Page 16 of Wicked Deeds

Lizzie wriggled her fingers. “You know,magicallyweird.”

Callum looked unimpressed with the description. Maybe for a Fae, it would take a lot for magic to be weird.

“Okay. So bad vibes,” I said. “Got it.”

“Yep. When she was walking her dog this morning, she got the same feeling. So she called me.”

“What does she do?”

“Well, she’s an attorney. But she’s also a witch.”

So, potentially someone who wasn’t deep in the magical world. But obviously someone Lizzie considered credible. And in the end, Lizzie, as a member of the Cestis, had to make the call about what got investigated and what didn’t.

I glanced down the street. The houses all had their blinds drawn, most of them with no lights shining around the edges. The only things moving in the street were us and the wind through the trees planted next to the sidewalk in front of every other house.

This wasn’t Dockside. It was the sort of place where, if someone spotted three strangers dressed in various forms of tactical black, complete, in my and Callum’s cases with weapons strapped to our backs and thighs, in front of an abandoned house at this time of night, they’d probably call the cops.

And because Sea Cliff was still a neighborhood, not an abandoned hellhole like Dockside, the cops would respond.

Lizzie would no doubt handle them. Pull out her Cestis badge or whatever it was she actually used to prove her credentials, but better if she didn’t have to. “We should get moving,” I said. “Or your friend won’t be the only one noticing something weird.” I took a step toward the front gate.

“Wards,” said Lizzie.

I froze. Damn. Rookie mistake. I knew better. But I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in several days and it was starting to show. I stepped back as Lizzie raised her hands, shifting my sight to study the property.

I couldn’t see much. A few faint shimmers at random intervals along the fence but nothing resembling a fully functional ward. Whoever was paying for the yard work wasn’t paying for the wards to be maintained.

Lizzie seemed to come to the same conclusion.

She dropped her hands and stepped back, looking at Callum.

“What do you think?” she said. “All I get is remnants.”

“That is what I also see,” Callum said. “There were wards once, but they have long since been broken.”

Lizzie nodded. “I checked the records. The house still has an active connection to the solar grid, so someone’s paying the power bill. Couldn’t find any record of a current vidlink.”

No vidlink equaled no communications. And hopefully no monitored security. But it didn’t rule out your basic ‘make enough noise until the neighbors call the cops’ type alarm. “Do you know who owns the place?”

“No. We can dig into that later. But if there’s power, there could be an alarm system.” She studied the house. Probably looking for cameras.

“We can check out the battery array. The control box should tell us what’s connected. If there’s an alarm, well, you two are the ones who sneak around at night for a living. What do you usually do?”

“It is not my area of expertise. Wards, yes. Alarms, no. I do not usually have a need to break into human houses,” Callum said.

Lizzie smiled smugly. “Sometimes I do.”

Did she mean recently or when she’d been living in abandoned buildings as a teenager? Probably not the right time to ask.

“Then you can figure out what to do if there’s an alarm,” I said. “I vote we go around the back, scope out the battery array, take it from there.”

I peered at the house, wishing there was more light. There were no obvious cameras, but cameras could be tiny. Or tucked away in places we didn’t have a line of sight to. Two standard exterior lights were positioned on the front of the porch, either side of the stairs. I found a loose stone on the street and threw it toward the front door. The clatter it made landing on the porch was way too loud, but no lights came on. “No motion sensors. That’s helpful.”

Lizzie waited, watching, but must have agreed with me because she headed for the gate, motioning for us to follow.

Like most of its neighbors, the blinds in the large windows were drawn. Lizzie skirted the direct approach to the porch, instead heading left, where access to the backyard was blocked by a wooden fence with a locked gate. I boosted Lizzie over and Callum helped me. He, of course, almost vaulted over it. Mere mortal gates were no obstacle when you’re a Fae warrior.

Lizzie rolled her eyes at me as he landed. I hid a smile. Callum was showy and cocky, but his confidence was warranted, backed by his magic and his centuries of experience. I didn’t want him leaving in a huff. We kept moving. No lights came on, no alarms blared, and I began to relax a tiny bit. It was probably messed up that I was more worried about the police arriving than an afrit, but I was confident that Lizzie and Callum couldtake care of an afrit. Whereas I didn’t need the headache of the newslinks getting wind of Damon Riley’s girlfriend being caught breaking and entering.

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