Rogue Coven, page 6
“Those white-faced freaks with their squeaky red noses are as unnerving as they come.” I felt him shudder.
To get his mind off clowns, I changed the subject. “That tar pit is pretty unnerving. I half-expected dinosaur bones to float to the surface.”
Ford nodded his agreement. “I thought Matty Deerfield was going to have a stroke as his truck sank into the muck. I can’t believe it completely disappeared under the surface.”
“That truck was junk. I take it if Matty had money to replace it he would have done so already.”
“There’s a lot of grumbling in the shifter community that witches are responsible for the boiling, black gunk. I hope the grumbling is wrong. Tanya took a sample back to her lab to analyze.”
That name totally killed my afterglow. “Tanya took a sample, did she?”
Ford grasped my hand as I reflexively bunched his chest hairs into my fist. “Ouch.” He brought my knuckles to his lips. “I’ve never wanted another woman the way I want you, Hazel. You are my mate. From now until I perish.”
I relaxed my curled fingers. I sometimes forgot that shifters mated for life, unlike witches and warlocks, who mated until it was inconvenient. Sometimes they did binding spells, to make the pairing permanent. It was a way to blend the magic and make the witch and warlock more powerful. Only problem was that once it was done it couldn’t be undone without somebody dying, as my parents had learned the hard way.
Still, I couldn’t help but think that Ford’s could’ve have been so different, easier, if I hadn’t drunkenly triggered his mating scent in a stupid teenage dare. What if I turned out to be a disappointment to him? He was stuck with me whether he liked it or not, and I couldn’t help but feel completely responsible.
“I’m sorry,” I said without elaborating.
He rolled sideways and gathered me in his arms. He branded me with a fiery kiss as I threaded my fingers through his thick brown hair. Goddess, the man tasted as good as he smelled. I could give up desserts for the rest of my life as long as Ford Baylor always kissed me just like this.
His rumbly growl made me smile against his lips, and I could feel the solid log of his desire pressed against my hip. I chuckled and said, “There are no clowns in here, mister, so you can holster your gun.”
He flipped me onto my back and pinned me beneath his massive body. I loved the way his heated skin felt against mine. He growled again, raising shivers on my skin. “I’m planning on finding a nice tight spot to holster this gun.”
He pushed my thighs apart with his knees. I squawked with pleasure as a fine layer of perspiration formed on my chest and neck. I purred, “Oh, Officer Baylor, this is starting to feel a lot like police brutality.” I wiggled my brows. “I like it.”
He kissed my cheek, my neck, my—
Brrrrring! Birrrrriiiiing!
“No,” I whined. “Not now.” The caller screen showed the Paradise Falls Police Department phone number.
“Don’t answer it,” Ford said.
“It’s the station, and it’s eleven o’clock at night. It’s probably important.”
Ford let out a heavy sigh but didn’t roll off me. He grabbed the phone off the nightstand. “It better be city-on-fire important.”
He hit the green button on the screen and put the phone to my ear.
“Chief Kinsey,” I said, as Ford kissed down my neck, his warm mouth on my breasts.
“We have a body, Chief,” Officer Parker said.
Within a nanosecond, Ford was off my boobs, getting out of bed and pulling on his pants. Not an easy feat since his erection hadn’t completely gone away. He winced as he tucked it down and zipped up his jeans. I mouthed the word sorry to him as he threw a pair of jeans and a t-shirt at me.
I wondered why Parker was working. He’d been on day shift, so it didn’t make sense that he’d be on call tonight. “Are you working overtime?”
“I am now,” he said.
I put the phone on speaker and set it down while I dressed. Ford was dressed completely now and was putting on his socks. “Are you sure it’s not just more rubber legs sticking out of something?”
“I checked. These ones have the rest of the body attached, Chief.” His voice was solemn. “It’s Agatha Milan.”
“What? Are you sure? We spoke to her this afternoon. Damn it. Where’s the body located?”
“750 Elysium Street.”
“Lolo’s Diner?”
John Parker sounded angry when he spoke. “In the back dumpster.”
“In another dumpster?” I shook my head as I snapped my bra into place. “We’ll be there in fifteen. Secure the scene.”
“Already in progress, Chief. I have two patrols on their way, and Thomas is rounding up witnesses and taking statements.”
“Good work,” I told him. “Hold it down until I get there.”
“What do you think?” Ford asked after Parker hung up. “Prank gone wrong?”
“I’m not sure any of the Agatha stuff was a prank.” I remembered the look of panic and anger on her face when she’d kicked us out of her house. “Maybe they were warnings.”
“We should get someone to run her phone,” Ford said.
“That’s a good idea. Hopefully, we’ll know more when we get there.”
“Should I call Tanya?” he asked.
My mood darkened even more. “No. I’ll call her.” It would be my gesture of an olive branch. I just hoped she didn’t use it to beat me.
CHAPTER 10
Police cars, an ambulance, and a generous amount of townsfolk occupied the front parking lot of Lolo’s Diner. The diner’s bright neon signs advertising burgers and shakes added to the pageantry. The place was open until midnight on weekends, which meant it had been full of customers when the body was discovered. How in the world had the killer or killers managed to get Agatha tucked away on a busy night without anyone noticing? Chances were, they hadn’t. Sure, the dumpster was out of view of the street, but the access points to get there weren’t.
John Parker waved at me when we got out of Ford’s truck. He wore jeans and a leather jacket. Alice Michaels, a witch, and Rhonda Petry, a werecougar, my on-duty officers, were working the scene. They guarded the perimeter tape, keeping the crowd from going back behind the diner. The pair had been patrolling together for less than a month, so I was glad Parker, a veteran cop, and his partner Mitzy Thomas had been on site.
When we reached Parker and Thomas, they led us around the backside. “Becksy Ansel found the body when she was taking the trash out.” He shook his head and clenched his fist. “Luckily, we were here. She’s pretty badly shaken, as you can imagine.”
“We?” Maybe he and Thomas were figuring out a way to make their partnership work. I glanced back and forth between Parker and Thomas, and suddenly neither one of them wanted to meet my gaze. Uh oh. I shook my head. It wasn’t a good idea for partners to mix work with their personal lives. Of course, I was the boss of my honey, so who was I to judge?
“Uhm. Well—” Parker started.
I cut him off. The time for personal stuff was later. I recognized a young woman standing within the perimeter. “What’s Becksy Ansel doing back here?” Becksy was a perky teenage witch who waitressed at the diner. She was efficient and had always struck me as responsible. “Have you taken her statement?”
John nodded. “We did.”
Thomas added. “I called her dad and mom, too. They’re on their way down to pick her up.”
“You should’ve talked to me before calling civilians down to a crime scene,” I told her.
John postured defensively. “Becksy is pretty shaken up. Thomas made the right call.”
A low growl from Ford raised my brows. He didn’t like John’s tone when talking to me, but it didn’t bother me.
I touched Ford’s arm but addressed my officers. “Fine. Just keep them outside of the perimeter, and next time, hold off on calls that don’t start with talking to me first.”
“Yes, Chief,” Mitzy replied.
As they walked off, Tanya Geller came clacking onto the scene in her four-inch heels. “Is it really Agatha this time?” Her pale skin looked nearly gray. They must have been friends.
“I just arrived.” I nodded toward Parker and Thomas. “They identified her when the body was discovered, but let’s get it confirmed now.”
The body had been laid out on a sheet on the ground. John or one of the other officers had placed a tarp over the corpse. I waved Parker back over so he could answer any questions Tanya might have, then squatted down and pulled the tarp aside to reveal Agatha’s head.
Agatha’s bright purple hair was matted and messy, not like the put-together witch I’d seen this afternoon. Her dead eyes stared hollowly up at the sky. Her irises had gone milky.
Tanya gasped. “It’s definitely her.”
Parker nodded his agreement.
“Any apparent cause of death?” I asked.
“There’s this,” Parker said. He pulled the tarp up at her feet, sliding it above her calf. An S, like the one on the rubber legs, had been carved into her flesh.
“Goddess,” I breathed.
“Yep,” said Parker, his eyes burning with rage. “Shifters.”
“Now you don’t know that for sure,” Thomas said.
“What else could it mean?” Parker asked.
“You’re jumping to conclusions, John,” Ford said.
Parker glared at him. “Of course, you’d say that.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I heard the rising timbre in my mate’s voice.
“You’re one of them, so…” He let his words drop with just the implied accusation.
Whoa. Maybe I’d gotten it wrong about Parker and Thomas. The warlock didn’t sound like someone having a fling with a therianthrope. The situation had suddenly become even dicier.
Ford took a step toward Parker, his shoulders squaring. Shifters loved a good fight, especially when they believed they were right. My man-bear was no exception.
“Parker,” I snapped. “Go out front and help Petry and Michaels get statements.”
He grunted his acknowledgment but didn’t take his eyes off Ford. Really bad idea.
“Hey!” I shouted. Parker whipped his gaze to me. I pointed my finger at him. “Do you need some time off?”
His angry expression eased. “I…I…no, Chief. I don’t need any time off.”
“Then get your head into police work and out of politics. We don’t have enough evidence to accuse a gnat of buzzing the corpse and certainly not enough to blame half our community for this death based on one single letter. If I hear one whisper of anti-shifter sentiment because you’re talking out of turn, you’ll be doing more than taking some time off. You’ll be finding another job.”
Parker was staring at his feet now, his jaw working back and forth.
I glared at him, putting the full force of my conviction into my words. “Do you understand me, Officer Parker?”
“Yes, Chief,” he said sullenly. “I understand.”
“Good. Now go make yourself useful, and for Goddess’ sake, don’t taint the investigation with your prejudice.”
He turned on his heels and marched around the front of the building.
“I could have handled him,” Ford said.
“And then I’d have had to dress-down two of my officers tonight.” I waved my hand at him. “One was plenty, thank you very much.”
I glanced at Mitzy. Her shoulders sagged. “He’s not usually like this, Chief. I think this week is just getting to him.”
“If he puts my investigation in jeopardy because he can’t rein in his prejudices, he’ll be out of a job. Make sure he knows that I’m not messing around.”
She nodded. “I will.”
“Good, now go keep an eye on your hothead partner.”
Mitzy walked off, leaving me with Ford, Tanya, and the very dead Agatha Milan.
“Could it be shifters?” Tanya asked as she did a quick examination of the body.
I hoped not but it was too early to rule anyone out. “You’re the medical examiner. You tell me.”
She waved at the ambulance drivers to collect the victim. “I’ll do a full autopsy tonight and get back to you tomorrow with my preliminary findings.”
“Thanks,” I said. I hated to admit it, but I was grateful for Tanya’s ability to separate her emotions from her work. She was obviously distraught over Agatha’s murder, but she hadn’t jumped to any wild conclusions. “I mean it.”
She quirked her eyebrow up as if waiting for follow-up sarcasm, and when none came, she nodded. “I’ll call you when I have something.”
After the ambulance had taken Agatha Milan, Tanya followed them to the hospital in her car. Ford and I went back to the dumpster.
“I’m going to use an evidence location spell while the scene is fresh,” I said. It was the one and only spell I’d mastered over the years, and I could do it without any real effort.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Ford asked.
“Probably not.” But what was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like I could actually burn a hole to China or anything. Right. “You might want to stand around the corner just in case.”
My mate, who wasn’t a stupid man, walked away to stand on the other side of the corner.
I paced the perimeter of the large trash bin and incanted my second-sight spell.
“Goddess bring me second sight.
Turn any evidence into light.
A crime is done, most obscene.
Reveal hidden truths, unseen seen.
Done is done, Goddess grant to me,
Second sight, so mote it be.”
For a brief moment, nothing happened, but then the whole area lit up with a rainbow of colors.
“What is this?” I whispered as the power swam around me. I’d never seen so much raw magic in one area. The overlapping blues, greens, purples, yellows, and reds obscured my ability to discern anything helpful for finding Agatha’s killer.
The magic grew thick, almost choking as it tugged at my own power. Four shadows rose through the auras, wrapping and twisting. I could almost hear chanting beneath the loud hum of energy, and it felt as if the blood in my veins burned. My skin went taut and I worried it would split me wide open. I bit back a scream and tried to end my spell with a quick:
“Second sight.
You’re too bright.
Get away from me.
So mote it be.”
The area went completely still as if frozen in time. Without warning, a quiet peal of laughter broke the silence and sent chills down my spine.
One by one, the shadows punched their way through my body. I could hear them talk, I could feel their desires for power, and I could see the world as it had once been for them. The buildings disappeared around me. No longer was I standing in the back of Lolo’s. Now I was in a small room. Wooden benches lined the walls, but the floor was clear of any furniture.
Thirteen women stood in a circle, their hands clasped as they chanted. “Macht komme zu mir.” Over and over, the same words. I didn’t understand them, but I understood the intensity of the spell they were performing as it threatened to choke the air from me.
A deafening boom, followed by the ground shaking and the roof falling in, finally stopped their spellcasting. When the dust cleared, I witnessed nine of the thirteen get up while four of their sisters lie crumpled and dead on the wooden floor.
Two strong arms wrapped around me, and I could hear my name being repeated. I struggled to regain control of my mind and body, to chase the shadows away. The cold night air hit me with such force as I inhaled a gasping breath and sagged into Ford’s arms. I reeled from the implications of the vision.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
“Ghosts,” I said. “And not just any ghosts, witch ghosts.” I was afraid to put into words what I knew from the glimpse into the past to be true. Someone had cast a summoning spell and called forth four dead witches.
CHAPTER 11
An hour later, I stood in the Witch-Shifter Coalition gathering room, getting chastised by my worried father. “I thought we agreed on a magic ban,” he scolded me for the umpteenth time. I felt like a teenager again. “That means for everyone, even you.”
After Ford and I finished at the crime scene, I’d called Dad from the truck and told him to gather the Witch-Shifter Council at the coalition office. The information I’d learned from the vision and Agatha’s murder made the news important enough to wake up all the town leaders. Even so, I was quickly regretting my decision.
Dad and Tanya arrived together. Oh, joy of joy. The last I’d seen Tanya, she’d been heading to the hospital. My father must’ve called her after I got off the phone with him.
“I know,” I said. “It was dumb.” In my defense, I hadn’t been trying to create anything with my second-sight spell, so I really hadn’t expected it to go so horribly wrong. “But the good news is that we know what we’re dealing with now, maybe. Right?”
“Wrong,” Tanya replied. “Witches don’t become ghosts unless they are summoned, and if these were the four witches from the original coven who died, then we are in deep dog poop here.”
Her language surprised me. It made Tanya seem almost like a normal person. Ugh. She had been one of my high school nemeses, and I didn’t want to think of her as someone normal.
“The witches were chanting mocked coma zoo meer, or something like that,” I said.
“My babble-to-English translation is rough, but it sounds like German. A power spell, by the sounds of it,” Dad said.
“Look, I’m sorry I can’t be more accurate. I was a little freaked out when I was sucked into that vision. It was too much like I was there. Way too real.”
My father gave me a solemn look. “I suppose it’s lucky we know anything at all at this point.”
“Right? If I hadn’t broken the ban, we would still be in the dark.”
He didn’t bother with a response.
Bryant Baylor, Mary Lowe, and Steve Crandell arrived at the coalition office a few minutes later, and I had to tell the story all over again. Each of them looked at me as if I were the cause of all the gloom and doom.
