Witch Hunt

by Kate Allenton

  “I understand if she hates me, but that’s not going to solve our problem.”

  “I agree. We’ll solve it together like we were always meant to do. Why don’t you freshen up and come downstairs and I’ll make you something to eat. Then you can tell us all about how you were contacting dad and everything you know. We can help you, Margo, but only if we know what’s going on.” Tess rose from her spot and headed for the door.

  I slipped my legs over the edge of the bed and stood. I grabbed the headboard as my wobbly, weak legs almost gave out. “How did I get to my room?”

  “Andrew carried you. It appears the two of you have a connection like we do. I knew something was wrong, even though I was across town on my way home.”

  “I don’t know why I passed out.”

  “It was because you used the magical tunnels three times today. What Auntie B forgot to tell us is that it zaps our personal energy.”

  “That would have been nice to know.” I headed into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I turned on the faucet and met my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t even know who I was anymore. Trying to help my father had consumed me for so long. The tears started down my face, first one and then more. I tried to stifle my sobs. The last thing my sisters needed was to worry about my emotional state.

  I washed away the evidence of my tears before putting on my best game face. They were going to grill me, and I couldn’t blame them. I was dreading the conversation we were about to have, but answering what I could to help Georgia understand why her mom was one of the chosen ones might help ease her pain somewhat. If I was lucky.

  I found my sisters in the kitchen. Tess was sitting at the breakfast table and had made some sandwiches. Georgia was standing at the sink with her gaze out the window above. We were out of time to prepare to catch this killer. He’d already struck once and had now threatened to do it again. I slipped into a seat at the table across from Tess, ignoring the sandwiches and drinks nearby. I was no longer hungry.

  Tess let out a resigned sigh before cupping her hands around her coffee. “He’s been in King and Livvy’s house, and worse than that, he’s been in Livvy’s room. King wants us all to leave and take Livvy with us.”

  Georgia slowly turned around to face us. “I’m not sure trespassing is the worst take-away from this, Tess. I think the worst thing is the voodoo dolls that he’s left behind. He’s pointed us out as his next targets. How are we going to stop that, especially when we can’t depend on each other?”

  Her gaze turned in my direction. The stab at my secrets was noticed.

  “I see Dad in my dreams. At first, I thought it was just my overactive imagination, considering the last time I saw him in person was when I was a teen. It wasn’t until I started researching people’s names he was telling me about and the voodoo dolls that I understood it wasn’t my imagination. He was real, and somehow we had a connection.”

  “How exactly did you find that connection, seeing that only the Witches’ council knew about these killings? The normal news wouldn’t have released the details about the voodoo dolls.”

  “I had a friend who had a friend that worked for a council member. He told me, but we’re getting off topic here,” I said, rising from my seat to pace the kitchen. “This is the first time the voodoo killer warned anyone. He normally leaves the dolls after the killing, not before.”

  “You’re sure about that?” Tess asked.

  “You’re right,” Georgia said, glancing at Tess. “She’s right. That voodoo doll wasn’t in our home the day my mom died, and the paintings came after the killing. This isn’t his typical signature.”

  “What are you saying?” Tess asked me.

  “Copycat. Someone who knew the killer was going to strike and tried to copy him for their own agenda.”

  “And the dolls in Livvy’s bedroom?” Tess asked.

  “Something to scare you all out of town and to stop you from looking for the killer and probably Manny’s book,” Ryder said, stepping into the room with King and Andrew.

  “Is that a guess or something you know?” I asked.

  “Forensics just got the results of the paint on Manny’s walls. It was shoe polish.” King held up his finger, and the tip was black. “The same thing as on Livvy’s wall.

  “But not the same thing as the other crime scenes. This killer is meticulous with his details, like leaving a specialized paint mixture on his marks. His paint has specks of blue in the black. The ones in town are shoe polish and lacking the additional paint specks. I already have a forensic team next door collecting evidence.” King announced. “Ryder’s already had a look around inside too.”

  An hour later, my sisters followed me into the library where I was now capable of searching through the books without the need to sneak around. The freedom of that alone relieved some of my stress.

  “Tell us about Dad,” Tess said.

  “You know most of it. Dad left when I was a teenager. He took my painting with the death symbol, and that was the last I saw of him until about a year ago. Until recently, I thought they were just dreams. He’d come to me while sleeping and in my thoughts, warning me that he’d been taken and telling me to protect my mom only it wasn’t in my unconscious, it was real. We were astral projecting.”

  “How come he warned you and not me?” Georgia’s eyes narrowed to slits. There was no denying that she was pissed.

  Chapter 12

  “I have no idea,” I answered. “I thought I was losing my mind. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe my own thoughts or dreams. It wasn’t until he gave me Georgia’s mother’s name and I looked into it…and, well, you know the rest. Lately, when he comes into my dreams, it seems like he’s getting worse. First, it was cuts and bruises, and then he started to lose the spark in his eyes. I begged him to tell me where he was, and he didn’t know, but he’s convinced the answers are in his journals.”

  I slid a book off the shelf and flipped through the contents before closing it again. “Is Livvy okay now?”

  “I’m staying with them tonight. I’m sure we’ll all be sleep deprived in the morning.” Tess said.

  She was right.

  I took several more books off the shelf and flipped through them, looking for anything that mentioned our dad, before turning them upside down and shaking them in an attempt to dislodge anything that might be hidden inside. Our dad couldn’t tell me much about what exactly I was searching for which made things harder. Maybe a cloaking spell that he’d placed on his journal or heck, even a treasure map or something to indicate his favorite hiding place. The only one he could remember was the loose wood plank in the room I now occupied and I’d already checked there.

  Georgia and Tess started on different shelves doing the same thing.

  “Aren’t we wasting time if we know this is a copycat? Shouldn’t we be dealing with the imminent threat?” Georgia asked.

  She had a point; the imminent threat was the serial killer, but it wasn’t the serial killer who’d been in King’s house. It was the copycat, so that took precedence. We have the advantage of knowing whoever killed Manny didn’t know that we were on to them. Our concentration should be on finding his book. His grimoire would do more damage than should be allowed.

  We spent the rest of the evening looking through the books until it was just Theo and I left in the library. Even he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. "His journals aren’t here, and there’s nothing to point us to where they’d be.”

  "I think you're right, Theo. If it was in this room, we would have found it by now.”

  "I don't know why you girls don't just scry for the copycat like your Auntie B suggested.”

  "We would need something personal of Manny’s to use, and we’re fresh out of witch council items.”

  "You may be out of items, but we both know where we can get some."

  Theo was right. I did know where we could get some. We could either break into Manny’s room at the coven or ask Ryder for something. H
eck, even Janice, his assistant, might have something he’d left behind.

  Other than those options, the only choice left was trying to see if King or Carson could get something out of forensics. And I wasn't sure we wanted to draw that much attention to us.

  "Did Carson’s half-brothers find anything when they touched some of the objects in Manny’s room? If they didn't, maybe we can use the same objects that Carson and Georgia were trying to use to help us pinpoint Manny’s book.”

  The thought had rattled in my mind since we’d left the woods and arrived at the inn. I only had to think about where I wanted to go in order to get there. I made a mental note to ask Auntie B if that was all it took to travel around the magical underground currents.

  If that was the case, I should be able to just think about Manny’s grimoire and be taken to the spot, as long as it was within the magical boundaries beneath the city.

  "Let me know if you want to go snooping tomorrow. I've had years of experience sneaking around like I did in this old house," Theo said.

  I wouldn't be relying on Theo to help me, and as much as I trusted my sisters to help, they were all right. This was a major threat to all of us, and I was the only one that didn't have any entanglements here.

  I made a decision right then to locate the grimoire before looking for my father's journals and, upon finding them, to call my sisters in as backup. I was going to need it.

  I waited until there was no sound in the house before sneaking out onto the porch and gently closing and locking the door behind me. I’d just stepped off the last step on the porch when a noise caught my attention and froze me on the spot.

  "I thought I might find you here,” Andrew said, stepping out from around the corner of the house.

  "What are you doing out here?"

  "Watching your back. I knew you wouldn’t be able to sleep, and I could feel your anxiety. That's why I've been out here waiting.”

  I folded my arms over my chest, unwilling to detail my plans. "Don't you have something better to do?"

  "Nope. My only goal is to break this connection with you and stop a killer from terrorizing the people at the coven. You're going out to the coven, aren't you?"

  "What do you care?"

  "You're going to need an alibi. If the coven witches catch you in the forest or snooping around, they might cast a spell before they stop to even see if you belong there, much less ask questions. I know I would.”

  "And what are you gonna do? They don't even know who you are.”

  "That's simple. I'll just tell them we were together and looking for a quiet place so we could make out."

  "What are you, twelve?"

  "They'll believe it. All of them will believe that we're together. And while we’re there, we can look into the mausoleum to see if your dad may have left any clues at his rightful spot on the wall where he's supposedly resting.”

  That was one of the things that didn't make sense. They had a spot on the wall in the mausoleum for my father with his death date, along with personal items, so we had a place to mourn him.

  Who had informed Mildred that her son was dead? Somebody had to have placed that information in her head and processed the death without even being sure. That might be a question that I’ll never have an answer to.

  “Fine, you can tag along this one time. But I have to warn you that I plan on breaking the rules to get into Manny’s room if need be. If you want to back out, now is the time to do it."

  A sly smile split Andrews' lips. He looked like the type that could get into trouble, and that didn’t even count the DNA running through his blood. With all that pent-up trouble waiting to be released, he might eventually be responsible for taking down an entire city block.

  I took Andrew's hand in mine and put my other one on the gazelle, resting my fingers on the cool hard metal beneath my palms. Closing my eyes, I focused on Manny's room and the way I remembered it. The death omen drawn on the walls in shoe polish. The half-eaten piece of fruit lying next to his cold dead body. The wicker basket the fruit had been delivered in. It was all there fresh in my mind, replaying over and over. This was the one man that had any idea how to break Andrew’s and my connection. Had I known how important he was and that he was in town, I would've made it my priority to track him down to get the spell. Our only option now was finding this killer and getting the grimoire.

  The cold metal beneath my fingers warmed. I opened my eyes to find that we weren't in Manny's room. We were in a warehouse of some sort, surrounded by fruit and baskets.

  Andrew dropped my hand and turned in place. "Why are we here?”

  "I was trying to remember everything in Manny's room to take us to where the book might be.”

  "Looks like you might have made an error in your navigation…unless...” He shook his head and gestured to the items on the table. “This must be where the basket of fruit came from.”

  I crossed the room and picked up a sales sheet. Abaline’s Delectables.

  "You mean the one that was injected with the insulin? Since we're already here, why don't we go look through the orders to figure out who it was that sent the fruit?"

  Sporadic lighting in the darkened warehouse made it difficult to see, but there was enough to detect a refrigerator full of fruit and flowers against the wall and the baskets sitting next to candies and teddy bears. This was the perfect place to have injected the fruit. I walked over to a table where stuffed animals sat. A sad-looking bear wearing a hospital mask over his snout. Next to the pile of bears were stuffed pillows in the shapes of smiley faces and hearts.

  A pile of burlap bags lay near the table. Several of the stuffed animals were missing their stuffing. I fingered a burlap bag between my fingers. It was the same rough texture that the dolls in Livvy’s room were made out of.

  I picked up the pieces, including the burlap and tattered teddy bear, and turned to show Andrew. Just then, the lights flickered on and sirens sounded. My breath caught seconds before I realized the implications and what it meant that we were here. I stuffed some of the evidence in my pocket to show my sisters.

  We were potentially contaminating the killer’s den by touching everything. I grabbed Andrew's hand and ran for the exact same spot where we’d arrived. I placed my hand on the wall and thought of anywhere but here. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I had no idea where we’d turned up.

  "Where are we?" Andrew asked as we turned around in an unfamiliar bedroom.

  "I don't know where we are. I've never been to this place.”

  "What were you thinking when you whisked us away?

  “I was thinking of the coven and the real voodoo killer.” I stepped over to the bed and ran my hands on the dusty duvet. I sneezed at the dust floating around the room. The dresser and the books on it were covered an inch of dust. Nobody had been in this room in a mighty long time. I grabbed a book off the shelf and flipped it open. It was empty. I grabbed two more and was met with more empty pages.

  "I’ve seen all the rooms at the coven, but this one... The layout is similar to my grandmother’s, so if we did make it to the coven, maybe we’re in the main house. Are you sure you brought us to the coven?"

  "I'm not sure of anything."

  Andrew walked over to the dresser and yanked on one of the drawers. The squeak made us cringe.

  He pulled out an old-fashioned dress that he’d only seen in old Coven pictures. The black cape that flittered down from the neckline was plain without anything ornate like the ones seen in pictures from a several decades ago. "I have no idea whose stuff this is but they have a ritualistic coven cape."

  "Whoever it belongs to needs updated clothes." I stepped over to the other end of the dresser and started pilfering through the drawers. It wasn't until the last drawer that I found something of interest. I pulled out an old picture frame. I only recognized one of the three people in the picture, and that was my Grandmother Mildred. It was taken when she was younger. I turned it to show Andrew.

 
He took the picture frame from my hands and ran his thumb over the face of one of the other women. “That's my grandmother. And the woman behind them Is Mildred’s mother.”

  Andrew spun around in place. I could see a sparkle of excitement in his eyes. He knew something. He hurried to the doorknob and jiggled it. Locked.

  He squatted next to the door and picked up several tiny pieces of paper. His eyes widened, and he grinned after he read the first one. He handed it to me. “I know exactly where we are.”

  I took the paper and read the message, stumbling through the badly misspelled words. “Can you come out and play?”

  "This was Mildred’s grandmother’s bedroom. My mother used to tell me that she slipped notes under the door because your great-grandmother had collector dolls that she liked to play with. That door has been locked and spelled for decades. That's the only thing that makes sense." Andrew pointed to dolls on the very top of the bookshelf similar to the ones that Mildred had at the Inn.

  "Why are we here?"

  "Why would thinking about the coven and the real voodoo killer bring us to this room?"

  “I bet the pipes in this room are all rusty.” Andrew shrugged his shoulders and dropped the notes onto the dresser. He headed for the bathroom. "I think you need to come see this."

  I stepped into the bathroom to find a man's toiletry case on the sink. It wasn't from years ago, a type that they would have used when my grandmother and great-grandmother were alive. This was had new technology. An electric razor, one that had recently been released.

  A shiver started down my spine as my breath hitched. I stepped back into the room in search of anything that looked out of place. "Do you think that the killer has been hiding here?"

  "If he has been, then we have a whole new set of problems. Whoever the killer is knows our backgrounds and our magic. Nobody on the coven grounds could even get into this room. And I know many have tried including my mother who thought to seek more power. Whoever could open the door or travel into here would be a serious threat. We’re looking for someone magical and not only that but someone who knows how to get around some serious wards.