Banshee Charmer (Files from the Otherworlder Enforcement Agency, #1) by Tiffany Allee Page A

been able to pull that off. Trying to find them with something that was only secondarily connected to the target of the spell—like an item from someone they killed—required talent.
    And my brave partner had tried it without a second thought.
    The hairbrush was still in the side pocket I’d pushed it into. The pocket was one I didn’t use much so there was little chance of the space having anything of mine inside to mess up the energy or whatever witches used that would connect the hair in the brush with its owner. I set it gingerly on the desk and watched Natalie expectantly.
    “How long since she used this?”
    “Couldn’t be more than a couple of days.”
    “Good. Follow me and bring it with you, please.”
    Natalie led the way through the door in the side of her office that I’d mistaken for a bathroom when I’d first walked in. It led to a short hallway, with a bathroom on one side and a closed door on the other. By the size of the door I guessed it led to a closet. At the end of the hall was another room, this one even bigger than her office. Shelves lined the room, covering more than half of the walls. Where the shelves were absent, complicated glyphs could be seen, each intricately drawn.
    Her casting room.
    The circle appeared to be etched into the floor rather than just painted on. Some of the glyphs brushed on the walls were white, the others red. I grimaced at the red ones. In the poor lighting they looked like they’d been drawn in blood.
    “It’s not blood,” Natalie said, voice full of amusement. “It’s not regular paint either, but I promise it’s all plant based.”
    She hummed while she pulled ingredients off the shelves and started painting a symbol in the center of the circle. Her soft voice barely carried to me, and I wondered if she even knew she hummed.
    “Okay then.” She stepped back from the symbol she’d been drawing and turned to me. “I need you to tell me everything you know about the person we’re looking for. Is he human? Otherworlder?”
    “Otherworlder.”
    “What kind?”
    I hesitated. Telling her he was probably an incubus might get me booted from her office. At the very least she wasn’t likely to take me seriously. “We don’t know for sure. Something that can kill without leaving marks.” That at least, was the truth.
    “So not a vampire then? Could he be a witch?”
    I just stared at her for a moment. I hadn’t even considered the possibility that the killer was a witch. I was pretty sure that only a Covenant witch would be capable of killing someone with magic, especially by draining their psychic energy. And Covenant witches were rare—not as rare as a species that by most accounts was extinct—but still rare. And ones with the power to kill without leaving a trace? They must be rarer still. A brief image of Natalie standing over Amanda’s prone body flashed in my mind. No. The witch could have done it—maybe. But she struck me as too smart to kill in her own backyard. “Not a vamp for sure,” I said. “What are the odds that a witch powerful enough to kill several women without making a mark got under whatever radar you guys have on the city?”
    She gave me a thin smile. “Not likely. A witch powerful enough to kill like that and evade detection? I can count the ones living in this country on one hand. And none of them are likely suspects.”
    “An amateur witch couldn’t have—”
    She held up a hand and looked like she was trying not to laugh from the sheer insanity of my suggestion. “Not possible.”
    “Good. Then I’d say we’re not looking for a witch, either.”
    She replaced some of the bottles she’d removed from the shelf and took down a metal plate that had little feet on the underside to prop it up, and then waved me into the circle.
    “Before we begin, I want to remind you there is only a very small chance this will work. And I cannot assume responsibility for any unforeseen consequences that may arise from the