Chapter 6
DECLAN
“I found your business address online, on one of the paranormal sites,” Veronica said, completing her hour-long narrative of the kidnapping, murder, and her flight from the Freedman Academy.
“I thought I’d wiped all those old sites,” I grumbled, shaking my head.
“Guess not,” she said as she took a sip of the tea I’d made for her.
Outside, the sky had turned from pitch black to a dark gray as dawn approached.
Her whole story was crazy. A kidnapping and a murder inside a magical academy?
Whoever pulled that off had to have some fairly powerful magic to break through the place’s protection spells.
No wonder they all thought she’d done it.
Not only had she been found with Balthazar Freedman’s blood on her and the murder weapon in her hand, but she was already within the protection spells and able to move about freely.
I picked up my second cup of coffee, holding the warm cup between my hands as gears, long unused, began to turn in my head. I could almost hear the cobwebs and dust falling off them as I put my past skills to use for the first time in over three years.
“How long were you out of Wendy’s room before you returned to find her missing?”
“I don’t know.” Veronica bit her lip, her brow creasing as she thought. “I had almost made it back to my room, which was on the other side of the mansion. It’s not really that far, but I was practicing a spell on the way back, so it took me longer. I’d say it was less than seven or eight minutes.”
“Not long at all,” I said. “If someone managed to break in, take her, and get away without a trace in that span of time, then this was not some sort of crime of passion or convenience. This had to have been planned. They were ready and waiting to take Wendy as soon as she returned to her room.”
Veronica paled. “Why would someone want to take Wendy?”
Putting the cup down, I leaned back in my chair.
“This is going to sound brutal, but it’s the truth.
Kidnapping is terrible, but murder is worse.
Let’s focus on your dean first. There’s no way his killing and his niece’s kidnapping aren’t connected.
If we can find some suspects for his murder, then that gives us suspects for the kidnapping.
“Think really hard, Veronica. Can you remember anyone who might want to hurt Balthazar? A student upset about grades? Another teacher who—I don’t know how these places work—got passed over for a promotion or something?
Maybe a friend he had a falling out with, or an enemy he talked about? Anything?”
She thought for a long time, that same cute crease in her brow. Finally, she shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone.”
“I don’t want to be… harsh,” I said slowly, “but you don’t appear to have a lot of magical power and skill. Is that correct?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s putting it lightly. I’m middle of the pack. Maybe a tiny bit lower.”
“Does that mean you come from a lower station family?”
The entire magical world operated almost like a caste system.
Bloodlines, family names, and alliances meant a lot in that world.
The gods sat on the top, holding dominion over the world.
Many had specific areas of interest they managed, but for the most part, they watched.
Most were not the omnipotent beings many humans knew from the Abrahamic religions.
Were they powerful? Of course. They were mind-bogglingly strong, but did they know what lurked in the hearts and minds of men or saw things happening before they actually did? Not really.
After the gods came magic users like witches, sorcerers, and warlocks.
Powerful magical creatures like wendigo, shifters, vampires, and werewolves came next.
Then more amorphous creatures like ghosts, succubi, and incubi.
Lastly, people like me. Humans who had, one way or another, discovered or been brought into the magical world and were able to move in both the human and supernatural societies.
There were dozens of different types of beings in each level, but no matter where they fell, there was a hierarchy within the hierarchy. Just like in the human world, powerful families tended to stay powerful throughout the generations.
“Yeah,” she said. “I came from a fairly small pack. The alpha wasn’t very well-respected or known.
My parents weren’t rich or influential either.
If I’m honest, we were poor. Dad came from a lowly pack in Arkansas, and Mom was from a tiny pack near Michoacán in Mexico.
We were nobodies. A couple of years ago, The Scourge wiped out most of my pack—including my parents,” she added sadly.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. The Scourge.
God damn, that was bad. Basically rabies but for shifters and were-creatures.
If that was true—and I had no reason to believe it wasn’t—then she was right about her pack being poor.
Rich and powerful packs had the connections and money to afford the expensive spell work and medicines to cure it and vaccinate against it.
I was honestly shocked she was a shifter.
Her body was so slender and small. She was thin, and didn’t have much in the way of musculature or curves.
She looked nothing like the shifter women I’d dealt with in the past. Those women tended to be either muscular, athletic, voluptuous, or some combination of all three simply because of the powerful hormones coursing through their bodies.
Veronica was beautiful, but in a frail way that didn’t mesh with the typical shifter look.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, “but there might be stuff you didn’t notice since you’re from a family with a lower station.
Freedman wasn’t a nobody—even I’ve heard of him.
Think hard, Veronica. Any off-hand comments he might have made?
Even if it was about something that seemed innocuous at first.”
She shook her head. “I can’t think of anything. All I can remember is that he had a pretty heavy disdain for warlocks. Other than that, he was kind but firm with every student and teacher.”
Not surprising. Most witches disliked warlocks.
Yet more hierarchy. Witches were naturally talented magic users with a genetic predisposition for accessing the magic fields of the world.
Magic came easy to them, and at times they didn’t even need to speak the spells they used, instead relying on mental and spiritual manipulation of the energies.
Sorcerers—humans or creatures who accessed their abilities through heavy use of ritual, study, and practice—were a close second.
Warlocks, however, were a darker breed. They gained their powers through pacts with higher beings.
Interdimensional chaos gods, earth realm deities, or demons.
“What about the students in the school? No vendettas? Any anger?” I said, probing for clues to start building a suspect list.
“No one hated Balthazar. We loved him,” Veronica said, then made a pained expression.
“Maybe love is a strong word. He didn’t let many people in.
The guy was sort of insular, especially since most of his family died.
His only remaining relative was Wendy, and he was extremely protective of her.
I can’t think of anyone who would want to do this. ”
The earnestness in her voice and the sincerity in her eyes was like a breath of fresh air.
I’d spent the better part of two decades in the dark alleys of the magical world.
Supernatural creatures were just as bad, if not worse, than humans about lying and deceit.
Each and every interview and interrogation tended to become these winding paths of half-truths, fabrications, deceptions, and exaggerations.
Nothing was more frustrating than trying to get the truth out of some mischief maker like a leprechaun or gremlin, or a shifter who had a secret that might hurt their pack.
I could tell when they were lying, but I couldn’t force the truth from them.
It was refreshing to deal with someone who was as open and honest as Veronica was. At least I already knew I wouldn’t need to worry about her trying to hide anything from me.
“I think we can look into some of his personal and professional dealings,” I said. “Maybe there’s someone in his past you wouldn’t know about. An old colleague or student from the past? Hell, maybe a jaded romantic partner? There’s a hundred different ways this could go.”
“Does that mean you’ll officially take the case?” Veronica asked.
I heaved a sigh. “I guess I will.”
An unfamiliar tension filled my chest, and though I hadn’t felt it in so long, I recognized it for what it was.
Excitement. I was actually excited to dive back into this world.
Before Veronica had so rudely and abruptly awoken me, I’d have told anyone, including my long-dead mother, that I’d never take another case.
I enjoyed my solitude, enjoyed the quiet life.
I’d set aside enough money to be comfortable for the rest of my life.
Now, though? Now, it was like life had been breathed back into me. Strange.
Veronica put her hands to her mouth. “Oh my gods, that’s amazing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McClintoc—”
“Call me Declan,” I said, holding a hand up. “I can’t stand that mister shit.”
“Sorry.” She flashed me a shy smile. “Declan. Thank you.”
“Are you hungry or anything?” I said, again noticing how small she was.
“I’m fine,” she said, but as soon as the words left her mouth, her stomach rumbled.
I smirked. “Come on. Let me get you something.”
She followed me out of the office and into the part of the building that served as my home. I’d lived here for years, yet it wasn’t until the moment this woman stepped into my tiny kitchen that I realized how small and spartan everything was.
“You live here?” she asked, glancing around. “It’s so small. For such a big guy, I’d have thought you’d like more space.”
“Yeah,” I grunted and shoved two pieces of bread into the toaster. “Well, it serves its purpose.”
I’d never felt embarrassed about my living situation, but at that moment, I was a little ashamed of it.
The place looked more like a starter apartment for a nineteen-year-old college kid rather than the home of a forty-one-year-old retiree.
It was clean, of course. I mopped and swept, and there were no flies buzzing around the trash can or any dirty plates in the sink.
Other than some dust and spiderwebs in my office, the place was passable, but it still shamed me more than it should have.
“That’s pretty, though,” she said, pointing to the fig tree by the window.
“That’s my baby,” I said absently, pulling a jar of strawberry jam and a stick of butter from the fridge. “It’s basically the closest thing I have to a friend.”
She gave me an odd look, like she was both confused and sad at the same time. I ignored it.
When the toast popped up, I slathered them with butter and jam, then pushed the plate toward her. She snatched up the first and devoured it in four bites.
“Thanks,” she murmured through a full mouth.
Veronica truly was one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen. She had that sexy librarian thing going on with the curly hair and the glasses. Though, like the ones that had belonged to Wendy, hers had no lenses either. Was that some kind of uniform thing for the academy? Weird, if so.
She took a bite of the second piece of toast, which left a small smear of jam on her lip. For half a second, I imagined sliding my finger across it. The more carnal side of my mind also imagined sliding that finger into her mouth and letting her suck it off.
Down boy, I chided myself. Don’t ever mix business with pleasure. Ever.
When she finished, I took the plate to the sink and nodded toward the door. “We can get started tomorrow. Until then, I’m going to try and take a nap, maybe steal back some of the sleep I lost. You head on home and come back later in the morning.”
She leapt to her feet. “I can’t.”
“Can’t what?” I said, unable to hide the weariness in my voice.
“Go home,” she said. “I lived at the academy, and they think I murdered Balthazar. I can’t go back there. And what’s left of my pack is seven hundred miles south. I have nowhere to go.”
I stared back at her, dumbfounded by my lack of foresight. Of course she lived at the academy.
You’ve gotten rusty, Declan.
“Well, shit,” I said.
“I could sleep here?” she offered.
I blinked as that mental image of my finger sliding into her mouth, her tongue gliding around my skin, bounced back into my mind.
“Uh…I’m sorry?” I managed.
“On the couch,” she said, pointing back to the office.
“Oh. Right,” I said, swallowing hard.
The thought of anyone sleeping in my home, much less a beautiful woman who was wanted for murder, made me incredibly uneasy. If I’d learned anything in my line of work, it was that you never let a client stay in your house. That was a good way to get killed.
“Better idea,” I said. “A safe house.”
“A safe…what?” she scowled in confusion.
“A safe house. Someplace witnesses or people on the run from danger stay to… well, to be safe.”
“I thought you were retired,” she said. “Do you still have a place like that?”
“I may be retired,” I said, moving toward my bedroom, “but I know how smart it is to stay prepared. There are still people out there who might like to see me six feet under. Always good to have a fallback location no one knows about. Let me get dressed, and I’ll take you there.”
She stayed in the kitchen while I left to get dressed.
Rather than grabbing leisure clothes, I peered at my old work clothes.
Slacks and a dress shirt, both magically enchanted to repel simple magic and small blades.
Brown leather wingtips, cushioned to allow me to run if necessary, a shoulder holster for my gun, and a thin, coffee-colored leather jacket to hide it. I hadn’t worn any of it in years.
“Once more unto the breach,” I muttered as I pulled the clothing out of the closet.