Gray Witch (Black Hat Bureau 5)

Hatred burned hot and fast in the Boos’ eyes. “We smell you.”

Confirmation the Amhersts had witch blood wasn’t exactly a shock. Neither was the Boos’ disgust.

“Other witches,” Markus clarified through his gritted teeth. “Can you verify one was at the inn?”

“Maybe.” Malcom clamped a hand on his brother’s shoulder to still him. “What do we get in exchange?”

“To kill her when you find her.” Markus offered me up without a blink. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Emmett growled, his teeth bared. “Brother?”

“All right.” He was slow to agree, sated from their earlier kill and not interested in glutting. “Let’s go.”

The four of them headed toward the inn while Asa and I watched their grim procession.

Just before they were out of sight, Malcom glanced over his shoulder…and winked at me.

“We need to go.” Asa gripped my upper arm. “Now.”

“You saw that, right?” I craned my neck after Malcom. “He knew we were there, but he let the Amhersts drag them to the inn to begin a search.” I rushed after Asa. “What do you think’s going on?”

“They’re playing a game. With the Amhersts, and with us.” He shepherded me away. “What are they?”

“The Amhersts or the Boos?”

“Either.” He amended, “Both.”

“The Amherst kids have white witch parents. If they went dark, none of us smelled black magic on them. If they haven’t, they’ve done something equally stupid. I’ve never seen that level of sentience in a spirit. The Boos can bargain rather than accept orders. That’s not revenant or poltergeist behavior.”

Wary the Boos might change their minds and come hunting me, Asa and I jogged the whole way back to the hotel. Inside the room, I dropped our glamour to avoid spooking Colby again then got to work placing wards to keep out spirits.

Only once those protections were in place did we settle in to give Clay an update. “Any idea what we’re dealing with?”

“Reminds me of lemures. Wandering and vengeful ghosts. Those aren’t solid, though.” He thought on it some more. “The consumption of entire meals, entire people, is a vrykolakas trait. They mainly eat livers and flesh. They’re less corporeal but still able to interact with the world around them.”

“How about we call them koalas and leave it at that?” I ignored the guys’ synchronized eyerolls. “What’s anchoring them here? What hold do the Amhersts have on them? And what are the Amhersts? Those are the big questions. We need to remove the Amhersts from the equation, and then take down the Boos. We can figure out the rest once the situation has been neutralized.”

Clay lifted a finger for silence and brought his vibrating phone out of his pocket.

“Kerr.” He listened for a minute. “I’m putting you on speaker.”

“We have a report of Francis Franklin gutting a couple in Natchez.” Parish bit out the order almost as well as the director. “I want your team on it.”

“We have a situation in Raymond.” Asa sat on the desktop beside me. “We can’t afford to leave yet.”

“Francis is the greater threat.” Parish brooked no argument. “I’ll deploy a secondary team to Raymond.”

The call ended with a click, and Clay stared at us in expectation, his whole body trembling.

“I can tell you’re about to pop.” I urged him on with a roll of my wrist. “Who is Francis Franklin?”

“Femme Fatale Frankie was a B-movie staple in slasher flicks. She was gorgeous, and a bean sidhe.” He vibrated with excitement. “When her movies wrapped, her costars died. Every. Single. Time. Her fans loved it. Her costars, not so much. Eventually, no studio could afford to touch her.”

“Did she do it?” I frowned. “Bean sidhes predict deaths. They’re not the cause of them.”

Among the fae, they were despised as a reminder that even the long-lived die eventually. They weren’t popular among other factions either. People blamed them for being harbingers, but it wasn’t like they were fulfilling the prophecy. They merely gave the warning they were genetically wired to impart.

“Police tried to make the charges stick, so did Black Hat, but there wasn’t enough evidence.”