Spell Tamer, page 1
Spell Tamer
Paranormal Criminal Investigations #2
Laura Greenwood
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Author Note
Also by Laura Greenwood
About the Author
© 2021 Laura Greenwood
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All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission of the published, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email address; lauragreenwood@authorlauragreenwood.co.uk.
Visit Laura Greenwood’s website at:
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Cover Design by Vampari Designs
Spell Tamer is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Blurb
What do a cold case and a skeleton have in common?
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At first glance, there's nothing connecting the two cases, but the more Cassie and the team start digging, the more similarities they discover. And when a third body shows up, they're faced with a murderer on the loose.
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Can they catch the killer in time?
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Spell Tamer is an urban fantasy mystery set in the Paranormal Council Universe. It is book 2 in the Paranormal Criminal Investigations Trilogy.
Chapter One
Cassie grabbed her takeaway mug of tea from the counter with a quick smile for the barista. She wouldn't normally stop at a coffee shop, but she'd forgotten to buy tea bags while distracted by her research and she didn't want to start her day without one.
She pushed her hand through her bright green hair. It was time for a colour change, though doing it on the street wasn't the right place. The surrounding humans would no doubt be shocked to see the red sparks of her magic dancing along the strands and turning them a completely different colour. She'd likely end up in front of the High Council accused with trying to reveal the existence of paranormals to the world. There was no doubt in her mind that the knowledge would reveal itself at some point in the future, but she could accept that this wasn't the time. And she needed to keep in the High Council's good graces for when she had to ask them for more tools for the Paranormal Criminal Investigations department.
The streets bustled with people on their way to work, just like she was. Everyone kept to themselves, not even noticing what was going on around them.
Cassie scanned the faces around her, finding herself wondering if any of them held a dark secret. Before she'd joined the PCI, she'd never spent much time thinking about whether or not people were killers, but now it was on her mind almost constantly. The cases they'd taken on in the past two years had surprised her with the kind of people who had been guilty. There wasn't even a paranormal type who seemed to be more violent than others, despite the rumours to the contrary.
The familiar building that housed the lab she worked from, as well as all the other equipment the four of them needed to solve murders. Unlike with the human police, they were responsible for all aspects of the investigation, though they could pull in other paranormals to help with arrests if there was complete certainty that the person was guilty, but that was a rarity.
The new logo still looked odd on the glass of the entry doors, but she was growing to like it. The four of them were already a team, but that didn't stop the logo making them feel like it even more. Hopefully, she'd be able to get a set of lab coats with it on soon too.
The doors swung shut behind her as she pushed through and into the lab. A small smile twisted at her lips as she took it in, just like she always did. She still wasn't used to having all of this at her disposal. So far, if she'd wanted a piece of equipment, she'd been able to get it, which was a rather surreal thing. Her previous lab hadn't had half of the stuff she had here, and there was no way she could have infused any of that with magic like she had here. Being able to use both science and her powers had been the breaking point in several cases so far.
"Ah, Cassie, you're here," Hadrian said as he strode into the room with the easy confidence she'd come to expect from him.
She smiled at the sight of her mate, her magic jumping to life in excitement.
"Morning."
"Are you busy?"
She frowned, that wasn't his normal greeting. They weren’t particularly affectionate while they were at work, seeing it as better to practice restraint in case they were in front of other people.
"What's up?"
"We have a crime scene."
The familiar thrill travelled through her. She didn't think it would ever get old. It was quickly replaced by the grief over the loss of a member of the paranormal community. It was the double-edged sword of working in this field. To do her job, someone had to lose their life.
"What kind?"
"According to Issac, a muddy one. I hope you have wellies in your car."
She snorted. "You know I couldn't wear them even if I did." They couldn't risk contaminating the crime scene when there could still be evidence.
"True. But this case is a little different from the ones we've done so far."
She had to admit, her curiosity was piqued. "Oh?"
"You'll have to wait until we get there to see. But I think you're going to like it."
She nodded. "What do I need to take with me?" she asked, pulling out her travel case. She could leave it stocked up with the basics, but she didn't like to do that. She much preferred to focus on the equipment she'd need for each particular case.
"I don't think you'll need anything for this one."
"That's cryptic."
Hadrian chuckled. "I promise it'll all make sense once we're at the scene. I want us all to see it so we can keep it in mind while we're working, but there aren't many tests you'll be able to run while you're in the field this time."
"All right, then. I'm ready whenever you are." She picked her tea back up, grateful she'd gotten it in a takeaway cup after all, she wouldn't have been able to take it with her otherwise.
Hadrian held out his arm to her and she slipped her own through it. "Lead on."
It only took a few moments for them to be back outside the building and heading towards Hadrian's car. Cassie lived within walking distance of the lab, so didn't see the need to drive the short distance. If she needed to get to a crime scene, she'd hop into one of the others. Or into the specially adapted morgue van that Zack was so proud of.
Hadrian clicked the radio on, letting the hits of the week fill the cab of the car as he pulled out of the parking lot.
"How long until we get there?"
"Fifteen minutes."
"It's close to home." She didn't bother to keep the surprise out of her voice.
"I know, that was a shock to me too. But I suppose it was only a matter of time until we got one."
She nodded. For a short while, they'd been the only PCI unit. While a few more had popped up over time, they were still the only one for the entire county, and that stretched for several hundred miles. They had their work cut out for them, especially as their patch included the Council seats and all the paranormals visiting them. It meant that a lot could go wrong in their neck of the woods. Which only made the mystery of what was to come even more intriguing.
Chapter Two
The moment Cassie stepped out of the car, she realised Hadrian had been right about the possibility of needing wellies. The field they were in was packed with mud. She grimaced at the prospect of trekking across it despite the fact she wasn't wearing clothes she felt particularly attached to. It would still be difficult to walk through and could make working uncomfortable. She'd probably be able to go home and change before she went back to do the lab work, depending on how much time it took and if anything was time-sensitive.
She trudged through the mud and ducked under the caution tape. It was the same kind the human police used, though it was spelled to try and repel as many humans as possible. Most paranormal deaths were unremarkable, but if there were curses involved, it could produce some unexplainable circumstances. It was best to keep as many people who weren't aware of things away. Especially if Issac had to reanimate them on-site, which he had to do if the death wasn't recent enough for them to get back to the morgue first.
"Hi guys," the necromancer said, waving enthusiastically at them.
She narrowed her eyes. That wasn't how he normally acted when he had to raise the dead, which only raised more questions about what was going on here.
"Zack's down there." He pointed to the hold in the ground with fresh mounds of dirt si
"Got it," the pathologist said, standing bolt upright with a skull in his hands.
Cassie's eyes widened. That explained the lack of tests she could go do on the site. There was plenty she could still do with bones, but all of the procedures were more invasive and needed the precision of the lab to pull off. She wouldn't be able to do any of them while standing in a muddy field.
"What have we got?" she asked Issac, assuming he was the one who'd give her a run down while Zack continued to look for the rest of the skeleton.
"Pretty much what you can see," he admitted. "We've got a partial skeleton, and now we have the skull. We're not sure of anything else about it yet. We’ve only just found the skull, so haven’t had time to determine sex yet. And species is another matter entirely."
"How do we even know this is a paranormal case?" she asked, scanning the area and trying to look for markers. Normally, they knew because of the body, but with this one being nothing more than bones, that was going to be difficult.
"Can't you sense it?" he asked. "Close your eyes and feel around you."
She did as he instructed, sending a thin tendril of her witch magic out into the air around her. Small red spark danced over her hands, but they were only noticeable if someone looked very closely. In theory, she could do magic without them showing, but it took more energy, and somewhere remote with just the four of them was safe enough not to bother with concealing it.
Sure enough, there was a soft hum in the air, indicating some kind of magic had been used here, and not any that belonged to the four of them. She'd be able to recognise their magic instantly.
"The victim must have been very strong," she observed.
"Or the murderer," Hadrian supplied, pulling up the specially designed app so he could fill in information about the case so it would upload to their system for all of them to access.
Cassie loved the way she could constantly add to and access the information about what they were working on, and was convinced it was part of what helped them solve so many of their cases. So far, they only had one they had no leads on, but she hoped that would change soon enough.
"Is there any way to tell which the magic belongs to?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer. Without knowing more about the victim, their hands were tied.
Issac shook his head. "We were hoping you'd be able to do some tests back at the lab to determine the species," Issac said.
"I can try, but with only four types of blood to compare it to, that's going to be difficult." She'd been hoping to get blood samples from other PCI units so she could add more to her collection, but had been too busy getting other things in order to have done it yet.
"You could pull samples from the bodies we have in storage," Hadrian suggested. "We know what most of them are, so you should be able to have some more to work with."
"Hmm, that could work." Why hadn't she thought of it before? She wouldn't need consent for it either, those kinds of rights ended at death.
"There is a chance the bones are human," Issac reminded her.
"That's unlikely," Zack said, dragging himself out of the hole.
"What makes you say that?" Cassie didn't think a skeleton could tell him that much, especially not with a preliminary observation like Zack was doing. In theory, if they could see the bones closer, they might be able to see evidence of a stretch caused by frequent shifting, or slices on the arm bones if a necromancer had a habit of cutting too deeply with their athame, but those things could be explained by non-paranormal factors too.
"This." He held up a necklace with a small silver medallion hanging from it.
Cassie snapped on a pair of gloves so she didn't contaminate the evidence, and reached out to take it from him. He handed it over willingly, a big change from how he'd used to act around her. Of her three mates, Zack had taken the longest to come around.
She studied the silver, but couldn't make much sense of it.
"What is it?"
Issac glanced over her shoulder. "A Sanctuary Medallion," he said. "I haven't seen one of those in a long time.
"You're going to have to enlighten me." She turned it over in her hands, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It didn't look familiar in the slightest, though the others seemed to recognise it.
"It's to do with the End of Days," Hadrian answered, leaning over to take a photo with his tablet so he could add it to his notes.
Zack must have their main camera down in the hole, he'd never move something without first documenting where he'd found it.
"That's not a paranormal thing," Cassie pointed out.
"No, but this symbol is." Issac pointed to the embossed symbol on the medallion. "Sanctuary is supposed to be the place where paranormals can survive once the End of Days comes. It was a big thing in the eighties, but has died off a lot since."
"Couldn't a human have found it in a second-hand shop and worn it without knowing what it was?" Cassie asked.
"Perhaps. But I like to believe in the most obvious explanation being the right one," Zack said.
She chuckled. "Then why did you become a pathologist?"
"I'm not a pathologist," he muttered.
"We should change that," Hadrian said. "Now the PCI has more units, I think we can justify sending you for the right training to become one officially. If we ever have to work with the human authorities, it might smooth the way."
Zack muttered something under his breath, but Cassie wasn't close enough to catch it. She was almost certain it had something to do with not wanting to go back to school, but in this case, it wouldn't matter. There were too many advantages to him completing his qualifications. And that was without the advantage of how the extra learning would affect the results of his post mortems. For all they knew, he missed things that even a human pathologist would pick up on.
"Cassie, can you help Zack with cataloguing the bones?" Hadrian asked. "Issac and I will do a sweep of the surrounding area just in case there's anything we're missing."
"Another body?" she asked.
"I doubt it," Issac responded. "I can't sense more remains under the surface, but that isn't necessarily the case. If someone has done some kind of masking spell, then it could stop me from sensing them."
"Are you trying to tell me you're a human bone detector?" Cassie asked, surprised this had never come up before. Then again, she supposed they'd never had a skeleton like this yet either.
"A necromancer bone detector, but yes, I suppose it is similar to how a metal detector works." He shrugged as if it wasn't important. "I'll even beep if I find a bone if it'll make you smile."
"I'm all right if you don't," she promised. "Maybe just tell us if you find something?"
"You've got it."
Cassie shook her head as the necromancer walked away. Sometimes, he could be so peculiar, and he certainly wasn't anything like what she'd imagined a necromancer to be. For some reason, being around death so much growing up had made him into one of the most upbeat people she knew, and she had no idea why.
Hadrian went to join Issac in his search, leaving her to head towards the table where Zack had laid out the bones they'd recovered already. She winced at the sight. They had so little to go on. Hopefully, he'd be able to find more once he was back down in the hole, or else they'd be looking at this one completely blind.
Chapter Three
She pushed into the morgue, hoping Zack was done with his preliminary examination so she could have some of the bones to do tests on. Despite all the odds, they'd recovered most of the skeleton and it was now lying on the examination table in the rough silhouette of a body.
