The american book of the.., p.20
Shattered Reflections (The Excommunicated Witch Savant Book 5), page 20
Hester, the only person here who had known Mrs. Wilby since they were girls, was nowhere to be found. Hiding. Being antisocial. She’s as bad as Syl.
Ezra was the only other person still standing in the front hall. Jo remarked, “I hope you didn’t have too much trouble bringing her here. I think it’s for the best. She’ll be safer.” She hadn’t shown him the note yet.
“Your friend Esme did all the hard work. I just drove. I don’t think Mrs. Wilby noticed I was there.” His dark eyes glinted with amusement, but this faded when Jo handed him the note, saying someone had dropped it off the day before.
He frowned. “This is serious.”
“And all the more reason we need Miles’ report to work. I hoped you would stay this afternoon while I tell everyone my plan.”
Ezra nodded. “I was going to do that anyway and hoped you wouldn’t mind me hanging around.”
Jo smiled. If anything, she wished Ezra “hung around” more. Arthur had teased her about faking a break-in just to have a reason to call him. Jo was glad she didn’t need that excuse.
She linked arms with him, surprising them both. “Let’s join the others. There will be lunch soon, then I’ll make everyone wonder if they should check me into a mental institution when I tell them I’ve baited thieves into coming to our home.”
As she expected, the others had concerns. Hester, Regulus, and Priscilla wished she had consulted them first but admitted it was better to have the thieves here when they were prepared rather than a surprise. Esme and Ezra backed Jo up.
Arthur added, “Jo has come up with worse plans, and we all survived.”
“Thanks, Arthur,” Jo responded dryly.
Ezra made a face as if to say, She has?
Those were stories for another time.
“A word?” Hester requested when the afternoon meeting concluded. She inclined her head toward the library door. Jo walked toward her office, but Hester added, “Outside.”
Hester walked the garden path to the stone wall, then past it into the forest. She didn’t stop until she was in the clearing. The late afternoon sun sliced through the trees.
Jo squinted. “What’s so private about this conversation?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you when I told you I’ve never heard a more idiotic plan.” Hester sighed. “But you’re right. I only wonder when this shit will stop.”
“Maybe never. Maybe this is what happens when you jump outside the box. Everything we do here is unconventional and therefore draws attention. I know you don’t like attention, Hester, but—”
“It’s not that,” the other woman interjected. She sighed, and her expression softened. Her brows knit, creating a line above her nose. A myriad of emotions played across her face, simultaneously concerning and puzzling Jo. Hester usually had one facial expression, and this wasn’t it.
“I should have been kinder to Greta in the past. It would make current circumstances easier.”
Jo stilled. Oh. “Were you mean to Mrs. Wilby?”
Hester shook her head. “But I thought she was strange, just like people thought I was strange. Instead of befriending her, I avoided her like the plague. I thought it would make people like me. It did the opposite, of course.”
“Weren’t you kids?”
“It’s still a regret I live with today.”
Jo’s shoulders slumped, and she wondered what about now she might regret when she was Hester’s age.
“She can’t look at me. It affects her too,” Hester added.
Jo crossed the few feet of space between them, took Hester’s hand, and squeezed once before letting go. “Better late than never, right? You can apologize now or be more welcoming. It’s never too late for a friendship. You two could use each other right now. Mrs. Wilby could use a friend.” Jo grinned. “You could too, Hester. Ever since your sidekick Bryce left.”
Hester chuckled. “I’ll be happy the day Bryce returns.”
“And Ren.”
Hester hesitated. “Fine. And Ren.”
“Regardless of what happened between you and Mrs. Wilby when you were kids, you can’t beat yourself up over the past. I certainly do, and it doesn’t help.”
“The truth always comes out, Jo. Even when it’s ugly. Whatever your mother did or whoever she was, you will know when the time is right.”
Jo laughed roughly. “I wish I’d hear a pretty truth one of these days.”
Hester returned to the house first, but Jo lingered in the clearing, deciding she would do a perimeter check. She didn’t need to. Malvin was more than capable of handling the wards, but Jo liked the walk. It gave her time to clear her head.
She tested the wards, tapping lightly into the magic to ensure they were secure. They were. She hoped to stumble upon Rascal or Malvin, but she saw neither.
When she reached the front of the property, Ezra was by the gate, wreathed in mist against the dying light. She approached, her footfalls soft on the gravel.
He turned and quickly stubbed out a cigarette.
Jo smiled. “Catch you in the act?”
“Bad habit. I only do it after a particularly stressful day.”
Jo didn’t blame him. “Mrs. Wilby seems to be settling in well.”
Ezra nodded but directed his gaze through the bars of the gate onto the road where twilight settled. The air was turning cooler, bringing relief to Jo’s face and the back of her neck. “Hester and Mrs. Wilby seem to be old friends. I left them talking in the library. They were reminiscing about prom.”
Jo chuckled with him. “You know, I never went to prom. I never went to high school. Coven life and all.”
Ezra’s dark gaze slid to her. “I didn’t either.”
Jo arched a brow. “Too good for prom?”
“Too good for public education. I was a difficult child, to say the least, and got expelled after eighth grade.”
Jo blanched. “You? Mr. Goody Two Shoes, Law Man, got expelled?”
“I got in a fight with a teacher’s son. Hit him with a piece of pizza.” Ezra’s lips quirked.
“I was homeschooled after that, which worked out well. My behavior changed, and I decided on a whim that I wanted to be a police officer. Then, after school and training, I couldn’t think of anything I’d want to do more. I was going to stay in Sacramento and work there.”
“But you came back.”
He nodded. “My mom wasn’t doing too well after my parents divorced and my dad moved to Denver to be with the woman he’d been seeing while they were still married. My mom got sick and needed help, but she didn’t want me to give up on my job. I told her I could easily work in Dunsmuir.”
“And your mom, is she doing better now?”
Ezra’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Much better.”
“Do you ever think about going somewhere else?”
“No, not really. This is home. I’d miss the mountains too much.”
Jo smiled. “Me too.” Boston would always hold a special place in her heart, but here was where she felt she was supposed to be. Maybe it was her good fortune or the ley power. Either way, she didn’t see herself leaving anytime soon.
Ezra waved at their general surroundings. “When I first started working for the Dunsmuir police department, I came out here a few times, checking up on ghost stories. The other guys thought it was nonsense, so they sent the new kid to check it out. That was back when this place did look haunted. Now…” A small smile parted his lips. “You’ve done a wonderful job with the place.”
Jo wasn’t sure if it was the exertion of her walk all over the property or his words, but her cheeks were warm. “Thank you. Did you see any ghosts those times you came here?”
He shook his head. “Have you?”
“No ghosts, but we did have a problem with a phantom once.”
Ezra raised a brow. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised after everything I’ve heard and seen. Is there a difference between ghosts and phantoms?”
“Oh, tons. Ghosts are the spirits of the deceased, but phantoms encompass a broader range of spiritual apparitions. Some phantoms aren’t entirely dead yet. Their essences are tied to something like ley lines. That was the case with…the one we had.” She almost said “Harriet Holmes,” but that opened another can of worms she wasn’t ready to expose.
Ezra looked like he’d heard how babies were made for the first time. He leaned on the gate, relaxing his arms through the bars. “You have a lot to teach me, Jo.”
She stood beside him with their arms brushing. “You do too, Deputy.”
He laughed softly, and when he turned to speak to her, she felt his warm breath on her cheek. “Thank you for choosing to trust me, Jo. It means a lot. I hope I’ve proved you can.”
She nodded. “You have.” They stood for a moment with a comfortable silence between them, and watched the shadows grow deeper on the road ahead. Finally, Jo pushed away from the gate. “We should get to bed. Tomorrow we have some thieves to catch.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The house was quiet, but not because everyone was asleep.
Jo checked her watch, which read ten ’til midnight. Where were the thieving bastards? The wards had been down for hours. She began to doubt her plan. Much could have gone wrong. Tucker could have decided not to plant the bait, or the thieves might have seen straight through her scheme.
The others were stationed throughout the house, except for Regulus, Malvin, and Arthur, who were scattered at various parts of the property. Regulus and Malvin were near the borders, opposite each other and obscured by shadows. Arthur had taken crow form and was flitting across the property. He hadn’t seen anything yet.
Ezra had been shocked to see Arthur’s transformation but hadn’t asked questions. He knew Jo could explain everything later.
Jo and Ezra were stationed at the back door, overlooking the garden, and Hester and Meredith were at the front. Esme, Mrs. Wilby, Syl, and Priscilla were inside the library with protective wards woven over the room.
Jo checked her watch again. Only a minute had ticked past.
“They will come,” Ezra assured her.
Okay, Mr. Confident. “How are you so sure?”
I’m not, his eyes confided.
Jo spoke softly. “If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what we’ll do.”
“That’s a bridge to cross later.”
He was right, but all this standing around and waiting had Jo considering all the hypotheticals. She kept shifting, idly creating small illusions without realizing it. Ezra chuckled.
“What?” Her question was more demanding than she’d intended and came out more of a hiss than a whisper.
“Patience isn’t your strong suit, is it?”
Jo managed a smile. “No, Deputy, it isn’t.”
“I think it’s nice, the waiting. It’s a beautiful night.”
“I hate anticipation, even for nice things. Growing up, Christmas Eve was the most torturous day of the year. I couldn’t wait until the morning when I could open my presents.”
“I bet Christmas in a coven was quite an event.”
“Oh, yeah. We went all-out. You should have seen the tree with all the presents under it and the food. God, the food! So much of it. We had leftovers for weeks.” Jo was smiling now. Ezra was good at distracting her.
He opened his mouth, but Jo heard Regulus’ voice in her ear, over the comms. “Figures approaching from the back, coming behind the cabins.”
“Count?”
He paused. “Four.”
Jo turned, spotting Hester down the hall. She nodded. Showtime.
Jo turned to Ezra. “Stay here, please. Don’t intervene unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t like the idea of her and Hester doing all the work themselves, but bullets and magic didn’t mix well. He didn’t need her explanation to know that.
Jo laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be fine.” It wasn’t like she was about to fight a horde of lesser demons and get her leg slashed open again. Ezra still didn’t know about that, she realized.
She crept into the garden under a dome of illusion magic, casting it far enough to cover Hester as well. The thieves, four of them as Regulus had reported, slinked into the garden. One—a tall, wiry man who couldn’t have been older than thirty—was cloaked in shadows. Necromancer. Only necromancers or mages wielded shadows like that. This man had the same powers as Regulus.
His shadows extended to the other three, making them barely distinguishable as well. These thieves didn’t solely intend to break in and take the mirror. They expected a fight. That was why shields hummed around them, and the necromancer took the lead with long and purposeful strides.
Jo was beginning to think she and Hester would need help. She tapped the comm. “Maybe you should come up, Reg.” She kept her voice low, cloaking it with an illusion suppression.
A head belonging to a woman whipped toward her. Shit. Had she heard her? The woman’s short, dark hair hugged her sharp jawline. Her equally dark eyes scanned the space where Jo and Hester were concealed. She hadn’t heard Jo, but she sensed her there. “Illusion magic, Merrick,” she muttered to the tall, shadowy man.
Merrick halted, frowning in the direction she pointed.
The third thief, a short, muscular woman, sidled up, grinning. “Let’s burn the bitches out.”
Jo barely had time to prepare herself before the wall of fire hit her shield. It was powerful enough to knock out her illusions, but her wards held. Jo reinforced the shield while Hester counterattacked.
“Gotcha,” the slim, dark-haired woman crooned half a second before Hester’s rune blasted her into the air. She fell against the trunk of a large, gnarled tree, crying out. The other three didn’t waste time. The necromancer’s shadows careened toward them in a wave, followed by another wall of fire. The fourth thief was nowhere to be seen.
Shit. She’s gone into the house!
Ezra and Meredith would have to handle her and hope she wasn’t as magically inclined as the three throwing everything they had at her and Hester.
Hester’s runes continued blasting as Jo maintained their wards and tossed orbs of explosive light when she could. The necromancer and his short companion evaded the strikes, and the woman who’d been thrown against the tree finally got to her feet. She was pissed.
Great.
They would need more than shields and runes. They needed deception. Jo began weaving the illusions. Copies of herself and Hester appeared across the garden at the same time she pulled a glamour over their real selves, making them seem to vanish.
“It’s a trick!” the slim woman called as the necromancer threw his magic at the illusions. The short woman continued blasting fire at the real Jo and Hester despite not being able to see them.
Jo would need better tricks. As the short woman advanced with more fire, she made illusory trees spring up, complete with feeling. The woman stumbled into it, blinking. The tree vanished, and roots around her legs flared up, yanking her down. Hester’s elemental magic. She also knew runes couldn’t carry them too far.
We need to separate and get them from different sides.
Hester was thinking the same because she stepped out from under Jo’s illusion magic and shield, flinging up her own wards. Jo let the illusion fade, revealing herself again, but maintained her shield. Runes flared and exploded across the garden as Hester engaged one-on-one with the slim woman who had, to Jo’s horror, brandished a set of knives with glowing sigils.
The short woman and necromancer advanced toward Jo. The short woman was grinning like a hyena as her palms glowed with fire. “This will be fun.”
“Careful,” the necromancer warned. “Not too much fun.”
Whatever the fuck that meant. Jo threw up a wall of bright, white magic, nearly blinding them. The short woman cried out. The necromancer’s shadows plunged through her wall, battering her shield. The wards stayed intact, but Jo knew she couldn’t maintain them for long and still have the focus to strike back at her opponents.
Reg, where the hell are you?
Arthur could help too. Surely, he’d heard the commotion.
Jo stumbled back as shadows battered her shield again and felt her back hit a tree. They had her cornered. Shit.
The necromancer laughed coldly. “Shouldn’t have baited us, Josephine. We’re going to get your mirror, then we’re going to kill you.”
Ezra tackled the figure to the floor of the front hall. The thief—a woman—struggled under him. She hadn’t expected an armed man to meet her in the dark. He reached for his Taser, but she hit him first.
Ezra had never been blasted with magic before. He hadn’t imagined what it would feel like, but if he had, it wouldn’t have been this. It was like missing a step in the dark and falling down a flight of stairs. It was like running into a glass door.
The next thing he knew, his head was throbbing, and pain lanced up his legs and throughout his chest. His back was against a wall, Taser in hand, but the thief had scrambled to her feet and was making for the stairs. She had no idea where the mirror was—Ezra didn’t either—but she was determined to find it.
The thief barely made it halfway up the stairs before she yelped, fell onto her front, and skidded down a few steps. Ezra saw cords of bright magic around her ankles and spun. Meredith, a woman Jo had called a lore keeper, stood by the door with her hands extended. Strain showed on her face. She wasn’t used to using this kind of magic.
Ezra hurried to his feet as Meredith’s magic held the thief in place. He hunched over her on the stairs. “Stop struggling, and I won’t hurt you,” he muttered.
The thief blasted him with magic again, although this time he didn’t feel it against his body. Energy hummed around him. A shield, he realized. Meredith had given him that too. He Tased the thief, and she cried out. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you, but you made this harder.”
He turned to Meredith and nodded his thanks. She nodded back. As Ezra hauled the thief to her feet and down the stairs, Meredith’s gaze wandered to the back door. Commotion came from outside. Blasts of magic and cries. Three against one. Ezra’s heart thundered as Meredith said, “They need help.”
