Gray Witch (Black Hat Bureau 5)

Of course, she was responsible for his victory dance.

>>I’m emailing your Laurie Motel confirmation. For tomorrow. I booked you somewhere safe to crash tonight. Ordering food now. Looks like pizza is your only hope this late.

A beat later, my phone pinged.

>I love you.

>>I know.

Relieved to hear she was back on track, I updated Asa, who was in bad shape. His discount clothes might have looked good on, but they weren’t of the stretchy variety. His outfit was ruined. There was no saving it. If not for his strategically placed hands, I might have had to murder gawkers.

“You’ll be okay, right, Finch?” I leaned over him. “Want me to call Evette?”

“Gods, no.” Grass rustled in the ditch. “I’ll just rest here a minute.”

After recording the scene and discovering nothing undocumented, Asa and I returned to the SUV.

“I imagine that was the equivalent to a high school reunion for you,” Asa teased. “How did it go?”

“I remembered why I became friends with Evette. Eight hands made it easy for us to pick pockets and use other people’s money to buy ourselves drinks. She was also popular with guys, for obvious reasons.” I lost the fight against a nostalgic laugh. “Her catchphrase was no holes barred.” Asa shifted on his seat, and I couldn’t resist asking, “Did that make you pucker?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Oh, he did, but I wouldn’t hold it against him. We all had our limits, and he was only now exploring his.

“Finch was always trailing after Evette.” I switched subjects. “Looks like he still is. He’s a crane shifter.”

“A crane shifter named Finch.”

“I can’t remember his actual name.” A common problem for me. “Evette started calling him that, and it stuck.”

A burn in my chest I had learned to identify as shame spread through me at how we had treated him. How we had treated everyone. I didn’t select victims the way she did. I tended to abuse everyone who got in my way equally, which wasn’t any better. It might have even been worse.

“You outgrew them.”

“We weren’t friends.” I had known that then, and I knew it now. “Evette sought me out because she wanted to climb high in the ranks as fast as possible. Everyone knew the director favored me, but not why. She figured if she stuck with me, we’d both make it to the top. Finch, as I said, was a third wheel. He doesn’t have much in the way of ambition, aside from earning Evette’s approval.”

“I don’t understand what makes a woman like that appealing. Why would he stay?”

“He’s not a glutton for abuse, if that’s what worries you. She kissed him the first time she saw him, because he was new and cute and covered in blood from the reason Black Hat recruited him in the first place. Her saliva is addictive. As long as she swaps spit with him every so often, she can string him along for the rest of his life. Or hers.” I cut my eyes toward Asa. “Remind you of anyone?”

“I do recall being fixated on your saliva,” he mused. “Are you sure you don’t have cecaelian ancestors?”

With aquatic daemons in my pedigree, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn I had distant octopedal relations.

“Hey, now, I wasn’t the problem.” I jabbed him for good measure. “You were the problem.”

“I was an innocent dae, swept into a whirlwind romance with a gray witch—”

“A gray witch?” I twisted to face him as he pulled onto the road. “Why do you say that?”

“Your father mentioned blending his power with your mother’s skill to produce a magic that isn’t one or the other. You’re using your training as a black witch to harness white magic, and Colby’s magic.” He searched my face to see if I was upset. “You’re the closest thing to a gray witch I can imagine exists.”

“It’s funny you say that.” I plugged in the directions to our hotel. “I’ve been thinking along the same lines. It feels more honest.” I decided that was the right word. “I’m not out practicing black magic, but my white magic was peculiar before Colby.” I considered his words. “Practicing one craft while pulling on knowledge and training from another gives me mixed results sometimes.”

Back in Samford, when my days were filled with tinctures and salves, I hadn’t used enough power to grasp the discrepancies. I was magic lite. These days, I was slinging spells left and right, and the end product wasn’t like anything I had ever done or seen.

“How do you feel about it?”