Sisters Of The Craft: Heat Of The Moment Part 29

"Prove it." Raye yanked the gauze off Pru's flank. The wolf didn't even snarl. Magic right there. "Touch her wound."

"If I do and nothing happens, then what?"

"When you do and something happens, I'll tell you."

"Right." I laid my palm over the raw, angry-looking injury. A spark jumped, heat pulsed. Had the infection spread?

Beneath my hand her flesh moved, and not because she had. The creepy-crawly feeling reminded me of worms or snakes, and I yanked back, expecting to see just that. Instead, the redness was gone. The raw edges had sealed together.

"You should probably take out those st.i.tches," Raye said.

"I just put them in." Nevertheless, I went to the sink, washed my hands, and retrieved the instruments I needed.

The air around me seemed to whoosh with a sound like wind or rus.h.i.+ng water. My hands shook a bit. My legs felt wobbly. My head spun, my thoughts too.

Was I dreaming? Maybe.

A suture needle floated up, hanging in the air right in front of me. "Stop that!"

"What?" Raye turned, frowned. "Henry!"

The needle dropped to the counter and lay still. I s.n.a.t.c.hed it and poked my arm. I didn't wake up, but I did bleed. I set my thumb atop the tiny wound and when I wiped off the drop of blood, it didn't well again.

I gloved up, then returned to Pru's side. Nothing had changed since I left it. I snipped the first st.i.tch and waited for blood to well there as well. None did.

Pru s.h.i.+fted, huffed. Finish.

Snip. Clip. Snip. Only a fine, pink line remained. Curious, I set my hand on top of it-spark, heat, movement. When I lifted it again, the line had faded from pink to white.

"I-I've never done that before." My head spun faster.

Yes, I was good at my job, but I didn't heal animals on contact. "If it's real and true, how could I not have noticed?"

Raye lifted one finger and listened to the corner. "Henry says that there's power in three. Always has been."

"Why?"

"Who knows? There's a reason for the Trinity-Father, Son, Holy Ghost."

"What does that have to do with this?"

"I'm just giving an example of a famous power of three."

"Even if I did believe you were my sister-" She rolled her eyes. I couldn't blame her. The visual evidence was pretty d.a.m.ning. "One and one does not make three."

"We're more powerful together than apart." Raye stood, closed her eyes, set her hands to the side, and slowly her feet lifted from the ground. Pru yipped. I wanted to.

When Raye's head brushed the ceiling, her eyes opened and met mine. "Couldn't do that yesterday."

She turned her hands palms down, then floated back to the floor. "Once we find our third we'll be able to stop them."

"Stop who? From doing what?"

"Stop the Venatores Mali from raising their leader."

"Wait." I glanced at Pru. "She told me to beware the Venatores Mali."

"Hunters of evil."

"But..." I was so confused. "The werewolf hunters are Jger-Suchers."

"Two different evils," Raye said. "Evil werewolves and other a.s.sorted creepy-crawlies are hunted by Edward and clan. The Venatores Mali hunt witches."

Several puzzle pieces came together in my head with a click so loud I started. "Let me guess, they wear rings with a snarling wolf on the face."

"You met one of them already?"

"Henry tossed him or her into a wall."

"I love it when that happens."

I had too. "Why did this person come after me?"

Raye pointed at Pru's now nonexistent wound. "People have noticed your talent."

"Just because I'm good at my job doesn't make me a witch. Especially around here."

Had I accepted that I was? Not completely. But I couldn't deny something weird was going on. Always had been.

"We don't know how they know what they do. I've always been seen as strange, but to leap from weird kid to witch is a stretch. Someone did, because they came to New Bergin first."

I glanced at Pru, but she'd fallen asleep. "Is that why she was there?"

"Yes. I've seen her and Henry all my life. For a long time I thought she was a ghost too."

So had I. "No one else ever saw her but me. Until Owen."

Raye's eyebrows rose. "Boyfriend?"

I lifted one shoulder.

"Interesting. No one saw her in New Bergin until Bobby."

"Boyfriend?"

She lifted her shoulder. "Fiance. He was a New Orleans homicide detective."

"How'd you meet a New Orleans cop?"

"He came to New Bergin following what he thought was a serial killer."

"It wasn't?"

"Technically it was. Mistress June killed at least a dozen witches."

My eyes widened. "A dozen?"

The world was a great big mess. But when hadn't it been?

"Who is this woman?"

"All we have is her first name. No one seems to ever have heard her last. Her fingerprints weren't in the system, neither was her DNA."

"How could she kill all those people and yet no one knows anything about her?"

"She's very good at being bad. She didn't kill in the same way or in the same place. Made it look random, which is really hard to connect. But now that they know what to look for..."

"What?"

"Brands. Burning. Witches."

"Who's looking?"

"FBI."

"The FBI is looking for witch killers," I repeated.

"Yes. Well, no. The FBI, per se, is looking for a serial killer. But the agent on this case, Nic Franklin, is also a Jger-Sucher."

"You just said the Jger-Suchers hunt werewolves."

"And a.s.sorted evil creepy-crawlies," she repeated. "The Venatores Mali are very creepy-crawly. And evil. They have been from the get-go, which was about four hundred years ago."

"Four hundred years?" My gaze went to Pru again. Still asleep.

"She told you?"

"That she was four hundred years old? Yeah." I found it a lot less crazy now than I had when she'd brought it up.

"What else did she say?"

"That she was a witch, and so is Henry. Are they related?"

"Married."

"Wolves can get married?"

"Henry isn't a wolf. Neither was Pru at the time."

My head spun again. "Maybe you should start at the beginning."

"Maybe I should."

She went to the counter, s.n.a.t.c.hed up a brown paper bag that she must have brought but I hadn't noticed, then returned to the exam table and started pulling things out.

Two white candles. A clear crystal. A hand mirror. A gorgeous wand with a cherrywood handle. One of those books you can write in yourself. Her journal?

"I'm going to take us back to the beginning."

She picked up a candle and, using the pointed tip of the quartz, carved Scotland into it, then she carved 1612 into the other.

"You think we're going to Scotland in 1612?"

"Not going, no." Raye opened the book, paged through, found what she wanted, and set the book in front of her.

"What is that?"

"Book of Shadows." She lit a match, held it to the candles. "Every witch has his or her own."

I didn't.

"You will," she said.

Had I said that out loud? I didn't think so.

"Witches born to the craft are elemental and each has their particular item of power. I'm an air witch so this..." She lifted the wand and waved it. I could swear sparks flew through the air in the wake of the tip. "Is my item. We can use other items. For instance, this pentacle"-she reached inside her s.h.i.+rt and withdrew a necklace with a star surrounded by a circle-"helps me to focus and call spirits, though traditionally it's the item of an earth witch."

She dropped the necklace and lifted the book, turning it so I could see inside. Handwriting filled the page. At the top I read: Spell to See into the Past.

She positioned the book so she could see the spell, tapped it once with the wand. Did it glow? Then she lifted the mirror, reflective side facing away, took my hand, and pulled me close.

"Together we look into it, okay?"

"Am I gonna fall through the looking gla.s.s?"

"Let's find out," she said, and flipped it over.

Chapter 19.

"They come," Raye whispered.

We stood in the shadowy corner of a one-room cottage-thatch roof, stone walls, rough-hewn furniture, fireplace that doubled as a stove. If this wasn't 1612, it was doing a d.a.m.n good imitation. In the distance, wolves howled.