“This is a bit ridiculous,” Danny stage-whispered from the end of the line. “If there’s a powerful witch inside, she’s spelled everything and knows we’re here, likely from the moment we drove up. We’re acting like criminals in a bad police drama.”
He was right. “That’s true,” I said. “But we don’t want to go balls out and piss off whoever’s in there either. Nick is with them. We have to act like we respect the power.”
Tyler reached for the door handle, but the door sprang open on its own.
So much for respecting the power.
“Where is my niece?” A commanding voice rang out.
Standing with her hands on her hips in front of Marcy’s desk was the tiniest woman I’d ever seen. She appeared to be in direct odds with everything Marcy was—where Marcy was tall, curvy, with gorgeous long red hair, this woman was short, had the body of a twelve-year-old boy, and the hair spilling out of her black knit cap, complete with an embroidered skull and crossbones, was white as snow.
Aunt Tally.
Tallulah Talbot, the undisputed supernatural heavy in this city, possibly in the country, stood with her hands on her hips, looking very put out. Her power was legendary and she was likely the only reason we’d slowed Selene down for those few brief moments.
I’d never come face-to-face with her until now.
I stepped forward cautiously. This woman was clearly pissed, and if something had happened to Marcy, I was going to hurt someone. “Hello. I’m Jessica McClain. This is my office and Marcy is my secretary.”
“I know who you are.” She gave me a dismissive look. “Do you honestly think I’d allow my niece to work here if I weren’t well aware of the situation?”
“Um, I guess not.” Had I ever been under the radar? “Why are you here?”
“My niece is missing; that’s why I’m here.”
“What do you mean missing?” I asked as I took a step farther into the room. On inspection, Tally’s face was surprisingly young. If it weren’t for the white hair and her small, frail stature, she would’ve look somewhere in her late thirties. But with all the other accompaniments she looked late forties, early fifties.
Her eyes were a striking hazel, just like Marcy’s, but it was truly all they had in common.
“Jess,” Nick yelled as he came around the corner. “I thought I was hearing things.”
“Nick!” I ran over and gave him a big hug. He picked me up and squeezed me back. “Why didn’t you call me?” I asked as he put him at arm’s length.
“Well, first, I didn’t think you’d be back. But honestly, I would’ve called once I had more information.” He smiled. “I just got the news that Marcy was gone an hour ago. I came to meet Tally here, at her request, but she was… er… already inside.”
“My niece was taken from here this evening, against her will,” Tally said. “At approximately seven p.m.”
“How do you know for sure?” I looked around, but there was no sign of a struggle. I took a breath in, but didn’t scent anything in the air, except for Tally. Massive amounts of powerful witch filled my senses. I turned to Nick. “Do you know what happened?”
He shook his head. “I’m just as confused as you. I got a call from”—he gestured to the small but commanding woman with her hands on her hips, not knowing how to address her—“about an hour ago. The last time I talked to Marcy, everything was fine. She was packing up to leave for the day.”
“She was not fine,” Tally said with authority. “She was worried. She called me from here. That’s the last time I heard from her. She had laced the perimeter of this building with a detection spell and it was going off. She thought it was something big, but she didn’t know what it was. I ordered her to leave immediately and go home. She called me an hour later and told me everything was fine, she was sleepy, and was going to turn in for the night.”
“That sounds normal.”
“It wasn’t normal! She called me from a strange number, and The Impossible Date is on tonight and she’d rather lose a spell finger than miss it. So I went to her house.”
“She wasn’t home.”
“Damn right she wasn’t home. So I came here. I knew immediately who had her. Their signature is all over this place like neon lights in a pig barn.”
I glanced around the room and took in another breath. Nothing. “Who has her?”
“The sorcerers.”
“Why would the sorcerers want Marcy?”
“Are you really that daft?” Tally strode over to me. Magic flowed around her, sizzling the air. “They want you, of course. They took my niece because you weren’t available. Likely to extract information, but if we’re lucky there’s still time to ransom her back.”