“But you spent months getting that collection ready,” he said. “The show is in three days.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to sew fast . . .”
“Or—”
“No.” I stopped him. “I may have witches wearing them, but I’m gonna sew these things by hand. Every stitch.”
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
“Nothing I can think of,” I said. “Unless you know how to pattern out a pair of pants.”
“Actually . . .” He smiled.
What? Wait. No. No way Nicco, the ultra-handsome werewolf-warlock hybrid was about to tell me he knew how to sew, right?
“Actually, I was going to say maybe I could make us dinner while you worked.”
So close . . .
“Sure,” I said. “That actually sounds really nice.”
Thankfully, Babbs and I were on the same page when it came to fabric and material choices, which freed me up to stay behind and pattern out a few things. The fact that I got to spend some alone time with my super-hot almost-boyfriend was just a bonus.
I couldn’t help it. In the last few days, I’d felt myself growing close to Nicco. Maybe it was seeing him fight to protect Babbs and me without a second thought, or maybe it was the things he said to me right before I crossed back into Enchanted Lake. More likely, though, it was just because he was such a nice guy. One who loved me. That’s hard to beat in any girl’s book.
“What were you thinking?” I asked, scanning the countertop.
“Well,” he sighed, looking through the refrigerator, “we have steak. So, I’m thinking steak.”
“Good choice.” I smiled. “There are also potatoes in the bottom drawer.”
Steak and potatoes. It was a simple thing, but more often than not, simple things turned out to be the best things. I turned away, getting back to my patterns and fabric as I sketched out look after look, trying to find the right combination of old-world elegance and avant-garde styling. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I only knew it needed to be fabulous, now more than ever.
Minutes melted away into hours as I sat on the floor surrounded by scraps of fabric, crumpled drawings, and empty plates. Nicco’s strong hands massaged away my stress as he knelt behind me, rubbing my shoulders. I felt the warmth of his skin on mine, the dark essence of his Lycan side as it wafted out from his pores while the moon rose higher into the night sky.
“What time is this practice show?” he asked, completely pulling me from my thoughts.
“In about half an hour.”
“How are you going to do it with no clothes?” he asked.
“I don’t need them,” I said. “Not for this. This is just to show us how the technology will work. I just need the models.”
“The witches, you mean.” He smiled.
“Right . . . the witches. We’re meeting in just a few minutes. I guess I should go,” I said, standing up, a rush of blood nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Whoa!” Nicco leapt up, catching me. His eyes, bright and green, peered deep into mine, his full lips parting just a bit as he grinned. “You okay?”
“Yeah . . .” I said, still smelling the darkness of him. “I just stood up too fast.” I steadied myself and headed for the door. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Those oh-so-cute dimples graced his face. “Be careful out there.”
13
Avalanches . . . no milk for your cookies . . . a fresh bottle of wine and no corkscrew . . . These are all things that lead to a pretty disastrous day, right? What’s even more disastrous than those things, however, is watching a bunch of witches try to walk a moving runway. Sure, I wasn’t expecting a Heidi Klum level of professionalism here, but this that I’d just witnessed was ridiculous in so many more ways than I’d imagined.
“It couldn’t have been that bad,” Pascal said, his arms folded over his chest. He wore a bright yellow checkered suit. It was at once flashy and somehow appropriate. Though, truth be told, I’d never seen the man in anything that wouldn’t have caught the eye of any passerby.
“Pascal!” I said. “One of them literally set a chair on fire.”
“That’s not the worst thing in the world.”
“I was sitting in it!” Babbs snapped. “It scared me half to death. Suffice to say, Victoria is keeping an entirely new secret now.”
“Oh, dear . . .” He pursed his lips and shook his head.
For the most part, throughout my life, I’d been pretty strong in my resolve to do the things I’d set out to do. But after watching that fiasco, I wasn’t so sure having a group of witches walk the runway was really in my best interest. Yes, it would stand for a lot, and for a lot of people, too, but was it worth sacrificing everything I’d worked for? Would anyone really be able to focus on my work if the dress I’d designed suddenly began singing as it turned the corner? Something tells me no . . .
“So, what do you need?” Pascal asked. “Because I doubt you’ve called me here for nothing.”
“I need you to teach them,” I answered.
“Teach them . . . to walk?”
“To do it the right way, and not to use magic of any kind.”
“I don’t—”
“Pascal,” I pleaded. “Please. I’ve already had to cast a pretty strong cloaking spell just to make sure no one knew where we really were. If word gets out that every witch in the borough is going to be in the same place at the same time, then who knows what will happen?”
Then, as smooth as a knife through butter, I realized something. I could use that very fact to my advantage. Having a bunch of rogue witches on the runway was a dangerous thing, but not for them. If there really was a warlock trying to hurt me, then surely, he’d have a more difficult time coming after an entire coven’s worth of girls than just one, right?
“Pascal!” I grabbed his shoulders. “This is it. This is how we’re going to draw out whoever is trying to hurt me. We’re going to tell them where to find a bunch of unarmed witches, all at once.”
One bad idea later . . .
“Your father would be so upset,” Nicco said.
“I know,” I replied. “But I don’t care.”
Maybe going back to the warehouse where we’d been attacked wasn’t the brightest idea, but at the moment, it was all I had. Besides, if everything went to plan, then it might all just work out in my favor. But wouldn’t you just know it, it didn’t work out in my favor at all.
“Ms. Black,” Detective Hamm said as Nicco and I stepped into the empty building. “Why doesn’t seeing you here surprise me?”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he replied. “I’m here following up on a lead. I received a tip a few minutes ago. One pertaining to your dead model. Now, why are you here?”
“I received the same tip,” I lied. “A phone call. I was told her murderer would be here. That he’d been living here.”
“Really?” he asked, though it was obvious he didn’t believe me. “That’s certainly strange.”
“I agree,” I said. “But now that we’re here, we might as well have a look around.”
But there was something different about the place. Whereas before, I’d felt a magical energy emanating from nearly every surface, now I felt nothing. And stranger than that, I couldn’t feel the Greylock demons. It was like . . .
“They’re not here,” I whispered as I opened the door to the small office where I’d last seen them caged.
“Who’s not here?” The detective asked.
“N–No one,” I stammered. “There’s no one here.”
“Looks like it,” The detective said, shining a flashlight under the empty desk. “I just find it strange that we would both receive the same call, only to show up and find nothing . . . that is, unless you count this as something.” He pulled a dress from beneath the desk.
I recognized it immediately. It was the dress Elle was wearing the day she died. The one that had been en
chanted to strangle her to death in a near-instant. The one that was still hexed, still, for lack of a better word, alive . . .
“This is supposed to be in evidence,” he said. “Would either of you happen to know how it ended up here?”
There are times in life when people don’t believe you, times when you know that no matter what you say or what you do, people will still believe you’re hiding something. And in truth, yes, I was hiding something. Detective Hamm had no idea I was a witch, and as far as I knew, he had no idea magic really existed. But was I lying? Well, I guess that depends on who you ask.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I haven’t seen it since that night.”
“And what is this?” he asked, pulling something from the mess of fabric.
“You know . . .” I said, looking at the small metallic object, “I have no idea.”
“Vivus!” a voice called out. I looked to see the shadow of a man disappearing behind the wall.
And then, things got so much worse. Suddenly, the dress, the one I’d put so much hard work into designing, sprang to life, wrapping itself around the detective like a boa constrictor, just as it had with Elle. He fell to the floor, pulling and tearing at the fabric as he gasped for air. To say I was surprised would have been the understatement of the year.
“Detective!” I dropped to my knees, trying my best to pull the dress away from him.
A powerful force threw me back, something I recognized as a form of battle magic, something from my own home. The hellish thought that the warlock hunting me was trying to frame me for murder stuck in my mind like a thorn in my side.
“Pull!” Nicco said, trying to grab hold of the moving fabric. It slapped him back, throwing his large body across the room like it was nothing. I leapt to my feet, searching my mind for the right incantation. “Ignis et in furore, release!” I yelled, balling my hands then sending out a pulse of energy.
It was no use though. Not even Nicco’s Lycan strength could tame the fierce magic behind the hex. In a matter of moments, Detective Hamm was gone, lifeless on the floor, just like Elle had been. Then, in an instant, the dress unwrapped itself and vanished into thin air.
“Oh, my goodness!” I yelled as the sound of police sirens echoed in the distance. “He’s dead!”
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Nicco said.
“We need to tell them what happened.”
“Ginni. They’ll never believe us, you know that! We need to go! Now!” He grabbed my arm, pulling me up from the floor, and headed across the large empty building. We watched from a fire escape across the street as the large warehouse flooded with police, the streets alive with flashing red and blue lights.
I felt my heart sink. Not only was someone trying to frame me for murder, but another innocent life had been lost. And once again, I’d watched it happen. “Maybe I should just stop. Like, for real this time.”
“No,” he answered.
“Someone obviously doesn’t want me to succeed in the mortal world. And they’re willing to kill to get it done.”
“All the more reason to do it, then,” Nicco said. “You’re not the kind of girl to shrink from a challenge. And you’re certainly not the kind of witch to do it either. We’ll get through this. Together.”
14
“This is definitely the way,” I said as Nicco and I drove down the Atlanta streets. “I can feel his magical signature.”
“So can I,” Nicco answered. “Though I can’t for the life of me get a trace on the Greylock demons.”
It was strange, for sure. Few things carried such a strong signature as a Greylock demon, especially such a large group of them. There was something bigger at play here, a stronger magic than I’d thought. There had to be. It was the only thing that made sense.
“Turn here,” I told Nicco as we came upon a small brick-lined street. “Wait . . .” I said. “I know this place. This is . . .” My words faded away.
I’d been surprised before, sure. Everyone had. But when I saw Everly Pine standing on her balcony shoulder to shoulder with the magician who killed Elle, I just about lost my socks. I couldn’t believe it. Yes, she’d been the one to tell me about him, after all, but she’d also gone out of her way to make it clear that she wasn’t into him, and now, well . . . just look at them.
“Whoa,” Nicco said as the two embraced, their lips pressed hard together. “Looks like those two know one another pretty well.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing . . . it’s just that something doesn’t feel right about this. I feel this weird energy coming off that warlock, like he’s been hexed.”
“By Everly?” Nicco asked.
“I guess so. If I can feel it, she can too, I’m sure. And I don’t know of any witch who would make out with a hexed warlock, not unless they’d been the one to hex him in the first place.”
“So you’re saying . . .”
“I’m saying I think she’s the one who did it. But why would Everly want to kill Elle and Detective Hamm?”
“There’s only one reason for that,” Nicco said. “She’s out to get you.”
“For what?” I asked, my mind scanning a million different possibilities. “No way she’s still mad about that Adam thing, right? I didn’t know he was her ex. It wasn’t even a date. It was just something Babbs insisted I do. We danced for a couple of hours.”
“I know,” Nicco answered.
“Right . . .” I said, sensing a level of pain in his tone. I’d forgotten he’d seen everything I’d done since leaving Enchanted Lake. Well, almost everything. It wasn’t as though he was watching me shower or anything. I knew he’d never invade my privacy that way. But watching me from a distance while out with Babbs, I knew that was far more likely.
“Wasn’t she the one who told you about the warehouse in the first place?”
“Yeah,” I said. “She was.”
Petty jealousy, really? Was that enough motive to murder two innocent people and derail my career? It was outlandish to say the least, which in all likelihood probably meant it was the truth of what was happening. So what now? I thought to myself. Would there be any point in actually trying to talk to her, to make her see reason in this mess? Or should I fight back? Should I hex her from here to eternity? Or . . . should I do the reasonable thing and call the police? There was just one little problem with that last part. I had no real proof Everly was behind any of this. It would be my word against hers and nothing to back up either side.
“I think there has to be more to it than just my dancing with Adam,” I said. “No one is that jealous.”
Nicco smiled. “You’d be surprised.”
My phone always seems to ring at the worst times . . .
“We know he was investigating the case of your model,” the officer said. “We also received a tip that you may have been in the area where the crime occurred. Mind telling me about that?”
It turns out that whoever—likely Everly Pine—called in the tip also called in another one placing me at the scene, and a detective had come to investigate while I was with Nicco. Thankfully, Babbs was able to get me on the phone and warn me in time for me to get my story straight.
“I don’t know where it is you’re talking about, Detective,” I said, “but as you can see from these ticket stubs, I was seeing a movie with my boyfriend here when my friend called me.” Sure, the movie tickets were in actuality a couple of leaves I’d plucked from a large bush just outside our apartment, but hey, it got the job done, right?
“Right.” He took the stubs from my hand and gave them a long stare. “Any idea why someone would place you at the scene?”
“Not really,” I said. “But there are a lot of girls around town who look like me. Maybe it was just a mistake.”
“Something tells me that’s not the case,” he replied. “We’ve done a preliminary sweep of the surrounding areas. A woman matching your description has been spotted there both earl
ier tonight and a few days ago by other people.”
“Again,” I insisted. “I’m a pretty regular looking girl. It could have been anyone.”
Normally, I wouldn’t have been so forthright with a police officer, but I figured confidence was the only thing that would get me out of this. If I shrank like a violet, that would only lead to more questions, more suspicion. I didn’t want that.
“Would you mind stopping by the station for a few questions?” he asked. I know you’ve spoken to Detective Hamm, but the situation has obviously changed.”
“I’ll try and make time tomorrow,” I said. “This is a busy time for me, though, with Fashion Week being here and everything.”
“That’s right.” He smiled. “You’re a designer.”
“Yes.”
“I just have one other question before you go.”
“And what is that?” I asked.
“Your fingerprints were found at the scene. You say you weren’t there, but we checked them against yours and the preliminary results look to match up with you pretty well. How do you account for that?”
Was he lying? Was this just some scare tactic to get me to confess to a murder I didn’t commit? Or was he telling the truth? After all, I had been in that abandoned building twice now, both times looking for things, so it might stand to reason that my prints would be there, right? Maybe they found them. Maybe they were going to use this against me.
“Fingerprints need to match up with other fingerprints.” Nicco looked at the detective.
“That’s right.”
“You found prints in the building, but where would you have gotten the sample of Ginni’s to compare them against? She’s never submitted prints.”
“Well, she spoke to Detective Hamm the other day. He got them from a discarded water cup.”
“Really?” I asked. “I don’t remember drinking water.”
He was lying. He had nothing but suspicions and theories.
“But like I said, I’ll try and find the time to stop by. Good day, Detective.” Nicco and I walked away.
Witches & Stitches Page 8
