Page 65 of Wicche Hunt

“Lines?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Whatever interests me. Sometimes I follow the history of one family. Sometimes it’s a country, a political movement, a type of weapon. It could be an abstract emotion like love or loyalty. I trace how different cultures in different ages viewed and expressed that abstract idea.”

“And you write books about the things you study?” I pulled out my phone and looked up Bracken Corey.

“Yes. Exactly. If it’s a topic I find particularly interesting and few, if any, have written on it, I write a proposal and my agent sells it.”

I scrolled the results. “You’re a best-selling author. How did I not know this?” I gave my Mom the stink eye but she was still busy talking with Gran and therefore wasn’t paying any attention to me.

“Yes. Thankfully many of my books have sold well. I don’t know how I’d support myself if they didn’t. I’m not suited to doing anything else.”

I couldn’t even think about a life without my art. “I understand completely.” I considered a moment. “You said you wrote magical histories. Those can’t be traditionally published. How do people—members of the magical community—read them?”

The way he regarded me changed. Instead of staring at a painting, he was looking at the person he was speaking with. Hopefully, that meant the chaos swirling in his brain was slowing down and dissipating. “There are wonderful tools created for nontraditional authors, programs that allow me to do the formatting for ebooks myself. And there are other services that enable writers to upload their digital books and distribute them. Thankfully, I make enough from my human histories that I can distribute my magical histories free of charge.”

“I’d love to read them,” I said. Coreys were all about secrets. I wanted to know the whole truth, not what had been cherry-picked and fed to me in order to gain the desired result.

“Of course.” He patted his pockets and came up with a business card. Sliding it across the table, he added, “Go to that address and use that password. You’ll see all the magical histories and can download whichever you want.”

I glanced over the directions on the back. “Perfect. Thank you!”

Nodding, his focus shifted to the window. “Lovely park. It looks as though two of the trees needed to be removed. I wonder why.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I studied the tall trees but didn’t see the pattern break he had. “Is that what puts you on a research path? Noticing a pattern, or a break in one, and wondering why?”

He laughed. “Yes.”

“I have a question for you then.”

His gaze became intent, but not in the desperate way it had. More, the idea of a research question excited him.

“I’m not sure if Gran explained, but we’re dealing with another sorcerer.”

“Sylvia’s child. Yes.”

“A man—a half demon, half Corey—suggested there might be a black magic family grimoire that was passed down from sorcerer to sorcerer. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

Mom had stopped and was listening avidly.

Bracken had begun nodding before I’d finished the question. “Oh, my, yes. I told your grandmother Mary—or was it her sister Margaret—all about it years ago. I believe there to be a correlation—I won’t say causation because there are too many factors—but a correlation between the preponderance of sorcerers in this family and what is essentially a black magic training manual with instructors dedicated to passing along the secrets.”

He leaned forward, hands flat on the table. “You say you know a demon, a Corey demon at that. How in the world did you meet him, and do you think he’d speak with me?” Bracken pulled out a small notebook, like the kind Detectives Hernández and Osso favored, and began scribbling notes in what looked like shorthand. “I have so many questions.”

TWENTY-SIX

A Black Hole

“His girlfriend Maggie, a banshee, had been kidnapped and he came to me for help in locating her.”

Nodding, he scribbled something and looked up. “Why you?”

Head tilted to the side, I stared back, confused by the question. “Because I’m a—”

Mom dropped something and came rushing over. “You can get back to work, darling. I’ll drive you.”

“Cassandra wicche,” I finished.

Bracken blinked and then stood abruptly, expression stricken. He began to turn to my mother, seemed to remember the chaos, and turned back to me. “Sybil, a new Cassandra emerged, and no one told me? Was her existence hidden from everyone or just me?”

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