Arrest, Search and Séance : Book 1 of the Fringe Society R.D. Hunter (pride and prejudice read .TXT) 📖

tall stack of blank T-shirts and sweat shirts stood in the corner, waiting for their turn to be stamped. Several completed piles were on the couch and recliner, which she cleared off hastily and invited me to sit.

“What is your relationship with Nichole Barret?” I asked once I’d sat. The sofa was surprisingly comfy.

“Sorry, but why do you want to know?” she answered uncertainly. Although we were bound under a guest/host relationship, that didn’t mean she was under any compulsion to answer my questions, and vice versa. I could have been here to gather information on her friends to use against them later. Unfortunately, convincing her otherwise without a lengthy series of questions and answers meant I had to drop a truth bomb on her.

I looked at her carefully and said in a very quiet voice, “Because I’m trying to find out who killed her.” Any lingering suspicion I had that Beth was involved in Nichole Barret’s death went right out the window as I watched the young girl’s reaction.

Horror dawned on her face and tears welled up in her eyes before streaming down her cheeks. She raised both hands to cover her nose and mouth and I could almost feel the tragic grief emanating from her as her shoulders began to shake from violent sobs. Looking around, I saw a box of tissue on the table and handed her several.

“Beth, I’m sorry for your loss, but I really need you to answer a few questions for me now, okay?” I said as tenderly as possible. Beth sobbed a few more times, then wiped her eyes and took some deep breaths. Finally, she nodded.

“I’ll answer what I can,” she said shakily.

“How did you know Nichole?”

“We did spells together sometimes; me, her and a couple other girls.”

“Like a coven?” She shook her head.

“Nothing so grand. We don’t have any formal hierarchy or anything like that. We’re more of a social club, really. Hell, the first Friday of every month is bowling night. I doubt we’re even on the Gilded Moon’s radar.”

The Coven of the Gilded Moon was Atlanta’s main coven and oversaw any and all major workings inside their territory. We never got along, mainly because they think I’m undisciplined and disrespectful and I think they’re a bunch of overblown egomaniacs who care more about how their hair looks than the quality of their craft. They’d largely left me alone the past couple of years because of my focus on my career coupled with my reluctance to use magic, for which I was very grateful.

“Who else is in this social club?” I asked. Beth shook her head again.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.” I started to protest, but she held up a hand to stop me. “These girls have lives. Some have families who have no idea they’re witches. I won’t endanger that by revealing their identities. I swear to you, none of us had anything to do with Nichole’s death. We loved her. She was the best of us in a lot of ways, certainly the most powerful. She always had time to help when one of us ran across a spell we couldn’t do or just needed someone to talk to.”

“She sounds like a really great person.”

“She is…or, she was. God, I can’t believe this. I just talked to her last night.” A fresh round of grief shook the girl’s shoulders, and I waited a few moments before continuing.

“Did she say anything strange or act out of the ordinary in any way lately?”

“There was something,” Beth said after a pause. “A week or so ago, Nichole asked to borrow some vetiver and white sage. Her stock was low. Of course, I agreed, and when I asked what she was doing she said she’d had an uneasy feeling the past week or so, like something was watching her.” I raised my eyebrows.

“And this didn’t trigger any alarms for you?” Beth shrugged uncomfortably.

“Not really. A couple weeks ago we all went ghost hunting at the Oakland Cemetery. Got some crazy poltergeist activity. Nichole just thought one of the spirits had attached itself to her, so she was going to do a cleansing. She didn’t need my help for that and I never heard anything about it again, so I assumed it’d worked.”

“Was there anyone in Nichole’s personal life who might have wished her harm?” I asked, going for my next point. “Any bitter exes, jilted lovers, or pissed off clients?” Beth shook her head again, to my growing frustration. I felt like I was grasping for straws in a typhoon.

I sat back and thought for a second. According to Beth, who my gut told me was as honest and sincere as a person could be, Nichole Barret was a well-liked witch, not affiliated with the Gilded Moon or any other large coven. She had no enemies in her personal or public life to speak of, and no one with a possible motive for murder. The only thing she’d done outside of her routine in the past week was a cleansing ritual to dispel some negative energy around her, possibly as a result of a ghost hunt.

But what if it wasn’t? Magical practitioners usually have a highly developed sense of awareness. It’s what allows us to access the power within ourselves and other objects to be used in our spell work. Some even develop this talent further and become sensitive mediums or viewers.

If Nichole Barret had been as talented as Beth let on, the negativity she was picking up might have been from a physical person, rather than a ghost or spirit. If that was the case, a cleansing might have watered down whatever malicious intent they had, but it almost certainly wasn’t enough to banish it completely. It would require several witches working in concert to influence a person’s will after they’d already set off down