“I am the Great and Powerful Petra,” she said, and snapped her fingers so a spark appeared. With tan skin and dark hair, currently in a bouncy tail, Petra could manifest lightning in her fingers. She usually wore gloves to avoid electrifying the unaware.
“You’ve found yourself a poppet,” she said, tucking her long bangs behind her ear.
“A what?” Theo asked.
“A poppet, or little doll—in this case made of paper—for the spell. It’s symbolic.” Her image was replaced by the photo of the stave from the bar coaster. “And this beauty is an American stave.” The image on the screen appeared with the previously black lines of the stave now shown in three different colors. “These parts of the symbol stand for auspicious, sacrifice, and calamity,” she stated, pointing to each in turn.
We greeted that explanation with silence.
“Does that mean it’s a good time to kill someone to avoid a catastrophe?” I asked. “Or a good time to kill someone to cause one?”
“It’s dark magic,” Petra said. “Blood magic, so I lean toward the latter.”
“The stave doesn’t tell us what the calamity is?” Theo asked.
“It does not. That’s up to the words, the intentions of the witch, et cetera.”
Behind us, Connor swore. “We need to find them and stop whatever this is.”
“Or get them donuts and trophies if they’re doing a public service,” I said. “But there’s really no way to tell.”
“Not until we find them,” Theo said, echoing Connor’s words.
I glanced back at Connor and found his gaze on me, the same concern in his eyes. He reached out, brushed a lock of hair behind my ear.
“Oh my god, you guys are so adorable.” Petra was back on the windshield, batting her eyelashes at us.
“Anything else?” Theo asked. “The magic’s getting thick in here.”
She snorted. “That’s it for now. CPD’s canvassing, but they haven’t found any other evidence, any other witnesses. It’s early yet.”
It didn’t feel early. Not with two people already gone and a storm literally gathering. And growing, I thought, glancing out the window at the sky. The ceiling of clouds seemed to be dropping, as if made heavier by magic. How long until we were all suffocated?
“We’ll talk to Ariel again,” Theo said, and turned on the vehicle.
But by the time we made it back to The Raucous Wolf, she was gone.
3
Her address was easy to find; one apartment in a fourplex not far from the bar. The yard and building were simple but tidy, the building dark but for her glowing window.
We moved inside, Theo in front, and climbed the stairs... and found her apartment door wide open. I flicked the thumb guard on my katana; Theo unholstered his weapon. Connor rolled his shoulders. His body was a weapon.
Theo put a finger to his lips, and he pushed open the door. We listened and heard nothing in the room in front of us. The soft sound of shuffling came from somewhere deeper inside the apartment.
Theo and Connor signaled each other and headed toward the noise. I moved through the front room, wondering about the girl who hadn’t quite been my friend, and hadn’t quite been my enemy. The building was old, the floors wood and doorways arched. The living room was dark and held mismatched furniture and a handful of plants. But there was nothing here that spoke of death or magic, no stain in the air. Just the ordinary home of an ordinary woman.
I felt a twinge of guilt that I’d somehow played some part in pushing her toward this, as if my excluding her as a kid had somehow turned her toward evildoing. But we’d only been kids, and her parents were kind and capable people. I don’t know what I could have said or done to redirect her.
I told myself later that the twinge was the reason I hadn’t sensed him coming for me.
A hand clamped on my mouth, his body at my back, his magic thickening the air. I couldn’t see the man, but I could read the magic clear enough.
Jonathan Black had beaten us here.
I threw back an elbow. He dodged it, but his shift gave me room to scramble beneath his arm. I spun my katana and he kicked it away, then lunged toward me.
I pivoted and dodged, threw another elbow, connected with his torso. He swore, grabbed my arm, and twisted. The pain in my shoulder, only just healing from another fight, was red hot. I worked to push through it, tried to beckon the monster to join me, but she had no interest in the muddled magic Black was throwing off. So it would just be the two of us, at least until Connor and Theo heard the scuffle.
