Page 24 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
A reasonable cover doesn’t come to him but in Ophelia’s shows the investigators always just say who they are, and the bad guy gets jumpy. If Ethan’s suddenly nervous, he’s the bad guy. Easy.
Except Mateo’s never verbalized this thing before. It’s not embarrassment so much as an acute awareness that he’s about to learn if he hates this man. Mysticism is a polarizing topic. People believe or they don’t, and both sides can be really annoying about it. “Occult specialist,” he says, bracing with his customer service smile in place.
An eyebrow lifts, a half-smile forms, and Ethan waits for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, he finally says, “For real?”
“For really real,” Ophelia says dully from somewhere behind Mateo.
Ethan still looks like he’s waiting for Mateo to yellpsych, but he’s not being a dick about it. Yet. “Unexpected. Like … what does that mean? Haunted dolls?”
Mateo lets out a laugh. “Why haunted dolls?”
“I don’t know. I sawAnnabellelast week. It was all I could think of,” Ethan defends. No grand villain revelation on his face before he indicates himself. “Now this is going to sound boring. Financial advisor.” He elaborates when Mateo’s expression mists over. “I say a bunch of numbers at people until they relent andlet me put their money into the stocks I want to. There’s a bunch of research involved, analyzing risk versus benefit, and math. But it’s sexier if you imagine Wall Street, and me yelling ‘buy, buy, buy’ and ‘sell, sell, sell.’ ”
“Isn’t Wall Street in New York?”
“You’re getting hung up on the details,” Ethan says, gesturing to the nearest cubicle, where someone in a boring suit is staring dull-eyed at a screen. “Don’t picture that. Picture the buying and selling. Add me holding a fistful of money and shaking it in the air as I trade.”
He should be asking Ethan what he knows about Christopher Nystrom, or other work-related questions, but it’s few and far between that he has an enjoyable conversation with someone other than Ophelia. “Are we talking ones or twenties?”
Ethan leans close, smirking as he whispers. “Let’s say hundreds.”
“Your meeting,” Ophelia says, standing by the end of the buffet now with three small biodegradable plates neatly stacked and balanced in one hand.
Ethan leans away and checks the time. “My meeting,” he agrees. “I’ve gotta run.” He does that slick business-guy thing where he gets a business card out of his inside jacket pocket with a flourish. It’s nearly a magic trick. Mateo’s aware that the outfit is making the wearer’s actions acceptable to his mind, but knowing doesn’t change the effect. Ethan offers the card to him, but then pulls it back a bit when Mateo reaches for it. “You available tonight?”
“Why? Do you have a haunted doll?” It’s a joke … but also not. Is this what networking is? If this guy’s intrigued by the idea ofoccult specialist, Mateo should humor him. With that impeccable suit, his paycheck has to be ten times what Mateo’s making.
“I could probably find one,” Ethan answers easily.
“We have to check with our client,” Ophelia—again from somewhere behind him. Mateo turns to look at her, startled by how generally helpful she’s been. She has a piece of cake in her hand, so at least there’s some sort of balance.
“Let me know,” Ethan says with another smile, letting him take the card before leaving.
A hurried feeding later, and Mateo leads the way down the hellishly glass-lined hall back to conference room three. The stench of something brined and rotting assaults him and his steps slow. “What the hell?” He manages not to gag only because his teeth are suddenly sharp and he’s afraid they’ll be visible if he yaks. There’s only gray-carpeted floor and little metal trashcans all around. Nothing to explain the stench. And no one else is reacting.
“You can see the ward?” Ophelia asks, and Mateo whips around to look at her. Her expression is slack, pale eyes focused on something beyond him. The conference room.
“I don’t see anything. You can’t smell that?” he asks, turning again to the conference room and approaching. The space beyond is visible. And empty.
“I don’t smell anything.” She moves to step around him, but he blocks her.
Carefully, like slowness can offset unknown magics, he opens the door. “Where?”
Ophelia slips in after him, tilting her head, gaze unfocused on the table. “Under it.”
Mateo squats, and there’s nary a festering bowl of blue cheese in sight, but that’s what it smells like. This close, there’s another smell beneath it. Sweet like candy but also a little savory.
His eyes land on a smudge up where the leg meets the underside of the tabletop. It’s dark and still wet against the stainless-steel legs.
Not candy.
Blood.
It’s on the other table leg across from him, and without looking he knows it’s on all four. Completing a circle. It wasn’t there earlier. No smell and Ophelia would have mentioned seeing a blood magic ward. They hadn’t been out of the room for more than fifteen minutes. Which means someone had been watching. Waiting for them to leave.
“Blood magic,” Mateo says quietly, and doesn’t need to look at Ophelia to know she’s frowning.
It’s not that totally innocuous blood magic spells don’t exist, it’s that he doesn’t know any and can’t think of a positive reason you’d paint one onto the bottom of a table the moment someone left the room. Whatever the ward’s meant to do, it’s probably not friendly.
