Seventeen

 

Mary was a bold blonde woman who held her head high and stared Alasdair down when she answered his questions. Her eyes hardened when we asked about her relationship with Daniel.

“He was a temporary distraction,” she said.

“And he was aware of that?” Alasdair asked.

“Of course. I will be ascended soon, and then I will have a man befitting my skills,” she said.

Her hands were trembling, and her words were hollow. She was simply parroting what she had been told to say.

“Was Daniel on any social media?” Grayson asked.

“Of course; he was on Zapped. Everyone is,” she said dismissively.

“And who did he talk to on there?” Alasdair asked.

She rolled her eyes at that.

“How am I supposed to know?”

Alasdair’s jaw tightened, but he maintained his polite smile.

“Can we have his username?” Grayson asked.

Moira’s face paled at that. She stepped closer to Mary, but the Mary waved her away and scribbled something down in a purple sparkly notebook.

“Fire.Borne,” the note read.

“Interesting name for a plant witch,” Alasdair said.

Mary shrugged.

“Ten minutes are up. Mary and the girls have studying to do,” Moira said.

“Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch if we have further questions,” Alasdair said.

We walked out into the night to find the waves crashing up over a beach and streaks of lightning on the horizon. A storm seemed rather fitting to the situation.

“I vote we find a pub with good fish ’n’ chips and a pint of cool beer,” Grayson said.

Alasdair smiled. “Are you going to show us old men how to use this ‘Zapped’ while we’re there?”

Grayson laughed.

“Don’t give me that shit. You look twenty-eight if a day and you act it. I’m not falling into whatever trap you’re trying to set,” he said with a grin.

Alasdair returned the grin, his eyes shining.

We headed into the first pub we happened across and Grayson ordered everyone fish ’n’ chips with the barman’s choice of beer.

“Tabs is still in Galway. I’m asking her to come over tomorrow so she can walk us through Zapped. What do you think about Mary?” Grayson asked.

“I think she was lying through her teeth,” I said.

“Agreed. She has strong feelings towards Daniel. I’m not entirely sure they were pleasant feelings, though. She struck me as someone who enjoyed playing with people. Is it normal for a girl like her to be able to stop a woman like Moira?” Alasdair asked me.

It was certainly unusual for a witchling to be so rude to a coven superior, but something about Mary’s bearing had made it fit at the time.

“No, it’s not, but I suspect she’ll replace Moira soon and Moira knows it. I think the group is in turmoil at the moment. Can we get into Daniel’s room? Is there some paperwork or something we can get?” I asked.

“Not unless we can find something that shows there’s a good chance of evidence being present in the room. We have to be careful about overstepping boundaries; we don’t want their leader to fall out with our leader,” Alasdair said.

The Crone wasn’t the type of goddess you crossed lightly, and while I had complete faith that the moon goddess could hold her own, I didn’t know what the fallout would be from such an argument.

 

 

Once we were in our rented apartment, complete with views out over the sea, Grayson downloaded the Zapped app, and we tried to figure out how on Earth it worked.

Alasdair had the latest smartphone, so he felt reasonably confident that he could crack it. I, on the other hand, wasn’t even sure what we were supposed to use social media for. If I wanted to hear from someone, then I gave them my phone number. Grayson used a couple of the sites, and he’d heard of Zapped, but he’d never tried to use it.

After half an hour, Alasdair and Grayson were starting to growl. It was getting late, and we needed to make some progress on this case before more young witches went missing.

“Gray, can you get Tabs on speakerphone?” I asked.

“No, she went to bed with a migraine an hour ago,” he said.

“Then what do we know without the stupid app?” I said.

Alasdair gave me a beautiful smile as he began to relax. He stood and pressed his forehead to mine. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment with his scent wrapped around me taking away any darkness.

He took a deep breath and returned to his seat on the sofa, where he stretched his legs out under the coffee table and Grayson threw his legs over the arm of his armchair.

“We know they’re all on Zapped. They’re all low magic and in a pretty bad position within the coven. Daniel had Mary, but she’s hiding something and could be the type to sacrifice him for a bit more power. The girls in Galway had ties to a pair of part-breds and Tempo, and Daniel also had a part-bred in his life.”

“So, we need to speak to the Fae and try to track down these part-breds,” I said.

“Was there any sign that Daniel was linked to Tempo in any way?” Grayson asked.

“My instincts say he was, but we don’t have anything concrete,” Alasdair said.

“So, we need to speak to the Fae and see what this Tempo is all about,” I said.

“Tabs is asking around about Tempo; if it was alchemist-made, then my uncles might have heard something about it. They’ll be back in Paris in the morning, so I’ll talk to them then,” Grayson said.

“Sounds like it’s time to relax and get some sleep, then,” Alasdair said.

For the first time in years, I was looking forward to bed.

“Don’t get me up before seven, that’s just cruel,” Grayson said with a smile.

“No promises,” Alasdair said with a devilish smile.

I headed to the bedroom and claimed my preferred side of the bed, knowing that I’d sink into sweet oblivion with Alasdair wrapped around me soon enough.