“Should I find it upsetting that you count it as a half?” Red drawled, trying to figure out how he felt about it.
Like, he was a cat, but not. Overall, he was a magical being, but with his normal shape being a cat, he couldn’t help but feel a strong connection to the animals themselves…
Ollie pursed his lips. “I didn’t realize you had seen her.”
“Pumpkin may have wandered around my desk a few times after you mentioned her—thanksfor that, by the way,” she explained, sounding slightly irritated. “Regardless, I am not going with you.”
“Fine, what about you, Red? Fancy a car ride? It could be fun?”
As Red hated car rides…and he had better things he could be doing, he shook his head. “I have something I need to do.”
“Would that something be trying to reach Rowden again in whatever way you can’t tell me about?”
He shrugged. “Possibly.”
Ollie rolled his eyes before looking at Noble. “You’re coming with me, right, Noble?”
The hunter smirked in a stupidly sappy way as he chimed, “No place I'd rather be.”
Red wrinkled his nose in disgust when Ollie just smiled back.
Parked a bit down the street from the diner, Noble looked out the car window at the lamppost-lit streets. At this time of night, the diner was already closed, and the roads and sidewalks were pretty empty, even if there were still some cars. But then it was a cooler night, and Bab’s Diner was located on the very edge of downtown, so near enough to see traffic, but not close enough to the bars to actually be busy with pedestrians.
Lips pursed, Ollie hesitated as he said, “I know there are some street cameras, but…”
“There are none behind the diner. If we head around to the alleyway behind the hardware store next door, we’ll at least be able to avoid any surveillance connected with it.”
The man smiled. “Did you figure that out while watching last time?”
“That I did.”
“Let’s go!” His little witch giggled as he snagged his messenger bag from the floor and tugged on the strap.
Hopping out of the driver’s side, he locked his truck and walked around the front to the sidewalk, but found himself pausing. A frown slipped onto his face as the hair on the back of his neck rose and fell, as if someone had been watching, but had quickly looked away. His gaze roamed the street, and while he spotted a car leaving the gas station, it was already too far away for him to really spot the driver, and he didn’t notice anyone else.
“You coming?” Ollie asked hesitantly. The man was already nervously winding his hands together as he shifted from foot to foot on the sidewalk, waiting for him.
Giving his head a shake, he hurried onto the sidewalk. “Yeah, I just thought I felt someone watching us, but I must have imagined it.”
Likely, someone had been watching and had just been temporarily curious about what they were up to in an area of the street where most things were already closed.
Leading Ollie behind Andy’s Hardware, they hurried past it, to the back of the chrome metal-sided diner.
“Okay, let’s do this.” Ollie pulled out a notebook, and what appeared to be…a can of white spray paint. Which explained the sound the man had been making when he was walking.
“Not that I’m opposed to vandalism?—”
The man blinked before looking at the can in his hand with a giggle. “Oh, it’s spray paint chalk. I figured it would work better than stick chalk, with the side of the building being what it is.”
His brow rose at that. “Didn’t realize that was a thing.”
“Yeah, kids have all sorts of fun new things to play with now.”
After flipping the notebook open to the page the spell had been copied down on, the witch quickly—and rather cleanly, hemight add—sprayed the first drawn symbol onto the back of the building, the white chalk paint showing up nicely against the chrome. The symbol itself was made up of shapes and swirling lines, along with what looked like interlocking chains. It was interesting looking, but didn’t appear significant otherwise, so most would just assume it was graffiti.
Ollie stared, his gaze flicking between the building and the page, before he crouched and placed his still-open notebook on the ground. He dropped the can back into his messenger bag as he began to dig for something else with both hands.
Noble stood there quietly as Ollie continued to search, the witch’s face scrunching up as he obviously struggled to find whatever he was looking for.
