Chapter 30

“Who?”I looked at Mark, but he gave a small shake of his head.

Theman clamped his mouth shut. Interesting. “Where can we find him?”

“Look, I told you what you wanted to know,” the mage said belligerently. “Let me go.”

“How do you know he’s in Olmeda?”

“I just know, okay? Let me go!”

Anedge of panic had entered his voice. Whoever this Slater was must have a reputation.

“We can wait here all night.” I brought out my phone. “Let me call the bounty hunter.”

Theman pouted mulishly. “Fine. Call him.”

Thatbrought me up short. He’d rather face a bounty hunter for whatever had landed him in trouble with the Council than speak about this Slater? IfSlater wasn’t the one helping the witch, he definitely needed to be put on my and Ian’s radars. I wondered if Brimstone would know of him.

Unlessit really was Key’s brother, in which case maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to ask Key’s uncle. But what were the chances?

Thenagain, what were the chances of three earth mages—the rarest of mages—staying in Olmeda at the same time?

Itook a photo of the man, then stepped closer and glared at him. “Donot come back to Olmeda. IfI see you around here again, you’ll be dealing with a lot worse than the Council, you hear me?”

Mightas well use my dark witch reputation.

Sweatgathered on the man’s temples as he nodded vigorously.

Markfreed him, then gave him a shove toward the entrance of the alleyway. “Go.”

Theman ran toward the street. Fluffy gave him a happy bark as he passed by her, and he flinched but kept his course.

“Should we have let him free?” Mark asked, watching the man disappear around the corner.

“It’s more important we find this other mage.” What if the dark witch escaped with Bagley because Ian had been too busy dealing with this earth mage to help find them?

“Maybe you should’ve asked Cavalier first.”

Idrew up to my full height and lifted my chin. “I am the official Council witch of Olmeda, and I made an executive decision. This mage’s problems were with the Council.” I shook my phone. “I’ll send Ian the photo. He can use the bounty hunters’ secret paranormal database to figure out who he is and keep an eye out.”

Marknodded. “I’ve always wondered if they keep a database.”

“Right?” I asked, excited to find an understanding soul. “Ian says no, but it’s so obvious.”

“Can never trust BigBountyHunterBrother.”

“Exactly.” I almost offered him a fist pump, but then reminded myself this was my quasi-enemy. “You’ve never heard of an earth mage called Slater?”

“Nope.” He checked his wristwatch. How that thing had survived the berserker mode was anyone’s guess. “I gotta get back to work.”

Withoutwaiting for a response, he walked down the alleyway.

Fluffyalso gave him a happy goodbye bark.

Normally, I’d think Fluffy needed better standards, but after this strange moment of bonding with the berserker, I’d let it pass.

Myphone vibrated again.

“You’re not at the Crawler,” Ian said flatly. “Where are you?”

Iguided Fluffy toward the main street. “There was a slight change of plans. Mark and I had an encounter with the earth mage.”

“Oh?”

“He’s not our guy, but he gave us a name: Slater. You ever hear of him?”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“This mage looked scared of him, like he’s a big name in the evil mage underground scene. He wouldn’t tell us anything else, though, so I let him go. I’m sending you his photo.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said dryly. “Did you get to the Cabinet?”

“Not yet. I’m on my way. Will call you after.”

“Be safe.”

“You too.”

Iended the call, appreciating the fact Ian hadn’t berated me for not waiting for him at the Crawler. He might’ve wanted to be there to offer extra security, but he fully trusted me to go off on my own if the need arose.

Thedownside was that he expected me to also trust him to share things only when strictly necessary, which was kind of a bummer, but ah, well.

Fluffyand I joined the crowds in Guiles and Romary, and I found myself hesitating. I now had a name. ShouldI make a detour through Wyatt’s bar and ask around again or go directly to the Cabinet? Asking about paranormal stuff at the bar was batting a zero out of two so far, but maybe third time was the charm? But what if by wasting my time there the witch managed to get Bagley out of Crane at the Cabinet?

HadI royally messed up by not bringing in OfficerBrooks? Having the murder out in the open would’ve put extra pressure on the dark witch, even if making it hard for me to investigate as freely.

Thenagain, if they were only carrying fingers around, would they stand out in this crowd? I had never noticed anyone suspicious at the tea shop, and this dark witch had obviously visited enough times to communicate with Bagley without me noticing.

Thespell in the haunted house bothered me. There had been no signs of a struggle or spatters of blood. Why risk transferring Bagley to someone in there, with so many people around and the risk someone might go to the basement to grab something?

But… What if they hadn’t meant to transfer Bagley into a person but into an item? Something easy to carry that wouldn’t rot. After all, Bagley had been haunting items in my shop all this time, so transferring her to an inanimate object was doable. That way they could take Bagley away and do the second transfer somewhere else with a carefully chosen candidate.

Whyhadn’t they done that first at the shop?

Maybethey had expected the spell to work much better, so now they were going with plan B.

Ibegan walking along with the throng of people, Fluffy shifting in my arms to take a better look at all the lights.

Ifthe dark witch had successfully transferred Bagley from the finger to an object, they might be far from here already.

Thethought chilled my blood. If that had happened, then I was truly screwed.

Onthe other hand, what if the spell in the closet hadn’t been successful because Bagley operated inside Crane’s body the same way she had operated in my shop? Take her out, and her soul disappeared into the ether until it snapped back to the shop, or in this case, Crane’s body.

Ifthe spell had failed because Bagley was no longer in the finger, and the witch had realized this, they must’ve gone back to the body to try to move it to another location or try the spell in-situ without any extra dark-magic atmosphere.

Butagain, where could they have stashed the corpse? It wasn’t in the old coven house. Another abandoned house? People might notice.

Unless…

Unlessthey hadn’t taken it out of the cemetery at all.

Whymove a huge body around when you only need a finger or two? If the witch had used a glamour potion on Crane’s body after taking it out, none of the shifters would’ve noticed the smell of decomposition even if it was nearby.

Pulsepounding in my ears, I made a one-eighty and hurried back toward Ian’s cemetery, putting Fluffy down as soon as it was safe for us to run together.

Iwas out of breath by the time we got there. A few people milled around the entrance, with Natalia in charge of the tickets table.

“Water?” I asked, panting.

Nataliaarched her brows but handed me a water bottle from a cooler. I gulped half of it down, then wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I need to leave Fluffy with you.”

Fluffyhad had enough bad people encounters for the day.

“Uh…” Natalia eyed the dog. “Sure?”

“Fluffy,” I told her, crouching down and scratching her behind the ears. “You’ve been a good girl, but now you wait for me here, okay?”

Fluffydarted upward and licked my cheek.

“Good girl.”

Ipassed her leash to Natalia and ran inside the cemetery. Between the creepy background music and the excited yelps and shouts coming from the tour currently doing the rounds, it was easy to move around without anyone hearing. Rufus might’ve noticed something amiss, but how could he differentiate between the tour people and one witch using a glamour potion?

Thelarge pools of darkness between the spotlights for the tour made me basically invisible in my black witch costume and Ian’s black jacket.

AsI zigzagged among the gravestones toward Crane’s original burial spot, I called Ian.

“Ian,” I whispered. “I think I know what happened.”

“Are you at the Cabinet?” he asked in a low voice. “Did you find the witch?”

“No, I’m back at the cemetery. I think the spell at the haunted house failed because Bagley’s soul snapped back to the majority of the body instead of staying in the finger, like what happened whenever I took her out of the main shop room.”

“Where’sShane and Alex?” he immediately asked.

“I don’t know.”

Iarrived at the patch of trees around Crane’s old burial. Nothing appeared amiss. Considering my options, I decided to start my search fanning away from the direction of the house. There were several statues ahead, graves, and a few more trees. In the distance, I spotted the white walls of a small mausoleum.

Istudied the tiny building. Hiding in plain sight?

“Call them or wait for me for backup,” Ian said sternly.

Hemade a good point. What did I expect to do if I found the dark witch on my own? The disparity between our power levels was laughable.

“Okay. I’ll go back in a sec. Lemme check something first.”

“You’re not at the entrance?” Ian sounded alarmed now.

“No, I went to check Crane’s grave again.” I reached the mausoleum. Wasn’t this one of the spots supposed to be highlighted during the tour? The light must be down again.

“Hope, get back to the entrance.”

Peekingaround the mausoleum on the hidden side, I noticed a large bundle lying against the side, darker than the surrounding vegetation in the dim light. Part of it had come undone, and an arm was sticking out, two fingers missing.

“Ian! I?—”

Someoneshoved me hard from behind.