The Enigma on Eden Road Read online

  “Help us,” I told her, standing on my numb legs. “It will protect the house, at least. Stop us from being invaded mentally from psychic attack and deter anyone not welcome from casting spells at us.”

  She nodded. “It has to be a witch on their side.”

  “Or, someone with witch-like abilities,” I reminded. “Whoever—whatever it is, they’re certainly using dark energy, and this gem here, in all its power, will protect us from that darkness.”

  “We still have to think about how we’re going to find the beacon yet,” she continued.

  “Then, go have a think about it,” I told her. “I’ll cast this out.”

  While Cassandra occupied herself, I set the crystal up inside the house, casting out its protective properties. There was no chance I would be setting it up outside, especially given that a witch could easily destroy it.

  As we wound down through the afternoon and well into the evening, I searched through my book of shadows restlessly, hoping to come across something that would give us an answer or a clue as to what we might have been dealing with—monsters, that we knew, but there had to be a big bad, someone at the centre of it all.

  “Boo,” Ivory chortled, scaring me.

  I sat on my legs with my book resting on the arm of the chair. My glasses already teetering on the end of my nose. “Har-har,” I grumbled back. “Ivory, we’ve got to—”

  “I know,” she said. “Everyone is abandoning the area.”

  She’d already been here when Phil had told us the Council were closing their gates, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that she knew the rest of the world would be doing the same. As much as they didn’t know it, the human world looked to the witches to see what to do next.

  “We need you to be on the watch for any areas of interest.”

  She fanned a wing out, saluting me with it. “Already on it,” she said. “What are you going to be doing?”

  Slamming the book shut, a small spout of dust spat out. “No idea,” I said. “There are no leads. Only dead ends.”

  “Surely that’s not true,” she said. “You can always go and search for something.”

  That had its own set of problems currently, mainly because we would be found out and then killed as there’s no intervention from the Council. It’s what they mean by saying, you’re on your own, they don’t mess around.

  “We’ll figure something out,” I said. “Cassandra is busy thinking, and I’m busy looking. I have the news on. If tonight doesn’t bring us any further information, we can always go somewhere that’s hot with action.”

  “Hot with action?” she laughed, snorting through her nostrils. “Will Phil be there.”

  “No,” I snapped. “He’s gone, and so is every other witch.”

  She turned her head away. “But you have me, and that’s all that counts.”

  “Can you count?” I grumbled back at her.

  “Right, I’m off, before I change my mind and see if the Council are accepting lost familiars.” She hopped away, clinking around on her feet.

  I turned to the television. Martha Mandel, still primed and proper, reading from a script. I’d probably seen more of her in the last week than I cared to even imagine. I turned the volume up as a picture of a house flickered on the screen.

  “Houses have been found abandoned, left in a wreck after the news earlier. We would like to add the disclaimer that our intention is not to cause panic. We’re informing a county which appears to be going through an unfortunate string of bad luck. Anyone inside that area needs to practice caution and stay indoors.” She cleared her throat and shuffled her papers. I watched intently as she turned her head, receiving information from her earpiece most likely. “And just in, insurance companies aren’t accepting applications for anyone abandoning their home during this time.”

  The world really was coming to an end.

  “I found it!” Cassandra screeched. “I found it, I found it!”

  “What? What?” I jumped from my seat.

  She jumped into the living room, holding a rock in her hand, cradling it like a baby chick. “I think this is what we’ve been looking for,” she said, placing it on the table.

  A small chunk of rock, purples and greens with dashes of light blue. It looked somewhat like the sea. “Fluorite?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, still jumping with excitement. “It matches what I’ve been looking for. Something that helps vision, but also something on the UV spectrum, and a little fluorescent.”

  “I don’t follow,” I said, stroking a finger across the rock. “It’s quite charged.”

  “All of them are,” she replied. “This one will give us the sight to see the beacon Ford was talking about.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “I’m not saying we should do it to ourselves, but to your glasses, maybe?”

  I pulled my glasses away from my face, feeling a little naked at the bridge of my nose. “Go for it,” I said. My natural vision was fairly blurred, but I could see enough to suffice without them for a moment or two.

  “I got a spell right here,” Cass continued, the sound of rustling as she moved around in front of my face.

  I took a seat, stepping back onto the sofa. “Can I be of any help?”

  She snickered. Of course, I couldn’t like this.

  “The power of sight, in all its might, grant the use of all your light, to view the secrets we need for our fight.” She repeated it three times until a sharp pop and a crackle connected with my glasses.

  “They don’t have to rhyme,” I told her.

  “Well, it feels nice when they do,” she replied, placing the glasses in my hands. “Let’s see if they’re working then.” On my face, I was expecting an entire realm of colours unknown to burst out at me in all directions.

  There was no such luck.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Nothing?”

  “We can try again tomorrow.”

  Cassandra sighed. It was a lesson she’d need to learn; not everything would go right, and sometimes you had to fail.

  TEN

  The following morning, I found myself waking before Cassandra. It was odd not to see her first thing, standing around in the kitchen, cooking up a storm—or at least spelling one up. I took a seat at the dining table with a small mug of fruit tea. The thought of sitting in the living room and watching the news didn’t fill my mind was anything but thunderous doubt.

  “Early?” Jinx said, strutting into the kitchen. “Cassandra will be up in five to feed me.”

  “I can feed—”

  “Oh no, Cassandra will.” Jinx turned her nose up at the air and continued strutting to the end of the kitchen where both her food and water bowls were kept.

  On cue, Cassandra grunted and groaned, while I was still swilling the tea around in my mug. She had puffy eyes, fumbling into the kitchen on heavy feet, stomping on the ground as if it was about to slip from beneath her.

  “Morning,” I said to her startled face.

  “Nora?”

  “We’ve got to get an early jump on the day,” I said. “We’re going this alone. We’ve got to get some serious groundwork in today.” It was something that had only come to me over the duration of the night, we had to get ourselves dirty—and in the thick of it.

  As Cassandra snapped her fingers and filled Jinx’s bowls, she took a seat opposite me. “Where did you have in mind?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes. “I was thinking one of the houses, but I’m not sure if they’ll be overrun—or—”

  “The woods,” I said. “Harry was keen to get them shut and closed.”

  She yawned into a nod. “Good idea. There’s gotta be a reason why he was acting so suspicious.”

  “And we’ll never know because he’s in the care of the Council,” I added with a long eyeroll. I took a sip of tea, letting the warm liquid wash down my throat and soothe at the aching points in my body. “Half an hour and we should be out there.”

  “Think the police a
re still out there?” she asked.

  “It would surprise me,” I replied. “In all honesty, after the public state of emergency was declared, I doubt there will be a single officer in sight.”

  Oh—I wished I was wrong. I wished the forest was full of officers, combing grassy mounds for more bodies. But there weren’t, and just as suspected, there was neither officers nor patrol cars in sight.

  “Have everything?” Cassandra asked as we stood outside the gates of the forest.

  I frisked myself slightly; I had my rings, and my tote bag with a couple crystals inside. There was no saying what we’d encounter, so I brought enough to keep us safe.

  Entering through the gates and following the worn footpath, I was cautious, glancing in all directions, sniffing at the air and listening intently. The only sounds I could hear were birds chirping and the occasional chirrup of a grasshopper, as for the smell, it was clean and crisp, just as the morning air should be.

  “Are we looking for—bodies?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Anything that can help,” I said, turning my head sharp in her direction. A faint colourful glimmer caught my eye. I turned again, on a single foot, almost twisting my entire ankle trying to reach around at my sight.

  Cass took my arm, keeping my steady and in place. “What? What is it?”

  “I saw something,” I said, searching my peripherals for something to appear again. Turning and turning.

  Blink.

  It was there. A purple light.

  “I think—I think I see it.”

  “What? What do you see?”

  “From the spell.”

  It was. The purple light, like a thread, it weaved between trees, moving us away from the beaten path. We followed it, careful to place our feet.

  “We should’ve brought Jinx,” I said. “Perhaps she could have gone ahead.”

  “But she doesn’t have the sight.”

  We continued on. Standing in spaces without branches and twigs on the ground, it was difficult and consuming. A single snap could alert whoever was out there.

  “They wouldn’t be stupid to be out during the day,” Cassandra said.

  “They wouldn’t usually,” I replied. “But we’re not dealing with a normal day.”

  The town had almost been deserted, and if it was true, then these monsters had it all to themselves. We’d have to work smarter and faster if we weren’t to be another casualty of what becomes of a town overrun by monsters.

  Straight ahead, as I picked my head to follow the purple thread, I noticed a door. It was a door attached to a square mound of dirt.

  We paused, standing back.

  “What do you think it is?” Cassandra asked.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say this leads to the beacon.”

  A snap and a crunch came.

  Two men approached the door, laughing to themselves. They were covered in filth and camouflaged in beiges and greens. They were headed straight for the door.

  Quickly, I dug a hand into my tote bag and pulled out a jet stone. Better than nothing. I handed it to Cassandra. “Immobilise them with this,” I said. “You’ve got the—”

  Disappearing and reappearing behind them, she stunned both of them to the ground with the jet stone. Having the teleportation crystal to hand certainly wasn’t something I was used to, but I knew to make full use of it.

  “Tie them to a tree,” I said, pointing to the witch thread ring. I approached as fast as my feet could take me through the small open spaces on the ground.

  With both creatures tied to trees, we got a better look at them. They were both dryads, tree nymphs, but they certainly weren’t the malicious type of creature.

  I snapped my fingers and woke them both.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Power,” one of them hissed through the grime of dirt on his face. “So much power beyond those doors.”

  “Lots and lots of power,” the other hissed, his tongue flickering out into the air. “Once you’re inside, you ascend into great power. So much power. Power my family would never have.”

  “We are coming from?” Cassandra asked. “Are there more of you?”

  “From the earth,” they said together. “We seek power.”

  Cass snapped her fingers, sending them both back into a slumber. “I have a plan, and I’m not sure you’ll agree because it might be a grey area but—”

  “Just tell me,” I said.

  “We let them go,” she said, holding a finger up. “But, we place a tracker on them.”

  It was an option. They couldn’t be taken to the Council, given its current status. “Okay,” I said. “But they’re dryads, they might know they’re being tracked.”

  She shook her head. “Not if we spell to conceal it, make them believe it’s part of them.”

  “And do you have—”

  Cassandra pulled out the scrying crystal, a rose quartz on a string. “This should do it,” she said. “If it helps us scry, it will help us keep track too.”

  I nodded. Her thinking was solid, that’s exactly what we should do. A smile formed at the corners of my lips. I was proud of her and the way she was taking control of the situation. I wouldn’t have done that, I was fairly old school when it came to the way I did business—but the current old school was closed, and the only way back in would be to get through this mess.

  “It’ll be a solid lead,” she said, smiling back. She was proud in her own actions, I didn’t blame her. “Once they enter, we’ll know their every move. Where they go, what happens to them, and maybe that will lead us straight to the beacon itself.”

  I pointed at the two men. “Choose your horse,” I snickered, “and may he just win the race for us.”

  ELEVEN

  We soon left the forest after placing the tracker on the shorter of the two dryads, worried that a larger group of men would arrive, perhaps this time with creatures who had more power and ability than the dryads.

  Eden Road wasn’t the same. The usual nosy neighbours were no longer twitching at their curtains and no longer standing their stoops, watching as people walked by their homes. Windows were covered in boarded slabs of wood, and rusted nails were placed on footpaths leading the footpaths.

  It must have happened while we were out, because I didn’t recall any of it when we’d left the house. It was also perhaps not the worst decision, the rusted nails, the thumbtacks, thrown on the ground—it might not deter a monster, but a human looking to steal from scared people—quite definitely.

  Cassandra shuddered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Me either.” We continued to the house. “But the house is covered with the stone. So, we shouldn’t have any trouble here. Human, or otherwise.”

  “Starting to wonder just how much magic does to intervene with all this human stuff,” she said in a mumble. “I mean, where monsters and creatures are concerned, coming out of the woodwork like they own the place.”

  “Right now,” I said, entering the house, “they are kind of running the place, and the humans are letting them.” I scoffed. “Martha Mandel from the news is letting them. She’s basically a talking advertisement.”

  “Keep it down!” a loud screech came.

  The cupboard door swung open and Ivory jumped out.

  “Oh, yeah, she’s moved back inside,” Jinx said, sauntering out of the bedroom to meet Cassandra at the door.

  “You’re coming inside?” I asked, approaching her.

  “Yes,” she said. “There’s a lot going on out there, and I’m not sure either of us, or them, are capable of doing anything to solve it.”

  “Except we are,” I said, tapping my nose. I knelt to her level. “Once we find the source, we can get rid of it. It doesn’t mean we have to arrest every low-level coming around trying to get more power.”

  “You couldn’t anyway,” she snapped.

  Of course, and I was yet again reminded of the situation, being stranded by the Council. If it wasn’t b
y my own thoughts, someone else was telling them to me.

  Now, we were back to being quiet inside the house. It was equally as painful for Ivory as it was for us, she hated it indoors, and we hated tiptoeing around her until she decided it was time to rise and shine for the evening.

  “I think everyone is nervous,” Cassandra said as we settled at the dining table. “Humans, animals, witches.” She shuddered once again, this time a vibration ran deep through the table, pushing it slightly.

  “There’s got to be a witch behind all of this,” I grumbled.

  “Xandra?”

  Referring back to the Council’s most wanted criminal, and it was one of our own. Xandra had sent me on many chases during my time as an investigator, and while I didn’t want to say aloud that I thought she could have been responsible for all of this, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I’d blurt it out.

  “Nora?” she asked, tapping my hand as it rested on the table. “Do you think it could be her doing all of this?”

  Yes. But neither of us were prepared. “Xandra is a long way away from England,” I said. “Trust me. I’m sure she’s off out in Europe, syphoning energy from whichever temples she can get her grubby mitts into.”

  “But you did say there was a witch involved,” she added.

  I didn’t. Those weren’t my words at all. “Someone with witch-like abilities.”

  “Like who?”

  Good question—one I’d spent hours poring over my book of shadows last night trying to answer. “No idea, but when you find out, please make sure to tell me.” The truth was, I could only think of witches that could possess all those types of powers in one, but I couldn’t scare her like that.

  We had to do something, we couldn’t put all our eggs in one basket—because eggs were fragile, just like hope.

  I occupied myself with the book, attempting to formulate some kind of idea. Nothing would stick, the only plan coming to mind, over and over again, was to go in through the doorway myself—all guns blazing.

  Inside my book of shadows was every case and encounter I’d had as an investigator. The ‘all guns blazing’ method wasn’t always successful, but I always had a backup plan to fall on, and they were always a success.