Page 63 of Familiar of the Witch

‘I did. I assumed it was because of the imprisonment.’

‘No, it was because of the engorgement.’

‘Engorgement. Seriously?’

He flashed me a toothy grin. ‘That’s what we call it.’

‘Of course you do,’ I muttered. ‘Fine. You can come, but absolutely no … engorging.’

Looking a little more like his old self, Frogmatch smirked triumphantly. ‘I’ll just stay here on this piece of rock,’ he patted Benji on the shoulder.

Benji looked rather pleased to have his own personal devil on his shoulder. Bastion sent Frogmatch a glower; I don’t think he’d enjoyed the imp’s spanking quips all that much.

I stood. ‘Fine. Let’s go – all of us.’ What a motley crew we made but, motley or not, we were deadly. The evil witch in my Coven wouldn’t know what had hit them.

Chapter 52

When I’d been at the evil Coven’s soul auction, they had talked about their familiars and about their sickness. That had sent up a red flag straight away, one I’d been trying to pull back down ever since.

I hadn’t seen Jeb’s familiar, Jessica, around the Coven tower in weeks. Sure, it could be a coincidence, but… Frogmatch had said the necromancer was a male and Jeb had been on the scene incredibly fast after our first ogre attack. And he was the only other person who had known that we were going to meet the Seer High Priestess, Melva, the day that she’d been murdered. Plus, we’d been attacked soon after leaving the venue.

I had tried to deny it because the whole idea made my stomach turn. Not Jeb; surely not Jeb. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea had taken root. Jeb was a mid-level witch, yet he hadn’t looked slightly tiredafter breaking the ancient clearing on me. And that look on his face when he realised Bastion and I were together? I’d written it off as jealousy in the heat of the moment, but the truth was it had beenmalevolent.

All I had were my suspicions and my gut instinct. Bastion didn’t ask who my suspect was, but maybe he didn’t need to.

As much as it stuck in my craw, I used Tristan’s trick. I prepared the pentagram in my living room with truth runes, covered them with the rug then I called Jeb to my room to ‘do a handover’ now that I was back from Edinburgh.

I had used truth runes as well as containment runes judiciously in the hidden pentagram. I planned to offer Jeb some refreshments and hold out a mug so he’d have to step across the rug to take it. It wasn’t the most elaborate sting operation, but there’s a reason the adage ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ exists.

Realising it probably wasn’t wise to keep my suspicions to myself, I blurted abruptly, ‘I think Jeb is evil.’ It sounded strange to say it aloud.

Oscar blanched. ‘Jeb? What makes you think that?’

‘A few things. His familiar has been absent from the tower for weeks. He was too quick to come to the sceneafter the ogre attack. He was one of the few who knew we were visiting Melva. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologise to him.’ But I was sure that I wasn’t wrong. That flash of fury I’d seen in him had been dark, more than that of a man scorned.

There was a knock at the door: Jeb had arrived. I struggled to keep my face impassive and touched my necklace, not for a solution to a problem but for support. I wanted to be wrong with all my heart. I had trusted Jeb for years; he’d been my right-hand man, my confidant. If he was evil, my judgement had been way off – and I loathe being wrong.

Oscar opened the door as I busied myself making tea for us all. ‘Hi Jeb,’ I called as casually as I could. ‘Come on in.’

‘Is Ethan coming, too?’ he asked as he strolled in.

‘We’re doing a separate handover for him,’ I lied smoothly.

‘Making sure the notes tally?’ he joked.

‘Just to ensure we get your individual impressions about how things are going. Milk no sugar, right?’

‘Yes, please.’

I held out the mug to him and he stepped forward, carefully skirting the rug. I might not have noticed that ina normal meeting, but I noticed it now. Jeb knew I had a permanent pentagram there – heck, he’d helped paint it.

My stomach lurched with dread. If Jeb was innocent, there was no reason to skirt a pentagram, even a hidden one. My face fell, even as he took the mug from me. The mug read:Careful, I’m an evil genius, but he wasn’t looking at the words. Instead he was studying my oh-so-expressive face.

I saw knowledge dawn on his face. ‘Ah,’ he said calmly. ‘The cat is out of the bag, then.’

It turned out that I didn’t need the truth runes after all. ‘Why Jeb? Why?’ I asked, needing desperately to understand. ‘You killed Cindy and took her tail? Arranged Melva’s death? Why? Why turn to necromancy? Help me understand.’

As he set down the mug, his eyes flicked to Bastion, Benji and Oscar. The latter had a lighter in his hands, flame exposed, ready to flambé him. I saw the moment that Jeb accepted that he wasn’t escaping. And that made him even more dangerous.

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