Free The Seven Year Witch: That Old Black Magic, Book 2 by Jodi Redford Page B

precisely what had gotten his wolf’s hackles up. It’d sensed a mutual predator.
    Only that dude hadn’t been a wolf. Or anything else that he could readily determine. The fact that he couldn’t figure out what the guy was—other than dangerous—left him uneasy.
     
     
    It wasn’t until Clarissa drove completely past Charmed Moon that she knew why she had no desire to go into work just yet. The entire time she’d been sitting with her father at the nursing home, her mind had been consumed with Seven.
    The notion that the son of a bitch was culling victims from a pool of senior citizens made her nauseous. And furious.
    Somehow, she needed to find a way to stop Seven from contracting those souls. But how exactly did she go about that when she didn’t even know how the creature was able to convince its intended victims to agree to the unthinkable? She knew how Seven had gotten to her. Even knew how it’d gotten to her father. But surely not everyone Seven contracted possessed similar desperate circumstances.
    For that matter, she still didn’t quite understand precisely what had drawn her father into Seven’s path, and vice versa. Considering that her father barely remembered what had happened, it seemed likely she would never get the answer to that question. Which meant she was flying blind, with minimal clues to give her the necessary ammunition against Seven.
    There was only one option left. In order to bring down the bastard, she needed to discover its weaknesses.
    Hitting the button on the GPS, she pulled up the address for Seventy-seven West Seventh Street. This time the coordinates loaded with no problem, and several minutes later, the Miata was bumping down the same dusty back country road she’d traveled the other day. Parking in plain sight of the mansion obviously would be a dumb move, so she found a place to pull off a quarter mile down the street that offered concealment behind a thick hedge of overgrown kudzu. She left the vehicle in its protected cubbyhole and took off across the field, intending to approach from the less visible south end of the property.
    Once she reached the dense copse of overgrown cypresses and wax myrtle bordering the fence line, she ducked to a crouch, scanning the mansion for sign of movement. Just because Seven appeared to be busy in town doing its despicable deeds for the day didn’t mean the creature hadn’t decided to take a break and pop home for a little R&R. And there was also the butler, Harrison, to consider.
    She gritted her teeth, wishing—not for the first time in her life—that her magic came with the ability to cloak herself with invisibility. The red front door suddenly swung open and Harrison stepped out, a broom in hand. Although the porch seemed to be impeccably clean from what she could tell, the butler began vigorously sweeping the whitewashed floorboards. Ignoring the ache growing in her hamstrings due to her awkward position, she watched his brisk movements, silently wondering how long it’d take him to rid the veranda of nonexistent dust.
    Just as her numb legs were on the verge of falling asleep, the butler halted, his expression annoyed. He carried on a heated one-sided conversation that she couldn’t quite make out before he unexpectedly vanished.
    Clarissa blinked. Okay, she’d suspected that Harrison was something other than human when he’d disappeared so quickly on her the other day. Seeing him perform a trick that even David Copperfield would be hard-pressed to replicate only confirmed her suspicions. Did that mean Harrison and Seven were of the same ilk? She stared intently at the empty spot where the butler had been only seconds ago. Well, whatever the hell Harrison was, she needed to take advantage of his absence. Now.
    Jerking to her feet, she raced to the front gate. The scrolled latch lifted beneath her fingers, offering no resistance. Praying her luck would hold, she barreled up the wide stairway and tried the door. Fortunately,