I shook my head. My throat burned and I couldn’t put it into words yet. Carla did not quite roll her eyes, but she got a quarter of the way there before walking off to see what the problem was, since I clearly wasn’t going to tell her.
A moment or so later, Erin was beside me.
“You okay?” she asked.
“What the fuck do you think?” My throat was raw and the words were raspy. “How the hell did it move?”
“It was a trap,” she said.
I glared at her.
She sighed. “Magic is energy and intent, focused by innate ability and directional tools. Whoever did the ritual trapped the ritual’s energy in the bones themselves. Then they set up a trigger to release the energy and start the spell, which was to attack.”
“So when I crossed the circle, the trap sprung.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Basically.”
“But I saw the bones move before that.”
Erin considered my words. “If they were holding a lot of energy, they may have vibrated occasionally. Maybe that’s what you saw.”
“Well, fuck.” My brain spun in circles as the adrenaline drained out of me. “Was the trap for me? Or anyone who pissed it off?”
“In order to key it to you personally, they’d have needed some of your blood or hair.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. The attacker had gotten some of my hair. It hadn’t occurred to me that that had been anything other than an accident at the time, but now I was pretty sure my hair had been the end goal. I told Erin.
A small shudder washed over her and she hugged her coat more tightly around her.
“But they didn’t know I’d be here,” I said.
Erin shook her head. “Byron saw you at Barry’s house. He probably told everyone I was still bringing you to crime scenes.”
“So this was a trap. For me. Which is why they did the ritual in a place the body was sure to be found.”
“Seems so.” Erin sounded disgusted.
“I need to go,” I said. The sun was starting to set, and I needed to make sure Sean was alive. I made Erin grab the shoe from the barn. I wasn’t scared to go inside myself, but I didn’t really want to do it, either, not when I could have someone else retrieve the stupid shoe for me.
Carla came out to the front porch when she saw us getting into Erin’s car. “You can’t leave! We have a maniac on the loose!”
“You don’t want Henri here,” Erin said. “And I’m her ride.”
“We have decided to detain your brother as our main suspect,” Carla said firmly.
Erin narrowed her eyes. “You can’t do that.”
“I’m afraid we already have. An unanimous vote isn’t required when there’s evidence.”
Erin and I exchanged a look. With a glance at my unresponsive phone screen, I pushed down my anxiety. Sean was fine. He was always fine. Frustratingly good at vanishing when I needed him most, but fine.
I followed Erin inside the house.
Chapter 18
Everyone had gathered in the living room of the farmhouse. Only Evan sat. Kiki stood close to Jones and looked shaken. Beverly studied the shag carpet. Byron folded his arms over his chest and put his weight on his right leg.
Carla clapped her hands as she walked in behind Erin and I.
“As we have just discussed,” Carla said, “this latest murder has been done on Evan Messer’s property. A ritual like that would have taken several hours to set up, and the execution would have been loud and bright.”
Evan shook his head. He had deep circles beneath his eyes and looked exhausted.
“Perhaps Evan hoped that we’d believe his story—”
“Evan is not behind this,” Erin said, taking time to meet the eyes of every single Guild member except Carla. “You know Evan. He would never do this!”
“None of us would,” Beverly said quietly, looking up.
“But someone is,” Jones added pointedly. Beverly turned her attention back to the carpet.
“Perhaps Evan is innocent,” Carla agreed. “But right now, he’s the most likely suspect. The first murder was out in his field. The next two rituals were in a house we all have access to.” She looked around the room. Kiki chewed her lip. Jones played with his keys in his pocket.
“And now he claims he saw or heard nothing of a spell that must have caused quite a ruckus in a barn that’s right across the lot,” Carla concluded.
“I didn’t do anything!” Evan protested.
“So you claim,” Carla said.
“She’s right,” Byron finally said, but unlike Carla, he had the decency to look unhappy about it. “It is pretty odd that someone else would risk using your barn and that you didn’t see or hear anything strange.”
“It’s not odd. Someone must be setting me up!”
“Yeah,” Erin agreed. “Whoever this is used our family barn because they knew it would point straight to Evan. If it was really him, why would he call us all to come gawk at the bones when he could sweep them away?”
“Because it was a trap for your friend,” Kiki said, giving me an apologetic look. “Henri had to be here to trigger the skeleton. I’ve never seen magic that evil. Diffusing it pretty much used up all of my stores.” She lifted her wrist, shaking a silver bracelet. Kiki was right—Erin and I had just discussed as much outside—but I could tell Erin was pissed she’d brought it up. Her glare could have cut steel.
“I would never do magic like that,” Evan said. “I cook potions! That’s all I do. It’s all I’m good at. You guys know that.”
The silence spoke volumes more than any words could have. Even Erin couldn’t argue, although I could tell she wanted to.
“Let us take you into custody,” Jones said. “If the murders keep happening, we’ll know you’re innocent.”
“Or at least that he’s not working alone.” Carla looked at Erin while she said it, and Erin bristled.
“No way,” Erin said. “You can’t seriously think Evan would do this or that I would help him.”
“I think it’s gotten too dangerous not to take precautions,” Carla said. “Does anyone disagree?”
No one did. Not even me. For one, it wasn’t my place to decide how they handled their internal investigation. I was there to be a voice for the vampires and do my best to stop this murdering and keep the vampires from storming their proverbial castle with torches and pitchforks to avenge those sacrificed.
“Evan, if you would please surrender, we’ll hold you until your innocence can be proven,” Carla said.
Evan stood, a grave expression on his handsome face.
Erin tried to hold Evan back, but he moved around her and presented himself. “I didn’t do this. I wouldn’t. But I want to do what’s best for the Guild. If this is what it takes to prove my innocence, so be it.”
Carla held up two bracelets. Evan sighed heavily and extended his wrists.
“What are those?” I asked, as Carla slid the bands onto his arms.
“They’re nullifiers,” Kiki said. “They prevent him from doing magic.”
I frowned. They looked like the same silver bands most of the witches wore to store energy, although they had a gray rubber-like substance lining one side. “How?”
“By pulling all excess energy out of the body, so you can’t use it for anything,” Jones said gravely. “Sucks and makes you tired, but it’s not painful. And it’s only temporary.” He addressed the last part to Evan, who nodded. Erin was sneering at all of them, but Evan took his arrest in stride.
“This is absurd, and a waste of time,” Erin insisted. “While you keep tabs on Evan, the real killer is probably out grabbing more bodies to throw in the circle of death.”
“I’m willing to bet that’s the asshole’s intent. Throw the blame on me,” Evan said, but he sounded resigned. “I’ll be all right. And soon you’ll see that I’m not party to that kind of evil.”
“This is bullshit,” Erin said, and stomped out of the house.
I shrugged and followed her out.
* * *
I got into Erin’s car and shut the door.
She was squeezing her steering wheel and looked like she was seriously considering whether or not to drive right through the wall and into the house.
“I guess you guys don’t have a truth potion handy that might help clear him,” I said.
Erin shook her head. “Ironically, Evan is best at brewing those. I know he made one. But maybe they think he doctored it somehow. Only Jones is also really proficient at potions, and like I said, they only last three to seven days. He’ll probably start one now, but it’ll take a while to be of use.”
Erin started the car and backed out, turning the car around.
“You have to admit Evan is a good suspect,” I said. Erin narrowed her eyes at me. “Seriously. He’s a nice enough guy, but I can attest that that doesn’t mean he’s not capable of murder and death magic. And it does look bad.”
“It’s not him,” she said. “But Carla has plenty of reason to keep him detained now, which is what she wanted.”
“Why would she want Evan locked up?” Clearly I’d missed something.
Erin jerked a thumb back over her shoulder toward the farmhouse. “She wants control. Control of the Elders, of the Guild, of our property. She was livid when our grandparents left their farm to Evan and not the Guild. They were Guild Elders, too, and most of us bequeath property to the Guild directly.”
“Really? Leaving your property to your grandkid makes more sense to me than leaving it to your Witchy Cabal. No offense.”
“Well, yeah, it makes perfect sense, unless you’re a power-hungry old woman. She was always jealous of my granddad, of the way everyone listened to him.” Erin sighed. “Grandpa was very charismatic. Everyone liked him. My grandma was less friendly, but people loved her because my granddad loved her, and that made them see her better qualities. She was loyal and powerful. They pretty much ruled the Guild like a royal couple. Everyone deferred to them, everyone respected their opinions.”
Erin pulled out onto the highway and turned on the radio. Guitar rock filled the car. A mile or so later, I turned it down.
“Do you think Carla’s behind this?” I asked.
Erin started to shake her head and then stopped. “Honestly, I just don’t know what to think anymore. Dark rituals like these sacrifices are terrible enough, but to animate the bones and use them to kill…” She shuddered. “This isn’t magic that people do. I’ve never heard of anything like it, and I can’t figure out what the hell the point is. After all, they’ve been killing and killing and all it seems to lead to is more killing.”
I gingerly touched my throat. The skin was tender and sore. I had no doubt bruises were flowering around my neck.
“My money’s on Byron,” I said, thinking of the stocky, tattoo’d man. Something about him bothered me, not to mention his limp.
“Maybe.” Erin’s lips twisted into a frown. “But I can’t picture Byron doing all of that. He loved his uncle, but when we realized Barry had committed murder, Byron was the first person to freak out. Like, completely. He was not on board the murder train.”
“He’s the only one with a limp in the leg where I stabbed my attacker,” I pointed out.
“He says he was attacked. Maybe the person you stabbed used a healing spell. Byron’s always sucked at those.”
“Byron was the one who suggested I take a closer look at the body,” I pointed out, and suppressed a shudder at the memory of a bone hand against my flesh.
“Actually, he suggested Carla take a hike and stop pushing to get her way,” Erin said. “Frankly, I’m with him on that one.”
“Still.”
Erin shivered. “That walking skeleton was seriously messed up. That’s the darkest magic I’ve ever seen. I’m having a really hard time picturing anyone I know doing something that fucked up. I keep hoping we’ll find evidence that it’s some stranger none of us have met.”
I thought of the Guild Elders. None of them struck me as overtly homicidal or even desperate. It was hard to picture any of them dragging unconscious vampires to their deaths by dark ritual for some nefarious purpose. But that didn’t mean none of them was guilty. Just that they were good at keeping their masks in place.
Chapter 19
It was dark by the time Erin dropped me off on Capitol Hill. I opened the door to my apartment. Moonlight cast blue light through the windows. Sean was seated on my new sofa. I could see his outline against the windowpane.
Relief washed over me at the sight of his silhouette.
I flipped on the lights. “You’re alive.”
“In some respects,” Sean agreed. He stood and turned in one smooth, supernaturally fast motion. “Did you have reason to believe otherwise?”
A lump rose in my throat. Sean’s frown when he saw the bruises on my neck could have curdled milk. He stared at the injury for a long time, and not the way I wanted him to stare at my neck. Finally, I pushed past him into my bedroom and shut the door. I studied the mark in my closet mirror. The bruise on my neck was purple and yellow, a shadow of bony fingers curling around my throat. It had gotten darker since I’d last looked at it.
I dug around in my dresser and found a thin, black scarf with sequins, the decorative kind I wore more for the aesthetic than the warmth. I wrapped it around my neck and came back out. Sean hadn’t moved an inch, but he was staring at my purse on the counter.
No, not at my purse. At the Italian shoe I’d taken from the barn.
“Harold is missing,” Sean said, turning to me. “Do you know where he is?”
My stomach flipped as I pictured Harold, and then the skeleton that had attacked me. Harold was about Sean’s height and build.
“I might,” I said finally.
“You have his shoe,” Sean said. “Or rather, my shoe, which he was wearing last night.”
Bile rose in my throat. I’d barely known Harold—I hadn’t even realized Gothula and Harold were the same person when we’d first crossed paths, or I’d have demanded his help when I’d needed it. Harold was a fledgling of Sean’s, like Lark. Like me. He’d been turned decades ago. Maybe fifty, sixty years ago? I’d meet him in passing, back in San Francisco. He’d dressed more like Sean then, suits and ties, the dapper style of the era. Not the Goth look he’d adopted these days, which is why I hadn’t recognized him. I didn’t know he had come to Seattle, nor that he’d taken up residency at the Factory.
“He’s dead,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Something moved over Sean’s face like a passing cloud, and a second later, his expression was dark but mostly unreadable again. “How?”
It was a fair question. Sean deserved an answer. And with Bea and Harold dead, Sean deserved a warning. So did Lark, for that matter.
But the witches who weren’t ritualistically killing vampires didn’t deserve to be slaughtered for the sake of vampire vengeance, either. And the last thing anyone needed was an all-out war between witches and vampires.
“There’s a killer who’s murdering vampires,” I said, trying to keep things vague. “I’m going to stop them.”
Sean’s eyebrows went up to his hairline. “How is that possible?”
“They might be using magic.”
His eyes flared. “What?”
“Listen to me.” He was staring past me, at the shoe, and I moved in front of him, grabbing his face with my hands. “Eyes on me. You can’t do anything rash, okay? You have to let me handle this.”
His blue eyes locked on mine, his gaze so hard it might have cut glass. “Someone killed Harold and presumably strangled you, and you want me to do nothing?”
“I want you to let me do my job.”
He bared his fangs in a slight growl.
I tilted my head and gave him a Seriously? look in response.
“Don’t be an ass,” I said, dropping my hands from his face. “Watch yourself. Don’t let anyone sneak up on you. I’ll do the rest.”
“Since when is it your job to cull the worst among the monsters?” Sean asked.
That was a damn good question.
“Since I started doing it, I guess.”
He pressed his lips together as he picked the shoe off the counter and examined it. Then he sighed. “How can I help? And don’t say ‘by doing nothing.’ One of my fledglings has been killed. Harold and I were not close, but an attack on mine is an attack on me.”
I did my best not to throw anything at his head, mostly because there was nothing conveniently close to my hands worth throwing. “It wasn’t an ‘attack on you’ when someone turned me human against my will.”
Sean set down the shoe. “Of course it was. And I have offered to kill the woman who did it.”
“Where was Harold when he disappeared?”
“At the Factory, giving keys to contractors who will start repairing the fire damage.” Sean put his hands in his pockets. “Why?”
The Factory. Bea was last seen there, too. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a top-secret hideout. Anyone in the arcane world would know they could find vampires there, fire damage or not. But it wasn’t exactly a smart place to attack a vampire if you didn’t want other vampires raining down on your head.
Unless you knew there wouldn’t be many vampires there.
“Are the mortals still alive? The ones who set the Factory on fire?”
“Yes,” Sean said. “Lark is biding her time. I think she plans to catch them off guard when they believe they’ve escaped her wrath and then issue justice one by one.”
“Uh huh,” I said. I didn’t really care what Lark did with them. If they’d burned down my house, I’d have their heads on pikes already. But they might have seen someone grab Bea or know something. Like the vampires, I’d severely underestimated the mortals. Maybe it was time to see what they knew. But except Elliot, they weren’t going to talk willingly. “Can you tell me where the mortals are currently hiding out?”
Sean gave me an address. Clearly he and Lark had kept close tabs on them. I wondered if the idiots had any idea. The mortals probably thought they were safely hidden, but they were still in the city, like fools. If they wanted to be safe, they’d have gone somewhere remote and very far away. Probably across an ocean. And even that wouldn’t be a guarantee. At least it’d make Lark work for their destruction. What the hell was keeping them so close? Surely they understood they were in danger.
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