If those bitches think I won’t curse them to the ends of this earth just because they’re family, then they’re dumber than I thought. Looks like it’s finally time to play a much anticipated game of whack-a-snob.
6
The tires of my ancient Nissan Pathfinder squeal in objection as I take a turn just a little too fast. I probably just scraped the last of the remaining tread off of them, but it’s for a worthy cause. Rogan reaches up for the oh shit handle to steady himself, and the hand he has wrapped around Hoot in his lap tightens. Wisely, he keeps his mouth shut as I rage-drive us over to my aunt’s house.
I turn my attention back to the road, but I don’t miss the tic of irritation in his jaw. He’s not a fan of this detour. If it were my brother missing, I wouldn’t be either, but without the grimoire, I’m not going to be much help, and Rogan made it clear that I’m his last hope. Or Grammy Ruby was. I’d feel bad, but I just can’t find it in me right now, I’m too pissed.
I’m pissed at the bones and at my entitled family for stealing something that they have no business touching. I’m pissed at Rogan, and most irritating of all...I’m pissed at myself. I never took any of this seriously, and now here I am, chillin’ in a pot of water like a frog that doesn’t know it’s about to be boiled to death. I don’t like feeling stupid, and what’s worse is I’m the one making myself look stupid.
I pick up my phone and open my contacts, I hit the speaker button as I take another sharp turn, and a shrill ringing fills the car.
“Hey, Lennard, you at the shop? Ma and I were thinking of bringing some lunch over,” Tad tells me distractedly, the sounds of him starting his dryer in the background.
“Osseous family beatdown commencing in T minus ten minutes,” I inform him on a growl, slamming my brakes as the light in front of me blinks from green to yellow to red much too quickly for me to safely shoot through it.
“Oooh, what did they do now?” he asks, eagerly.
“They stole the grimoire.”
“Those rat-faced... Maaaaa! Get in the car, we gotta go!”
I hang up before Tad can say anything else.
“You,” I snap, turning to eye Rogan in the passenger seat. “Tell me what I need to know about your brother and whatever you think happened.”
He holds Hoot a little tighter. “I’ll tell you everything, just watch the road while I do!” he orders, panic ringing in his voice.
I change lanes to pass a slow moving car and wait for Rogan to get to it.
“It started when Elon didn’t show up for a standing monthly appointment we have with a client. He doesn’t do that...ever, so I knew something was wrong. We talk every day. I had spoken to him the night before to have him bring me some things from his garden, and I knew if something had come up that morning, he would have called me.
“I finished up with the appointment as best I could without him and then drove straight to his house. I called, but his phone went right to voicemail every time. When I got there, I punched in his code to the garage, and his car was still there, cold. Clearly, it had been parked there for a while. But when I went inside, things were...wrong.”
“How so?” I ask, flicking my turn signal on and waiting for the green arrow to light up and grant me passage.
“It was subtle at first, a soda can on the counter next to a crumb speckled plate. The TV on and playing some twenty-four-hour football highlight channel. And then I noticed the bones he always warded his windows and doorways with were missing from where they’d always been. I wasn’t sure what to think at first. Elon doesn’t drink soda, he always says it’s bad for your bones. He’s a health nut and cringes at the mere mention of white bread, but that was the loaf that was open on the counter. The only sport Elon thinks is worth watching is hockey or soccer. He couldn’t care less about football.”
I slow as we get closer to a gated community entrance. This one isn’t manned. It only requires a keycard to be swiped in order to have the gate swinging wide open to grant entry. Little does my aunt know that I have a client who lives in the same community. She used to come into my work twice a month, but when her MS started acting up, she asked if I could do house calls, and I’ve been scanning that keycard to get in twice a month ever since.
“When I went to walk past Elon’s living room to check upstairs, that’s when I saw the circle of crushed rowanberries and the pile of ash. It was still smoking. I called for him and checked everywhere, but he was just...gone.”
“Did you call the Order?”
A disdainful scoff bursts out of Rogan. “They wouldn’t help my family. The Order only cares about things that serve them. They’re all about politics and power plays, not truth and justice.”
I keep my thoughts to myself. I was under the impression that they were tasked with keeping the magical community in line, but what do I really know. Grammy Ruby never seemed too keen on interacting with them. She never said why, and I always figured it was a typical cops make people nervous kind of thing. A person could be the epitome of innocent and law abiding, but if a cop pulls up behind them, the anxiety and panic hits. I thought the Order were the witch police, but from what Rogan is saying, I might not have a full grasp on how they work—or don’t, according to him.
“So what makes you think this is some big conspiracy instead of some messed up prank? Maybe your brother is shacked up with a girl he met, and the ashes are from the cleaner’s vacuum exploding?”
An uneasy feeling churns in my stomach, and it’s as though my instincts are setting off a you’re wrong buzzer like I’m a gameshow contestant who just guessed an incorrect answer. Rogan shoots me an unimpressed look that has me questioning my own intelligence for a second.
“Elon wouldn’t leave without telling me, and the entire situation was off. When I started looking into things, reaching out and speaking with trusted friends, that’s when I discovered that there were others. Three Osteomancers and a Soul Witch.”
“What could the kidnappers want with fertility magic?” I ask, the Soul Witch part throwing me for a loop.
“What do they want with any of them?” Rogan counters. “They’re all alive, I know that much at least, but depending on why they’ve been taken, that could be a good or a bad thing.”
The agony in Rogan’s statement makes my chest hurt. I focus on the asshole side of the family that I’m headed to deal with so that my mind doesn’t wander to dark places that play out scenarios of all the bad things that happen to people who are taken against their will.
“And how can you be sure that they’re all alive?”
Rogan looks at me again like I’m an idiot, and I’m starting to get really tired of seeing that particular look on his face.
“If they were dead, their magic would choose the next in line, just like Ruby’s did with you,” he points out evenly.
“Oh, right.”
Okay, maybe I earned that last scathing look fair and square.
“Magic hasn’t transferred to anyone else in any of the missing witch cases, so whatever it is that someone wants them for, they have to be alive. I’m terrified that could change at any moment though.”