Page 70 of Star Witch
‘Yes, she is. But you’re still lying about something, Mazza.’
He glared at me. ‘I’m not.’
I tapped my foot impatiently. There really wasn’t time for this. Whatever he was doing out here, there was next to no chance it had anything to do with zombies. Maybe he was just looking for Amy’s necklace in a bid to impress her. Stranger things had happened.
Brutus, sensing my irritation, jumped up and sauntered over. He circled round Mazza like a predator, sniffing as he went. Then he sat back on his haunches and washed his face. ‘Blood,’ he said.
Mazza screeched, ‘That cat just spoke!’
I ignored him and focused on Brutus. ‘Blood? You’re sure?’
Brutus continued to wash himself as if he’d already given us every possible answer we could want.
A dangerous smile lit Winter’s lips. ‘Where’s the blood from, Mazza?’ he asked silkily. He sounded far scarier now that his voice was low than he had when he’d been shouting.
‘I… I…’ Mazza’s eyes darted from side to side as if he were expecting someone to appear and rescue him. Just to be sure, I glanced around as well. The Ipsissimus had said we had at least a day before we could expect another zombie but that didn’t mean the impossible couldn’t still happen. When there wasn’t even the faintest rustle of leaves, I relaxed.
‘Spit it out, Mazza,’ I said tiredly, ‘or I’ll get Winter here to turn you into a toadstool.’
His eyes went even wider. ‘You can do that?’
‘Oh,’ Winter purred, ‘I can do that and more. I’m a highly trained Order witch, Mazza. There are no limits to my magic.’
At those words I opened my mouth but Winter nudged me in the ribs. Yeah, okay. This wasn’t the time to point out that the limits to his magic included finding out who was raising the dead or getting Mazza to tell the truth.
Mazza’s entire body seemed to droop. ‘It’s not what you think,’ he said.
It never was. ‘Go on.’
‘It’s not human blood.’
I glanced at Brutus. He didn’t twitch so I reckoned Mazza wasn’t lying on that part. I tilted up my chin and stared at him. ‘Sheep blood?’
Mazza shrunk even further into himself. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I thought I’d washed it all off.’
He hadn’t been counting on Brutus. What most people don’t realise is that cats have a better sense of smell than bloodhounds. Yet again, our investigation seemed to involve white fluffy animals with less sense than lemmings. A deep unease filtered through me.
‘Where did the sheep come from? How did you kill it?’ The second question was particularly pertinent. If Mazza had used magic to rip life from the animal, that magic could have been used in turn to feed necromancy. As the Ipsissimus suggested, the truth of the matter lay in blood.
Mazza looked horrified. ‘It wasn’t my fault!’
I gazed at him in disgust while Winter inched forward, his eyes the colour of glacier ice. ‘Oh, I see,’ he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘Youaccidentallykilled it.’
‘No!’ he burst out. ‘I just found it! It was already dying. I didn’t do anything to it apart from…’ He halted abruptly.
‘Apart from what, Mazza? What did you do?’
He flapped his arms and began to babble. ‘Nothing! I didn’t mean to! I mean, I did mean to but only because he’s such a prick! No one would listen to me and I wanted to scare him off and make him stop, and when the herbs didn’t work I had to do something. I couldn’t just let him get away with that kind of thing!’
Winter shot me a glance and, interpreting the look, I nodded and put a hand on Mazza’s shoulder. He was visibly trembling. ‘Slow down,’ I told him. ‘And tell us from the start.’
He sucked in a ragged breath. ‘He wouldn’t leave her alone. He was using his position to get exactly what he wanted.’
There could only be one woman he was referring to. ‘You mean Amy.’
He nodded vigorously. ‘She told him no but he wouldn’t listen. I had to do something.’
‘Who are we talking about?’
