“I hear… something,” he said. “It sounds like children giggling. The kind you might hear in a horror movie.”
Half the virikas separated from the crowd surrounding Lenore and crept toward us.
“Karin,” I said, my voice rising an octave.
“With training, I'm sure Nick can see—” She turned, and her eyes widened. Gripping Nick's arm, she backed toward me and the SUV.
“What's going on?” Nick asked.
“Get in the car,” I said, trying not to move my lips.
A tide of virikas rushed toward us.
“Get back in the car,” I said more urgently.
“Run!” Karin shouted.
We raced toward the SUV.
Nick aimed his key fob, and the locks clicked up. We leapt into the car and slammed our doors shut.
Oh, damn. I gripped the door’s handle, as if pulling on it could make it any more closed.
Nick turned to Karin. “Okay, why are we running?”
“The virikas were surrounding Lenore,” she said. “And then when they noticed us—”
The SUV lurched sideways, and I squeaked.
Nick locked the doors. “What the hell?”
There was a scraping, shrieking noise, the sound of metal tearing. The SUV's muffler shot from beneath it and pinged against the trunk of a pine.
Nick cursed.
The SUV rocked back and forth, tossing me against the baby carrier.
“Not good!” I said. “Not good!”
Karin shrieked and fumbled for her seatbelt.
Outside, Lenore shouted something, waving her arms above her head.
The glass doors at the front of the senior center swung open. Two people in old-fashioned clothing emerged.
“Great, just great,” I muttered, heart pounding, and gripped the seat.
Mrs. Raven, in her circa nineteen-forties green skirt suit, stood motionless at the top of the steps. Mr. O'Hare emerged from the glass doors in his Victorian plaid jacket and waistcoat. He stopped beside her.
“What are they doing here?” Karin shouted.
“Who? Those two at the top of the steps?” Nick asked. “I can see them. What are they?”
In sync, Raven and O'Hare tilted their heads to the left, as if considering Nick’s SUV. The couple always wore the same, vintage clothing, and was always together. Worse, they had an odd vibe, and in Doyle, “odd” was rarely a good thing.
“They're people,” Karin said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” I snarled. O’Hare and Raven had mysteriously appeared in Doyle about the same time as the witch who’d done so much harm to Brayden. I’d never sensed magic on the couple, but I’d been tricked before.
The car lurched violently, and Nick gripped the steering wheel. “Are they causing this?”
“I don’t know,” Karin shouted.
Another squeal of metal, and the hood flew open. Virikas in red caps poured over the sides of the car and disappeared behind the open hood.
“What the—” Nick reached for the door.
“No!” Karin and I shouted.
The muffler shot straight into the air.
Nick swore long and colorfully.
Something hit the roof with a deafening bang.
I hunched, clapping my hands to my ears, and Karin shouted again.
Raven and O'Hare straightened their heads. As one, they turned to stare at Lenore, protected in her salt circle, and my anxiety ratchetted up to eleven.
There was a horrible, groaning sound.
“Oh, no,” Nick said, “not the—”
The engine blasted from the car and into the pine.
“That must weigh four hundred pounds,” Nick said. “What the hell have you three been fighting?”
Karin gulped. “They're actually really small.” She gestured toward the swaying pine. “But there are an awful lot of them.”
The driver's side of the car dropped, slamming me against the door. A wheel rolled and bumped along the dirt lot.
The virikas keened, the sound growing louder until the SUV vibrated from the noise. Hot pain sliced through my eardrums.
In agony, I pressed my hands again to my head. Stop it, stop it! I bent my head to my knees and pressed harder against my skull, as if I could force out the pain. “God!” I was going to die. But I didn’t mind. Death would be a relief, a release. My only regret was taking my family with me.
“Karin, what’s happening?” Nick’s voice was threaded with panic. “What’s wrong? What can I do?”
My sister screamed.
I squinched my eyes shut, and the world went silent.
Panting, I opened my eyes and straightened. I dropped my hands to my sides and looked out the SUV’s window.
The virikas had vanished.
In front of the blocky senior center, Lenore squatted alone in her salt circle.
O'Hare and Mrs. Raven had disappeared as well.
Lenore looked up and lifted her hands from her ears.
A chipmunk edged down a pine and chittered at us.
“I think it's over,” I said shakily. Nausea dizzied me, and I swallowed hard, leaning my head against the back of the seat. What had that been about?
“Karin, are you alright?” Nick asked.
“I’m fine.” But her voice cracked.
He twisted in his seat. “Jayce?”
I gave him a thumbs up. It was all I could manage without puking.
Karin rested her head on his broad shoulder. “The sound,” she said, “it was so loud. Didn’t you hear it?”
“Not like you did,” he said. “You’re both still sick. I’m going for help.” He reached for the car door.
“No!” She grabbed his arm. “What if they’re waiting for us to come out? It could be a trap.”
“No,” I said. “I think whoever they were waiting on to die, has died. Did you see how Raven and O’Hare reacted while all that was going on?”
She nodded, grim. “A normal person would have freaked out seeing Nick’s SUV dismantled by invisible hands.”
“What did that to my car?” Nick said.
Karin quickly explained, and I scanned the crude parking lot looking for signs of lurking virikas.
Lenore hadn’t moved from her salt circle, but she had risen to standing. Cautiously, she raised one foot and set it down outside the circle.
She waited a moment. When nothing happened, Lenore stepped clear. Her head swiveled back and forth.
“I'm going to Lenore,” I said, impatient.
“No,” Karin said. “Wait—”
But I'd already opened the door, was sliding from the tilting SUV. With an effort, I shut the heavy door and strode to Lenore.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I'm fine.” My sister’s cheeks were red. Her breath came in pained gasps. “You?”
“They didn’t get inside Nick’s car.” I rubbed my arms. But could the virikas have gotten inside, given the time? They'd opened the hood. They'd torn out the engine. I needed to get into my sisters’ habit of carrying salt.
Lots of salt.
Lenore swallowed. “Did you see—?”
“Mrs. Raven and Mr. O'Hare?” I asked.
She brushed off the thighs of her ivory leggings. “Yeah. Where'd they go?”
I shifted my weight. “They must have gone inside the care home.”
“But why were they here at all?” She shook her head, her blond hair slithering across the fabric of her white jacket. “Those two always seem to be on the spot when something weird is happening.”
“Not always. They weren't here when we found Mathilda.” Did that mean I’d been right, and the barista’s death hadn’t been magical?
“You mean, we didn't see them when we found Mathilda.”
“You think they were here?”
“I just…” She shook herself. “It's Doyle, you know?”
“Yeah,”
I said, depressed. Would we ever get out from under its shadow? “I know.”
An ambulance trundled up the dirt driveway and came to a stop in front of the concrete steps.
Brayden stepped out. “Jayce? What are you doing here?”
Uh… My brain went blank.
Another EMT stepped from the passenger side of the white and red ambulance.
Nick strode to the vehicle. “Hey, Brayden, what's going on?”
“Someone passed away inside,” Brayden said. “We're bringing the body back to the hospital. What are you doing here?”
“Calling a tow truck.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, toward the wrecked SUV.
“Lenore and I came to give them a ride,” I said, before Nick could explain more. Brayden needed some normality after what he’d been through. If he knew angry, death-obsessed gnomes were running around Doyle…
Lenore shot me an odd look.
Brayden blinked and edged to the side for a better view. “Is that a…?”
I turned, expecting to see an angry gnome. The virikas had carved crude graffiti – a man's genitalia – into the side of the black SUV. I clapped my hands to my mouth, smothering a hysterical laugh.
Karin stalked around the SUV, talking on her cell phone and shaking her head.
“Who'd you piss off?” Brayden asked the lawyer.
Nick shot me a look. “That's a good question.”
The other ambulance driver breathed into his clasped hands to warm them. “Hey, are we going to get our body or just stand around yakking?” He stamped his feet.
“Right. Sorry.” Brayden brushed a quick kiss across my forehead. “I'll be right back.” He and his partner removed a stretcher from the back of the ambulance. They maneuvered it up the steps and inside.
“We came to give Nick and Karin a ride?” Lenore asked me.
“Brayden’s still a little sensitive about the magic.”
“You can't ask us to lie for you,” she said reasonably.
I grimaced. “Anyway, how did the information gathering go about the virikas’ behavior?”
She shook her head. “Fine. It seems that they go into a sort of frenzy at or near the moment of death. Did you notice how their shrieking got really loud right before they vanished?”
I rubbed my aching head. “Yeah. I noticed.”
Karin walked up to us. “A tow truck will be here in thirty minutes. What are we talking about?”
Lenore repeated herself, and Karin nodded. “The same thing happened the other night – they went bananas right before we found Mathilda's body.”
“Which would mean she died right before we got there,” I said.
“Hold on,” Nick said. “You didn't see the killer? Did the killer see you?”
“No, we didn’t,” Karin said, “and I don't know if anyone saw us. Lenore and I were a little behind Jayce, who as usual, stormed ahead.” She glared at me.
Nick raked his hands through his dark hair. “I had no idea these things were so dangerous.” His classically handsome face set. He stared at what was left of his SUV.
I tracked his gaze and another wild laugh threatened to erupt at the sight of the childish graffiti. I smoothed my expression. This wasn’t funny.
“The virikas didn't kill Mathilda,” Karin said.
“They took apart my car!” He motioned toward the SUV.
“Yes,” Karin said coolly, “but notice they didn't try very hard to get inside. And they could have.”
“You're saying they were just trying to scare us?” he asked incredulously.
She lifted one shoulder, dropped it. “I'm saying it's interesting.”
“It could be revenge,” I said.
The others stared at me.
“For chasing them off the other nights.”
“They did seem kind of indignant about the tennis rackets,” Lenore said.
“Wouldn’t you be?” I’d told them the rackets were a bad idea.
“Tennis rackets seemed more humane,” Karin sputtered. “The strings have give.”
“Hold on,” Nick said. “That's what you took my racket for?”
“You haven't played tennis in ages,” Karin said.
“Well,” he said, “I might like to.”
While the two bickered good naturedly, Lenore drew me off to one side. “I think you should tell Brayden what's going on.”
I looked toward the sloping SUV. “When the time's right, the universe will let me know. I'll tell him then.”
Brayden and his partner emerged from the senior home. A wrinkled, black bag lay on top of the stretcher.
I scrubbed a hand across my face.
Expressions somber, they loaded the stretcher and its mournful burden into the back of the ambulance. The doors closed with an air of soft finality.
Brayden walked to me and took my hand. “Can I come by tonight?”
“Yes,” I said, my heart lifting. “Of course.”
He nodded to Karin. “Uh, let me know if there's any way I can help with all this.” He motioned toward the SUV, canted at an angle beneath the pine.
“Trust me,” she said. “If we can figure out how to get rid of them, we'll let you know.”
My heart stopped.
Brayden’s brow wrinkled. “Rid of them?”
“The virikas,” Karin said.
No, no, no! I stared at Karin and shook my head wildly. Shut up!
A nurse in blue scrubs emerged from the senior home. On the top step, she fired up an e-cigarette.
“Virikas,” he said slowly. “Who are the virikas?”
“It's less a who, than a wha…” She caught my eye. “It's silly. It's just a car. We've got insurance.”
Brayden turned to me, his expression grim. “What's a virikas?”
“They're funny little creatures. Like gnomes.” I faked a laugh. “Harmless.”
The SUV’s rear passenger wheel buckled. A mournful groan, and one side of the car thunked to the ground.
Harmless.
“And they did that to Nick's car?” he asked. “These… Virikas?”
“Only because there were a lot of them,” I said.
His face reddened. “You're not making this better. Putting away all your crystals and tarot decks, was that just for show?” he asked hotly.
“No! I'm trying, Brayden. I'm really trying. But then this happened, and—”
His partner leaned out the ambulance’s window and banged on the door. “Are we going?”
Brayden's mouth pressed into a thin line. “We'll talk about this later.” Back straight, he got into the ambulance and slammed shut the door.
The ambulance drove off, disappearing around a bend and into the pines.
“I'm sorry,” Karin said. “I didn't know—”
“It's all right.” The universe had let me know, and its timing sucked.
CHAPTER SIX
“So.” Lenore braced her elbows on the bookstore's laminate counter. Customers in knit caps and unzipped parkas browsed the gray-carpeted aisles.
I shifted my weight and inhaled that lovely bookstore smell. I didn’t get much time to read, but even I loved that scent. Java rocked my world, but I got why Lenore loved her bookstore. “The virikas are tougher than we thought,” I said, because I really didn't want to talk about Brayden.
Nick and Karin were on their way home via tow truck. I kind of wished they were still here as a buffer against Lenore's piercing, blue-gray gaze.
I glanced at a nearby browser, an elderly woman in a striped, knit scarf. “Did you find anything about the you-know-whats in the literature?”
“I've got a book on order.” Her gaze tracked the old woman, who'd opened one of Karin’s romance novels and stood, her lips moving silently. “But I don't know what's more unnerving, the you-know-whats or the you-know-whos.”
“Mrs. R and Mr. O?”
“O'Hare.”
“Hare…”
I cleared my throat. “You don't think he's any relation to the Rose Rabbit?” I had to wonder if he was connected to our old magical ally from Fairy. The names were too close to be coincidence. But I hadn’t been able to pick any magical vibes off either O'Hare or Mrs. Raven. And we hadn’t heard hide nor hair (ha ha) from the Rose Rabbit since he’d completed his mission, last year.
“The name does seem a strange coincidence,” she said, “doesn’t it?”
“Everything about those two are strange. The clothes. The way they just seem to… watch.”
She straightened off the counter. “They're staying at Wits' End.”
“And what?” I whispered. “You want the B&B owner to ransack their rooms for us?”
She rolled her eyes. “Susan would never do that. She's even more straight-laced than Karin. But they've been at that B&B for what? A couple months now? Susan must know something. I'm going to ask her.”
“I saw them once with Mrs. Steinberg.” And their meeting hadn’t been long after Raven and O’Hare had first arrived, last November. Old Mrs. Steinberg had seemed to know the mysterious couple.
A customer exited. The glass front door swung slowly shut, a chill, January breeze flowing into the bookstore.
I shivered. “I'll talk to her.”
“You can ask,” she said in a low voice, “but I don't know if I'd trust anything she says. Mrs. Steinberg seems a little nuts.”
“I wouldn’t say nuts. Eccentric, sure, but…”
“This is Doyle,” we both finished.
“It's a good thing life here’s never boring,” she said with a short laugh.
Until lately, the weirdness had been part of the moutain town’s charm. But now…? “Have you ever considered leaving?” I asked, thinking about Brayden. Maybe he was right. Maybe it would be healthier for us all to just go.
Her eyes widened. “Leave?”
I studied the thin, gray carpet. “To get away from all this.”
“I'm not sure we can.” Her pale brow furrowed. “I mean, it wouldn't be right, would it? Not when we're the only ones with a shot at fixing things.”
My heart sank. She was right. I couldn’t leave, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But knowing I might not have a choice… The bookstore suddenly seemed airless. “Right.”
“Why, you’re not thinking of leaving?”
Fey: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery (The Witches of Doyle Book 5) Page 4
