“How do you find a hell cat?” Rodriguez mused.

  “Put out a can of tuna?”

  He nudged me. “Be serious.”

  “We don’t. If it wants to talk to us, it will find us.”

  “So helpful.”

  I shrugged. “If we find it at another magical mishap, or murder, we can ask it to talk to us. No guarantee it will.”

  Rodriguez stopped. “They’re a type of witch, right? Don’t you have some sway with them? All witches in this together? Soon-to-be premier, come talk to me?”

  “I don’t think I could force the hell cat to talk to us. And even I could, would you trust the information we got? I wouldn’t.” Besides, I knew better than anyone that being in the witch community came with as many headaches as being outside of it. Assuming a clan would accept them. Hell cats were a reminder of a painful death and new purpose. Some clans weren’t that open-minded.

  “It could be key to cracking this case.”

  Given what we’d seen, I wasn’t so sure. “Or the hell cat is following the killer and doesn’t have enough control to stop him yet.”

  “So we have nothing.”

  “It’s not that bad. We know the hell cat is mostly on our side and the murders are truly non-magical.” There, a nice silver lining. “The killer will make a mistake at some point. They always do.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Someone had made mistakes, all right, but not the killer. That was why I was standing outside a shopping center mid-morning. The flickering sign said LASER TAG. A cardboard sign in the window said ESCAPE ROOM. Either way, it was trouble.

  “Could you run that by me again?” I stared at Jerry, not believing what I was hearing.

  “I have a giant causing problems at the courthouse. I’m going over to shrink them down.” He pointed at the building in front of us. “The spells on the interior doors to the escape room and laser tag wouldn’t let me in. We had three calls from people saying they had the key but couldn’t get out.”

  “Umm.”

  Jerry got in his car. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Officer Porter will stay to assist you.” He closed the door and drove off.

  I blinked. Clearly, whatever had happened in this building, he wanted no part of it. The courthouse should be more than capable of handling a full-sized giant without his help.

  “Ma’am?” Officer Porter came over, his thumbs tucked in his belt. He was averagely tall, bald, and had a sharp nose. “Those people have been trapped in there for a while.”

  “I did get that impression.” I glanced at yet another business with blackened windows. “I hate to be rude, but are you comfortable around magic?”

  He blinked. “It’s never bothered me before, but how does that help those people?”

  “Well, Porter, there are people trapped in a building and exactly two of us here. Now, either every first responder in Cobb County hates us, or there’s another emergency.”

  “Warehouse fire at the airport.”

  I winced. Here was far better. It had a much lower likelihood of anything blowing up. “Stay behind me, and don’t touch anything. I’ll deal with the magic. You’ll get people out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Now that we understood each other, I summoned my wand and probed the building. There was magic in there, but none of the spells I could feel would prevent the door from opening. I lowered my shields enough to see the magic faintly and headed inside.

  The room was brightly lit inside, with racks of equipment. A large desk took up the back portion. To the left of the desk were three doors, double doors with bright red targets on them and a single door with an ornate, oversized lock. A short hallway ran behind the desk, with a sign for bathrooms.

  The spells I could see were minor ones, for preventing pests and theft. There wasn’t a single spell on either set of doors. Odd.

  I walked past the desk and got a whiff of chocolate. Glancing over, I spotted a bag of homemade brownies sitting next to a box of chocolates. Most of the chocolates were gone.

  “Are you going to try the door?” Porter asked.

  I held back a sigh. “In a moment. I’m trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Does it matter?”

  This time I didn’t hold back the sigh. “I’m not criticizing your work, now am I?”

  He huffed but didn’t reply.

  I probed the door again.

  Still nothing.

  “Let’s get closer.” I rounded the desk and stopped. A phone lay face down on the ground. I picked it up and found the screen cracked.

  “Is that a good or bad sign?” Porter asked.

  I set it on the desk. “Only Narzel knows.”

  It didn’t fill me with confidence. Phones didn’t have legs. Someone had placed or left it there. “I don’t see any magic. I’m going to open the door.”

  Porter moved to where he could cover me.

  The lack of magic was making me nervous. Jerry knew enough to sense magic and should’ve been able to tell me if there was anything here. Our brief conversation, and the fact that I was here, made me think there’d been magic at some point, so where was it now?

  I dismissed my wand and grabbed the handle. It wouldn’t budge.

  Wand back in hand, I tapped the lock. “Purisaz.”

  I switched the wand to my left hand and tried the door again. It still didn’t move.

  “Purisaz!”

  The handle didn’t budge.

  “Door won’t open?” Porter asked.

  “Clearly.” And it should have. There weren’t any spells on the door, no runes etched into the lock. It should’ve opened.

  Porter cleared his throat. “Jerry had the same problem.”

  I liked Jerry, I really did, but today I wanted to strangle him. “Did Jerry have a theory or solution?”

  “Call you.”

  “That’s working well,” I muttered as I turned back to the door. Maybe I’d missed something, I probed the door again.

  It vibrated.

  I leapt back.

  A thump, and it vibrated again. A muffled yell came through the door, but I couldn’t tell what they were saying.

  Someone was in there, and they were no more capable of getting out than I was of getting in.

  “Do you hear that?” Porter asked.

  “Yes,” I snapped. “Someone from inside is yelling.”

  “No, from there.”

  I turned to see him pointing at the door to laser tag.

  A thump shook that door, followed by a bellow.

  I marched over and tried the door. It wouldn’t open either.

  This day just kept getting better.

  “One door at a time.” I went back to the escape room. The police had gotten calls for help from that room, so it was first.

  I beefed up the spell and tried again. “Ansu Purisaz!”

  It refused to open.

  There was no good reason the door should be closed. Any of the spells should’ve opened the door. “Any helpful insight, Porter? Should I try an ax?”

  “Fire rescue tried that before they were called away. That’s how Jerry ended up here.”

  Perfect. The unopenable door with people on the other side. If the unlocking spells didn’t work, maybe I could try something more creative. It was a simple, wooden door. I tried the handle again.

  The door swung open.

  I stepped back to let it swing into the main room.

  Two college-age women and men started at me.

  I stepped forward. “Are you okay? You can come out now.”

  One of them lunged for me.

  The door hit me in the back, hurling both of us back into the room.

  “No! Not again!” one of the women yelled.

  I rolled off a young man with pointed elven ears and white-blond hair. “Sorry.”

  He just lay there. “That’s how my phone got locked outside.”

  Rubbing my aching elbow, I got to my feet. “I found your phone.” I picked my wand up off the floor and leaned against a blank section of wall. The room was rather large, with a few chairs scattered around, a table, bookshelf, and the walls had pictures of things.

  From the two pictures propped against the floor, the open safe, and assembled puzzle, it looked like they’d been well on their way to finding the key.

  “Did you guys fail to solve it or get stuck?” I hobbled over to a chair.

  The elf I’d crashed into was still on the ground. I hesitated.

  The other guy shrugged. “He’s fine, just dramatic.”

  The two women nodded.

  “Okay, well can one of you tell me what happened? Without drama?” I sat. This day needed a strong drink. Which I’d get to indulge after the festival. Elron wasn’t letting any of us miss that.

  “We solved it, but the key didn’t work. We even toggled the intercom to talk to the leprechaun manning the desk.” The elf lying on the ground lazily waved at the unit next to the door. “He yelled something about liquor and didn’t answer.”

  The female dark elf picked up the story. “The door opened once, and Thorne got out. He tried to hold the door open for us, but it pushed him back in.”

  “I’ve been wounded.” Thorne dramatically swooned from his position on the floor.

  The other three stared at him.

  “He’s always like this,” the other guy said.

  “So you said.” That was all I could manage as I got up. “I’m getting us out of here.”

  “How?” Thorne propped himself up on an elbow.

  It felt like jinxing myself, but I said it anyway. “Magic.”

  I marched up to the door, summoned a thick twist of magic, and thumped the door with my wand. “Jera.”

  The door resisted, but I added more magic. The edges of the door twisted as it tried to retain its shape. Then, with an audible pop, it wrenched itself free from the frame and shrunk down. I kept shrinking it until it was a quarter of the size it had been. It hit the ground with a thud, directly in the center of the doorway.

  I stepped over it, ignoring Porter’s poleaxed expression and the silence behind me. “Can you get their statements while I deal with the laser tag area?”

  Porter nodded.

  “Thank you.” I tried the door to the laser tag area. Locked.

  “That was so cool,” Thorne said.

  One of the girls huffed. “I wish I was a witch.”

  “I wished I was an elf growing up.” I didn’t turn around, letting them digest that bit of information. Back then, being a witch had been hard. Other witches didn’t want anything to do with me, and it had felt like my entire life was governed by rules from grumpy old witches.

  Actually, not much had changed there, but these days I liked it.

  None of this got my job done. I shrank down one of the doors. It thumped into the ground just as dramatically as the last one. Past the door was a dark area, with two doors leading out. The wall didn’t go all the way up to the ceiling. Dimly colored lights filtered down.

  A crash sounded in the distance, followed by lots of swearing. The voice tugged at my memory, but I couldn’t place it.

  To be on the safe side, I cast a shield across the door after I entered. This problem might be more of containment type. After all, something that wasn’t magic had kept the door to both rooms shut.

  My foot slipped. I slapped a hand against the wall to steady myself and looked down. Another bag, but this one had something on it.

  “Wunho.” A ball of light appeared at my shoulder. I directed it down.

  I’d know that leaf even without blocky letters spelling out “Pot Brownies.” So was this a fun high or a bad high? If I was a betting woman, which I wasn’t because of my truly terrible luck, I’d bet fun. That was the usual result of some brownies.

  After dismissing the light, I went to the doors. They looked the same, but that didn’t mean they went to the same place. I nudged open one and then the other.

  The right door was open wider, so I went with it.

  In the near dark, it was hard to tell what was what, but various shapes and walls defined the course. It would be impossible to do a thorough search by myself. “Hello? Anyone in here?”

  Silence was my only answer. Typical of today.

  I went further in, rounding a ramp that led to a second level. “Hello?”

  “YOU!” A male voice with a hit of brough roared. “Yer the lass who started this.”

  Something whizzed past my head. I darted behind the ramp, keeping my wand up as I scanned the area. No one was visible, which didn’t mean much. They weren’t using laser guns, but a projectile. That was more of a concern.

  “Leave a mon in peace, will you?”

  The scent of rum reached my nose. I leaned over to the wall, where the projectile had splatted, and inhaled. Rum and chocolate. Well, I didn’t see that coming.

  I eased back over to the ramp and peered around. As far as my eyes could tell, I was the only one here.

  A shape swooped down and hovered above me. “Leave!”

  I’d had about enough of this squinting in the dark. “Wunho.” A light appeared above us.

  “Aeeee! What’d ye do that for?”

  My eyes focused. That wasn’t a leprechaun, but a clurichaun. Similar, but fouler-tempered, prone to violence, and able to fly.

  “Ye nasty witch!”

  “Oh, Narzel.” This wasn’t any clurichaun.

  Nope. Roy and I had a history. Last time I’d seen him, he was on a bender, destroying the very liquor store that had hired him to protect the merchandise.

  He was looking better these days, though clurichaun were an awkward race and Roy was no exception. He was all of four feet tall and squat. His legs were shorter and his arms long. His nose was less bulbous than last time, and his hair had been clipped tidily. None of which made up for the brownie in one hand and the box of boozy chocolates in the other.

  “What are ye staring at?” He zoomed closer but stayed out of reach.

  Trading insults was how I’d gotten him in handcuffs last time. But I didn’t have magic-proof cuffs this time, and I really didn’t want to arm-wrestle a man strong enough to throw a grizzly who could also deflect magic. “Why’d you lock those kids in the escape room?”

  “No kids. They left.” He drifted up toward the ceiling.

  Narzel. I needed him down here where I could keep an eye on him. “And the doors? I didn’t see any spells?”

  “A closing spell, activated when opened.” He belched and wobbled in the air.

  “Clever.” I had to get him down and restrained, but how?

  He wobbled in the air, dropped the brownie, and dug about in his pocket. Roy held up a small coin. “Got my six-month chip! Got this job. It’s the pot you know, doesn’t get my temper up like the liquor.”

  “Good for you, Roy.” Which didn’t explain anything about how he ended up on this, admittedly tame, bender.

  He opened his fingers and let it fall. “All ’cause I cussed.” He darted to a corner of the arena. “Be nice, Roy. Eat the chocolate, Roy.”

  This was a new one. Last time, he’d been smashing bottles and throwing shifters. He’d put up a fight before we arrested him. This Roy had had a bad day and mixed his old habits with his new ones. He needed to dry out, not end up in cuffs.

  He needed someone with a different skill set.

  Too bad he had me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Roy, we can fix this. It doesn’t have to go like it did last time,” I said.

  He wobbled through the air before landing on top of a wall. “It’s ruined!”

  Talking people down wasn’t my strength. My spell craft was better than it had been last time, but he had his own powers, and I didn’t want to waste magic. There was one sure way to put an end to this, and when he sobered up, he might understand.

  Or not, and I could be doing this again in a year or two.

  I walked through the shield over the door. No one was in the entry, so I went out to the front. Sure enough, Porter had all four of the young adults talking him through every detail of what happened.

  “Porter, do you have a minute?” I waited by the door.

  Porter excused himself and came over. “Problem?”

  “Do you have a pair of nullifying cuffs?” They were how I’d ended Roy’s last bender and would work again. Those cuffs were spelled to neutralize any magic the wearer attempted.

  He pulled a pair off his belt. “Let me know if you need help.”

  “Call an ambulance. An alcohol-addicted clurichaun who’s been sober for six months is high and drunk.”

  Porter blinked. “I will pass that along.”

  I shoved the cuffs in my pocket and marched back into the laser tag arena. Roy was going to spend quality time with an IV and get his life back on track so I could find the hell cat.

  Roy had left his perch on the wall and, even with the ball of light, was nowhere to be found. I could fix that. “You son of a cursed elf, come down here and face me like a man!”

  I readied a binding spell, one I hadn’t known during our last meeting. Pivoting, I listened for him.

  A sob came from a distant part of the room.

  Narzel. Now I felt like a monster. Insulting him had worked last time, but he’d been angry, not sad. “I’m sorry. Can you come over so we can talk?”

  “You’re mean.”

  Hard to argue with the truth. “I can be mean and still want to help.”

  He rose up from behind a pyramid thing. “No one can help. I’ve been a failure for a long time, lass, and it’s all I’ll ever be.”

  “You were doing good.” Talking him down would be better, but I didn’t have a lot of hope.

  Roy rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Usually good kids, lookin’ for a spot of fun.”

  “And you can keep this job, if you come down and let me help you.”

  He wobbled in the air. “No. No one helps Roy.”

  Oh, I’d help him, but not the way he wanted. “Algiz laguz kannu.”

  Magical ropes, protected from other magic and impervious from the inside, wrapped around him. Roy bellowed and fell.