Mind Over Magic by Lindsay Buroker

23

“Isthat message for you or me?” Morgen whispered, pointing at the words in the thick green cloud of vapor. She used her phone to take a picture of it.

Already, the help-me message was dissipating.

“Nobody asks a werewolf for help.” Amar cocked his head. “I can hear the dogs on the first floor, and the butler is walking around down there too.’”

“Do you think she’s the one who needs help?” Morgen couldn’t imagine it, since the butler had been able to amble out the front door and had controlled the gate. “Wait, you mentioned another woman too, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hear, or smell, anyone else here?”

“Not yet. Her scent is all over, including in this room, but I am not sure where in the mansion she is now.”

“Not on this floor, I hope.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Let’s look up here for an office full of evidence of wrongdoing.” Morgen would prefer to check for—and find—that evidence on a floor without any dogs or people on it.

“I think most people keep things like that in a basement or garage.”

“Or root cellar.” Since Morgen couldn’t smell whatever accounted for the green cloud, and didn’t feel any ill effects from its presence, she crept toward the door.

“Your grandmother’s doing wasn’t wrong. Just eccentric.”

“The owners of the eyeballs floating in jars might disagree,” she said, though she doubted Grandma had killed anyone for those. She’d probably picked them up at the witch version of a flea market.

“I don’t think their owners needed them anymore.”

The door wasn’t locked, and Morgen opened it carefully, peering into an empty hall dotted with rugs over the floorboards. She expected the area to be full of the green smoke, but only a faint haze filled the space. It didn’t seem to have come from the hall—or anywhere. It was as if it had poofed into existence.

She was about to step out, but Amar brushed past her and took the lead.

“Do you know where you’re going?” she whispered, trailing him down the hall.

“No. I’m going first in case we’re attacked. I must protect you.”

“I knew you didn’t want to miss me cooking you breakfast.”

Amar shot her an unamused look over his shoulder and raised a finger to his lips. He opened doors, looking for an office, but they only passed more guest rooms, a cinema room, and an area full of arcade games and a pool table. The necessities.

Morgen closed her mouth on another snarky comment and continued around a corner after Amar and past a wider section of the hall that had plush chairs facing each other over a low table. A railing let them see down to a marble foyer on the ground floor.

A floorboard creaked, and Morgen winced and hurried past the open area.

Dog barks drifted up from below, and she braced herself for the rottweilers to charge up to their floor. The clacks of claws on marble floors came from below.

Amar lifted his chin—no, his nose. He strode past several closed doors, turned another corner, a stairway coming into view, and stopped in front of a door no different from the others lining the hall. He opened it.

“Office? Huh.” He stepped inside.

“Isn’t that what we were looking for?”

“I thought it would be a storage room. I smell… powders. Musty, mildewy, and pungent. The air is similar to that in the Crystal Parlor.”

Morgen stepped into the office after him, and he shut the door. That would keep the dogs out, but the butler was sure to come up to see what they were barking at. And then what? Morgen couldn’t let Amar attack the help, even if the butler had been the one spying on her days earlier. The woman probably just did what Arbuckle paid her to do.

Inside the office, Amar prowled around, sniffing. On the far wall, two large windows overlooked the front gate. The furniture in the room was sparse, with only a desk and a laptop on it. There weren’t any bookshelves, cases, or filing cabinets full of the evidence Morgen had hoped for. She didn’t see any powders, musty or otherwise.

“Now, the scent almost reminds me of the forest,” Amar said softly. “Wolf Wood.”

Morgen tried sniffing, but all she smelled was whatever disinfectant the cleaning service used. She trusted Arbuckle didn’t mop his own floors.

The sparseness of the office made her doubt this was his primary work area. It seemed more like a guest room.

Hoping she was wrong, Morgen hurried over and opened the laptop. Not surprisingly, it required a password for logging in. Alas, hacking wasn’t among her specialties.

She peeked into the desk drawers while Amar returned to the door, though he continued sniffing and now scrutinizing the room from that spot. Looking for the powders he smelled?

The drawers held such innocuous objects as packing tape, staplers, and already-created shipping labels. That made her pause. If Arbuckle shipped things, where were all the boxes? And where was the inventory he mailed?

She plucked out a packing slip addressed to someone who lived on Cauldron Cove Court in Canada. Her breath caught. Two four-ounce vials of daylight luminescent moss powder were listed on the invoice above a total charge of over twelve thousand dollars.

Her mouth sagged open. If it wasn’t a mistake, the stuff sold for almost as much as pure gold.

But where was the powder?

“Could there be a secret storage room accessible from here?” she wondered, folding the invoice and sticking it in her pocket. It wasn’t exactly condemning evidence, but it was something.

“Try there.” Amar pointed at wainscoting and a beige-painted wall no different from the other three walls of the room.

Barks alternating with sniffing came from the other side of the door. Amar growled softly through the wood.

The barks paused, and the sniffs grew less certain. Morgen spotted a wadded-up piece of tape on the floor near the wall Amar had indicated. She walked over and ran her hands along the wainscoting. Castles often had secret doors, didn’t they? Why not this one?

Never mind that it was a pretentious wannabe castle in Bellrock, Washington, not a legitimate medieval dwelling surrounded by a moat overflowing with cranky alligators.

“The butler is coming,” Amar murmured.

Morgen spotted a crack and tried to tug open what was possibly only in her imagination a secret door. “Remind me to find an incantation that thwarts locks.”

“Gwen did that with a wand.”

“Great, I didn’t grab one of those.”

“You should have. They’re easier than a staff to climb with and less likely to maim car upholstery.” Amar jogged over and peered at the crack, acting like a drug-sniffing dog at the airport as he ran his nose along it.

The claws clacking in the hallway outside the door set Morgen on edge. What would she say when the butler barged in? That she’d gotten lost on the way down the driveway?

Amar prodded a spot on the wall. It didn’t look like a button or anything at all, but a soft click sounded, and a door swung inward.

For the first time, Morgen smelled what Amar must have been smelling for several minutes. A musty, decomposing leaf scent wafted out, as if they’d found the passageway into a dying forest. In was dark in the new room, so she couldn’t see much, but light glinted off glass on the far wall. A glass jar of moss powder?

In the hallway, the dogs resumed their loud barking.

“Someone up here, Hans?” a muffled female voice came from the hallway.

Morgen crept into the dark room while wondering if the butler would call the sheriff’s department and if Deputy Franklin would be sent in to retrieve her.

After stepping in after her, Amar closed the door. Darkness engulfed them.

Morgen patted along the wall, looking for a light switch, but she didn’t find anything.

“Witch light glow,” Amar whispered.

The amulet hanging around Morgen’s neck brightened, shedding enough greenish light to illuminate bags of packing peanuts and stacks of flat cardboard that hadn’t yet been folded into boxes. It also showed shelves and shelves of small glass jars of various powders on the far wall. A faint glow came from behind them.

“Should I feel distressed that you know more about being a witch and activating magical items than I do?” Morgen crossed the room, pushed jars aside, and revealed a smaller stash of vials of glowing green powder.

“I visited your grandmother more often than you did.”

“That’s because she invited you to live in the barn. She didn’t even ask me up for the holidays.”

“You lack my charisma.”

“More like your sexy muscles.” Morgen wondered if her ninety-year-old grandmother had appreciated such things.

The sound of the dogs charging into the office came through the wall. Amar stayed by the hidden door, bracing it with his hand. If the butler knew about this room, she was sure to check it.

“Trapdoor,” Amar whispered, pointing down and toward a corner.

Morgen turned her chest—and her light source—in that direction. The square he’d spotted in the floor was less hidden than the door in the wall. A little ring was set into it. If they’d been on the bottom floor of the mansion, Morgen would have assumed it led to a crawl space, but who had a crawl space under the third floor?

“To… the room underneath this one?” She grabbed one of the glowing jars of moss powder and headed for the trapdoor.

The sniffing sounded right at the hidden door in the wall. The dogs knew exactly where they were. Amar growled softly again, so low only the dogs would hear it. A whine penetrated the wall.

“Wait there, boys,” the butler said. “The wolf is coming.”

“The wolf?” Morgen mouthed. The werewolf Amar had scented outside?

“Go down.” He pointed at the trapdoor.

Morgen lifted the metal ring, turned it, and pulled. Her weak light shone into a vertical shaft with stone walls descending into darkness. Iron ladder rungs ran down one side.

A loud howl came from somewhere in the castle. Morgen jumped, almost dropping her jar.

“That wasn’t a dog,” she whispered, tucking the jar in her pocket.

The dogs in the next room whined again in fear. She’d thought it was because of Amar, but maybe it was because another werewolf was coming.

“It was not,” Amar agreed, then repeated, “Go down. Now.”

Morgen stepped onto the ladder. She had no idea where it would take her—hopefully, not a dungeon where she would be trapped—but it was a foregone conclusion that they couldn’t go back the way they’d come. Amar might have fought and won against the butler and two dogs, but what if that werewolf was his equal? Or more than his equal?

“Amar?” Morgen paused several feet down. “Are you coming?”

The howl sounded again, much closer. Whatever had made it was on this floor now.

“I’ll delay him. Get out of here with your evidence.”

“Him who? Do you know him? Is it the Loup?”

“Yes.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“Sounds like you should avoid him. Come with me.” She waved for him to follow her down the rungs, but wood snapped, as if whoever was out there had broken down a door—or through a wall—and Amar didn’t look back at her. He took a few steps away from the hidden door and crouched, facing it. Ready for someone to charge in. Ready for a fight.

“Amar…” If he wouldn’t flee and leave an enemy at his back, maybe she could help him. “Phoebe taught me an incantation for controlling werewolves,” she admitted.

“She what?” Amar gaped over his shoulder at her, fury—or was that betrayal?—in his eyes.

“In case I need to defend myself.”

“By controlling us?” He smacked a hand to his chest. It was as if he meant by controlling me.

“Just the bad guys. Let me stay and help.”

“No,” he snarled. “I’m not bringing conniving witch magic to an honorable fight.”

“This isn’t about honor. It’s about us getting out of here alive.”

His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened. That was definitely fury this time. “It’s always about honor.”

“Amar….”

“Go.” He thrust his finger at the ladder.

“You may need help.”

“Go,” he repeated, his voice a snarl again. “Get out of the house as soon as you can. Call the deputy to come get you.”

Morgen swore, but if he was determined to stay and fight an enemy werewolf, she couldn’t stop him. She descended further, pulling the trapdoor back into place. Just before it settled, the hidden door creaked open. An ear-splitting howl preceded something large and heavy charging into the room.

Afraid for Amar and afraid for herself, Morgen kept climbing down into the darkness.