Night Terrors (Sarah Beauhall Book 4) by J. A. Pitts Page A

you.”
    I looked between her and the purple glow. “And you know this, how?”
    She squatted down beside me and waved her wand in front of the cabinet. She drew three runes I was beginning to recognize from her: Perthro, Nauthiz, and Ansuz. Each one formed the point of a triangle which created a lens to look through. It revealed hidden truths. She’d used it to show me just how utterly fucked up the house out in Chumstick had been with all the necromancer bullshit present.
    I had a flash of CSI: Seattle—Special Dragon Unit . Qindra could have her own television show. Or maybe I just needed more sleep.
    The runic filter showed us the impression of blood on the walls and all across the floor. The janitor had used either bleach or ammonia to mop up, but the psychic residue was not so easily removed.
    As she moved her wand, the lens floated around letting us examine the whole room before she settled it once again near the floor in front of the cabinet.
    It didn’t look like it was going to explode, or bite us, or anything. There was just this hint of secrecy and danger.
    “Blood is powerful,” she said, quietly. “Taints an area. Hard to purge.”
    “Burning sage and lilac helps,” I said, absent-mindedly.
    She looked at me funny and nodded. “Yes, that’s true. You surprise me.”
    I shrugged at her. I’m a quick study. And we’d used it to clear away the negative stuff out at Circle Q after the necromancer had slaughtered Blue Thunder.
    “Maybe we can move the cabinet, see what’s under there without reaching with our hands. What do you think?” I thought it was a grand idea.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Let me try something else, first.”
    She went back out into the classroom and over to Katie’s desk. She poked through the pencil mug she kept there and drew one out that had teeth marks in the wood. She tapped it with her wand once, then brought it to me. “Hold this.”
    I took the pencil and immediately got the strongest sense of Katie. “Yeah,” I said. “This is definitely hers.”
    “Good,” she said, plucking the pencil out of my hand again. She tapped the wand against the pencil again and spoke some words I recognized as probably being Latin. Might have been some German thrown in, I couldn’t rightly tell.
    The pencil glowed a solid throbbing green, calm and peaceful. She squatted down again and rolled the pencil under the cabinet. Whatever was under there didn’t mind the pencil visiting, because the purple glow strobed a couple of times and became green for a few heartbeats. Then the purple began to once again overtake the green.
    “Okay, sympathetic magic,” she said. “Whatever is under there belongs to Katie.”
    “Good enough for me.” I stood up and grabbed the cabinet with both arms. I leaned back, heaving it off the ground and stepped back with my left foot, pivoting. Basically I swung around like a barn door and set the cabinet down with a grunt.
    Qindra whistled. “I forget how freaking strong you are,” she said.
    I shrugged, embarrassed. “Side-effect of the smithing,” I said.
    We peered around the cabinet and saw that the glowing thing was a book.
    “Looks like a diary,” Qindra said.
    Diary? Holy cats, was this her mom’s diary?
    Qindra studied the book through her magic lens for a moment, then looked at me shaking her head. “There’s more wards and spells on that book than I could muster in a year,” she said. “If that belongs to Katie, then Black Briar is way beyond anything we’d considered.”
    Frak.
    I squatted down, picked up the pencil and poked the book with it. Qindra started to protest, but didn’t stop me in time.
    Nothing happened.
    “Your turn,” I said, handing her the pencil. She looked at me dubiously but took it. She leaned in and moved the pencil toward the book, slowly. At about four inches away, the pencil burst into flames.
    Qindra dropped back, swearing and holding her hand. The pencil hit the floor, blazing.
    “Graphite is a