The wicches in the room were staring intently at the screen.
I clicked the next and the next, going over her attack on my new home, the curse left at our fence, the attack on Faith’s house, the dead birds left around my property, ending with Uncle John’s footage.
“A man was killed.Countless animals were tortured and killed so they could make weak curses.”I glared at Catherine, who looked like she’d kill me where I stood, if she could.“You lap at the boots of evil to try to steal a power that isn’t yours.And this is what you do with it?It’s one piss-poor, incompetent attempt after the next, and all for what?You’ve hurt, maimed, killed for what?”
“This isn’t proof,” Catherine’s friend said.“You could have altered the images.”
I was happy to see how many people were staring at her incredulously.
“Look at her!She has an unmarked aura,” her friend said.
“I’m glad you brought that up.There’s an ancient demonic spell that can clean a sorcerer’s soul.I just received a message from a friend.Again, if you go to The Slaughtered Lamb, you know Dave.He was able to track down the spell and how to counteract it.This is my first time trying it, so we’ll see if I get it right.”I checked the text again and flicked my fingers at Catherine, whose eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.
Her aura turned to soot.The wicches gasped, some standing and moving to the far end of the room.
My phone buzzed in my hand.It was the text I’d been waiting for.
I held up the phone to Catherine.“The police got a warrant and raided that little basement room under your porch.”
Catherine was visibly shaking.
“Did I forget to mention that I had a vision about you and your grandchildren?The man in the brown plaid shirt that you tortured to fuel your spell?The arm you cut off and left in the woods?So much evidence down there that the police are now processing.Oh, and there’s a warrant for you too.”
Mom stood again, waving a hand in Catherine’s direction.Her head dropped onto her shoulder.She was out.“We can’t have her listening to us plan.We need to get her out of here.We don’t want to pull the police into a Council meeting.”
“We only need to get her off the property, though, right?”I was closing down my laptop and stowing everything in my backpack.
“It’ll take them two hours to get here,” Faith said.
I shook my head.“They’ll probably ask the local police to pick her up and hold her for them.”I looked at Bracken.“Which means we need to move her before I call the detectives and get this ball rolling.”
“We can put her in her car up on the road,” he said.
“What if she drives away?”the older woman closest to us asked.The group now seemed to be behind having her arrested and hiding her connection to the rest of them.
Bracken was standing as well.“Whoever owns this lovely restaurant, do you have a bottle of alcohol we can have?We’ll crash her car into a tree, splash around some alcohol, and leave her to be picked up by the cops.”
A woman stood and hustled out of the room.I looked at the door she’d gone through, then over at Lydia.
“She owns the restaurant,” she said.“I think she went for the bottle Bracken asked for.”
“We need her keys.”I went to the Panel table.“Where’s her bag?”
“She leaves it in her car,” Imogen said.“She carries her keys in her pocket.”
I felt something dark and angry to my right.Catherine’s friend was frantically texting.I held out my hand and her phone flew out of hers and into my bad one.I flinched so hard, I almost dropped it.“Damn it!I keep forgetting that hand is fucked-up.”
“Language, Arwyn,” Mom hissed, causing a few people to chuckle.
“Sorry.”I deleted the long text the woman—Miranda—was writing and wiped the phone of all information, effectively killing it.“Remember, Miranda, snitches get stitches.”
Only a few looked scared at that.Most laughed at my threat.
“What about fingerprints?”Faith asked.“If you and Bracken put her in her car and drive it somewhere, you’ll get prints on it.And if you spell them off, then she has a suspiciously clean car.”
Mom stared at her niece a moment.
Faith shrugged.“I watch a lot of true crime documentaries.”
