Gray Witch (Black Hat Bureau 5)

Aiming my gaze higher than my navel, I filled in Asa on my conversation with Myrtle.

“We have the Boo Brothers,” he mulled it over, “who are an undefined variety of dead. We have an inn run by a white witch family. The parents are missing, and the kids are performing dark rites under the cover of LARPing. Their restaurant burned down. A familiar with it. And a teenage boy was kidnapped and killed behind their house.”

“This feels like a side quest.”

“How do you know about side quests?”

Fair question, given anything Mystic Realms leaked out of my ears. “Osmosis?”

Full dark had fallen by the time we reached the area, which made searching for clues harder but safer.

“They’re onto us.” Markus stomped into view dressed in the same jeans and tee as before. No wizard robes this time. “We have to be ready when they come back.”

“You’re paranoid.” Trinity followed him wearing Clay’s brunette wig, fiddling with it every few steps. “They’re FBI. You saw the badge. Do you really think they let witches join the Bureau?”

Depending on the Bureau, they downright encouraged it. But that was beside the point.

“I found the witch in Mom and Dad’s room, which means she magicked open the lock, because I sealed that door shut myself,” Markus argued. “What do you think she was doing?”

“She probably got lost, like she said.” Trinity removed the wig and flexed it on her hand. “How do you know she’s a witch?” She jogged to catch up when she fell behind him. “They seemed normal to me.”

They marched past our hiding place, and we hung back to give them a head start.

“They’re not normal.” Markus worked his jaw. “Come on.” He set a brutal pace. “I’ll prove it.”

“We’re not going there again, are we?” Trinity gave up on styling the wig. “Twice in one day?”

“They’ve been fed.” He led us straight to the stump Myrtle mentioned. “They won’t be any trouble.”

A spasm twitched through Trinity’s shoulders, but I couldn’t tell if it was fear or anticipation.

Markus, on the other hand, was salivating for what came next.

The top of the stump, as near as I could tell, had been sanded to create a smooth surface. Moonlight hit the edge, and it shone, leading me to believe it had been coated in resin or polyurethane to preserve it.

From his pocket, Markus produced a switchblade and sliced across his palm. He flicked the blood onto the stump, which absorbed every drop, then he let Trinity layer on neon Band-Aids to cover the wound.

“Rise,” he commanded, and the earth trembled beneath us. “Obey your master.”

A blueish-gray haze seeped across the ground, a fog so thick and cold, I took a step back.

A standing apparition formed atop the stump, and another coalesced beside it.

The Boo Brothers.

Definitely dead then.

“What do you want?” Malcom, the older brother demanded. “Ain’t you ever heard of rest in peace?”

“There is no peace here,” Emmett said, his eyes black and bottomless. “Can we kill them yet?”

“Not yet.” Malcom stepped down beside his brother. “One slip though, Marky, and you’re lunch.”

“You and your sister.” Emmett stared a hole through Trinity. “I bet you scream real pretty.”

Most things brought back after death came back wrong, and it sounded like the quasi-religious Boos had a different fixation now than in life. Or maybe death had cut away the excess to reveal their true selves.

“Enough with the theatrics.” Markus stepped between them and his sister. “Can you sense witches?”