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He glanced at me. “Meaning she’s also a vampire?”
“Afraid so.”
He grunted. “If she’s unleashed a basilisk, how do we capture it?”
“That I don’t know.”
“And the sorceress?”
“Maelle can’t—won’t—help us until she’s personally attacked.”
“No surprise there.” He pulled his phone out and took some photos of the print. “What if it isn’t Maelle’s lover but someone else? Is there any way you can use this site or any remaining remnants of magic to track him or her?”
“Monty did preserve some of the spell threads we found. Whether it’s still viable is another matter.” I glanced at him, one eyebrow raised in question.
He immediately retrieved the sphere. The thread was little more than a faintly glowing spark now.
“I’m afraid there’s not enough left to weave a tracker spell around,” he said. “Though in all honesty, I doubt we would have succeeded. She’s obviously covered her tracks very well.”
“No doubt because she’s aware there’re five witches in the reservation,” I said.
“A sorcerer strong enough to summon and control a basilisk isn’t going to worry about five regular old witches,” Monty commented, voice dry.
“Which would be a big mistake on her part, I’m thinking,” Aiden said. “I’ll rope off and record the area, then collect blood and skin samples. Until we get a body or an ID on whoever or whatever that bloodstain came from, there’s nothing much else we can do at this point.”
“We’ll hang around while you do all that,” Monty said. “Just in case the basilisk decides to come back.”
Aiden unslung his backpack and pulled a roll of police tape from it. “If this thing is so deadly, can it be killed?”
“Everything can be killed,” Monty said in a sage sort of tone. “It’s just a matter of having the right implements.”
“And those implements are?”
“If legends are to be believed, a mirror.”
Aiden’s gaze shot toward Monty, surprise evident. “Seriously?”
Monty nodded. “Its gaze is deadly, remember, so its own reflection will kill it.”
“What about weasels?” I walked over to the rock Monty had perched on and sat beside him. “They’re good at killing regular snakes, aren’t they?”
“That’s mongoose more than weasels, and we’d have to approach a specialist supplier to get one, as they’re not native to Australia. But we could try a rooster. Apparently, basilisks don’t like them.”
I laughed, only to realize he was serious. “I can just imagine the response the council will have if we ask everyone to walk around with a rooster tucked under their arm until we catch this thing.”
“I think I’ll order my crew to carry mirrors and leave it at that,” Aiden said.
His voice was dry, and I smiled. “Probably the easiest choice.”
He nodded and continued taping off the area. Once he’d done that, he took all his photos and collected his samples, tucking them all carefully into his pack before slinging it over his shoulder.
By the time we got back to the cars, it was just after three. Monty opened the SUV’s driver side and climbed in, but I followed Aiden across to his truck.
“I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring your calls,” I said softly. “I just needed—”
“Time to think.” He placed his pack on the rear seat, then slammed the door shut. The sound echoed across the stillness, and in the distance something stirred. “We’ve both needed that, at one point or another.”
I glanced past him briefly, gaze sweeping the surrounding trees. I had no sense of evil, no sense that the basilisk was near, and yet I had the oddest feeling we were being watched.
