“What does the full moon have to do with it?” I asked.
“What doesn’t it?” Edward muttered.
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.
“If the full moon can exert power over the tides,” Cassandra said, “it can exert power over a lot of things. As long as there’s been magic, that magic has been best performed under the full moon.”
“How long has there been magic?” I asked.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
“Wasn’t that a miracle?”
She shrugged. “Semantics.”
“June wasn’t able to raise Roland the last time she tried,” Raye said.
“Why not?”
“She took too long to kill me. I doubt she’ll make the same mistake twice.”
“If she needed a full moon why didn’t she use one?” I asked.
“She needs the moon, a sacrifice, believers,” Cassandra clarified. “A full moon should speed things up, give her more juice. Since she’s failed once, she’s gonna want both.”
“If she fails again?”
“There’s always All Hallows’ Eve. It’s one of the most powerful nights of the year.”
“For magic and witchcraft, right?” I asked. “But the Venatores Mali hate witches.”
“They do, but power is power, and raising the dead is magic. Dark magic, but still magic.”
“That makes no sense.”
“You expect them to make sense?” Raye shook her head. “Don’t.”
“She’s going to move soon.” Cassandra noticed I’d finished my coffee and handed me another. “The longer she waits, the more chance there is that someone else will kill more witches than she has.” At my bemused expression, she continued. “The nut job with the most witch kills is considered the leader of the Venatores Mali and is the one who raises Roland. The longer she waits to bring him back, the less chance she has of being the one to do it.”
“If she raises him, what does she get?”
“Whatever’s behind door number three.” Cassandra shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”
“We should set a trap.”
Everyone looked at the FBI agent.
“We know Mistress June is here. We think she’ll try and raise Roland again tomorrow night. She’ll need a witch to kill.” Franklin’s forehead creased. “As the two of you will be ultravigilant, and a lot harder to snatch than your run-of-the-mill witch, I think she’ll look elsewhere for her sacrifice.”
“How are we going to keep an eye on every witch in town?” Cassandra asked.
I burst out laughing. “Every witch in town? This is Three Harbors. There aren’t any.”
“That’s what I thought about New Bergin,” Raye said. “I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
“How’d you find out who was a witch?”
“They turned up dead and branded.”
“We need a better way.”
“You think?” Raye asked, with the exact inflection I would have.
How strange. Or maybe not very strange at all.
“Is there a coven here?” Cassandra asked.
“If there were, I wouldn’t know about it.” I paused. “Jeremy was going to check on that.”
“Jeremy?” the priestess repeated.
“Reitman. He’s a forensic veterinarian. He came here to examine the animal sacrifices at Owen’s house. He also happens to be a witch.”
“Coincidence?” Franklin murmured. “I don’t think so.”
“He’s the best forensic veterinarian in the state,” I protested.
“Which means if there were animal sacrifices, he’d be called. I don’t suppose anyone tried to kill him while he was here.”
“Owen’s mom, but she’s schizophrenic.”
“Did she try to kill him because a voice told her to?”
“Maybe?”
“That voice could very well be Roland’s,” Edward said.
“Are you trying to tell me that Owen’s mom isn’t crazy? That the voices she’s been hearing for most of her life are real?”
“Is the voice of a dead man real?” Edward wondered.
“Yes,” Raye said. “Although I doubt that Roland’s been whispering to Owen’s mom since she was young. We weren’t even born then.”
“According to you we were born four hundred years ago, which means we were.”
“Time travel gives me a great big headache,” she said.
I couldn’t argue there.
“Has Owen’s mother tried to kill anyone before?” Cassandra asked.
“Owen.”
“Because?”
“She was never very forthcoming on that.”
“Does she hate witches?”
I shook my head. “There were times she thought she was one.”
“Is she?”
“I…” I paused. “I don’t know. Until a few days ago, believing you were a witch was nutty. Although, if she is, why did she try to kill one of her own?”
Which only brought us back to nutty, unless …
“She’s been in a mental health facility for a long time. According to her now-dead caseworker, she’s escaped several times in the past few months, and no one knows how.”
Had it been magic? Maybe.
“A crazy woman on a mission would be the perfect weapon.” Edward lifted one bushy white eyebrow. “I have seen