A Handful of Skulls (Here Witchy Witchy Book 9) Page 5

“That magic surge almost caused Gal to shift into her wolf form. I found the girls in a magic circle when I left the scene with Mason.”

  “What does Mason think?”

  “Not much. He’s really just waiting to hear back from Jason on the cause of death to see if this is our case or a police case.” I sighed.

  “It’s not going to be his case, and you know that. We’re on a campus where ninety percent of the students are supernatural. If it was one of them, chances are it’s a supernatural crime.”

  I knew she was right. “The question is, do we hand it off or work it alongside our Boss Man case?”

  “We haven’t found out much about Boss Man, so we’re here for a couple days. Let’s work them side by side, and then if need be, we’ll hand it off when we go back home. But something tells me it’s related. We need to find out Trent’s secret, and then we can move forward.”

  I looked at my watch and downed the rest of my coffee. “Let me grab a shower, then we’ll load the cadets up and go have dinner.”

  “I’ll see if the lockdown has been lifted. We might have to improvise on our dinner planes if it hasn’t been.”

  I had almost forgotten about the lockdown. “Hey, will you also call campus security and see if we can get a look at the route that Trent might have taken to get to the range?”

  “Yeah, I’ll see if they have cameras posted.”

  I gave her a thumbs-up before going to the bathroom for a shower. I needed a good scrub down to get the sweat stuck to my skin from being outside today off. Besides, there was nothing like a hot shower to help you think through things.

  My thinking did nothing for me. I was out of ideas on how the body had got there or what secret was worth killing for. Most of the time, the killer was someone near and dear, but there was something in my gut that told me none of the three cadets were involved with it.

  I got out of the shower in time to hear my phone ringing. I growled and wrapped the towel around me and ran to grab the phone of the dresser in the room. “Special Agent Collins speaking.”

  “Are you alright?” Levi’s voice caught me off guard. I tried to wrack my brain for why he might be asking me that but came up with nothing.

  “Did my car explode without me knowing it?”

  “No, I saw there was a murder on the PIB Academy, and I was worried it was you. No names are being released right now.”

  I snorted. “I answered my phone, so it’s not me. I’m fine. I’m on the case with Liz and Mason.” I paused for a moment. “Do you happen to know a Cornelius Davenport?”

  Levi was quiet for a moment. “Yes, I do. He’s a particularly strange fellow though, likes to keep quiet about who and what he is. The fact that you know his name worries me.”

  “Did you know that he was Boss Man?”

  Another beat past and I suddenly realized why Levi was able to pull so many strings at PIB to keep his identity a secret. “You knew.” I changed my question into a statement.

  “I did. I only know because I was trying to locate Cornelius almost fifteen years ago. I was told he’d be a good mentor for you. So I sought him out. I met with him once, and he told me that he couldn’t take you under his wing because he knew you’d end up at PIB. I scoffed at him then, but then when you accepted your assignment and I saw him there, I knew exactly why he wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t mentor someone when he was going to be their boss.”

  I pressed my lips together. “PIB wasn’t really around fifteen years ago.”

  “It was still under FBI at that time, but there was talk about it breaking off into its own branch.” Levi sighed. “I don’t know anything about him. I’m not even completely convinced that he’s a warlock. And if he is, he’s strong. If he disappeared, there’s a reason for it.”

  I agreed with that. “Okay, so he’s a man of secrets for sure. Oh, can I talk to Mario?” I started to dry myself off, holding the phone with my shoulder.

  “You want to talk to Mario?” Levi asked slowly, almost as if he didn’t believe the words out of my mouth.

  “Yeah, I need to ask him something, and I know he’s standing right there.”

  Levi chuckled. “Yes, you may.”

  “Yes, Princess.” Mario’s deep Italian voice rolled over the receiver, and it made me shiver. I hated the title, but I was starting to get used to it from him.

  “You haven’t heard from Keira lately, have you?”

  “No.”

  “Hannah?”

  “No, I would have told you if I had. Why do you ask?”

  I doubted he would tell me, mostly because he was terrified of Hannah. “Well, we had a body show up. It was turned into a shooting dummy, and she was the first person I thought of.”

  “No, that’s not her style. She likes her dolls to be alive. I doubt you’re looking at her.”

  I relaxed a little bit. “That’s good to know. Thank you. Tell Levi I’m fine, and I’ll talk to him later.” I disconnected the call and got dressed. I walked out to find Liz leaned over her laptop.

  “What’s up?”

  She looked over at me. “Just sending my report to Agent Tight Butt.”

  I snorted at the name. “Dear Agent Tight Butt. We haven’t found Boss Man, but we have found a dead body. That’s all.”

  “That sounds like a report you would write.”

  She should know, she’s gotten a few of them from me. “Well, what can I say, when I work for the King there’s only so much I can put into the report.”

  “Mm, yes, remind me if I ever meet him to tell him not to get my best agent killed.”

  I gave a small smile at that. “I’ll make sure that if I ever see him face to face, I’ll tell him that.” I motioned to her computer. “Anything from security?”

  “Not yet, they’re going through their tapes and seeing if they can find anything. They’ll let us know if they do or not.”

  I crossed my arms. “I’d rather they let us look through them.”

  “Yeah, I tried that. They refused. So we’re just going to have to trust that we can trust other agents in this situation.”

  I didn’t really like that idea, but I’d have to go along with it for now. “Okay, let’s go pick our cadets up and figure out dinner.”

  “Sounds good.” We left the dorm and headed to the other buildings to get Scott, Gal, and Joy.

  Scott was outside his building waiting for us when we got there. He wasn’t looking around, he was staring at his phone, seeming perfectly at ease.

  “Scott?” I asked, and he looked up at me.

  “Oh, hey.”

  “You weren’t supposed to leave the dorm building.” Liz reminded him.

  He shrugged. “I didn’t feel safe in there.”

  “Any reason why?” Liz raised a brow.

  I let her take front on this since she had spent time with him earlier, he was probably more likely to trust her.

  “Yeah, my roommate was acting all weird. Saying that he kept seeing explosions and shit. I think he took something.”

  I glanced, at Liz and she nodded.

  “I’ll go talk to him.” I held my hand out. “Key, please?”

  Scott gave me the key, and I used it to get into the building and then found his dorm room. I knocked on the door and waited.

  It opened just a crack, and wild eyes stared at me. “I knew you’d come. We need to talk.” He opened the door the rest of the way and pulled me in.

  I watched him move around the room like a trapped animal. His red hair stood up as if he’d run his hands through it too many times. His hazel eyes kept darting at me and to the window. “Agent Collins. I’ve seen things. Things that I can’t stop.”

  “What things?” In my experience, if someone claimed to be seeing things, it wasn’t the right time to tell them they were crazy.

  He stopped and considered me for a moment. “An explosion. It’s caused by one of our own. That’s all I know. Without more information, I can’t stop it, I can’t call in a tip.”

&nbs
p; “Is that what you typically do when you see things?”

  He nodded. “Look, you may not believe me, but I have the sight. If my professors knew, they’d want to use me in the field and urge me that way. That’s now what I want to do with PIB, so I keep it on the down-low, but this, I can’t.”

  I nodded. “The sight is a very special gift.” Clarissa had it when it came to tarot cards, she’d given me many accurate readings before. “Can you tell me any details that you think might not be important? What exactly did you see?”

  He sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. “It’s an academy building, there’s an explosion from the middle, I can see a…woman?” He hesitated, and his face pulled together as if he was concentrating. “She’s meeting a man. I can see the light glint of her PIB badge, but I can’t see the faces, no real details. Their words are fuzzy, and then suddenly, she lifts her hand and boom.”

  And boom. The end. I press my lips together. There wasn’t a lot to go off of there. “Did you see anything in her hand when she lifted it?”

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I imagined it was how he focused on what he’d seen.

  “Her fist was closed, but I couldn’t make out an object.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, thank you. I have one more question. Do you know what building?”

  Once again, he looked like he was trying to focus on something. “The sun was setting, and it was coming through the window. There are two academy buildings with windows on that side. Either the science building or the academics building.”

  I smiled. “That was helpful. Thank you.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “Your secret is safe with me,” I promised.

  He nodded. “Thank you.” His eyes went blank for a moment, and he snagged my wrist again. I froze. I knew this look. He was seeing something, and I didn’t want to interrupt him. He gasped as he came to and let my wrist fall.

  “Agent Collins…” He paused for a moment. “I saw your death at the hands of a vampire.”

  I swallowed. That phrase was turning up in my life more than I cared for. Clarissa had told me the same exact words. “Can you tell me who?”

  He shook his head. “No, but always watch your back.”

  I wanted to push and ask more questions, but I had other things I needed to attend to, like my case.

  I got back to the front of the dorm and looked at Liz. “Got it taken care of.” I left it at that. I had no intention of sharing the secret, but I did plan on seeing if I could sneak off for a bit to clear a building or two. “You two go get Joy and Gal, I need to just follow up on something Scott’s roommate said.”

  Liz gave me a slight nod, but Scott shook his head. “Nothing he was saying made sense. What on earth are you checking out?”

  “Just call it a hunch, don’t worry about it. You two go get the girls. Text me when we find out where we’re going to dinner. Liz, pick me up on the east side of the campus.”

  She gave me a thumbs up and ushered Scott away. I watched them walk off and then headed toward the academic building. What I wasn’t expecting was to find Professor Bittman walking out of the building. “Hello, Professor.”

  “Agent Collins.” She stopped for a moment. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m just taking a nice stroll around campus while I wait for the autopsy report. You know, visiting old stomping grounds.” I crossed my arms. “Working late?”

  She nodded. “Just finished up a meeting with a student.”

  “Gotcha, enjoy your evening.” I reached for the door of the building, but Bittman caught my hand.

  “Listen to me, Agent Collins, no one likes what is going on here. We’re all PIB agents, so cut the crap about taking a stroll and reminiscing. I know you’re looking for evidence. You won’t find any here. You have your suspects close by. You know what the chances are that the killer is one of those three cadets.”

  I glanced at her hand. “I’d appreciate it if you let go of me. And I know the statistics, just as much as you, but I also know that sometimes that’s not the case. What I need to know is what Cornelius’ secret was.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what it was, we were casually dating. That’s it. It wasn’t even anything serious.”

  I got a buzz on my phone, and I glanced down to check it. Liz had sent me a text saying that she was on her way, the lockdown was lifted, and we were going to get pizza. I glanced up at Bittman. “Looks like my dinner dates are ready. Have a good night, Kris.”

  She gave me a little wave as she walked off in the other direction. I waited for her to disappear before I tried the door to the academics building. Locked.

  Interesting. There also hadn’t been a student that had walked out after her. I looked at the sun. It’d sunk down below the mountains. Tonight wouldn’t be the night that the building blew up, if it happened.

  A pulse of magic shot across the campus again, bringing me down to my knees. I tried to catch my breath as the magic passed over me. I knew that magic. I’d only felt it once before, but this time it was stronger and calling out to be saved. Boss Man.

  I took off in a dead run to where I felt the wave come from. Liz and the others met me at the front of the science building. I glanced at the three cadets. “Stay back, stay together.”

  I tested the door and found it locked. I looked at Liz, “Breaking and entering?”

  She shook her head. “No, might trip something.”

  That left the transportation spell. I pressed my lips together, debating on it, but she grabbed my wrist, and the next thing I knew, we were both in the building. It took me a moment to realize that I had never actually told her that I could do it.

  Oops.

  I gave her a nod of thanks. “How are you going to explain that one?”

  “Magic,” she said simply, and we started to walk down the hallway. I waited for the magic to come again, but it didn’t.

  “If I was keeping a warlock captive, where would I be?”

  “The basement,” I answered, and we both headed to the exit lights that showed us to the stairwell.

  I opened the door, and Liz pulled out her gun. She swept the landing before we both entered. I pulled my gun out and kept it by my side. We ran down the stairs and went through the basement door. I paused as I realized that there were fake windows with sunsets in them.

  What the hell?

  “Sometimes paintings on the walls will help liven up a dark place.” Liz must have caught on to my confusion. “These are most likely facing west.”

  I paused. Facing west, where the sun was setting. It wasn’t the actual sun that was setting, it was a fake one. “We need to get out of here, now.”

  Right as I said it, the ground shook, and the walls started crumbling. I grabbed Liz, and she transported us out right as the building exploded. The first blast tossed us to the ground. Heat moved over us as bricks and debris flew at us. I pulled Liz close and threw up a circle as another blast echoed through the area. I opened my eyes to see both buildings on fire.

  My heart was in my throat as I controlled the protective part of my magic, keeping the circle purple. The purple faltered a bit as blood ran down my face. Oh fuck. I’d been hit by something, and adrenaline was carrying me through. It was as if my body suddenly remembered it was human. Pain blossomed in my head, and the world started going fuzzy.

  I was going down, and so was the circle.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The beeping of hospital machines was becoming all too common in my life lately, but that’s what I woke up to. The fact that Levi and Mario were at my bedside was not as common. I tried to put a hand to my head, but my arm refused to move more than an inch off the bed.

  What. The. Hell.

  My panicked gaze went from Levi to my arms, where I was strapped down. Levi put a hand on mine. “Be calm.”

  There was a power in his voice that I wasn’t used to. He never tried to force his power on me, and the fact that he was now scared me even mor
e.

  I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I tried again to speak, trying to plead with Levi to tell me something. Anything.

  “Stay calm, the doctors are on the way. You’re healing.” There was a disbelief in his voice.

  What the fuck had happened? I tried to think back.

  The blast, the explosion. My circle had gone down the moment I did. After that, everything was just blank.

  Probably because I was unconscious.

  A wave of nurses and a doctor came into the room. Hands were on me, holding me down, one put something in my IV, and my mind went under again. I tried to stay alert and swim back to the surface, but Levi’s voice whispered to me.

  “Sleep, Abigail, please.”

  There was a begging in his voice that I rarely heard, so I let my mind and my body rest.

  ‘Abigail Collins,” a familiar voice spoke in the dark. “Dead on scene, survived by her adopted father, Levi.”

  I wasn’t dead though. I was right there. My heart was beating. I could feel it.

  The darkness cleared, and Boss Man stood there in front of the PIB agents. Liz was leaning against the wall in our normal spot. Her arms crossed and head hanging down.

  Bandages showed on her arms, but her face was so shadowed I couldn’t tell if there was any damage there or not. If I had died, she should have too. We were in the same spot.

  “Agent Collins was on a case related to the Vampire King. She was helping hunt down a witch who was allied with a vampire. He took her life and left her for us to find.” I swore I heard Boss Man tear up.

  Liz pushed off the wall and left the room. I willed myself to follow her. I wanted to console her and let her know I wasn’t dead. I was in the hospital. From the blast that was unrelated to this case.

  Nick stood in the hallway and greeted Liz. “She’s not dead, you know.”

  “I know.”

  I was ripped from the dream and back into the hospital room. This time, I wasn’t strapped to the bed. Levi and Mario were gone, but Oliver sat in their place. I looked over at him and gave a small smile. “I survived an explosion.”

  He snorted. “Barely. Do you know what happened?”