Chapter 26 26
I splayed my fingers over Forest Dancer’s throat and pushed some magic towards it. After a moment the floor was covered in glowing yellow shoe prints. We could see every step the vampire had taken. He had paced around the protection circle, probably looking for a weak spot. Thankfully the witches knew how to protect the kids. There were glowing prints only around the family room, dining room, and to the front door.
We followed the prints outside and into the woods. They lead us west along a visible trail.
“This leads to circle clearing. I’ve raided multiple parties there. It’s far enough outside of town even werewolf ears can’t hear teenagers congregating out there with what passes for music these days blaring.” Thomas smiled a little. “At least when my friends and I were out there we played good music.”
Circle clearing was a good name for the area we stepped out of the woods in. It was almost a perfect circle with fallen trees scattered around creating seating areas. In the middle was a fire pit. Judging by smells, it had been about a week since anyone partied here. I followed the shoe prints a few yards into the clearing where they disappeared. Connor and I investigated the spot where we could feel someone had ripped a portal.
“You feel that?” Connor and Thomas nodded. Tristan either hadn’t regained enough of his senses to feel it or he didn’t understand what he was feeling based on his expression. “The residual magic from the portal has a slight vibration to it. Which means they used an Object of Power to rip the portal.”
“So we are looking for a vampire sorcerer like you?” Connor grimaced and covered his face with both hands while Thomas shook his head at the pup’s question.
“Uh no. This son of a bitch just killed two people in front of their kids. Don’t compare me to them.” I shook my head. “All we know is an OP was used. Smart of them. Hard to trace it back to the user. “
The four of us walked around the clearing looking for anything that might help identify the vamp. The teenagers had left a lot of beer cans, cheap liquor bottles and empty junk food bags. I felt a twinge of jealousy for the twenty or so teenage wolves I could smell around the clearing. When I’d been a teen we didn’t get to throw wild parties in the woods. Instead we were married off and expected to fend for ourselves while starting families. On the edge of the clearing I nudged a condom wrapper. Definitely didn’t have those. As much fun as looking at the signs of teenage debauchery was, it wasn’t going to help find our werewolf witch murdering attempted burglar.
We gathered in the center by the fire pit to discuss our findings. Which were nada. I wondered if Thomas was making a mental list of who had been in the clearing recently and if he would narc them off to their parents. That would just be wrong. If they escaped the raid, they should escape being flayed. Hehe. I crack myself up.
“You should put a guard on the kids. They weren’t infected but, the murderer might make a play for them.” I suggested to Thomas.
He nodded. “Already on it. I have two wolf deputies standing guard. I also placed a request for a wizard from the peacekeepers. Not to mention my mom can do an impressive Cujo.” He shook his head. “As anyone who ever chewed off a sofa leg knows. Man, she was scary.”
“Have her put me on speed dial. Just in case.” He nodded. “Unless anyone can think of something else we need to look at, I say we head out.” The boys shook their heads. They seemed to be merging into one. I could have a bromance on my hands. Not sure how I felt about that.
“I still have a lot of work to do. Mostly paperwork.” A shudder ran thru me at Thomas’ words. As if having to follow all the accords and laws wasn’t bad enough, there’s all the paperwork involved with having a badge. All the more reason to let Connor be the badge in our relationship.
“Ok, you go kill a bunch of trees. If you find anything of interest, let me know.” I ripped a portal home and ushered the boys thru to my front porch.
I followed the boys thru my front door and into the house, pausing to look in my spare room. As usual, I wondered whose bright idea it was to put a spare room not only in the front of the house but with its door only a few feet from the front door. Even more disconcerting than its location was all the boy paraphernalia in it. I had gotten used to it looking like all the Disney princesses had thrown up in there. First thing I was going to do after we caught the murderer and I boot stomped him for attempted burglary was find the pup some place to live.
At the end of the front hall, the boys headed right to go into the kitchen to look for food and I swung a left to climb up the stairs to my room. I hurried across to the closet door. The clothes hamper was tucked into its cubby and half full. A quick glance thru the door that led from the closet to the bathroom revealed wet towels on the floor. I scooped them up before heading downstairs with the hamper.
“Laundry day!” I called out as I passed thru the side door in the kitchen to the wraparound porch. There was a covered hall that went between the porch and the garage. I threw a load of towels into wash and pulled out the burner phone I had cleverly hidden in a box full of my old phones. The battery pack was stashed in box of old electronics. Feeling a bit like a spy, I used my incognito app to bounce the call around satellites to keep it from being traced. The app also blocked my number and the recipient’s number from showing up on any screens or paper billing statements. I felt that was going a little far. I mean really, who looks at their paper bills anymore?
“The birds fly at midnight.” Corny yes, but it made me chuckle.
The voice that answered was distorted to the point the gender of the speaker was indecipherable. My voice would be distorted on their side too. Man I love this app. “Russian? I thought we decided not to use Russian again after what happened in Moscow?