Cold Cases and Haunted Places

by Trixie Silvertale

  I’d crash later, I knew, but PaganCon would end tomorrow, and my suspect would go home. So would anyone else who might be able to prove my innocence. My breath sped. I was on a deadline.

  My phone rang in the hip pocket of my shorts. Brayden.

  “Happy Samhain,” he said. “I miss you.”

  I stopped beside a natural circle of high boulders, jutting from the ground. The stones looked like a mini Stonehenge, but the ring-like formation was natural.

  “I miss you too.” A sudden longing tightened my throat. “How’s Afghanistan?” I managed to squeeze out.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked sharply.

  “Who says anything’s wrong?”

  “I can hear it in your voice. Something’s up. What’s going on?”

  I leaned against a lichen-covered boulder. “Someone was murdered at PaganCon.”

  “But it’s got nothing to do with you, right?” he asked.

  I was silent for too long.

  “Uh, oh,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

  And I did, all of it.

  “I’m coming home,” he said.

  Yes, come home. “No,” I said. “There’s no point. It’ll take you at least a day to get back, and I have to figure this out today.”

  “No, you don’t. Don’t let the sheriff rush you into something you’ll regret.”

  “When have I had regrets?” I laughed tightly. “Let me work on this. If things go bad, I’ll let you know.”

  “If things go bad, I want to be there. I’m going to start working on flights now.”

  “But your paramedic training—”

  “I’m not the only trainer here. They can survive without me.”

  “But—”

  “Jayce,” he said in a low voice. “I’m doing this.”

  Knowing Brayden, there wasn’t anything I could say to talk him out of it. And I guess selfish me didn’t really want to. “Okay. Thanks.”

  We talked more, then Brayden hung up to get started on finding a flight out.

  Back pressed against the tall boulder, I did a quick online search for Nancy. She was a town councilwoman. No mention of magic or paganism, so she probably wasn’t “out.” This made her presence at PaganCon harder to square.

  I sipped my cooling coffee, straightened off the stone, and kept walking. The con closed in twelve hours, and I was burning daylight.

  The festival grounds smelled like morning, fresh and damp with dew. The con had opened to vendors early, but it wouldn’t open to customers for another hour. But security would be around. I hurried down the festival’s winding paths.

  A member of the security team I knew stood near the front gate studying a clipboard.

  I called to the man. “Hi, Joe. How’s it going?” He was six-foot-huge and worked as a bouncer when he wasn’t hand carving pagan ritual tools for fun. The green PaganCon uniform golf shirt he wore emphasized his muscular arms.

  Joe looked up and didn’t smile. “You heard about what happened last night?”

  I nodded. “I found the body.”

  His eyes widened over his crooked nose. “I’m sorry.”

  “Can you tell me who was working at last night’s chant thing?”

  “I was.”

  I pulled up a photo of Nancy. “Did you see her?”

  He glanced at the photo and shook his head. “Sorry. She may have been in costume though. We could have had a conversation, and I wouldn’t remember.”

  “Were people going in and out of the tent during the chant?”

  “Sure.” He returned my phone. “Bathroom breaks, boredom, hookups, it was all happening. It was like a Grateful Dead concert in there.”

  So it was possible Nancy had left and no one had noticed. But the sheriff had said she’d had an alibi—her assistant. I needed to track that person down. “Thanks.”

  I walked to a bench and sat with my phone. On Nancy’s website, I found the name of her assistant, Partridge Hannah. More online searching unearthed her photo. Partridge was a slender, brown-haired young woman, serious as an owl.

  I blew out my breath. There were over a thousand people at the con, and the grounds were ginormous. If Partridge was even here, it would take luck or witchcraft to find her.

  I voted for witchcraft.

  Pulling the festival map from my bag, I unhooked my necklace. A long, quartz crystal, my pendulum, dangled from its silver chain.

  I spread the map on the bench and whisked my hand along the crystal, clearing it of past energy. The pendulum needed to be able to focus on my question. If other energies were clinging to it, they would only confuse things.

  Two young blondes in fairy wings strolled past, and I checked my watch. Five after eight. The grounds were open and the clock was ticking.

  Concentrating on Partridge’s name and face, I dangled the pendulum above the map. I spoke in a low voice, forcing power into it. “Show me where Partridge is.”

  The pendulum swung in a wide circle. Its movements narrowed, focusing—

  Ragged shivers of dark magic raised gooseflesh on my arms. A dust devil whipped through the grounds. My map lifted off the bench.

  I slapped my hand on the map. Dust and heat clawed at my face, and I shut my eyes against the blowing grit. There was a tearing sound.

  The wind subsided. I opened my eyes and released a shuddering breath. My map had been torn in half.

  A movement to my left caught my eye. The torn piece sat atop a stack of pumpkins. I half stood. A breeze caught the paper, and it blew above a tent.

  Broomsticks.

  I looked down. The tip of my crystal rested on the map. It pointed toward the food truck area, in the parking lot. I slumped on the bench. Partridge wasn’t far. I’d gotten lucky, and I could get another map.

  But I hadn’t imagined that dark energy behind the wind, and my stomach butterflied. My enemy knew what I was up to, or at least knew I’d been spellcasting.

  Maybe I hadn’t gotten so lucky after all.

  4

  A chill, sticky residue clung to my skin. It could have been a mixture of sweat and dust. But I knew better—dark magic leaves a trace.

  The path to the parking lot was steadily filling with costumed visitors. I needed to move before Partridge left the food truck area or even left the festival entirely. But I didn’t like the idea of interrogating her with bad magic sticking to me like evil syrup.

  Tense, I hooked my pendulum around my neck and walked to the nearest herbal stand. The bearded man behind the counter sold dried, white sage by the bagful. I bought a bag, found a quiet spot beneath an oak, lit a small leaf, and blew it out. I waved its smoke around me and muttered an incantation.

  The leaf smoldered down to my fingertips. That sense of being coated in something foul vanished, and my muscles unknotted.

  Hoping I hadn’t missed Partridge, I jogged toward the parking lot. I passed beneath the metal PaganCon gates. A dozen colorful food trucks sat in a weedy patch of earth.

  The scent of breakfast burritos wafted on the warm breeze. My belly grumbled. Ignoring it, I scanned the groups of people clustering around the open truck windows.

  A woman with long, brown hair stood a little aside from one of the trucks, her slender back to me.

  “Partridge?” I strode toward the woman.

  Her head turned smoothly, and then the rest of her turned too, a foil-wrapped burrito in her hand. Partridge swallowed. “Yes?”

  “I’m Jayce Bonheim. Nancy came to see me yesterday.”

  She blinked slowly, and my impression of owlishness grew. This was a woman who’d think twice before she spoke, hex it all.

  “Oh?” she asked. “How can I help you?”

  “I was looking for Nancy at the chant last night, but I couldn’t find her.”

  She shifted her weight and glanced toward the food truck. “The chant was pretty crowded.”

  “But she was there? Darn. I can’t believe I missed her.”

  “Me neither,” she said, “sin
ce she won the costume contest.”

  I straightened. “She did? I didn’t hang around for that. What was she dressed as?”

  “Badb.”

  I guess my look must have been a blank, because she continued, “A Celtic goddess.”

  Terrific. You couldn’t take two steps at the con without tripping over a woman in a white gown and crown of leaves. There’d probably been dozens of goddesses in that tent last night. Nancy could have easily gotten lost in the crowd, slipped away to murder Darian, and returned.

  “And she was there for the entire chant?” I asked.

  Partridge’s hand spasmed on the burrito. Scrambled eggs and avocado dripped from the tortilla. She skipped backward, barely missing getting egg on her brown flats.

  “Yes,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  Liar. I smiled tightly. “I wasn’t the first person to ask you that question.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The sheriff. You do realize that if you’re lying, you’ll be an accessory to murder?”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not lying.”

  “If you’re afraid of her,” I said in a low voice, “we can protect you.”

  “I don’t even know who you are.”

  “I told you. I’m Jayce Bonheim. I own a coffeeshop in Doyle.”

  Her skin turned a sickly shade. “You’re the witch,” she breathed.

  “And you’re between a witch and a hard place.” I drove steel into my voice. But I didn’t think I’d pulled off the threatening vibe. I’m a barista, not a badass.

  And there was nothing I could do to Partridge. Doing something to her would be black magic, and that wasn’t how I rolled. I didn’t even know how to curse someone. I was all hat, no cattle.

  Her gaze darted around the dirt parking lot. More people in costume bunched at the gates, showing their tickets and ambling inside.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t know anything about any of that.”

  “I think you do,” I said slowly. She’d recognized my name. And she hadn’t reacted to it well. Partridge knew something. “I see you do.”

  Her hand trembled. “No. You’re wrong.”

  “Did Nancy threaten you?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not like that.”

  “But you’re terrified of her.” It had to be Nancy she was afraid of, because she couldn’t possibly be afraid of me. “It doesn’t have to be this way. And I don’t think you’re that kind of person.”

  “The kind to be afraid?”

  “The kind to let a murderer go free to kill again.”

  Silence dropped between us like a cold stone.

  “I hate this,” she whispered. Sweat beaded her forehead.

  “Then tell me what you know. End this. The sheriff and I can help you.”

  Partridge laughed shakily. “I knew politics could be brutal. I just didn’t think local politics would be this bad. I got into government so I could help people. And Nancy does help people.”

  “But she has ambitions beyond town council.”

  “I didn’t think—” Partridge pressed a hand to her mouth.

  “Think what?”

  “We can’t talk here.” She strode away from the food trucks toward a lonely stand of oaks at the edge of the parking lot.

  I followed her into the trees. Tall, dry weeds crackled beneath my sandals. A sweltering current of air flattened the grasses, sent dried leaves scampering.

  In spite of its warmth, I shivered and looked around. But we were alone. “What happened last night?”

  “It’s nothing. Nothing. It couldn’t have meant anything.”

  “What couldn’t have?”

  Partridge rubbed the palms of her hands on her slacks. “It’s just… I went to the chant dressed—” She blinked rapidly. A confused expression crossed her face.

  “Partridge?”

  She clutched her throat, her eyes bulging. The burrito fell from her grasp. Her knees buckled and hit the ground.

  5

  My chest tightened, my hands clenching. “Are you choking? Tell me you’re not choking.” But she was, and on what? She hadn’t taken a bite of that burrito in a while.

  She nodded frantically, her back arching.

  I stepped behind her and knelt, striking her back.

  She spasmed.

  Heimlich, Heimlich. What had Brayden taught me about the Heimlich maneuver? I reached for her waist.

  Partridge fell forward onto her hands. She scraped one finger along the loose earth in a curved v-shape.

  I hesitated, then gave a quick shake of my head. She didn’t have time for me to figure out what she was doing.

  Gulping down a breath, I grasped her roughly around the waist. I made a fist of my hands and drove them into her diaphragm, pulling her against me.

  She struggled forward and drew an arch in the dirt.

  I pounded her again on the back. A muggy breeze flowed across my skin. Something cold and sticky slithered within its current.

  The hairs rose on my bare arms. Partridge wasn’t just choking. She was under a magical attack.

  I grasped her waist again and visualized my own protective aura glowing gold. It expanded, surrounding Partridge. “In the name of the light,” I shouted, “I banish you.”

  Her spasms increased.

  Mentally, I reached into the earth, into my power. “In the name of the light, I banish you!”

  Partridge gasped and reared up. The back of her skull knocked into my mouth, and I yelped with pain. She rolled onto her back, wheezing.

  I pressed my hand to my mouth. “Are you okay?” I mumbled, tasting copper.

  Blank faced, she brought one hand to her throat and nodded. “I’m fine. I… I have to… go.” She stood.

  “Wait, you were telling me about last night’s chant.”

  “It was fun,” she said, wooden, and turned to go.

  “Fun? You didn’t bring me here to tell me you had fun.” I pointed to the rough sketch she’d made in the earth. It looked a little like a bird’s head. “What’s that?”

  Her foot swept out, obliterating the crude drawing. “I have to go.”

  “Wait.” I scrambled to my feet, bracing one hand on the trunk of an oak. “You were telling me about that night.”

  “Happy Halloween.” She walked into the parking lot and strode to a woman, who stood waiting.

  Nancy.

  Nancy smiled at me, a wicked, knowing, you’re-screwed grin.

  I took two steps after Partridge and stopped, looked down at the scuffed dirt. Only the tip of what might have been a beak remained. I snapped a pic with my phone and walked toward the entrance of PaganCon.

  My jaw clenched. Partridge might be too scared to talk, but Darian and Nancy weren’t the only druids at PaganCon. There would be others, and they’d want to talk about their fallen comrade.

  I picked up a new map by the entrance gate and studied the spiral of tents and vendor stands. Yes! The druids had a family hospitality suite.

  The suite—actually a tent—wasn’t far. Dried oak branches plaited with orange and black ribbon decorated its entrance. Beside it stood a woman in a gray, hooded robe. She nodded to me, her eyes puffy and red.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. Had she been crying over Robert Darian?

  Her smile was wan. “I’m the hostess today. I’m supposed to be making you feel at ease, not the reverse.”

  “I’m a barista. Checking in on people sort of comes naturally.”

  “Thanks, but I’m fine. There’s food and mead in the tent. And if you’re looking for information on Druidry, you’ve come to the right place.”

  “I am.” I hesitated. If I asked about Robert, she might think I was looking for gossip. I’d try another angle, for now. “And I don’t mean to offend by asking this, but I’m doing some research on dark Druidry.”

  She sniffed. “No offense taken. People think we’re just a bunch of tree lovers and b
ards. But the history of the Druids isn’t all peace and light. I suppose that could be said of every religion though.”

  “True. I’m Jayce, by the way.”

  “Lana. The person you want to talk to is Dan. I’ll introduce you.”

  She led me into the tent. It was smallish, with room for a few folding chairs and a long table covered in food, drink, and flyers. A trio of three robed men stood in one corner and spoke together in low voices.

  “Dan,” she said. “Jayce has some questions about the history of the Druids in battle.”

  The three men stopped speaking and looked at me. A gray-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard stepped forward. “Battle magic?”

  It hadn’t been exactly what I’d been asking for, but… okay. I nodded.

  “Druids accompanied their Stone Age tribes into battle,” Dan said. “They weren’t fighters; they were spell casters. There are tales of Druids calling up mists and confusing the enemy, or altering the weather to their advantage.”

  The weather? My insides roiled. That hot wind. A druid had been behind the spell that had choked Partridge.

  “They could rain fire on their foes and turn people into animals,” he continued. “Their spells could weaken and kill.” He smiled, showing even, white teeth. “Is that what you were looking for?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Do you know anyone who can do that sort of thing?”

  “No. Those spells are all beyond today’s Druids, I’m afraid.”

  “Why afraid?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes, you need to fight. Spells like that might come in handy.”

  “Did you know Robert Darian?”

  His shoulders sagged beneath the robe. “You heard what happened, then?”

  “Yes.” My head dipped guiltily. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “He was a good man. If you’re a reporter—”

  “I’m not,” I said quickly. “Someone told me I should meet him, that he was an expert in battle magic. But I never got the chance.”

  “An expert?” His brow furrowed. “Who told you that?”

  I hesitated. “Nancy Mullen.”