He’d worn a suit, buttoned up with a necktie at the funeral. I wouldn’t have seen his mark then. Come to think of it, William had worn suits often. He was a college professor, and had the tweed elbow patch thing down pat. He’d favored a bowtie.
And that was how I’d never seen his witch mark.
Holy shit. He’d been a necromancer.
Why hadn’t they told me? If I’d known, maybe he could’ve helped me work through everything when Mom died.
But would I have listened? No, I wouldn’t have. I was so horrified at what I’d done that it scared me from using my dark power. Training with someone wouldn’t have changed my mind.
Just being around William’s body was torture. I hated being around the freshly dead. Even though I knew there was nothing in William to resurrect, still, his corpse teased my powers. They wanted to animate his body; create a ghoul.
I’d done that once. Never, ever again.
Glancing over to the body, that was covered with a sheet, I hugged my waist. The Combs were good people. They were caring and everyone in town loved them. Now poor William was dead. But how? Why go after William?
“Ava!”
Hearing Sam’s voice took a huge weight off my shoulders. He’d help me get to the bottom of this. The truth, not whatever washed-out version we’d end up telling the police. If this murder was magically charged, we had to figure out how and why.
“Sam,” I said in relief. He knew all about me, including what I really was. Even the people I’d grown up with who knew about magic and knew I was a witch didn’t know my true nature. Sam did.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him farther around the front of the building. All of the looky-loos were crowded around the mouth of the alley. I belatedly realized Clint had been keeping them out of my hair.
Thank you, Clint.
“The body belongs to William Combs,” I said in a hushed voice, looking around to make sure nobody was near. “And he was a necromancer.”
Sam’s face paled. He knew the full extent of what that meant as well as I did. “I thought your kind—”
I shushed him and he continued with a lowered voice. “Your kind were super hard to kill. And that’s what made your dad’s death so strange?”
“We are.” I crossed my arm and looked toward the crowd. “He was stabbed directly in the heart. That’s one way to do it.”
“Who could kill a necromancer?” he asked with one hand on his gun. He looked around like a gun would be any good against who-the-fuck-ever killed William.
“I have no idea. Another witch, maybe?” I shrugged and tried not to let the fear run all through me.
“Can you take something off of the body and do a tracking spell?” he asked.
I knew what he was asking. Necromancers could take a piece of the victim’s flesh around the wound to see how he died. It was a tricky spell and took a lot of focus. “No. I’ve never been trained. Maybe William could’ve done it, but I’m not that person anymore.”
“Bullshit,” he muttered. “Remember, I knew you before your mom died. I know you’re the most powerful necromancer anybody’s ever seen.”
I cut him a nasty glare. “I could’ve been the best. But that would’ve required years of training and intense focus to get to that point. That doesn’t mean I can just snap my fingers and do it.” I pulled my sleeve down and wiped at my nose, not self-conscious about such a yucky act in front of Sam. “Besides, I don’t think that prophecy is always true. I’m not that powerful of a witch in general.”
If I were, I’d be able to bring my mom back and not as a soulless ghoul.
The prophecy I referred to was one that my Yaya and Auntie spoke of often. They seemed to think that I would grow into my powers and one day be one of the elite group of necromancers that possessed powers beyond just raising the dead and creating undead creatures.
According to my necromancer half of my family, the first born of the seventh generation of necromancers would be blessed with great powers. Supposedly, those powers included bringing back the dead, animating the undead so they were human, and a number of impossible abilities. All of which I’d never shown any signs of.
If I was this all powerful seventh generation necromancer, then would it have been hard for me to suppress the power for as long as I had? I thought that much power wouldn’t want to be hidden away. Hence why I didn’t believe in the stories passed down through my father’s side of the family.
Because that was all the prophecy was—a story.
“Excuse me.” A deliciously husky male voice pulled me from my thoughts and my personal conversation with my BFF.
Even through my shock and upset at William’s death, I couldn’t help but shiver at the timbre of the man’s voice.
I lifted my gaze and spotted Sheriff Drew, who I hadn’t realized was there. He must have just arrived.
When he started to walk over to us, my heart skipped a few beats. I admired how he filled out every inch of his uniform. Hot damn, he looked more like a stripper in a cop uniform than an actual cop. Had they ordered him a shirt a size too small? Because slow claps to whoever did that.
I bet it was that old secretary at the police department. She was a hundred if she was a day, and it seemed like she was always out on the front lawn of the police department with a menthol in one hand, talking to the officers, even when we were kids. I’d bet she was exactly the same nowadays. When I was young, she was always inside the police department with her menthols. Sam’s dad was an officer at the time, and Sam and I spent half our childhood at the precinct.
“Hello, Sheriff.” As soon as my words left my mouth, he smiled. Damn if the lift of his lips didn’t make me weak in the knees.
However, his smile vanished almost as fast as it appeared. “I wish running into you wasn’t at a crime scene.”
Yes, too bad… Blinking, I studied him while slowly his aura drifted around me. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was about him that was other. I still couldn’t pinpoint it. He wasn’t a witch or a vampire. The fact that he was out in the sunlight confirmed the latter. Somehow, though, he wasn’t totally human either.
“I’m assuming Sam got your statement.” He flicked his gaze to Sam then back to me.
“Yeah. My official and unofficial statement.”
Sam nudged me with his elbow at my statement. He should know I don’t have a filter on most days. So, I nudged him back.
Drew noticed our exchange, but he didn’t comment. Clever man. “Ma’am, they tell me you discovered the body?”
Ma’am? Was he getting back at me for not calling him Drew?
Whatever. Calling him by his first name was too personal. We just met, briefly in a freaking grocery store. We weren’t at the stage of being personal.
I hadn’t had a chance to ask Sam how much Drew knew about the supernatural, so instead of assuming he knew, I assumed he didn’t know. Better to be safe than have to explain away my crazy. “I took out some trash and found him. I didn’t move the body or look behind the dumpster, so I didn’t realize it was someone I knew until they pulled the dumpster out.”
Just then, a couple of paramedics wheeled a stretcher out of the alley with a deep black body bag on it. My heart broke for my friend. I wondered if anyone had called his wife.