Cool, she said, and mentally signed off.
I blew out a breath and then headed into the kitchen to grab something out of the fridge for dinner. There was nothing that really excited my taste buds, so I grabbed a bit of scotch fillet steak to cook and then slapped it onto a bit of well-buttered toast, poured on some tomato sauce, and put another slice of toast on top. Heaven on a stick … or in this case, in between bread.
Once I’d made a coffee to go with it, I headed toward the stairs. But as I passed the reading room, instinct stirred. If I could locate the hone-onna through the bit of bone, then it was more than possible she could use it to track me. And, in fact, probably had, given her well-timed appearance just as I was entering the café.
If she could do that, it was possible the witch who held her leash might also be able to. While I had no idea how closely she was paying attention to the hone-onna’s movements, I really didn’t want the bitch tracking me down here. Though, in truth, it might be all too late to be worrying about that.
Even so, I headed into the reading room. After placing a minor alarm spell around the bone sliver so I’d know if it activated, I tucked it safely in one of the storage boxes hidden behind the bookcase. Then I went upstairs to eat and watch some mindless TV before heading to bed.
But once again, I dreamed of that blonde-haired little girl with eyes the same glorious color as Aiden’s. Her presence was so damn real, so damn close, that it felt like I could reach out and touch her.
It seemed my dreams were really determined to mess with my head.
The first thing I did the following morning was go into the reading room to check on the bone sliver. It remained warm to the touch, but I wasn’t getting anything in the way of location or images. I hesitated, and then tucked it back into the box. While the hone-onna had suggested keeping it on me, she was a dark spirit and I wasn’t about to fully trust her, even if instinct was suggesting that she wasn’t intent on killing me.
At least not yet.
We opened the café at eight and had a fairly steady flow of customers throughout the morning, which made a nice change after the last few days. I continued to check the bone throughout the day, just in case the alarm spell wasn’t working, but the stupid thing remained inert.
At least it did right up until closing time.
The images that hit the minute the fragment touched my skin were so fast and furious I simply let them reel through my mind and hoped like hell that I could remember them all later. A circle. A stone altar. Several large hares slaughtered by a knife that gleamed with a silvery-blue fire. Blood dripping onto a heavily stained altar, energizing the words of a spell that sang through the air and vibrated with power.
It was a call to action. A call to kill. And the hone-onna was already responding, even if against her will.
But the flow of images hadn’t finished with me yet, and what I saw next chilled me to the core.
A woman with a slender build, dark hair, and green eyes. A woman who was very heavily pregnant.
The witch was upping the ante.
The images pulled away from the woman, revealing the house in which she lived, then the number, and then finally the street.
Monty’s two minutes away came Belle’s comment. You have time to get there.
That’s debatable, given Woodbury is twenty minutes out of Castle Rock. I picked up our backpack and added extra charms, potions, and holy water. I had no idea if any of them would deter so strong a spirit, but if our magic failed, they were better than nothing.
It will depend on how fast she moves and whether she’s in the Woodbury area, Belle said. But from the rush of anger in those images, I can’t see her hurrying.
She may not have a choice when it comes to timing. The witch seemed pretty determined the kill happen this afternoon.
Which means the witch must be scouting the locations before she sends her creature in, Belle said. How else would she know all that detail?
She must also be using some form of spell to hunt transgressors down. She couldn’t possibly find these people any other way.
Well, PIs are well experienced in this sort of thing, but it wouldn’t make sense for her to be employing one.
Not when she’s killing the victims once she uncovers them. I slung the pack over my shoulder and strode out of the reading room. “Can you ring Tala and tell her what’s going on? Warn her not to come near the place until we give the all clear.”
“Will do.” She hesitated. “Be careful, won’t you?”
“She wants my help, Belle. She won’t hurt me.”
“Yeah, but I’m betting the witch who holds her leash won’t feel the same.”
“Probably not.” I unlocked and opened the door. “When you’re on the line to Tala, could you also ask her to give us a list of all the mineral springs in the area?”
“I’m thinking there will be more than a few of those, given that’s what this area is famous for.”
“Undoubtedly, but we can discount any that are near the compounds. This witch has had her altar set up for some time, so it’s obviously in a fairly remote location.”
Otherwise, the wolves would definitely have caught its scent. There was too much old blood staining the stone for the smell not to be obvious.
“Will do.”
Aiden’s truck came skidding around the corner, the lights and siren on. A smile tugged at my lips. “I think your boyfriend might be living out his childhood dreams right now.”
“There’s no might about it.” Amusement flowed through the mental lines. “Don’t let him hurt himself. You know how he gets.”
“He has every intention of marrying you. He’s not going to do anything daft, trust me on that.”
She snorted and pushed me out the door. “Go. If you need anything, I’m here.”
The truck slid to a stop, but Monty didn’t lean across to open the door as Aiden usually did. But then, I was family, not the woman he wanted to marry. I jumped in, threw the pack into the footwell, and then clipped on the seat belt.
He immediately took off. “I did a search on the address. The owner is a Mrs. Joanna Rankin.”
He raised his voice to be sure I heard him over the screaming siren, but it wasn’t really necessary. Not these days.
“She’s married? That surprises me.”
“Why? Women might not cheat as often as men, but it does happen.”
“I know, but she’s pregnant—”
“Belle didn’t mention that,” he cut in brusquely.
“Because it doesn’t make a difference in the scheme of things.”
“I know, but still—” He stopped, took a deep breath, and then released it slowly, as if to counter his anger. “How far away is the hone-onna from her target?”
I fished the tissue-wrapped bit of bone out of my pocket. Again the images hit, but this time they were little more than a blur. She was moving at speed through a forest, but more than that, I really couldn’t say. Mostly, I suspected, because the sheer weight of her anger was blocking the signal.
She might be a dark spirit, she might be a creature who killed, but she nevertheless had her boundaries—a point she would not go past.
Children, be they born or not, were her line in the sand.
“Lizzie?” Monty said, voice soft but wary.