Chapter Three
Ryder
The fact that he’s a Witch doesn’t make him automatically guilty of anything.
I know that. But there are only a few hundred Witches in the country, and the chances of one being at the same remote resort as me, at the same time, on the first vacation I’ve taken in three years, is a coincidence unlikely enough to make it suspicious.
The fact that I chose this resort based almost entirely on the strong-yet-vague feeling of being inexplicably drawn to the Pacific Northwest makes it even weirder.
It would be the perfect trap, honestly. The Bureau gives me protection, it gives me weapons and backup. I don’t have any of that while I’m on leave, which means I’m basically naked in the breeze out here.
I’ve thought about contacting the Bureau. But calling for backup over just the presence of a Witch is a level of paranoia that would only give Sieger an excuse to have my leave extended, which means more time for him to push his own agenda in my absence. I need solid, tangible evidence.
Problem is, as government agents go, I’m not exactly great at espionage. I’m actually pretty fucking terrible at it.
I try watching the Witch from a distance, but I guess my intentions are laughably obvious somehow because every time I find the Witch, he goes swooping off in another direction.
He’s quick, too—not so quick that it suggests Magick at play, but notably cat-like in his movements all the same.
Over and over, just as soon as I spot the swish of black fabric and flash of silver-laced fingers, he slips around a corner and disappears.
I can’t just give up, though—not when my safety is at stake. I can’t let my guard down, even when I’m on fucking vacation.
Then, another problem comes shining through.
See, I got so caught-up in trying to hunt down—not hunt, find— the Witch that I completely fucking forgot about the other work-related commitment I made.
It’s my fifth night at the resort, I’ve just paid my check at dinner, secretly surveilling the hotel’s restaurant for any signs of velvet robes or mystical tattoos, when my phone rings.
Shit, I think to myself when I look at the name that populates on my screen. I stand up from the table as I answer it. “Hey, Paige,” I say into the line. “Sorry, I haven’t talked to Nicky yet.”
“Oh, totally, no rush!” she assures me.
I wave a one-handed “thanks” to my waiter as I hurry through the dining room. “I’m just finishing dinner, I’ll text her as soon as I—”
“No, it’s no problem!” she insists. I can hear a tightness in her voice as I start to make my way back to my room, even though it’s hidden underneath her trademark perky tone. “I was, um. I was actually calling about something else…”
I balance my phone on one shoulder as I dig through my pockets for my room key—I really need to use hands-free mode more often. “Okay…?”
“Greg has been asking me about some funding form?”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” I say firmly, tapping the key card against the door.
“He said it’s urgent, I guess they’re trying to build a cryptid medical facility?”
She’s doing that thing where her sentences twirl up at the ends, like she’s unsure, like she’s nervous about how I’ll respond and wants to be able to back away as easily as possible. I sigh. Open my door, close it behind me, scrub my face with one hand.
Paige doesn’t know anything about the funding forms. It’s not that I don’t trust her, I’d trust Paige with my life—I just don’t want her involved, is all. I’m okay with getting myself in trouble, especially since Nix can get me out of a lot of it. But Paige… she’s another story.
“It’s not a medical facility he’s working on,” I explain. “It’s a… I don’t know, a lab or something. Someplace to run experiments.”
Paige stays quiet for a few seconds, so quiet that I can hear her shifting uncomfortably in her seat. I realize that it’s nearly ten PM back home—she must have had a very long day to be calling me about work at this hour.
“How do you know?” she asks, her voice lowered.
“Because Sieger’s the one leading the operation, for one thing.”
The unmistakable sound of Paige letting out an exasperated breath into the phone, then, “Ryder, your personal biases are not evidence .”
“They are in this case!” I tell her. “He’s getting faxes from Big Pharma every damn morning!”
“Pharmaceuticals and medical facilities kinda go hand in hand, don’t they?”
“They take him to lunch, Paige. And dinner. Expensive ones.”
“He’s the Public Relations director, going to lunches is half his job.”
“And have you seen his office? The antlers he uses as a coat rack? The framed photos of him posing with the animals he shot? He’s not trying to ‘help’ any cryptids, that’s for damn sure.”
“Decor choices aren’t a reason to—”
“He has a picture of himself in front of a dead giraffe! Who the hell is proud of killing a giraffe? Everybody loves giraffes, they’re adorable!”
“Ryder, I love giraffes as much as you do, you know I do, but—”
“I’ve been shredding his funding requests.”
Silence on the line. I didn’t want to involve her, I really fucking didn’t. But if she’s going to be moving up in the Bureau, she deserves to know what kind of septic tank she’s diving into.
“I’m not a good liar, Ryder,” she finally says in a worried voice. She’s right about that.
“You don’t have to lie,” I say. “Just tell him that you haven’t seen the forms anywhere. If he has any more questions beyond that, he can talk to me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Sure about what she should tell Sieger, sure about what Sieger is up to. Sure that Paige won’t let me down.
“Alright,” she says after several quiet seconds. “I’ll call you if he asks about it again.”
“Thanks, Paige,” I say. “I’ll text Veronica right now.”
I end the call and flop onto my too-comfortable bed, opening up a message to Nix. If there’s anyone in the world who could manage to work through their paid leave, it’s Ryder fucking Flórez.
I’ve just pressed “Send” when I feel it: that buzzing, hot-and-cold sensation of a Witch nearby.
It rises quickly and peaks at the same time I hear quiet footsteps outside my door.
I launch myself out of bed, across the room, and fling my door open just in time to see black lace curling around the corner, heading further down the hall.
Little to no conscious thought goes into my reaction.
I chase after the Witch, aiming less for discretion and more for a confrontation.
I’m fucking tired. I am stressed. I want this involuntary, unsanctioned Witch hunt—find— whatever to be done, once and for all, so I can enjoy my mandatory vacation.
The Witch doesn’t look back as he leads me through the labyrinth of corners and hallways that all look the same, until eventually I find myself at a dead end that houses nothing but an out-of-service ice machine with no Witch in sight.
I can still feel the buzz in my skin, but I’m not familiar enough with Magick to know every spell a Witch could cast to hide himself.
He might have gone invisible, or phased through a wall, or transformed into a damn cockroach for all I know.
Hell, maybe he’s changed himself into an ice machine.
Regardless of mechanics, there’s no one here for me to confront.
“Leave it to a Witch to find a way to slither out of an interaction any way they can,” I murmur, certain he can hear me, and turn to find my way back to my room.
I don’t have a chance to take a single step before I’m slammed up against a wall.
The shock of it knocks the wind out of me. There’s still no one in sight, just an invisible force that feels like it’s pulling my sternum clear through to the wall behind me, pinning me up a foot and a half off the floor. I struggle, but all I can do is flail my limbs like a turtle on its back.
“Bold move, using your powers in public like this,” I say to the apparently empty hallway.
The air in front of me shimmers and shifts like a heat wave, twisting and misting and eventually materializing into the billows of black lace and gothic jewelry which have become so familiar from a distance, now close enough to touch.
The Witch gives me a cloying, imperious smile, but makes no move to set me down.
“I am a bold one, certainly,” the Witch replies. His voice is smooth and sharp as a blade, and I can hear what sounds like an Irish accent lilting through his words. “Nearly as bold as you’ve been, following me around with all the stealth of a bludgeon.”
“I wasn’t aiming for stealth,” I lie.
“Just doing it for the attention, then?”
“It’s called recon .”
“Ah, reconnaissance, of course. A famously loud and temerarious task. Would you like to share what sort of information you’re gathering about me?”
I glance down at my feet, still dangling helplessly above the carpet. My phone is still sitting uselessly on my bed. I’m completely powerless until the Witch lets me go, but in the meantime, I can still give him as little information about myself as possible.
“Trying to figure out if you’re here alone or if there are more of you, for one thing.”
“There are more efficient ways of asking someone whether they’re single, pet.”
“That’s not—”
“And I truly hate to disappoint, but I’m not interested in an amateur detective with no dress sense on the power trip of a lifetime. So, if that’s all from you, I’d like to get back to my holiday, sans stalker.”
I laugh without an inch of humor. “Holiday? Cut the bullshit.”
The Witch crosses his arms sourly over his chest, covering the distractingly sheer top he’s wearing. “Are we really so inhuman to you that you think we don’t take vacations?”
I can feel my ears start to burn. The Witch is trying to fluster me. I know that. And I really fucking hate that it’s working.
“I meant that you, specifically, you’re not here for a vacation.”