Table of Contents
A Season of Gods and Witches
A Season of Gods and Witches
About The Book
Part One
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Part Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Three
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Author's Note
Imagine being able to revamp your mundane and stressful life...just because you happen to enjoy Greek mythology. Imagine receiving a magical (email) letter - just like that boy with the scar on his forehead - saying you have the potential to start fresh because you have the makings of a witch. And on top of all those exciting things...imagine also meeting Mr. Right, who's not only handsome and sexy but knows magic, too.
It may sound too good to be true, but that's exactly what happens to Blair Vavrin, whose days of corporate slavery are long over, now that she's a bona fide CSI agent and with her own magic wand (albeit disguised as a pen) to boot. It truly is the perfect life...until all hell breaks loose, and Blair suddenly finds herself racing against time and doing all things at once: solve a murder, figure out Mr. Right's secret, and keep herself alive while dodging deadly thunderbolts from a temporarily insane Zeus.
This book promises a sweet romance, a magical coastal New England town that's so incredibly fun you'll want to pack your bags and live there right away, and murder mysteries galore that you can challenge yourself in solving...depending on how well you know your Greek gods and goddesses.
Note: A Season of Gods and Witches is the novel edition of my first three books, Olympus Bewitched, Brewed for Trouble, and Magic Most Foul. If you've read all three, then you've read this one, too.
A Season of Gods and Witches
BY ALICE BLOOME
Copyright 2020 by Streak Digital Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
About The Book
The glass doors suddenly swooshed open, and I heard a gruff voice call out, “This way, Agent Vavrin.”
Oops!
Realizing I had inadvertently made the god of medicine wait, I hurried past shelves stocked with test tubes storing both human medicine and magical potions and came to a stop when I found a white-haired man in a lab coat bent over the dissection table.
There was a dead body on it: Venus Stratton, sixteen, with long, blonde hair and blue eyes, and declared dead last night by the paramedic who had gone to the victim’s home in response to a 911 call.
“Took you long enough,” the god of medicine said with a grunt as he straightened to his full height. “You’re the one Justice’s gal sent?”
“Uh...” Horae was also the generic-slash-collective term used to refer to the ferocious daughters of Justice, which was what my boss Dike was, but this was the first time I had heard anyone refer to CSI’s division director so literally.
“Well?”
The note of impatience in the god’s tone helped me recover from my shock, and I said quickly, “Yes, umm—-” Oh, cast it. Here we go again. How did one properly refer to the god of medicine, anyway?
Aesculapius let out a harrumph. “Mother of Cronos! Dr. Ace will do, if that’s what’s giving you the heebie-jeebies.” Shaking his head, he then asked, “And you, girl? What’s your name?”
“Blair—-”
“Too short,” he dismissed. “We’ll stick to Vavrin.”
I knew I should feel insulted, but right now I was more amazed by the fact that he knew I was a witch named Blair and he wasn’t laughing his head off.
“How old are you, Vavrin?” His gaze narrowed. “You seem too young.” Before I could tell him I was twenty-six, Dr. Ace then added, “Either that or you’re too short.”
Okaaaaaay. I wished I could feel insulted now, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t speaking the truth. Natural born witches were generally tall and blessed with good genes while self-made witches like me were, well, all over the place. In my case, I was a tiny brunette that stood out in all the wrong places (skin that didn’t tan, curves that didn’t go away) while the rest of me was the definition of mediocrity.
As soon as I was properly suited up, Dr. Ace led me back to the dissection table, asking, “Do you know how to detect carbon dioxide poisoning in a corpse?”
Glancing down at Venus’ corpse, I said slowly, “When a person dies, blood would eventually settle at a certain portion of the body.” I pointed to the victim’s arm. “This part, for instance, should be bluish-purple.” But instead it was a dark shade of red, which was indicative of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Dr. Ace gazed at me with interest. “You’ve done your homework.”
I quickly shook my head, feeling slightly embarrassed at the god’s words of praise. “I just got lucky you asked me one of the few things I know about poisons,” I admitted. “The case I worked on last week involved poisoning, so I had to do a bit of reading on toxicology. I’ve only gotten as far as the letter C so...” I gave him a sheepish smile. “If you want to ask me anything beyond the third letter of the alphabet, could we maybe do it next week?”
“I’ll think about it.” Dr. Ace’s tone was so devoid of emotion that by the time I realized he was joking, he had already moved on to his next question, asking me about the circumstances of the victim’s death.
Scrolling up on my smartphone screen, I started reading from the case report Dike emailed. “The emergency responder found the victim in the living room, no longer breathing, and without any pulse. Both her mother and younger brother were also present, in the exact same room.”
I looked back at Dr. Ace with a frown. “It doesn’t make sense, does it? If she had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, the others should have died of the same thing.”
“Exactly.” The doctor’s grim tone confirmed what I already suspected.
Cause of death: poisoning.
Manner of death: assisted by magic.
Part One
Prologue
To: Candidate 1515
From: recruitment @ circesecurityinitiative.com
Subject: Invitation
Dear Neophyte Witch,
If you are receiving this email, this means you have passed our background check for potential self-taught witches. Our selection process is simple but exacting; we only entertain candidates of good m
oral character and with a well-documented interest in Greek mythology. Thus, it is based on these factors that we are offering you a job with our company.
The Circe Security Initiative is one of the most respected and accomplished supernatural agencies in the world as well as one of the oldest in history. Attached to this email is a document containing additional information about our company and the nature of your job if you’re to accept our offer.
While employment with CSI does require you to move to Silver Mist, Maine, we believe that the compensation package we’re providing in return is more than competitive. Most of all – you’ll have magic in your life.
We hope that our proposal merits your consideration and look forward to communicating with you soon.
Yours truly,
Circe
Sorceress and Goddess
Chapter One
It was a fine Monday morning when I stepped out of the front door, and I flipped to the next page of A Witch’s Guide to Silver Mist as I made my way to Panda’s Diner. It was the only breakfast place in town, located just several blocks away at the corner of Green Street. With my nose buried between the pages of my guidebook, my body weaved automatically in between students on their way to school and housewives exchanging gossip en route to Demi’s Bakery.
Normal, right?
And I supposed it was, if you discounted the fact that the students were perched casually on broomsticks gliding waist-high in the air. And those housewives? Gossiping about the latest episode of Rich Witches of Salem, which – if what they were saying was true – was completely scripted and not a reality show as its producers kept insisting it to be.
An ordinary day in Silver Mist all in all, and if you’re wondering what other humans would think if they stumbled on this scene, well, that’s what this town’s name was all about.
Coastal towns like ours were always the foggiest in Maine, but Silver Mist was a little bit different. The faint mist that covered our streets all year round was a glamour spell, and it prevented human strangers from seeing what they weren’t supposed to see.
Like Panda’s, for instance.
Humans would only see a dilapidated, burnt-down motel, but in reality it was a sprawling, well-kept diner with the words NON-HUMANS WELCOME flashing in rainbow colors on its LED display.
Panda’s was unsurprisingly full by the time I made it to its doors, with most locals in the habit of coming in early so they could take their time chatting over pancakes and homemade brews before heading out to queue for the 8AM bus.
A quick glance around the panda-wallpapered-diner showed one vacant seat left at the end of the counter, and luckily for me it was also right next to Mr. Handsome.
I shoved my guidebook back into my bag before walking up to the counter, not wanting to appear like some neophyte witch (which I was, unfortunately, but nothing wrong about keeping that to myself, don’t you think?).
“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty.” The diner’s owner greeted me in his usual booming voice, and I made a face as I slid into the high-backed stool and hung my tote bag on one of the hooks under the counter.
“Very funny, Mr. P.” P stood for Pan, as in the famed satyr from the Greek myths. His human form was a large, mustached man with moss-green eyes, dressed perpetually with a chef’s hat and apron over his striped shirt and pants. Nix – one of the diner’s regular waitresses – once told me that both the chef’s hat and apron were spell-protected. The former was to keep his horns away from sight, and no amount of headshaking would ever dislodge the hat off his temple; the latter, on the other hand, was a magical armor, just in case Mr. P had to protect his diners from supernatural trouble.
He was a nice man, really, but he’d be much nicer in my opinion if he would stop reminding me of the first time I had come to his diner. I had just moved in to Silver Mist that day, and I had been so tired arranging furniture that I had found myself falling asleep in one of his booths.
And I might have snored once.
Well, okay, twice, but it wasn’t polite to count.
“So what are you having?” Mr. P’s gaze slanted towards the man seated beside me as he spoke. Want him, for instance, the owner mouthed with a wink that had me choking and hastily shaking my head.
“Just the usual.” Picking the menu on the counter, I casually lifted it to hide my face from Mr. Handsome so I could glower at the satyr without being seen. That was another not-so-nice habit of Mr. P: he had sort of guessed about my embarrassing crush at Mr. Handsome, and he loved to torture me about it every once in a while.
The ancient satyr looked like he was in the mood to prolong my torment with more irreverent winking, but one of the other diners called out to him then, and I breathed a sigh of relief as Mr. P bustled off. I stole a look at the man seated beside me – his concentration remained fixed on the sheaf of papers he held in his hand – and I found myself releasing another inner sigh.
I had taken to calling him Mr. Handsome for good reason, believe me. His looks strongly reminded me of Robert Redford in his younger days (think Barefoot in the Park) with his thick blond hair, chiseled features, and tall, lithe frame that was as elegant as it was powerful. Add to that his unmistakable air of mystery, and can anyone blame me for being just a little obsessed?
You see, everyone in town was either non-human (like Pan) or a human (like me) employed by the former, and majority of the local men of Silver Mist were either small business owners (non-human) or daily commuters with blue-collar jobs (human) at the city.
Most of the time, it was easy to figure out who was which – with the glaring exception of Mr. Handsome, who fit neither bill. He kept mostly to himself unlike the other locals, and I only ever see him talking to Mr. P. There were also other ways he stood out, such as his penchant for beautiful, tailored suits, for instance (Savile Row, not Italian), and the irregular times he would drop by the diner.
Thanks to Mr. P, everyone working at Panda’s Diner also knew about my ridiculous infatuation, and most of the staff had taken to sending me real-time photos of Mr. Handsome whenever he dropped by.
4AM on a Tuesday, 1PM on a Wednesday, and even 11PM on a Sunday, which was unheard of for the respectable, hardworking townsfolk of Silver Mist. What kind of work could one possibly do to have so much flexibility with his schedule?
It was possible, of course, that he was simply a man of leisure, but I didn’t think so. There was the state of his hands, you see. I’m a great believer of a person’s hands saying a lot of things about its owner (it’s probably why CSI had placed me in the Palmistry Training Protocol), and Mr. Handsome’s hands certainly said a lot about him.
Prior to moving to Silver Mist, I used to be one of your run-of-the-mill, overworked, and underpaid workers trapped in a concrete jungle in California. Office guys were a dime in a dozen back in those days, and trust me when I say that none of them had hands like Mr. Handsome’s. Those guys had weak-looking hands and manicured nails, hands that looked like the most physical thing they did was carry a cardboard tray of Starbucks coffee every time they needed to buy their way into their superior’s good graces.
Mr. Handsome’s hands, though...
They were large, rough, and callused, the kind that men who knew what real work meant would have. Was he that type of man? I suppose I could just ask him, but—-
“Morning, Blair,” Nix sang out as she emerged from the kitchen. Tall and slender, the younger girl was at that rebellious stage in her life where she equated hair color to an assertion of her individuality. Last week’s color had been ash gray. This week’s was cotton candy pink.
“You look beautiful as always,” Nix gushed as she reached me.
“Nix!” My voice was half-pleading, half-hissing (I’m not sure how I managed it, but I did). I loved that she and Mr. P were trying so hard to get Mr. Handsome to notice me, but at this point he would have to be an idiot not to know what was happening.
Nix’s eyebrows shot up in feigned surprise. “But you do look beautiful. Honest
ly, I can’t believe you’ve been living her for over a month—-”
Oh no.
“And you’re still single,” the younger girl finished triumphantly.
Cast it!
Nix’s eyes danced with mischief as she cocked her head towards Mr. Handsome’s direction.
I shook her head. No way was I looking at him after what she said.
She cocked her head towards him again, more insistently this time. LOOK!
Oh, River of Lethe...here goes nothing.
I slowly turned Mr. Handsome’s way.
Magnetic hazel eyes collided with mine, and I quickly snapped my head back. As mortifying as it was to admit, having our gazes meet was already more excitement than I could handle; my breath had locked in my throat as my heart rate picked up speed – for Cronos’ sake, Blair, please act your age!
“Here’s your order, by the way.” Nix placed a steaming hot plate before me. It was Panda’s Breakfast Special: sunny-side-ups, bacon, buttered toast, and a healthy serving of Mr. P’s homemade potato salad. Normally, the sight of it was enough to bring a smile to my face, but right now I had a nasty feeling I might not even manage a single bite.
I could still feel Mr. Handsome’s gaze on me, and I wondered glumly if Nix’s words had him realizing how plain I was. Maybe he even thought I was unattractive? I couldn’t blame him if he did. I knew I wasn’t hideous or anything, but I also knew my features were far from eye-catching.
Wavy dark brown hair I always kept tied up in a bun, the same shade of eyes, skin so fair I could easily get lost in a white background, curves that had never left me since I hit puberty – and, oh, did I mention I was kinda on the short side, too?
Honestly, the only thing I had going for me was my love for clothes. Today’s outfit was a loose floral dress in shades of blue and gray, black tights, and a pair of leather oxfords. If I had to put it in words, I suppose it would be that I had an instinct for knowing what looked good, and it was a talent I found quite handy, considering how little I could afford to spend on my wardrobe.
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