How to Fly a Pig (Witch Like a Boss Book 1)
Page 8
The tips of Jared’s ears turned bright pink and he mumbled something into his chest.
“What’s that?”
“I said, they’ve got buildings with restraints everywhere they’re set up. All I need to do is turn up on the full moon and they’ll lock me up, safe and sound.”
“Once you’ve turned up on their doorstep and gone through with the deed, I’ll believe you.” Aunt Florentine picked an apple from the fruit bowl and rubbed it vigorously against her blouse. “Until then, it’s nothing more than a few random facts nobody cares about.”
“I swear, Desi. I’ll go through with it.” Jared reached for my hand and I let him hold it for a second before jerking away. “I’m so ashamed of how I behaved before you left.”
“How did you even know where to find me?” A dozen emotions were playing a jangled melody on my nerves, so I grasped for something tangible. “I never told you where I was heading.”
Jared’s eyes shifted away from mine to feign interest in the floorboards instead.
A nasty flush heated the skin on my chest. “Did Iris tell you I was here?”
“She might have let something slip—”
“Fat lot of good she is.” I slapped his hands away when he tried to touch me again, pacing back and forth. “I specifically told her not to let you know where to find me, yet here you are. She couldn’t even keep her lip buttoned for a day.”
“Don’t be harsh on her,” Jared said, his eyes darting between me and Aunt Flo. “She didn’t tell me. I just saw part of an email she’d printed out and put two and two together.”
“She doesn’t know you’re here?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as the redness oozed down from his ears, turning his forehead blotchy. “Well, I didn’t say that.”
I reached the window and smacked a hand on the sill before turning. “No, of course not, because she’s the one who organised the repair on my locket, isn’t she? You couldn’t even do that yourself.”
If the necklace hadn’t been so important to me, I would have thrown it in his face and ordered him to leave. But I fixed it back in place instead, taking a small delight in the familiar weight hanging back where it belonged.
“It’s no wonder domestic violence is out of control in this country when Iris would rather side with a literal monster than her foster daughter.”
Jared bristled. “I’m not a monster. I just have a condition that I need to manage better. And perhaps Iris would keep your secrets better if you bothered to get in touch more often. Not just when you need something.”
We glared at each other, falling into the pattern of the old argument as easily as slipping into a favourite pair of slippers.
“Thanks very much for bringing the locket back,” Aunt Florentine stated firmly, stepping between us. “But I think it’s time you left.”
“I can tell when I’m not wanted.”
“Really?” I crossed my arms. “Is that a new skill you picked up since becoming a werewolf?”
His face flamed with colour. “You think I wanted to turn into a dog with every full moon?” Jared pulled down the neck of his T-shirt, revealing the dark crimson bite mark. “This wasn’t a choice, in case you can’t remember. A little sympathy wouldn’t go astray.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, then cleared my throat and said it more legibly. “I’ve had a rough couple of days, but I shouldn’t take it out on you.” For a second, my anger and shame retreated enough to feel an old rush of affection. We hadn’t stayed together for six years because we hated each other. Quite the contrary. “It’s great you’re seeking help.”
Aunt Florentine took a step back, eyeing us both warily. “If you two are back to being friends, perhaps you wouldn’t mind me paying a quick visit to the local dairy.”
“You sure can.” My aunt hugged Annalisa. “In which case, I’ll go all the way into town and drop by the butcher while I’m at it.”
Jared squinted at Annalisa, shook his head, then tilted his head from side to side. “Um, did you know you have a talking cat?”
“You can hear her?”
“I…” He suddenly backed away until his rear end bumped against the wall. “Is it my imagination or did she… grow a bit larger?”
“Don’t worry,” I hastened to assure him. “She’ll only bite if I tell her.”
Jared’s eyes appeared in danger of popping out of their sockets.
“Annalisa is my familiar, so as long as you don’t threaten me or anyone in my coven, you’ll be okay.”
He gave a slow nod, only relaxing as the panther left the house, happily trailing behind Aunt Flo. “You’ve got a coven now?”
A warm feeling lit up my chest and I nodded. “Yes, I do.” I cupped the locket in my hand. “Thanks for bringing this back as well. It sounds stupid to say about a piece of jewellery, but I really missed it.”
“Sorry if I gave you a scare, turning up out of the blue.” He scuffed one sneakered foot along the floor. “I was worried that if I told you I was coming, you’d find a way to avoid me.”
Well, duh. “How is Iris?”
Jared’s shoulders lost their stiffness and he hooked one ankle in front of the other. “She’s great. Got a bunch of new teens that are making her tear her hair out but that’s par for the course.”
I rubbed my sternum as I remembered how it had felt to arrive in Iris’s ramshackle house. Within a few minutes of walking through the front door, she’d told me they never bothered to repair anything because someone would just break it again.
At the time, I’d been horrified that people could live in such squalor. After a week in the place, living alongside another five teenagers, all in the foster system, I’d understood completely.
The house had been ugly, broken, and full of warmth and love.
As a girl who no longer believed she deserved either of the latter, I couldn’t wait to get out of there and set up on my own. The three-year-long pit stop between my mother’s death and the freedom of turning eighteen had crawled by—unmitigated torture.
Afterwards, Iris’s cheerful visits to check I was okay had been dreaded events akin to small talk with strangers on the bus, but Jared had loved them. Sometimes, lying awake in the small hours of the night, I wondered if he would ever have moved in with me if it hadn’t been for the quasi-mother-figure she provided.
I could have asked her to stop but part of me appreciated the gesture even if the reality was excruciating.
“I’ll have to give her a call once I’m settled.”
Jared inclined his head. “She’ll appreciate that.” He cast a glance around the room, wrinkling his nose at the rubbish bin. “You need to empty that thing outside more often.”
“And you need to remember your manners and that your nose is a thousand times more sensitive than a normal person’s.”
His eyes lit up. “Calling yourself normal now, are you?”
“I’m as misdirected and confused as the rest of the Briarton coven.”
“You could have been confused up in Auckland.”
“And you could have gone for help when I suggested it, two months ago.”
“Fair enough.” Jared rubbed at the side of his nose and wandered through to the hallway. “Did your job transfer down here?”
A laugh burst out of me so suddenly it had more in common with a snort. “Fat chance. Once my holidays run out, I’m officially unemployed.”
“Doesn’t your coven have anything for you to do?”
“I’m already doing some stuff but it’s not exactly on the books.” When Jared’s eyes gleamed with interest, I feigned nonchalance. “They’ve got me solving a crime.”
“You were always good with puzzles. What’s the big offence? Let me guess. Sheep rustling?”
I folded my arms, full
of indignation. “It’s a murder, actually.”
Jared’s face went very still. He stared at me with such intensity, I wanted to babble out a longer explanation but managed to keep my mouth buttoned. Finally, he glanced away with his lip curling. “Right. Good joke.”
“There was a body found out the back of my property.” I jerked my head in the general direction. “The supreme tasked me with hunting down the person responsible.”
“The person?” Jared moved closer, taking hold of my upper arm. “You mean, the killer? You’re in town for a few days, and your supreme wants you to hunt down a killer? What protection do you have?”
I stared at his hand until he released his grip and retreated a step. “I don’t need protection. They just have me chasing down a few leads, so we won’t be on the backfoot if the national coven decides to check-in.”
“You haven’t called the governing coven?” He shook his head, eyes wide. “I can’t believe you’ve got involved in something like this when you’ve only been gone a few days. Right.” He gave a nod, his lips pressed hard together in a grim smile. “I’m definitely staying in town, then.”
“Good luck finding accommodation at this short notice.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because everyone in the world is fighting to spend a few nights in Briarton. I’d already booked a room at the tavern for tonight. Judging by their lack of clientele, they’ll probably start paying me if I turn that reservation into a week-long stay.” He jerked his chin up. “And the first thing I’ll do when I get into my room is call the police. You shouldn’t be doing anything like this on your own.”
“If you call the police, they’ll refer it straight to the national coven.”
“That’s not my look-out. Your supreme should’ve told them straight away.”
I glanced at the door, slamming it shut and grinning as Jared jumped. “I’m not completely useless. Being in town has heightened my powers.”
“D’you think the ability to slam a door will help you out when a murderer is chasing you around town?”
My hand crept up to my throat. “I have a partner. He’s more than capable of sorting out any nonsense.”
Jared’s eyes gleamed yellow and his canines extended below the lip line. “Is he?”
“We just need a few days.”
“Change that to one day.” He held up his forefinger. “And I’m helping you out from now on, you understand me? If you’re going to persist with this foolishness, then you need a bit of muscle on your side.”
I opened my mouth to refuse the offer, then tipped my head to the side. For a day, I’d been chasing around town, pretty much on my own, oblivious to any danger. Now that Jared had put it in suck stark relief, my skin crawled with nerves.
A large guy tagging around behind me while I investigated could come in handy. Especially one who wanted to demonstrate how much he’d changed.
Another thought struck me, and I held up a finger before running upstairs. The ticket stub I’d removed from Isabella’s body sat on the bedside table. Back downstairs, I handed it across to Jared, smiling. “You’ve still got a nose for trouble, don’t you? Can you sniff out any scent from this thing?”
This time, the glint of yellow entered his eyes and stayed there. He sniffed, then took a deeper one before opening the front door. “I’ve got a hit, you coming?”
Chapter Eleven
We snuck along the back fence of Briarton Intermediate School, more worried a tween would spot us lurking where we shouldn’t than a teacher.
“How strong is this scent?” I asked, not for the first time.
“Strong enough to follow, now hush.”
Annalisa nudged against the back of my knees. She’d caught up with us not far from the house and insisted on coming along—an offer I suspected had more to do with feline-canine rivalry than a genuine interest in solving a crime.
Jared turned, hooking his eyebrow up. “Oh, really? You’re gonna let me be lectured by an overgrown housecat?”
“When she’s talking sense, I will.” My voice turned into a singsong lilt. “Manners don’t cost you anything, children.”
He chuckled, then turned his attention back to the faint trail in the grass. “You know you’ve got old when you start quoting Miss Matheson to me.”
The woman had been our English teacher in our last year of high school. Both Jared and I had coasted in that final term, already knowing how to ace the internal assessments so we didn’t have to worry about the final exam. Miss Matheson had been a product of her time—if that time had been the late Edwardian era.
“Through here,” he said, ducking into the dense bushes; the branches snapping back into place with such elasticity, Jared disappeared like they’d swallowed him.
Annalisa moved forward with more stealth, her slinky form edging aside the bushes and pouring like liquid through the cracks.
Ahead, I saw a concrete pathway curving to the side and chose to jump over the short chain-link fence rather than spend the rest of the day picking leaves and dried twigs off my jersey.
“Come over here,” Jared said with an edge in his voice. “Still think we shouldn’t call the police?”
He stood beside the swings—two seats hanging down on thick chains above a slab of asphalt. New health and safety regulations should have dictated the park be updated to have a soft surface underneath the play equipment, but it looked like the local council had missed the memo.
A dark stain coloured the ground underneath the right-side swing, its shadow obscuring part of the mark.
“It’s blood,” Jared said before I asked. “From the same person who last held this ticket.”
The shape appeared more like a spilled chocolate milkshake than the spatter of blood from a cut or graze. My hand once again crept to my locket, twisting the chain while I tried to work out how much damage would be needed to cause this big a mark.
“This ticket is old, too.” Jared handed it back to me with a nostril flare. “If you wanted me to find a more recent scent, there’s one in your laundry room and in the car parked outside your house.” He leant forward, staring straight into my eyes. “I take it that’s not connected to her death.”
“Stop sniping at each other,” I said, frowning at the marks on the ground. “Are you able to tell where she was bleeding from?”
“Her body.”
Annalisa turned and rubbed herself against the supporting pole for the swings, making a low growl in the back of her throat.
“You don’t think your murder victim being injured in a public place, just a week or two before she died is relevant?”
“Wait. We’re searching for a body? If you don’t have one, how do you know this woman is dead?” Jared stroked a hand along the side of his face, rasping against the stubble already shadowing his jaw.
A year ago, he’d lamented his inability to produce a beard that didn’t provoke a round of teasing. Since being bitten, that had ceased to be a problem. I wondered how his face would alter if he allowed the hair to come through—if it would harden the soft line of his jaw—then kicked my toe against the ground, appalled my mind would travel along those lines.
“We did.” I tried to affect a nonchalant shrug, missing by a mile. “Somebody took it.”
“From the morgue?”
My tongue tangled in knots. “From the boot of her car,” I whispered after an elongated pause.
Jared’s brow turned thunderous. “So, you not only haven’t told the police, you haven’t told a doc
tor either? Does her family even know she’s dead?”
“You could’ve told me,” Jared said, frustration eclipsing his fear of my panther familiar. He ran to the edge of the park, shoving his lengthening nose into the sky and sniffing deep.
A second later, he ran through the gate and onto the street, turning with a huff when we didn’t immediately follow. “Hurry up. I’ve got a fix on her strongest scent. Even if her body isn’t there now, it’ll give us a good lead.”
With a roar, Annalisa jumped to close the gap between them. I forced my legs into a run, trailing far behind them as we raced across town.
Jared led us on so many twisting and turning paths, I began to feel he was toying with us. As I clambered up the side of the third fence in a row, catapulting over to land in long grass on the other side, I wheezed. My throat had closed to a pinhole from the recent exertion.
“Just give me a second,” I pleaded, doubling over, and trying to remember how air fitted into my lungs when they weren’t on fire.
“When did you get so out of shape?” Jared placed a hand between my shoulder blades and rubbed. “You used to run circles around me.”
“As the only human representative left in our trio, I’d like to remind you both that I still have the restrictions I was born with. You dogs and cats might have an enjoyable time streaking around the roads at the speed of light, but I don’t have that luxury.”
“Witches don’t count as human, do they?”
I flapped a hand at Annalisa, preferring when she directed her mocking tone at Jared. “Considering my powers only returned when I got back to Briarton, I think I’m doing pretty good for a three-day-old witch.”