Shadow Witch (The Witches of Hollow Cove Book 1)

by Richardson, Kim

  A large woman spun on the spot at the other end. Martha swung a broom at a pixie, missed, and nearly tripped on her own legs. The pixie—I couldn’t tell male from female at the speed they were zipping—rose and shot toward Martha again in a cloud of red sparkles and glinting knives.

  She caught sight of me, her eyes round. “Don’t just stand there! Do something!” she wailed and swatted at the pixie. “They’re attacking my clients! They’re ruining my salon! My business!”

  “But,” I began, “aren’t you a witch?” I knew it was the wrong thing to say by the deepened scowl on her face and the ugly twist of her mouth.

  “I do beauty potions and spells,” the large witch hissed. “I can spell you a new haircut or a French manicure that will last you for a year. I don’t do hard magic!”

  Damn it. I didn’t know any spells or how to deal with a mass of what looked like crazy-killer-pixies. Heart pounding, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out The Witch’s Handbook.

  “Pixies Gone Wild,” said a voice next to me, making me jump. “I’ve seen this movie, though the females were a lot bigger—but the wings... the wings were an awesome touch.”

  “Ronin?” I said, seeing the leggy guy next to me. Damn that vampire stealth, I never heard him come in. “You here for a haircut?”

  Ronin smiled at me. “I saw you come in, so I followed you.”

  “A half-vampire stalker. Nice,” I breathed. And then, “Duck!” I fell to the ground on my knees, pulling Ronin down with me, and cried out in pain as what felt like twenty needles pierced my scalp and sliced at my ears. My eyes watered at the pain. I reached up and swiped with my free hand, hitting something solid—a pixie—and some pain stopped. I rubbed the top of my head with my hand, and my fingers came back wet with blood.

  “The little shits. I’m bleeding. I’m freaking bleeding!”

  Ronin turned his head toward me, the gold in his eyes shimmering. “I thought pixies were supposed to be on our side.”

  “That’s what I thought too,” I hissed, wondering why my aunts thought I could handle this alone. You’d have to be out of your mind mad to handle a mass of pixies this size. “Down!” I cried as another onslaught of mad pixies shot at us, swiping their tiny silver swords. I hissed as another volley of searing pain hit my scalp. “Urgh. I’m going to kill them!”

  “What did you do to them?” shouted Ronin with his hands on his head, like that would help anything.

  “Me?” I frowned at him. “Nothing. I’m here to stop this madness.”

  “Then get to work!” howled Martha.

  I looked up at the desperation in her voice and let out a little moan.

  Martha was floating in the air, and not by her magic.

  Eight pixies latched on to her dress, pulling her toward an open window. Once she was out, they could fly her to Canada for all I knew. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Oh. Shit.”

  Ronin laughed. “That’s a good look on her. Floating Martha. I should get a picture—” he rummaged inside his jacket pocket.

  “I heard that!” shrilled the sizeable witch. “You better help her get me down, Ronin. Or I swear, I will tell the entire town how you come in once a week for a manicure!”

  I looked at the young vampire beside me who just shrugged and flashed me a smile. “The ladies like clean nails.”

  Oh boy.

  Okay. Time to focus.

  “Do something!” shrilled Martha.

  “I’m trying!” I shouted as I flipped open the book with my hands trembling and the words blurring on the pages. I didn’t know why the pixies were acting this way, but I couldn’t worry about that now. As I flipped through the pages, the book fell open where a yellow Post-it was stuck on the top of a page. The title read Sleeping Spells for the Witch in Need.

  “Thank you, Ruth,” I breathed, knowing my aunt had put that there on purpose.

  “A sleeping spell?” Ronin’s head was next to mine as his eyes moved along the inscriptions. “You think it’s going to work?”

  “Yes.” If my aunt thought it would, I was certain of it. She wouldn’t have marked that page if it wouldn’t. Right. Now came the hard part.

  I would have to perform my first real spell (the thing with Marcus didn’t count) in the middle of a pixie battle. Excellent. No pressure. None.

  “Hurry up!” cried Martha, as her head slammed against the wall. She reached out and grabbed a doorframe, holding on for dear life.

  “I know!” I placed the book on the floor and skimmed the spell. Following the instructions, I grabbed a chalk and drew a circle on the floor about twelve inches in diameter. Next, I wrote the word PIXIE in the center of the circle.

  “You have nice penmanship,” muttered Ronin, still way too close. “I like the way you draw your p—”

  “Shhh.” I glared at him. “You can’t speak. I need to concentrate. Just… keep an eye out and let me know if more pixies come this way… and I don’t know… do some of your vampire mojo.”

  Ronin laughed. “You want me to scare them with my handsome good looks?”

  “Just keep them off of me, okay?”

  “Aye aye, captain,” said Ronin, grinning.

  I pulled my eyes away and read the next instructions—the invocation phrases. I needed to say the words. I could do that.

  Here goes. With my heart thrashing, I took a deep breath and tapped into my core, my will, where I knew some magical energy was generated by living beings—our life force itself. I felt a tug on my aura as it answered.

  I cleared my throat and said, “By this spell, you shall sleep, hidden from day, in the night so deep. Those who waken from this sleep return at once to slumber deep.”

  As soon as the last word left me, I looked up.

  The pixies swarmed around us, their steel blades cutting through the women’s clothes like it was cardboard. From all directions, in a whirling cloud of pixie dust, the pixies struck.

  “Damn,” I said, a chill running through me. The spell hadn’t worked.

  Oops.

  8

  Ronin raised a clenched fist. “I’m all for witch empowerment and all. But… was that what you intended to happen?”

  “Of course not!”

  Ducking, I pulled the book on my lap and read the spell again. My face fell. Crap. I’d forgotten a crucial part.

  “Hurry!” cried Martha. I looked up to see her clinging to a window frame with her bottom half and her legs hanging on the other side of the open window.

  My pulse fast, I tossed the book to the side, tapped into my will again, and slammed my palm down inside the circle over the word PIXIE as I shouted, “By this spell, you shall sleep, hidden from day, in the night so deep. Those who waken from this sleep return at once to slumber deep!”

  The wood floor seemed to vibrate below my hand, as if its stored life force were running through me, connecting me to the earth and stones beneath it.

  My breath came in a quick heave as a jolt of power spun from me, overflowing in my core to my aura. Magic roared. A gasp slipped from my mouth, and energy from the circle flooded me. The rush was intoxicating, and then the energy exploded into existence.

  In a rush, magic raced out of me and into the shop in an invisible kinetic force.

  I was hurled back and landed on my ass.

  I heard a sudden collective intake of tiny breaths, and then the pixies fell from the air, like wasps sprayed with insecticide, and landed on the floor in soft plops, unconscious.

  I stared, blinking for a moment and trying to see if any of the pixies stirred. The pixies didn’t move again.

  “You did it.” Ronin got to his feet with a strange smile on his face—half goofy, half impressed.

  I didn’t know whether I should be insulted that he hadn’t believed I could do it or proud that I actually had. Hell, I was proud it worked. And the feeling of power coursing through me felt… well, I felt freaking awesome.

  A wave of dizziness hit, and I took a moment to steady mys
elf as the magic took its payment. The spell took more of my energy than when I’d spelled Marcus’s ass, but it had been worth it.

  I’d done it. My first case. And I’d done it all on my own.

  A smile grew over me. You’d have to slap the smile off of my face because it wasn’t going anywhere for now.

  “A little help here!” shouted Martha, hanging over the windowsill.

  “I got her,” said Ronin. He strolled over to Martha and pulled her to her feet as though she weighed nothing.

  The women behind the counter rushed out the door. She was followed by the other shifter lady who stopped and kicked one of the unconscious pixies, the one with the trumpet, as she scurried out the door, her arms wrapped around herself.

  Martha’s business would definitely suffer for this.

  Still smiling, I looked at the ground littered with tiny pixies, most of them snoring and some even twitching in their sleep. My elated feeling didn’t last long. The pixies’ behavior didn’t settle well with me.

  I turned to see Martha patting herself down, like she was making sure she still had all her very large parts. “Martha, do you have any idea why the pixies reacted like this?”

  “No.” Martha’s face was covered with tiny red cuts. “Why do you think I contacted the Merlin Group? To discuss Ruth’s box-dyed hair job? No. The little creeps just came through the open window and started attacking us.” The witch looked at her shop, and a deflated expression shifted on her face at the damage the pixies had done. “If I were to guess, I’d say it was almost as though they’re under a spell or something.”

  Right. That would make sense. But why? And who would benefit from something like this?

  “Will they wake up?” asked Martha as she picked her way around the sleeping pixies and grabbed an empty cardboard box on the floor.

  “Yes.” I had no idea. When in doubt, go for the positive.

  I watched as Martha picked up two sleeping pixies by their feet, holding them away from her like she was picking up dead rats, and dropped them inside the box none too gently.

  “There’s more outside,” said Ronin staring out the window. “A crapload.”

  Damn. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Leaving Martha to pick up the pixies inside her shop, I snatched up my book, slipped it in my bag, and followed Ronin outside.

  My mouth fell open as I hit the bottom of the front porch steps. A dozen or more pixies were snoozing in the grass at the front of her shop, but that’s not why my jaw dislocated. The trail of sleeping pixies started from the shop, spread across the street, and disappeared into the now-darkened town. The sun had swiftly vanished, and the lengthening shadows triggered the streetlights.

  “What is this?” I asked as I started forward, careful not to step on any of the dozing pixies.

  Ronin shook his head. “Beats me. I’ve never seen this before or that many. It’s like the entire pixie clan of Hollow Cove came out to play tonight.”

  Yeah. But why? “Come on. Let’s follow the trail.” I wasn’t exactly sure why I asked him to come with me. But he was here, and seeing as he was half-vampire, he might be useful.

  Together, we picked our way across the street and down two more blocks. The wan light of streetlamps cast long shadows, adding to my unease.

  We reached Shifter Lane and passed the local café joint, Witchy Beans Café, and a few other shops that were closing for the night. A few townspeople had spotted some sleeping pixies and were pointing at them. A glare from a small, pudgy man with large brown eyes caught my attention.

  Hands on his hips, Gilbert stood in front of his shop, Gilbert’s Grocer & Gifts. His face pulled into a scowl as he mumbled something I couldn’t hear. If he could do magic, he was probably cursing me because of what Dolores had done. Great. Another person who hated me by association. Love this town.

  An excited buzz of voices rose up as more townspeople began circulating, either on their way home from work or from doing their shopping. They all took a moment to inspect the sleeping pixies.

  The same little girl I’d noticed the night Avi’s remains were discovered stood across the street with her gaze fixated on me. She stared at me for a long moment without blinking as an expression I couldn’t quite identify flickered across her face.

  We hit the town square and moved toward the large gazebo sitting in the middle surrounded by a small park with benches and a few fruit trees. Lit only with the few streetlamps, the square was empty. A large water fountain gleamed in the light from the streetlamps, and water trickled from the top of a statue that resembled a laughing witch with a pointed hat, her arms out and legs splayed like she was dancing.

  “Holy crap.” I stood ten feet from the fountain because I couldn’t get any closer if I didn’t want to step on more pixies. There were about a hundred here, all piled on top of each other, at the foot of the fountain, and sprawled across the grass.

  “Looks like you found the source,” commented Ronin.

  My unease tripled. How was it possible that my spell reached all the way here? But I didn’t have time to worry about that. I’d look into it later.

  I grimaced and covered my nose. “Damn. What’s that smell? Like a mixture of bad eggs and rotten cabbages.”

  Ronin leaned toward the fountain and pulled back gagging. “It’s coming from the water.”

  “It smells like the town’s sewer.”

  “You think the water is cursed?” Ronin eyed the fountain like he was about to kick it.

  “Maybe. But why would the pixies all come out at the same time for a drink? Especially when it smells like the town’s toilets? What about this water made them drink it?” It made no sense. A lot didn’t make sense. If the water was cursed, who cursed it and why? Why pixies?

  Whispers of dread crawled into my mind. “First there’s the dead werewolf Avi, and now this? Can’t be a coincidence.”

  Ronin’s brows reached his hairline. “You think they’re connected?”

  “It’s a possibility. Two strange and unexplained things happening in this town in two days. Something’s up. And I’m going to find out what.”

  “A witch with a plan,” said Ronin, and his face shifted with a sly delight. “I like that.”

  We were so enthralled with the pixies and the stinky water that by the time I heard the sound behind us, it was already too late.

  9

  From the shadows outside the light came a low hiss. With a surge of cold energy, cold magic, and a shimmering blur, a great serpent coalesced from the shadows.

  “Cauldron help us.” My skin erupted in goosebumps and I took a step back.

  At first, I thought it was a snake, a boa constrictor by its sheer size, that had probably eaten all its brothers and sisters, possibly its parents too. But then it sprouted four limbs with dark fur, ending in sharp claws like the legs of a grizzly bear. The beast was the size of a pony with a mouth full of yellow teeth and flaming amber eyes.

  “That is one ugly bastard,” laughed Ronin.

  “No shit.” I wasn’t fully versed in demons 101, but I made a mental note to read up on them as soon as I got home—if I survived. I had no real training and no idea which demon this was. Was it a lesser demon or a greater demon?

  The demon took a jerky step forward, like it was testing its new legs. Its head was swinging from side to side, low to the ground, and its gray forked tongue darted out from its large mouth as it smelled the pixies on the ground. It let out a strange, wet, bloodthirsty screech, as though it was thrilled at its newly found feast of sleeping pixies.

  One demon slipping through the wards was bad. Two, well, two was a gigantic problem of magnanimous proportions.

  A small gasp escaped me as the snake-bear demon snatched up two pixies and tore into them like it was munching on potato chips before grabbing another three.

  “Now that’s disturbing,” commented Ronin.

  Pixies could be a real menace sometimes, but they didn’t deserve to be eaten like this, espec
ially while unconscious and unable to defend themselves. If we didn’t do something quickly, the demon would eat all of them in a few minutes.

  My heart beat loudly and a sweat broke out all over my body. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Ronin. “Like run. I’m very good at running. And a lot of other things, but right now, running would be good.”

  My mind told me to run, but my legs seemed to be cemented into the ground. “No. We can’t leave them to die like this. It’s wrong.” Strange how the longer I stayed in this town, the more I sounded like my aunts and like a true member of the Merlin Group.

  “It’s survival,” answered the vampire. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t make the demon eat the pixies.”

  I braced myself for what I was about to ask. “Do you have Marcus’s number?” The thought of seeing the chief again brought bile up in my throat. Still, I figured this demon was way out of my league. The chief should deal with demons.

  Ronin gave me a look. “You want to call the dude who’s got a burr up his ass? Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You feelin’ all right?”

  “Look,” I said, my nerves and anger mixing in me to make me feel dizzy. “I’ve never dealt with a demon before. Have you?”

  Ronin’s eyes were wide. “What do I look like? Van Helsing? I’m soooo much better looking.”

  I didn’t have time to explain that Van Helsing was a fictional character who hunted vampires. “Do you have his number!”

  Ronin blinked and said, “Dial 911-hollow.”

  My brows rose in surprise, but I quickly drew my phone from my bag and dialed, hating how fast my heart was beating—and not because of the demon.

  “This is the chief,” said the voice on the other end of the line after two rings. The heavy background noise of an engine rumbling told me he was in his jeep. At least he was mobile, so he could get here sooner.