Spring's Calling (A Season of Magic Urban Fantasy Novel)

  Spring’s Calling

  Sarah Biglow

  Contents

  1

  Acknowledgments

  March 11, 2017

  1. One

  2. Two

  March 12, 2017

  3. Three

  4. Four

  5. Five

  6. Six

  7. Seven

  March 13, 2017

  8. Eight

  9. Nine

  10. Ten

  March 14, 2017

  11. Eleven

  12. Twelve

  13. Thirteen

  14. Fourteen

  March 15, 2017

  15. Fifteen

  16. Sixteen

  17. Seventeen

  18. Eighteen

  19. Nineteen

  March 16, 2017

  20. Twenty

  21. Twenty-One

  22. Twenty-Two

  March 17, 2017

  23. Twenty-Three

  24. Twenty-Four

  25. Twenty-Five

  26. Twenty-Six

  March 18, 2017

  27. Twenty-Seven

  March 20, 2017

  28. Twenty-Eight

  29. Twenty-Nine

  Also By This Author

  About the Author

  SPRING’S CALLING Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Biglow.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  If you enjoy this book, please consider leaving a review.

  For information contact; www.sarah-biglow.com

  Copyedited by: Ken Darrow, M.A.

  Cover Design by: Deranged Doctor Design

  ISBN: 978-19870181341

  Published on Amazon with ISBN: 978-1983189296

  Published by Sarah Biglow: 2018

  * * *

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Acknowledgments

  This book has been a long time coming. First drafted in 2012, it has gone through many drafts and rewrites to get to where it is today. I am very pleased with the final product and I owe that to some very special people.

  First, to the wonderful Rebecca Heyman who made me face the hard truth about some of the aspects of the story I thought I needed but didn’t. You gave me some great tools to take with me as I continue on this publishing journey. Thank you.

  Second, I need to give props to my wonderful team of beta readers. Molly, Alicia, Kelly and Janeal, you ladies came on this rough ride with me and were nothing but consummate professionals. Your encouragement and words of wisdom helped me to push through revision woes. I am only a little bit sorry I robbed you a potential love triangle.

  To the Kickstarter backers that made this book possible with your financial support. You all hold a special place in this book.

  And finally, to my parents and husband who put up with me talking about this book essentially for months as it came into being. Thank you for always supporting me and having my back.

  For Tutu

  (1924-2018)

  You would have loved to read a book about witches

  March 11, 2017

  One

  I fiddled with the squad car radio, finally landing on a late-night radio host preparing to start her show as the clock ticked past 10:30 at night. “Well, my loyal listeners, we are nine days from what some scientists are calling the biggest astrological phenomena in human history. Sure, we’ve all seen a solar eclipse or a meteor shower but never together in the middle of the freaking day!” a deep alto voice said through the car speakers. “According to most reports, those of us on the East Coast, especially here in the Boston area, will be in the direct path of the eclipse, so get your glasses early and get ready for what everyone is calling a pretty amazing show. The city is reporting that the best place to check this out is down on the Common. So, listeners, let me know will you be there?” she continued.

  “It just means that we’re going to be doing crowd control,” my partner, Jacqueline DeWitt, muttered.

  I turned my attention to her. Caramel-skinned with dark hair held in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, Jacquie kept one hand loosely on the steering wheel as she cranked the heater. She only succeeded in filling the car with harsh, cold air. We’d been partnered only a couple months. While I liked her enough, I didn’t feel like we were friends.

  I wanted to agree with her and bemoan the likely detail, but I already had plans. When I was a little girl, I’d been told about the prophecy that laid out my destiny. I’d have to face off against some great evil when a solar eclipse and a meteor shower fell on the Vernal Equinox. The Equinox was supposed to be a time when the world came back into balance between light and dark magic, neither one stronger than the other. Not like with the Summer or Winter Solstice when power ebbed and flowed toward good or evil. But this year had been different. The cold clung to the world longer than it should have. It was just that much harder to cast a spell. I’d spent the last decade honing my skills in preparation. But all the prep in the world couldn’t quell the nugget of fear in my chest.

  “You okay?” Jacquie’s voice cut through my thoughts, pulling me back to the car and the icy air.

  Tiny beads of sweat broke out along the nape of my neck chilling me even more. “Yeah … just thinking. You’re right. Crowd control is going to suck.” Even though I liked my partner, I couldn’t share my burden with her. The magical community survived because of secrecy.

  The conversation was cut short by the dispatch radio sitting in the center console between us. “Units needed at the corner of Kneeland Street and Albany Street.”

  Jacquie scooped up the radio. “Unit fifty-seven responding, we’re two blocks out.”

  She flipped on the lights and siren and put the car in drive, pulling out into the traffic surrounding the Common. We sped past at least three Dunkin Donuts—rivaled in number only by the Starbucks on nearly every opposite corner—ignored the stoplights and hung a hard left until we reached Kneeland Street, nestled between Chinatown and the theater district. We pulled up to find an ambulance and the coroner’s van parked on the street blocking traffic. I spotted the assistant medical examiner, Patricia Karo, bent over an Asian man’s body. Climbing from the passenger seat, I pulled my jacket tighter as the frigid air—another sign that the world was out of balance—wound its way through every fiber of my being. A gust of air tugged several strands of auburn hair loose and I brushed them aside.

  A pair of uniformed officers cordoned off the area with crime scene tape and shooed a couple of nosy bystanders away so we could get by. Jacquie pulled on latex gloves and went to join Tricia by the body. I kept my distance. Even from where I stood at the periphery of the scene, I could clearly see the man’s chest was unnaturally concave, as if something had crushed him from above. A quick glance around the scene didn’t present any obvious culprits. Something tickled my magical senses, begging me to pay attention, but I couldn’t place it. I turned back to the body lying prone on the sidewalk. I’d never worked a homicide before and my palms grew damp as the weight of the responsibility hit me. I glanced over at Jacquie as she methodically moved around the scene. I could only hope to be as good as her.

  For an instant the man was gone, replaced by a woman with a blade protruding from her che
st. The scent of fresh strawberries bloomed around me and the white-gold pentacle necklace around my neck thrummed warm beneath my jacket as my magic reacted to the memory. I tamped down on my magic as I blinked away tears. The scene returned to the dead man being poked and prodded by Tricia.

  I’d earned my detective’s shield two months ago, just shy of my twenty-fifth birthday. I didn’t flaunt my skills. I did just enough to prove useful to the brass, to get the right amount of attention so they’d remember me when it came time for promotions. Doing anything more would have been dangerous. The wrong people could have taken notice. Like the Order of Samael or the Authority—the so-called benevolent governing body of the magical community.

  My decision to join the force wasn’t without ulterior motives. Ten years ago, my mother was murdered. Everyone in the magical community knew it, but she’d simply been buried with little fanfare. Despite obvious signs of foul play, there had been no police report or investigation. The Authority had convinced the outside world that she’d simply died of natural causes. I’d never forgotten the truth though. Ten years was a long time for her killer to walk free. But now the shield on my belt gave me license to hunt them down and make them pay.

  But my mother’s murderer would have to walk free just a little longer. Another man deserved justice now. I watched Jacquie crouch down and pat down the man’s pockets in search of an ID. I stepped away and turned my back to the scene and my uninitiated partner.

  Beneath the pentacle I wore a small sandalwood infused charm that helped cleanse my magical palette, allowing me to pick up on any signs of magic in the area. Magic, like anything in the universe, obeyed certain laws. It couldn’t be created or destroyed. Just redirected and reshaped. I pressed my fingers to the smooth glass surface and inhaled. With the metaphorical slate wiped clean, I picked up on the cloying scent of rotten garlic and the loamy smell of wet limestone. For a moment, the combination turned my stomach and I fought back my gag reflex. This had been what my senses had been alerting me to. The smells intensified the closer I got to the body and I knew it meant our victim had been killed with magic. A practitioner only gave off one scent, which meant whoever had killed the victim had been working as a team. A person’s magical signature was like a fingerprint. But that didn’t mean I could pick it out just walking by them on the street. They needed to be actively using their ability or have used it in the last day.

  “You want to join the rest of us, rookie?” Jacquie called, holding up the dead man’s wallet.

  Embarrassment warmed my cheeks and I turned back to the matter at hand. I pulled out a pen and notepad from my back pocket and wrote, “Limestone and garlic. Two killers with magic used in last 24 hours?” After donning latex gloves of my own, Jacquie passed me the man’s wallet and I pulled out his ID: Edwin Cho. He lived in Chinatown not far from the scene. Given that it was late evening on the weekend he was likely on his way home. I added his name and address to my notepad.

  “Do we have any idea what crushed him?” I asked, addressing Tricia.

  She was busy taking pictures of the man’s injuries. “Nice to see you, Ezri. That shield looks good on you.”

  “Thanks.” We’d worked together when I was in uniform and had become friends. Not the stay up late in the night talking about our lives type of friends but friendly enough to have drinks or a quick meal on occasion after a long day.

  Both of us caught Jacquie’s impatient arched brow and Tricia cleared her throat. “No cause of death yet but I’m guessing it was whatever made these crush injuries. With the right angle and amount of pressure, a grown adult could exert enough force to crush someone’s chest like this. I’ll know more once we get back to the lab. But this is the second case like this I’ve seen in the last few days.”

  “Where was the other victim found?” Jacquie probed.

  “I’ll send over the files but it was out by the Esplanade. Same crush injuries.”

  I stowed Mr. Cho’s ID back in his wallet and handed it off to one of the uniforms who hung back with an evidence bag at the ready. Limestone clogged up my nose as I got close to Mr. Cho’s chest. Not everyone is sensitive to other’s people’s magic and my skills weren’t infallible. My twenty-four-hour window for identifying magic had come after years of practice. Based on the strength of the smell, Mr. Cho hadn’t been dead very long and his attackers had left the scene recently.

  “Do we have a time of death?” I pressed.

  Tricia shook her head. “Based on what I’ve seen of the body, I’d say only a few hours. Rigor’s barely set in. I can give you a more definitive time of death after autopsy.”

  “It looks like there’s some dust or residue on his jacket. Our killer, if they used their hands, might have left some prints.”

  Tricia snapped a few close-ups of Mr. Cho’s clothing. Without warning, a new smell hit me: ashy and sulfurous. I tried to repress my gag reflex again, but I could taste the bitterness on my tongue. As calmly as I could I stood up and started to walk the perimeter. I stopped short a few paces from Mr. Cho’s body. A pale woman—her eyes hollow and unseeing and mousy brown hair hanging matted around her face—blocked my path. Despite the lifelessness in her gaze, I knew she saw me, knew what I was. The sulfur and ash of her magic bloomed into a fiery corona around her head before she disappeared completely. I blinked a few times until the afterimage faded.

  What the hell was she?

  “Ezri, you still with us?” Jacquie’s voice drew me back to reality for a second time.

  Our gazes met—her intense brown to my green—and heat crept up the nape of my neck. I needed to avoid making zoning out a habit. I made a note of the stranger’s disappearance before capping my pen. “Yeah, I was just thinking that this is a fairly public area. I mean you’ve got Tufts Hospital and the orange line just up the way. Someone had to see something but there’s hardly anyone out. And there are bound to be security cameras nearby that must have caught what happened.”

  Jacquie nodded. “I’ll put in a request when we get back to the precinct.”

  Turning back to the body, I asked, “I mean do we know who called this in?”

  “I got the call from the paramedics about ten minutes before you two showed up. From what they told me, whoever had called it in didn’t stick around,” Tricia answered, spreading a black body bag out on the sidewalk.

  I hadn’t even noticed the ambulance leave the scene, but traffic was now flowing slowly through the makeshift blockade of our car and the coroner’s van. With the body now on its way to the morgue and no eye witnesses to speak of, there was little reason to stick around. I peeled off my gloves and made my way back to the car. Jacquie slid in behind the driver seat and looked at me.

  “You’re going to lead the notification of next of kin.”

  I swallowed back the lump of nerves rising in my throat. “Are you sure?”

  “You’ve got to start sometime.”

  I buckled my seatbelt and put Mr. Cho’s address into the car’s GPS. As we pulled away from the scene, I glanced back at the spot where the woman had vanished. I’d never seen magic like that before. The fact that the scene was steeped in spells set off alarm bells in my head. I wasn’t sure what evil I was supposed to be facing—no one had ever filled me in on the specifics—but this couldn’t be a coincidence. Mr. Cho’s death was linked to what was coming and I needed to figure out how if I had any chance of successfully meeting my destiny.

  Two

  We pulled up outside an old brick four-story building in the heart of Chinatown. The few people out on the streets eyed us, giving us a wide berth as we approached the front steps. Faint music—my ears strained to identify it as anything other than Oriental instrumental—filtered out of the partially open doorways of nearby restaurants. Trying to filter the background noise out, I took the front steps three at a time to ring the buzzer for the Chos’ unit on the second floor. I wet my lips and went over the speech we’d been trained on at the Academy in my head.

  Finally, the
intercom crackled and a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Edwin Cho,” I said.

  “Yes, I’m Mrs. Cho,” the voice replied in accented English.

  “Ma’am, I’m with the police. Can you buzz me in?”

  Silence answered me. I counted to five before the front door unlocked. I pushed it open and led Jacquie up one flight of stairs and down a short, narrow, wood-paneled hallway. The door to the Chos’ unit was already open. A woman with a short, black bob threaded with gray waited for us.

  “Mrs. Cho?” I confirmed and she nodded.

  “Please, call me Su-Ling.”

  I held up my badge for her to see. “I’m Detective Trenton. This is my partner, Detective DeWitt. Can we talk inside?”

  She stood her ground. “What is this about?”

  I sensed Jacquie take a step forward so she was in line with me. I exhaled slowly through my nose and tried to put on a sympathetic smile. “It would be better if we spoke inside.”

  The older woman studied me for a moment longer until she finally stepped out of the doorway, allowing us entry. I closed the distance and crossed the threshold. The apartment was small—probably only a one bedroom—but cozy. The heating system rattled as old-style radiators hissed to life around the room.