“Do they go awry very often?”
I hesitated. “Anytime a demon or a dark spirit is involved in a curse, there’s always a high probability of things going awry. If the hone-onna was brought here by a curse Marian had placed on her ex, then the practitioner behind it failed to set all the necessary parameters, and that has allowed our spirit to go after all cheating men.”
He grunted. “So once we get a name, Monty should be able to contact the RWA and get the witch’s location?”
“If she’s in the area, yes. If it was done in Melbourne, he’ll probably have to ask the state witch council to track him or her down.”
“That could take longer than we have.”
“It would depend on whether that particular witch is on their radar.”
“Meaning state councils keep track of curse givers?”
“They keep track of all witches who flirt around with the edges of darker magics. It’s a very slippery slope to traverse, and darkness has ensnared more than one overconfident witch over the centuries.”
He glanced at me. “Have you ever done a dark spell?”
“Once.” I shivered at the memory even though I had no lingering regrets. That spell had saved Belle’s life. “I felt unclean afterward.”
“Did it hold a cost?”
“All magic holds a cost, Aiden.”
“You know what I meant.”
I half smiled, though it held little warmth. “I had to destroy something extremely precious, so I guess it did.”
And while Belle might have paid that particular cost, it remained to be seen what price I’d eventually pay. While the spell lay more in the gray zone than the black, it had required blood. Worse still, it had come with a warning that invoking the spell would make the caster more susceptible to the darker forces of this world.
Which might well explain the hone-onna’s current fixation on me.
We turned off the main highway a few kilometers out of Castle Rock and then stopped in front of a cute, white miner’s cottage. There was no car sitting under the small carport to the right of the cottage.
I undid my seat belt and grabbed my purse. “She is expecting us, isn’t she?”
He nodded. “Her car is at the mechanic’s down the road.”
I climbed out of the truck and then followed him over to the front door. There was no yard, which meant there was about three feet, if that, between the footpath and the door. “But something had to have drawn the hone-onna here. According to Ashworth, it’s rare for them to be hunting in a place like this. They prefer major city centers.”
He rang the doorbell. A soft bell chimed deeper within the old house and, after a few seconds, footsteps approached. The woman who opened the door was short, with elfin features, sharp blue eyes, and short red hair. She was also human, rather than wolf, and her scent spoke of pregnancy …
I blinked. Not just at the fact that pregnancy had a scent, but also at the fact I smelled and recognized it.
“Ranger O’Connor, and right on time too.” She stepped back and waved us in. “Would you and your friend like a cup of tea? I just boiled the kettle.”
“That would be lovely, thank you, Marian,” Aiden said. “This is Liz Grace. She’s working—”
“At the café with the amazing cakes,” Marian said. “My friends keep saying we should go there.”
I smiled. “I’d have to agree with your friends, but then I would, given I own the café.”
“Indeed you would,” she said with a laugh. “Head on down to the kitchen—it’s at the end of the hall.”
Aiden led the way, his steps quieter than mine on the old wooden floors. The wild magic might be strengthening my senses, but it certainly wasn’t altering the way I moved. Grace might be my last name, but it really didn’t play any part in my overall physical repertoire.
The kitchen had been built in what was basically a lean-to attached to the back of the house. It was a small but perfectly formed galley kitchen, with enough space for one person to comfortably work, as well as an area big enough to hold a square, four-person table. Marian motioned us to sit and then brought over a tray holding a large teapot and three cups.
After pouring the tea and handing us the cups, she said, “Now, what is this all about? Have you discovered who did me a huge favor by killing the bastard I once called husband?”
Aiden hesitated. “Not yet, though we do have several leads we’re following up. One of them is a bit out there, and it’s the reason we’re here this morning.”
She raised a pale eyebrow. “Now that sounds intriguing.”
There was no change in the flow of pink through her aura—which generally indicated a gentle, peaceful nature—and nothing to suggest she had anything to hide in her expression. If Marian had paid for a witch to place a curse on her ex, then she didn’t consider it in any way a legal problem.
And it generally wasn’t unless it resulted in a death.
“Ms. Grace is here this morning in her capacity of assistant reservation witch—”
“Ha!” Marian cut in, her eyes smiling. “That would explain the much sought-after nature of your cakes—you sprinkle them with a little bit of magic.”
I smiled. “I wish that were possible. It’d save us a whole lot of hard work.”
“I guess it would.” She leaned back in her chair, her expression open and unworried. “So why would a reservation witch be involved in a murder investigation?”
Aiden glanced at me, and then said, “It would appear that something non-human was responsible for the murder of your husband.”
“Ex. And it surely couldn’t have been a werewolf—you lot couldn’t do that to a body.”
“You saw his body?” I asked, surprised.
Her gaze returned to me. “Had to ID it. I must admit, I did think there was something rather odd about the severe state of his dehydration.”
“It wasn’t dehydration, and it wasn’t a werewolf,” I said. “He was attacked by what we believe was a vampire. Of sorts.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Wasn’t Hale killed during the day?”
“Yes. This particular being isn’t as restricted as a regular vampire.”
“Huh.” She took a sip of tea. “What do you wish to know?”
I hesitated. “Did you seek out a witch to place a curse on your ex?”
She laughed, though her amusement abruptly died when she realized the question was serious. “No, I did not. Although, I have to admit, if the thought had actually occurred to me, I probably would have. I’ve certainly cursed him many a time over the last few months, but that, I’m afraid, is as far as it went.”
Which meant this trip was a dead-end information-wise. Unless, of course, she was a latent talent. Plenty of humans could lay claim to a witch ancestor—it was part of the reason why Belle and I had successfully pretended to be half-bloods for so long—but most were incapable of magic. In the few who could spell, it generally took some kind of trauma or stress to bring the ability to the fore—often with disastrous results.
But there was no hint of magic in Marian’s aura and absolutely no evidence that she was, in any way, a latent talent.