Mandrake

This time around, Eli and Dan track a serial killer with a taste for witches.

No one expected to find three bodies behind City Hall with a sign that read "witch" pinned to their clothes. Even more unexpected were the clusters of mandrakes growing beneath them.

Sure, the folklore said that mandrake grew beneath a hanged man… But this was February in New England, and these plants were lush and green and in full bloom. That meant that the killer wanted people to believe three witches had been publicly executed. Why someone would do that was anyone's guess, but Eli had dealt with witch haters before. Witch killers was another matter entirely.

Worse, Dan was convinced the murder wasn't a one-person job. That meant multiple killers with a taste for witches were on the loose.

The further Eli got into the case, the more entwined it became in her life, until everything pointed back to one of her first cases. As Eli got closer to the killer, and the facts became more convoluted, a single thought coalesced in her mind:

She had to catch this killer, and make the world safer for her own baby witch.