Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) Read Online Free PDF

of strange-looking characters wearing what looked very much like Bronze Age torques and jewelry running about, having some kind of battle and generally scaring people. She’d also seen the moment when the mechanical digger had started moving on its own.
    “And you’re sure there was no one in it?”
    “I saw it.”
    “But you’re certain ?” I pushed doubt into her then, hating myself for having to do it, but that was the job. I had to start undoing this mess before someone found out too much. Starting to make the witnesses doubt what they’d seen was always a good first step. With a little luck, they would even start to come up with their own explanations for what had happened.
    “Well, I guess there must have been someone, unless there was a malfunction with the controls or something.”
    “Maybe.” I smiled over at her. Maybe I could use that one. Although it had the problem of being easy to check.
    I went from witness to witness, sowing doubt, even as I tried to get answers. That was the trickiest part about my job. I needed the truth. I needed to know what had happened both so that I could be sure that it wasn’t something dangerous, and so that I could stop it from happening again. Had the archaeological dig uncovered some kind of artifact that was having strange side effects? Had some supernatural creature’s space been invaded so that it was lashing out? Had something more than human simply decided to have some fun at the archaeological unit’s expense?
    To answer that, I had to take a closer look at the trench and the digging machine. I went over, trying to extend my senses. I got the general backwash of magic, but it was hard to be more precise than that, so many hours after the event. A few months ago, I doubted I would even have been able to sense this much.
    At least, it told me that there really was a supernatural element to the case. That it really wasn’t a case of mass hallucination, or simply mass inebriation. I would need to do far more work to try to pin down what had happened, of course, starting with a look around for physical evidence.
    “I wouldn’t go too near the edge,” Ryan said. “It’s not that deep, but you can still hurt yourself if you fall. Just look at…” He didn’t finish that. “Sorry.”
    “No, it’s all right,” I said. “It’s not like it’s your fault, Ryan. Just an accident.”
    He’d corrected me so quickly the last time I used that word. Yet now, as I pushed a kind of acceptance into him, he let it go. Maybe that was the best thing for him.
    “What are you looking for, anyway?” Ryan asked.
    “I’m not sure. Anything I can find. Marks in the earth to show what happened, footprints…”
    “On an archaeological dig? You’ll get all the boot prints you could ever need, particularly with everyone running about trying to help Nina.”
    He had a point there. Layer after layer of prints had churned up the dirt around the trench. I looked down further into it, not for prints this time.
    “You hadn’t found anything just before all this happened, had you?” I asked.
    “Well, we had just come out with a couple of pot sherds. We’d been taking artifacts out of this level of stratigraphy all day. You don’t think that might have had something to do with it, do you?”
    I laughed. “Well, I did hear an idea once that the ‘curse’ of Tutankhamen had something to do with the presence of fungal spores in the tomb.”
    From what I’d heard, it actually had more to do with people assuming that a curse was there and seeing any subsequent bad luck as related to it. I was happy with Ryan believing either approach right then. I also found myself remembering my mother then. She’d once assured me as a girl that there was definitely no King Tutankhamen curse. I’d never thought to ask her how she was so certain.
    I shook my head, bringing myself back to the present. “Do you still have the pieces here?”
    “They’ll have gone up to the university for