Witch in Hiding (#1 in the Witches Trilogy) (EDITING)

Twenty-Four: Magic Lawyers And Bad News

Jess' house isn't new. I've been here before, just not under these circumstances.

It's a place on the fifth floor of a private apartment building. Mel is at De's house. Van, at school. We're hoping they might show up at one of these places, but the truth is, we have no idea where they went. We went through the hole, which led to the underground car park, which led... nowhere. They were nowhere in sight, even though they couldn't have gotten far, especially looking like that.

The doorman recognises me and waves me up. He doesn't know no one's going to be home. Esther—or someone, someone working with Esther—has Jess' parents, and if she's missing, there might not be a point in keeping them alive.

I go up with the heavy knowledge that it will be empty, but to my surprise, there's someone standing outside Jess' door.

The lady is vaguely Caribbean-looking, in her fifties, wearing a super fancy pantsuit. Her dark hair, streaked grey, is in an elegant chignon I could never force my hair into. She's got a briefcase in her left hand. Some kind of lawyer? We're here for the same people, I assume, so I suck it up and talk to her. "Are you looking for the Thens?"

She appraises me. "You could say that," she says. "I'm here about their disappearance. And you are?"

"Vin. De la Torre. I'm Jess' friend."

"Celine Gaea." She shakes my hand. "You're powerful."

That catches me off guard. What was Mom saying, about seventeen per cent? "Er—thanks." I try the same trick I pulled off on Mom, reading her aura, but somehow I get a mental block whenever I try to focus my mind on it.

"It won't work," Celine says dryly. "You're powerful, but inexperienced. I have ways of protecting myself from unwanted attention."

I flush. "You won't find Jess."

She tilts her head at me, and her expression darkens. "Why not?"

"She's a ghost. But she's also something else. A... wraith." I'm not sure about the terminology, but Celine nods like she understands, so I go on. "She transformed, and she escaped. I don't know where she went."

She sucks in a breath. "I wasn't aware." She frowns. "And I thought my records were up to date. This might be a problem." I wait, but she doesn't go on to say what the problem is. Instead, she gazes at me, her fingers tapping on the file cradled with her right hand. "Who else was involved?" She says finally.

I give her Mel and Van's names. "We're not getting into trouble, are we?" I ask, alarmed.

"No, of course not. I just need a record. Jessica's case is going to be a lot harder to handle once this piece of news spreads—and it will spread, trust me." She sounds grim, and I get worried. She's obviously some kind of attorney for magical creatures, or something, although I can't figure out what kind of creature she is.

"Are you going to... look for her?"

She purses her lips. "I can try. The coverup alone is going to be a nightmare; someone's going to have posted it online somewhere, and that won't do. Dark creatures don't have many places to go, but—"

"Dark creatures?" I interrupt. "Jess isn't a dark creature."

"No, but that thing inside of her is," Celine says grimly. "You do know how wraiths come about?"

I feel like a kid when I say no.

"Well, ghosts are returned from the dead, yes? Which is why their human bodies age, but their natural forms don't—most ghosts revert solely to their natural form once their human body breaks down. Interestingly, the line is hereditary, too. You can only become a ghost after death if one or both of your parents was one."

A chill runs down my spine. "So Jess..."

"If my records are right, she died two years ago. But both her parents are ghosts—it was an eventuality for her. What worries me is that I didn't know she was a wraith as well."

"How do you become a wraith?"

"Under dark circumstances." Celine's voice drops and, in the dimly lit corridor, a distinct feeling of foreboding comes over me. "A ghost is the person's natural soul, you could say. A wraith is... a parasite. A demon bred from the pure tragedy of circumstance. You are only reborn with a wraith if you were killed in your past life."