"Thank you, Officer."
"I'll talk to you soon."
I ended the call and set the phone on the bench. My hand was trembling.
No amount of logic could keep old memories and bad experiences completely locked away. Sylvia's abduction had created emotional wounds that I would always have, but I never thought Michelle would do this to me. She was resourceful and strong, but I should have known better than to let Gremory's death lull me into a false sense of security.
There were still the clans and Sylvia's warning of other demons, not to mention the danger Michelle faced each time she took a case. Danger lurked all around, and while I had every belief that she would do her best to get back to me, odds were that she would stumble into a few dicey situations along the way.
A pink-and-purple T. rex walked past the sunroom, sniffing at the air. Ty was a prime example. Nearly invulnerable to harm and highly resistant to spells, he was a magical construct who'd trashed half a town, blown up a gas station, and survived an air strike before a combination of Michelle's magic and personality had charmed him. Now she had a dinosaur with the personality of a German shepherd.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. It took several repetitions, but I got my fears under control. She'd gotten out of plenty of bad situations; she would get out of this.
I unclenched the hand holding the forgotten medallion and clipped it around my neck. Thankfully it had returned to its normal, unremarkable state, because I had other things to worry about now. Landa needed to know what Officer Rodriguez had said, and one of us needed to relay the information to Greg and Nancy.
When I picked up the spray bottle, I glanced at the plants. They weren't three-inch green starts anymore, but six-inch-tall plants with four to six leaves each. I reached out and touched one. It was real. What had the medallion done?
Chapter 3: Michelle
I woke up in an unfamiliar bedroom with no doubt as to how I had come to be there. My chest was sore from being tackled, and my head ached. Some small amount of luck was on my side today; they hadn't taken my wooden bracelet, so I still had access to my wand. The two had been gifts from Elron and had some nifty magic that allowed me to summon the wand rather than physically carrying around the fifteen-inch piece of wood. Odds were that they thought the bracelet was purely decorative.
The longer I looked at the room, the less it looked like a bedroom and the more it looked like a large closet. The walls were white drywall, with a bit of molding where the carpeted floor met the wall. The textured ceiling was the same white as the walls and was adorned with a single globe light. My resting place was a simple twin bed on a light metal frame. I didn't see any cameras, but that didn't mean much.
I got up and stretched, working the kinks out of my stiff muscles. The room was only a few steps longer and wider than the bed. A wiggle of the doorknob verified my hunch: it was locked and solidly built, with a steel frame around the handle. Tapping on the door and frame confirmed my second hunch: they were solid wood.
Yup, I was going to miss the wedding. The event my parents had waited my entire life to do, and here I was, a prisoner in some person's house. It was unusual for a grown woman to be attending her parents' wedding, but unusual summed up my family nicely. When Mom's pregnancy had been discovered and she wouldn't tell who my father was, her clan had assumed he was human. The problem was that type of a relationship was against clan law. My grandmother, Gretchen, had always been disappointed in Mom's magical abilities, and mingling with a human was the final straw for her, so my mom had fled.
As it turned out, my father was a capable witch in his own right but from the rival Docga clan. They'd known their relationship would cause problems if it was discovered, and after Mom left the Wapiti, they had limited their contact. A couple of months ago, I had met my father for the first time—and attracted unwanted attention from several clans, including the Wapiti. At this point, all the reasons they'd stayed apart were irrelevant, and there were plenty of reasons for them to get together, so my parents were finally getting married.
Originally, the wedding was going to happen several weeks ago, but when the clans stopped their increasingly aggressive attempts to recruit me, it was moved. With the extra time to plan, my parents could have the wedding they wanted.
Mom would be joining Dad's clan, but I'd refused my invitation. I knew there was a spot for me with the Docga clan, but I was happy with my clanless state. It was the way I was raised, I was comfortable this way, and I enjoyed being a police consultant, a job that would've been prohibited by most clans.
When my father entered my life, I had gained more than a parent. It turned out I had some other family I hadn't met, and one of those people ended up being Marti, his mother. It had been love at first sight for both of us. Marti had promptly told me to call her Nana, welcomed me with smiles and laughs, and cheerfully informed me that there were more family members itching to meet me. I couldn't wait to see her again. Of course, I had to get to the wedding before I could do that.
"Hey," I yelled. "Let me out. I want to get out of here." I waited but didn't hear anything in response.
Sitting down in front of the door, I studied the lock. This side had a brass knob without any visible locking mechanism. The thread of power I sent out didn't detect any spells around the doorknob. I slowly lowered the strand of magic until it touched the metal, still not finding anything of interest. My power pushed farther into the knob, dipping below the surface, and light suddenly arced from the knob, zapping me.
My muscles clenched and I trembled, unable to break the connection. Not even a second later, the light retreated back into the door and I hauled my power back into my body before I accidentally triggered the reaction again. Every muscle in my body ached and tingled. When I felt like moving again, I crawled across the floor and back into bed. The tingling had faded, but that didn't change the lingering pain.
I'd been zapped before, but that type of shock had more in common with a stun gun than with static discharge. The spells I knew that did something similar were weaker, and I would've noticed them. Not only had this been a potent spell, but I hadn't detected it until after it was in action.
That spell had been hidden in the door in such a way that I was guaranteed to trigger it before I found it. While it was possible that someone was watching me and had cast the spell as my power moved inside the metal, it didn't seem likely. That left some very sophisticated spell-work as the remaining option, and I didn't want to subject my body to any more punishment. The next spell could do some lasting damage.
Eyeing the rest of the room, I tried to decide if it was worth continuing to test my magic against whatever protections were here. If they were able to conceal a spell from me that well, it might not be worth the pain to try finding a weak point that would allow me to get out of here. Especially since I didn't understand how the spell had been hidden. With that, I encased myself in a shield bubble. I still needed to figure out how to escape, but it didn't seem like I'd be doing that from in here.
Spells weren't my only problem. I was thirsty and needed a bathroom. Other than the bed, the room was completely barren, and that didn't give me many options. Since the best thing I could do for those issues was to avoid thinking about them, I focused on my current situation.
Now, there could be any number of people behind this: followers of the demon I'd killed, another demon looking for revenge, or witches trying to make me join their clan. However, the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that my grandmother was involved. After all, it couldn't be a coincidence that a woman who looked like a witch from my grandmother's clan had showed up on the side of the road right before I ended up locked in a closet. They'd already attacked me once, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to have this be their idea of a fun welcome home.
Not that long ago, Gretchen had sent several letters demanding that I report to the clan to embrace my position as her successor. Then three of her pencil-skirted witches had sh
owed up at my house to take me back to the clan. I never did figure out why she was so focused on me. Sure, I was a blood relative, but there were plenty of other qualified witches who'd grown up in the clan. Any one of them would make a great leader. Why Gretchen couldn't pursue one of them was beyond me.
I came back to reality when I heard a metallic clunk. My headache had faded away, but that was the extent of the improvements. Sitting up, I watched as the door opened, and Josh came through it before it swung shut behind him. He'd changed clothes and was in faded blue jeans and a red hoodie with "Go Dawgs" across his chest. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall.
He stared at me, and I stared right back at him. If he thought I was going to start pleading or asking questions, he was wrong. As I'd expected, Josh broke first.
"The minister wants to talk to you, and she insists that we see to any of your needs. If you need to go to the bathroom, that can happen, but you'll have to wear these." He pulled a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket and dangled them off a finger.
The word "minister" confirmed my suspicions that a clan was holding me, but I could still be wrong about who. After all, I'd had more than one clan demand that I join them, though none of them had gone as far as the Wapiti. The handcuffs were a different matter.
They had the same feeling as the ones the police used to bind magic. Not everyone would be able to deduce the origin of a pair of handcuffs, but I'd used them often enough in my job as a consultant for several departments in north Georgia. I provided magical backup and an extra oomph of power when their hedge-practitioners and officers were outclassed.
I decided it didn't matter if the cuffs bound my magic; I couldn't do anything while locked in this room, and I really needed a bathroom. After dismissing the shield, I got off the bed and offered him my wrists. He cuffed my hands in front of my body, and I sincerely hoped that was to allow me to do my business without an audience.
He pulled the door open, and we stepped into a Victorian-inspired bedroom, with spindly wood furniture upholstered in green fabric with pink flowers. The walls were wood paneled to hip height, then transitioned to cream-and-silver-striped wallpaper that ended at multileveled crown molding. Crushed velvet curtains were pulled over the windows. There was a door to our right and one across from us.
I heard the closet door shut behind Josh, and he cupped my elbow and steered me to the door on our right. He pushed it open to reveal a pink marble counter with a matching sink and silver faucet. There was a roll of toilet paper sitting on the edge of the counter.
"Don't take too long," he said.
He closed the door behind me, and it didn't take me long to realize why they were comfortable letting me in here unattended. The toilet paper and the bar of soap sitting next to the sink were the only things I could pick up. I wasn't going to find a weapon in here. Not that I'd been expecting one, but there wasn't another door, either.
I hurried as much as I could with cuffed hands, but given the choice, I'd never again visit the bathroom with my hands bound together. Washing up was easier, but I couldn't keep the cuffs dry. Since they hadn't been nice enough to provide a hand towel, I wiped my hands on my thighs and resigned myself to wet wrist-wear. Before I returned to the bedroom, I slurped some water from the faucet. Considering the hospitality they'd shown so far, it might be a while before I had another chance to get a drink.
Neither of us said anything as he led me out of the bedroom. Two ladies were beside the other door wearing black slacks, low-heeled boots, and matching silk blouses in different colors. Getting a good look at the blonde confirmed my suspicion. It was Tammy, which didn't guarantee my grandmother's involvement. She could be working for someone else. I hadn't seen the brunette before. The ladies broke away from the door and started down the hall. Josh followed them, guiding me with a hand on my back.
The ivory-walled hallway was wide enough for three abreast. We walked past whitewashed doors and gilded frames, each holding a painting or photograph of a lady. Some of the women were round and others angular, but what captured me the most were their expressions. One had hard lines of dissatisfaction etched in her face, another had an inviting smile, and one with curly red hair and pink cheeks had a small smile and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. The print on the plaques was small, but I was able to catch names and dates. It would've been nice if there was some context to that information, but I wasn't that lucky.
The cuff on my right wrist pinched, and I rotated my arm, trying to get it to slide into a more comfortable position. There was a faint click from the cuff, and it slid lower. Keeping an eye on my guards, I worked a finger under it and tugged. It was still securely fastened. I held back a sigh. If I got some time alone, I'd test the limitations of the cuffs.
Josh looked at me but seemed satisfied when I held my hands up. He kept a sharp eye on me as I resumed reading the plaques under each frame. Near the end of the hallway, where the dates were in the past six hundred years, every one of these ladies had the last name Tomlin. The last painting before the hallway dead-ended into a corridor was my grandmother, Gretchen Tomlin. Any lingering questions I'd had about my abduction were answered. This meeting had been a long time coming, but it wasn't going to be a joyful family reunion.
Mom had mentioned that the ministry had been in the family for a while. That meant that the last few women had been my ancestors. I would've been a Tomlin, but when Mom ran away from the clan, she took her father's last name, so I was born Michelle Oaks.
I got a good look at Gretchen's hard eyes before we turned left. I'd seen her face before. One of the messages she'd sent had been the magical equivalent of a video, but until now we hadn't had the pleasure of meeting in person.
This hall was done in the same colors but had doors instead of pictures. The doors had small signs on them, with names like Office of Financial Affairs, Office of Strategic Management, Office of Operations Management, Office of Service Management, Office of Housing Management, and Office of Placement Services.
This wasn't just her house; the clan business was run out of the mansion. That would make it harder to escape. There would be witches here all the time, and it would be next to impossible to go exploring. Gretchen hadn't just surrounded me with guards but with the clan.
We didn't stop at any of those doors but continued to the double doors at the end of the hall. The curvy letters on the door spelled "Minister" and matched the scrollwork on the doorframe. The ladies didn't stop to knock but opened one door and held it until Josh could get a hand on it.
The office was as impressive as the rest of the house. A big block of a desk dominated the room, and a sitting area under a window was furnished with the same delicate pieces that were in the bedroom. Built-in bookshelves holding everything from books to rocks and spell components covered the wall behind the desk and part of the adjoining wall. Most of the items were normal enough, but the box of energy drinks seemed out of place. I couldn't picture my grandmother drinking Jumbo Energy Juice. An average-sized decorated door was sandwiched between the shelves and a liquor cabinet. When Josh let the main door swing shut, I noticed still another doorway, this one leading to a smaller, less opulent office.
We were the only ones in the room, and my guards kept me moving toward the door between the shelves and liquor cabinet. Once we reached it, the ladies held it open and Josh walked me into a dim, narrow hallway. He took us to the right, and we walked a few feet before exiting onto the main floor of a multileveled auditorium large enough to seat four or five hundred.
Thirteen women sat in a row behind the podium above me, but the woman in the center captured my attention. After all the communications she'd directed at me, I'd recognize those thin lips and that shade of gray hair anywhere. Gretchen Tomlin was the minister of the Wapiti clan and my grandmother.
Chapter 4: Elron
"That's all the information I need from you," Rodriguez said, tucking the notepad in his pocket. "When her parents arrive, I'll talk to them."
"W
hat can I do?" It was a foolish question. I knew what he would say, but I had to ask because my chest had been tight and my breaths shallow ever since Landa had told me Michelle was missing.
Rodriguez sighed. "Be patient."
Landa patted my hand and followed Rodriguez out of the parlor. Patience did not feel right, not when I felt that I needed to be out doing something. The medallion shifted, and I adjusted the necklace as I walked to the window. Michelle was out there. I could find her, help her, if only the Call would clarify.
The medallion pulled away from my chest and returned with a thud. I wrapped a hand around it, and it pushed against my palm. The medallion had an opinion, but until I learned how it communicated, the antics were less than useful.
Years ago, I would have gone after her myself. However, the policeman had assured me that it would be best if I stayed. I was less sure of his plan. If the Call wasn't enough of a hint, the medallion was offering suggestions as well. Surely I could find her before the police. However, that would not be what Michelle wanted. She believed in working inside the laws, but there was a way I could satisfy some of my desire and honor her wishes.
I hurried to my apartment, ignoring the commotion at the front door. Her parents were here, and Rodriguez would occupy them for some time. If I was needed, Landa would contact me.
In my room, I pulled a pack out of the closet and started filling it with basic provisions. Once it was stocked, I found my light armor—leathers and elven cloth. It did not offer the same protection as my chain mail, but it had minor spell protections woven in, and few witches were well versed in the types of weapons chain mail protected against.
With a twist of my hand, my sword appeared. After adjusting my grip, I dismissed it, reassured that the bracelet, which allowed me to summon the sword to my hand and dispense with it, was working. I put a knife in my pocket, a dagger in my boot, and another dagger in a sheath that hung from my belt. Two items that I would have found unnecessary years ago, my identification and car keys, went in my other pocket.
A Witch's Concern (A Witch's Path Book 4) Page 2