NADINE

“T his is insane!” Talia cried as Chloe sped down the street. “I know the Shield Squad has been through a lot, but we’re in over our heads here. We can’t just expect to waltz in and stop the most powerful warlock we’ve ever faced with no magic of our own.”

“We can’t sit back and do nothing, either,” I insisted.

“Nadine’s right, but we’re going to need a plan.” Chloe reached into her purse on the middle console and pulled out a small canister. “We may not have magic, but I do have pepper spray.”

“I like the idea of weapons, but we’re going to need something more powerful than that,” Grant said.

Miles reached into his coat and pulled out a pistol. “How about this?”

Talia’s eyes widened. “Are you suggesting we kill Professor Warren?”

“I’m suggesting we have the means to defend ourselves,” Miles said. “And yeah, if I need to, I’ll put a bullet in his chest.”

“Why do you have a gun?” Grant asked.

“I’m the sheriff,” Miles stated simply. “I’ve been training with guns since the day I joined the Executors, considering wands were no longer a reliable weapon.”

“What else do you have?” I asked.

“We have some tools in the trunk,” Chloe said. “I’m sure we can find something for everyone.”

Chloe parked a block away from Professor Warren’s house. We got out of the car, and she opened the trunk. It was mostly empty, apart from a few standard tools found in most vehicles.

Grant picked up a tire iron and spun it around in his hands. “This will work. Warren can’t exactly cast magic if he’s unconscious.”

Chloe handed Talia a big, heavy wrench, while I grabbed a ratchet strap.

Talia eyed my weapon. “What are you going to do with that?”

I shrugged as I unraveled the strap and swung the heavy ratchet around. “Don’t know yet, but it seems like it’d hurt.”

Talia jumped back a few feet so she wouldn’t get hit. “I see your point.”

I turned to the others. “We stay together, keep quiet, and stick to the shadows. We’ll do a perimeter sweep to make sure the coast is clear, then head inside to look for clues. Everyone ready?”

The other four nodded in unison.

We snuck through the darkness of neighboring back yards, until we reached Professor Warren’s property. His home was small compared to the other houses in Octavia Falls—only one story, though it still had the gothic charm of other homes in the neighborhood. The lights were off, and it didn’t appear that anyone was home.

Chloe pressed an index finger to her lips. She crept forward, but Miles stopped her.

“Allow me.” He readied his grip on his gun, then started across the lawn toward a window that faced the backyard. The rest of us followed, keeping low and quiet.

The window was a good five feet off the ground. We huddled beneath it, then carefully peered inside the house to find an empty kitchen. A pot sat on the counter, and various items scattered the table, though I couldn’t make out what they were in the darkness.

“Is that a cauldron?” Miles asked, gesturing to the pot. “Looks like he’s planning on brewing a potion.”

“I don’t see any movement,” Grant whispered. “He must be gone.”

“We can’t be sure until we check out the rest of the house,” Chloe said.

We craned our necks to see into other rooms, but they were too dark.

“What are we looking at?” a voice hissed from behind us.

My heart lurched, and the five of us spun around in unison. Talia screeched as we came face-to-face with Professor Warren. He’d crept up behind us and crouched down low, whispering like he was part of our investigative group.

Talia reacted on instinct and threw her wrench at him, which hit him square in the gut. At the same time, Chloe sprayed her pepper spray into his eyes.

Professor Warren slapped his hands over his face, screaming in pain. I rushed forward and threw the ratchet strap around his arms. Chloe quickly grabbed the other end, and we circled him to pull the straps as tight as we could.

“Don’t move!” Miles warned as he lifted his gun.

He didn’t need to use it. Grant was already swinging the tire iron. The heavy end smacked Professor Warren on the side of the head, and our professor’s screams died on his tongue. He slumped to the grass, unconscious.

My pulse began to slow, and I sighed a heavy breath as the adrenaline rush subsided. Thank the Goddess we got him before he could use his powers on us.

Chloe stared down at Professor Warren’s unmoving form. “Great. What are we going to do when he comes to?”

This was definitely not how I pictured this going down, but it was too late now to change strategy. “Let’s get him into the house and immobilize him the best we can,” I suggested. “Miles, keep that gun on him. We’re going to want to ask some questions.”

Chloe and Grant each took one of Warren’s shoulders, while Talia and I took his legs and carried him inside. It wasn’t easy. Professor Warren was tall and muscular and weighed a lot more than I thought. Luckily, he was still passed out when we hoisted him onto a dining room chair. We used the ratchet strap to secure his hands at his sides. It wouldn’t stop him from casting magic, but the threat of Miles’s gun would certainly make him hesitate.

“Look for clues,” Miles ordered as he kept the barrel of the gun aimed toward Professor Warren.

We scattered around the house. I hurried over to the kitchen table to find that the items I’d seen scattered there were various bags of all sizes. As I started digging through them, I found a small tent, a compression sleeping bag, and tent stakes. It looked like he really was preparing for a backpacking trip.

Grant went over to the counter and hopelessly held up the pot we’d seen. “This isn’t a brewing cauldron. It’s a camping pot.”

“There’s nothing in here!” Chloe called from the living room.

“Nothing in the bedroom,” Talia added.

“Check the basement,” I ordered. “There’s got to be signs of a kid living here.”

Grant ran into the basement, but he came back a few moments later. “There’s nothing down there but storage.”

“We’re missing something,” I insisted. “He must own another property. He’s got to be hiding his kid and a cave full of crystals somewhere.”

Professor Warren groaned, and we all jumped behind Miles. Our professor looked absolutely horrible, with a goose-egg bruise swelling on the side of his forehead and blotchy red skin from the pepper spray.

“Try anything and I’ll shoot!” Miles spat.

Professor Warren squinted his blood-shot eyes. “Wh—what is this? Miles, is that a real gun?”

“You want to fuck around and find out?” Miles warned.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” Warren asked in a groggy tone. “I was just headed over to your place for dinner like we planned. I saw you sneaking across my lawn. If you would’ve rather said goodbye here, all you had to do was say so.”

“You can rot in the Abyss for all we care!” Chloe snarled. “We’ll send you there ourselves unless you answer our questions. Where’s your son?”

“My… son?” Warren winced as he moved against the restraints. “You must’ve hit me harder than I thought, because I can’t be hearing you right.”

“You know what she’s talking about,” Grant growled. “We know everything. We know how you’ve been stealing people’s magic and storing it in crystals to collect enough power to raise your wife from the dead—and you plan to sacrifice your son to do it!”

“That’s impossible,” Professor Warren stated.

“We don’t know how you’re doing it…” Grant admitted. “But we know it’s you!”

“Tell us where to find this crystal cave, or so help me, I’ll shoot,” Miles demanded. “You’re not going to get away with this.”

Professor Warren’s jaw hung slack. “I don’t know what you think I’m involved with, but I’m telling you it’s impossible to raise my wife from the dead!”

“You wouldn’t know that unless you’ve tried,” Talia alleged in horror. “You’ve already gone through with it, haven’t you?”

“I haven’t done anything!” Warren insisted.

He looked so helpless and desperate tied up like this. I didn’t think Professor Warren wanted to hurt us, but with the magic he’d amassed by stealing the coven’s powers, he should be able to break free from his restraints.

“Where is your wife?” I asked curiously.

Warren’s shoulders dropped, and he gave a defeated sigh. It was like he’d completely given up. “She’s in the living room.”

“Bullshit!” Chloe sneered. “I was just in there. There’s nobody there.”

I narrowed my eyes at Professor Warren. There was so much sadness in his tone when he said that, but it wasn’t the sound of a man who was desperately holding on. He appeared more like a man who regretted that he ever had to let go.

“I’ll go check,” I offered.

“Nadine, he’s trying to trick you,” Chloe objected.

I didn’t listen to her. Instead, I walked out of the kitchen and to the small living room just a few paces down the hall. Sitting on the mantle at the center of the room was an urn. I picked it up to find it was heavy with ash.

I returned to the kitchen and held up the urn to show everyone. “You can’t exactly bring someone back to a body that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“I told you it’s a trick!” Chloe demanded. “How can we be sure that’s his wife? Furthermore, we don’t know the full extent of what dark magic can do! He could be using the spell to reconstruct her body from nothing.”

“What spell?” Professor Warren begged.

“The revival spell,” Grant said. “The one where you’re sacrificing your son to bring back what you lost, just like you tried with those other kids! Don’t act so innocent. The magic doesn’t lie. We know your son is involved. Your wife has been dead for years. How long have you kept your child hidden from the coven?”

A crease formed between Professor Warren’s eyebrows. “I don’t know why you would think I’m hiding a child. Roberta and I couldn’t have kids.”

We’d been betrayed so many times before, but never had a traitor been so persistent once we caught them. I expected some hint of recognition in his eyes when we mentioned his son, but there was nothing there.

I’d been wrong about so many people before, but I was certain this time. We only had half a picture, and when I realized that, more pieces began falling into place. We hadn’t been wrong about our clues—only wrong about who they pertained to.

“It’s not him,” I stated hollowly.

Chloe’s eyebrows raised incredulously. “What do you mean it’s not him!? Old Man Keller showed us his face. You think Keller lied to us, after all these years of trying to get someone to listen to him?”

“No,” I choked out. “I think Keller was right, but I know what it’s like to hold your child in your arms for the first time. It’s one of the most profound experiences of a lifetime. Even the most diabolical people would show a shred of remorse to give that up. I can see it in his eyes—he doesn’t know what that’s like, because Professor Warren never got to experience it… he doesn’t know his child exists.”

“What are you talking about…?” Professor Warren started, but he trailed off as realization dawned. Warren went completely speechless as he began to process what I already suspected.

If I needed any more confirmation of my theory, the shock on his face said it all.

“If Warren isn’t behind this, then why would Old Man Keller show us his face?” Grant asked.

I never took my eyes off Professor Warren as tears beaded in my eyes. “Because we were asking the wrong question. We asked whose child had gone missing, but every child has two parents.”

Professor Warren may be this child’s father, but this child had a mother, too. And there was only one woman I knew of in the coven who was missing a child.

“Lucas said there were never reports of a missing infant, but there was a baby—one no one ever thought to go looking for,” I pointed out.

Tears streaked Professor Warren’s cheeks as he stared blankly forward in shock. “She—she said the baby wasn’t mine. I believed her.”

The recognition in his eyes told me everything.

“Professor, it’s not your fault,” I assured him in a broken tone. “We all believed in Headmistress Clarice Verla.”

The room went immensely silent, the kind of shocked silence that sent shivers up and down my spine. No one wanted to believe it, but now it was obvious. Everything that had pointed to Professor Warren were clues leading directly to Headmistress Verla. Warren wasn’t the only person who had lost someone he might desire to bring back. Verla had lost her sister… a sister whose body was never recovered after the priestesses hanged her.

And then a stillborn child—her son, Allyn.

Only he wasn’t stillborn like she’d said. It had all been a lie to keep anyone from looking for him.

I’d had so much sympathy for Verla. I thought her story was one of resilience, in which she used what she’d lost to fuel her rebellion against the priestesses. I’d been able to relate to her in so many ways. The loss of her sister made me believe she could understand what I’d gone through losing my parents. She’d been there for me when Dean died, providing guidance from the experience of losing her own child, but it wasn’t even true. I thought these things had brought us closer together, but now I felt the agony of a chasm form in our relationship. To think of what she had planned for her son made me physically ill. I was utterly horrified, because I couldn’t comprehend how anyone would perform a ritual with their own child.

Verla was more wounded than I ever thought, and she was going about healing that damage in the most horrific ways. There wasn’t just a child to protect…

We needed to save Verla from herself .

“It can’t be Verla.” Chloe’s voice trembled.

Miles lowered his gun slowly. “I don’t believe it, either.”

“She was so good to us,” Grant agreed.

Talia shook her head, refusing to accept it. “She wouldn’t.”

“But she did,” I whispered. A sob broke from my chest as those words twisted the knife of betrayal straight through my heart and out the other side. I didn’t want to accept it was her.

I knelt to Warren’s side and began untying his binds. “Professor, I am so sorry for what you’ve been through. We’re going to stop her, and we’re going to get your son back.”

Professor Warren’s tear-filled gaze shifted to mine. “How?”

“We need to find her,” I said. “We believe she’s planning to perform a dark magic ritual to raise the dead.”

“Nicole…” Warren mused as his restraints dropped free. “Clarice and her sister were so close. They were twins. Clarice was devastated when she lost her.”

“We think she’s going to perform this ritual in a crystal cave,” I said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

Warren appeared contemplative, but he shook his head. “No. I don’t recall anything about a crystal cave.”

“Is there anything you remember?” I asked. “The smallest details could help us find her and stop her before this dark magic does permanent damage.”

Professor Warren rubbed his wrists. “Clarice and I dated several years ago, long after Roberta passed. We only loved each other for a short time before she called things off. We kept our relationship a secret because it’d put our jobs in jeopardy if people knew. There were times I tried to express how I truly felt about her, even after she broke my heart. I asked her to dance at the Midnight Formal when we were chaperoning one year. She wouldn’t even look at me the rest of the night, because she was certain someone would suspect we’d been more than friends. I always sensed there were things she couldn’t open up to me about, and I respected that. I see now she hid it all very well. If there’s something she didn’t want me to know, she did a good job of keeping it a secret.”

“Maybe that’s a clue itself,” I realized. “Is there any place she was particularly secretive about?”

Professor Warren’s eyes shifted in a calculating manner. “She didn’t let me into her personal life much. Most of our time together was spent here… Although, she didn’t like it when I visited her in her office at school. She said it would raise suspicion, but perhaps there was more to it.”

“Let’s start there. We might find valuable information that could lead us to her.” I pulled my phone from my pocket. “I’m calling Lucas to tell him what we found. He can meet us there.”

Grant glanced at the clock on the stove. “He should be here by now. What’s taking him so long?”

The line rang, but it went to voicemail. My pulse quickened, and my mouth went dry in worry. “Lucas didn’t pick up.”

“Has he shared his location with you?” Chloe asked. “Check it—he might be driving.”

I pulled up Lucas’s location on my phone. “That’s weird. It says he’s still at Old Man Keller’s place.”

“He must’ve found something and is investigating another clue,” Grant suggested.

“Then he might need help deciphering it,” I said. “We should split up.”

Professor Warren got to his feet. “I have access to the school. I can check Clarice’s office.”

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Miles insisted. “You could have a concussion and shouldn’t be driving. I’ll come with you.”

“Call us if you find anything,” I said, before we split off in different directions.

Miles followed Professor Warren to his car, while Chloe, Grant, Talia and I returned to Chloe’s vehicle. We hurried back the way we’d come until we reached Old Man Keller’s street.

Only, there wasn’t a vehicle in sight. Lucas’s car was gone.

Grant peered out the window curiously. “We must’ve just missed him.”

I stared down at my phone screen. “This doesn’t make any sense. GPS tracks him here.”

Chloe parked across from Old Man Keller’s house, and I stepped out of the passenger side. I looked up and down the deserted street, wondering if Lucas had dropped Marcus off at Professor Wykoff’s, then come back for some reason and had parked somewhere else. But there was no car in the driveway—or anywhere, for that matter.

I brought up Lucas’s contact again and tried calling him. The sound of his ringtone filled the night air, and a soft glow emanated from near the curb. My heart leapt into my throat as I raced across the street. Lucas’s phone was lying on the pavement where his car had been parked. The screen was cracked in the corner.

My friends surrounded me. “What happened here?” Chloe demanded.

“I—I don’t know,” I stammered. I quickly punched in another contact.

“Hello?” Professor Wykoff answered on the second ring. My pulse pounded in my ears so loud I wasn’t sure if she said anything else.

“Has Lucas been to your house tonight?” I panicked. “Is Marcus with you!?”

“No, I wasn’t expecting anyone,” she replied. “Nadine, is everything all right?”

I lowered the phone from my ear as the horrifying reality came crashing down on me. My husband and my son were missing.

Someone must’ve taken my phone from my hand, because I staggered to the curb. My knees buckled as I sank to sit in the grass. This couldn’t be happening again.

The world swam in front of me, and I barely processed that Chloe was holding my phone and giving Professor Wykoff some sort of explanation. I didn’t hear it past the ringing in my ears.

Talia came to sit next to me, gently placing a hand on my back. “We’re going to find them, Nadine.”

I shook my head, shaking off my shocked panic. “We have to,” I agreed in a shaky tone. “I won’t let Verla get away with any of this.”

“You think Verla has them?” Grant asked.

I swallowed the bile rising to my throat. “She must. Lucas wouldn’t take Marcus somewhere without telling me, and he never made it to Wykoff’s. She stole the Oaken Wands to do her ritual, but she never got the Mortana Wand because Lucas still had it on him. Now she’s stolen my family to finish the job.”

Chloe hung up the phone. “How are we going to find him? We can’t find Lucas with technology, and we don’t have the magic to perform a tracking spell.”

My head sagged into my hands. “There’s got to be another way…”

I thought of all the times we’d faced the impossible, yet the Shield Squad had always managed to find a solution and defy the odds. We’d lost our son once before, and we’d raised hell to get him back. I’d go to the ends of the earth and beyond for my family. Even if it took me a hundred years and I had to haunt this town after I died—searching one building at a time to find them—I’d do it.

I inhaled a sharp breath when I realized something. “We don’t need magic to track him, because we already know how to find each other when we’re in trouble.”

“How?” Chloe asked.

I was already on my feet, hurrying back toward her car. “I’m going to haunt this damn town, that’s how. Keep an eye out, and protect my body while I’m gone. I’m astral traveling to find my husband.”

Once I did, I’d make Clarice Verla beg on her knees for mercy. Nobody touched my family and got away with it.

Not even someone I cherished dearly.