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I tried to warn Saska, but she was already out of the Fairmont and running toward the two men. I tried to do the same, but the damn seat belt was jammed. I swore, grabbed my knife from my purse, and cut the thing off. Then I thrust open the door and scrambled out.
The world spun briefly around me, and the scent of blood teased my nostrils. I touched the right side of my neck; my fingers came away bloody. The damn seat belt must have lacerated my skin. I guessed I was lucky it hadn’t done anything worse.
The caress of magic sharpened in the air, snapping my attention back. I bolted for the trees, the knife gripped tightly in one hand and a repelling spell spinning around the other. I couldn’t see the caster, but I could certainly smell him. The man obviously didn’t believe in deodorant.
I crashed through the scrub, hoping like hell the howl of the Fairmont’s still running engine overrode the noise I made. He continued to cast, but that might simply mean he wasn’t all that worried about my approach. Maybe he had counters or trip traps set, though I couldn’t feel anything else in the way of magic.
If he had physical traps set, I’d no doubt soon discover them.
I had no idea what spell he was crafting, but the closer I got, the more my skin crawled, and that very much suggested it was anything but benign. He needed to be stopped before he could unleash it.
I released my repel spell, skimming it across the ground so there was less chance of him feeling its approach. The one advantage this sort of spell had over more complicated ones like a cage spell was the fact it was low-end, power wise. If you weren’t paying attention to your surroundings, they were easy to miss.
Which was exactly what happened.
As his spell reached its peak and he began to tie it off, mine hit. There was a yelp and then a thump, and the caress of his magic evaporated, though its fragments remained in the air, reminding me vaguely of an unclean version of a cage spell.
I leapt over a log, crashed through some scrub, and stumbled into a small clearing. The caster lay in an ungainly heap at the base of a gum tree. I slowed and cautiously approached. It was only when I was a few meters away that I realized “he” was actually a “she.”
Magic swirled around my fingers in readiness, but she didn’t move. Blood matted her hair and trickled from her hairline near her right temple. But she breathed, so I’d simply knocked her out rather than killed her.
I quickly crafted a binding spell and lashed her feet and hands together. It wouldn’t stop her retaliating magically, of course, but given the inner wild magic’s tendency to raise a shield at the slightest hint of either a magical or supernatural threat, a physical attack was the bigger problem right now.
I bent and felt for a pulse. It was thready and a little rapid, which wasn’t surprising given I’d knocked her out.
I pushed back a little—more to drag in some cleaner air—and studied her. She was tall and skinny, with the dirty-blonde hair often seen in some Fitzgerald lines. While they tended to be more carnival tricksters than true witches, there were some bloodlines who could trace their lineage back to royal blood, and that power sometimes found its way through to the current generation.
This witch obviously belonged to one of them, because her magic was far stronger than most.
Her clothes—jeans, sweater, boots, and a coat—were all wet and grimy, as were her hands and her face. It was pretty evident neither she nor her clothes had seen any sort of soap and water in the last few days.
Was that a deliberate choice or a forced one? Was the wraith hiring these people through intermediaries, or was he somehow forcing them to do his bidding?
I couldn’t imagine anyone willing to work with such a man, but given demons could possess people, maybe he’d found a patsy to control and use.
And if that were true, we needed to find said patsy, and fast.
I quickly patted her down and found her wallet in the inside pocket of her coat. Her driver’s license revealed she was Hazel Fitzgerald and lived in some place called Googong. I tucked the wallet back, then reached for Belle.
Her impatience rolled through me. About bloody time.
I grinned. Sorry, but things didn’t go as planned.
What a surprise. Her mental tone was dry. What happened?
A zombie werewolf, a car chase, a shushunjë, and a witch.
She did the mental equivalent of a blink. Wow.
Yeah. I need you to jump in and telepathically read the witch’s memories.
I take it she’s unconscious rather than dead?
Yep. We need to know how the wraith is contacting these people, because it’s not like he could advertise.
Is she a dark witch?
I hesitated. I’d describe her as gray.
