Black Hat, White Witch by Hailey Edwards

12

“Iwould ask how you slept last night, but I can smell the answer.” Clay entered the suite. “Blueberries?”

“Blueberry scones with lemon icing,” I confirmed. “I misread the recipe and ended up with three dozen.”

One of the many dangers of midnight baking, though no one ever complained about the extras.

“That’s guaranteed to be the best news I hear today.” He kissed my cheek then shoved me. “Go sit.”

The gleam of the overhead lights off his scalp raised my eyebrows. It wasn’t often he went au naturel.

“Only because you asked so nicely.” I slogged to the table. “I couldn’t turn my brain off last night.”

A dozen scones stacked on a plate landed in front of me before Clay returned to the kitchen for milk.

His big hands juggled three full glasses with ease, and he set them at our places. “Did you talk to Colby?”

“I did.” I smiled goofily. “She told me she misses me.”

“I know how she feels.” He plopped down across from me. “You leave a big hole when you’re gone.”

“Black holes are like that,” I said sagely. “Sucking everything into them and leaving nothing behind.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He kicked me beneath the table. “I hope it won’t be another decade until I see you after this.” He bit into his first scone and moaned. “Please never leave me again.”

It hurt to make him no promises, but I was wary of my good fortune, and it hadn’t slipped my notice that the director had yet to contact me. It left me uneasy. I couldn’t think of a reason for his silence, and that bothered me.

Unless he was hoping to trick me into believing this time, living under his auspices would be different.

Hey, I might have been born at night, but not last night.

As I washed down my second scone, I couldn’t help noticing the empty chair. “Where’s Asa?”

“Brushing his hair.” Clay snickered into his glass of milk and almost shot it out through his nose. “You did a number on him, Dollface. I told him not to sleep on it, but he fell asleep texting. I tried to help.” He sipped again, this time with a pinky held straight up. “Apparently, I have a heavy hand with a comb, and I don’t know how to brush real hair that’s rooted into a person’s actual scalp.”

Way to hit Clay right in the feels. Asa would be paying for that comment for a looong time.

Which was the only reason I didn’t press for details about who Asa might have been texting so late.

Wiping my hands clean, I tried for a neutral tone. “Does he need help?”

“I’m sure he does.” Clay narrowed his eyes on me. “And you’re not going to give it to him.”

Oh, yeah. Clay was pissed about the hair comment. No wonder he had gone bald today.

“The thought never crossed my mind.” I checked the time. “We need to get on the road soon.”

Grumbling around yet another scone, he asked, “Still antsy about Olsen?”

“Kept me up all night.” I shoved my plate aside. “I can’t put my finger on why it bothers me so much.”

That admission earned me a solid frown. “You didn’t get any weird vibes while we were there, right?”

“Not a one.” I sipped my milk to wet my throat. “It didn’t hit me until I read the Kellies’ report.”

“Must have triggered something in your subconscious.”

“Must have.” I couldn’t shake the jitters. “It feels like I’ve got ants in my pants.”

Licking his fingers clean, Clay rose and pushed back his chair. “Then let’s go, with or without Hairnado.”

“Clay,” I warned him. “Name-calling is beneath you.”

“I’m seven feet and change.” He grinned. “Most things are beneath me.”

“I’ll get my kit.” I nudged him toward his room. “You get your partner.”

I already had my wand in my pants pocket. I palmed my badge, ID, and wallet, then I was ready.

Much to my relief, and Clay’s obvious disgust, Asa emerged with his hair restored to its former glory. His part was sharp, his braids were neat, and they gleamed, still damp, under the light.

As he walked past, I breathed in the scents of tobacco…and green apple.

Rolling my lips in to keep from commenting, I handed him a paper towel I’d loaded with four scones earlier, before Clay polished off the full three dozen. The man was a bottomless pit.

Asa brought them to his nose and inhaled. “You baked these?”

“I did.” I tilted my head, mining for an explanation for the game we played. “How could you tell?”

Perhaps sensing my angle, he took his sweet time in answering. “They smell like you.”

“Hmm.” I appeared to consider that. “Does it bother you?”

Without breaking eye contact, which I was learning was a big thing with him, he selected a scone and bit it clear in half. The way he savored it gave me workplace-inappropriate chills, and I was drawn to the flex of his throat when he swallowed, which left me questioning my sanity.

“No,” he rasped when he was done. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Yeah, well, this bothers me.” Clay pointed at Asa and then at me. “Whatever this is, stop it.”

Asa didn’t look away from me when he said, “It’s too late for that.”

“Um.” I faced a sudden need to swallow, dare I say gulp. “Explain too late for me?”

Neither one enlightened me, which made me want to hex them with warts on their unmentionables.

Goddess bless, this was sad. Warts? Really? I truly had lost my touch.

We gathered our equipment, loaded into the SUV, and set out for a visit to Mr. Olsen.

Without Asa causing inconvenient flutters in my stomach, I had room for dread to spread its wings.

* * *

The front doorhadn’t been repaired or replaced. That was our first hint Mr. Olsen had flown the coop.

The moment we learned he lied about filing a missing persons report, we should have doubled back.

Final confirmation from the Kellies hit my inbox around five this morning, but we waited until sunrise.

The holdout had been the troll-ruling body itself, the agency a troll in a tricky situation, like a foster gone missing, would most likely approach for help. The clerics had to be convinced to share information regarding a foster with outsiders through a donation to their order. Eventually, they verified the girl existed, and who was responsible for her, but they hadn’t been made aware she had gone missing.

We had kicked a hornets’ nest in bringing the situation to their attention. I wasn’t sorry it would be passed upline to the director. I was only sorry the director wasn’t allergic to hornet stings.

Ever the optimist, Clay offered, “Maybe Olsen stayed in a hotel last night?”

“Maybe,” I allowed for Clay’s sake. “Let’s take him up on his open-door invitation.”

“There is no door,” Asa said wryly. “Are you sure we ought to intrude?”

“Yes.” I exited the vehicle, before he tried his hand at changing my mind, and went still. “Oh crap.”

The smell hit me and woke that dark part lurking on the periphery of my self-control.

“We’ve got bodies.” I had no doubt they smelled it too. “Black magic?”

Asa and Clay exited the SUV and flanked me while I read the area from a safe distance.

“Yes,” Asa confirmed. “It’s quite ripe.”

As much as I wanted to cringe from a descriptor that might apply to me too, I forced my shoulders back. I was who I was, and there was no changing that. His opinion of me couldn’t matter. Not now. Not here.

Drawing my wand, I approached the rusting travel trailer, the stench more potent as we neared it.

“Whatever is in there has been there for a while.” I was betting four weeks. “How did Olsen hide this?”

“A circle?” Clay stuck close. “That’s all I can figure.”

Wards allowed air to pass over and through them. Circles could go either way. Breathable or airtight.

“Unless what we’re about to discover,” Asa added his two cents, “wasn’t put there until after we left.”

Just like old times, I went in first. Unlike old times, they allowed it because the property was vacant.

The lack of heartbeats told me what their keen noses and other senses had already relayed to them.

Black magic might not register to my nose, but the sweet-and-sour tang of rot hit me hard.

I followed it into the back bedroom and found what I expected to see. A dead troll well into decomp. His killer, and it was male, had driven a railroad spike through his heart. The rust told me it was old and iron.

Trolls were fae, and cold iron was a death sentence.

I could only hope he was dead before the killer sliced off his face with surgical precision.

“This must be the real Mr. Olsen.” I squatted next to him, examining his body for clues. “Why kill him?”

“I think I can answer that.” Asa waited several feet behind me. “Look.”

Standing, I trailed Clay into a tiny room beside the master. “The missing daughter.”

The door to her bedroom wasn’t substantial, but it had been kicked open, meaning she locked herself in.

“That’s a House Thorn dagger in her chest.” Asa made a gesture of prayer. “She committed suicide.”

“Seppuku?” I backed from the room once confirming his assessment. “A ritual suicide.”

“Similar,” he agreed, then glanced back at Mr. Olsen. “The girl must have been targeted through her father.” He exhaled slowly. “The copycat came for her, here, and she misread his intent.”

“She thought her family came for her.” I shut my eyes. “She took her life rather than let them kill her.”

“Mr. Olsen must have heard the commotion from the yard,” Clay theorized, “or maybe he just got home from work. He came to check on her and got a railroad spike to the chest for his trouble.”

“That narrative fits what we’re seeing.” I left the bodies to search the rest of the trailer. “We’ll know for sure after the lab tells us time of death.” I thought back on the timeline. “Four weeks.” I rubbed my nape as the full implications hit me. “This might have been the copycat’s first victim. Make that victims.”

The director really had wasted no time coming to find me as soon as he required my specific skill set.

“He could have glamoured himself to resemble Olsen and used his identity to stalk the other victims and their kill sites.” Asa picked up my train of thought. “That would explain the complaints against him.”

“He took Olsen’s face.” A technique I hadn’t seen used in ages. “Literally.”

“A masque?” Asa glanced back at Olsen. “That’s old magic.”

Glamour accomplished the same thing, really, and it was easier to cast and dispel. More versatile too.

A masque was exactly what you would think. A mask of dried skin, a face, that you wore over your own. It drew the power to transform you into that person, and only that person, from the target’s own death.

“The killer must have been well and truly pissed at Olsen to expend that much magic on a trinket.”

Masques had limited use, given each was only good for one face, but that had never been the point.

Their creation was rooted in punishment rather than practicality.

“The killer moves on the girl. The girl robs him of his prize.” Clay mulled it over. “Olsen hears her scream and comes running. The killer murders Olsen in a fit of rage.”

“The killer assumes Olsen’s identity, but he doesn’t know Olsen is on vacation.” Asa continued his search for more evidence. “He didn’t plan for this. His first kills, and he’s already made two mistakes.” He gazed across the space. “Maybe he decides he’s found an ideal scapegoat to pin his crimes on when he’s done. He makes the best of it by setting up shop at Olsen’s place, and that’s when he makes the masque.”

“If we’re even half right, we’ve flushed out the killer.” That was the good news. The bad news was, “That means he’ll be on the move.”

Harder to corner prey when it knows it’s being hunted and by whom. The killer’s acting skills tricked Clay and Asa into believing him. No doubt, he would have fooled me too. He had channeled the rage over his discovery into an authentic facsimile of grief. He hurled accusations at them about how no one cared his daughter was missing to keep them off-balance and defensive.

They left, we all did, with a sense of having disturbed a good man, a good father, in mourning.

“He slept and ate here.” Clay indicated food in the fridge and sheets on the couch. “But that’s it.”

“The car is gone.” Asa pulled out his phone. “I’ll issue a BOLO for it and Olsen.”

“Keep it on our network,” Clay advised. “We don’t want humans confronting him.”

“That will greatly reduce its efficiency,” Asa pointed out. “There are more teams in the area but…”

As predicted, those teams were happy to let Black Hat’s black witch take on the rogue black witch solo.

“He’s right.” I sided with Clay. “We don’t want to give him an excuse to further involve humans.”

Asa took his calls outside, as if privacy was an issue, but I bet the smell was tweaking his sensitive nose.

“He’s going to run to his safe place.” Clay surveyed the area one last time. “We find that, we find clues.”

“Let’s hope we get lucky with the APB.” I exited the trailer. “Otherwise, we might lose him.”

There were days between the discovery of his victims and his search for new ones. We were in the lull.

“He was already hunting.” I filled my lungs with fresh air. “He might have his first victim chosen.”

I moseyed over to Asa to see if he had made any progress while Clay reported the crime to the Bureau, which would further complicate the situation between the director and the enraged trolls.

“Are you sure?” Asa paced a tight line. “Yes.” He came to sudden halt. “Give me the address.”

Ending the call, Asa tapped his phone against his chin. “We have a lead.”

“You don’t look thrilled about it.” I was of the opinion any lead was a good lead. “What’s the deal?”

“Olsen owned a tract of land about an hour from here. It’s a thirty-acre forested spread.”

And that, friends, was where he had invested his money. “His hunting grounds.”

A troll could only ape human for so long before instinct demanded he obey his nature.

Plus, they required room to spread out their caches. Thirty acres was plenty for that.

“The copycat couldn’t afford to compound the mistakes he already made. He would have performed an inventory on the troll’s belongings before committing to that identity. A remote tract of land might have been the tipping point in Olsen’s favor.” Asa put away his cell. “There’s no record of a structure on the property, but I’m sure Olsen had a small cabin, or even a cave, for when he hunted in inclement weather. Trolls don’t fare well in the cold.”

“This could be it.” A wave of nerves and nausea tangled in my gut. “Do we call for backup?”

“He’s on alert thanks to our visit.” Asa hummed. “We should take our chances before he bolts.”

“I’m good with that.” I wanted this over and done. I wanted to go home. To Colby. “Let’s do it.”

“Don’t I get a vote?” Clay stomped over to us. “I have opinions too.”

“We were waiting on you to make it unanimous.” I patted his arm. “Well? What do you think?”

“I agree with Ace,” he grumped. “If we don’t want to lose him, we have to move.”

“All righty then.” I got in the SUV, checked my phone, then settled in. “You have the address?”

Asa tapped the side of his head then fed the information to his phone’s GPS for the quickest route.

The best of all possible outcomes was the copycat had yet to take his first victim for his next piece.

The churn in my gut warned me not to get my hopes up, but it also reminded me what I had done to the man responsible for inspiring this killer. Nerves weren’t all to blame for my upset stomach. Hunger was a yawning void within me that hadn’t been filled in too long.

This killer was ruthless, powerful, merciless.

His heart would taste…delicious.