Page 32 of War Games

“Thank you for explaining more,” I said, getting up before I even had a chance to get properly comfortable. He’d been completely honest. “The witches who encountered them… did you give those names to the Tribunal?”

“I did.”

Dirk reached into his bag and pulled out the list. I asked for the names, and Dirk nodded when I looked at him, confirming they were already on our list.

“Thank you. Don’t tell them we’re coming. They get to be as surprised as you have been.” When I reached out to shake his hand, he was still quivering as he took it. He gave me a firm shake, fighting how nervous he was.

“I won’t,” he promised.

Dirk and I walked out on our own, but James wasn’t too far behind us. He told Jessica the rest of the day was going to be normal and that we weren’t going to be clients. Family friends, he called us as we left, giving a simple cover story for our presence.

“Not all of them will be that easy,” Dirk said, sighing. “He wasn’t bad, though. Just a guy who might have had some connection and had to be talked to.”

“Yeah, the report on him said the same, but you know we have to verify,” I said, sighing. “I don’t trust the Tribunal witches not to cover for someone when they get the chance.”

“With what happened in Alaska? I don’t blame you.” Dirk shook his head sadly as we got back on the road.

The entire day was more of the same, and we ended at the Dallas mansion.

“I’ll take Niko’s room,” Dirk said.

“Nope. You’ll take your shared room with Landon,” I said, knowing one had been set up now. “You can find it on your own, but first, let’s talk.”

“About?”

“About Landon.” I went to sit down in the large kitchen at the bar, knowing he was going to fight this.

“It’s fine.”

“I promised Heath that we would talk while on this trip. He’s your Alpha and wants to make sure everything is okay. I’m your aunt, and I want to make sure everything is okay.”

“Then we’ll talk tomorrow,” he said, heading upstairs to avoid the conversation. I didn’t chase or attempt to call him back. I had all week to get this part done.

Instead, I looked over the list and made a note of the next few witches we’d be talking to. One name stuck out to me—trained in healing and potion work and worked with animals, based on the records. It was an interesting combination, considering what that family had been doing to the Dallas pack. The Tribunal had noted nothing of interest about the witch, saying she was uninvolved.

Olivia Kesslar… I’ll see just how uninvolved she was.

12

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dirk and I were up early and driving out to see the intriguing witch. I wasn’t going to say I was fully convinced the Tribunal was covering for her, but I must have given off a vibe that Dirk picked up on.

“You read the Kesslar file, didn’t you?” Dirk was driving this morning, having gotten a much better night’s sleep at the mansion than he had on my couch.

“I did. I tried to read them all before the weekend was over, but reading them the night before seems better for my memory. Makes it fresh.”

“Yeah. She’s one they looked at because of her training. Also isolated from the world the same way the others were…”

“Yeah, it’s suspicious,”

“Exactly. I’ve been waiting for this one since I read it on Saturday.” Dirk was speeding, but we all drove over the limit every time we got the chance. Only Carey was required to keep her speed within the legal limit, and Heath refused to get her car charmed to help her break the law. She wasn’t sturdy enough to survive the accidents.

We had to go nearly two hours out of the city, which wasn’t an unusual length of time since normally getting to the Dallas area was a two-hour drive, but we were heading in a new direction. While we saw nearly a dozen potentially connected witches the day before, today was getting the handful living out of the city on the way toward Austin.

The drive gave me time to think of the reality of my situation. There were hundreds of thousands of witches in the world, at the very least. Millions if you did a raw percentage of the human population. The idea that the coven outside of Dallas-Fort Worth was connected to just any witch was unlikely. The only thing working in favor of my searching was the fact the family had been so insular. They would have needed someone to help them connect with other witches in the world or show them how. They were smart, but their property hadn’t shown us how they developed anything they did, either. They had destroyed or hidden all of that, and it was never found. It was only reasonable to think someone in the state had helped them. Even their family member in the BSA had been stationed in the state. Hisao had found that last member dead, thanks to the werecat who tried to frame Arlo, one of Heath’s youngest werewolves, for murder.

It’s a needle in a haystack search, but at least it’s something. At least I’m doing something. Something is better than nothing. Doing this is going to show those witches we’ll stop at nothing to find them and stop what they’re doing to the moon cursed.

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