AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If we’re dealing with a younger spirit, they might not have the presence or power to fully form during the day.
That made sense. The otherworldly touch ran across my fingers again, a little more urgently this time. It seems to be pulling me toward the high council’s private park.
Then you’d better get across there.
I glanced around at the sound of footsteps. Anthony approached, and his expression was grim. “A case I was handling has just gone south—will you be okay to head back to Mrs. Marlowe’s alone?”
“Sure.” I hesitated. “I need to get across to that park—I don’t suppose you’d be able to pull some strings and get me in there, do you?”
He frowned. “Yes, but it’ll take a few hours. How urgent is it?”
I wanted to say very, but he was obviously in a hurry, and it wasn’t like I could justify the urgency. I waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it. Go.”
He gave me a look that suggested he saw through the lie, then glanced down at his watch. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the chamber at three. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t.”
He hurried off. I returned my gaze to the park. The decorative metal fencing was six or seven feet high and designed to keep all but the most athletic human out. It wasn’t, however, so high that a werewolf couldn’t leap it.
I wasn’t a werewolf, and even though the wild magic had been altering my DNA to give me some wolfy characteristics—sharper hearing and sight, faster healing, more strength—I was a long way from wolf lean. I had serious doubts about my ability to haul my ass up and over that fence.
But the covered walkway that arched across the road from the first floor of the Council’s building was the only other means of entry. I wasn’t getting back in that building until my allotted time this afternoon, so I really had no other option but to try.
I stopped on the footpath and zipped up my coat pockets to keep my phone and my wallet in place, then waited for a couple of cars to go past. After looking around to ensure no one was taking undue interest in my actions, I ran across the road, reaching for every bit of speed I had, my eyes on the top of the fence and the decorative metal spikes I had to avoid.
When I hit the opposite path, I leapt high, grabbed the top of the fence, and swung myself over the metal points. My sweater ballooned underneath me and caught the top of one spike, ripping lengthwise as I dropped down on the other side and almost choking me in the process. I swore, stripped off my coat, then pulled off the sweater and left it dangling on the fence.
As I tugged my coat back on, the touch that wasn’t happened once more.
Whatever it wanted me to find, it was in the center of the park, hidden behind the ring of trees protecting what I presumed was a seating area.
I wrapped my coat around my body, well aware that it was a defensive gesture that wouldn’t help if there was something nasty waiting beyond those trees.
But I still wasn’t getting anything on the psychic radar, and that was rather odd. Generally, my nose for trouble and supernatural beasties was rather sharp, even if sometimes less-than-giving information-wise.
I cautiously moved on. Belle remained connected, her tension pulsing through me, adding to my own. The trees were a mix of silver birches and crab apples, all just coming into bud, as well as plenty of bottle brushes, and they formed an impenetrable screen. I had no sense of movement, and I couldn’t smell anything untoward.
Of course, the wind was at my back, so I actually wouldn’t. Not until I was much closer, anyway.
There was no entry point into the center from this section of the garden, so I walked around to the left and eventually found a path. The shadows grew thicker the closer I got to the entrance of the center circle, and a frisson of fear ran through me
Those shadows weren’t a product of the darkening day and the storm that was growing ever closer.
They were a product of magic. Dark magic.
I’m not liking the feel of that, Belle commented. Maybe you’d better call someone.
Ashworth and Eli are the only ones in this city who’d take any notice of me, and they’re not close enough to get here quickly.
What about that high council investigator? The one who came to investigate Clayton’s murder?
Samuel Kang?
Yeah, him. You still have his number, don’t you?
No. I never put his number into my phone, and I tossed his business card into the junk drawer, I said. Besides, what am I going to tell him? That I’ve got a bad feeling? What if it amounts to nothing?
She snorted. Your bad feelings usually lead to either trouble or a trap rather than nothing. Besides, those shadows hardly feel like “nothing.”
