Witchy Hexations (Witchy Fingers Book 2)

by Nic Saint

  “Strel!” hissed Ernestine. “Don’t make him angry!”

  “I think he’s pretty angry already,” said Strel. “Or else he wouldn’t keep snatching women and turning them into mummies.”

  “Yeah, nothing we say could possibly make this any worse,” I agreed.

  “I don’t know,” said Ernestine, suspiciously glancing around. “If we were snatched by the Mummifier, then where is he?”

  “Maybe he’s changed his mind about mummifying us?” suggested Strel.

  “No, I haven’t changed my mind,” suddenly a male voice rang out, and when we looked up, we gasped in shock when our eyes met… Tavish!

  “Tavish!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”

  “Thank God. You’ve come to save us!” Estrella cried happily. She moved her hands. “Help me with these ropes, before the Mummifier comes back.”

  I watched Tavish closely, noticing his nasty grin. “Um, you guys? I think Tavish is the Mummifier.”

  “Impossible!” cried Ernestine. “He’s our godfather!”

  Tavish laughed. “You are so funny! I’m so glad I saved you for last!”

  “Saved us for last?” asked Estrella, her face falling. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I’ve been waiting to get a crack at the three of you for years, only you were too well-protected, weren’t you?!”

  We gasped as the horrible truth finally dawned on us: Tavish Mildew wasn’t one of the good guys after all!

  “No, Tavish,” said Ernestine in a low voice. “Don’t tell me you are…”

  “The Mummifier?” Tavish laughed. “Such a silly name. But then the police are always coming up with such nonsense. I don’t mummify,” he said, indignant now. “I merely suck the lifeblood out of my victims, and their witchiness, of course.”

  I groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re just like all the other warlocks: trying to destroy witches so you can steal their powers?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Edelie, but yes, that’s exactly what I am, and that’s exactly what I’m after. Very nicely put, by the way.”

  “But why didn’t you do it before?” asked Estrella. “You had the chance all these years to do just that, and you never did!”

  His face darkened. “I tried to snatch your mother twenty years ago, after I’d suggested she use her witching powers to the height of her capabilities. I even dared her to go up against Joshua, knowing that silly warlock was no match for her. Unfortunately, he was, and I lost the biggest catch I could ever have gotten. I swore that I’d take my time with you. Take no chances!”

  “But you were our parents’ friend!” cried Ernestine, aghast.

  “You’re our godfather!” added Estrella, a tear streaking down her face.

  “Your parents only thought I was their friend,” he said disgustedly. “And as for being your godfather… that was just an excuse to get close to you. Your grandmother, one of the greatest witches of our time, turned this house into a fortress, and forbade you to use witchcraft, so I could never get at you. The only way I can absorb the witchiness of my victims is by making them use their powers. The more the better. That way I can harvest their powers to the highest degree. Only you three never did anything!”

  He grinned evilly, and only now did I notice this nasty streak in him. Why hadn’t we seen him for who he really was before? Because we believed every silver-tongued word he said, just like our parents had.

  “So I encouraged you to cast spells in abundance—incant before the whole world! When you went up again Joshua, your powers greatly increased, only you used them inside the house, where I wasn’t able to get at you. So this time I wanted to make certain you performed your greatest feats of witchcraft out in the open, where you were exposed.” He laughed. “Even in my wildest dreams I could never have foreseen that you would move an entire building! The witchiness you displayed greatly invigorated me!”

  “You… absorbed it?” I asked.

  “All of it! It was wonderful!” he said. “But of course merely an appetizer for the great finale.” He stared at us, his brows lowering menacingly. “I’m going to devour you right here, where it all began: the very room where the greatest witch of all time plied her craft: Fallon Safflower.”

  “But why aren’t we protected anymore?!” cried Estrella.

  Tavish shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I just know that for the first time I was able to penetrate this lair, and now I’m going to suck all the life out of you and out of this house.” He raised his arms. “It’s going to make me the greatest warlock who’s ever lived!”

  “What did you do to Susan Gnash?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry about Susan,” he said. “She’s just a minor little witch. I managed to get no more than a small sip from her.”

  “Susan Gnash is a witch?” asked Ernestine, surprised.

  “It happens in the best of families,” said Tavish with a shrug. “Why do you think her father has been so remarkably successful? She’s been helping him in her own modest way.”

  “Does he know? Does her father know?” I asked.

  “No, of course not. All he knows is that his daughter is a little bit… special. But not that special, for she was so easy to lure along. I’d been grooming her online for quite a while, pretending to be the kind of boy she was bound to fall for. And then when I asked to meet her, she jumped at the chance. She voluntarily escaped the scrutiny of her security detail and walked straight into my arms, ripe for the plucking!”

  “Is she… is she dead?” asked Estrella.

  “Soon she will be,” he promised. “But first let me take care of you. You three walking into that store was a godsend. I couldn’t have planned it better! When you entered my lair like that I simply had to drop everything and…”

  He raised his hands, and I felt a sudden pull at my bones. As if something was tugging at them, and a slow pain started spreading deep inside me.

  “Can you feel it?” he asked, eyes wide now, his face a mask of relish.

  “Stop it, Tavish!” cried Estrella.

  “Oh, but I won’t stop until I’ve sucked every last drop of life and witchiness from your wretched bodies!” he cried, and then I felt the hurt intensify, and so did my sisters, for they twisted and turned, trying to free themselves from the pull of this warlock’s powers.

  How was it possible? I thought, that even here, in our own home, in Safflower House, we were unable to protect ourselves from this warlock?

  Because we allowed him in. Because we’d trusted him. We’d given him permission to come into our lives and now he was going to take them. But where was Gran? Why wasn’t she helping us? Why had she abandoned us?!

  I saw there was nothing else for it than free ourselves from this warlock. We had to do this ourselves. Nobody was going to save us this time.

  The noise now pervading the room was growing thunderous, and it was as if a cyclone was raging inside the house, the wind whipping us and ripping at our clothes as the evil magic Tavish was conjuring up plunged the room in darkness. A storm tore through the room, spellbooks and potions flying, brooms snapping like twigs, the entire room turning into a maelstrom of whirling objects. Tavish wasn’t merely destroying us! He was destroying the entire house! I suddenly realized. Sucking up every ounce of witchcraft!

  So I gritted my teeth against the pain, and I called out to Estrella, “We need to do this without using our hands! What spells do you know?!”

  “I only know one spell that can be used without our hands!” Estrella cried back, shouting to make herself heard over the roaring noise.

  Already the walls were giving way, collapsing under the sheer force of Tavish’s raging powers, and then the roof tore off and was swept away, as if by a hurricane. And all the while Tavish stood there, arms raised, an expression of sheer delight on his face as he conjured up the devastating forces ripping the house apart, leaving us fully exposed to the elements.

  “What spell?!” I cried.

  “It’
s the one I use to straighten my hair!” Strel shouted back.

  Of course. It was just like Estrella to use a spell to straighten her hair. She’d never liked her curls and wanted her hair like Ernestine’s and mine.

  But how would a spell to straighten your hair help us against this unleashed warlock? It simply wouldn’t! Then again, we had no other choice.

  “What’s the spell?!” I shouted.

  “Uncrullio!” she shouted back. “It’s very simple and you don’t need your hands so it’s perfect for when I’m blow-drying my hair!”

  Of course it was. But since we had nothing else, I said, “Let’s do it!”

  She turned to Ernestine, and explained the plan over the raging and howling wind that now held Safflower House in its grip. And then the three of us shouted, at the top of our lungs, “Uncrullio!” with as much energy as we could muster, while this warlock tried to murder us and destroy our legacy.

  “Uncrullio!” we repeated over and over again, now screaming the word.

  I felt my strength waning quickly, though, and it was if is I was being torn to pieces inside. I could barely keep my eyes open, and felt my body going limp. But then, before I dropped to the floor, unable to support myself, I saw how Tavish’s eyes flashed open, and his face contorted in rabid anger.

  There was definitely something going on, as I felt the tug diminishing slightly. As if we’d disrupted the powerful warlock’s spell somehow.

  And then, suddenly, I felt the ropes dropping from my hands.

  Of course! Like Estrella’s hair, they’d uncurled themselves! And then we whipped up our hands simultaneously, and with our last ounce of willpower, cast the first spell that came to mind. And just before I collapsed, I yelled, “Disapparato!” Tavish might not be Falcone Tower, but we certainly wanted to send him as far away from here as possible!

  The next moment, the three of us dropped to the floor, and as darkness enveloped me once again, the last thing I remembered was a lifting sensation, as if I was being raised from the floor, and I thought this was it.

  This was what it felt like to be turned into a mummy.

  Chapter 33

  Sam and Pierre raced through traffic as they made their way from Queens to Brooklyn. Luckily they still had an escort to get them through the city at breakneck speed, and it only took them twenty minutes to get from where Susan had last been seen alive to the house where the Gnashes had lived before Susan’s dad was elected and they moved into the White House.

  Pierre, who was an excellent driver, jerked the car to a stop at the curb and both cops jumped from the vehicle, racing for the front door. The house, so they’d learned on their way over, was still owned by the Gnash family.

  Jack wanted to sell it but Susan had balked, insisting they keep it. She was very much attached to the house where she was born and raised and had spent the biggest part of her life. With the elections coming up, this wasn’t such a bad idea, as the family would have to live somewhere if Jack wasn’t reelected, if only temporarily. So the house had been empty for a while.

  Planting his sizable foot against the door, Sam barged inside, Pierre right on his heels, and six burly Secret Service agents behind him. This time he was taking no chances, Sam thought, and as the small team spread out, he quickly scanned the place, his weapon drawn. From all over, there were loud shouts of ‘Clear!’ and then Sam was quickly making his way upstairs, after Pierre gave him a short nod in the direction of the staircase. The man’s instincts were uncanny, and he knew better than to ignore them.

  They both arrived on the second-floor landing, guns up and tension holding them in its grip. Sam’s face was a mask of determination. They were going to find Susan Gnash, and he just hoped they would find her unharmed and not a desiccated corpse like the other victims of the Mummifier.

  He darted into the first room to the left, and saw it was empty, then followed Pierre into the second one, the master bedroom. Once again, no luck. And then, as they both charged into the third room, he saw to his surprise that it was still furnished, and looked like a girls’ bedroom, the requisite posters of boy bands adorning lilac-colored walls, a Coca-Cola bed in the center. On the bed, seemingly unconscious, lay… Susan Gnash!

  He quickly yelled for the assistance of the Secret Service people, and in two leaps he was by the girl’s side, checking her vital signs.

  “She’s still alive!” he called out.

  “Thank God,” Pierre muttered.

  More shouts of ‘Clear!’ indicated the perpetrator had fled, and moments later Sam was carefully carrying the president’s daughter down the stairs, and as he did, her eyes fluttered open, and she whispered, “Just… let me go…” and then closed her eyes again.

  “It’s all right, Susan,” he growled. “My name is Sam Barkley and I’m an NYPD Detective. You’re safe now. Everything is all right.”

  She opened her eyes again, and hoarsely asked, “The man? Where is he?”

  He shook his head. “He’s gone. He won’t hurt you again,” and then she gave him a sweet smile and her body became limp in his arms again, her blond hair fanned out across his arm as he carried her down the stairs.

  It didn’t take long for an ambulance to arrive on the scene, and when he transferred Susan to the care of the EMTs, he felt such a relief flooding his system that he almost forgot there were three more women in mortal danger right now, and then he was beckoning for Pierre to follow him, and hurried to the car. “Let’s go!” he snapped. “We have to find Edelie and the others!”

  They tore away from the curb with screeching tires, and made short shrift of the distance between the Gnash place and Safflower House.

  And it was only when they arrived that he saw…

  “What the hell!” he cried.

  And as both he and Pierre slowly exited the car, he saw to his horror and surprise that Safflower House… was gone! Where it had stood now only a pile of rubble remained, the entire structure… gone! Razed to the ground!

  Just then, his phone chimed, and when he picked it out of his pocket, he frowned at the display when he saw that it was Cassandra Beadsmore.

  “What?!” he barked, momentarily forgetting about the rules of civility.

  He listened for a moment, then looked up in surprise. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where to?” asked his partner, with a look of absolute bewilderment.

  “Long Island,” he said, then added, grim-faced, “Some Podunk town called Happy Bays.”

  Chapter 34

  Felicity watched the house loom up in the distance and remembered the last time she was here. Hartford Manor had long been a ghost house the locals used as a cautionary tale for the kids. She and Alice had even been here on a school trip once, when the house was empty. Then the manor had been bought by a family of freaky killers, the Ciesloks, who’d used it to store their victims in the basement, and do all kinds of creepy experiments.

  Suffice it to say, the place had been empty since, with no buyers. Who wanted to live in a house with such a horrible reputation? Cassandra Beadsmore, apparently, for as Felicity rode the Bell’s Bakery van up to the entrance, she saw that a new gate had been installed, a floral motif wrought in iron, and a new bell attached. She quickly got out and rang it, and when Mabel’s voice caroled out happily and the gates swung open, Felicity wondered how Cassandra had managed to put her mark on this place so fast.

  She directed the van down the long and winding drive until they reached the house, then rode it around the back where she knew the servants’ entrance was. She saw Mabel’s red Mini parked there, and when they got out, the mayoral secretary was already hurrying up to welcome them.

  “Welcome, welcome!” she said, her voice betraying her glee. “I knew you’d be the first to welcome this family into our wonderful community!”

  They followed the mayor’s secretary into the house, and as she led them into the huge living room, she explained that the new owner had already begun renovations. Looking around, Felicity hardly reco
gnized the place.

  The room had been changed into a modern and cozy living space, with a television nook, a playfully designed reading nook, and lots of light streaming in through French windows, invitingly affording a glimpse at the gardens.

  When she stepped through the doors, she saw to her delight that the gardens had been transformed from a rather austere sea of grass to a festival of color and light, flowers wherever she looked. Gasps of delight and joy sounded behind her, as the others also took in this haven of floral wonder.

  “How did she do it?” Felicity heard her mother exclaim, and that was her question as well. It was as if the new owners had been here for months, not mere hours, as Mabel had indicated. But then again, Cassandra Beadsmore and her granddaughters were no ordinary folks. If Rick was to be believed, they claimed to be witches, and Felicity had the feeling they hadn’t lied.

  And as she was feasting her eyes on the gardens, she saw that a woman was approaching them from the large greenhouse to the right, wiping her hands on her apron and carefully putting down a pair of garden shears.

  “Oh, look, it’s Cassandra,” Aunt Bettina said, and Felicity thought she’d never seen a more kindly-looking woman.

  As she reached them, she said, “Hi, you must be Felicity Bell. I’m your great-aunt Cassandra Beadsmore, but you can call me Aunt Cassie.”

  “Hi, Aunt Cassie,” she said dutifully, taking the woman’s hand and pressing it warmly. “What a wonderful garden you have here.”

  “Why, thank you, dear,” Aunt Cassie said, visibly pleased. She was a strikingly handsome woman, about the age of Felicity’s mother, and her smile was infectious, for Felicity felt a smile tug at the corners of her own lips too.

  Aunt Cassie looked around her gardens. “I thought I’d put my mark on it. Remove the horrible energy that was pervading this place.”

  And as Felicity took a deep breath, the sweet smell of roses filling her lungs, she thought Aunt Cassie had done a great job. The house had been completely transformed and now hadn’t a trace of evil left in it.