“Wonder what his connection to the elusive Janice is?” And if his name would be on the list that Roger was supposed to be sending me.
“That I can’t tell you.” Aiden pulled a pair of silicone gloves out of his back pocket. “Is there any chance of that thing coming back here?”
“It’s doubtful, considering it’s completed its mission,” Ashworth said. “But I’ll hang around, just in case.”
Aiden nodded and glanced at me. “Do you want me to call you a cab?”
In other words, go home. I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
He frowned. “You can’t walk back from here—”
“It’s only a couple of kilometers. I’ll be fine, Aiden.”
“Liz,” he said, in a voice that suggested he would brook no arguments. “Aside from the fact it’s the middle of the night, someone has shot at you twice now. Be sensible.”
He was, rather annoyingly, right. I rubbed a hand across my eyes and then said, “I will—”
“I meant right here and now.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“In this particular case—and knowing how stubborn you are—no, I don’t.”
I scowled at him, but he simply raised an eyebrow. I dug out my phone and called a cab, only to be told that the narrow street wasn’t listed on their system. I arranged to meet them near the old rail line, and then met Aiden’s gaze. “Okay?”
“No. I’ll walk you down there and wait—”
“Aiden, you have a crime scene to attend to. It’s not that far, and there’s too many trees around here to make a long-distance shot practical. Besides, I can use a repelling spell on anyone—or anything—that comes too close.”
He didn’t look happy, but he obviously sensed it would be futile to argue. I bid them both good night, and headed out of the house. The night air was crisp but rather pleasant, and the moon a bright if incomplete globe in the sky. The power of it sang across my senses, sharpening them.
Someone was out there in the darkness, watching me.
Whoever—whatever—it was, they were keeping their distance. I had no sense of them beyond that vague awareness. Had no sense that they meant me any harm. If I’d felt anything else, I would have immediately gone back inside, but for all I knew, it was one of the neighbors out investigating what the hell was going on here.
Even so, I flexed my fingers and silently threaded an immobilizing spell around them. The air shimmered briefly, a warning sign that the spell was ready to use. Whether my watcher had caught it, or would even know what it meant, I couldn’t say.
The trees lining the other side of the road arched overhead, cutting off much of the moon’s light. There were no streetlights here, and little in the way of noise aside from the occasional chirrup of a cricket.
I clenched my fingers around the spell, gaining courage from the pulse of it as I walked down the center of the road. The presence remained distant, but it nevertheless followed. I wished there was some way to find out who it was and what they intended. Wished, not for the first time in my life, that I could read minds like Belle. But while some of our powers did leech between us, that had never been one of them.
Somewhere behind me a dog barked, and I used it as an opportunity to glance over my shoulder—and caught the briefest glimpse of movement as someone ducked behind a tree trunk.
My follower was definitely human, though they were too far away for me to be able to tell if they were male or female.
My phone beeped. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw it was a text from Roger. Inside was the promised list of addresses for Maelle’s five remaining feeders—two men and three women. The man he’d mentioned—Aled Freeman—was there, as was our most recent victim, James Morrison. There was also a Dani Holgate, Leanne Jones, and Mandy Wilson.
Neither Marlinda nor Molly were on the list, which was unsurprising given one was dead and the other fired.
If this whole mess did have nothing to do with Larissa’s anger but rather Molly’s, then those three women needed to be found and protected.
It also meant Aled Freeman could very possibly be the man Frankie had killed.
And that, in turn, meant three things: One, that Ashworth was right in thinking the Ouija board was nothing more than a ruse to cover the true mission of the soul eater. Two, that Janice was very possibly the “not so bright and very recently fired” Molly. And three, that we did have another witch on the reservation somewhere—someone who was not only capable of calling forth and controlling such a strong spirit, but one who was very adept at hiding her presence from three other witches.
My finger hovered over the forward button for several seconds, torn between not wanting to cause any further problems with Aiden, and the desire not to piss off Maelle in any way. In the end, I chose Aiden over the vampire, and forwarded the message to him, along with a quick note stating it was a list of Marlinda’s close friends. I didn’t explain where I’d gotten it. I’d worry about that when the time came.
I shoved the phone away and walked on, well aware that the dark presence continued to shadow my movements some distance back. I needed to know who it was, but, given the distance between us, any move I made—be it magical or physical—would be spotted in enough time to allow them to escape.