Think, Ash. What spell could I cast to sense the change in vibration? Ember knew I couldn’t just feel something like that. An unmasking incantation like the one I used in Cinder’s room wouldn’t work. That would just show magic, not the difference in energies between worlds.
“Different how?” She jerked her head toward Chief Higgins to indicate I should follow.
“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling. Give me a second to figure it out.” Dry leaves crunched beneath my shoes, and I racked my brain to think of a spell to pick up on what Chaos could naturally sense. Of course! I’d found a boundary-locating spell in one of the older tomes that could identify the perimeter of a hex keeping someone or something in one place. That could work, but I’d need to head back to the van for the potion kit.
Wariness drew Higgins’ face into a scowl, making him look either nauseated or constipated. I didn’t know him well enough to determine which. He had a thick black book tucked under his arm, and when we approached, he shoved it toward me. “This look familiar?”
The second my skin touched the leather cover, foreboding magic seeped into my fingers, chilling me to the marrow. I shoved it against his chest and jerked my hands back, rubbing my palms together. “Next time, warn me when you’re sending dark magic my way so I can protect myself.”
I focused on the tiny flame burning in my soul, imagining the light filling my body before creating a protective bubble around me. It wouldn’t stop an attack if the book was hexed, but it would keep the sticky, icky magic from seeping into my skin.
I held out my hands, and he gave it back to me. “This isn’t ours, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Where did you get it?” Ember peered over my shoulder and visibly shivered. As far as we knew, our coven had one dark magic book that our great-great-great grandmother had confiscated from a bad witch way back when. She’d locked it in a vault in the cellar, and no one had seen it since.
“Jason Monroe had it.” Higgins used his tongue to move the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other while he looked us up and down. “Said he and his friends got it from the thrift shop in town and used it for a séance but they contacted more than a ghost.”
I cracked open the book and flipped through a couple of pages. Drawings of demons, dark spells, and demonic sigils filled it from margin to margin. Someone had scribbled notes in the white space as well. The librarian in me wanted to gasp and clutch my pearls, but I highly doubted a dark magic practitioner cared much for book etiquette.
“A witch could easily summon a shedim demon with that book.”
Maybe so, but a human couldn’t unless the rift in the veil existed before they started the incantation. “I’m going to put this in the van. We’ll have to lock it in our vault.”
Higgins nodded. “Whatever it takes to keep your wicked spells out of the kids’ hands.”
“I told you it isn’t ours.” I gave Higgins the stink eye before turning on my heel and marching away.
“Is there a rift here?” I whispered.
“Just past the spruce tree in the clearing. You must close it, or others may escape.”
I hit the key fob to unlock the van and slid open the side door. In the bottom of the secret compartment lay another even more secret hidey-hole that only Ember and I knew about. Two taps of my index finger, my ring finger, index again, and then my pinkie unlocked the hatch. I slipped the book inside, tapped out the key backward to lock it, and grabbed the brown satchel containing our travel spell kit.
“Why do you care if others escape? You’re Chaos. Wouldn’t it please you to see our world fall under demon control?”
“Nothing would please me less. We must have balance. Order and chaos must be matched, or both our worlds would implode.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” I locked the van and jogged toward the clearing.
Ember parked her hands on her hips and squared off with the chief. “Did you call us here for help or to accuse us? You said yourself the missing kids are human.”
“I said they aren’t on the coven roster you gave me. They could be new recruits.” He took the toothpick out of his mouth and tucked it behind his ear.
It was a good thing Ember didn’t have her sword because the look on her face said she was ready to draw it and take his head clean off.
“We don’t recruit.” I stood next to her, resting my hand on her arm to calm her. “People are either born with magic or they aren’t. If they are, they find us. I promise you, our coven had nothing to do with this, but we will find out what happened.”
His gaze cut from Ember to me, his posture relaxing marginally. “Do you think it could be related to the fire in the old cemetery?”
I did my best to keep a neutral expression. “I thought they decided a discarded cigarette started it.”
He shrugged. “Seems odd the ground fire had been extinguished while the trees were ablaze. I’ll leave you to it.” He grabbed the toothpick and put it back in his mouth.
Ew. “Heat rises.” I returned his shrug and headed for the rift before he could ask any more questions.
“Can you believe that guy?” Ember fumed beside me. “After all the help we’ve given him… The safety we provide to the people of Salem.” Her hands curled into fists, her energy shifting, vibrating more intensely like she was about to summon her fire.
“Cool it, Em. We don’t need you setting the forest alight. That’s my job.”
“Right here,” Chaos said.
“No kidding.” I stopped in my tracks. Three feet in front of me lay a summoning ring the size of my bedroom. A thick line of salt encircled the space, and half-melted black candles sat on the inside where the five points of the pentagram would have been if they’d bothered to finish the spell. “We’re lucky the kids didn’t burn down the forest. Jeez.”
Ember let out a long breath. “Is this what you felt? But they couldn’t have summoned anything like what the kid described unless they had help.”
“You think we’ve got a rogue witch in town?” I set the bag at my feet and rummaged through it for my supplies. A bit of horehound, some heather, and dandelion ought to do the trick.
She shook her head. “How? We would know. We have the Witch Watcher in place. It would have sounded the bell if a new witch stayed in the city limits for more than twenty-four hours.”
I crushed the herbs in a small copper bowl and poured in the lavender oil. “Have you been reinforcing it? The spell has to be invigorated every two weeks.”
“Cinder always did that.” Her voice sounded tiny, her gaze drifting to the grass.
“And Mom before her,” I said. “It’s the duty of the High Priestess.”
“Well, shit.” She plopped cross-legged on the ground next to me. “What about that book? Aren’t you supposed to scan the resale and tourist shops to confiscate all the real magic before kids like Jason Monroe and his buddies can get their hands on them?”
I blew out a hard breath. “We’ve both gotten behind in our duties.”
