We don’t have long to wait for the police to arrive. We hear the sirens coming toward us, since they’re only a couple of streets away. Their speed unsurprising, as this is a college campus and a murderer is on the loose. One whose species-crossing murders gives everyone a vested interest in finding the killer.
As the first police car screeches to a stop, I watch as the passenger door is flung open, and a large muscular witch clambers out. A furious scowl furrows her brow as she narrows jet black eyes in our direction, and a sneer of distaste curls her narrow lips.
She cracks her neck and fingers before slamming the car door making it shudder, almost causing the driver of the car to fall on his face as he exits. I hear Kheda give an almost silent groan, as he watches her stomp toward us.
The closer she comes, the angrier she looks, until finally in a voice sounding like she eats nails for a hobby, while smoking a pack of cigarettes every hour, she growls, “Who the hell are you three, what are you doing here, McKnight, and what the fuck happened?”
“You know why Detective McKnight is here, Nina,” sighs the male officer tiredly, as he shoots an irritated look in Nina’s direction. He gives a nod of acknowledgement to Kheda with a simple, “Detective McKnight.” To which Kheda replies, “Officer Thompson” with a nod of acknowledgment, before noticing Ben’s crumpled body lying on the dirty ground. “Christ on a stick, what the hell happened to him?”
“The back of his skull was bashed in, and he was used as a marionette,” I bluntly tell the officers, as I move unsteadily away from the protective circle of Victor’s embrace.
“Who are you?” demands Nina as she thoughtfully narrows her gaze at me.
“Candi Reynolds.”
“Hmm,” snorts Nina distrustfully. “You’re a witch. What are you doing here with them?” waving her hand in the direction of the werewolf, shifter, and vampire.
“Excuse me? How does it pertain to the case, and what the hell does it have to do with you anyway?” I growl angrily at the officer. I can feel a headache coming along, and my angry scowl isn’t helping as it speeds it up.
“Now, now, witch, no need to be rude…” “Enough, Nina,” exclaims the male officer in annoyance as he glares at his comrade. “If you can’t be polite, go and wait in the car. I have no interest in your pettiness or issues at the moment,” he snaps furiously as he stares at the dead boy. “Where’s the necromancer?” “Gone,” Kheda mutters, rubbing his head in frustration and exhaustion. “You let the witch go?”
“No, well, not exactly.”
“What the hell does that mean?” “It means, well, she’s gone.”
“Fuck’s sake, now we’re going to have to search for her. Please explain to me how the hell you could lose her?”
I watch the emotions flickering across the male officer’s face, and almost choke when he worriedly looks at our clothes. Did he think we’d eaten the necromancer? At the sudden relief, I’m guessing the thought must have crossed his mind. Bloody hell! With relief oozing out of him in waves, I watch as three more squad cars pull up along with the ambulance to take Ben’s body away. Nina, I notice, has moved over to the three crying kids and is talking to them quietly.
“She might look scary, but she has a kind heart for kids. It’s just adults she hates.” He informs me when he sees where I’m looking.
I feel the instant Nina tenses and turns to look at me with a combination of wonderment and fear. Her eyes so wide, I’m surprised the skin doesn’t rip. Her slack-jawed expression intensified by the paleness of her normally tanned skin.
I hear the officer beside me sudden inhale, as he watches Nina’s expression and sudden pallor. Glancing at him, I watch his emotions flicker across his face, confusion and uncertainty, concern and a deep fear, not for himself but for Nina, and finally shock. Looking at him, I wonder just how much he cares about her.
Kheda crosses to one of the new officers, and after a quick word he returns to our little group. “We have five minutes in the house, so let’s go and see if we can find some answers.” Kheda watches Officer Thompson speaking with Nina, Jimmy, Sally and Vincent. Stifling a sigh, he turns and heads toward Ben’s house. With a shudder of revulsion, he hurries inside.
****
The coppery smell of blood assails our noses when we enter the kitchen. Though most of the blood had landed on the necromancer, the smell of it still lingers with an underlying smell of excitement and anger. Closing my eyes, I breathe in the smells, and let them out and repeat my breathing exercise. Once I’m surrounded by the different smells, I speak a simple spell out loud.
“Smells so unique, show us your path, Show us what happened, this hour past.”
I open my eyes as everything turns a ghostly blue. Hearing a gasp of surprise from Jasmine, I quickly indicate they should remain still.
As we watch, we see Evelyn enter the front door, sneaking into the kitchen with a gleeful expression on her face. She removes a hammer from her large handbag. She strokes the hammer in anticipation.
After a couple of minutes, she places it on the table, delves back into her handbag, where she pulls out a little glass vial. Quickly removing the cork, she retraces her steps to the front door and proceeds to splash the contents about, efficiently masking her scent. Once finished, she rushes back into the kitchen, grasps the hammer again, and hides behind the kitchen door, where she waits for Ben to arrive.
Growing bored, she wanders about the place, noticing how tidy it is, and as she enters the sitting room she looks at the photos on display. Ben with his family. Ben with his friends. On the coffee table she sees a book. Reading the title she realizes she has read it.
With this realization she becomes confused. She always believed werewolves to be stupid, messy creatures, but this boy was everything opposite. Apparently he was house proud, smart, and unashamed to have photos of his family, where his friends could see them.
She hears a car pull up quickly outside. Peering out the window, she spots Eve Allhallows’ granddaughter and a vampire climbing out of the car. As her anger resurfaces, she watches as the witch walks over to Ben, stopping him on his way to his house so she can talk to him. The vampire who had been knocking on doors joins them.
A couple of minutes later they walk away, and Ben carries on toward his house once more. Quickly Evelyn hurries back to her hiding spot behind the kitchen door, where she waits in growing anger for him to enter the kitchen.
She doesn’t have to wait long, and once he passes her hiding spot, she creeps out and smashes his skull in, watching as his body crumples to the floor. She stares for a minute as the anger seeps from her body.
She looks properly at the dead boy lying on the floor. For once she sees him as a boy, not a different species. Her chin wobbles. Shaking herself, she reaches for her bag. Removing a black candle, incense, and a lighter, she quickly reanimates his body before she changes her mind,
“After all, you’re already dead. Might as well use you,” she mutters to Ben, as if she had stumbled upon the body and decided to use him. On her third try, she manages to reanimate the body.
“Go next door, and kill them all,” she crows in delight as she sends Ben jerkily on his mission, just as someone knocks on the front door. Crouching down and hiding, she watches as Ben opens the front door and the witch talks to him. She notices the instant she realizes something is wrong with him. She stares as the witch backs away and runs next door.
In delight she moves into the sitting room where she carries on watching the scene unfold, delighting in their fear, until everything changes. She watches as the witch’s eyes turn an impossible shade of violet, and flames erupt from her hands.
In fear, Evelyn runs back into the kitchen, grabbing her hammer and matches, dumping them into her bag. Blowing out her candle, she douses the incense, and clutching them in her hands, she runs out the back door.
She’s halfway through the garden, when she’s wrapped in an invisible embrace like a steel trap and dragged back through the house and toward the witch.
Screaming her hatred, she shakes in fear as Hecate speaks through the witch, strips her of her powers, and Hecate’s hounds drag her into hell.
The ghostly blue fades, and once more we’re in the blood scented kitchen. Quickly I head into the garden where I spot Evelyn’s bag in the grass. Calling Kheda, I point it out, and we go toward it. I photograph the area, the position of the candle, drenched incense, and the bag. Kheda retrieves all the items and brings them back into the kitchen where we search for any clues. There is nothing obvious, just the usual items you would expect to find in a woman’s handbag. It holds a comb, pen, shopping bag, phone, knitting (probably for knot spells, not for actual knitting), old receipts, keys, and different color candles and incense. With an annoyed huff, Kheda puts the phone on the table.
“Nothing of use in there. I don’t think she used it often,” he grunts in annoyance.
I look at the contents on the table in confusion. I know it’s quite a lot she has in her bag but…
“Is that all?” Jasmine asks as she looks at the contents in front of her.
“Isn’t it enough?” Victor laughs. “I mean, the only thing she’s missing is the kitchen sink!”
Shaking my head, I pick up the bag and shake it. Something inside shifts, keeping the bag just the tiniest bit heavier than it should be. Quickly, I turn the bag inside out and feel for a pouch small enough to go unnoticed, but large enough to hold something inside.
It’s Jasmine who finally notices it, a slim pouch in the lining near the seam. Easily missed, if you didn’t know it was there or looking for it. She slips her long slim fingers in nervously as she doesn’t know what’s inside, or if it’s bespelled. Finally she extracts a slim leather-bound black book.
Her personal space a thing of the past, I stare over her shoulder, so I can read what’s in the book. Opening it up, she finds spells and some names. Farther into it she sees Ben’s address, who to send him after, and finally directions to another location. Silently she hands the book to Kheda.
Taking it from her, Kheda flicks through it stopping at the directions. His brow furrows in concentration as he looks at the diagram, reading the directions. “I can’t for the life of me think where this is,” he mutters.
Victor and I peer over his shoulder so we can see if we recognize it. The next thing Victor whips out his phone. Speed dialing a number, he harshly informs whoever answered to get out, get everyone out now.