Witch for Hire (25 page)

"Do you have any old elves, dwarves, or vampires on staff?" Age mattered.
 

"A few."
 

"Could I talk to them?"

"I might be able to arrange it, but I'd need to know why so I could clear it with the lieutenants."

"I want to know if they've seen anything like this before. The types of things that would give someone power often repeat actions. It's a long shot, but it can't hurt to ask." By the end I was pleading. I wanted knowledge, something to help me plan.

"I can do that, but you'll have to talk to them at the end of their shifts. You might be able to catch one or two if we go back now."

"Sure, I'll take the rest of my salad back." I'd gotten my food boxed in case I couldn't eat much.

Back at the office, I settled in with my salad and a book. A few officers were willing to talk to me, but it was anyone's guess when they'd be back. I was using the time to review spells. The next spells I needed to do were not ones I'd performed before. No one wants to have evil essence around, even for educational purposes. Before long, my salad was a memory, and I was lost in the book.

"Miss Oaks?" A quiet voice intruded on my reading.
 

"Yes?" I looked up to see a muscular elf, with golden hair and chiseled features.
 

"I am Ian. You wanted to speak with someone who might remember similar events."
 

"Nice to meet you, Ian. Please, sit down." I'd hurt my neck if I had to look up at him. "Are you off duty?"

"Yes."
 

"I'll try not to keep you long. Have you encountered any sorcerers?"

"Not directly."

"What contact did you have?" Elves could be tedious.

"Years ago there was one who wanted to use trolls, but the trolls were not ones to follow directions. Not being handy with magic, they made awkward conduits, with difficulties following directions, and a sensitivity to sunlight. Ultimately the trolls spent more time fighting among themselves than they did fighting for anyone else. Their actions were a large contributor to their eventual confinement in the preserves." Every word was carefully picked, precisely spoken.

"Who or what was behind the plot?"

"I doubt anyone ever knew. I didn't."
 

Elves were hard to read, but I'd been practicing lately, and knew there was more to the story if he was willing to share. "Can you tell me anything helpful?"

"What have you told Carls?"
 

It was never good when they deflected; he hadn't liked the way I'd phrased the question. "Nothing."

"Be careful. Nothing good occurs when trolls are involved." He stood up. "If there is nothing else I will be going now."

"Thank you for the information."

"I hope to be more helpful next time."

I bowed my head as he left. I doubted I'd get better information, but it was nice to know that I'd been right about something. Not that it helped much. Knowing an evil entity had stirred up trolls previously was useful, but only if I knew enough to look for the host. With no idea who'd been behind the original plot, I wasn't any better prepared than I'd been before.

After four interviews, Ian was the only one to contribute something useful. Talking to the dwarf, Carlow, had been a waste of time. I hadn't learned anything helpful, I was exhausted, and my energy hadn't bounced back.

"Jones," I called, "I need a ride to the hotel."
 

He rolled in from his desk. "I've got two more for you. Durin, and his partner Adolf, can drive you to the hotel while you talk to them."

"Great, what's their story?" And why couldn't they have shown up in the past three hours?
 

"They're vampires. They don't have a lot of time before they go on duty. This is gonna be the best chance you get to talk to them, unless you want to wait until they get off at four." He sounded offended. I couldn't blame him since he'd been working really hard to arrange these meetings.
 

"Sorry, I'm tired. I'll be nice, though. I want their help."
 

"Good, now get. They'll pick you up outside." He tossed my bag to me and I waved as I walked out.
 

It was cold; the temperature had dropped since dark. I shivered a bit in my light coat. I hadn't been thinking when I'd grabbed clothes this morning or I would have dressed in warm layers.
 

One marked car rolled in to the parking lot, pulling up in front of me. A window rolled down and someone from the inside asked, "Are you Oaks?"

Wanting to see who I was addressing, I conjured a small witch light near the window. The sandy haired guy in the driver's seat grimaced, flashing fangs. "I'm Oaks. You are?"

"Durin and Adolf," he motioned to the guy next to him, who waved at me around Durin.

"Just wanted to be sure. Can you let me in?" Adolf whisked out of the passenger side, rounding the car to open the door. "Thanks."
 

Knowing I didn't have much time, I got straight to the point. "I was told you might know something about the current situation, something from years ago." I didn't know how long ago, the elf hadn't said.
 

"When things went south the plot dispersed. The power abandoned the rogue trolls, and returned to hiding." Adolf replied; apparently he was the more personable of the two.
 

"What power?"

"Child, if anyone knew who or what had been behind the disturbance, it would have been hunted down a long time ago." Weariness laced his voice.
 

"How long ago?"
 

"Much longer than you have been alive. Perhaps longer than your parents have lived."
 

"Do you not remember?"

Durin picked up this question, "When you've lived as long as we have, you stop remembering specific dates. Sequences become more important, and some portions of those sequences you can put dates to, and estimate the rest. We do not remember, and the exact time wouldn't help you." He pulled the car to a stop outside the hotel.
 

"My thanks, and apologies if I've offended you."
 

Adolf laughed and Durin smiled. Adolf swept open the door for me. "If you'd offended us we wouldn't have answered." He was back in the car, and was driving away before I knew what to say. Vampires. . .
 

Michelle

Morning came quickly. The night hadn't been as restful as I'd wanted. Instead, it had been filled with bad dreams, tossing and turning. In my dreams, I'd seen flames burning a house. There was a trail of silver hair leading to a man. A book flashed before my eyes, before a wolf's growl morphed in to my alarm.
 

A quick shower cleared my head, and I felt normal by the time I pulled on clothes. A good cup of tea would finish pushing the dreams away. I was still low on energy. With a sigh, I picked up my phone. Calling Jones was self-defense this morning; I didn't want another wake up visit.
 

"What?" He answered right away, voice still husky.
 

"It's Oaks."
 

"What do you want?" Nope, not very awake.
 

"A ride in twenty minutes. I'll be done with breakfast and ready to work."
 

"I'll be there after I have coffee." He hung up.
 

I picked up my purse and headed down to the hotel's mediocre breakfast. It got bonus points for having real food: eggs, fruit, muffins, juice, bacon, and small waffles. None of it was the best, some rubbery, some just odd. It was average for breakfast, but good for a hotel breakfast, which was an achievement.

When I checked my phone, I had a missed call from Andrew. He left a message saying he wanted to get together, and was sorry we hadn't been able to connect. He hoped I would get in touch with him soon, as he was free this weekend. With a sigh, I shoved my phone to the edge of the table. I didn't have time for a date until the troll situation was under control.

By the time my phone buzzed, announcing Jones' arrival, I'd finished eating and had a list of things to do with the essence. There was a limited supply of essence, so we needed to prioritize the list. I drew a line through two lengthy spells. We needed to act quickly. The essence wouldn't keep well, and Carls couldn't be kept in the dark forever.

I slipped in the car. "Good morning."

He grunted, taking a big swig from the quart sized coffee cup. He didn't say anything the rest of the way to the office. For a normally cheerful guy, he was moody. I studied his bloodshot eyes, realizing he hadn't slept any better than I had.

In the work room, he rinsed out the mug and leaned back against the counter, pinning me with a stare. "This needs to end."

"Agreed." I didn't want him to preach at me.

"Do you have a plan?" He sneered.
 

"Several actually. No need to get nasty." This was not the Jones I'd worked with for months. "What's wrong?"

"Dreams. Nasty dreams." Just saying it was bringing back bad memories, his eyes had widened, his breathing accelerated.
 

Snapping my finger I called, "Hey!" He shuddered, looking around as if unsure of his location. "I've got a few ideas. Let me check the samples and I'll see what I can do."
 

I scurried over to the samples, seeing the cloth that had been spelled to absorb the essence was bright purple. I had four samples, two small and two large, to work with. It wasn't much; but it was enough to do the top three spells on the list. Maybe more if things went well.
 

I plopped down at the table, waiting for him to join me. It was slow, like molasses, but eventually he oozed over. I asked, "What's the priority?"
 

"Trolls, I guess, but the sorcerer isn't far behind." He shrugged, "We need to catch everyone."
 

"I can work with that. The map," I motioned to our right where my masterful combination of spells was sitting, unused, "isn't working because it can't trace the parts of the trolls covered in the spells. It's only seeing the bits and pieces of them not affected by the spell. That's why the dots move strangely, and don't have trolls at them. The troll is spelled, but the troll's sweat, excrement, and dead hair wouldn't be spelled. I can fix the spell so it will track them now."

"We don't have the manpower to do full assaults on every place they're staying. Even if we did, it would take forever and tip off the entire organization." Now he sounded depressed.
 

"True, but what if I could call the trolls and the sorcerer here?" I wasn't sure it would work, but I was willing to take a chance.
 

He straightened, and honed in on the here and now for the first time today. "Could you? That would tie up most of the loose ends. I might not get fired for lying to Carls."

"I think so." Great, now if I disappointed him I'd feel horrible. "But we're going to need some help."

"What kind of help?"

"Here's what we do." I outlined a plan. A crazy, risky plan, requiring timing, guts, and an extra big helping of luck. I hadn't been lucky lately.
 

Michelle

I carefully removed the sorcerer essence-soaked cloths from the vials, using oak tweezers to transfer all of them into one glass jar. I needed all the essence for these spells. If I messed up, we'd need to gather more before we did anything else.
 

We'd decided to put all of our eggs in one basket. I wasn't going to judge how strong the sorcerer was, locate him, or call people associated with him. I didn't have enough essence prepared to do those spells. I could harvest more from the troll, but it would be fifteen hours before I could use it, and we were running out of time. The trolls and sorcerer couldn't stay on the loose, plotting their next move, wearing us down. Those spells would have helped, but I was going to use one spell, and hope to catch them.
 

If it worked, it would be a thing of beauty, and if not, I'd be lucky to leave in one body bag. High risk, high reward plans were tricky. You won or lost it all. I didn't want to lose an arm, leg, or head.

One of the dangers was the sorcerer. There was a good chance he'd know when I snapped the spells into place. Rather than slowly building the spells and weaving them into one, I needed to build every piece before quickly assembling them. In this case, it was a woefully inefficient method of spell building, but it was the only way to catch the sorcerer unaware.
 

The preparations were slow. Normally, I'd build the spell in my head and tie it to a physical object and runes. For these spells I would be using runes drawn on holly, oak, and maple wood strips. It wasn't as fast, but it was safer than using my personal power, and allowed me to do most of the work ahead of time. Doing everything but joining the parts of the spell into a whole would allow me to assemble everything quickly.
 

A big fear of mine was botching a spell. It might look like I was wasting time, but writing the spells gave me a chance to check them. I didn't want mistakes when I had to put half a dozen spells in action as quickly as possible.

As I worked, my mind traveled back to my home. Landa had said she'd take care of the flower, but if she hadn't, I was going to beat that elf until he fixed my bathroom. I wasn't going to worry about that Narzel-farted piece of trash trying to eat me every time I showered. If we were going to live in the same building, he was going to leave me alone.

Not that I was sure how to set up a truce. I couldn't curse him to behave. My mom would tan my butt if she knew I'd cursed someone. I'd rather face the elf every day than see her mad at me. Come to think of it, if she knew what I was about to do, she'd chain me to a chair. I wasn't sure what my dad would do to me. He hadn't been around long enough for me to know his moods. One thing was for sure, after he heard about this, he'd give me a lecture. He had been very clear on one point: he was in my life now and he wasn't leaving.