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In all the time I’d known him, he’d barely touched me. It was as if he was afraid to lay even one finger on me. And even as that lack of touch made me feel shattered, I longed for him. I ached for him.
“Another day down, Claire,” I said to no one at all and then laid down and entered a troubled sleep.
* * *
The Mystic SpringsWitch Gazette sat just east of the downtown area. It was a bland little building that had originally been used as office space for a nearby paper mill. The paper mill had failed in the mid-90s, but the offices remained.
The owners of the Witch Gazette had bought the building, giving the paper, which served the magical population of the town, a boring building that didn’t attract the attention of the humans in town. While it would have been possible to glamour a more attractive building, such glamours took a sustained effort. It also would have unnecessarily depleted the paper’s budget. Better to go with something that screamed boring than go to the effort of masking something day in and day out.
To the human population of the town, the Witch Gazette appeared to be nothing more than a rag, where people sold things that absolutely no one wanted. To the witchkind community, however, it was all the news fit to shit, as Carlton Cavendish, the paper’s editor, liked to say.
As I made my way into Carlton’s office, I took in the familiar scent of the room. It wasn’t altogether pleasant, but it was familiar. Sometimes, that was all I needed to quell the anxiety that constantly thrummed through my body. Carlton had been the editor of the Witch Gazette long before I’d arrived on the scene. He’d worn the same 70s style mustache for over 40 years if the photos atop his desk were anything to go by.
“Have you gotten anywhere with the mayor?” Carlton asked, his mustache tickling his lip as he glanced up at me and then back down at the laptop on his desk. Mystic Springs might just be a small, squat town in the middle of nowhere, but Carlton took his duties as truth-teller to the town seriously.
Huffing, I plopped down in the chair opposite Carlton. Like Carlton, the furniture in the office had changed little since the 70s. The dark green vinyl squeaked as I tried to make myself comfortable.
“Not for the lack of trying. I went through every one of his assistants. He’s always just out of the office or in a meeting.”
“Another question for that interview if we’re ever granted it. Why the hell does the mayor of a town of only 15,000 need that many assistants? Kind of sus if you ask me.”
I bit back a laugh at Carlton’s use of slang. He picked up a new word every other month and yet never gave up the ones he had learned before. There was no rotation in Carlton’s slang. A few days earlier, I’d heard him bellow a hearty “right on!” The week before that, he’d referred to someone’s necktie as “rad.”
“He won’t talk to the press,” Carlton began, counting off each offense one meaty finger at a time. “He won’t hold press conferences. For all we know, he’s turned into a ghost and will never be seen again.”
“I could pull a Ghostbusters,” I suggested. Carlton’s brow furrowed.
“I didn’t mean that he had actually turned into a ghost, Landon.”
Some days, it was really difficult not to laugh at my boss.
“In the movie, they have to corner the mayor at a fancy restaurant. I think.”
Carlton made that strange clicking sound with his tongue he made when he was mulling something over. Every time he made the sound, I expected cats to file out of the woodwork and come running into the office.
“Crimson.”
“Gabriel Winters place?” I asked. I knew of the place but didn’t stop in there all that often. It was the type of place you went to for a romantic dinner or to have one of those girls’ nights out, neither of which I ever did.
“Think he goes there?” Carlton asked.
“I could ask around. If anyone knows, it would be Sebastian Cavanaugh.”
Carlton grimaced.
“Another person who won’t grant us an interview. Forget the Ghostbuster thing. Try another angle.”
Carlton had been sore for years that he’d never snagged an interview with the elusive warlock. Considered by some to be a veritable mob lord and others as the very definition of a virile, handsome warlock, everyone wanted to know more about the man.
And Sebastian wanted no one to know more about him.
Still, if I could talk to him off the record, I might gain some information as to how to get to the mayor.
Of course, the easiest way to get to Sebastian was through Jack.
I sighed.
And hadn’t realized I’d done so out loud until I looked up to see Carlton staring back at me. “You gonna make it, Landon?”
