The Source (Witching Savannah 2)

“Those people,” I said, nodding at the photos, “are horrid.”

He looked up from his phone, which he’d been using to answer emails. “Those people are dead. It’s a collection of mug shots of known killers whose autopsies have been performed here.”

Lovely, I thought to myself, and at the same instant Adam stormed into the room and slammed a manila folder down before us.

“Open it,” he commanded.

Oliver did, but then snatched the folder from my view. “She doesn’t need to see this,” he said, shoving the folder back at Adam.

“She’s seen worse.” He opened the folder and slid its contents before me.

“Oh my God,” I said in the instant before the bile rose to my throat. They were morgue photos of Peadar, or the “real” Peter, as I’d come to think of him, versus the changeling I’d agreed to marry. Regardless of what Adam thought, this felt much, much worse than seeing Tucker’s body. I had been the one to do the damage to Peadar. I couldn’t help myself. I began to cry.

“Adam, stop it,” Oliver said, snatching the photo out from under my face.

“Then tell me what’s going on,” he said. Oliver’s eyes told me to keep quiet. “Come on, y’all. Talk to me. Tell me the truth for once.” Adam looked from me to Oliver, and then settled on me. “No lies, no half-truths. For once, don’t prevaricate. Don’t dissimulate. Lay it out for me.”

“I’m not sure what you are looking for from us,” Oliver said, causing Adam’s gaze to dart back to him.

Adam blinked, then looked away. He lowered his eyes to his folded hands and clenched his jaw. “All right. Let’s play it your way. I have two mutilated bodies in this morgue.” That told me that they hadn’t discovered Birdy yet. Whatever Oliver had done had kept her out of sight, at least for now. “One of which I just walked in to find you messing with. Although the coroner cannot say with absolute certainty that they were killed using the same weapon, it’s pretty damned obvious they were killed with the same type of weapon. That being said, he doesn’t have a good half damn of an idea what that weapon could be.” His hands clamped into fists and he banged them both down on the table between us. In spite of myself, I jumped. Oliver didn’t flinch.

Adam stood and walked to the corner of the room. Keeping his back to us, he lifted his hands into the air, the fingers twisting out like branches. He sighed in frustration before turning to face us. “I may be many things, but I am not a fool. I know magic when I see it, and in this town, the Taylors are magic central.” Oliver leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. I noticed that the air conditioning had raised goose bumps on his arms, and the blond hairs covering his forearms were standing at attention. “Oliver, you can’t keep shutting me out, not if we are going to have hope for any kind of future together.”

Oliver went from calm to livid in an instant. He stood up, leaning into the table and pointing at Adam. “Do not try to use emotional blackmail on me. If I keep something from you, it’s because it’s beyond what I can possibly tell you.”

“Oh, it’s over my pay grade, is it?” Adam asked, storming over.

“Precisely,” Oliver said and looked at me. “Come on, Gingersnap, we’re done here. We are leaving.”

Both of them stood over me, seething, ready to rip apart everything they had just started to piece back together. “Sit down, Uncle Oliver,” I said. He looked at me, not quite comprehending. This time I took a firmer tone. “I said ‘sit.’ You too,” I addressed Adam. They hovered, each waiting for the other to make the first move. “Well, if you two aren’t perfect for each other. A matching pair of jackasses. Now, I said ‘sit.’?”

Energy burst from me, a little stronger than I had intended, but I had grown tired of this nonsense. My feet were swelling. My pants chafed my stomach. And damn it, I wanted ice cream. With barely a wink, I lifted around four hundred or so pounds of man up into the air and slammed both of their hardheaded selves back into their respective chairs. “There,” I said to Adam. “Now that there is magic.” His eyes opened wide as he looked at me. He sat up straight and ran his hand across his mouth, trying to wipe away the look of shock, trying to regain composure and a sense of control.

“You can’t,” I said.

“I can’t what?”

“Control the situation,” I said. “You keep trying to poke your nose behind the curtain that Oliver works so hard to keep in place for you, just so you can keep thinking that you are in charge, that you aren’t in over your head. Well, you are.”

“Mercy,” Oliver tried to stop me. “You cannot un-tell something that you’ve told.”

“Oh, I know that. I do.” I nodded my head at him, and then turned to Adam. “And that’s why I am giving Detective Cook the chance to decide. Looks to me like the slightest show of power has left him trembling.” Adam started to protest. “Shut it. I’m not through. You think you know things about the Taylors, about witches, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t know a damned thing. How can I be so sure? ’Cause I am a witch, and I don’t even know a damned thing. I know what you are feeling, that queasiness in your stomach, that cold sweat between your shoulders. No, it isn’t the air conditioning. It’s what you feel when you see a spirit, when you cross an elemental’s path, or when you feel a witch’s magic. It feels like what to you? Jarring? Unnatural? Terrifying?” I glared at him. “Answer me.”

He drew a breath. “I find it unsettling.”

“Yes, you do,” I said. “So if you are ‘unsettled’ after a little taste, are you sure you want to heap a full serving onto your plate?”

“Yes, if it means I can get to the bottom of these murders. Prevent another from happening.”

I laughed, but it was not my usual laugh. The cackle I heard shocked my own ears. “Adam, you could know every single detail of our lives, and it still would not help you to prevent any crime that a witch has her heart set on committing.”

“So,” he said, his color returning to him, “you are telling me that the rest of us . . . the real humans—”

“Witches are real humans,” Oliver said as flatly as if he were playing a taped response.

“You know what I mean: regular folk. Non-witches. You are telling me that we regular folk are pretty much in control of nothing, if one of you decides to meddle.”