Page 20 of Deadly Reckoning (Broken Ashes #7)

“Yeah, I have no idea how that conversation is going to go. They’ve known each other far longer than Sully has known me. They were in Trieneliea together. Hell, they both worked for the King and Queen,” I reply, my fingers hesitating in tapping out the message.

Ransom smiles, “Yeah, that’s all true, but you’re Neith. He’s got such a big soft spot for you. He loves you like you’re his own, that’s obvious to everyone. If you tell him, then he’s going to keep an open mind.”

I smile and type out the message quickly, pressing send as I reply, “Good point. Hopefully, he’ll know what to do about it too, because I have no idea.”

“We’ll treat it like any other case,” Reed says firmly.

“Erm, that might be easier said than done,” Ransom says with a slight grimace.

“What have you just figured out?” River asks curiously.

“There’s a good chance that she built in an alarm of sorts into the spells that were guarding Merrikh. They would have alerted her that someone was messing with them, and could have even told her that they had been broken,” Ransom explains.

“Which means that she could put two and two together, figure out that Merrikh has most likely told whoever was trying to break the spells who put them there, and has gone to ground,” River summarizes.

“Yeah,” Ransom confirms. “Which will make finding her even more difficult than it was already going to be.”

“Well, I guess we cross that bridge when we get to it,” Griff says with a shrug.

Evander frowns and crosses his arms over his chest, “There’s not much else that we can do.

We’ve got so much on our plate at the moment as it is, with the wolf sale case to do as soon as Rana gives us the information that we need.

If we suddenly get a lead with the Blue Fucker and the hybrid case, then that takes precedent over the wolf sale case, and we will have to give it over to another team.

Murray is actually our least threatening issue, and unfortunately, that means that we’re going to have to look into her when we get the chance, or a break in the other things that we’ve got going on. ”

“Agreed,” Raiden replies. “If she becomes a bigger threat, then she will have to move up the list, but for now, if she has gone to ground, then it might be the best thing for everyone involved. She won’t be causing trouble if she’s trying to keep a low profile, and we’ll be able to sort the more pressing stuff out first.”

I nod, “Hopefully it will work out that way. Murray is pretty fucking strong, I mean, she’s not the leader of the witches and warlocks for no reason. Whoever takes her on is going to have to be careful about how they go about it.”

“Which is why we’re the best people to deal with her,” Griff says. “Because of the connection that you already have with her.”

“Griff’s right. Hopefully that connection will allow us to get close enough to her to question her about the spells she used to entrap Merrikh and why the fuck she did it in the first place,” Coen growls.

“Plus, I highly doubt that Merrikh was the only one who was a victim. If she’s willing to do something like that for someone like Derek, then fuck knows how many other supernaturals she’s done the bidding of or hurt for someone else. ”

I frown heavily, “The Murray case is more difficult and complicated than just going to talk to her. There are too many variables involved.”

Doc nods, “Yeah, there are. Which is why it would be better if she had caught wind of the spell breaking and disappeared.”

“Absolutely,” I agree. “Don’t forget, that’s just the work stuff, there’s also the personal stuff, like training my magic, or at least recognizing it.

River needs to practice with his new magics as well.

Then there’s Pete, and that’s just a whole thing that I’m not quite sure how to deal with.

I’m also supposed to be meeting Navy and the others at some point, all before we’re supposed to go back to work. ”

Evander chuckles, “It’s a good thing you don’t like sitting still for too long.”

I grin, “Right? I think this is the busiest I have ever been.”

“We should probably lay low for a couple of days, just in case the Blue Fucker is waiting for us to resurface,” River suggests.

He then adds, “Although more so because I have a feeling that we’re going to need to take as many rest days as possible, while we can.

Staying at home for a couple of days probably isn’t going to make much difference as far as the Blue Fucker is concerned. ”

“Well said,” Evander agrees wholeheartedly. “We do need to stay as safe as we can, and so I think trying to stay in until Rana gets us the info is probably a good idea.”

“Sounds good to me,” Doc agrees, while the rest of us nod. He continues, gesturing to the pile of books that he brought back from Ty. “So do you want to look over these now?”

I shrug, “Sure. We’ll find out more information a hell of a lot quicker if we do it all together.”

“Wait,” Ransom says before Doc can hand out any of the books.

I’m actually surprised to see that there is quite a pile of them. I thought for sure that they would give me one very thin book and say that’s all the information that they had.

There is a small chance that I have trust issues.

“What is it?” Doc asks, bringing me out of my thoughts, thankfully, before they begin to spiral.

“I’ve been thinking about the fact that we have no idea if the information that they will give us is going to be correct,” Ransom starts.

“Agreed. For all we know, these could be full of stories and no actual facts, or helpful information,” Coen replies.

Ransom grins, “Exactly. So, I’ve been working on a spell. I haven’t been able to test it out properly yet, but in theory it should be able to tell us whether the information in the books is correct, and even if they’ve been tampered with.”

“You mean like if the Elders have changed the information in the books?” I ask curiously.

Ransom nods, “Kind of. I won’t know for certain if it was them that changed the information, or someone else, but it will tell me that it’s been tampered with.”

“That’s awesome,” River compliments. Leaning forward in his seat, he asks excitedly, “So we need to test it before we use it on the books, right? So that we know that it’s working. How do we do that?”

“We could write something that’s true on a piece of paper, test the spell, alter the information so that it becomes a lie, and it has been altered because I suppose that the information could have been altered but be true?

” Griff frowns. “That’s complicated, but we could do that and then repeat the spell? ”