“Yes, but I have no idea how long the spell will remain viable,” Ashworth replied. “Do you want to drive, Ranger?”
Aiden immediately gulped down the rest of his coffee and then led the way out. Belle handed me the backpack as I walked past and then followed to lock the door.
“I’ll do some research while you’re out,” she said. “Although if shifters capable of magic are a rarity, then Gran might not have much information on them.”
“There’s always Google if we draw a blank with her books.”
Belle snorted. “Because Google isn’t at all full of all sorts of misinformation when it comes to magic and the supernatural.”
I grinned. “There’s plenty of wheat amongst Google’s chaff.”
“Yeah, but who wants to sort through chaff all the time?”
I laughed and ran after the two men. Once we were seated in Aiden’s truck, Ashworth said, “Do a U-turn and head toward Moonlight Flat.”
Aiden did so and then flattened the accelerator. “Is there any indication this shifter is up to no good?”
Ashworth hesitated. “Other than the fa
ct that evil seemed part of its essence, no.”
“Meaning she could just have stopped in the reservation to hunt down some food.”
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s highly unlikely, given she was attacked by magic from an unknown practitioner before she got to her prey.”
Aiden grunted. “If that’s the case, why haven’t either of you sensed the presence of another witch in the reservation?”
Ashworth directed him left onto Murphy Street and then growled, “We’re witches, not radars. We don’t have magi-sensitive antenna that lets us know the minute another witch moves into the same area.”
“Besides which,” I added, “the reservation is huge. We’d sense them if they were on the same street, but anything beyond that can be haphazard.”
“And yet you can sense the use of magic from a fairly decent distance, so why one and not the other?”
“Because most witches generally mute their output,” Ashworth growled. “Makes it easier to be around each other—no power friction, if you like.”
Aiden glanced at me through the rear-view mirror. “Do you and Belle do this?”
“Yes, but not entirely successfully.”
“Which was the reason I suspected there was more to the pair of them than what they were admitting, remember,” Ashworth said.
Because he’d seen how deeply my magic meshed with Belle’s—something that shouldn’t have been possible even if she was my familiar. Not so completely, at any rate. It was certainly something I didn’t want other witches seeing, although none of the other witches who’d been called into the reservation to date appeared to have noticed.
Or maybe they noticed and just didn’t comment on it, Belle said. Maybe they simply made a side note on their reports to the RWA and Canberra. It would certainly go some way to explain your conviction that your parents will come calling.
Could be. To Ashworth, I added, “Which means you need to teach us the proper method of concealment, because I certainly don’t want any other witches spotting what you did.”
“Few other witches have my experience, lass,” he said. “But yes, I’ll teach you both my highly modified and very dependable muting spell. Another left at the next street, Ranger.”
Aiden briefly slowed to get around the corner. “Do you still have the bones and blood samples you took?”
“Yes,” Ashworth said. “Why?”
“I’ll get Ciara to analyze them. We’ll at least know whether they belonged to a human or animal.”
Ashworth grunted and then leaned forward to put a plastic bag into the center console. “Just in case I get sidetracked and forget later.”
“Thanks.”