Page 49 of Strike It Witch

The hesitation in his response told me everything. Should’ve known he was involved. Floyd Pallás had his dirty paws in all kinds of bad stuff. “He’s an … Aztec god.”

“No kidding.” My patience was wearing thin.

“It’s not my business, but there’s a group in town who worship him.” His voice got louder and more distorted, as if he were cupping his hand around the phone. “I know a guy who knows someone who’s high up in the group—cult, whatever.”

“Is this related to your deal?”

“The book deal? Nah.”

“Are you working with the cult?”

“I stopped going to church years ago.”

A non-answer. He was neck deep into whatever was going on. “I’ll get your book for you. Just tell me what you know about this group.”

“You’re real bossy for awolf killer.”

Asshole. “You sure you want to go down that path, Alpha Pallás? Because of the two of us, we both know who’s killed more wolves.”

“I’m thealpha leader.” He said it with his whole chest, infusing power into the statement and creeping onto my last nerve.

I wanted to throw it in his face, remind him that if he’d been doing his job asalpha leader, I wouldn’t have had to step in at all with that wolf. But that wouldn’t get me what I wanted—information about this Mictlantecuhtli cult. So, I sidestepped the subject. “Do you know where?—”

“Andyou blackmailed me,” he interrupted, his tone less alpha and more sullen teen. “I would’ve been a good mayor, and you know it.”

“If you’d been a goodperson, I wouldn’t have had the ammunition. I only told the truth.” And took photos that I used to blackmail him into bowing out of the mayoral race two and a half years ago. He wasn’t lying about that. “Anyway, you’re powerful enough. You don’t need to get into politics, too.”

“What do you care? I hear you’re leaving town as soon as you can unload that trailer park of yours.”

I took a deep breath and did my best to wrestle my blood pressure back into the safe zone. “Alpha Pallás, I have more photos than the ones I showed you. They’re on a hair trigger. If anything happens to me, they go straight to the local paper, the sheriff, and every shifter group in a two-hundred-mile radius.”

“Go here.” He rattled off an address I didn’t recognize. I jotted it on a pad of paper next to my fridge. “Take a weapon strong enough to bring down a demon, because these people don’t mess around, and I need you alive to get that book. Now tell me how to get rid of the wolfsbane.”

“No worries. I’ll drop by later today and do it for you.”

“By the gods, come now, you bi?—”

I turned off my phone, plugged it into the charger, and headed for my garden room.

Halfway there, I stopped, closed my eyes. Listened. Absorbed. Used magic to feel for the protection spell.

The spell was up, the air smelled fresh, and dead grass crunched under my feet. Everything was normal, but something felt … off.

That was when I snapped back into myself and discovered that I was standing just below the porch step of Mom’s house, right foot raised.

I backed up, stumbled on a loose stone, and fell on my butt.

What was going on?

The earth beneath me rumbled weakly. I patted the soil, tearing up at the rejection I felt from it. Another rumble, this one stronger, shook the ground beneath me. Smokethorn wasn’t far from a major fault line, so it wasn’t as if earthquakes were unusual, but this wasn’t an earthquake. Not in the normal sense of the word.

I sank my fingers into the soil and reached for the power I knew was there—the power I’d felt during the spell last night. The power that I used to feel on the soles of my feet as I walked from Mom’s house to the garden room.

Nothing.

I picked myself off the ground and went to work in the garden room.

Three hours later, I emerged feeling better about life overall. There was pollen on my clothes, good soil beneath my nails, and the scent of lavender in my hair. Cecil had awakened from his chocolate-induced coma and helped me recharge theawakencharms. Fennel had snored peacefully beneath his namesake, bringing his special brand of feline chill to the room.

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