“I can’t tell anything other than it’s been witched,” Tag agreed. “So we need to take anything with a hint of magic and sort it out later.” He looked into the depths of the unit and said, “At least she was a white witch—we aren’t likely to run into anything too awful.”

Charles couldn’t help giving him an ironic look.

Tag shrugged. “Had enough horrible for seven lifetimes,” he said. “I don’t like adding anything to it unless I have to.”

They worked in silence. Tag wasn’t naturally quiet, but he was a little afraid of him, Charles knew. That was all right. His reputation, even among his own pack, was another weapon that Charles could use. And Tag was not wrong to be afraid.

Charles had paid for the entire contents of the storage locker, but he had told the manager that once they had gone through everything for what they wanted, he was welcome to sell the remainder. Charles had thought at first that they had been lucky, given that the check was six months old, that the manager hadn’t already garage-saled or auctioned off the contents.

Then he’d shown them the locker. The manager hadn’t even been able to get his hand near the lock. Charles had managed it, using the manager’s key. Charles sent the unhappy manager, who had hoped to get a look at the contents of the unit, back to his offices before dealing with Carrie’s spells so they could open the door safely. Working with her magic, and seeing how she’d dealt with Daniel Erasmus, had made Charles move from respect for her to outright liking.

Going through the unit now—without the driving need to pin down the grimoires—only reinforced his opinion. He didn’t know if he’d have liked her if he’d met her in person—he liked very few people.

But her magic reminded him of the computer code written back in the early days, when memory space was at a premium. Programmers back then created elegant script without a wasted symbol to complete the necessary task. Carrie hadn’t had a lot of power, but she’d made good use of what she did have.

Not that he knew how witchcraft worked—he wasn’t a witch by anything except raw ability. His father had offered to teach him once, but that offer had been full of such … horrific hidden emotions that even as a child he had known to refuse. He couldn’t have reproduced Carrie Green’s work, but he could feel its delicacy.

“Here,” called Tag.

Charles found him crouched over a plastic bin filled with smaller boxes. He held one of the boxes in his hand and offered it to Charles.