Page 75 of Black Willow Witch
A brisk knock came at the front door.
‘That’ll be the Watchers.’ Ripper slowly released her. ‘I’ll let them in.’ He stalked to the door and opened it wide. Kerr, Shane, Logan and a male witch filed inside. The latter was Ward’s brother but, unlike Ward himself, Marvin was a decent guy.
‘How’s Emberlyn, and where’s the Rabid?’ Logan asked.
‘She’s fine,’ Ripper replied. ‘And it’s outside.’
Moments later, they were all gathered in a circle around the sleeping Rabid.
‘You don’t often see any Rabid in town this early,’ Shane noted.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Ripper planted his feet wide. ‘This is the second time one came at Emberlyn. It happened last month, too.’ It was no coincidence. It had likely been lured this way using a dead animal, just like the last Rabid.
‘There’s a chance this guy is one of my wolves, Lincoln Mathers,’ said Shane, his expression grim. ‘He turned Rabid two years ago. That scar on his throat? Lincoln had one just like that. What’s that crisscross pattern of magick on its head?’ he asked Emberlyn. ‘The sleeping spell?’
Beside Ripper, she nodded. ‘As for the little webs over its eyelids, they had nothing to do with me.’
He regarded her closely. Her tone was cool and controlled, but it held the slightest edge of anger. If Ripper hadn’t spent so much time around her, he wasn’t sure he would have picked up on the latter.
She went on, ‘Somebody else did that. I just unveiled the spell.’
Kerr frowned. ‘What’s the intent behind it?’
‘To haze the Rabid’s vision with a killing rage,’ Marvin said in astonishment as he held his hand above the Rabid’s eyes, reading the spell.
‘The fuck?’ Logan bit off.
Emberlyn breathed in through her nose. ‘As I see it, there’d be no reason to do that unless a person wanted to set the Rabid on somebody. In order to do that, though, they must have first captured it – probably while it slept. Moving it wouldn’t have been easy, so they likely knocked it unconscious before bespelling it. I don’t think they then released the Rabid in a random spot; that it coincidentally happened upon the manor. I think they placed it some distance from here deliberately before waking it.’
Ripper felt the corners of his eyes tighten. ‘In other words, someone sicced it on you?’
‘That would be my guess,’ she replied.
A scolding lash of anger whipped at Ripper, and he whirled on Marvin with a snarl.
The male witch threw up his hands. ‘I knew nothing of this! I swear! Emberlyn, I . . . I don’t know who would do this, but I can tell you it wasnota coven-wide effort. I would have heard about it, and I would have put a stop to it. This was one person acting alone or a few people secretly working together.’
‘Like who?’ demanded Ripper. ‘That damn faction your coven likes to claim doesn’t exist?’
Marvin hesitated. ‘I don’t know. It’s a simple spell – a witch of any skillset could do it.’
‘The effect is only ever temporary,’ Emberlyn cut in. ‘So this Rabid was bespelled at some point this morning. Would Carver or one of his wolves have captured it if asked?’
Ripper gave his head a stiff shake. ‘No wolf would do this. The Rabid are still thinking beings; they’re victims of circumstance.’
Shane nodded, the move hard and curt. ‘They don’t deserve to be used like this, and none of our kind would condone it. It’s fucked up.’
‘I agree,’ Marvin said quickly. ‘It’s cruel. I can’t think of a witch who would do it either.’
‘Well, at leastoneof the coven did,’ said Kerr, cricking his corded neck. ‘And something needs to be done about it.’
Ripper grunted, his muscles tight with anger. ‘Twice now Rabid have been used as attack dogs. There needs to not be a third time. Not only for Emberlyn’s safety, but because it’s utterly inhumane.’
‘We should hold a meeting at the town hall for all of Chilgrave and address it there,’ Shane declared. ‘For witches to hold a grudge against another is one thing. For them to drag the Rabid into it,bespelland use them this way is another.’
Logan dipped his chin. ‘Whatever culprit or culprits is behind this . . . they’re fucking cowards. They should have gone at Emberlyn head-on themselves. At which point she’d have made them suffer, yeah, but that’s the risk they’d take. If you ain’t prepared to be part of a fight, you don’t use someone else like a puppet to do it for you.’
Ripper rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the irritability that raced through his veins, making him feel antsy and on edge. He had no idea who’d done this, which meant he had no one he could punish. The annoyance of that grated his skin.
