A Witch's Work Is Never Done

by Kate Moseman

  A Witch’s Work is Never Done

  Copyright © 2020 by Kate Moseman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition

  ISBN 978-1-7345144-2-1 (ebook)

  ISBN 978-1-7345144-3-8 (paperback)

  Published by:

  Fortunella Press

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  À Mon Seul Désir

  Contents

  PART I: RAYA

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  PART II: PHOENIX

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  PART III: RAYA & PHOENIX

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  PART I

  RAYA

  1

  If witches really could fly on brooms, it would have saved a fortune in airfare.

  Raya pulled herself out of the cramped seat the moment the plane shuddered to a halt on the tarmac. She stepped sideways into the aisle of the plane only to be knocked back into her seat in an ungainly sprawl.

  The culprit didn’t even bother to murmur a perfunctory “Pardon, madame.”

  Or would it be “Pardon, mademoiselle”?

  Was she still considered a mademoiselle?

  Raya shook her head and pulled herself up all over again. This time, she hip checked the offending passenger and took a place beneath the overhead bin. She seized the handle of her carry-on and hauled.

  Too hard.

  Her carry-on tumbled free, striking the seat below and bouncing off, knocking Raya full in the chest and sending her backward. She felt the impact as she hit the person behind her.

  Of course, she’d knocked someone sprawling into their own seat.

  It figured.

  Raya turned to apologize. “I’m sorry, ma’am—”

  Her victim let loose a torrent of French containing the words “stupide” and “Americaine.”

  Raya didn’t need a French phrase book to translate that. She made soothing, apologetic noises as she settled her bag on her shoulder, then quick-marched down the aisle as fast as she could.

  Discretion, after all, was the better part of valor.

  Raya stumbled only a little as she picked up speed going down the ramp to the airport terminal. She emerged into a crowd of people, and, having no better plans, followed the flow past a large bank of windows looking out toward an adjacent building decorated with red, white, and blue neon.

  A lock of hair broke loose from her bun. She pressed her free hand to the back of her head, ensuring that her beloved wand remained firmly in place tucked inside the thick twist of hair.

  The innocuous stick of wood, topped with a rather undistinguished crystal, rode jauntily in its accustomed place.

  Raya sighed and sped up again, approaching what appeared to be an endless moving walkway that angled down a corridor. She’d have to find something to eat, and soon. The leftover in-flight cookies she’d stuffed in her pockets weren’t going to cut it. She ripped open a packet anyway and tipped the crumby contents into her mouth as she continued down the walkway, managing to spill less than half of it down her front.

  France was getting off to a great start.

  She knocked off some of the crumbs and kept moving, glancing up at the oncoming signage, which was blessedly written in French and English. The signs led her to a second walkway, this one encased in clear plexiglass, allowing a view of the bustling, multi-level terminal with similar walkways stretching in all directions, punctuated by gleaming banks of windows.

  At the baggage carousel, Raya peered hopefully at each oncoming suitcase.

  Hope dwindled as the carousel emptied.

  She had no choice but to seek out the airline’s customer service booth.

  Raya dug around in her carry-on and pulled the pocket French phrasebook to the surface. Gripping it over her heart like a crucifix for warding off vampires, she approached the counter.

  An impossibly chic woman stood behind the desk. “Bonjour, madame,” she said.

  Raya remembered the baggage claim sign over the walkway. “Uh, yes, bonjour. My … bagage—”

  “Mon bagage,” the woman corrected.

  Raya blinked at her. Did she really think right now was the time for a language lesson? “Sure. Mon bagage.” She flipped the phrasebook open and prepared to further murder the French language. “J’ai perdu mon bagage,” she finished triumphantly.

  The airline representative looked her up and down.

  Raya could only imagine what went through her mind as she took in the view of Raya’s disheveled hair, fading makeup, and a black t-shirt that read “Don’t Make Me Drop a House on You.”

  The woman sighed and switched to English. “Please give me your address. We will send it to your hotel.”

  “Couldn’t you check for it? Maybe it’s still here,” said Raya.

  “We will send it to your hotel.”

  Clearly the woman did not wish to be bothered by rumpled Americans with petty luggage problems.

  Raya removed the wand from her bun. The bun poofed open, sending her hair tumbling down. She inhaled slowly, cradling the wand in her hand, and exhaled gently, imagining her breath casting a web like spider’s silk across the counter. A spell wasn’t a bomb. A spell was a butterfly wing flapped in the right place, at the right time. “Please?”

  The woman’s expression softened ever so slightly. She regarded Raya with something closer to pity than contempt. “Very well. Wait here.”

  Fifteen minutes and one formerly missing suitcase later, Raya took off at a jog to catch the next train into Paris. She took one escalator after another, continuing downward from level to level, until she reached the train platform a little out of breath but smiling to herself.

  She boarded the train with her bags and found a seat, letting her gaze drift over her fellow passengers.

  Were there any other witches aboard?

  Witches were rare, to be sure, but there would be an unusual concentration of practitioners converging on Paris today to attend the international witchcraft convention.

  Raya looked for tell-tale signs: a crystal, perhaps, or unusual tattoos. Even a scent could be a giveaway.

  No witches. No demons, either, that she could see. Demons stood out like they were highlighted in red, and tended to avoid witches like cats avoid water. Raya had encountered precious few of t
he lords of Hell.

  When you conjured a demon, you never knew what you were going to get.

  Raya watched the lights of the Paris suburbs flash by outside the window until her grumbling stomach reminded her of her hunger. She turned from the window to rummage hopefully in the bottom of her bag.

  A tapping noise interrupted her digging.

  Raya looked up. She glanced around the train car, but saw nothing unusual. She returned her attention to the search and reached deep into the bag, spurred on by the faint crinkling of a wrapper.

  The tapping sound, now more insistent, sounded even closer.

  Her hand seized something at the very bottom. Was the tapping coming from outside? She glanced out the window as she carefully tugged the crinkly item up.

  Raya stifled a scream as a shadowed floating head appeared outside the window. She recoiled in panic and knocked the bag over, sending its contents across the floor.

  The head outside the window floated closer, revealing a finely shaped nose and an insolent grin.

  As Raya’s eyes adjusted, she perceived the floating head’s shock of thick hair, insouciant in its effortlessly tousled style—and ruffling attractively in the wind coming off the speeding train.

  “Phoenix, you bastard!”

  Phoenix laughed heartily at her expostulation, the sound of it muted by the glass between them, but his expression was perfectly clear. He flapped his deep red wings with supreme unconcern.

  Of course it had been utter folly to allow a demon to follow her to Paris—no matter how good-looking he was or how he occasionally managed to make her laugh.

  No, not folly. Sheer madness.

  Only then did she realize how she must look to the passengers sharing the train car. She snuck a furtive look around.

  The other passengers quickly looked away.

  Obviously, she’d made herself out to be a crazy person who shouted at windows and dumped her belongings on the floor.

  Raya shot a venomous look at the winged figure outside the window before sheepishly collecting the contents of her bag from the floor.

  The crinkly wrapper turned out to be just that: an empty wrapper.

  Raya heaved a sigh that turned into a frustrated growl. She never should have allowed Phoenix to come along on this trip, even if he promised to behave himself and stay out of her way.

  She’d flown by herself, since demons—damn them and their wings—didn’t need to fly coach. Phoenix was supposed to meet her in Paris, not scare the daylights out of her on a train.

  Then again, demons weren’t known for their good behavior.

  She looked out the window to see if he was still amusing himself by making faces.

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  Great.

  Raya settled into her seat, stewing with annoyance and hunger and pique.

  When the train finally pulled into the station, she bolted up, ignoring the stares of her fellow passengers, and charged out of the train onto the platform.

  Phoenix leaned against a nearby column wearing his usual all-black ensemble, this time topped with a black leather jacket, looking as normal as a demon could look. “Miss me, Witchiepoo?”

  “Shut up, demon.” She brandished her suitcase. “At least make yourself useful and carry this.”

  “Do I look like a porter?”

  “You look like an ass. Carry the suitcase.” Raya strode on.

  Phoenix caught up. “Do you even know where you’re going?” Amusement rang in his voice.

  Raya stopped. She didn’t have the slightest idea where to go, but Phoenix didn’t need to know that. “Of course I do.”

  “You don’t want me to show you?” Phoenix dripped condescension.

  “If I had any sense, I wouldn’t even be hanging out with you.” Raya looked around for a hint of where to get a taxi.

  They had taxis in Paris, right?

  “What, afraid your witchy credibility will be ruined by socializing with demonkind?”

  Raya’s attention returned to Phoenix. “Don’t state the obvious. You knew you would have to make yourself scarce when we got here. That was the deal. You get to come along, but you stay out of sight and—”

  “Out of your way. Yes, I know.” He rolled his eyes. “But you’re such a delicate fawn, lost in the big woods—”

  Raya punched him in the arm.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “Delicate, am I?”

  “I take it back.”

  “I think I’ve seen enough of you for one day.” Raya spotted the taxi sign and started moving.

  “Would you like me to be invisible?”

  “You wouldn’t be invisible to me. You were invisible to the people on the train and that caused enough trouble. It’s really awkward, you know—reacting to someone who isn’t there. Or should I say ‘isn’t all there’?”

  “Hilarious. Sometimes I forget how amusing you are, Raya. Until I’m stuck with you for more than five minutes.”

  Raya hailed a taxi like she’d done it a million times, when in fact she’d only seen it done in movies. “They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, Phoenix. Why don’t you try it?”

  “Or what? Are you going to banish me?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  A taxi pulled up to the curb.

  “That’s what your witch friends would do.”

  Raya took the suitcase from him and handed it to the cabbie. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Good to know where I stand, then,” said Phoenix.

  Raya slid into the backseat. “See you later, Phoenix. Try to stay out of trouble.”

  “No promises. Au revoir!”

  He slammed the taxi door shut before she could fire off a comeback.

  2

  From the back seat, Raya handed the taxi driver a slip of paper with the name and address of her hotel. “Hotel, please. You understand?”

  The driver nodded and said something in French that sounded reassuring.

  Raya hugged herself and bounced her knees up and down in excitement.

  Paris! The dream of a lifetime finally coming true. She resisted the urge to blow kisses out the cab window to the people on the sidewalks. She settled for drinking in the sights as they sped past the Louvre and over the Seine into the 7th arrondissement, or district, of Paris.

  What a view Phoenix would have from the air, the arrondissements laid out like the chambers of a nautilus, spiraling out from the center of the city.

  She almost envied him. In fact, she did envy him. Not that she’d trust him to fly her around, of course. He’d probably drop her just for fun.

  The driver pulled the cab over and gestured toward a nearby building. “L’hôtel.”

  “Merci.” Raya gathered her things and hopped onto the sidewalk. She looked up and down the street in the darkness, searching for an open restaurant.

  Not that a restaurant was even an option while lugging her bags.

  She threw open the hotel door with more force than necessary and approached the front desk. Raising her index finger in the universal sign for “wait,” she scribbled her name on a piece of paper and handed it to the clerk manning the desk.

  Bemused, he took the paper and glanced from the writing to her face and back again. He smiled. “You are checking in?”

  Raya beamed. “You speak English?”

  “Of course. I speak English, French, and Arabic.” He handed the paper to Raya and tapped the keys of his keyboard. “How do you like Paris so far?”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Much of it. And the night has its own charm, yes?”

  Raya nodded, relieved beyond words to leave the phrasebook in her bag.

  “Here we are.” He handed a key across the desk. “And if you need anything while you are here—I am Ahmed.”<
br />
  “Thank you, Ahmed.” Raya shouldered her bag.

  He made a tut-tutting noise. “Merci, yes? You must learn some French while you are here.”

  Raya racked her brain for the right word. “Merci beaucoup, Ahmed.”

  “You are learning already!”

  After dragging her luggage up the narrow flight of stairs, Raya deposited her bags in the small but clean room and returned to the ground level in search of food.

  “Back already?” said Ahmed.

  “Is there somewhere I can get something to eat this late?”

  “Walk to the cross-street on the right and you will find a small supermarket. To the left you will find a bakery. Take your pick.”

  Raya thanked him and crossed the hotel threshold into the night.

  A supermarket promised a solid meal, perhaps a pre-made sandwich or a ready-to-eat tray of fruit and cheese.

  On the other hand …

  Visions of Parisian pastries danced in Raya’s head.

  She turned decisively to the left.

  She found the little bakery lit up from within like a glass jewel box filled with treats instead of gems. Raya nearly pressed her nose against the glass like a small child. Instead, she opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Bonjour, madame,” called the shopkeeper from behind the counter.

  One of the very few things Raya knew about France was that you must greet the shopkeeper upon entering the shop or asking for assistance, so she summoned her best French accent—which, in all honesty, was probably terrible—and offered a greeting that made up in gusto what it lacked in polish.

  The shopkeeper, a tall blonde woman dressed in the white clothing of a baker, did not offer a smile in return. Instead, she regarded Raya gravely.

  Raya swallowed. Her limited French vocabulary deserted her. She pointed, tentatively, at a stack of pink macarons, then held up three fingers.

  A ghost of a smile flitted across the shopkeeper’s face. She added the treats to a small box and started to close it.

  “No! I mean—please? A few more things?” Raya gestured for her to wait, then pointed to a tray of chocolate croissants and held up two fingers.

  The shopkeeper attempted to place the two croissants into the small box, realized it was too small, and transferred everything to a larger box.