I’m about to give up for the night when I stop on a photo.
Sharp cheekbones. Dark hair. Cold eyes.
"That's her." My pulse quickens. "That's the woman from the meeting, isn’t it?"
“Yeah, that’s her.” Asher leans in to read the information. "Nyx Blake. Elder of the Shadowmere Coven in New York. They worked together eight months before Davina went missing."
I'm already opening another tab, fingers flying across the keyboard as I copy the information into an email for Vale.
“So, did Laurel bring in the guy or did Nyx Blake of the Shadowmere Coven?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s from Shadowmere with her.”
“Or maybe he’s from another coven altogether.”
I return to the database, scrolling through photo after photo, searching the images of the other members of Shadowmere.
“Hey, I got an idea. Is there a way to check only the High Priest or Priestess of the covens? I want to see only the people in the highest positions.”
I click out of Shadowmere and start Asher’s search. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that a cabal isn’t evil for evil’s sake. People like this are either idealists, or they want power and money.”
“Agreed, but I don’t see Laurel as an idealist of any kind. She’s a cutthroat bitch.”
“Exactly. And she now has the power she so desperately wanted all along. If what they’re doing with the missing witches is somehow giving them power, and Laurel and Nyx are both running covens, then maybe Mr. Salt and Pepper is riding the same wave of success.”
The idea has merit—like serious cred.
The database is actually incredibly intuitive and allows me to slice and dice the information in a dozen different ways. Calling up the heads of the covens is actually really easy.
"Got him." Asher taps the screen.
I look where he's pointing, and there he is. The man with the salt-and-pepper beard is… "Heath Walker. High Priest of the Mistwood Coven in Alberta."
“Alberta? What the fuck? You can’t trust Canadians.”
I laugh. "That's xenophobic.”
“Is it xenophobia if I'm right? They're too polite. It's highly suspicious.”
“Your logic is flawless.”
"Thank you." Asher leans back in his chair. "So, an evil Canadian cowboy and a New York ice queen attend Laurel's clandestine meeting. Why?"
“I assume it had something to do with Davina dying. They were arguing about things like that not happening again.”
“So, Davina dies and the bigshot partners are pissed. They come to Laurel and want to know what the hell went wrong.”
I can get behind that. “They were all pissed. But why were Jane and Stuart there?”
“Because they’re Laurel’s lackies. She probably had them all teed up to take the blame.”
I sit back and take another sip of my hot chocolate. “That tracks. Laurel is incapable of accepting responsibility for her actions. She would totally throw her underlings in front of the bus.”
“And pat herself on the back for doing it.”
Yeah, likely.“Okay, so these three came together a decade or longer ago. They’re all junior witches with big aspirations. By their bios, we know that not one of them is a generational elite, yet they have the power to rise to the top of their coven leadership.”
