FurOut, page 11
Golda’s eyes narrowed further, suspicion dawning on her face. “You're not Tanya, are you?” she said, her voice low and wary. “Hazel?”
I sighed, dropping the pretense. “Yes, it’s me. We need to talk, and I won’t take no for an answer.”
Golda hesitated for a moment, then nodded curtly. “Give me a minute.” She disappeared into the house, closing the door between us. I waited, tension building in my chest, until she returned and gestured for me to enter.
We moved to the sitting room, and I cut to the chase. “What were you hiding when we talked yesterday? I know you know more about Adele Abbot, and I have every right to know if it could affect the outcome of Ford's trial.”
Golda’s expression darkened. “Some secrets are the kind you should take to your grave. Broken promises cause the most damage.”
Her words were vague, frustratingly so. I leaned forward. “What secrets, Golda? What promises?”
Before she could answer, the burner phone Bex had given me buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the message. Ford was being transported to the community center. The trial would commence in an hour.
Desperation clawed at me. “Golda, I need the truth. Now.”
“Or what?” she asked, her voice cold. “You’ll burn a hole through me as well?”
The statement hit me like a slap in the face. “I didn’t kill that werewolf.”
“That’s not what I’ve been told. A witness has come forward with the truth.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Are you that witness?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “Are you the person who brought the Arete back to town?”
Golda’s eyes widened in shock, genuine dismay etched into her features. “Of course not,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “I would never do anything to destroy this town. And no, the witness isn’t me.”
As she spoke, my gaze drifted to a picture hanging on the wall. It showed Golda with her arm around Sally Teeter, who was wearing a cap and gown. “Do you know Sally well?” I asked, pointing to the frame.
Golda flinched, a slight, almost imperceptible movement. “Why are you asking about Sally?”
“It looks like you’re close,” I said.
“I looked out for her, is all,” Golda replied, her voice tight. “She had a rough time with her parents when she was young.”
Her parents, huh? It dawned on me that one of the missing records at the courthouse had been a sealed adoption file. I narrowed my gaze on Golda. She'd never married. As far as I knew, she'd never had children. “Are you Sally's mother? Is that why you stole her adoption papers? You didn't want her to find out?”
Golda scoffed, but there was a flicker of something in her eyes. “Don't be ridiculous,” she said. “Unless you believe in immaculate conception, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that I've never been pregnant, and I've never had a child.”
I wished Lily were here with her lie-detector mojo. Even so, it sounded like the truth. “Then what are you hiding?” I pressed. “What promise did you break, and who did you break it with?”
“I should’ve kept it to myself,” she mumbled, suddenly seeming frail beyond her one hundred-plus years. “But I thought I was helping. With Adele gone, I thought she’d be safe.”
“Who would be safe?” I leaned forward, though I was sure I had the answer, at least some of it. “Is Sally Adele’s daughter?”
Golda blinked, her eyes wild as if looking for an escape. Finally, she nodded. “I wanted to protect her. I swore to Adele that I would never tell. Why, oh why, did I break that promise?”
“Did she steal the records for you?” I shook my head. “Sally has a realty company. She’s probably more familiar with the county clerk’s office than anyone, except maybe Tyris.”
The historian’s expression told me I’d hit the nail on the head.
“Adele made me her beneficiary upon her death. I sold what I could anonymously and gave Sally every cent of it. I felt she’d missed out on her birthright because Adele never wanted a child. I watched over her the best I could, but it’s not the same as having the birthright and ancestry of a founding witch.”
“None of that sounds like a bad thing. What happened after?”
“She wanted to know more about Adele, but Adele and I had stopped being close decades ago. I’d loved her once, and she’d loved me. It’s the reason I kept her secrets. With her estate, I also inherited her diaries,” Golda said. “I leafed through them, and there didn’t seem to be anything too terrible in them, so I gave them to Sally.”
“And then?”
“She discovered a secret text that only revealed itself to someone with Adele’s blood.” The older witch’s eyes were bleak. “After that, Sally grew angry, so very angry.” Her gaze pivoted to mine. “She blames you, Hazel. She blames you for Adele’s death. I tried to tell her that Adele made terrible, evil choices, that she murdered innocent shifters for the sake of power, but she said her mother spoke to her, and that...”
A door at the back of the house slammed. Golda’s lips thinned into a tight line.
“Was that her?” I asked.
The broken woman nodded. “I can’t save her, can I?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but I’ll do my best to bring her in alive.” Goddess in a graveyard. Sally Teeter was Adele Abbot’s offspring.
“I swear I didn’t know, Hazel,” she said. “When she told me she saw you kill the werewolf, I knew in my gut that it wasn’t true. But I wanted to believe her. She’d been so upset about discovering her true origins. I’d hoped the money would be enough to assuage my guilt, but Sally had been a happy girl before my good intentions. I ruined her.”
The pieces were falling into place. Sally had bought Wonderland Realty from Robert Townsend’s estate. When the werewolf beta had been dying, he said wonder. What if he’d been trying to say Wonderland? Was sweet Sally Teeter really the mastermind behind all this chaos? Was she capable? The answer was yes, if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. “Do you know where she went or what she has planned?”
Golda shook her head. “I don’t know about her plans. She’s a more powerful witch now. I could feel it in the same way I’d felt it in Adele. I can guess where she’s going, though.”
I could guess as well. “The community center. Ford’s trial.”
She nodded gravely. “If she’s responsible for all this, she’ll want to see her plot play out.”
“To what end?”
“She blames Ford and you for Adele’s death. She wants you both to suffer. She wants you to suffer in the same way she feels she has.”
I blinked. “In the same way?”
Golda seemed to hear herself as well. “Oh, Goddess.” She raised her hand to her mouth. “Kent and Bryant will be at the trial. I’m sure Anita will be there too. She’ll want to be there for Ford.”
And if Sally killed Jensen and Dick, then she was juiced up on powerful Arete magic. The unstable woman was a time bomb ready to blow. I got up and ran out the door without a word of goodbye. I had to get to the community center. I didn’t know what Sally was planning, but I wasn’t prepared to become an orphan to find out.
CHAPTER 15
Apparating to the community center had been a risk, but there had been no time to waste. I muttered the spell under my breath, aiming for a discreet location in the building. I prayed to the Goddess that I wouldn’t end up in the pool or, worse, a concrete wall. I embraced the magic as it wrapped around me, and I poofed from Golda’s yard into the frying pan. Literally.
Yep, when I landed, it wasn’t in the shadows or at the back of the room as I’d intended. Nope, I’d translocated right into the center of the stage, the bright lights glaring down on me. I blinked against the sudden brightness, squinting to make out the rows of shocked faces staring up at me. Looking down, I realized I was me again, not Tanya. The translocation spell must’ve neutralized the illusion magic. Whatever. I didn’t care who saw me at this point. I was here to save my family… or I’d die trying. The gym floor was filled with spectators in chairs, with more crowded into the bleachers. I guess the whole town really had come out for the farce of a trial.
I barely had time to register the gravity of the situation before a massive figure stepped forward. The Beastwarden, a hulking man over seven feet tall with thick orange-blonde hair and a scraggly beard, loomed over me. His arms bulged with veined muscles, and he looked like he could snap me in two without breaking a sweat.
To his right, the three faction alphas—Bryant, Mary, and Steve—sat on folding metal chairs, their eyes fixed on me with varying degrees of surprise and confusion. Ford, the love of my life, sat alone to the Beastwarden's left, bound by ornate, oversized shackles on his wrists and ankles. Most likely magical in origin and designed to keep him from shifting into his bear form.
The front rows were packed with werewolves, with Jensen's second-in-command sitting in the first seat, his eyes narrowed as he watched me. The entire auditorium was a roiling mass of confusion and tension, the shifters in the audience murmuring in disbelief at my sudden appearance.
The Beastwarden recovered first, his voice a deep rumble as he barked out an order. “Get off the stage, witch!”
I looked him dead in the eye, my heart pounding but my voice steady. “You have no control over me. I’m not a shifter.”
The room erupted. Gasps and whispers spread like wildfire through the crowd. The Beastwarden's eyes flared with anger, and for a moment, I thought he might charge at me right then and there.
I didn’t back down. I couldn’t. Not with Ford chained up like an animal on display, and certainly not with whatever twisted plan Sally Teeter had in store for my dad and Ford’s parents. This was my chance to stop her before she could hurt anyone else, and I had to take it.
The Beastwarden, the shifter boogeyman himself, was not someone who tolerated defiance. His eyes narrowed, his massive frame tensing as I stood my ground on the stage. I nearly choked on the tension as the shifters and witches in the auditorium held their collective breath, waiting to see what would happen next.
I glanced to the bottom row of the bleachers and spotted my dad. He sat with Tizzy, my tiny squirrel familiar, perched comfortably in his lap. By his side, his own familiar, Lupitia, a regal gray Persian cat, watched the scene with disinterested eyes. Next to him, Anita Bryant was wringing her hands, her face pale as she awaited her son’s fate. But I couldn’t focus on her anxiety—not when the real problem was bigger than the trial.
I needed to find Sally Teeter and stop her before she did something I couldn't live with.
I scanned the gym, searching for her. It took me a few seconds, but I spotted her near the doorway at the back of the room. She looked enraged, her eyes hard, and her expression pinched. Without thinking, I lunged forward and snatched the microphone from the Beastwarden’s massive hands. His surprised growl echoed through the room. I felt it all the way from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, but I ignored it. Sticks and stones and all that jazz. His growl would not hurt me. However, Sally’s unhinged sticks and stones could destroy all of us.
“Sally Teeter!” I shouted, my voice amplified through the speakers. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Brahm Jensen and Dick...er, Richard, the beta werewolf. You have the right to remain—”
Before I could finish, a bolt of pure and vicious energy shot from Sally’s hands, heading straight for me. I barely had time to react, diving to the side as the beam seared through the air. It missed me by inches and burned a baseball-sized hole through the podium near the Beastwarden. He let out a string of curses, his temper flaring as he hauled Ford off his feet with a single hand and threw him behind the stage, out of harm’s way. Bryant, Mary, and Steve scattered, diving for cover as chaos erupted in the gym.
“I think that proves, beyond any doubt, that I’m not the only one who can burn holes through crap!” I said into the microphone, more for the crowd’s sake than Sally’s. “Stand down,” I ordered the rogue witch. “Come in peaceably, and no one else needs to get hurt.”
The crowd was in shock, shouts of dismay and fear echoing off the walls. I rolled to my feet just in time to dodge another bolt of energy that crackled through the space where I had just been sitting. The heat from her magic made the air smell like ozone, and I could feel the raw power radiating from Sally, power that had come from the Arete sacrifices.
I had to stop her, but the odds weren’t in my favor. Sally was juiced up, fueled by anger and dark magic, and I knew I was in way over my head. Now would’ve been a perfect time for the Grand Inquisitor to show up with her enforcers and take a bad witch down, but no. My grandmother was nowhere to be seen.
Ack. I had to find a way to end this before Sally took out our entire town in one go.
The gymnasium erupted into chaos as Sally unleashed her wrath. I could feel the crackle of her raw energy in the air, each bolt she fired more powerful than the last. There was no time to think—only time to move. I could hear Ford growling and roaring on the other side of the stage. So I dived in that direction, rolling off the back of the platform and narrowly avoiding another beam of energy that scorched the floor where I’d just been. The impact sent a shockwave through the room, toppling the folding chairs in the front row and sending the first few rows of werewolves scrambling for cover. I crawled to my husband as he struggled to free himself from the cuffs. The Beastwarden was a few feet away, and he had a missing chunk of muscle from his right arm. He’d been hit.
“Unlock the shackles!” I yelled at him.
The stubborn ass shook his head.
“Unlock it or I’ll put another hole in you, Beast.”
His eyes widened before he finally said, “Cawallah Shumbakay.”
The words did the trick as Ford’s shackles fell off. “Sally Teeter,” he growled. “It was Sally the whole time?”
“I’ll explain later,” I told him. “Right now, you have to find your mom and both our dads,” I told him. “Sally wants to kill them,” I added for urgency. “You need to get them to safety.”
“What about you?”
“You know me, I’ll kick her punk ass from here to Kansas City.”
He smirked then kissed me. “You’re my badass.”
“And you’re mine.” I kissed him back. “Go get the parents to safety. I’ll handle Sally.” At least, I hoped I would.
“What about the werewolves?”
“When you get back, those jerks are all yours.”
His grin was feral as he hulked out into his half-bear form and roared so loud it shook the rafters. Dayam, my man was freaking sexy.
Oh, Goddess. I realized Tizzy had been right. Danger and chaos were my aphrodisiacs of choice. Yikes. Maybe I was becoming a little too self-aware. A little delusion wasn’t a bad thing.
There was another explosion, which meant it was time to get back into the fight.
“Get her!” someone yelled from the bleachers, and suddenly, a barrage of spells launched toward Sally from all directions. The witches and warlocks had combined their efforts to take on the mad realtor.
Lightning crackled through the air, a storm of bright, jagged arcs aimed at Sally from a group of warlocks and witches on the left side of the gym. The force of their combined attack would have brought down an average witch, but super-charged Sally barely flinched. With a wave of her hand, she deflected the lightning bolts, sending them crashing into the ceiling, where they exploded into a shower of sparks.
Another group of witches tried to trap Sally with a binding spell, intricate chains of violet energy weaving through the air toward her. Sally’s eyes flashed with fury as she snapped her fingers, and the chains disintegrated mid-air, falling harmlessly to the ground like wisps of smoke. The witch staggered back, her face pale with shock.
Wowza, what had been in Adele’s books that had turned Sally into a magic-wielding Terminator?
Officers Parker and Newsome, a warlock and witch, had joined the fight. Their presence bolstered me. I needed to act fast. Drawing on my own magic, I chanted,
“Goddess, help me scratch this itch
I need to beat the little witch,
Send through me a northern wind
The witch to hell it will send
So mote it be.”
The spell conjured a blast of icy wind meant to knock Sally off her feet. It whipped through the gym like a hurricane, sending papers flying and knocking over what remained of the podium and the platform that held it. But Sally stood her ground, her feet rooted like an immovable force. She sneered, raising her hands to counter my attack with a gust of her own. The wind met mine head-on, and for a moment, it felt like the whole world was caught in the middle of our struggle. Witches, warlocks, and shifters began running away. I didn’t blame them. Nothing we’d used worked on her.
Sally was winning.
Adele’s mini-me focused her attention on me as the auditorium cleared out, her eyes blazing with psychotic fury and power. She lifted her hand, gathering energy into a ball of crackling, white-hot light. It was larger than the last several shots, and I knew if that hit me, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Desperation surged through me. I had to think fast and do something that would give me an edge. I reached into the depths of my magic, pulling every last ounce of power I had left. Then, with a cry, I thrust my hands forward, sending a torrent of electricity straight at Sally. But even as it staggered her, I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Sally screamed in anger, not pain, as she shook off my magic. Her expression twisted, making her look even more maniacal. She raised her hands again, and this time, the energy that formed between them was inky black and swirling with malevolent power. She was about to unleash something devastating enough to wipe out everyone left in this room, including me.
The Beastwarden, who had been injured on the sidelines, decided to jump into the fray. With a bellowing roar, he charged Sally, his massive form towering over her. He moved faster than I expected, his colossal hand reaching out to crush the rogue witch’s skull with the full force of a shifter’s strength.
