The Witch's Wrath: Witches of Abaddon's Gate Book 1 Page 3

  Calamity nodded. She knew as well as I did what a pain the council could be. They'd given me a lot of hassle getting my permits when I’d opened my store, and everybody knew it was best to fly under the radar where they were concerned. They were a prime example of “those who giveth taketh away,” and they were pros at it. Still, I wasn't going to leave Michael hanging when he needed me. He rarely asked for help from anybody, and I wasn't going to be the one to turn him down when he did.

  The liquid in the bottle swirled all on its own, and I drew my brows down. I'd never seen a potion quite like this one, and I'd seen a lot. I sighed. "Give me an hour. I'll see what I can learn just from poking at it a little bit. Maybe I can at least tell you what the general intentions were for it."

  I unzipped the bag that held the potion, then figured I better make sure I wasn't going to disrupt any fingerprints on. "Is it okay to touch it?" I asked.

  He nodded. "I've already dusted for prints and didn't find any, not that I expected to. Whoever did this went out of their way to leave no evidence."

  The bottle was small and triangle-shaped and stopped with a cork. All that was standard, so that in itself didn't tell me anything about it. I carefully pulled the cork out of the top and started to give it a tentative sniff, then thought better of that idea. I had to be careful because some potions were designed so that even smelling them could do harm, but for some reason, I didn't get that feeling from this. Just in case, I pulled my nose back and whispered a spell over it that would reveal any kind of magic that would harm me. The ingredients glowed a little bit, but nothing else happened.

  “It’s not a poison,” I muttered, not looking up. “Or at least it’s not made specifically to kill somebody.”

  Calamity nodded, her gaze sharp as she focused on the bottle. "Go ahead and smell it. I don't get any bad vibes from it either."

  I sniffed it, then puckered my lips and pressed them to the side, thinking. It had an odd fruity, acidic smell. Several ingredients flipped through my mind, and I was hooked. The thrill of figuring out the puzzle grabbed me, and I rushed toward the back.

  “I’ll meet you at the Cauldron in an hour or so,” I called over my shoulder Michael, distracted because my brain was already spinning. I took the clock off the front door and just left the shop closed. I’d need all my concentration to do this right, and that meant I couldn’t have customers coming and going. Thank goodness I’d made a ton of money that morning.

  He and Rocky headed toward the door, promising they'd buy lunch as soon as I made it.

  I waved my hand at them. “I just ate, so you two go ahead. I’ll be along as soon as I know anything.”

  I wandered back to my workspace, intent on my task. I loved a good puzzle, and this time, lives could be at stake.

  Chapter 3

  I had several different ways of deconstructing any sort of potion, and it was always a combination of instinct, mixing samples with other ingredients that I knew cause reactions, and using a few good old-fashioned reveal spells. I decided to start with the latter because it was always the easiest. Sometimes the most obvious way was the way that worked, and it also took the least time and effort.

  Using an eyedropper, I pulled a bit of the potion from the bottle and dripped it onto a small glass slide plate. I had several spells that I used, so I figured it was best to just run down the list. After thirty minutes or so, I’d gone through the spells and also used a mixture of different ingredients to see what kind of reactions I would get. After all that, I was confident I had a good idea of what the potion was made of. The problem was that I wasn't sure what it was used for. I’d never seen the ingredients mixed together in such a manner, so I flipped through some of my older potions books to see if I could get a clue.

  I found several old-school recipes that were close, but none that matched what I had in the bottle. I did notice a pattern starting to emerge though. It seemed that the ingredients were sort of a reverse aging potion. I only knew that because as kids we'd often aged ourselves up to get into clubs or to go as old crones for Halloween. This potion had some of the base ingredients, but it wasn’t exact. In addition to the ingredients typically used to alter age, there were ones used in potions meant to restore youthful looks. I was familiar with them because one of my best-selling beauty creams contained them.

  I set the potion aside and thought for a few minutes. It didn't make any sense to me why somebody would make a potion to make themselves younger, because everybody knew that didn't work. Technically, you could do it, but it was against the laws of both nature and the council. Aging and love were the two things you couldn't control. Though you could temporarily go forward without consequence like we’d done as kids, you couldn't turn back the clock without repercussions. Also, there were extra ingredients in it that told me there was more to it than simply trying to turn back the hands of time.

  I flipped through the book for a while longer and came across a potion for the transference of power. Running my finger down the page I gasped. The ingredients in this potion closely matched what I suspected to be in the potion Michael had brought me.

  An idea began to form in my head, but it was unthinkable. Against all the rules, and enough to get you the death penalty if the witch's council found out about it. My conclusion was that somebody had mixed a potion to steal somebody's youth. Though that had flitted through my brain when Michael had told me the condition that he’d found the girl in, I’d shoved it aside because it was taboo. Given what I’d learned about the potion since then, I had to reconsider. It was the only conclusion that fit. I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to avoid the council. This had to be reported, and Michael would have no choice other than to reveal how he knew.

  I agreed with Michael that this wasn't the work of a demon or a depraved soul. I believed this was an evil witch trying to get her youth back at any cost. Still, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that it was one of Kira's escapees, so I wasn't willing to fully commit to that theory just yet.

  Calamity had been sitting on the table going through the potions as I did, and we discussed the possibilities as we scrolled through the pages.

  She huffed out a resigned breath. "You're going to have to tell them. If not there could be backlash, and that's the last thing you want. I'm wishing now that Michael would have never brought this to you because I don't want you anywhere near it."

  I nodded. "Believe me, I don't want to get involved with them any more than you do, but Michael already brought it to us, and we already sussed it out. It spilt milk, and there's nothing we can do about it."

  Michael had to take it to them, and they wouldn’t be satisfied with just his word; they’d want to know how he’d come to the conclusion.

  She sighed, but I knew she agreed. "Then we shouldn't waste any time. Let's go over to the Cauldron and tell Michael what we found. We need to get them this information right away so that they can find whoever's doing it."

  I pulled in a deep breath and released it slowly. I’d already deconstructed a potion for another agent once but had managed to keep it on the down-low and had thus avoid unwanted attention. Once you’d proven valuable to the council, they didn’t tend to leave you be. Still, I didn’t see another option. "You're right. Come on. Let's go get it over with. Hopefully, they’ll take our word on the potion and consider our part done. I don't want them to get their hooks in me."

  I suppose I knew deep down that I was already in, but that didn't mean a girl couldn't hope.

  Chapter 4

  The inside of The Cracked Cauldron was cool and dark, and I paused inside the door to let my eyes adjust. The scents of fried food, beer, and old wood washed over me, and I smiled.

  “There’s one of my favorite witches!” a deep, masculine voice exclaimed.

  I squinted to see him, though I didn’t need vision to recognize who was talking to me. Shane, the burly bear-shifter bartender, smiled from his place behind the bar.

  “And there’s my favorite bartender! I could use a beer.” After what I’d just discovered, a shot of whiskey would have suited my mood better, but I wasn’t a shots kind of girl even in the worst of times. Unlike the rest of my family, I was a lightweight. I believed it was because I had neither the practice nor the shifter blood to keep up, so I’d learned to pace myself.

  “Did you figure it out?” Michael asked from his usual stool at the end of the bar. A plate with a half-eaten burger and some fries sat in front of him, and Rocky lay at the legs of his stool, his snout resting on his paws.

  I pulled in a deep breath, preparing to out myself. Once the words were out, there’d be no taking them back. I pulled myself up onto the stool beside him. “I did.”

  “And?” He rolled his fingers so I’d get on with it.

  “As far as I can tell, it’s meant to steal youth and power.” There. Damage done. Oddly enough, it was a bit of a relief.

  He frowned as he took another bite of burger. “I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”

  I lifted a shoulder, then took a long pull from the beer Shane had poured for me. “I didn’t, either. I mean, I suppose I knew it could be done, but I’ve never seen it before. There’s no recipe for it even in my dark potions books, but the way the ingredients are combined, it’s the only answer that fits.”

  “What’s going on?” Shane asked. “If you’re free to say, that is.”

  I glanced at Michael, not wanting to spill the beans on his case.

  “A witch was killed this morning, down at the beach. Mila’s helping me find who did it.”

  I arched a brow. Helping him find who did it was several steps further than just deconstructing a potion.

  Shane rubbed his angular jaw, his fingers scraping over his whiskers. “I heard about that. It’s a shame. She was one of the nicest people I’ve met here. I took my mum to her shop the last time my folks were here, and Amelia made her a special conch shell, spelled with the smell of sea air to go with the natural sound of the shell.”

  Michael’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “She was. We’d been working together on a project. Nothing big, and definitely nothing that would have gotten her killed.”

  I thought about that for a second as I stole a fry from his plate and dragged it through the puddle of barbecue sauce he’d squeezed onto his plate. That was one of several weird food preferences we shared. “Are you sure? I mean, nymphs are known to be spiteful. Is it possible one of them got tired of her interfering?”

  Michael shook his head as he popped the last bite of his burger in his mouth. “She had a decent relationship with water folk. It’s one of the reasons she was perfect for the project.”

  “Had,” Shane pointed out as he polished a wine glass. “That’s the key word. From what I understand, the PCBI’s efforts to stop the pirating have been cutting into profits for some pretty important factions. If she was playing a key role in that, it wouldn’t surprise me if somebody decided to take her out of the picture.”

  Michael chewed on that for a minute, and I could almost see him pull that cloak of responsibility around himself. I hated it when he did that because it wasn’t right that he always tried to carry the weight of the world.

  “Stop that,” I snapped. “From what you’ve told me, she wanted to work with you. You said she was smart. That means she knew the risks going in. Any witch worth her salt knows banshees are dangerous, so she didn’t go in with her eyes closed. And if she cared about you, she wouldn’t want you to carry that burden.”

  Calamity, who’d claimed a spot beside Rocky, took a less aggressive tack. “Mila’s right. Plus, you don’t even know she was killed because of something related to your work. It could have been something else entirely.”

  Her fuzzy little face had that faraway expression she got when she was thinking something through. I was tempted to ask her what was going on in her head, but my little fox had a way of keeping her own counsel until she was ready to share. I knew if she had something she thought was useful, she’d tell us. Michael, on the other hand, wasn’t as patient. His gaze snapped to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  She lifted a fuzzy shoulder. “I mean, you have no idea what happened. All you know is that somebody killed her and that you found a potions bottle in the weeds by her shop. That doesn’t necessarily mean that what happened to her had anything to do with whatever you were working on together. As much as I hate to say it, murder happens.” Her expression softened. “You, more than anybody, know that.”

  All the air left him, and his shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I do. But I also know life expectancy shortens considerably once you start working with the bureau.”

  Though her death was a tragedy no matter how you sliced it, I hoped for his sake it had nothing to do with what they were working on.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I suppose I should let Aurora know what you found.”

  Aurora Blackmore was the head of the Witches Council. A shiver ran down my spine because once she knew, there was no stopping the train. There were a couple Class-A herbs in there, and she’d be full steam ahead pouring through that list. She wasn’t gullible enough to believe that people didn’t grow and sell them illegally, but those of us who lived above-board would be the easiest people to start with.

  “Wait,” I said, putting a hand on his arm. Calamity raised a black brow at me.

  “What?” He paused with his thumbs hovering over the keyboard.

  I cringed, knowing what I was about to say probably went against every protocol he was obliged to follow. Still, I’d rather have a solution to take to her, or at least a direction to point her in, before we just handed over raw info. “How about we go take a look at where Amelia was murdered before we do that. I may be able to get you more information.”

  He pressed his lips together. If I knew one thing about my cousin, it was that he wasn’t afraid to skirt the rules if he had to. He’d always been that way, and I suspected it was why he was so good at what he did. Add that to his massive amount of magic and his tendency to be a loner, and you had a perfect agent. Or a perfect criminal, which is what he’d been before he’d joined the bureau. I was sure those contacts still came in handy, too.

  That gave me an idea. “What’s the potions and Class-A black market looking like nowadays?”

  Abaddon’s Gate was just like any other small city, or at least sort of. It had its share of crime, and we did have a bad side of town, except our bad side was about a thousand times worse than anything humans could come up with. Any time you put a whole city full of magical people together, bad things were bound to happen. It wasn’t like you could find magical vendors openly displaying wares in human cities, but in the Gate, you could find quite literally anything you wanted if you knew where to look or who to ask. Michael still had his finger on the pulse of that community, so it was likely he knew even more about it than I did.

  “Flourishing,” he replied. “You know how it is on the east side. I haven’t heard of anything new, though. No new players and no more activity than normal that I know of. I know a guy, though. I can check in with him to see if anything’s changed. As far as keeping this from Aurora, you might be onto something. Once she charges in, we’ll lose the advantage of stealth.”

  I nodded. “Then the next place we need to go is to Amelia’s shop. That’s where she was killed, right?”

  “Yeah,” he said, sighing.

  My heart sank because I didn’t want to be the person who dragged him back to the place where he lost her, but I didn’t see where we had much of a choice.

  “Sounds like you two have some work to do,” Shane said. “It’s times like this that I’m glad I’m a simple bartender.”

  Michael’s lips curled into a small smile as he pulled a few bills from his wallet and handed them to Shane. “And it’s times like this that I’d gladly trade with you.”

  We stood, and as he took my hand, Rocky and Calamity leaned into his leg so they’d be drawn along, too. I felt the familiar pull of space sucking me into its vortex, and when I next opened my eyes, the Gulf of Mexico stretched before me. Whether I liked it or not, it was time to get to work.

  Chapter 5

  I took a second to steady myself and pull in a few deep breaths of sea air. Though it was just as hot here as it was in the city, there was a breeze going.

  Smiling, I totally understood why Destiny enjoyed her job at the beach resort, though I wasn’t sure if I’d want to be around vacationing people day in and day out. Plus, there was such a thing as too much of a good thing, and I didn’t want to lose my love of the beach. I was an earth witch—give me mountains and forests and lush plants over sand and water any day of the week, unless, of course, I was on vacation.

  Michael had taken a moment, too, but Calamity broke the peace. “Okay, enough with the googly eyes. I hate sand and I hate heat, and salty air makes my fur stiff. Let’s get this done and over with so I can go home.”

  Rocky shook his head and huffed out a small breath. Though he didn’t speak in words to anybody but Michael, he never seemed to have any problem expressing what he felt. Right now, it was amused tolerance. He loved her and her sisters just like they loved him. It was almost like he viewed them as his spoiled younger sisters.

  Michael had brought us to the kitschy part of the beach where funky, colorful shops lined a wooden boardwalk built directly onto the beach. Step off, and your feet were in the sand, and you were only a couple hundred yards from the water. The Enchanted Coast was a few miles south of us, so our beach got not only its own tourists but overflow activity from the resort when folks wanted to venture off and explore the area around it. There were plenty of locals to keep the bars and restaurants in business, too.

  Unlike many seaside places, Abaddon’s Beach didn’t have to worry about hurricanes because all the shop owners were magical. That wasn’t to say they wouldn’t lose a few shingles when a big one blew through, but the damage was minimal. There were even companies that specialized in storm protection services. If you didn’t have the type of magic to set wards and cast spells to keep your business safe, they’d do it for you.