Seth handed the book to me and went back to his snacking. The grimoire was made of thick black leather with a pentagram embossed on the front. When I touched it, I got that creepy feeling in my gut that told me I didn’t want to know what was in the book. I flipped it open and immediately knew I would need some help. There were symbols and foreign-sounding words, lists of ingredients, and recommended moon phases. I would need Diana to interpret.
I pushed the book over to Alex and Tom; they both seemed to have the same reaction I did. They turned the pages gingerly and finally gave up with a shrug.
“I’ll call Diana.” Alex pulled out his phone.
Seth’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. His eyebrows shot up when he saw who the text was from, then he quickly recovered and his thumbs got to work.
Alex walked into the living room to talk to Diana. Tom flipped through the accident report again, probably hoping he missed something the first ten times.
“I’m going up to change into some dry clothes,” I said. Tom and Seth nodded without looking up from their tasks.
Alex clicked his phone off when I entered the living room. “She’ll be here in about an hour,” he said. “I need to go get some new clothes.”
I tossed him the keys to my Jeep and he said he’d be back before Diana came over.
I grabbed some comfy yoga pants and an Ann Arbor Police Department sweatshirt and turned on the shower. The water felt great as I started to feel warm again. My brain always went into a different mode in the shower. Instead of being linear and controlled, it wandered and picked up pieces of information and sensations that I would normally ignore. This time it focused on who would want to kill Rafe. I came up with a longer list than I would have expected only a couple of days previously. Morgan Lavelle was a possibility. She and Rafe had fought and she seemed capable of just about anything. Lucan Reed had also been arguing with Rafe over the coven politics. Was that enough to kill for? Dylan hated Rafe and blamed him for his parents’ death. But I didn’t want to focus there. I thought of Skye and her battle with her parents over joining a coven. But she didn’t have any reason to kill Rafe. Who was I missing? I realized I had been showering too long when the water started to get cool. The hot water heater in this older home was not large enough to solve the mystery.
Just as I finished drying my hair I heard the doorbell ring and the uproar of protective dog barking. I heard Seth shushing the dogs and then Diana’s voice floated up from below.
*
I walked down the stairs and hesitated near the bottom when I saw what Diana had in her hand. She clutched her bulging, clanking tote bag that always contained trouble.
She raised it and said, “I know you don’t like it, but I have to do something to help Dylan and this is all I know how to do.”
I felt my shoulders slump at the same time I saw Seth’s face light up. I’d avoided Diana’s spell-casting once I realized that her spells invariably brought on the dreams that I tried so hard to block. Seth on the other hand loved anything to do with psychics, séances, or on a slow night, witchcraft. Alex walked in from the kitchen, holding a slice of pizza, and noticed the bag as well. His posture echoed mine. Both of us had been dragged into Diana’s spell-casting many times over the years. Alex usually needed a couple of shots of whiskey to participate.
“Maybe we can try one of the spells in Rafe’s book,” Seth said.
“What book?” Diana asked.
“The one we found at his house,” Seth said. “It’s got cool symbols and stuff inside.”
Diana glanced in my direction. “Can I see it?”
Seth bounded off to get it from the kitchen. Tom had followed Alex into the living room and we sat on the couches after evicting the dogs with some difficulty. Baxter was not pleased that his normal routine had been disrupted by all the visitors. Late afternoon was his prime napping-on-the-couch time.
While we finished the pizza Alex had brought, Alex and I told Diana the tale of Rafe’s house. She laughed a bit too hard at the part about being stuck on the roof but I figured she needed it. Seth handed her the book and she placed it carefully in her lap. She ran her hand over the cover and I saw her brows come together. She flipped it open and scanned the spells. She was about halfway through the book when she slapped it shut.
“I’ll have to take some time with this.” Her voice shook on the last word.
“What is it?” Alex asked.
She shook her head. “Just too much to take in all at once.”
But I knew what she had felt. There was evil in that book and the fact that it had belonged to Rafe Godwin had to be upsetting for her.
“I think we should get started,” Diana said.
Alex shifted in his seat and stole a look toward the kitchen, where I kept the alcohol. Tom cleared a place on the coffee table, as if this was a common occurrence. Seth’s eyes were bright and he asked Diana what she needed.
Diana smiled at him and said she brought everything in the bag.
Realizing this was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not, I took the chair farthest from the coffee table and waited for her to set up her supplies.