Page 29 of A Hunter Found
“Who’s this?” Nedra demanded, her eyes narrowing into a squint before she tipped her head back to peer at Sophia through her glasses.
“Nedra, this is Sophia.”
The old woman’s eyes widened with delight. “The dragon?” She stepped closer, her head bobbing as she looked Sophia up and down. “No longer sleeping I see,” she observed quietly before drawling, “Well, isn’t this a treat.”
“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Oh, honey, the pleasure is mine. Do you know how rare you are?”
Sophia shifted her weight uncomfortably, feeling rather like a bug under a microscope as Nedra continued to look her over in fascination. “Child, if you ever shed a scale, chip a claw, or lose a tooth in your primal form, you keep old Nedra in mind, won’t you?” Rubbing her hands together, the woman turned toward the table and the multitude of open books upon it. “Do you know the spells I could do with just a tiny pinch of dragon DNA?”
Jamie cleared her throat. “Actually, Nedra, we came to ask your help. One of the pack is missing and we hoped you might be able to do a locator spell.”
Suddenly, Nedra was all business. “I’ll need something of theirs, something personal.”
Jamie nodded and fished a ring out of her pocket. “I thought you might. I brought this.”
Handing the ring over to Nedra, the woman held it in her fist, eyes closed for a moment as a low humming came from her throat before she gave a sharp nod and stated, “This will work. Come along.”
Sophia and Jamie followed the woman down a narrow hallway and into a room that had probably been intended to be a spare bedroom but was currently empty of all but some loaded shelves on the walls and a badly scarred table in the center of the room cluttered with more books, little ceramic pots, and what looked like a brass plate with black streaks that might be scorch marks.
Clearing a space on the table, Nedra went to a shelf and pulled down a rolled piece of paper that turned out to be a map. Weighting the edges, the old woman set the ring in the middle before she bustled back to the shelf to grab a blue vial that contained some sort of black powder that had no scent Sophia could discern and poured it onto the map.
As Sophia watched with keen interest, Nedra closed her eyes and drew in several deep breaths. Next came a low, rhythmic chanting in a language Sophia didn’t recognize and the old woman’s hands moved over the map as if she was conducting a symphony.
Power suddenly crackled in the room and raised the hairs on Sophia’s arms as if she was standing in the middle of a lightning storm. With wide eyes, she watched that black powder begin to move, crawling across the map like it was alive.
The sight was incredibly cool as the powder coalesced at one particular point before it exploded into a wide starburst pattern.
Nedra grunted. “Well, that was disappointing.”
Disappointing? How couldthathave been disappointing? Sophia had just witnessed magic!
“What’s wrong?” Jamie asked.
“This should have provided an exact location. Instead, all I can tell you is the missing pack member is somewhere by the river.”
“That’s a big area,” Jamie said with a frown as she looked down at the map. “Why didn’t it work? Was it the ring? Should I try to find something else of hers?”
“No child,” Nedra said kindly, with a pat to Jamie’s arm. “This is magical intervention,” she added with a sneer of disgust. “I’m being blocked.”
Jamie’s face mottled with angry color. “I bet it’s that witch, Evangeline.”
That had Nedra stiffening. “Evangeline? She’s loose? Why wasn’t I told?”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s Evangeline for sure,” Jamie quickly clarified. “Jourdain couldn’t confirm that the witch that helped those vampires capture me, and then later messed with Kane’s memories is the same witch he’s been looking for, but my gut’s telling me they’re one and the same.”
Nedra suddenly gripped Jamie’s arm in what looked like a painful clamp. “If this is Evangeline, you need to stay away child. She is evil.”
The ferocity of that statement surprised Sophia and Jamie both. “How?” Sophia asked. “How is she evil?”
Nedra licked her lips, her eyes skittering about the room as if she expected this Evangeline person to suddenly manifest out of the walls. Shaking her head, she finally said, “Not in here,” and snatching the ring off the map, she pushed it at Jamie and quickly left the room.
A tree in Nedra’s living room was an unexpected sight, as was the thick body of a yellow and white python that was currently residing on one of the branches. Sophia suddenly recalled Jamie’s comment that Nedra had a thing for reptiles. Jamie, however, obviously did not, the vampire taking a seat as far away from the snake as possible, though she kept a wary eye on the thing as she did so.
Sophia almost teased her that the python wasn’t going to suddenly sprout legs or wings to jump at her, but Nedra spoke up first, moving quickly about the room to close the blinds. “Are either of you familiar with the creation story?”
“Which one? The one where God created the world in seven days?”
