“She tried to get permission, but she couldn’t find him.” Birdie laughed. “Can you believe it? Imagine Zoe Thornton slumming it down Highway 1 in a Hyundai.”
So Darius had left before Zoe had. “And where are Nathan and Tierra now?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
Birdie set down the bird book on an end table. “When Nathan didn’t come back from his run, Tierra went out to look for him.” Birdie gave me a questioning look. “I haven’t seen either of them since. But I was in my room until Mr. Hawk asked if I wanted to learn about birds.”
“Because of the name,” Warren mumbled, adjusting the telescope. “I don’t believe in coincidences. Names are important.”
“So now I’m learning about birds,” Birdie said, less than enthusiastic. Then she added, “Tierra told me to remind you about hiking with her, maybe later today? She said you guys were trying to set up a time.”
I nodded.
Phil, Nathan, Zoe—all gone.
And Darius too.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” I said. “I… I forgot something.” Awkward, but I was using all my energy to maintain a spell to hide my agitation. Under my magical defenses, I was sweating.
“Where are you going?” Birdie asked.
I turned. “It’s good luck to leave out goat cheese for the garden gnomes,” I said. “I’m going to go buy some. Some really nice goat cheese.”
“We could use some good luck,” Warren said wanly, rubbing his temple.
“I’ll get a lot,” I said, breaking into a jog.
The gnome stopped me on my way back to the driveway. She stood just outside the garden gate, a plucked daisy in her hand. “Excuse me, witch,” she said. “Do I smell a drop of the special water in your wagon?”
Although I was in a heart-pounding rush, I made myself stop and squat down in front of her. Like Willy, she had the power to help me but could be easily offended. She had a sparkle in her eyes and a liveliness as energetic as a small child’s.
“Yes, you do,” I said. “Would you like some?”
The eyes shone like LEDs. She nodded.
I hurried to the Jeep and took out the bottle of tea Seth had given me, then went back to her. “Is this what you smell?”
“Oh, for certainly. Absolutely it is, indeed I am sure,” she said.
I walked past her into the garden and set the bottle beneath the rhododendron, next to the empty white plate that had held the watermelon. Before I left, I snapped open the cap, thinking it might be too tight for little, even magical, hands to open.
After all, it had been magical hands that had screwed it tight in the first place. Seth had gone to a lot of trouble to make the bottle look store-bought, but I’d sensed the wellspring water the moment he’d held it out to me. The waffles had been made with it too. After he’d kept me against my will overnight, I hadn’t thought it wise to imbibe anything else of his. The gnomes would be immune to his fairy mischief.
The gnome toddled past me and put her arms around the bottle. “So many gratitudes are going to you this fine day.”
She disappeared.
“You’re welcome,” I said under my breath, running back to my Jeep.
So, Phil owned a craft brewery in Fort Bragg. How many could there be? I did a quick internet search before driving out of range, found two possible locations, and made a note before I backed out, turned around, and rumbled down the road to the highway. It would take me at least twenty minutes to get to the town, and I couldn’t go any physically faster, even with magic. The Jeep wasn’t designed for hairpin curves along treacherous cliffs—and I wasn’t either. Each turn of the wheels reminded me how quickly and how far I would fall to my death. The fae were back in force and might be seeking revenge for whatever creature had scared them away earlier. The Silverpool fae had driven me off the road once already just that summer. I didn’t want to relive the experience, especially since I knew I couldn’t survive a similar fall here.
And so it was almost noon when I drove into town, my hands sweaty on the wheel, my neck tight with stress.
Nathan was in show business, had an angry aura, and was missing, possibly allowing the fae to return to the house. Crystal had been blackmailing Tierra and maybe him as well.
But Phil fit the profile best, and he had opportunity. Staying in that private cottage, not eating meals with us, coming and going as he pleased.
My phone navigated me to the first brewery, one I’d heard of right off Main Street. But it didn’t feel right—too popular, too close to the small tourist center. I floored it and raced down a side street to the next one.
I passed an art gallery, an empty lot, a diner, a car repair shop, a bakery. Then, at the next corner, I found the building with a brown vintage Mercedes parked in the small lot in back.
That was it. I pulled in near a loading dock, killed the engine, reached into my bag for—was I really going to pretend this was something I was capable of?—yes, the silver stake. I was already wearing the other amulet, the charms, the herbs. The stake was too big to hold, too dangerous to show, so I slipped it inside my jacket.
There were no fairies nearby, but it was the city; they would only come out at dawn and dusk, on special occasions like a comet or a solstice, or for self-defense.
I got out and walked over to the bottom of several steps that led up to an unmarked black door. My armpits tingling with growing fear, I put my hand on the silver stake in my jacket pocket. The moment my fingers touched metal, the acrid, horrible scent of burning hair struck my senses so powerfully I had to reach out to the railing for balance.
It was here. A horrible wrongness. Pain. Death.
Slowly I climbed the steps up to the door and pushed it open before I could question myself. If I thought too long, I’d jump back in my car and speed home to Silverpool, with or without Birdie. The smell was that terrifying. And it was impossible to stop breathing it in.
I pulled the stake out of my pocket and strode down a tiled corridor, following the stench. Was I too late? Had the demon found a victim? Was Darius here?
There was a horrible sound, too, a high-pitched cry alternating with an angry, harsh roar. Forgetting my fear, I broke into a run.
Through a doorway ahead of me I saw massive, gleaming steel tanks standing in a row, each connected with pipes, dials, ladders. But sprawled on the wide expanse of empty floor below them—
A figure wearing Philip Thornton’s clothing lay motionless on his back, a silver stake jutting up from his chest. The roar was fading to a low gurgle.
Phil.
The stench was coming from the figure, which was already beginning to decay. A demon’s host would age rapidly with the sudden loss of its possessing spirit, and the skin of this one was already turning ash gray. His hair was singed away, and his scalp blistered. He was a burning corpse in expensive casual clothing, disintegrating from within. The groaning and hissing were coming from his cremating body.
From behind one of the tanks, Darius stepped into view. His expression was terrible, cold and blank. He glanced at Phil, now beginning to sizzle like a hamburger on a grill, and then back to me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Why are you here?” Darius demanded.
I lowered my hand, which still held the stake. It was shaking so violently I almost dropped it. “Looking for… him.”
“Why?” Darius asked. “How did you know to come here?”
My body wouldn’t stop trembling. Was my physical reaction part of my Incurable Inability, or was it simply shock?
“Warren said he was at his brewery,” I said. “I saw his car in the parking lot.”
“What’s that you’ve got?”
I began to put the stake back in my jacket pocket. “You know exactly what—”
“Give it to me.” He marched around the body with his hand out. “You’re not authorized to carry that.”
“What are you afraid of? I thought you guys wanted witches killing demons.”
He clapped his hand
s loudly three times, and the stake, which was loose in my grip, flew out of mine and landed in his.
I could’ve, would’ve taken it back, but…
I didn’t want it. I wouldn’t have been able to stab Phil. Right before me was the evidence of his demon nature—the husk of his stolen, ruined human body—but I regretted his demise nonetheless. I’d liked Phil. He’d been opening up a small craft brewery in a humble coastal town, he’d loved his wife, he’d—
Well, he might have killed Crystal. So yes, that would’ve been bad. But why should a lone Protectorate agent have the power to play executioner?
“Did he admit he’d done it before you killed him?” I demanded.
Darius opened his jacket and began to tuck my stake inside. But then he reached in, pulled out a second stake, and held it up to me to show he hadn’t used it. “I didn’t do a thing.”
I stared at the two silver stakes in his hands. Then to the body on the floor with a third silver spike in its shriveled chest. “You— He’s dead. You must’ve—”
“No. I was too late. The ring burned when I questioned him last night, so I knew it was him. I tested everyone in the house, and he was the one to set it off. Other than you, of course. But I had to get Raynor’s approval before…” He gestured at the body. “He slipped away this morning before I could question him. He must’ve hexed me. I have no memory of going to sleep last night.”
“The ring shocked you with me, and I’m not a demon.”
“It was worse with him,” he said. “Much worse.”
“Did you tell Raynor?”
“Of course I told Raynor.”
“No,” I said. “About me. Did you tell him about what the ring did with me?”
He stared at me, jaw clenching. Then he nodded.
My head began to swim, and I wondered if I might faint. Me and the other demon could hang out on the floor together. “And he said to go ahead on that evidence alone?”
Another nod.
Great. Raynor might not want word getting out about my demon ancestry, not if it implicated him having the same problem. There was one good way to stop words from getting out.
I took a step back. “Now you’ve got two stakes,” I said. “Are you going to use one of them on me?”
He had the decency to look outraged. “Of course not.”
“You were going to use one of them on Phil,” I pointed out.
“That’s different. He killed somebody.” Shaking his head, he tucked both stakes away in the silver jacket and took out a phone. He typed a quick message or two, then waved at me to move away from the body. “I’ve called it in. They’ll be here in five.”
“They’re that close?”
He put the phone away and took out a velvet sack of jade coins that agents used to mark off the area around a fallen demon. Crouching down, he began to place them in a circle around Phil’s remains. “I called for reinforcements last night. They’ve been waiting nearby.”
“This is the billionaire Philip Thornton,” I said. “How will the Protectorate deal with the publicity?”
“Not my problem. The nonmagical world doesn’t know he’s dead yet, so there’s time.” He looked up from setting down the coins. “How did you suspect him? Did you have other magic stones? What are you hiding now?”
“The fae are back at the house,” I said. “Warren told me Phil was here, so I came looking.” I brought my hands together casually, touching my beaded bracelets to enforce a bland innocence spell. If he used magic on me, he might learn about Seth, his presence in Silverpool, and the information, however limited, he’d shared with me. Hopefully at the moment, Darius was too busy to analyze me too closely.
There was a sound from behind me—the scrape of a door, the jingle of keys, and then a woman’s voice called from the corridor. “Phil? Aren’t you done here yet? I got us a reservation at—”
My stomach fell. Oh Brightness no—
Zoe walked into the room. Then her eyes blanked with horror as they took in the man—the demon, her husband—dead on the floor. And the silver-jacketed agent laying jade coins in a circle around his corpse.
I froze, unsure what to do. Part of me wanted to rush over and hold her, but a colder, cynical part wanted to stand where I was and observe.
Darius rose from the floor, his arms outstretched. “No, don’t— You can’t—”
“No. No. No. No.” She walked stiffly toward the body. “What have you done?”
“You have to go outside,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. “The other agents—”
She swatted his hand away. “You killed him. You… you—” Her head turned back and forth between us. “Was it him or was it you? Which one of you?” She raised her hands, her entire body shaking.
Surely her shock was genuine. Nobody could act that well.
“Please,” Darius said, stepping back. He seemed surprised by her reaction. Perhaps he’d assumed she’d known what Phil was and would’ve prepared herself for the inevitable. “Witch Zoe—”
She moved her hands into an offensive spell posture, fingertips rigid and outstretched. “Get away from me. I need to— What did you do to him? You… you… burned him.”
Darius remained calm. “Did you know your husband was a demon?” he asked in the tone of a person ordering a latte.
“No! Of course he wasn’t a— How could—?” Her voice broke on a sob, and she fell to her knees. One knee touched one of the jade coins, and she jerked back, stung by the sharp, electric power of an agent’s official boundary.
I moved toward her, unable to endure her pain any longer. Even if she’d known Phil was a demon, maybe she’d never seen a staked demon before. The sight was known to give nightmares even to veteran Emerald witches.
“No, no,” she whispered, crouching lower, on her hands and knees now, swaying back and forth, staring unblinking at the body she couldn’t reach.
At her side now, I stroked her shoulder and gently pulled her to her feet. “Come with me, Zoe,” I said.
She hung her head, crying softly, but wouldn’t move.
“Let me get you back to the house,” I said.
“House?” she asked me blankly.
“Warren’s house,” I said.
“Crystal’s dead too,” she said, lip quivering. More tears fell, but she made no move to wipe them away.
Darius was making a gesture in the air, and I felt the shock wave of calm reach us like soft air. Quickly I set up a resistance spell so I didn’t suddenly feel the urge to lie down and take a nap. Shooting him a frown—I would’ve appreciated a warning—I took Zoe’s arm and guided her away.
She didn’t resist when I led her out the door and down the stairs, but when I reached the Jeep, she shook her head and pulled away from me to stumble toward the Mercedes. “Phil’s car. He loved this car. He wouldn’t want it… just parked here… in the middle of nowhere… alone…” She began crying harder, unrestrained and hopeless.
She tugged at the driver’s side door, but it was locked. When she began pounding, throwing herself against it, I cast a spell to pop the locks and helped her into the back seat.
“Where’s your purse?” I asked. She hadn’t brought it with her into the brewery. I could probably use magic to hot-wire the car, but it would drain me. “Do you have a set of keys?”
Nodding, she wiped her face. “In Nathan’s car. I have it… somewhere…” She fumbled with her coat pocket and pulled out a fob.
I used it to get the purse out of the Hyundai, dug in the bag for the old-school keys to the Mercedes, and then got behind the wheel as Zoe sobbed quietly behind me in the back seat. I was much shorter than Phil, and it took me a few moments to adjust the seat and mirrors.
Unfortunately, that was long enough for the other Protectorate agents to arrive on motorcycles. They swarmed around us, engines roaring, and blocked us in.
Had Raynor called in anonymous killers to finish me off?
Oh Brightness help me. My hands were sweating.
/> Just as I was hurriedly wiping them off on my pants, Darius appeared at the building door and shouted something to the motorcycle agents. There was a flash, a popping sound, and a fog that settled over the building and blocked him and the structure from view. The other agents, their faces hidden under their helmets, backed out and rolled into the fog, and then they, too, disappeared.
My body relaxed. My heartbeat slowed. A few seconds later, I had to concentrate to remember I’d ever seen them at all.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Twenty minutes later I drove down the private road to Hawk Ranch, seeing out of the corner of my eye a pair of tree fairies in brown gowns dancing around a eucalyptus tree.
It was small comfort.
If Darius hadn’t been the one who’d put the stake through Phil’s chest, who had? Phil hadn’t been dead very long before I’d arrived at the brewery. The demon decay had been underway but not so long that I hadn’t been able to recognize his face. Whoever had put that stake in him must’ve done so late this morning.
Darius could’ve brought two stakes, but why would he lie? He was supposed to kill demons. He’d get rewarded, and he didn’t answer to me or to other witches, not even a billionaire’s widow.
Maybe this would be the end of the Protectorate’s interest in the Hawk situation. The blackmailer, Crystal, was killed by one of her victims, Philip Thornton the demon, who was now destroyed. The circle was complete. What else was there to be done?
It was too neat. I didn’t like it. If Crystal had been blackmailing Phil for being a demon, why hadn’t he killed her earlier when fewer people, like current and former Protectorate agents, were in the house at the same time?
Then again, what better time to deflect blame? Witches were known to hate one another and occasionally make their animosity permanent. Although Darius had found demon sign, I was the one who had drawn attention to the ring and its effect on me.
I should’ve protected my secrets better, but I’d been caught up with the need to learn the truth, protect the innocent, and find justice.
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