Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
The closet was empty.
My breath released in a low woosh .
If anyone had done a spell here, they had covered their tracks well. The wooden bottom was immaculate, perhaps recently waxed.
“ This is where it happened?” I asked, feigning curiosity.
Jim crossed his arms. “ This is where they found the man. Allegedly . Who knows where it happened.”
I crouched and touched the bottom plank with my fingers. In truth, I didn’t want to go anywhere near it, but I needed to find out if magic had been used here recently. “ Is it true they didn’t find the body until after the servant died and he was still bleeding?” I awoke a sliver of magic while I waited for Jim’s response.
“ Yep ,” he said. “ All gooey and gross.”
“ What about the other rooms?” Ian asked from behind us. “ Did something happen in them?”
Jim turned to answer him, and I used the distraction to cast my spell.
Detect .
Magic tingled on my fingertips as it spread onto the wood, but nothing bounced back. While magic dissipated fast, any spell powerful enough to reverse a paranormal’s magic would’ve left a long-lasting impression. If any such spell had been done here, it must’ve happened days ago at least.
“ Thank you,” I said, standing. “ This was most informative.”
Jim frowned. “ That’s it? You’re not going to take pictures or anything?”
“ I assumed the owner wouldn’t want pictures to appear on the internet.” I had assumed no such thing, but Jim did have a point—for someone who had made him come to open the house for us, I was showing too little interest.
“ Nah ,” Jim said. “ They love that stuff. Brings in more people for the personal tours and the haunted house stuff. They get a cut, you know.”
“ Makes sense.” Dutifully , I took several pictures with my phone, including one with Ian “for size” and one with me, victory fingers included, for my personal collection. Who knows, maybe one day I’d go on an Olmeda’s most disturbing murders tour and make an album out of it.
The idea had a special kind of macabre charm to it, so I asked if we could go upstairs where the wife had supposedly been buried in the walls so I could take another photo.
“ Do the owners give private tours then?” I asked.
“ Yeah , sometimes.”
“ Do you know if they’ve come around recently?”
“ How would I know? They do that stuff themselves.”
I wondered how to ask them without sounding suspicious. After mulling a few options I realized that nope, there was no way to ask that kind of question without sounding weird, so I changed tracks. “ Are there any more legends about the house? I read the servant was part of some sort of coven.”
Jim might not be part of the paranormal community, but he was a local legends expert. He might’ve known some details others had dismissed as unimportant.
“ That’s the story,” he said as he led us back to the front door. “ You going to look into them too?”
“ It’s not a bad idea. Do you know about them?”
“ Not much, but the museum has a bunch of stuff about it.”
“ Which museum?” Not the contemporary arts one, surely. Then it hit me. “ The Modern Cabinet of Curiosities ?”
“ That’s the one. They sometimes loan me stuff to make things more realistic.”
Considering just about everything in the Cabinet was a fake, that’d be a first. “ I’ve been there and I didn’t see anything.”
“ Oh , you gotta get into the secret room.”
Vicky had told me about this before her justified demise, but when I’d tried to get inside, the woman at the ticket booth had looked at me like I had two heads and one was puking pea soup. “ I tried but it didn’t work. Maybe they don’t do that anymore.”
“ Sure they do. It’s even on their website. Just tell the ticket person that you’ve come to pray.”
The chances of them having anything useful was about nil, but it was worth checking out. “ Thanks , Jim . I’ll try.”
He all but shoved us out of the house, then locked back up. “ We done here, right?”
“ Yes . You’ve been very helpful.”
“ Don’t forget to send me the Christmas event stuff,” he said over his shoulder as he started down the flagstone path.
“ I won’t,” I assured him. “ What do you think?” I asked Ian once Jim was out of hearing range.
“ About the Cabinet ? Worth a check. No traces of magic in the closet?”
“ None . If a spell was done there, it was made a while back.”
“ Doesn’t rule the current spell out.”
“ But it doesn’t help us figure out who’s behind it.”
“ One thing at a time.”
“ You’re right. Let’s head over.” The Cabinet was within walking distance, so we wouldn’t need to drive there.
“ Food first,” Ian said.
I wanted to complain, but my stomach apparently had ears and liked the idea. Ian smiled at the loud growl.
“ Food first,” I agreed.
We called the cemetery on the way to the nearest fast-food restaurant to get an update on Shane . Nothing had changed, but also nothing had gotten worse, so, as Grandma liked to say, you might’ve bought the wrong kind of apples, but at least they weren’t rotten.
Ian went to order our food while I all but jumped onto a table the moment a pair left with their trays. A student with a laptop under his arm gave me the evil eye, but it would take nothing less than crying orphans and Red Riding Hood’s grandma to get me to relinquish the tiny table and two seats in the busy restaurant.
My phone rang, and, luckily this time, the caller ID showed a recognizable name. About time!
“ Hello , Hutton ,” I said into the phone.
“ What’s going on with the broken paranormals?”
“ I see you chose to ignore my messages but had no trouble listening to gossip.”
“ Does it affect the pack? Why did you close down the shop? Why didn’t you tell me the pack might be in danger?”
I breathed in and reached for my Zen zone. “ When was I supposed to tell you? When you refused to return my calls and texts?”
“ I was busy.”
“ Maybe I’m too busy to talk now.”
I hung up on him and beamed with delight at the tray Ian put in front of me.
My phone rang again, and Ian gave me a pointed look after reading the ID clearly visible on it.
“ Don’t mind him,” I said, letting the call ring. “ He’s having a moment.”
When he rang again, I deigned to answer the call.
“ Witch .”
“ Before you start growling, there are some issues going on but nothing widespread yet. As far as I know Clawstone Park is not in danger.” Or Natalia would’ve been affected by now. “ Also ,” I continued as he started yelling again, demanding to know more, “under no circumstances come to the shop.”
There was an abrupt silence, then, “ Why not?”
“ There’s a blood specialist from the Council who dropped in a couple of days ago. She might guess there’s something wrong with you.”
“ There’s nothing wrong with me!”
“ Then why did I have to make a special drink for you this summer?”
“ Oh , that.”
“ Yes , that.”
“ Fine . I won’t go. But let me know the moment the witch is gone.”
“ Aww , why? Do you miss my muffins?”
“ No , I miss yelling at you in person.”
He hung up, and I recounted our conversation to Ian , although he must’ve heard all of it since he was sitting right across from me and he had shifter hearing.
“ I hope he stays away,” I muttered before taking a good bite of my burger.
“ Not your problem if he doesn’t,” Ian said.
“ I’m sure he’ll find a way to make it my problem,” I grumbled.
“ Say the word, and I’ll carry him to bounty hunter jail.” Ian sounded straight up cheerful about it, and I laughed.
“ You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“ A man needs some brightness in his life.”
“ Hey , that’s my job!”
He reached over and tugged at the green streak in my hair. “ For the times when you’re not around.”
I nodded, mollified, and we made fast work of our lunch. Shortly after, we were standing outside the Modern Cabinet of Curiosities , the words written in vintage gold-and-silver lettering on the front window. An old animatronic butler stood sentinel by the door with an “open” sign hanging from its neck and a Santa hat on its head.
Admiring the commitment to the holidays, I went inside, Ian following close behind. The lobby was small and dark, with the ticket booth walled off by Plexiglass . A young man sat behind it, playing on his phone. He looked up when I cleared my throat and pointed at the price sheet taped to the glass.
“ Twenty for two adults.”
Using my deepest, darkest, most ominous tone, I said, “ I’ve come to pray.”