The virika didn’t budge. Didn’t vanish to Fairyland.
The spell hadn't worked.
I gaped, time seeming to slow. Had our spelled balloons hit their sell-by date? Because the virika still wasn't moving.
Another ice ball hit me in the side of the head, knocking me sideways and jarring my brain’s wheels into turning.
“Hell.” She’d hit a plaster garden gnome. I didn't remember Mr. O'Malley having garden gnomes.
The virikas were just feet away, slowing only to pelt me with more missiles.
Movements jerky, I threw my last balloon. It landed short, splattering my jeans. I stepped backward and tripped over another garden gnome. When the hell had Mr. O'Malley started a gnome collection?
Grabbing the plaster gnome, I chucked it at the virikas horde.
They raced, arms raised, toward the flying garden ornament as if to brace its fall. It flattened two of the virikas.
“Ha! Fooled you.” I grabbed another garden gnome.
It writhed in my hand. A stab of pain pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger. I shrieked and flung the virika away.
My butt hit the fence, rattling a loose board. Light-headed, I half-vaulted, half-fell over the pickets.
Lenore sprinted into the street, tossing water balloons behind her. Her once white coat was coated in muck. A trickle of blood oozed from a cut on her cheek.
An ice and rock ball clobbered me on the shoulder. I winced, puzzling over the plaster garden gnomes. I'd swear they hadn't been there last week. Could the virikas have put them there to make it seem like they had greater numbers?
I raced toward her Volvo.
Lenore zoomed past me.
My stomach fluttered. But if they were trying to make it look like there were more virikas in the yard, that meant…
My chest gripped. “Lenore, stop! It's a trap!”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “What?”
Snarling virikas dropped from the pine tree onto her car. It rocked beneath their weight.
She skidded to a halt. “What—?”
I grabbed her arm. “Retreat!” I hauled her down the street, past Mr. O'Hare and Mrs. Raven in their odd, vintage suits.
The virikas flowed around the motionless couple, their gazes prickling my skin.
My sister jolted toward O'Hare and Raven. “Look out—”
“They're fine,” I snarled.
Lenore stopped resisting and raced beside me, our arms pumping. Ice and rock balls thudded on the nearby pavement.
We dodged around a corner and didn't slow until the cracks of the virikas' projectiles faded.
Gasping, I dropped to a walk. My chest burned, a stitch pinched my side. Near Main Street, I examined my hand. A crescent of tiny white teeth marks curved between my thumb and forefinger. At least the virika hadn’t broken the skin. God only knew what a virika bite would do. “I think… we lost them…”
Lenore stumbled to a halt and turned, walking backwards toward Main. “Maybe.” She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek, leaving a smear of blood.
A station wagon cruised past, its headlights gleaming in the gray twilight.
I braced my hands on my knees and swore some more. “They were waiting for us.”
She shot a startled look my way. “The virikas or O'Hare and Raven?”
“Both,” I said, grim. “The garden gnomes, the fake ones, did you see them at Mr. O'Malley's house before?”
“No,” she said unevenly. “The only person in Doyle with a gnome garden is—”
“Mrs. Biddlecreek.”
She canted her head. “You don't think they stole the gnomes from her garden?”
“There's one way to find out.”
“Oh, no. What if they're lying in wait for us there too?”
“So, you believe it's possible.” My smile was hard as I brushed ice and dirt from my now muddy-green jacket. I knew I shouldn't have bought something that was dry-clean only.
“I believe they had a stash of pre-made snowballs—”
“That wasn't snow.” I eyed her muddy coat.
“Ice balls then, ready and waiting.” Her gray eyes flashed in the dying light. “They'd stockpiled the damn things.”
“That's what I think too.”
We stared at each other, and I tasted something sour and unpleasant at the back of my mouth.
“They knew we were coming,” she said.
“Knew?” I laughed hollowly. “They were counting on it.”
“I don't think a single balloon hit any of them.”
“They're fast,” I agreed, catching my breath.
“And they're smart.”
“Not only that.” I cleared my throat. “They understand revenge.”
“Revenge?” Her face turned ashen. “You don't think they're going to come to our homes? Because it wouldn't matter if they did. We've got protection. Wards.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But your Volvo doesn't.”
“My car!” Lenore stopped and turned back.
I grabbed her arm. “Forget it. We had to leave it behind.”
“But what they did to Nick’s SUV…” She sank her head in her hands and groaned.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Glancing over our shoulders, Lenore and I hurried down Main Street. Dying sunlight glinted off the shop windows, hung with Valentine’s Day hearts.
“They're not going to follow us down Main.” Lenore slowed and jammed her hands into the pockets of her stained jacket.
“I'm not worried about the virikas,” I lied, jogging ahead. “I'm worried about the time.” If I'd missed Ground’s closing… Well, I was the boss, so I wasn't exactly in trouble. But it set a crappy example.
I groaned and skidded to a halt in front of Ground's red-paned door. The CLOSED sign hung in its window. Inside, Darla pushed a mop around the laminate floors. The chairs sat upside down on their tables.
Grimacing, I unlocked the front door. The scent of coffee and cleaning supplies hung in the air.
Darla looked up. “Hey, Jayce.”
“Darla. I'm so sorry. There was—”
“A tiny family emergency,” Lenore interrupted. “My car was vandalized.”
I shot a startled glance at my sister. That was pessimistic, though the virikas had landed hard on the Volvo’s roof.
Darla paused, her brown eyes widening. “What? Here in Doyle?”
Lenore nodded.
“Have you called the police?” Darla leaned on the mop, water squishing onto the floor.
Lenore pinked. Her boyfriend was a cop. He should have been the first call. “Not yet,” she admitted and touched my arm. “I'm headed back to the bookstore.”
“But your car—”
“I'll call Connor. He'll make sure the Volvo, um, gets back okay.”
The virikas wouldn’t bother Connor, because he couldn’t see the little beasts. He could return Lenore’s car without any problem. “Maybe we should let Karin know,” I said.
Darla frowned and jammed the mop into the nearby bucket.
Yeah, calling Karin made zero sense for a car getting vandalized. But she needed to know about the virikas’s more aggressive behavior.
“Tomorrow,” Lenore said, giving me a significant look, and I nodded. We’d talk about this later. At least we’d learned more about the gnomes. That would make Karin happy.
Lenore escaped out the front door. I watched her pale figure cross in front of Ground's windows.
Darla blew out her breath. “How bad is it? Lenore's car, I mean?”
“I'm not sure,” I said, slipping my hands into my pockets and glancing sidelong at the windows. “Not too bad, I think.” But they’d done a real number on Nick’s SUV. I hoped the Volvo wasn’t in for similar handling.
“You don't think it was personal, do you?”
Hell yes. Those little bastards had been lying in wait. “No. Probably just bored kids.” I
pried the mop from Darla's hand. “I'm sorry I left you in the lurch. Thanks for taking care of everything. I'll finish up. You can get out of here.”
She smiled. “Hey, that's what assistant managers are for, right? You put up with me when I was breaking a mug a day. It's the least I can do.”
Grateful, I hugged her. “You're the best. Thanks.”
I waited while she grabbed her jacket and purse off a peg in the kitchen, and I saw Darla to the alley. Shadows lengthened along its western wall, and I hugged myself, watching her get into her car. Locking the heavy kitchen door behind her, I leaned against it and blew out my breath.
When virikas attack. Yep, life was definitely getting weirder.
But I still had a cleanup to finish. I returned to the front of the cafe, turned my brain off, and mopped the floor.
Something creaked from behind the kitchen’s blue and white curtains. They swayed, as if stirred by a breeze.
I looked up and gripped the mop handle more tightly. “Hello?”
No one answered.
It’s probably the building settling. Gripping the mop, I crept to the kitchen curtains and swept them aside.
The kitchen was empty. Beside the sink, the industrial dishwasher hummed, a light glowing on its front panel.
I blew out my breath. “The virikas did not follow you home,” I muttered.
Finishing up in the cafe, I wrung out the mop and trudged upstairs. I opened the apartment door slowly to avoid Picatrix, who was no doubt be waiting to be fed.
But the cat wasn't there.
“Picatrix?” Head cocked, listening, I wandered through my apartment.
Nope. She wasn't home.
Weird.
In the guest room, I replaced a throw pillow that had fallen from the daybed and closed the media cabinet. The room seemed barren without my crystals and tarot cards and other magical tools, and I sighed. But those were just stuff. Fun stuff, but I didn't really need it for witchcraft. All those goodies helped focus my magic, but they weren't magic in and of themselves.
“Not that that matters,” I said, “since I'm not doing much magic.”
I scrubbed a hand across my face. We needed to figure out a better spell to send the virikas back where they came from. And a spell to locate the virikas wouldn't hurt either. Maybe we could find them before someone was about to die.
Another creak of wood, like a footstep.
Brayden. Shamefaced, I hurried into the open-plan living area. After everything Brayden and I had said to each other, was I really thinking about casting a spell?
But Brayden wasn't around. It had just been the building settling. I jammed my fists on my hips. Now what? It wouldn't hurt to do one tiny location spell, would it?
I scampered from the room and to the reading nook. Ivy plants climbed the white brick behind the couch. Reaching into a potted plant, I excavated a quartz crystal on a silver chain. I brushed the potting soil from its opaque sides.
“Ready to do some magic?” I asked the crystal.
And this was why I needed a cat around. Without Picatrix, I was stuck talking to rocks.
I washed the quartz pendulum and chain and found a map of Doyle underneath the kitchen sink.
Dropping onto the sofa, surrounded by the climbing plants, I kicked off my shoes, crossed my legs and cupped the quartz. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, centering myself. It had been a while since I'd used this pendulum, and it needed a recharge for us to connect again.
I relaxed, visualizing purifying light flowing past the magical protection encircling my apartment. The light tingled through my hands and into the crystal. The quartz warmed, vibrating.
“Are you ready to—”
Something clanked beneath me, and my eyelids flew open.
I froze, staring at the white-painted door to the coffeeshop, downstairs.
Okay. That wasn’t the building settling. I'd likely just stacked something awkwardly in Ground’s kitchen, and gravity had done its work, causing it to shift.
I licked my lips, my blood rushing uncomfortably through my veins.
Or someone was in downstairs.
Brayden? No, he'd come straight upstairs.
It was probably nothing.
But I set down the pendulum and stood. Sliding Brayden's bat from the umbrella stand, I tiptoed to the door to the coffeeshop. I eased it open, listened.
Silence, except for the dishwasher’s swish and rumble.
I was jumpy, that was all. Nerves, as they called it in my aunt's day. But I couldn't do magic freaked out, and I'd stay jittery until I'd proven to myself I was alone.
Most likely, I was alone. I blinked rapidly. In fact, I was ninety-nine percent sure I was alone.
Gripping the bat more tightly, I stole down the stairs. Their tiles were cool beneath my bare feet.
I reached around the corner for the light. Flipping it on, I leapt into the kitchen, bat raised. “Ha!”
And… the kitchen was empty.
Feeling stupid, I lowered the bat. I should have stuck with my first instinct. Of course, no one—
Someone slammed me sideways.
I shrieked, swinging the bat low and connecting awkwardly.
A hand gripped my hair. It slammed my forehead against the wall.
An odd sound escaped my throat. My knees buckled, hit the floor. There was a crash.
A door slammed.
Dazed, I slowly tilted sideways and laid on the floor. Icy air coiled around me. I didn't like it.
I needed to get up.
I needed to call the police.
I needed to figure out what my attacker had done in Ground. Had I been robbed?
Head throbbing, I closed my eyes and curled into a ball.
Picatrix meowed nearby.
I squeezed my eyes tighter, gulping down ragged breaths.
The cat's rough tongue licked my forehead. She purred.
I opened my eyes. “Ghoul.” Gingerly, I touched my forehead. There wasn't any blood, so at least my cat didn't have vampiric tendencies.
“Sorry for thinking you were a vampire.” I raised myself to sitting and eyed her. “And thanks.”
She sat on her haunches and sneezed.
“Yeah.” I stared at the open alleyway door. “I guess I should close that.”
But I stared at the open metal door, my brain making odd, confused jumps in logic. Maybe I shouldn't close the door? Maybe it had my attacker's fingerprints?
Anger boiled from my chest to the top of my head. Someone had attacked me in my own coffeeshop.
Hell no, I wasn't going to touch that door. For once, I'd be smart and not touch anything.
Picatrix at my heels, I trudged upstairs and called the police.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“And you didn't see your attacker?” Sheriff McCourt raised a brow. She’d tucked her broad-brimmed hat beneath one arm of her thick uniform jacket, but she was wearing jeans. She'd been off duty, and she'd come anyway, and I was pretty sure that wasn't a sign of affection.
I leaned against Ground's metal kitchen sink and sighed, touching my forehead. “No,” I explained for the third time and dropped the icepack from my head to my thigh. “He came from behind me, banged my head against the wall, and ran out the door.”
“How did he get in?”
“I don't know! I swore I locked that door.” Because after last year's fire, I'd gotten paranoid.
“Could someone have let him inside?”
“I don't know who would have done that.”
“But it's possible?” she insisted.
My breath caught in my chest. “I… guess. But only staff go into the kitchen.”
She tapped her pen on her leather-bound notepad. “Could someone have snuck back there during opening hours?”
“I mean… Sure. I guess. I'd left Darla alone for a couple hours. Someone could have gotten past her.”
“All right, let's say they d
id. Then what? They waited for you to be alone?”
“No.” I shifted my weight. “No, I closed up. Darla left first. The kitchen was empty…”
She raised her head. “Are you sure?”
“Darla had her purse hanging on a coat peg,” I said slowly, pointing toward the row of pegs above the slender table. “So we didn't go inside the walk-in storage closet. The door was closed.”
“So, someone could have been in the closet?”
I tugged at the hem of my long-sleeved tee. “Yes, but…” Oh, no. The closet. Mathilda’s things. I cursed and reached for the closet door.
“Hold it! Prints!”
I froze, raised my hands.
We waited while a new deputy printed the closet’s door knob, coating it in black powder.
The sheriff opened the door.
The two of us walked inside the cramped room. I pointed to a yellow plastic bin. “That was Mathilda's.”
The sheriff snapped on gloves and pulled the bin out, peered inside. She turned to me, her expression granite. “It's empty.”
“It wasn't this morning. Mrs. Sinclair is coming tomorrow to take Mathilda's things.”
“Why didn't you tell me about this?”
“About what? Mrs. Sinclair? Mathilda’s things? I thought I told you she’d left stuff at Ground.”
A muscle pulsed in her jaw. “Do you remember what was in her bin?”
“Um… I took a picture of everything.”
Glowering, she clawed a hand through her curly blond hair. “Show me.”
“My phone's upstairs.”
“Then get it!”
I raced up the steps. Where was my phone? Finally, I tracked it to the kitchen counter. I was about to run downstairs, when I paused and emailed the photo of Mathilda's things to myself. I didn't trust the sheriff not to delete the evidence – such as it was – from my phone.
I trotted downstairs.
The sheriff stood in the open closet door and frowned.
“Here.” I handed her the phone and backed against the dishwasher.
She squinted at the screen, enlarging the image. “That's it? Cigarettes, a ring, and a book?” She tapped on the screen, and I guessed she was texting the photo to herself.
Steam escaped the dishwasher behind me, warming my butt.
Fey: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery (The Witches of Doyle Book 5) Page 9
