by Elle Adams
“You mean fairy glamour?” he asked. “Not to the same degree, but it’s designed to keep humans out. Witch illusions usually aren’t. Why?”
Because I’m keeping you out, apparently.
The wizard clicked the gate open before I could think of a response. “It does react to my blood,” he remarked. “Come on. Let’s see what my dearest ancestor wanted to hide.”
“Er… are we allowed to go after you?” I asked. “I thought—I heard something about invitations being important to vampires. They can’t enter one another’s homes without permission.”
“I shut down the wards,” he said. “Switched them off. Can’t promise the house might not turn on you anyway, but you should be able to get in.”
Nathan walked to the gate, carefully opening it, then went inside. “Coming, Blair?”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I responded.
The gate didn’t kick either of us out, and we followed the wizard into the extensive grounds. It was a good job the whole place was protected, because a monster of any size could have hidden behind one of the dozens of ornamental trees filling the space within. I held my breath when Peter opened the front door, but no vampire booby trap exploded in our faces. So far, so good.
The inside of the hall was dark and gloomy, as befitting the home of an ancient vampire. Haunted houses were not my thing. I’d been on a ghost tour of York on a day trip once and spent the whole time hiding behind Rebecca, my best friend. She’d found the whole thing hilarious. Maybe it was my sensitivity to the paranormal at work. After all, ghosts were real. I’d met one just a couple of weeks ago.
I half expected to see a ghostly vampire floating around, but there was nothing but dust, wide rooms with high ceilings and expensive furniture, and—
“Trapdoor!” The wizard raised his wand in time to slam the door shut before something huge and luminous fell on our heads.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I believe it was an inflatable vampire.”
I stifled a laugh that was mostly relief, and kept one eye on the ceiling as I followed. I turned on my levitating boots to the lowest setting, so I wouldn’t have to watch the floor, too.
We found three more booby traps. Two, the wizard derailed. The third was a bag of flour balanced above the door frame. The wizard caught it in his hand, but not before whiteness drenched all of us like snow. I burst out laughing, the sound echoing back at me, until he waved his wand and the flour vanished.
“Whereabouts would he hide a will?” I asked. “Maybe in a secret safe in the basement. Or attic.”
In the basement, we found nothing but dust and more booby traps. The first floor yielded no results, either. It’d take several people to search the whole house, and splitting up wouldn’t be a good idea, so we had to go one room at a time.
Peter exclaimed when he opened the door to the master bedroom.
“There it is.”
It was apparent that Lord Goddard did sleep in a coffin, but an oak one, not solid gold.
The wizard strode into the room, opened the coffin lid, and then let out a howl. A mousetrap covered his wrist. Swearing under his breath, he prodded it with his wand and it unsnapped.
“You’d think he did know he was going to die,” I said. “That, or he had entirely too much time on his hands.”
“It’s me,” said the wizard. “My presence is setting off the traps, same as the wards. They’d go off whether he expected to die or not.”
Hmm. I wasn’t entirely convinced. “Is it common for wizards to set up booby traps to activate when they have a break-in?”
“Depends on the wizard. He owned this house when he was one, so I guess the traps have been set up for a while. That, or he owned a pet…”
A tittering laugh came from above. My attention snapped onto the ceiling, and a winged creature flitted past. It had pointed ears, a long twig-like body, and delicate, fluttering wings.
Fairy. No—pixie. I’d seen illustrations in a book at the local shop, back when I’d first found out I was half fairy.
“Did you booby-trap the place?” I asked the pixie.
The little creature descended, bowed, and disappeared in a shower of glitter.
The others stared at me. “Who were you talking to?”
“The…” Oh no. The pixie must have glamoured itself, so nobody but another fairy could see it. “I thought I saw, well, a ghost.”
Lie.
Stop it. There was no way I was exposing my secret in front of the wizard, at least not until I made sense of what’d happened. There was a pixie living here? Since when did vampires befriend fairies? It seemed a weird coincidence, but fairies had chased each other through my dreams ever since I’d been forced to stay away from the falls when I should have been meeting with my family. Maybe I was cracking up after all.
I didn’t miss the concerned look on Nathan’s face as he stepped away from the coffin. It contained nothing else, despite the mousetrap. The wizard muttered about ghosts and moved to the wardrobe. He probably thought I was cracking up. But I knew what I’d seen.
I kept one eye out for the pixie as we searched every corner of the room and then moved onto the next. Despite searching each and every hiding place, we still found no signs of a will or inheritance, nor any clues that might point to the killer.
“I have to leave if I want to make it to my post on time,” Nathan said. “I think it’s wise for you to go home before dark, too, Blair. We’ve searched every room.”
But where did the pixie go?
“I’ll leave the wards off,” said the wizard. “Those meddling vampires can wander in and out to their heart’s content. There’s nothing here. And I’ll tell the police that, too.”
“We can detour there on the way back,” Nathan said. “So you don’t have to deal with Steve later.”
He grunted. “He’ll probably take me to task for entering the house without him there.”
“Maybe we’ll tell him we saw a ghost,” I said. “That’d put him off.”
The wizard fixed his beady eyes on me. “I thought you said you did see one.”
“I probably imagined it,” I said. “I’m not a fan of haunted houses. I guess we’d know if his ghost had stuck around, right? Is that common?”
“No, especially with vampires,” said the wizard. “They live such long lives, I imagine a trip to the afterlife is a relief.”
I just wished I knew what Lord Goddard had been thinking with this setup. Did he want to keep intruders out, or had he hidden his will elsewhere? And where in the world had that pixie gone?
Steve the Gargoyle accosted us in the entryway to the police station. “Why am I not surprised it’s you, Wilkes?”
“I persuaded Peter to undo the wards on Lord Goddard’s house,” I said to him. “That way, anyone can go in and out of the house. In fact, you can go there right now.”
I decided not to mention that we hadn’t necessarily tripped every booby trap.
“Is that so?” he said. “Maybe I will.”
“Not after dark,” added the hard-faced female gargoyle at the reception desk.
He scowled at her. “I’ll thank you not to patronise me. No monster would dare attack me, let alone a ghost.”
We took that as our cue to leave. At least the police knew the wizard had been to the house, even if they seemed little inclined to actually do anything useful.
“Will you be okay walking home alone?” Nathan asked, glancing over his shoulder as we left the station. “We can reschedule our date for Friday. I’ll ask not to be put on any shifts that evening.”
“Sure. That sounds great.”
The wizard exited the police station behind me, and Nathan waved goodbye, heading in the opposite direction. Peter grunted. “Useless, the lot of them.”
“The gargoyles?” I asked. “Yeah. They are. Hope Steve goes in there tonight and gets haunted.”
“That was no ghost,” growled the wizard. “And you, Blair Wilkes, really need to
be careful. I want nothing more to do with this investigation, ever again.”
He walked off before I could respond. Maybe the house had creeped him out more than I’d thought. He hadn’t seen the pixie, right?
I think I’m done with vampires for the foreseeable future. Veronica was right. They were really too much bother.
When I got home, it was to find Alissa perched on the sofa with her feet up, reading a ‘Wicked Witchery’ magazine, a box of cookies from the local bakery open on the coffee table.
“Where in the world have you been all day?” she asked, in a slightly croaky voice. She’d been worse off than me last night, while today’s adventures had made me entirely forget my hangover.
Where to start? “One of the vampires suspected of killing Lord Goddard insisted on telling me in person that he didn’t do it. Blame that one on Vincent. Then we detoured to speak to the wizard—”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Nathan,” I said. “He’s the one the vampire contacted. I guess because the police sent him. The wizard, Peter, has had vampires coming after him all week wanting access to Lord Goddard’s old house. I persuaded him to take down the wards and we had a look around.”
I took a seat next to her on the sofa, and told her about our misadventures in the elder vampire’s manor.
Her eyes widened. “That’s… wow. Did you tell Nathan what you saw?”
“No. I wasn’t going to say a word to Nathan with Peter—the wizard—there, but he said something weird to me after we left the police station. I think he might have known. I also think Lord Anderson did, too. I… he was trying to read my mind and I shut him out. I don’t even know how I did it.”
“Shut him out?” she echoed. “How?”
I shook my head, taking a cookie from the open box on the coffee table. “Haven’t a clue. It’s like… I knew he was trying to read my thoughts, and I somehow stopped him. Anyway, he seemed to want me to use my ability to prove he wasn’t guilty, but the police weren’t there so it was kind of pointless. Blame Vincent for telling him that I was the best person to talk to. Sky was probably involved, too. Where is he, anyway?”
“Went out hunting.”
“Or socialising with vampires.” I took a bite of the cookie, reminded that I hadn’t eaten a proper meal all day. “Most cats hunt rodents, not the living dead. They also don’t drag their owners into murder investigations.”
“Sounds like you walked into part of it on purpose.”
I smiled. “The old house was intriguing. Who wouldn’t want to know what was inside it? Even Madame Grey couldn’t bring those wards down.”
“Maybe that was the fairy’s doing, too.”
My smile slipped away. “I want to talk to it. If pixies can talk, which I don’t think they can. But I’m sure it knew what I was.”
And so, apparently, did everyone else. Except Nathan.
Right. I’ll tell him on our next date. This was getting ridiculous. It wasn’t like I’d committed a crime or been one of the paranormals he’d locked up. All I’d done was lack information on my family—which wasn’t my fault. He’d probably be a little annoyed to say the least that I’d kept it from him for this long, especially if he cared about me as much as he said he did.
My heart flipped over. There was one upside to the lie-sensing ability… every word he’d said was a hundred percent sincere.
“What’re you grinning about? Please say you and Nathan at least had time to schedule another date.”
“We did,” I said. “Provided no more vampires, murders, or monsters get in the way this time.”
As long as my adventurous cat was around, that might be expecting too much.
8
I dedicated Sunday to practising magic, determined to beat the odds and learn to cast a spell with a wand, whenever I wanted. I might be barred from practical lessons, but Rita hadn’t said I couldn’t practise outside of the classroom.
Alissa cast a shielding spell on the flat to avoid accidentally damaging Madame Grey’s property, while Sky perched on top of a cabinet to watch from afar.
“Turn purple,” I yelled at the cup I was practising on, waving my wand aggressively. “Left, flick—”
Purple paint exploded from the end. As the shielding spell covered the whole flat, the splatters of paint hung in mid-air like glitter-free tinsel.
Alissa burst out laughing. “I think you just invented a new one.”
“Really?”
“Nah, you aimed too far left. Try not to wave your wand like a tennis racket, too.”
“I think magic must be designed for people with good hand-eye coordination,’ I said. “I hardly know my left hand from my right one.”
“Wait.” Alissa waved her own wand and made the purple paint vanish. “Maybe that’s it. I know you’re right-handed, but it’s… it’s not impossible for your wand to be different.”
I frowned at her. “What… try my left hand?”
I’d never thought about it. But when I’d accidentally used magic without a wand… the spell hadn’t come from my right hand.
“It’s worth a try,” Alissa said.
Maybe. Come to think of it, when I’d been lying there in Mr Falconer’s shop and I’d grabbed the nearest wand, I’d used my left hand. But I was generally right-handed, and couldn’t even write a coherent word with my left one. At this point, though, I was willing to try anything.
I switched the wand to my other hand, and immediately, a rush of heat enveloped my fingertips. I pointed my wand at the second mug on the table, waved it, and the mug turned purple.
“Yes!” I did a victory dance that made Sky look at me like he was seriously considering adopting another witch. I didn’t care a bit. I’d finally done magic!
After work on Monday, I made my way to my magic lesson in high spirits, only to find another note from Rita saying she was in a meeting with Madame Grey. I sat down in my usual seat in the front row, deciding to get on with some theory work until the meeting was over. I wasn’t about to wait another day to explain my epiphany about my magic. It hadn’t been an accident this time.
After a few minutes, a commotion of slamming doors and shouts came from the lobby. I looked up from my notes at the sound of a wolf’s howl. Not the vampires again?
I jumped to my feet, anticipating another bleeding vampire. Instead, three werewolves stood in the lobby—easily recognisable, because they were all huge and blond and related to Callie.
“Where is Madame Grey?” bellowed the one I recognised as her cousin. The other two were her brother, and her father, leader of the pack. Oh no.
The moment they turned on me, images of snapping teeth and shifting forms into giant furry bodies assailed my vision. Chief Donovan was the biggest of the three of them, but they were all huge and muscular, formidable even when they weren’t in their shifted forms.
“She’s in a coven meeting,” I said, shrinking beneath the pack chief’s gaze.
Rita opened the meeting room door and peered out at them. “You might have the decency to knock first.”
“How dare you speak of decency?” said Callie’s brother in a raspy voice. “Our fellow shifter was murdered.”
My stomach turned over. Oh, no.
“This is the vampires’ doing,” added Callie’s cousin.
Chief Donovan marched to the half-open door of the coven meeting. “This is Chief Donovan of the Northwest Pack,” he said, his voice clear and loud. “I wish to speak with Madame Grey.”
The woman herself marched to Rita’s side, her wand glowing with silver light. “Is there a reason you interrupted our meeting?”
“There’s been a murder,” growled Chief Donovan. “One of our own was found dead on the border of your territory.”
“In the woods?” she asked. “Might I ask how he died?”
Chief Donovan let out a low growl that made the small hairs on my arms stand up. “Not a shifter killing. His wounds aren’t visible to our eyes, yet he’s dead.”
&n
bsp; If they couldn’t see the wounds… a vampire’s bite might easily be responsible. But jumping to that conclusion would set the tensions between the two groups off like a cauldron of fireworks.
“Whereabouts is he?” she asked. “If you want my help, I’ll need to see the body.”
“He’s with the pack,” he growled. “There will be blood for this.”
“The council cannot take steps until it’s confirmed that he was murdered,” said Madame Grey patiently. “We certainly won’t allow unfounded accusations to spread without proof. It’s vital to the safety and security of this town that you keep your tempers under control rather than accusing your fellow paranormals.”
“Safety and security?” growled Callie’s cousin. “One of our own was murdered.”
No kidding. Had the werewolf fallen victim to the same killer who’d gone after the vampires, or had the vampires blamed the pack and retaliated?
Madame Grey stepped past the werewolves into the lobby, letting the meeting room door swing closed behind her. “Allow me to converse with the Chief in private,” she told the other two werewolves. “We will see to it that this is put under investigation, but you’ll need to cooperate with the rest of the council. Have you reported the murder to the police?”
“The police are inept,” said Chief Donovan. “They are also cowardly.”
Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong.
“Ask the police chief to file a report,” Madame Grey ordered. “Otherwise, there’s no basis to investigate the death as a murder.
“There’s no need,” said Callie’s cousin. “We know who did it. The vampires blame us for murdering their own and have paid us back in kind. There will be bloodshed.”
“How did he die?” I blurted. “Because if there aren’t any wounds, it probably isn’t a vampire.” For all our sakes, I really hoped it wasn’t.
“What business is it of yours?” growled the chief.
“It affects all of us if you declare war on one another,” I said, which was technically true. Too many of my friends were tangled up in this. Nathan and Alissa—not to mention my cat.
