by Silver Nord
Aconite and Accusations
The Witches of Wormwood Mysteries
Ruby Loren
Contents
British Author
Books in the Series
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1. In Deep Water
2. Twisted Tourists
3. A Whirlwind Romance
4. This Means War
5. The Barrier Between Us
6. Hidden Agendas
7. Propaganda and Pear-Drop Tea
8. Alien Invaders
9. Shoot Em’ Up
10. Monsters, Mayors, And Maniacal Murder
11. A Slimy Solution
12. Bombs Away
13. The Curse of the Zombies
14. Like A Ghost In The Wind
15. Big Cat Sighting
16. Footprints Of A Killer
17. Quack!
18. The Fatal Fiesta
19. The Rising Tide
20. Only By Death
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Also by Ruby Loren
British Author
Please note, this book is written in British English and contains British spellings.
Books in the Series
Mandrake and a Murder
Vervain and a Victim
Feverfew and False Friends
Belladonna and a Body
Aconite and Accusations
Prequel: Hemlock and Hedge
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Grab your FREE copy of the exciting prequel, Hemlock and Hedge, and find out how the story began.
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1
In Deep Water
There’s no such thing as a good time to find a dead body. Even so, this one really came at a bad time.
Midsummer’s Eve was fast approaching, and the cracks were already starting to show around Wormwood. Or rather… the tears in the fabric of reality were starting to appear. After the mayor had finally revealed his evil plot to rule the world a lot of things had gone wrong. The first had been when two pagan deities masquerading as normal people had announced themselves and confessed that this was all part of a twisted plan, passed down by an unknown higher power. It was tough to not feel small, powerless, and pretty darn peeved when something like that was thrust upon you.
Since that dark and stormy night, the mayor had definitely been avoiding me. And by avoiding, I meant that he’d posted vampiric security guards outside of the town hall at night whilst beefy-looking shifters patrolled in the daytime, all wearing the same private security company branded uniform. Perhaps I could have managed to slink my way past the guards, but what would it have achieved? I’d already taken my shot at Mayor Starbright, and he’d brushed it off like I was no more annoying than a mosquito.
To make matters worse, the invisible barrier that separated the dimensions was not exactly sticking to its schedule. When my aunts’ old enemy Kimberly had materialised in Wormwood Forest, weeks after I’d inadvertently sent her into the other dimension, it was immediately obvious that the gate on Midsummer’s Eve was not our only concern. The barrier between worlds was already thinning… and worse things than Kimberly were sure to make their way through it sooner rather than later.
I’d taken to patrolling Wormwood Forest before and after I opened and closed the apothecary for the day. I walked beneath the ancient trees, looking for thin places and using my own magic to shore up any patches I found. At first, I hadn’t discovered many places where the smell of sulphur and brimstone, or the roars of those who were gathered on the other side, filtered through. I’d started to wonder if Kimberly had used her own devil-given magic to somehow force her way out. That was before I’d found more thin places, and then small tears in the fabric of reality. I’d once arrived just as something with a lobster claw had been waving it through the tear, trying to find its way onto the other side. I’d drawn a weapon from the in-between and had chopped it off before sewing the tear shut again.
It had not been easy.
That was what worried me most of all.
These were tiny tears I was dealing with, and even they took me forever to close. I knew the gate would be a different story. While I told myself this was good practice and training for the real deal… I was certain it wouldn’t be enough. I knew I didn’t have it in me to shut an inter-dimensional gateway.
Unless my aunts and I came up with something else - and quickly - Wormwood was doomed.
I was still thinking gloomy thoughts as I walked over a rise in the forest and discovered I was standing on the banks of Wormwood River. I made a sound of discomfort when I looked down at the crystalline waters and the flowering riverside plants.
This river was bad news.
Ever since I could remember, the town of Wormwood had been stuck in a sort of stasis. House prices stayed low in spite of the town’s location in South East England, and all of the major roads inexplicably swerved around us. The magic responsible for it was long forgotten, but it was generally believed to have been worked using the river that wrapped itself around the town, sometimes diving underground, but forming an almost complete loop that made it perfect for powerful works of magic.
Ever since I’d been a child, I’d been warned to stay away from the river. The story I’d been told was that it needed protection from anyone interfering with the delicate ecosystem. Now I was older, I realised it was because the river was drenched in a kind of wild magic that felt like it could do just about anything to anyone who ventured too close. Unfortunately, I was going to have to take my chances, I realised, when my eyes fell on something lying in the river.
A body was floating face down in the clear current.
“Now, of all times?” I muttered, before being very glad that no one was listening in.
For the briefest of moments I considered leaving it there. I could walk away and pretend I’d never seen the corpse in the water. Perhaps the magic surrounding the river might even take care of the unwelcome invader.
Then it occurred to me that it probably already was taking care of it.
I had never intended to come this way. And yet, this morning, I’d arrived on the banks of Wormwood River in exactly the right place. I glared down at the body and then at the river itself. I was the solution to its problem.
I muttered some very un-magical words under my breath and slithered down the steep bank, further into the mist of the wild magic. It swirled and let me pass, confirming my view that I was supposed to find this body here. “Don’t you ever try that again,” I chided the river, feeling used and even more peeved that this new problem had been dumped on my doorstep.
I took a deep breath and felt my head clear. I needed to stop behaving so selfishly. A person had died, and now that I was a little closer, it was obvious that the dead man hadn’t met a natural end.
I bit my tongue when I took in the multiple wounds on his back. He’d been wearing a leather jacket, but the weapon used had made short work of it. My first crazy thought was that it was some kind of animal attack, possibly the work of a rogue shifter or even a monster from the dark dimension that had managed to break through. I tossed the idea away as soon as I had it. While the cuts were many and frenzied, they were also clean. The holes had not been torn in the leather, they had punctured it, neatly and cleanly. I strongly suspected that a knife had been used. It was also abundantly obvious that this unknown man hadn’t stabbed himself in the back.
“Another murder. Just what I needed,” I muttered, once again glad that no one was out here but me. Around my head, the magic swirled its agreement. It was that or it was laughing at me.
/> I indulged myself in some head shaking for a few seconds longer, before I took my mobile phone out of my pocket and made the call.
Detective Chief Inspector Sean Admiral picked up after only two rings.
For a couple of seconds after I’d explained the situation there was silence. Then…
“Now, of all times?” he said.
I glanced down at the corpse in the river. “Do you know… I said the exact same thing.”
The detective made some further sounds of annoyance, before he promised he would come to investigate prior to calling for backup. “Just in case there’s anything… weird,” he added.
I bit my tongue, knowing exactly what he meant. I was tempted to tell him that there didn’t seem to be anything remotely magical about a man with stab wounds in his back, but these days, I wasn’t so quick to form judgement. A lot of things were not what they appeared when it came to Wormwood.
We hung up and then I played the waiting game in the company of a corpse and a river I’d have loved to keep at arm’s length. I sighed and sat down on the grassy bank of the perfectly scenic flowing water that was doing its utmost to look like something from a country postcard. I glared at it for a bit for being so smug, before my thoughts turned to more concerning matters.
Midsummer’s Eve was only eleven days away.
All of my efforts to stop the mayor’s ascent to power had failed. Worse still, there was now an invisible boundary around the town that mostly cut it off from the outside world - in a far more obtrusive manner than the way the river shielded Wormwood. Even sitting by the river I could feel it shimmering somewhere just beyond the opposite bank. It whispered that I should turn around, go back home, stay safe in town.
I knew the voice was a liar.
It wanted to keep me here so that my presence would fuel the power of the man who’d made a deal that tied his ability to Wormwood. The more the town flourished, the more magical ability the mayor gained… and now this boundary was helping him to gather yet more. My aunts had found the roads wanting to turn them away when they’d tried to return to town, but busloads of tourists seemed to be inexplicably immune.
I shook my head. Trying to figure out the rules of the invisible wall around Wormwood wasn’t going to help anything. It was clear what was happening. Visitors were coming to the town in rising numbers, and if they were still here on Midsummer’s Eve, they would be lambs to the slaughter.
Unless the mayor could be stopped.
My nails pressed in to the palm of my hand when I thought about the prophecy that had been revealed on that dark and stormy night, only a few days ago.
A day will come when two worlds become one and darkness shall rise. Golden light will fight against, but a rising tide will banish it hence. Into the abyss the light-bringer will flee. Only by death will she be freed. The world will shake beneath its ruler of night - that no god nor human hand can smite.
I’d tried to figure out some kind of silver-lining or hidden meaning. According to the wisdom shared in the fantasy novels I’d read since a child, prophecies were tricky things. They could be interpreted almost any way you liked. Their purpose was supposed to be to warn you that something bad was coming… but in truth, it was to rub it in your face that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.
Perhaps the strangest thing of all about this whole situation was that life had carried on as normal. Sure, there were more people around town and business was actually booming in a big way, but nothing really bad had actually happened yet. It was like waiting beneath a giant magnifying glass, knowing that soon the sun is going to move into the perfect position and everything will go up in flames.
Nothing really bad, unless you count the body in the river, I mentally amended, wondering if it was the start of worse things to come.
I’d hoped that after Jesse’s surprising display of having a backbone he would be more actively trying to help me and my aunts with our plots against the mayor. If he was smarter, he might have guessed that this would have been the first step on his way back to earning my forgiveness for all he had done to mess up both my life and my town. Jesse might have been pushed down the pathway in the first place by the prophecy, but that didn’t make him any less of a fool. And he wasn’t ready to shake that moniker yet.
His help for the cause so far had consisted of him setting up a number of petty pranks on the mayor. Gareth Starbright’s car suddenly fell to pieces, his shampoo bleached his hair a ghastly shade of orange, and his desk grew fangs and tried to bite his hand off when he opened a drawer.
When I’d asked Jesse what the mayor’s reaction had been to these ridiculous jokes, he’d looked confused. Then the truth had come out. Mayor Starbright hadn’t even seemed to notice it happening - even when twin sets of walnut teeth had been chomping on his arm. While the campaign of pranks and tricks seemed to be doing nothing at all to distract the mayor, it had made one thing clear. He was no longer in a state to negotiate with. He was no longer living in the real world.
I was still pretty peeved with Jesse, but his other appeasement tactic of sending me apology notes had been about as effective as his pranks. I just wanted him to stop and forget about it. In the end, he’d faced his godly brother - who’d come to town spouting things about the will of the gods - and he hadn’t yet tried to run away from the problems he’d caused.
In the days that had followed the big showdown outside of the town hall, I’d asked Jesse (whose real name was Loki) if there were any other gods he could magic up who might be able to help us put a stop to the prophecy and the mayor. I’d known that all of the goody-two-shoes would probably want to stick with the line that Thor (who’d been masquerading as a librarian) had spun, but surely there were those who weren’t as fond of the status quo? Unfortunately, Jesse had replied that he didn’t exactly have friends amongst his fellow deities. Knowing Jesse the way I did, I really should have seen that coming.
My gaze cleared and I realised I was looking at the corpse again, as though I was waiting for it to do something. My eyes roved over the unfortunate figure. His arms had tattoos on them, I realised, looking at the swirling designs. For the most part, they seemed like those cliched tribal prints that were nothing like the real thing. However, this man had added a little more original flare. There were a few symbols that looked almost alchemic rather than tribal, which gave me pause for thought. Had this man had any magical ability when he’d been alive? It was impossible to know just by looking at a body, from which the life had fled. The truth would come out later when the detective worked out who this man had been, but for now, there was nothing unusual beyond the tattoos and the backstabbing.
I rubbed my brown hair thoughtfully. Was he more than he appeared to be?
All of a sudden, I was thinking about my missing father and asking the same question. He’d officially vanished ten years ago, and there’d been no trace of him since. He’d been declared legally dead in his absence, but someone didn’t agree with that judgement.
My great-uncle Constantine had sent me a note when he’d suspected that he was going to be incarcerated by the Witch Council. In it, he had teased that he knew something about my father’s whereabouts and would tell me everything if I helped spring him from jail. I wasn’t foolish enough to trust a man who’d tried to thwart me and my business at every turn and had stolen other Salem family members’ magic, but I did intend to visit him to find out the truth. I told myself that it was important to let him stew. My behaviour had to be measured and rational, or Constantine would seize the advantage.
There was a lot of unfinished business when it came to the truth about my mother and father. Unanswered questions plagued me - including the sudden disappearance of my father and the reason behind my parents’ union in the first place. He was supposed to have been a normal man, completely devoid of any magical heritage. However, while I was aware that my mother had enlisted his also very normal surveillance company to help her spy on the head of the Witch Council (for reason
s still unknown) I imagined there had to be something more to it. Not to mention the deal with a devil my father had entered into - a deal that had resulted in my existence and all of the destiny that came with it.
I bit my lip and sighed at the body in the river. In my head, I was clinging to the idea that my father might somehow hold the key to the mess I was in. There had to have been a good reason for him to go missing, and if he really was still alive… he might know something.
“It’s time,” I muttered, making a mental note to contact the Witch Council to request access to Constantine as soon as I got back home. I still didn’t have a great deal of trust in the Council after they’d sent a devil to dispose of my entire coven, but bridges were currently under construction. I just didn’t know if they would collapse back to matchsticks again.
It seemed like an age had passed before DCI Sean Admiral’s footsteps crunched across the fallen leaves of many autumns past.
“I didn’t know there was a river here,” he muttered when I called out to him, having sent the location using my phone.
“It doesn’t usually like company,” I replied, shooting the body of water an anxious look. “We all stay away from it.”
Sean shook his head. “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just imply this river is sentient.” He sighed. “I’m sure it’s entirely possible. These days, I’d probably believe just about anything you told me.”
