When I had everything I needed, I drove toward Mary’s home in Trinity Park.
Trinity Park was a mish-mash of bungalows, period revivals, huge, looming Victorians, and Neo-Colonial architecture. The Brightleaf/Trinity Park neighborhoods had been home to the witches since portals opened and they found themselves able to harness power.
Mary lived in a three-bedroom brick bungalow on Dacian Ave. Thankfully, it was eight blocks north and a block east of my sister’s, but visiting the neighborhood still made me twitchy.
I got out of the car. Mary hadn’t done much with the front yard— a few sad shrubs were planted here and there, and her lawn desperately needed a mow.
The back of my neck itched as I walked up the steps leading to her porch and rang the doorbell. I followed it up with a knock on the door and waited for a few minutes.
No answer.
I moseyed around to the back of the house, feeling the brush of Mary’s wards against my skin. Any closer, and I’d have to break them, which would alert her that someone was on her property. I flicked open the latch of her gate and wandered around to her backyard.
Nothing. The house was empty.
I unapologetically emptied her mailbox, taking the mail back to my car, where I sat and rifled through it. Witches always forgot to ward their mailboxes.
Bills, a subscription to Witch World magazine, a postcard, and a letter from Fight Against Fae, thanking her for her donation. I frowned at that. The witches and the fae weren’t typically best buddies, but as far as I knew, most witches usually pretended the fae didn’t exist.
Even the darkest witch was usually no match for a high fae– of either court– and witches were more likely to put their effort into taking down the mages.
While witch magic was hereditary, no one quite knew where exactly the mages got their magic. It was a secret that mages only learned themselves when they passed their testing and made it to the upper echelon. Many witches took offense to this, and those with less magic than the mages often loathed them, some of them actively planning how to dismantle the Mage Council for good.
Curious and curiouser.
I placed the letter on my passenger seat to read later and examined the postcard. Three cartoon witches were positioned around a cauldron, the oldest witch wearing a pointed hat, her mouth open in an obvious cackle. While the witches were dressed in bright yellows and greens, the cauldron shone gold, slightly raised on the postcard.
I wrinkled my nose. That was offensive as hell, and full of stereotypes more commonly held by humans who had no contact with paranormals. Witches didn’t use cauldrons, demons didn’t steal souls, and the fae didn’t replace human kids with changelings. Shaking my head at the sheer ignorance, I flipped the postcard over. The return address was a town I’d never heard of in Ohio, and the only thing written on the postcard itself was an address on Massey Ave. I frowned. That was the edge of dwarf territory.
Someone banged on my window and I jumped. Served me right for not paying attention to my surroundings. I muttered a curse and pressed the button to wind down the window, kicking myself. Rookie mistakes like this are how you get dead.
“What are you doing here, Danica?”
I squinted at her, and then recognition hit me. “Gail?”
She sniffed. “You don’t belong in this neighborhood,” she warned, and I let out a bitter laugh, ignoring the twinge of hurt that burned deep in my chest.
“The Mage Council says I do,” I said, and she bristled, her hands fisting. I eyed her. When I’d last seen her, Gail had had a full head of blonde hair and her eyes twinkled with suppressed laughter. Now, her hair was gray and her eyes were haunted. Was something happening with her coven?
My stomach twisted. If her coven was in trouble, my sister could be in danger.
“What’s going on, Gail?”
“None of your business. You need to leave. Your sister doesn’t want you here.”
Of course she didn’t. Nothing had changed, but that didn’t make the words any easier to hear.
“Evie has nothing to do with my job,” I snapped, losing my temper. “I suggest you leave me alone before I report you for interfering with my duties.”
She cast me a disgusted look and I couldn’t exactly blame her. Threatening to narc on her to the council was dirty.
Gail stalked down the street and I watched her, barely resisting the urge to lean my head against the steering wheel. I’d bet money that I was being watched by numerous witches along this street.
The Mage Council knew exactly how much I enjoyed dealing with witches, and was well aware of how uncomfortable it would be for me in their territory. This was a punishment they knew damn well would sting.
And it was all Samael’s fault.
I flipped through the rest of the mail and a scrap of paper fell from the pile. It was an advertisement for Gary’s store. I wracked my brain. He’d grumbled relentlessly about how much it was going to cost him to run that ad in the paranormal newspaper Durham Denizens. When it finally ran, he’d had so many lookie-loos walking into the store that he’d sworn he’d never do it again.
