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  “Clarissa told me about the poison and what it was. You’re right; it wasn’t meant to kill you. I have a feeling I know who did it.”

  “What was it?”

  “A concoction that used a spell for paralyzation.” He shook his head. “Which is why I know who sent it to you. What the hell were you thinking drinking unknown wine?”

  I rubbed my head. “I was trying not to tip Mario off that there was someone else in the house. I stupidly assumed that since Mario opened a new bottle, it was safe.”

  “Mario opened it and didn’t notice anything off?”

  “No, said all he could smell was the sweet.” I stood up and made sure I had my balance. Osiris opened his eyes and looked at Oliver.

  “Don’t worry Merick; I’ve got her covered.” Oliver nodded.

  I walked to the door and could smell food. “I’m starving.”

  Oliver followed me down the stairs, staying closer to me than I would have liked.

  “I promise you; I’m not going to pass out again.” I sat at my table and opened the bag of takeout that Oliver brought.

  He snatched the bag away from me and started laying out the food.

  “What is your issue?” I folded my hands on the table. “I get it; I made a stupid mistake.”

  “That’s two attempts on your life in less than a week.” Oliver paused. “Levi thinks I’m behind them both. He has requested that we put our training on hold for now.”

  “You’re not behind them though. That wasn’t your magic that caused the landslide. It wasn’t you who was on my property because you’re welcomed here.”

  “I have to obey his wishes.” He shook his head. “I’ve got things I need to take care of anyways. So I won’t be around.”

  This wasn’t what he originally wanted to discuss when we’d planned on getting together today. He sat a hamburger down in front of me.

  “You have the code to the house, so if you need to, you’re welcome there.”

  I looked down at the plastic container that held the deluxe burger. “So you’re just going to disappear?”

  “It’s for the best, Abigail. There are other things at play.” He sat down and grabbed his food. “You got my letter?”

  I nodded. “And I’m full of questions.”

  “You’ll get your answers, but they won’t be from me. Not right now. Now, I know who put that wine in your fridge, but I want to hear your thoughts on it.”

  “It was either a vampire or a Cult member; they are the only two that I know would get past the security system and tip my magic off.”

  “Vampire. This is a potion that Drake used on a number of occasions. Find him, find his daughter, and you’ll catch your culprits.”

  I slowly ate my burger as I contemplated what he’d said. “Thank you.”

  “Of course,” he stood without touching his food. “I need to go.”

  “Oliver, what aren’t you telling me?”

  He shook his head. “Levi has threatened my life if I let you in on the secret. As I mentioned, he thinks I’m after your life. I’ll be in contact, but I won’t be able to see you for a while. I’m sorry.” He kissed the top of my head and walked out of the house.

  I sat there dumbstruck, staring at the empty part of the table. What the hell was going on? I went to reach for my phone, but it wasn’t in my pocket.

  Merick walked into the room and put my phone on the table in front of me. “Oliver leave so quickly?”

  “Yeah, he basically came to say goodbye.” Which also might have meant he was guilty, but I couldn’t see him killing people and shoving them into boxes.

  Merick sat next to me. “Goodbye?”

  “He’s going into hiding, I think. Or at the very least stepping away from teaching me.”

  “That doesn’t sound very like your uncle.” Merick stole my uncle’s uneaten hamburger.

  I looked down at my food. “Yeah, I know. I think that it’s just an excuse.”

  “What is?”

  “Sorry, that Levi threatened him. I think that’s just an excuse and there’s something my uncle is after. Levi has also been very good about not getting involved in mine and Oliver’s relationship.”

  Merick nodded. “So there’s something else going on.”

  “Without a doubt, and I think it has something to do with Drake.”

  “Who tried to kill you, according to your uncle.”

  I nodded. “Were you listening upstairs?”

  “A little bit. I was trying to give you privacy, but everything travels through the vents in the house. It’s very hard to have a private conversation.”

  I knew he was trying to make a little bit of a joke, but it fell flat. My mind was trying to figure out my next steps and what I needed to get done on each of the cases. And my uncle. He was just going to walk out of my life after keeping tabs on me for so long. It didn’t make sense.

  “Abigail?” Merick asked. “Your phone is ringing.”

  “Oh.” I grabbed my phone and answered it. “Special Agent Collins speaking.”

  “I’ve got another body in a box. Do you want to come take a look?” Mason’s voice came over the phone. “Also, we didn’t get much from that scene last night.”

  I took a moment to decide if I was okay enough to go out and do my job before I answered. “Yeah, I need to.” I rubbed my head. “I’m just moving really slow today, so give me a few minutes to finish eating lunch and grab a shower.”

  “You got it; I’ll text you the address.” He disconnected and a few moments later my phone buzzed with his text.

  Merick shook his head. “You are not well enough to go out.”

  “I’m fine. I can move just fine, my mind is a little fuzzy, but I’ll be fine.” I bit into my burger. “Besides, you know me; I’ll go stir crazy sitting here all day.”

  The front door opened and Merick instantly turned back into Osiris and started picking at the now half-eaten burger.

  Clarissa came in and looked at me and then to the cat. “Oliver gone?”

  “Yep. Thanks for humoring him and going out so we could talk in private.”

  She sat a few bags on the counter. “I understand his desire for privacy; he simply could have just asked me to leave.”

  “What do I owe you for the groceries?”

  “Nothing, he gave me cash for them.” She looked at Osiris. “Why are you letting your cat eat human food?”

  I shrugged. “Because he prefers it to cat food. I got a call from Mason while you were out. I’m going to grab a shower and go look at a body.”

  “Abby…” she started to say something and then shook her head. “You know what, go ahead. You’ve had your tea; you’re walking and talking. I think you’re good.”

  I relaxed a little bit. “Thank you.”

  “Yep, just be careful. While you’re out, is it okay if I look through your big book of everything to see if there’s a way to protect the house from things popping in?”

  “Please do.” I hadn’t even thought to look in the book. The Big Book of Everything was a combined Book of Shadows from my parents. It had everything I could imagine in it, including my heritage. It was an amazing piece of work and had helped me through many situations.

  She nodded and shooed the cat away from the burger. “Call me if you need me. Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.” I finished the last couple bites of my burger. “Thank you, Clarissa, for taken care of me.”

  She smiled. “I will always take care of you. It’s what friends do.”

  I returned her smile and walked back to my room to take a shower.

  I pulled up to the address that Mason had given me. Luckily for me, most of the press and the gawkers had died down already. There were just a few people dotting the outside of the crime tape.

  I ducked under the tape and waved to one of the officers on duty before going to find Mason on the stoop of the house. There, at the bottom of the stairs was another brown box with blood und
er it. The flaps were opened, and the body was now laid out so that limbs were sticking out of the box.

  This woman was naked, had very short hair, and there was no sign of a struggle that I could see. No physical attributes that were the same as the other victims, other than her gender. There wasn’t anything that set her aside.

  “Whose house is this?” I didn’t look up from the body, but I pulled out latex gloves from my bag and went to roll the body over enough so I could see the back.

  There, what I was looking for, puncture wounds, just like the other victims. I touched the bottom of the box, and the rune activated, soaking up the blood.

  “Her grandmother’s, Ms. Lowe. The victim’s name is Karen Lowe.”

  I took a deep breath and stepped back. “Let me guess, divorced, father currently has custody of the child or children?”

  “How did you know?”

  “That’s what our last two victims had in common.” I pulled my gloves off and tossed them in a biohazard bag. “I need to talk to Jason about what he found in the blood report.”

  “Like what? I thought the toxicology reports came back clean.”

  I licked my lips. “Like wine or a sweet drink, stomach contents should be able to tell us that right?”

  “What are you thinking?” Mason came up next to me.

  “I’m thinking a poison potion, Mason. I have a feeling I know exactly who is behind this.” Drake was, he had to be. I texted Jason what to look for in the reports. “I don’t want any more bodies turning up.”

  Mason made a noise of agreement. “The packages had to be sent from somewhere, or dropped off, so far nothing that we can track.”

  “Magic could have tracked it by blood, but since the rune soaked it all up, that’s impossible.” I crossed my arms. “I need to talk to the ex-husbands of Carmen and Karen.”

  Mason nodded. “I’ll talk to her grandmother and get you a phone number. Carmen might be a little bit tougher.”

  “I’ll check the system for her. Is Karen a shifter?”

  “Yes, runs on her mother’s side of the family.” Mason flipped through his notes. “So that’s another thing the three victims have in common.”

  I stepped away from the box and turned towards the road. Any of the gawkers that had been there when I arrived were gone now, leaving the sidewalk empty. The world started to spin a little bit, and I closed my eyes. Taking a few deep breaths, I forced myself to focus on the situation at hand.

  When I opened my eyes, a rune in the middle of the street caught my attention. I walked toward it and felt the magic march up my body, just as it had done at the office. Same magic, same person.

  “What is it?”

  I smirked. “I think I know who’s behind the magic. Don’t let anyone near that mark in the middle of the street. Russel up any of the reliable press that was here that might have been filming the crowd.”

  Mason followed my gaze to the middle of the road. “I’ll make sure to have them mark it off. Do you know who you’re looking for?”

  “I think so. I’ll be in the office for the rest of the day. Get any footage that might have been shot today and get it to me.”

  “You got it.” He walked over to one of the officers. I went back to the Hummer and got in the car. Since I was feeling better, going into the office was probably the better idea than going back home right now.

  I turned the key and texted Merick so he knew where I was going. I debated on texting my uncle, but if he needed to disconnect from me, I’d let him. Who knew what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into. I should have just been glad that he wasn’t trying to trade me for anyone again.

  I took the car down the road and watched as Mason’s people placed some plastic bubble over the rune. I assumed that it was specifically made for magic, so I let them be. Mason knew what he was doing, even if he wasn’t a warlock.

  I headed to the south office and prepared myself to work the afternoon away.

  I stopped to get coffee on the way to the office because I was still dragging. It was like my body was refusing to wake all the way up and actually function. I still took the stairs, and when I got to my office, I found two women standing in front of the door.

  One of them I knew well. She was a little bit shorter than me, and her blonde hair was pulled up into a tight bun on her head. Last time I’d seen her she was dressed in red and supposedly going to see Boss Man, but now she was back in typical hunter black. Her badge was clipped almost on the back of her pants. Agent Melody Grace.

  “I’m sorry Special Agent Grace, Abigail Collins is to work alone.”

  My heart leaped, something was going my way.

  “Liz, you don’t know what she’s capable of, it is not wise to leave her on her own.”

  “Oh really, do you care to tell me what I’m capable of? Because there’s nothing that would require me to have a partner.” I walked up to the pair. “You must be Special Agent Liz Jefferson.” I held a hand out.

  The woman was petite, straight short hair, but there was nothing about her that would make people mistake her as weak. She shook my hand. “I am, I’m lead on the Black Magic task force.”

  When our skin touched, I felt a little zap of power and got a taste of just how powerful our lead was. It made me smile. “It’s good to meet you. Glad to see some of my requests will be honored.”

  Grace spun to look at me. “You are a loose cannon.”

  “Wow, such hostility. What did I do to you?” I raised a brow. “I thought our last case together went well. Then Tomes was recaptured, and now you’re here. I thought as soon as Tomes’ trial was over, you’d be heading back to where ever it is you came from.”

  “That was my plan, and I got resigned here because of issues with my paperwork on Ira.”

  That struck me hard, and I remembered what Yorkingson had said about Tomes’ case getting caught up in paperwork.

  “It was in order when I gave it back to the supervisor of the executioner.” I had needed to add the location I’d found via magic. There were a couple things that she had neglected to put in the paperwork, and she’d made a note about Ira’s relation to the king.

  She poked me in the chest. “You performed a spell for Ira’s location.”

  I gently pushed her finger down, not wanting to give a bad impression to my newest co-worker. “I did because I wanted to do more than just hand over a mostly blank file.”

  “Yeah, well Boss Man wanted to know why I hadn’t done that. Why you’d done it alone when he had assigned the case to both of us.”

  I bit my lip. “Because you told me the case was closed. So I went ahead and did the rest to the best of my ability.”

  “Which screwed me over. I want to be your partner because I think you’re reckless. You need someone to follow and show you the correct way to do things.”

  I glanced at Liz, and she motioned to Agent Grace. “Clearly, you two have something to hash out here.”

  “No, because that would be unprofessional.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry you feel that way Agent Grace, but I don’t work with partners. The last one I was assigned was killed.”

  “It should have been you.” She snarled, and I couldn’t help myself. I punched her.

  Grace threw a punch at me and took me down to the floor. I kicked her off and snarled at her. “What the fuck do you know?”

  “I know that Nick was transferred here after being kicked off a case and that the reason he came here was because of you.” She wiped blood from her lip.

  “And what the hell does that have to do with you? You two didn’t even know each other.” I pulled myself up off the floor.

  Grace shook her head. “You’re right; we didn’t. He dated my sister and broke her heart when he came here.”

  I just stared at her. “And for that reason, it should have been me?” It didn’t make sense. The reaction was way too far off target for something like that.

  “My sister lost her light when Nick left her. I’d never met him
because I was undercover, so I couldn’t risk leaving Tomes’ side. But she wrote me letters. Then he left her. They were engaged. I didn’t know until I called back home after our case and she told me that he’d been killed.”

  I pressed my lips together. “I’m sorry that it happened. But your sister isn’t the only one that was hurt from that.”

  “You have no idea.” She lunged at me again, and this time I just put a protective circle up.

  “Listen, Grace. I’m fucking exhausted, I’ve been poisoned, I’ve seen a dead body, and I’ve got a child vampire running around. If we’re even going to be on the same team, I need to know that you have my back. And I need you to tell me the truth.”

  Her brows shot up. “I am telling you the truth.”

  “No, you’re not. None of your story lines up. I thought you’d be a better liar than that since you’ve been an undercover agent.”

  She crossed her arms. “You’re right. You’re not privy to the truth, Collins.”

  “Then I don’t want you watching my back.” This was why I hated having partners. I turned to my office and swiped my keycard.

  Jefferson followed me in. “I thought you weren’t coming into the office today.”

  She shut the door behind her, making sure that it clicked shut. I ignored the shouting that came from the other side of the door and kept my back to it so I didn’t have to see Grace’s angry face through the glass.

  “A dead body came up, so I had to. I’m feeling better.”

  She laughed. “You look awfully good for being poisoned.”

  “Well, I’ve had worse.” I shook my head. “What can I do for you?”

  “I just wanted a briefing on your current cases. And see if you needed any support.” She crossed her arms. “Came up here and found Grace trying to get into the office. Gotta say, you have a way with people.”

  I shook my head. “It would have been fine if she hadn’t mentioned Nick. I didn’t realize she had such disdain for me.”

  “And all that about her sister, why are you sure that’s a lie?” She looked at the doll on my desk. “That’s unsettling.”