Chapter 23

Ashley, Jack, Ben and Alex stood around a co-opted stone bird bath positioned in the centre of one of the potion labs. “Think of it as warlock CCTV,” Ashley said as he stirred the surface of the water with a finger. “We’re ready to tune it to Dara and Catlin so we can witness their exchange. Alex will layer some of his magic through it so Catlin shouldn’t be able to realise what’s happening, otherwise I think her vampire senses might alert her to something going on.”

Alex removed a handkerchief from his pocket. “I’ve hairs from Catlin’s hairbrush and Dara gave me a couple of nail clippings.”

“Drop them in,” instructed Ashley. “Jack will set up an image capture spell as well and so we’ll have a recording of it too.”

Ashley hadn’t needed to do this often but it was a piece of complicated magic that gave him a nice stretch of his skills, adding Alex’s signature into the mix was another part of the puzzle. It felt good to flex his magical muscles in a different way.

Usually elf magic set his teeth on edge, but Alex’s didn’t seem to have the rotten undercurrent that accompanied most of his creed. The water in the bird bath turned silver before it shimmered and a light haze lifted from the surface to reveal Dara lying in wait for Catlin. It was close to her usual wake-up time, which Karl had observed to be about an hour later than either Ben or Harry. They watched as Dara’s demeanour changed, he went from alert and upright to bumbling, making himself shuffle along the hallway as Ashley saw Catlin had come into view.

“Good evening, Dr Callahan. Are you all right? It’s not your time of the month is it?” Catlin asked, looking him up and down. From what Ben had told him, Catlin had never been as comfortable around Dara, his werewolf status something she took every opportunity to mention.

“No, it’s not that.” Dara chewed the inside of his cheek and glanced around. “I found something in the archive, and I don’t know what to do. Come to think of it, you might be able to help me—perhaps give me some perspective as I’ve not been at Crofton Hall that long.”

“Wouldn’t you be better off talking to Ben?” she asked carefully.

“Maybe… or maybe not. I’m not sure… I found a frog coffin. I wanted to know if you knew it existed already. It’s a pretty nasty piece of black magic, and from the documentation that was with it, it’s not that old—certainly not medieval Finnish.”

“Frog coffin?” asked Catlin.

Ashley wondered if they might have gone a little too obscure for the reference but Karl had been sure that Catlin would know what it was and that several of her witchy friends would be active practitioners in the art of using them for curses.

“Used to level curses on people,” Dara said. “There’s no reason for this to be in the hall. It was buried in a box I’d already searched with papers from the 1720s that I only went back to check on because I was citing a reference.”

“I see.” Catlin pressed a finger to her lips, she was a brilliant actress, and Ashley thought if she wasn’t going to end up sealing her own fate as a dry husk, Robin could have found her a part in a movie. “Do you want me to deal with it? I could take it away, I fear leaving it here would mean trouble. Especially after what Ben did to Mr Webb.”

Dara frowned. “I know Jack was taken ill, but I didn’t hear what was wrong with him.”

“I can’t go into details, but you should be mindful of anything Ben gives you.”

Ashley heard Ben growl. Dara received several potions for his furry problem and her intimating not to take them would reduce Dara’s quality of life drastically.

“Thank you for the warning,” Dara said. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a small black bag. “I’ve been carrying it around with me since I found it. Maybe you could give it to Ashley to dispose of safely?”

She took it. “I’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”

Ashley controlled the water to ensure they stayed with Catlin as she returned to her room. She went over to her writing bureau, opened the front and, from the little bag Dara had given her, removed a wooden box, it was old, with only remnants of what would have once been elaborate paintwork visible. Ashley hadn’t asked where the frog coffin had come from and no one had volunteered the information.

Catlin peered at it and tried to prise the lid off but it didn’t give, the flash of purple light from the tips of her fingers made him gasp. “Since when has Catlin possessed magic?” Jack asked. “She’s not registered.”

“She doesn’t,” Ben said. “Or at least she didn’t.”

Alex let out a snarl and Ashley saw his eyes flash red and the water in the birdbath boiled, the connection gone. “What’s wrong?” demanded Ben.

Ashley couldn’t explain why Catlin could be able to do magic if she hadn’t been able to before, people were born with the gift, it grew and developed over time, but it had to grow from a seed that had always been planted.

“That’s not Catlin Redbourn. That’s an aswang,” Alex said, his teeth bared. “I saw a flicker of her true form through the projection because of looking through Ashley’s magic.”

“A shapeshifter?” Ashley asked. “I haven’t come across one of those in over a century.”

Ben staggered backwards, Ashley grabbed his arm to stabilise him. “Where is the real Catlin?”

“I don’t know, some shapeshifters need to keep their doppelgangers alive, but I am sure a very powerful witch aswang wouldn’t need to. And could easily pass as a vampire, they live off blood and human flesh.”

“But not through fangs,” Jack said. “They feed through their tongue, which is a bit of a giveaway.”

Alex turned to Ben. “When was the last time you saw her live feed, direct from a body and not bottled blood?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t remember, months, longer even. She’s often away or I am.”

“We need to contain her.” Alex had gone deathly pale. “Then we can check for sure. If memory serves correctly, her eyes will reflect an image upside down in her pupils and we’ll need the holy water as a deterrent.”

Ashley saw Ben flinch. “Don’t worry we’ll keep it away from you.”

“Send an urgent message to Charles and Anthony, I need them here as soon as possible,” Ben ordered. “They need to know. Charles might want to be the one to kill the fucking thing.”

Alex summoned Karl and in a torrent of elvish explained what was going on. Karl blinked several times as if having trouble processing the information. Ashley grabbed Ben’s hand. “Are you all right?”

“I should have realised that something was amiss. She was never so manipulative, nothing like Harry, so when she came to you trying to capitalise on the investigation, and what she did to Jack, it should have been a red flag and I should have looked closer.”

Jack shook his head. “You can’t blame yourself, it’ll only act as a distraction and we can’t afford that if you have an aswang in your home.”

“I don’t know enough about them,” Ben admitted.

“No one does,” Jack said. “But I’ll go to the warlock library and collect a few things, because I’m pretty sure there’s a few options we could take especially if myself, Ashley, and Alex work together.”

Ben thanked him and Jack opened a portal and was gone. Karl and Alex had finished the discussion, and Karl looked as if someone had ripped out his professionalism and stomped on it. “I can’t believe I let this happen under my horns,” Karl said. “I feel in part responsible for not noticing.”

“You’re not the only one,” Alex said. “But she must be bloody powerful if she’s managed to stay under the radar and only got caught because both mine and Ashley’s magic were working together.”

Karl agreed, but Ashley could tell it was somewhat begrudging. “I think at a minimum we need to get that frog coffin back. I hadn’t factored in she’d be able to use it without taking it to a friend.”

Alex growled under his breath. “I shouldn’t have got so angry causing the connection to close off. We should probably try and reconnect.”

“I think it’s too risky now,” Ashley said. “We’ve been lucky that she hasn’t realised we were spying on her, she was preoccupied with the frog coffin, I wouldn’t suggest trying it again until we know exactly how to contain her in case she fires something nasty at us.”

“So what do we do now?” Ben asked.

“I could conjure up a containment circle specific for the frog coffin curses,” Alex offered.

Before Ashley could say anything else, Jack reappeared, carrying a book. “Have we got a boro knife? Although I think any big knife that can chop someone’s head off would work.”

“That was quick,” Ben said.

“It helps when you know what you’re looking for, I know more than my fair share of some nifty retrieval spells.” He held up the book. “A cursory read of Old Olaf’s Encyclopaedia of Things That Will Kill Warlocks was my first port of call and it didn’t let me down. We need an anti-vampire potion to coat the blade that will finish her off and, in the interim, to set up a witch trap and lure her into it. A silver-tinged containment charm will do the job until she’s dispatched.”

“More bloody silver,” muttered Ben.

“Afraid so. Our vamp friends will need to keep their distance, but I’m sure Ashley will be happy to protect you and check you over in case of any rogue sparks.”

“What about the real Catlin?” Ben asked.

“We need to deal with the aswang first,” Jack said. “Then we see if we can find any evidence of where she is and if she’s still alive… or technically still undead.”

There was no other way with aswangs, once captured they needed to be executed as they were too dangerous to be allowed to run amuck in any part of paranormal or human society. When Ashley had come to Crofton Hall he hadn’t expected drama on this level, and hadn’t thought he’d have ended up caring whether Ben got a face full of silver or not. This wasn’t mere attraction, he was falling for the fucker and he would make sure he was safe.