Devious Magic by Camilla Chafer Read Free Book Online Page B

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    The media was just as bad. Witches and serial killers made great stories and there was much speculation and comparison drawn from the witch-hunts of several hundred years ago. People had even written scholarly papers for science journals claiming or disproving evidence in support of their theories.
    Today was mostly the same old, same old: ranting conspiracy theorists, badly spelled urgings from people hiding behind nicknames, and some sicker posts about what some would like to do to female witches. I grimaced and scrolled post those quickly before I lost my lunch.
    I moved on to one of the more moderate websites that focused more on the discussion of whether magic existed or not. A lot of conspiracy theorists abounded here too, but at least, it was a lot tamer than the other websites.
    I read for ten minutes before a comment, buried deep in a rant about Hollywood covens – dear Lord – caught my eye and I leaned in closer to read it again. It read: I gotta ask, how are these people funded? It must take a lot of work to hunt down witches so it’s not like they have full time jobs or whatever. And if it is all true, it’s still murder, right? Why aren’t these people being prosecuted?
    “Very good questions,” I said to the screen. I just wish I had the answers. For one thing, I wanted to know how they were funded. Did the Brotherhood have financiers or sponsors? If so, those people had to be sick individuals or more closely entwined with magic than any of us had even fathomed.
    Secondly, the murders had garnered a lot of press coverage, mostly in Europe where they were more numerous. I could browse the newspapers online so, every once in a while, I searched through them, but the reports had become more infrequent during the past few months and dwindled to almost nothing, as no new murders arose.
    Despite the extensive coverage throughout Europe, no arrests had ever been made, no suspects brought in for questioning. That led me to thinking other unpalatable thoughts. Did the police from every country where a murder had taken place really discover so little that they had no suspects? Or were they willing to turn a blind eye? If the latter were true, someone high up must hate witches so much they were prepared to allow people to hunt them. Perhaps I was just reading too many conspiracies. Despite that, when I closed the browser, I shivered.
    For a moment, I had the mouse pointer hover over the “shut down” button; but then I pushed it up and opened my documents folder so I could bring up my latest notes. I’d been keeping track of questions that puzzled me, as well as notes, and any nuggets of information, which reminded me... the address on the Brotherhood’s summons had been Hawkscroft, Yorkshire. No street address. Only very large houses in England didn’t require a street address.
    Calling up a fresh browser window, I tapped the house name into the search box and hit “enter.” A moment later, a Wikipedia entry popped up so I opened the page, scanning my eyes over it. There wasn’t much information, just some notes about the house’s architecture, when it was built and that it had always been owned by the same family but failed to give their names. The picture showed a large, imposing house set back behind sprawling lawns.
    I added a few notes to my file, including the web address for the house’s entry, saved it and then started the power down process.
    “Work all okay?” asked Kitty, putting down her magazine when I walked into the living room a few minutes later.
    I struggled to keep my face even. “Yeah, no problems at all. Where’s Étoile?”
    “Kitchen.” As I started walking away, I heard Kitty call, “If she has her fingers in the frosting, tell her she has to wait until everyone’s had a piece.”
    Étoile was actually making tea in the teakettle she gave me for Christmas along with a tin full of tea bags. There was everything from black “builder’s” to herbal varieties. When