Witching Time

by Yasmine Galenorn

  “The problem with that is this: he’s not actually invisible,” Herne said. “Autumn wights fade; they don’t just use a spell to vanish from sight. They literally fade into a corporeal energy being. You can’t see him, because he’s faded in between the worlds. So it’s doubtful that any anti-invisibility spell will work. And as far as throwing paint on him—again, he exists between worlds, although he can become corporeal when he wants to. Chances are the paint won’t touch him.”

  “I said it sounded ridiculous,” Ember muttered. She shook her head. “Is there any way for us to go ‘between’ the worlds? To move into the Between, so to speak?”

  Herne glanced over at her. “Yes, there is, but it’s dangerous.”

  I jerked my head up. “We can move between?”

  “I think so. Hold on.” Herne jumped up and hustled out of the room.

  Ember turned to me. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good, just worried about Marigold. This has to be taking a tremendous toll on the kids, on the farm, on Rain, and Marigold too. What happens if an autumn wight drains someone of all their energy? Because he has a hold on Marigold and nobody’s mentioned what will eventually happen to her if we don’t knock that wight back into the land where it came from. I mean, I know that his control on her will continue, but…”

  “But what eventually happens?” Ember let out a sigh. “I’m not sure. Let me go get Yutani and his computer. He can probably find out.”

  A moment later she returned with Yutani, who was carrying one of his office laptops. He immediately sat at the table and began typing away. I didn’t interrupt—he was either finishing up something he had been working on, or Ember had already told him about the issue, and he was looking up the answer. Either way, I didn’t want to distract him.

  “Ah, here we go,” he said after a moment. “I’m not sure if this applies to all wights, or just autumn wights.” He leaned back. “When someone is turned into a wight and they begin to fade, they do travel into the Between. They’ll spend days there, not realizing how long they’ve been gone. Eventually, they never fully come back. Now, wights retain a physical presence, so they exist on two levels at once.”

  “Can they breed?”

  “Only true to type, and it’s rare. Actually, most wights—of any kind—are created through either ritual or through being attacked by another wight. If you’re bitten or scratched by a wight—anything to break the skin—there’s a chance you’ll become infected with the disease they carry. So, if the autumn wight attacked anybody else over the years, there may be other autumn wights on the land. You might not be dealing with just one.”

  “Crap.” I didn’t want to even think about that. “How do we find them? Because short of hauling in a massive search team, I’m not sure what to do. Especially since we can’t see them.” A thought occurred to me. I turned to Yutani. “You might know the answer to this. Is there a way to use some sort of sound or light frequency to root them out of hiding?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You know how beekeepers can smoke out bees? Is there a way to drive wights into a specific area? Something they have to get away from, or hide from? Like setting a humane trap and then backing an animal into it?”

  Ember groaned. “You mean like herding cows? I can see it now, we’ll all dress up in cowboy hats and chaps and drive the wights into the barn at milking time.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her. “This isn’t funny! I mean, I grant you, that sounded weird, but I’m just trying to find some way that we can push them into the open.”

  “Huh,” Yutani said. “Maybe you’re onto something. Hold on.” He began tapping away at the keys. “Let me see here…”

  Herne returned at that moment. He was holding out his phone, staring at something on the screen. Finally, he sat down. “All right. Mother says there is a way to move into the Between, but it’s dangerous and she strongly recommends against it.”

  “Bingo!” Yutani said, snapping his fingers. “Raven, you’re not so far off-track as you thought. Radio frequencies! There are some subsonic frequencies that aren’t great for humans, but wights really don’t like them. If we played them all around the perimeter and started moving in from the sides of the farm, we might send the wights on a one-way course directly to the center. That way we could gather them all at once.”

  I nodded. “That sounds promising. They can’t just…teleport away, can they?”

  “Wights can’t teleport. They move quickly, but they can’t just vanish from one spot and appear in another.” Herne frowned. “But if we gather a number of wights in one area, going Between to fight them won’t be feasible. They’re terribly strong and—”

  “Not to interrupt, but I don’t even know how to fight them. I think Ember said fire can kill them, but what else?” It felt like there were so many variables that no matter what, I’d screw up somehow.

  “I asked my mother about that, as well, and she talked to Cernunnos. Wights—autumn wights, specifically—can be killed by fire. Set it on fire and it will die if it’s prevented from putting out the flames. They can also be damaged by lightning, holy weapons, and silver.”

  “Brighid’s Flame. The sword was made by the Lady Brighid,” Ember said.

  “All well and good, but I don’t have any—oh wait.” I thought for a moment. “What about my wand? I have the Wand of Straha.” My mother had given me a wand created by a fire witch from the Black Forest. “Would that count?”

  Herne cleared his throat. “I’d almost consider that an unholy weapon, but yes, I think it would. Especially since it was created by a fire witch.”

  “Then would I need to be in the Between to attack it?” I frowned. I still didn’t want to try dimension hopping. It had been bad enough going into the Underworld to help Ember save Viktor. I wasn’t ready to shift into a parallel world again.

  “No, I don’t think you would. Relics and artifacts like your wand tend to work on a multidimensional level. If we were to help you, we could drive the wight—or wights, if there is more than one—into the center of the farm and go after them.” Herne gave me a soft smile. “We aren’t going to let you go into this alone, Raven.”

  I let out a long breath, more relieved than I wanted to admit. “So, how do we do this? They have five acres. That’s a long distance to station people around the exterior. That would take one hell of a lot of bodies.”

  Yutani shook his head. “Not necessarily. Speakers would do the trick. Rigging up speakers every…let me calculate here. We’d need speakers spaced…” He began to calculate distances and fell silent. “That’s a lot of speakers.”

  I turned to the others. “Are you sure you want to help?”

  “Of course. Autumn wights are deadly and the last thing we want is for them to spread. And even if it’s slowly, they do spread, much like a disease.” Herne glanced at Yutani. “Any rough idea yet?”

  “Too many speakers, I’m afraid.”

  “There’s another possibility,” Viktor said. “We can use magic. There are spells to amplify sounds, and I’m pretty certain that you can charm crystals to vibrate at a certain level. If you could attune a massive amount of needle spikes—quartz—with the frequency, then set them all off via one spell all at one time, then it might work.”

  “Of course,” Ember said. “It’s not hard to get hold of hundreds of crystal spikes, and then it’s a matter of just scattering them at intervals and setting them all off at once. It would be a little tricky, but I think it can manage to work.”

  “That makes sense, and that way, we can seed the acreage with the crystals without worrying about coordinating every movement. It also allows us to minimize the danger of having too many people involved.” I frowned. “You realize this is going to massively amplify the magical energy of their farm. Seeding that many crystals in the soil…”

  Yutani laughed. “Well, it will probably help them grow their farm into a major enterprise. Either that, or they’ll fail spectacularly, d
epending on what kind of energy they’re exuding.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” Herne said. “If you only go after the one wight, you still have to find him and trap him. And if there are others, it will just happen again.” He pulled out his phone. “I think I’ll text my mother. Maybe Morgana can help us.”

  I excused myself and went to the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, it occurred to me that when I had come to the Wild Hunt for help the first time, both the agency and I had gotten more than we bargained for. Herne had invited me to join them, but I had said no. I didn’t have the temperament to take the orders I’d have to, and I liked my own work. But it was nice to have allies, and when they needed me, I tried to come through. And they helped me when I needed it.

  I sighed, staring at my reflection. “This has been one hell of a case,” I whispered. “I just hope that the next one is easier.”

  Returning to the break room, I found Herne smiling. He held up his phone.

  “Good news?” I said.

  “Yes, good news. My mother has a treasure trove of quartz crystals. I told her what we needed and she says her sirens can attune them. She’ll have everything ready by tomorrow. We’ll meet you at the farm at seven p.m. tomorrow night and do what we can to take care of the wights.”

  I sank down into my chair. “Oh, thank gods.” Then I froze. “How much is this going to run me? I’ve been putting up the money for everything because I know Marigold and Rain don’t have it. But even I have limitations.” It occurred to me that the cost of so many crystals could drain me dry.

  “No charge,” Herne said, again smiling.

  I leaned back, slightly dazed. “Thank you. Thank your mother for me, please. And thanks for coming out to help. I don’t want to drag Llew and Jordan back out there till it’s safe, and I doubt if Kipa and I can take care of everything by ourselves, even with the help of his men.”

  “You won’t have to. We’ll be there, armed and ready to go.”

  “What should I do about Elzabeth? I can’t prove she killed any of her husbands, but she did. And she’s married again. Will he be her next victim?”

  Herne frowned. “Let me ask around and see what I can find out. I hate to let her walk free, given we know what she did to Aida and what she’s capable of. Akron filed his report. While he can’t tell exactly what caused Aida’s death, but he did find some hemlock berries in the room, and those are poisonous.”

  “What about fingerprints?” I asked.

  “Oh, there were still some we could find, but it was Elzabeth’s farm. It would only make sense to find her fingerprints there. No, we need a confession, I think. I’m going to write up a report and ask our law enforcement informants whether they think it’s worth going to the cops.”

  “Let me know what they say,” I said, rising from my chair. Thanking them again, I headed for the elevator, Angel and Ember walking me out.

  “I know it’s not everything you hoped to hear, but at least we have a chance to destroy the wight. That’s the most important thing.”

  I nodded. I knew that, but I wanted everything to be tied up in a tidy box so that I could set it on the shelf and not fret about unfinished business. I was so tired of unfinished business, but when you dealt with the dead, there were often unanswered questions.

  As I stepped back out into the blustery day, I smelled rain on the horizon. Another storm was coming in, and by the tingling in the back of my neck, it was going to be a real doozy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kipa and my father were busy in the yard when I got home. I saw that they were pruning back the roses and other bushes that needed trimming during autumn. I waved at them, then headed inside, thinking I should call Rain. I had also promised Tyra I’d find out where to send the ring that the ghost had been up in arms over. Or, in fog. Or whatever it was ghosts got up in.

  I went in my office and sat down at my desk, looking up the phone number of Tyra’s landlord. He answered on the first ring.

  “Mr. Williams? My name is Raven BoneTalker and I’m a friend of your tenant Tyra Smith. I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

  His voice was gruff, but friendly enough. “What can I do for you?”

  “I know this is going to sound strange, but I’m trying to find out the last name of the people who owned your house you rent to Tyra before you did. Hiram and Denise?”

  He paused, then asked, “Why?”

  I really had been hoping he would just answer and leave the reasons alone, but I let out a sigh and said, “Here’s the thing. We found something that belongs to one of the daughters. We want to see that she gets it.”

  Another pause, then, “Is it expensive?”

  I could see where this was going. As the owner of the house, he had the right to keep whatever he found in there. I decided a little lie was in order. “Not at all—just something small and sentimental.” That was true, even if I had fudged on the expensive part.

  Sounding disappointed, he said, “Hold on. Let’s see…Hiram and Denise Overland.”

  “Thanks!” I hung up before he could ask me anything else.

  Turning to my computer, I entered “Kaitlin Overland” into the search engine and added quotes around the name. Then I added “Seattle” and waited.

  “Oh man, six thousand results?” I frowned, trying to scan through them, but there were so many I didn’t know where to start. So I added Hiram and Denise’s names to the search bar. This culled the field. A few moments later, one of the links led to a newspaper article announcing a wedding. Kaitlin Overland had become Kaitlin Vandyke. I brought up another tab on the browser and searched on Kaitlin Vandyke, and Seattle. Sure enough, results brought up her phone number. Thank gods she hadn’t been Kate Smith.

  I called the number and when the woman came on the phone, I identified myself and said, “I was wondering if you might be the same Kaitlin Vandyke who once lived in Seattle, whose father was Hiram and stepmother was Denise Rigby?” I then read off the address.

  Sounding a little paranoid, she confirmed that she had lived in that house.

  “The current tenant found something belonging to your stepmother that she wanted you to have. It’s her wedding ring from when she married your father.”

  There was silence, then, a moment later, she cleared her throat. “What makes you think my stepmother wanted me to have her ring? I always thought she hated me.”

  I thought about making up some fib about a note, but that just seemed to be begging for trouble. Finally, I said, “Do you believe in ghosts, Kaitlin?”

  This time, her voice was fainter. “I’m not sure. If anybody would come back as a ghost, it would be Denise. She was a miserable woman and she was so paranoid that she might miss out on something that she was constantly sticking her nose into everybody’s business.”

  I frowned. “Well, I’ve spoken to Denise’s ghost. I got involved because she was trashing the house. Anyway, she led us to a trunk with the ring in it and told me she wanted you to have it, that you were her favorite.”

  Kaitlin laughed. “If I was her favorite, then I feel bad for my brothers and sister. Okay, I’ll bite. What do I have to do in order to get this ring? Send you my credit card number for postage?”

  I paused. She clearly thought I was some scammer. “No. I just need your address so I can mail it to you. A post office box would be fine, too. If you don’t want it, then I’ll just give it back to the owner who bought the house and he can do what he likes with it.”

  There was another pause, then Kaitlin said, “You really think I was her favorite? She was always hardest on me about my grades and behavior. She never hit me or anything like that, but it felt like she was always hypercritical of me.”

  I could feel the hesitation in her voice. “You know, sometimes people are the hardest on those they love the best because they want them to succeed. They don’t want them to fall through the cracks. The opposite of love isn’t hatred, it’s indifference. If you’re indifferent to someone,
you don’t bother worrying.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. All right, I’ll take the ring.” She hesitated, then added, “You know, I dreamed about her a few nights back. About one of the actual good memories I have. We were making cookies—I was the only one who liked to cook. Denise let me make the batter all by myself. And then, at one point, when the first batch came out of the oven, she tasted one and told me that was the best cookie she had ever eaten. She asked me if I had ever thought of becoming a baker and owning a bakery. You know what? I own a bakery now.”

  “Give me your address and I’ll send off the ring to you. By the way, what’s the name of your bakery? I love baked goods and would be happy to try out your cookies.” I jotted down the address and then the name of her bakery. While I had no clue why Denise had been so insistent about the ring going to Kaitlin, there had obviously been a bond between the two that neither one had acknowledged. As I hung up, I wondered what kind of impact our conversation would have. I’d probably never know—and I decided that was all right.

  When Kipa and my father came in, driven out of the yard by the rain, I had hot cocoa and cookies waiting. Raj was watching a game show, and I had spent half an hour balancing my bank accounts.

  “What happened? Did Wager tell you anything useful?” Kipa kissed me as he brushed past to wash up. He smelled like rain and soil and a deep musk that came from hard work and sweat.

  “Yeah, so hurry up,” I said as the doorbell rang.

  I hustled over and peeked out the keyhole to see my mother standing there. I opened the door and waved her in. “Hey, what gives? Two visits in one week? I thought you were headed back to Dad’s place to pack for him.”

  She gave me a haphazard kiss and stalked by, shaking her head. “You take the cake, Curikan. I’m sure you didn’t think I’d find these.” She tossed a massive pile of envelopes on the table. “Just who is Peach Blossom?”

  He bit his lip, staring at the letters that were tied up in bundles with ribbon. “Someone I know.”