Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge 01 - Spell Bound (2 page)

Although our species weren’t supposed to mingle, I’d always liked Elliot, and no one was going to call him a retard.

“What does he say?” I finally asked Miranda.

She’d bent down to whisper in my ear when someone suddenly burst into the cafeteria, screaming, “There’s a dead body on the football field!”

We all exchanged glances. A curious grin cut a sideways path across my friends’ expressions. Miranda mumbled under her breath, no doubt saying a blessing for the departed soul.

The new kid, though, stared out the window that faced the football field and then turned to me, his eyes wider than his O-shaped mouth. The news had rattled him. Where was that cocky motherfucker now?

P
RETTY
MUCH
the entire school had poured out onto the football field by the time the boys and I made our way there. Our new “friend” thankfully got lost in the shuffle of anxious bodies exiting the cafeteria. Although the news of a corpse on our campus intrigued me, I had a rep to maintain. Getting excited about anything wasn’t cool.

“Who do you think it is?” Brandon asked. He wet his lips and grinned. “Maybe it’s Principal Skinner. I’d certainly lose no sleep over him. The fucking asswipe.”

Simon and Eddie echoed his sentiment. My friends hated our principal, mostly because they spent more time in his office than they did in class. I didn’t hate him at all. Principal Skinner had always been decent to me, especially since most teachers went out of their way
not
to help me. Just like the students they taught, the faculty feared me. Principal Skinner had seen how the adults reacted to me, and he’d always done his best to reach out to me because unlike Brandon, Simon, and Eddie, I didn’t terrorize the school.

I hung out with the bad boys, but I didn’t make a nuisance of myself. What was the point of that? Besides, most kids were scared of me already, and I’d never picked one fight, bullied someone, or gotten snarky with a teacher.

I didn’t need to be an ass to be a badass, but it didn’t mean that I could be pushed around. It had happened once, and both he and I lived to regret it. Since then, everyone had made sure I had plenty of room whenever I passed.

“That’s a fucked-up thing to say,” I told Brandon. “Death shouldn’t be wished on anyone.”

Brandon immediately apologized, and the boys grew quiet. As they all knew, death and I were well acquainted.

We reached the circle of kids who had gathered around the body. The crowd was at least ten people deep all around, and it prevented me from seeing who was lying in the middle of the field. I was about to work my way through the throng when Brandon ordered, “Move!”

The crowd immediately parted to let us pass. Brandon might be an insensitive dumbass, but knowing him had its advantages. Most kids did what he told them to do.

Before long, I stood within the circle where the body was clearly visible. It was a woman, probably in her midforties. Mud caked her long blonde hair and was smeared across her graying skin. She had obviously been in a struggle. Her clothes were ripped, and deep purple bruises spotted her forearms.

“Holy shit!” Eddie said at my side. “Look at her neck.”

How could I not? It had been torn open on the left side. Flesh and muscle had been ripped right off her body.

“Shouldn’t there be more blood?” Simon asked.

Yes, there should be. With such a deep wound, the area around her should be soaked in it, but there was no detectable red tinge to the grass or mud.

“Do you recognize her?”

I turned to find Miranda standing to my left. Brandon hissed behind me, but we both ignored him. She and I had business to conduct. I shook my head. “How about you?”

“I’ve never seen her before.” Her dark brown hair fell in front of her downcast eyes. Death wasn’t easy on anyone, but it affected witches the most. Their white magic made them far more susceptible to the loss of a life’s energy. It hurt them deeply.

“That’s good, then. It means we aren’t needed,” I said to her in a whisper.

She nodded, but the news didn’t cheer her up.

I didn’t know her either
, a voice suddenly said in my head. It spoke so loudly, I grabbed my head in pain. What the fuck?

Sorry about that
, it said. It sounded sincere, but every word it spoke was like a knife twisting in my brain.

“Mase, you okay?” Brandon asked. He gripped my arm as I tried to keep myself from stumbling and passing out. Miranda regarded me with stitched brows before turning her attention to the crowd.

Even though I wasn’t, I told Brandon I was.
Who the fuck is this?

Turn to your left.

My head hurt so much, my vision became blurry; all I saw was a cop car and an ambulance pulling into the school’s parking lot.

Your other left
, the voice said after a long sigh.

I found Elliot standing with his sister, Edith. They both had hair as black as their father’s and skin as fair as their mother’s. They were almost a perfect physical combination of their interracial parents.

Will you and Miranda get over here already?

I nudged Miranda and gestured to where Elliot and Edith stood. She nodded in understanding.

“I’ll be back,” I said to my friends.

“What? Why?” Brandon asked.

I locked gazes with him until he looked away. Simon and Eddie patted Brandon’s back, turned him around, and proceeded to talk about the body. Brandon and Eddie laughed while an amused smirk danced across Simon’s features. He’d no doubt said something crass about the dead woman. My friends were going to have to learn a lesson or two about respecting the dead and those different from us, and I might have to be the one who taught them.

A
FTER
M
IRANDA
and I crossed the field to Elliot and Edith, the four of us broke away from the crowd that had begun to be dispersed by the police and school administration.

“You two didn’t know her either?” Edith asked. Unlike Miranda, who was still clearly upset, Edith and Elliot seemed unfazed. That was typical of wizards and their gray magic. As a species, they were more detached than witches and warlocks. Logic and intellect ruled their lives, and they saw the world through the veil of neutrality that defined their usually dull order.

“Nope,” I replied. Miranda only shook her head. “She’s not one of us, so there’s not much we can do. It’s up to human law enforcement to figure out.” If she had been a warlock, witch, or wizard, then as members of the protector covens, it would have been our job to investigate what happened. The councils of our respective orders didn’t handle magical laws broken here as they did in other cities.

Havenbridge was special. The source of all magic, which my kind called the Gate, was here, and it was our job to keep it safe. And if one of our kind turned up dead in our town, that usually meant the Gate was in trouble.

I noticed Brandon, Eddie, and Simon staring at me. They were no doubt wondering why I was talking to these three, and since we weren’t needed, there was no sense in continuing this conversation. “Well, I’m gonna go now.”

No
, Elliot said in my head again.
Something’s not right here. Didn’t Miranda give you my message?

I winced and rubbed my temples. “Will you stop that already, Elliot? That telepathy of yours is worse than a migraine.”

“You get used to it,” Edith said.

“Not really my idea of a good time,” I said. “And no, Miranda didn’t give me your message.”

Miranda stood in silence, staring over at the body.

“My brother said he heard someone’s angry thoughts this morning,” Edith said.

I glanced at Elliot and shrugged. So what?

They were thinking about you
.

“Does that surprise you?” I asked as I turned to face Elliot. He gripped my shoulders with trembling fingers that pleaded with me to take this seriously, but why? Most of the kids didn’t like me, and as long as they kept their thoughts to themselves, who fucking cared? “You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.”

“A woman is dead,” Miranda said in a gruff whisper. “I wouldn’t call that nothing.”

I sighed. Why did she turn everything I said into an excuse for an argument? “That’s not what I meant. This has nothing to do with us, and you know the rules. If none of our kind are involved, we stay out of human affairs.”

Edith flinched and held her breath. Her brother was obviously speaking in her mind now. “Elliot seems to think that someone is trying to cover up their magic.”

That didn’t make any sense. We could sense other magical beings. That was how we knew who was a part of the “family” and who was just your run-of-the-mill human. “Is that even possible?”

Elliot shrugged and glanced between Miranda and Edith.

“I don’t know,” Edith said.

“They’d have to be extremely powerful.” Miranda’s voice was distant, as if she hadn’t come all the way back from whatever emotional time-out she’d taken. “Even more so than our parents.”

Elliot couldn’t nod his head fast enough.

“I don’t sense anything at all.”

Miranda snorted. “Yes, well, your magic isn’t exactly reliable, now is it?”

The white witch bitch was back. “Fuck you, Miranda.”

She ignored me and began mumbling in Latin. It was the language we used to cast our spells. When she had stopped speaking, the air grew heavy as the energies Miranda had summoned swelled. An unseen wave flooded everything. It rippled outward in invisible, magical currents that rolled through the grass, crashed around the unsuspecting humans, and surged toward all life around us before it suddenly dispersed.

When her spell was complete, she gasped and stared at Elliot. “You might be right.”

He sighed in relief, and a triumphant smile drew across his lips.

“Why? What did you sense?” I asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” she replied.

I stared blankly at her and then at Edith and Elliot, who traded concerned glances. “And that’s not good?”

They gaped at me as if I’d just spelled cat with a
K
.

“What do you think, doofus? I’m standing on a football field with a warlock, two wizards, a dead body, and a whole bunch of our classmates, and my spell sensed nothing.” Miranda crossed her arms and stared at me.

That didn’t make sense. She should have detected the fading echoes of death or, at the very least, our magical energies. “But that’s not possible.”

She pretended to ring an imaginary bell. “And we have a winner.”

I flipped her off with a big smile. “So what does that mean? Is she one of us or not?”

“I can’t say,” Miranda answered as she glanced over her shoulder at the dead woman. “But magic is most definitely involved.”

If that was true, then so were we.

“D
AD
!” I
yelled as soon I was through the front door of Blackmoor Manor. He needed to know what had happened at school; that way he could inform the Council of Black, who would then let the Conclave know what might be going on here in Havenbridge. Once our governing bodies had assessed the situation, we protector covens would get our orders.

I proceeded down the hallway decorated with the priceless art my father collected and turned into the living room. He wasn’t there. “Dad!” I screamed again, this time at the top of my lungs. When I didn’t get an annoyed reply, I figured he either wasn’t home or was upstairs taking a shower and getting ready for this evening’s events.

Just to make sure, I checked the library, which had bookcases filled with more books than I’d ever read, and then went into the kitchen before heading into the grand hall. This was my favorite room. It spanned the entire three stories of the house. Its huge windows looked out upon the expansive back property that made up our estate.

But he was nowhere to be found. “
Dad
!”

“Will you shut the fuck up already?”

I turned to see my older brother Pierce descending the staircase. As usual, he was shirtless. He loved showing off his muscular body even more than he enjoyed teasing me. Why he insisted on doing that around the house was beyond me. “When did you get home?” I asked. After graduating from college, Pierce had gone to work for our family’s company, Blackmoor Enterprises, where Dad hired him as a vice president. He’d spent the past few months abroad, learning about the company’s international holdings. It wasn’t really what he wanted to do, but as the eldest, he didn’t have a choice. One day the business would be his to run.

“A couple of hours ago,” he replied.

Even though he was a pain in my ass, I’d missed him and the way we taunted each other. “So you come home and immediately go topless?” I pretended to throw up.

He snuffed. “When you look as good as me, why the hell not? Besides, I had to take a shower. I needed to wash off the skank I boned in the airplane bathroom.”

“Classy,” I replied. Pierce’s libido had always been in hyperdrive. He fucked anyone, man or woman, who caught his eye. He didn’t discriminate. He was an equal opportunity man slut.

“I take it you’re still a virgin?” he asked after slamming his shoulder into mine on his way to the kitchen and sending me stumbling into the wall. He snickered and went to the refrigerator to drink directly from the milk carton.

“I take it you’re still a disgusting slob?”

After he’d finished drinking, he let out one of his famous belches that shook the rafters. “I guess that’s a yes for both of us.”

“Have I told you how happy I am that you’re home?” I asked with a smirk.

My teasing didn’t fool Pierce. He missed me too. “I can tell you’re about ready to piss the floor,” he said with a lopsided grin.

The front door opened. “Dad?” I asked before backing into the hallway, but it wasn’t our father. It was my other brother, Thad. He lived part-time in Salem, where he was finishing up his graduate studies at Southern Salem University. He was specializing in witchcraft and historical occult practices and was the resident know-it-all in the family.