“That it?” I asked. There had to be more.
Neve hesitated. “Pretty much. She has some sort of side hustle, I don’t
know what it is, but I don’t think it’s legal because no one I talked to was
sure. Pretty much everyone used the same words. Loner. Peculiar. Powerful.”
I didn’t like the way this was going.
“Okay. Do you have a phone number for her?”
“Nope. She doesn’t use electronics,” Neve noted.
I sighed. “Thanks for everything. We’ll head out that way in a couple
hours.”
“Need backup?”
“Let’s wait and see what we’re facing. Maybe she’ll be a sweet lady
living in a gingerbread house.”
Neve laughed. “If she tries to stuff you in her oven, I can get there fast.”
“Thanks.” I hung up.
Savannah, who had most certainly been listening in with her wolf
hearing, narrowed her eyes. “You sound concerned.”
“Maybe. The author is a witch living in isolation. Nobody knows much
about her. It could be a bad situation.”
She scowled. “Sounds to me like you have a preconceived social
prejudice against powerful women who choose to live their lives alone.”
I glared. “No, I don’t. If she were a mage, it wouldn’t be a red flag. But
witches draw their power from their covens and tend to congregate with each
other. Essentially, like wolves, they live in packs. And I trust that mindset.”
Savannah scoffed. “So it’s just a werewolf bias, then. That makes it all
okay.”
“Witches living in isolation don’t have a coven to draw their magic from,
so they often turn to outside sources for power. Demons. Devils. Dark beings.
Piecing that bit of knowledge together with the fact that the woman doesn’t
like outsiders and wrote a little book called The Grimoire of Nightmares,
which might very well be bound with human skin— that is what makes me