CHAPTER 1
Seattle, Washington
When I heard that low, sexy whine of Darryl's BMW, I grabbed Nance's arm and slammed us both down the drive and against the cement retaining wall. My cousin's house is built on a hillside. Actually, the whole city of Seattle is built on hills, but anyhow, this particular house is a half flight of stairs up to the front door and a six-foot drop down a sloped driveway from the street to the garage.
That's where we were, huddled in the corner between the garage door and the wall, hiding.
Nance swore. Fast learner, that girl.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “That's the car we don't want to meet.”
She's a tough little blonde teenager. She moved free of me to creep up the drive, peek out at the street.
“Stay down,” I said.
Teenagers are fearless. At twenty-three, I am a whole lot more careful. Kind of like to make it to twenty-four.
Bent low, Nance scurried back down to me.
“He's about two houses down. Claire, we need to get a gun.”
Late November rain didn't sweeten my attitude.
Her suggestion was tempting on an emotional level, impossible on a practical level. Sure, I'd love to shoot the bastard. Only I really wouldn't. Unlike Nance, I don't approve of violence and certainly not of murder.
I'd been home since the previous winter and avoiding creepy Darryl Decko all that time. I was really, really sick of it. I had to earn a living despite the Decko brothers.
Half my living is earned working at the Mudflat Neighborhood Center. I do a lot of paper shuffling for the counselors during the day. Two nights and a couple of afternoons a week I also teach teenagers. That means going home after dark in the winter.
Funny thing about tough-talking guys like Darryl, they never want daytime confrontations where there might be witnesses to see them bullying a skinny, helpless-looking woman. He was a big, handsome guy, dark hair and a cap-toothed perfect smile that never lit his eyes. Instead, he managed to chase after me a couple of nights a week when I headed home.
This night Nance and I were wearing dark rain jackets, jeans, sneakers. Nothing to reflect light except Nance's blonde hair. I reached toward her and pulled up her hood to cover it.
He didn't see us in the sloped driveway, but he knew we were close. The creep didn't want to catch me. He wanted to scare me. A shot rang out, and yeah, the scare part worked.
We huddled against the retaining wall of the drive, shivering and sweating at the same time, one of those body reactions that requires a massive dose of fear. Wasn't there anyone in the neighborhood to hear a gunshot?
My cellphone rang in my jacket pocket, because that's what cellphones do, ring when I don't want to make noise. I'd forgotten to turn it off.
Digging it out of my pocket, I flipped it open to shut it up.
The voice I expected was the one that spoke.
“All I want to do is talk to you, Claire. Where are you?” Darryl said.
Like I'd tell him that, a guy who follows me with a gun in his hand. And then I had a bad thought. Did he have one of those global positioning things in that car or some other device that could locate my phone?
I hit the off button fast.
“We should have headed the other way,” I whispered to Nance.
“Jimmy will help us.”
The girl had an odd amount of confidence in my scudzy cousin. Not that Jimmy was what worried me. It was the block. Trouble doesn't stay in one place. But that doesn't mean I go looking for the place it stays. And trouble was here, all right, on Jimmy's street.
A family who lived two doors down from Jimmy had disappeared. Not magic disappeared. Literally disappeared. No break in, no signs of robbery, and worse, purses, billfolds, money, car, all the stuff people take when they intentionally go on a trip? That stuff was still in their house and garage.
The Lettiwick family had been missing for a week now, long enough that we'd had police all over the place and way too many TV vans and cameras.
Except when they might be useful.
“A guy is shooting off a gun and there's not a TV van in sight,” I complained.
“How long are we going to hide here?”
“Until he leaves.”
“He can corner us down here.”
“He didn't see us run this way, or he'd be pulled up at the top of the drive now. He thinks we're in somebody's backyard.”
A Mudflat backyard is capable of containing anything, because Mudflat is where old magic lives.
Fortunately, none of the Seattle city reporters know the name Mudflat. When they follow crime reports here, they haven't a clue that they are in a space between Seattle’s designated neighborhoods, an area that is so well organized it has its own council.
Now the Mudflat council was forming into an army of searchers. The missing family's history in the neighborhood went back three generations to some strong magic, and who knew, it might pop up again in the missing kids.
They had to be found.
Until they were, it was anyone's guess about why they were missing. Was it the Lettiwick family specifically, or was something bad going down for anyone on the street?
Obvious direction to look, according to the law, was adjacent houses used for meth labs or by pushers. That was Seattle law enforcement's theory. Mudflat knew better. That stuff could happen anyplace else. But in Mudflat, look for a cranky wizard or a crackpot vigilante.
Either way, I didn't like to hang around near the Lettiwick house.
Another shot exploded.
****
Mudflat Magic Novels
Tyrant Trouble
Welcome to Mayhem, Baby
Barbarian Toy Boy
Spice and Sorcery
Goldilocks Hits Town
Beastly Week
Other urban fantasy series by Phoebe Matthews include Turning Vampire, Sunspinners, and the Wicked Good short story anthologies. For a list of current titles and backlist books by Phoebe Matthews, her website is at https://phoebematthews.com
Sunspinners Novels
Demonspell, or, Curse of the Everlasting Relatives
Demonhold, or, Blight of the Deadly Demon
Demonprice, or, Doom of the Penultimate Husband
Demonfire, or, Charm of the Killing Cousin
Turning Vampire Novels
Vampire Career
Vampire Disaster
Wicked Good Short Story Collections
Nine Horoscope-in-Catsup Stories
Steampunk Man and More
Steampunk Widow and More
Tyrant Trouble Page 23
