pulling a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket, along with a small zipper case. Ray gave a little smile of approval. That’s one thing he could count of Logan for—he was always prepared.

  It took Logan twenty minutes to collect samples, take pictures, and document the location of the symbols. He also took pictures of both rooms and the crumpled steel door. Meanwhile, Kayla took Landon aside, speaking to him softly.

  Though Ray wanted nothing more than to eavesdrop, she’d get more out of the kid if he didn’t lurk. He had to trust her to relay what information she got from her cousin. Once upon a time that wouldn’t have bothered him. Now he didn’t know if he could trust her.

  He gave them space and wandered the casting room. He squatted beside the witch circle, careful not to touch it. Ray felt the tug of it calling him. Not for the first time, he wondered where his power would fit in a spell circle. The further out from the center point, the lower the power of the witch. He’d heard some witches couldn’t scrape up enough magic power to participate in the circle at all.

  Ray ran the tip of his tongue around the edges of his teeth and straightened to his feet. He didn’t need to know where he’d fit in a witch circle. He didn’t want to know.

  He noticed Logan putting away his kit and small camera. Time to get going. He wasn’t looking forward to the next step: interviewing Alistair Runyon again. But first, he’d send Logan back to the lab. Kayla he’d take home himself. He wanted to know where to find her if she stopped taking his calls. Plus, they had a few things to clear up, and this time, neither of them was escaping until everything was said.

  Chapter 11

  Kayla

  SEISMIC QUAKES continued to run through Kayla as she pulled Landon to the side to speak with him. Seeing the wreck of the steel door hit her in the gut. Her other form could have easily torn it down in just that way. As soon as she saw it she knew that the kidnapper wasn’t human. And it was smart.

  The thought of Ray pursuing it alone made her stomach churn. He had no idea what something like that could do. He had no real defenses. Whether he knew it or not, he needed her with him on this case. Or rather, he needed her other self, the one with teeth and claws and armor.

  Dear God, was she actually considering letting him see what she was? The entire concept made her want to sink into the ground. He’d made his opinion of non-humans very clear—they weren’t worth his time or attention. They were vermin. She was vermin.

  “What do you think took them?” Landon asked, having arrived at the same conclusion she had. The anger had drained from his voice, and he gazed at Kayla with desperate hope.

  Kayla took a close look at him. He’d grown into a man since she last saw him. Duh. He hadn’t even been in his teens when she left. He stood over six feet tall, with a lanky, muscular frame. He wore the expensive button-up attire that Grandmother and her father required of “proper” Runyons.

  “I will find them. I promise.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t. You can’t promise that. And anyway, your promises aren’t worth a lot, are they?”

  Kayla put her hands on his shoulders, waiting until he met her serious gaze. “I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m not going to do it again. I will find them.” She didn’t say that she’d find them alive. That she couldn’t promise.

  “You’re not even a cop anymore.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can’t investigate.”

  “With him?” He tipped his chin toward Ray.

  “Maybe.”

  “Why did you quit the force? That was all you ever talked about. You left us because you wanted to be a cop so bad and then you quit and you still didn’t come back.”

  Kayla bit her lip. She owed him an answer. She owed him the truth.

  “I had to,” she said. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  His dark brows furrowed. “Why?”

  “Because of Magicfall.” She didn’t look away as she said it. She regretted so much staying away. She should have at least called him. She’d missed Landon more than she could possibly say. As far as she was concerned, he was her little brother, not just her cousin.

  She waited for him to understand what she was saying. She knew he’d made the connection when his eyes widened. She waited for him to back away. She wouldn’t blame him.

  “You got your powers?” he asked.

  Witch powers. Grandmother and Aunt Margaret had been so hopeful she’d carry on the family tradition. She shook her head. “I’m not a witch.”

  “But then . . .”

  She could see him landing on the right conclusion. The only conclusion.

  “What are you?”

  She gave a weak smile. “Scary. Really, fucking scary.” She took a breath, her chest tight. This was the closest she’d come to telling anybody what had happened to her, and it felt awful.

  “How about you? Have you developed powers?”

  He shrugged. “Not yet.”

  Nobody could say for sure if being a witch was hereditary, though witches had popped up in their family tree for generations. It had infuriated her father to no end that he was barren and both his sister and mother overflowed with it.

  “They’ve kept testing me. Grandmother says they could still manifest. Yours, too.”

  “I doubt it. Grandmother says it’s rare to develop power after you turn twenty-five. You’re the one still on the hot seat.”

  His lips tightened in a humorless smile. “Would piss off Uncle Alistair. He’d shit kittens.”

  “I’d pay to be there when he found out,” she said with a vindictive smile. “Please send me an invitation.”

  “I would but it’s not
like I know where to find you.”

  “I’m not disappearing again,” she said. “Give me your phone.”

  He drew it out of his pants pocket.

  “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

  Kayla flinched as her father’s icy voice cut through the silence. Landon got a panicked look, which quickly morphed into a mask of anger. She knew that trick. Better to look angry than afraid; better to show strength than weakness. Give her father an opening, and he’d slice you to the bone.

  She stiffened her shoulders and raised her chin. She had nothing to fear from the man. He couldn’t touch her. Not now, not after Magicfall. She just had to keep him from fucking with her head. He was a master of head games, but she had no intention of falling into any of his traps.

  Kayla turned. Her father strode across the spellcasting floor. Just seeing him reminded her of all the things she hated about him. He was arrogant to the point of suicide, controlling, narcissistic as hell, and completely confident in his ability to manipulate and cow others into doing whatever he wanted.

  Ray came to stand beside her and a half step ahead, as if he intended to shield her from anything her father might do. Funny, she’d done the same thing with Landon. Zach had stopped a few feet away. His posture made him look relaxed and curious, but she could see the flickers of power dancing around the tips of his fingers as he dangled his arm by his side.

  Interesting. Not the reaction she’d expected. Did he know something about her father? Or maybe he just read Ray’s and her reactions.

  Zach hadn’t dropped the shields he’d placed on each of them before entering the casting room. Then again, that might not be enough. Her father’s motto was always ‘go big or go home,’ so anything was possible. He might not be a witch, but he didn’t have to be one to activate a spell. Who knew what sort of arsenal he kept?

  Kayla surreptitiously touched the silver band circling her wrist containing the spell that would soak her down and allow her to swiftly transform. She was as vulnerable as any other human in this shape, but her father wouldn’t have much luck against her other self. Not that she wanted him to know her secret. Not that she wanted any of them to know, especially Ray. Zach and Landon might get over the shock and accept it, but Ray? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.