This Coven Won't Break - Isabel Sterling Page 0,20
ignores his phone when it buzzes again. Instead, he pulls an event flier from the folder and passes it to me. Alice is dressed all in black with an old-school magician’s hat tipped forward to cover her face. The only color on the poster comes from the pink hair that cascades past her shoulders. “She doesn’t use any real magic in her act, which meant we had no leverage when she refused to help with our plan.”
“When did you ask her?”
“A couple weeks before the raid. We like to have several plans in motion so we’re not scrambling when something falls through.”
Makes sense. Though I don’t want to know how far down the list of plans I am. “And our new plan is what, exactly?”
“One step at a time. For now, your sole focus should be on recruiting Alice.” He points to the bottom of the flier and reaches for a second photo, this one of a large building. “She’s performing at a hotel in Brooklyn this Saturday. The roof has an entertainment area, which is where we’ll observe her show. Cal will hack into the hotel’s computer system to get us Alice’s room number so you can convince her to return with us to Salem.”
A cold chill travels up my arms, and I press down the panic rising up my throat. The last time I ran into a Blood Witch in New York City, things didn’t go well for either of us. I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to convince Alice to give up a national tour to help the Council. Especially since she’s already refused once.
“If I’m going to recruit her, I need to know what I’m asking her to do.” I glance up cautiously at Archer. “How is she supposed to help us get inside Hall Pharmaceuticals?”
Archer pulls another photo from his folder. This one is a selfie of a young white woman, probably in her early twenties. Her tan skin sports freckles across her nose and cheeks, and her long brown hair is loose around her shoulders. She has a kind smile and a pink scarf looped around her neck.
“This is Eisha Marchelle. She’s a biochem senior and, more importantly for our purposes, an intern at Hall Pharmaceuticals.”
“She’s a Hunter?” She looks harmless enough. Although, so did Benton until he was holding a gun.
“No, actually. Most of the company does legitimate work. Vaccines and that sort of thing.” Detective Archer pulls out a stack of fan forums and social media posts. “In addition to interning three days a week at the Hunters’ base of operations, our intelligence indicates that Eisha is Alice’s self-proclaimed biggest fan. She comments on nearly all of Alice’s videos and has posted repeatedly about her disappointment in missing the live tour.”
“Do I even want to know how you figured all this out?” I sift through the pages and pages of comments. Even though everything I’m reading was posted online for the whole world to see, it still feels weird to have it all in one place like this.
Archer grins. “Cal has some rather useful non-magical talents.”
“And what about the other witch? The Caster. When are we recruiting him?” I know he said to focus on Alice, but I’m desperate to know the full picture of what I need to do.
“You’ll be meeting with David the following weekend. Like Elder Keating said, we’re trying to disrupt your life as little as possible. But we’ll deal with that once you’re back from New York.” Archer’s phone goes off again, and this time he punches in his passcode and reads through the messages. After a moment, his cheeks burn a bright red.
“What’s that about?” I ask before I think better of it, like he’s a friend instead of my boss-slash-commander-slash-bodyguard. Honestly, I’m not really sure what this new relationship between us is supposed to be. All I know is he outranks me. By a lot.
But he doesn’t seem to mind. He glances up from his phone, and his cheeks grow even redder. “Nothing. Just . . . Lauren being Lauren.”
Confusion settles heavily into my forehead. Who in the world is—“Oh my god, my boss? Are you two still a thing?” My voice squeaks on the end of my question, but I don’t even care. I can’t believe I forgot they were dating. Were they dating? I don’t know, they were definitely flirting the last time I saw them together. But that was almost two months ago.