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Everyone froze and watched. Blake sensed everyone’s animals go on alert. He had no idea what was about to happen, and if it went wrong, it would be on him to fix it.
“No one wins six rounds in a row,” Nikki said.
“Maybe I’m just that good.” Reagan winked and gave Nikki a half smile. Nikki narrowed her eyes.
The tense pause expanded. Blake moved forward, planning on stepping between them. Before he could reach them, the two women started laughing and hugged each other. He exchanged looks with Lincoln to see what he missed. Lincoln shrugged.
“You would have never won that last round if I hadn’t slipped you that card,” Nikki said.
The stress in the room switched from adversarial to lustful so fast that Blake almost missed it. These two women had a history.
Reagan stepped back. “I thought for sure we were about to be caught. I’m not sure if we could have made it out of there.”
Nikki waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, we would have been fun. I slipped some belladonna into the whiskey. Neither of us likes whiskey, so it was perfect.”
“Um, okay. What’s going on?” Ford asked.
Nikki and Reagan turned their heads to Ford.
“It’s a long story,” Reagan said. “And one, you’ll never hear.”
Lincoln clapped his hands. “Well, that was fun, but we have a job to do.” He nodded to Washington. “Care to fill me in on what we’ve learned?”
Washington stepped over to a laptop, pushed a few buttons, and handed Lincoln a black and white photo. The projected image on the wall matched the one in the picture. “This is still the only un-spelled photo we have of the person who owns the land.”
Lincoln handed the photo to Blake. It was only the back of a female with short, dark hair, but there was something familiar about her.
“I don’t understand how a photo can be spelled,” he asked.
Lincoln pointed to Reagan. “Do you want to explain it to him?”
She nodded and pointed to the photo. “It’s a trick I used before. “It’s not that this photo is spelled, exactly, but the person in the photo has a type of, um, let’s call it a cloaking spell. It keeps her true identity hidden.”
Blake handed the photo back to Lincoln. “That must cost a lot of energy.”
“It does. I’ve only been able to do it in quick bursts once or twice at a time. My guess is the person in this photo is very old and very powerful,” she said.
Washington pushed a button, and a photo of Heather popped up.
Lincoln sat at a table and propped up his feet on the table. “That’s why I contacted Tristan. I’m sure you recognize that woman.”
Blake leaned against a table, crossed his ankles, and put his hands in his pockets. “I already told you I did. You say that Heather is a Tribe witch. That makes no sense to me. But if I remember correctly, she’d be about fifty by now, and that woman-” he pointed to the projected image, “-is not fifty.”
Lincoln nodded to Washington. Another image appeared on the wall. It was a copy of Heather’s obituary.
“Heather Fairchild died fifteen years ago,” Lincoln said.
Blake let out a low growl. “Let me guess. Her funeral had a closed coffin?”
“Actually,” Ford picked up the story. “She was cremated. At least, that is what everyone believes.”
Blake’s family had a lot of past conflicts with the Tribe. One of his ancestors fell in love with Isabeau and Elspeth, sisters who started the Tribe. He wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but it didn’t end well, and the sisters have been at war with each other since. Their issues spilled over into every aspect of their lives, and the Tribe split over conflicting views.
Ford continued the story. “I’m sure you know how Tribe witches are made.”
“A woman dies a violent death at the hands of a man and is brought back to life,” he said.
“Exactly,” Ford said. “Heather had a very violent death.”
