Page 9 of Midnight Witch

I believe you are right, my witch,Brimstone said with a low growl.This is too much of a coincidence to be called mere chance.

Something dawned on her then.

“A bomb needs a trigger.” She looked at Nikolai, her stomach churning with an unnamed dread. “I wonder if we were the trigger.”

His eyes darkened. “I never heard of a spell like that when I was working for the Dark Council.”

Alastair ruffled his wings uneasily on the sorcerer’s shoulder.

“Could it have been someone else?” Abraham suggested. “Or just a weird twist of fate?”

Alicia’s frown deepened. “Portals to Hell don’t just open randomly. I doubt one suddenly appearing under Mae’s apartment was an accident.”

“I concur,” Bryony said grimly. “This has to be the work of the Dark Council.”

Barquiel’s face and that of his Immortal scientist protégé Dietrich Farago rose in Mae’s mind. She clenched her jaw.

Ten bucks says they’ve got something to do with this.

Brimstone’s hackles rose at that.

“Have there been any unusual incidents of late in the magic community?” Mae asked Bryony and Abraham. “Anything that might suggest what the Dark Council could be up to?”

Bryony shook her head, dashing her hopes for a clue. “No. The only thing that happened this week was the Boston coven approaching us for our assistance on a certain matter.”

“The Boston coven?”

Bryony made a face. “They think they’ve got a haunted church on their hands. Several of their witches and sorcerers got sick when they went to investigate the place after reports of strange noises and lights.”

“Ghosts in the sense humans understand them don’t exist,” Alicia said. “I should know.” She paused. “But the remains of the dead are something else.”

Mae digested this for a moment.

“Sick how?” she asked Bryony warily.

“Headaches and nausea. They want one of us to check it out.” Bryony cast a shrewd look at Nikolai. “I was going to ask you to go, actually. Their High Priestess thought a white magic user would be of benefit.”

“Your care for my health and safety warms the cockles of my heart,” Nikolai said drily.

Bryony waved a vague hand, undeterred. “I’m sure they just ate something bad.”

“I’ll come with you,” Mae said firmly. “It’s safer for us to be together if we’re both being targeted,” she added at his hesitant expression.

Nikolai faltered before bobbing his head.

Hellreaver stirred against her chest.Does that mean you finally intend to mate with the—mmph, mmph!

All eyes locked on the pendant Mae had just muzzled with her hand.

“What’d he say this time?” Abraham asked suspiciously.

“Nothing you need to know,” she replied darkly.

Can’t…breathe!Hellreaver wheezed.

They left the coven headquarters and returned to Ridgewood. Crime scene tape still blocked off the entrance to the cinema. Jared had gone to interview the college students Mae had saved. Though the ambulances that had attended the incident had long left, a thin crowd still hung around despite the heavy rain.

It wasn’t every day something this strange happened in Ridgewood.

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