The diner Elijah gave me the address to is a three-story affair with dim lighting more common to a fancy restaurant. It’s pretty empty after the breakfast rush, just a few patrons sipping beverages. I can feel I’ve jumped several miles, maybe more. Having the address of the place is all I needed to get here. I have no idea how my power works. How this magic inside me seems to have a GPS all of its own, but it sure comes in handy.
I nod in greeting to a couple of waitstaff, and a woman heads over with a smile. “Hi, table for one?”
“I’m meeting someone, actually. Not sure if he’s already here.”
“Oh, you’re Mr. Blackwood’s guest.”
Looks like Elijah is known in these parts. “Yeah. He’s here?”
“Follow me.” She leads me up a flight of steps, carpeted, which is kinda weird for a diner, I mean, what about spills? Maybe these waitstaff don’t spill? Whatever.
The second floor is more intimate with booths and tinted windows. Honestly, I’m beginning to think I’ve walked into some kind of mafia scene when I spot Elijah sitting, back to the wall, sipping from a teacup. His turquoise eyes zero in on me, and his lips curve in a small smile.
I’ve forgotten how handsome he is, the silver-haired fox. I steel myself against it and approach with a small smile of my own.
“Hey.” I take a seat. “I’ll have a hot chocolate, please.”
The woman looks to Elijah. “Anything else for you, Mr. Blackwood?”
“No, thank you, Jean. This is perfect.”
His smile is like a hug, and she practically simpers before heading off.
“Charmer, aren’t you?”
“I can be,” he says over the lip of his cup. “I’m glad you messaged. I was about to call you, actually. The timing is apt.”
“Also necessary. We have a problem, one which I feel could be huge.”
“And I have some information, also huge.”
“So we both have huge…things to discuss.”
Okay, this is headed into double entendre territory, not my intention. “Fee has started sleepwalking and trying to kill herself while doing it.”
He sits back and steeples his fingers. “Tell me more.”
“It started a few days ago, a scratching at the back of her mind, then the episodes of sleepwalking. Both times she ended up on a ledge about to jump. No, let me amend, the first time she did jump, and luckily for her, there was someone to catch her. Oh, and she heard a voice in her head, urging her to do it. To jump.”
Jean returns with my hot chocolate, sets it down, and then beams at Elijah before leaving.
I take a sip. It is just the right temperature, sweet and thick just the way I like it. “I think it’s the hooded figures. They tried to kill her and failed, and so this is their new tactic. They must have done something to her.”
“It sounds like a reasonable explanation,” Elijah says. “But it would help more if we knew why they wanted your friend dead, and I have a theory about that.”
“You do?”
“Yes, but to understand my theory, you’ll need to understand a little about the world I come from.”
Um… “Okay…”
“I work with the Grimswood witches.”
“The super coven up north?”
His smile is wry. “The very one. We’re different. Our magic is…unique.”
“Not miasma?”
“Not exactly. The coven gains its power from the power of the stars, from the zodiac, and particularly the constellation of Ophiuchus. We call it the Thirteenth sign.”
“Last I checked, there are only twelve signs.”
“Yes, astrologers wanted the signs to fit with the months in a year, so Ophiuchus was forgotten…deliberately, we believe, because a witch born under the sign of Ophiuchus has the potential to be extremely powerful. There are only a handful born every century, and the Grimswood coven relies on them to act as an anchor for the coven. They keep an ancient threat at bay, and they have been hunted by the Grimswood adversaries for centuries. Cut down before they can reach their full potential.”
“You think Fee is one of these Ophiuchus witches? You think that’s why she’s being hunted.”
“No,” Elijah says with a smirk. “Fee isn’t the Ophiuchus. You are.”
I stare at him, uncomprehending. “What?”
“When were you created?”
“I don’t know…I found Fee the first week of December. I guess…I guess then.”
“It’s the time of Ophiuchus, and you took Fee’s witch power. You don’t require a connection to a coven to access miasma, and you don’t need to use blood, sex, or