“Bitch.”
Fel laughs. “Meow. Put away the claws.”
“Do you want us to drop the case?” Sacha asks.
“No. Last time I checked, being a bitch isn’t a crime. Come on, we have another appointmen
t to make,” I say, eager for the road trip to the next site. I need time to shake this.
***
“How the hell could anyone do this?” Sacha asks.
I stare at the old battlement at Fort Pike historical site and shake my head. A massive chunk is missing from the brick and mortar. I crane my neck to peer up the decaying structure initially built in the early eighteen hundreds. The old cannon still rests atop the high wall constructed to see the enemy coming and give a perfect place to fire off from. The old girl’s been breaking down for a while under the strain of hurricanes and aging, and land under the water level. It bore cracks and weak points.
It’s the perfect slices taken out like a slice of cake that screams magical aid.
“Had to be magic. Nothing else could be that precise and go undetected,” I say. There’s no sign of heavy machinery, and short of lasers, I can’t think of a damn thing that could make a clean cut.
“Even if someone figured out a way to remove this section, how would they carry it away, and where would they store it?” Sacha asks.
“Why would they do any of it?” Fel adds.
“To move something this big magically, you’d be expending a large amount of energy. It doesn’t seem worth the effort for a witch.”
“You think it’s the demon again?” Fel says, catching on to my train of thought.
“Yeah.” I nod my head, straining to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Corpse, heart, head, and battlement? They’re all random. If I stretch it’s possible the parapet could be connected to the veteran’s family history, but I don’t know why you’d need both for any spell. At least not that much of it. They took the ground as well as the wall.
“Why? I think we’re letting one case get into our heads. We need to remain more objective,” Sacha argues.
“You think someone else did this?” I ask skeptically.
“Maybe. We’ll never know if we attribute every single thing we came across to one case. Our business is dealing with the strange. Why should we be shocked when we encounter it?” Sacha throws her hands up in the air.
Have I been compromised? My gut says no. I clamp my mouth shut and gesture forward in a sweeping motion with my arms. “You take point, Sach. We’ll follow your lead on this one. You’re right. I’m not able to remain impartial right now.”
Sacha stalks forward, Artemis reborn with her confident strides, intensity, and strength. I trail behind her at a slower slip, observing the area for anything of note. The lack of evidence is sobering.
“What are the locals saying?” Fel asks.
“They’re not saying it’s aliens. But they’re not saying it isn’t.”
Fel laughs. “When in doubt, blame the spacemen who probably have far better things to do than be bothered with us.”
“Come on, cousin. You know humans are the most precious snowflakes in all the universe. We’re the pinnacle in the circle of life,” I say somberly.
“God, I hope not, or we’re screwed.” She draws out the last syllable and rolls her eyes.
The area has been hastily roped off with caution tape, but it’s plainly been explored. Closed in two thousand and twelve after Hurricane Isaac, the state park has been all but abandoned.
“Do we have any clue how long it’s been like this?” Fel asks.
Sacha shrugs. “People come out here so infrequently since it’s been closed to the public, it’s impossible to say.”
“Who called it in?” I ask as we walk toward the opening, and I wonder what’s keeping the rest of the structure from falling in on itself.
“A park worker who patrols here and happens to be a witch.”