Page 20 of Bewitched By the Wicked Witch
I ran a hand over my face, exhaustion settling deep into my bones. Tomorrow, I'll start my investigation in earnest. Question the families, retrace the girls' last known steps, dig for any scrap of evidence the council might have overlooked. And somehow, I'd have to convince Sage to let me in, to trust me enough to work together.
Nine
Sage
Ifed the danish to Cosmo in pieces as he purred, his usual chatty snarky demeanor more subdued than usual, as if he also felt the oncoming storm of something new. Different yet also unchanged. A strange pressure curled in my gut, my magic prickling along my skin as if trying to warn me of something just out of reach. Yes, there was a kidnapper out taking girls, but there was also something else wholly different that was nudging me toward the fear I had for Paige and Brexley's safety.
I let Cosmo polish off the last bite and wiped the crumbs from my hands. If I was going to help find these missing girls, I needed to check my grimoire for tracking spells. I pulled out my latest grimoire from under my bed's secret compartment. The ancient book shuddered awake, its leather cover creaking as its one baleful eye opened to glare at me in judgment.
"Oh, don't give me that look," I muttered. "Next,you'll be complaining about the noise, like Cosmo." The book shut its eye in obvious disgust.
This grimoire had been passed down from my ancestors and, like many of my witchy relatives, it had very specific ideas about how a witch should be, and I fell short. Only this book wasn't the same as the townspeople. It wanted me to be more villainous. It reluctantly allowed me to flip through its pages and didn't force me to use the spells it preferred, something it had done in the past.
The eye opened and moved to the top of the book's spine to stare at me. So creepy. I shuddered, hating when it did that. Its single eye flipped to the comfy sweats I wore, the word ‘wicked’ scrawled across my butt with broomsticks and witches' hats patterned throughout the fabric.
"What? It's comfy, and I think it's funny. Can we focus on the spell, please?" The grimoire pages rustled with what I swore was an eye roll before finally flipping to a tracking spell. Though not before pausing briefly on spells titled ‘Fix your love life, or the lack thereof’ and ‘The proper Witches Attire: Why Dignity Matters?’
I snorted but focused on the tracking magic. This grimoire had been a pain since day one. It had called to me, and I'd later learned it originally belonged to the witch who had burdened me with this cursed reputation, the first witch whose magic had manifested the same as mine. Yet, like me, she hadn't started out bad. They had forged her into it.
This grimoire had also been my mother's, and I stroked the pages with loving deference. Some spells had been borderline dark, more gray than light magic. I remembered her telling me life wasn't always pretty andsometimes we needed a spell that matched. It was one of the few memories I had of her before she and my father had died.
The eye disappeared, going back to whatever it liked to do, knowing I needed to search the spells on my own and work out the problem before it could help me. It allowed me to decide what type of spell to use, be it dark, light, or gray.
I had lived my life embracing this, never fearing a gray spell. Sometimes, a spell needed to toe the line. Because life wasn't black and white, or good and evil. It was an array of muted tones, and I usually fell somewhere in the middle.
Yet as I searched, not one spell, gray or otherwise, would help me discover who was stealing and kidnapping shifter blooded girls. I tapped my chin, lost in thought, searching my memories for something that could help.
"Why do you even bother?" complained Cosmo as he pounced onto the sofa chair next to me, his fluffy tail high before he leaned over and stared at me with his star-speckled gaze.
"Because if they decide to blame me, and I suspect they will, there will be no one here to feed you danishes."
"We could just take them all out and run the town on our own." Cosmo purred as he sat on his haunches and began licking his enormous paw, letting his overly enormous claws extend.
"Because that's smart. Give them an actual reason to hunt me down and burn me at the stake." I shut the grimoire, sarcasm dripping from my words, watching as the eye closed and went back to sleep. "That's all I need,the High Council of magic coming here and pinning everything on me." I rolled my eyes and leaned back on the comfy sofa, my gaze searching my underground space.
I'd used nearly all my inheritance to create this safe haven for Cosmo and me, a place to hide in case a witch hunt occurred. Only now, with money from the Hex Coin and my work, I could hopefully leave some for Paige if anything ever happened to me.
Cosmo let out a loud meow right as my security system alerted me that someone was at my door. I rose quickly to check the surveillance footage and, as I looked at the screen, I stilled.
No. No. No.
Callum Renshaw stood at my door, well, the door to my small dilapidated dwelling that concealed my real home. I cursed, wondering how he had made it past my wards without them informing me he was near. My heart pounded loud enough I was sure he could hear it from upstairs. I pressed the call button that would sound as if I was speaking from within the house.
"Go away," I demanded, proud that my voice didn't wobble, though I felt shaky and unable to catch my breath.
Callum was here at my door. How? Why?
Then realization hit me. He was here to investigate. He had come here to investigate me. My lips pressed together and my heart slowly calmed as an eerie silence settled on me. I reached out and embraced that part of me, the shadow side that terrified them, and welcomed it in. As my lips curled into a smile that promised an unhappyever after, I ascended from my lair, Cosmo on my tail, his eyes turning as flinty as my own.
"Shall I eat him?" he asked as his form grew and lengthened until a large jaguar stood at my side. "I'm still a bit peckish."
I rolled my eyes at him, snark filling my tone. "When are you ever not hungry, or peckish, or in need of food?" I sighed, forcing slow deep breaths to steady my frantically beating heart and the building anxiety. "No, not yet," I said, rubbing him behind his right ear. "Let's see what the bastard has to say."
"Won't be much if he gets a boner," Cosmo chuckled, remembering the hex I'd left Callum with after he'd torn my heart right out of my chest.
I snorted and held back a laugh. "Indeed. I highly doubt that will be an issue."
"Never know, maybe you could even give him a little ride and give that machine you have a?—"
