ALL NOVEL 27. Suspicions & Scents
"Wait so your parents know magic?" Marissa asked. "Or at least they know how to set up protective wards?"
Paige added, "Or they know someone else who can do it for them."
I sighed and shrugged, "I don't know. I just know what me and Kaylee heard them say."
My girlfriend nodded, then asked "When did you tell them about your magic draining thing? Or was that back at halloween, when you and May had to tell them about being a witch?"
"I never told them that," I said as I shook my head. "I don't know how they found out."
"That's not creepy in any way," Marissa commented before she went back to eating her burger.
I sighed and had a sip of my cola, but I really didn't have any appetite. I had one or two bites of a BBQ sausage, then left the rest on my paper plate.
The five of us were in Melanie's living-room, there was a tray of burgers and sausages on the coffee table. They were all cooked and in buns, and a bottle of ketchup and a bottle of mustard sat next to the tray. We all had paper plates and napkins and stuff, and there was a case of cola in the fridge. Everyone else was eating normally, I was the only one who wasn't really hungry.
Kaylee gave Marissa an angry glare, then she turned to me and asked "Are you feeling any better Cass? I know this has been a lot."
"Not really," I mumbled as I slowly shook my head. "I don't know what's worse? Finding out that a zombie attacked my mum, or finding out that my parents have been lying and keeping secrets from me."
Paige commented, "I think this answers one question we've been wondering about, with Mrs. Reeves' map. She circled your house, then crossed it off. That fits the pattern of her finding supernaturals but avoiding non-witches. Whatever her scrying was looking for, she detected your parents then somehow determined they weren't witches."
"I wonder what they really are then?" Marissa commented. "Since we're talking zombies, maybe they're necromancers? Maybe it's a feud between different necromancer clans or something."
I sighed, "I don't know. I feel like I don't even know who they are anymore. There's something supernatural going on with them, and they never said anything. Even after me and Miss Hawthorne told them about magic and Club Luna and how I got turned into a girl, my parents still didn't say anything."
My girlfriend leaned closer and gave me a side-hug, and I ended up leaning my head on her shoulder.
Melanie finally spoke up, "So what are we doing? You all are talking about Cass's folks, but isn't the real issue the zombie attack? This isn't a week old either. We're talking about what, an hour or two ago?"
"Right!" Marissa stated as she got a lot more focused. "Cass where's your mum's shop? We should get over there right now, before the snow's completely hidden all the evidence."
Paige pointed out, "From what Cass and Kaylee said this wasn't a random attack."
She looked at us and asked, "You two said the zombie was looking for something, right?"
"Mrs. Underwood sounded pretty specific," Kaylee replied. "She never said what it was though? She said um..."
Her voice trailed off as she thought back, but I spoke up first. "She said 'someone knows, they sent a zombie, it was looking for them'. She didn't say what it was the someone knew though, or what the 'them' was that the zombie was looking for."
Kaylee added, "She also said they thought whatever they're looking for was in the shop. Which implies it's not in the shop. Maybe they're hiding it at home, what ever it is?"
"Y'all are off topic again," Melanie stated. "Cass where's the shop? You lot can sit around talking about her parents, but I'm going to go check out the scene. I figure zombies probably have a scent, right? I mean they're dead people, so at least they'll smell dead. But if there's something magic or supernatural about them that'll probably have a scent too, and maybe I can track it."
I wiped my eyes as I looked at the werewolf, but before I could ask my question Kaylee beat me to it.
"You can smell supernaturals?" she asked in surprise.
Melanie shrugged, "I can pick up scents. It's not like I can smell magic, but I can tell when someone's not really human."
She gave me a funny look before she added, "Like my wolf-tutor, she's a werewolf and her scent is different from human scents."
Marissa shoved the last chunk of burger into her mouth then mumbled around it, "Sho let'sh go check the shtore alweady! Time'sh a wa'shtin."
"Yeah," I nodded as I got to my feet. I looked at Marissa and Melanie and added, "The shop where my mum works is on Main Street, near Third."
Melanie smiled, "That's less than ten minutes away. Let's get moving."
It still took us another five minutes as everyone had to put on boots and coats and things. Then Melanie grabbed another burger to eat on the way. And Kaylee found some plastic wrap and covered up the rest of the food so it wouldn't go bad sitting out on the table while we were gone.
The snow was coming down, but it still wasn't too cold out yet. It was almost seven and the sun was pretty low in the sky though, I had a feeling it'd get colder once it was dark out.
As we all walked together Marissa asked "Hey Cass? Your mum's shop, north or south side of the street? I'm betting it's north, right?"
"Yeah," I replied quietly, "It's on the north side. Why?"
The young blonde grinned, "My cousin's girlfriend's bakery is on the south side. It's a block or so further west of Third, and her zombie was travelling west. So it must have come from the east, right?"
Paige asked, "So what? What are you getting at?"
"So the zombie came from somewhere further east," Marissa explained. "It was looking in shops along the south side of Main Street as it made its way west. That was Saturday. Now six days later another zombie showed up at a store on the north side of the street. I'm going to bet it came from somewhere to the east of Third. It was probably checking other shops along Main."
Melanie was still munching on her burger but she paused and stated, "Once I get its scent I'll be able to tell you what direction it came from. I'll probably be able to follow its trail right back to wherever it started."
"Yes!" Marissa grinned happily. "Werewolf girlfriend for the win!"
The wolfgirl in question just rolled her eyes as she munched on the last bite of her burger, while the rest of us stayed quiet too. And a few minutes later we were there.
"Here it is," I stated as we stopped in front of the place. It was closed and the lights were out, the door was locked.
"It's a charity shop," I added. "They take donated stuff and clean it up then sell it, and the proceeds go to helping the local animal shelter."
Kaylee smiled, "Aww, that's nice."
Paige looked in the windows as she suggested, "Maybe someone donated something supernatural? An artifact or something, that's now in your parents' posession. And now somebody wants it back."
"Maybe," I shrugged as I looked around.
Most of the other stores were already closed up too, but there were restaurants and cafes along this stretch that were still open. And there were people around, cars parked along the side of the road, but nobody was paying us any attention. Though out of the five of us, only Melanie was acting strange.
She was standing near the door of the shop, with her eyes half closed and her head tilted upwards as she slowly turned on the spot and sniffed the air.
"Anything?" Kaylee asked.
Melanie finally opened her eyes and nodded, "Yep. It smells like death and chemicals? Weird, but it's there."
She added as she started walking, "And it came from the east."
"Called it!" Marissa announced as she moved to walk next to her girlfriend.
Me and Kaylee and Paige followed behind. The tall brunette glanced at me and gave me an apologetic look, "Sorry Cass, this is probably really hard on you? Are you ok to keep doing this? If you'd rather go home that's ok..."
"I'm ok right now," I replied. "I need to know what's going on. And if someone's threatening my parents I need to help stop them."
Paige nodded, "Ok. I understand, I'd feel the same if I was in your place."
Kaylee slipped an arm around my shoulders as we walked together, but she stayed quiet for now as we all continued following Melanie. And Melanie was still following the scent, as it led her east along Main.
We got all the way to the highway at the edge of town, then our wolfgirl stopped there for a bit.
"What's wrong?" Paige asked. "Did the scent go cold?"
Melanie shook her head, "Nah. Just waiting for the light to change so we can cross the street. I'm pretty sure it continues over there."
Marissa started pushing the pedestrian crossing button rapid-fire, like she was trying to kill the final boss in a video game. After a few seconds of listening to the nonstop clicking Paige let out an exasperated sigh then gestured at a grey utility box on the opposite corner.
I spotted a dart of purple magic as it launched from her fingers and into the box, and a second later the lights changed.
"Neat trick," Melanie commented as the five of us crossed the highway together.
On the far side our wolfgirl took a few seconds to locate the scent again, then we started moving further east. We went another block before the trail turned south.
At that point Marissa announced, "I know where we're going."
"Where?" Kaylee asked. "And how?"
The smug blonde replied, "The hospital. Remember I said that woman from the crash was taken to the hospital? That's where she died right? So she had to come from there. And we're heading straight for the hospital now."
Paige sighed, "Marissa's got a point. If someone's raising the dead, they've got to get dead people from somewhere. The hospital's going to have the freshest selection."
"Ew," my girlfriend made a face.
Sure enough a minute or so later the five of us stopped on the sidewalk, staring across the parking lot at the hospital building.
"Hold up here," Paige said.
Melanie stated, "I can track the zombie all the way back to wherever it started from. But I need to get closer than this. Right now all I've got is it came from the direction of the hospital."
Our temporary club leader nodded, "I'm sure you can Melanie, but that's not what I was thinking about. I'm wondering if maybe we all need to take a step back."
"Why?" Marissa asked. "We're a hundred meters away, let's get over there and check it out!"
Paige sighed, "Marissa we have no idea what we're up against. Whoever or whatever it is, they've obviously got power. They can raise the dead, and we have to assume they're dangerous since one of their zombies attacked Cassandra's mum. We can't just walk into the hospital and start snooping around, and we definitely can't go in there and start using magic. They have security guards, cameras, and it's full of normal mundane people who don't need us disturbing them."
Kaylee asked, "So what should we do?"
"I'm not sure," Paige shook her head. "Maybe we need to get May involved?"
Melanie and Marissa exchanged a look, then the wolfgirl suggested "Let's split up? You're right, it'll look suspicious if the five of us go in and snoop around together. I'll take Marissa with me and follow the scent, you three go in the front doors and use your magic sight to look around? We'll use the group chat to stay in touch."
The two youngest club members didn't wait for a reply, they set off together across the parking lot while Melanie continued following the scent.
Me and Kaylee and Paige stayed where we were for another half minute, before the tall brunette sighed "We may as well go check it out. No point standing here in the snow."
As we started walking towards the main entrance she added, "I might go say hi to Brooke, she's probably still here visiting her mom."
Paige pulled out her phone and exchanged some texts, then when the three of us went in through the front doors she excused herself and headed for the elevators.
"Let's just look around?" Kaylee suggested to me. "Like Melanie said, look for anything magical or supernatural?"
"Ok," I replied quietly.
The two of us slowly wandered around looking at everything. There was a gift shop, an information kiosk, a little coffee shop, the elevators where Paige went, all normal hospital things. I didn't see any magic around the large lobby, and the two of us ended up walking over to the emergency reception and waiting area to check that out.
A dozen or so people were sitting in chairs in the waiting room, and a few more were talking to nurses or standing in a line to be admitted. I didn't see anything magic there either, and after a minute or two we turned around to head back to the lobby.
We only got a couple steps when a man's voice called, "Kaylee? What are you doing here? Is everything ok?"
The two of us turned back to look, and saw Mr. Holt approaching us with a concerned long on his face. He was dressed in his ambulance uniform, and there was a twenty-something woman in a similar uniform with him. She was tall like Paige, and had a sort of muscular athletic build. Her short blonde hair had a side-shave that made her look kind of butch, and she had a friendly smile as she looked at me and Kaylee.
My girlfriend smiled, "Hi dad! Nothing's wrong. Um, Paige wanted to come visit Brooke and Mrs. Tremblay, we walked over here with her to keep her company?"
Mr. Holt asked in a sad voice, "Brooke's mom was admitted again?"
"Yeah," Kaylee nodded. "Around noon today."
My girlfriend's dad obviously knew about Mrs. Tremblay's condition, or at least that she had medical problems. He sighed, then gestured to the young woman next to him as he asked "Kaylee you've met my partner before right? Alison, this is my daughter Kaylee and her friend Cassandra."
"Hi Kaylee, Cassandra," the woman greeted us. "If you girls are waiting for a friend you should probably be in the waiting area of whatever ward she's in? Not wandering around the Emergency department."
I grimaced, "Yes ma'am."
"Sorry," Kaylee apologized. "We got a bit bored, but you're right."
"C'mon Cass let's go find Paige," she suggested as she took my hand. She added to her dad, "See you later! Have a good shift!"
Mr. Holt smiled and waved as the two of us headed back towards the main lobby.
