by Gina LaManna
The Undercover Witch
The Undercover Witch
Copyright: Gina LaManna
ISBN: XXXX
Published: January 1st, 2017
Kindle Edition
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Acknowledgments
To those who believe in magic.
** ** ** **
Special Thanks:
To my family—For an extra extra awesome 2016. I can’t wait for next year! Happy New Year!
To Alex—For making 2016 so special, and to making 2017 even cozier and even funner! я тебя люблю!
To Connie Leap—For making “Adventures with Ainsley” a possibility! We had a blast!
To Stacia—For loving Ainsley as much as (if not more!) than me.
To Caitlin—For helping to make Ainsley shine like the star that she is!
To Joy—The happiest of birthdays to you!
To my Oceans Apart ladies—To another year together!
To Janet Holmes, my awesome cover designer.
And last but not least, to all my family and friends, thanks for making me laugh.
Table of Contents
Contents
The Undercover Witch
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
The End
Author’s Note
Synopsis
My mother says trouble began the day I was born, but I’d disagree. I think trouble started the day I crashed my broomstick into an undercover cop car.
My name is Ainsley Shaw, and I’m a Guardian Witch. The title sounds fancier than it is—really, I’m a glorified bodyguard for magical people. I love my job, and I’m good at it…most days.
Except today. While I was flying around town on my broomstick thinking about life, love, and the latest episode of The Bachelor, I zoned out and ran smack dab into the taillights of a speeding vehicle. Unfortunately, the man inside was a human detective, which made explaining how I appeared out of thin air in the middle of a crime scene a bit of a challenge.
Now, the police think I’m trouble—not least of all Detective Hotterson, the one responsible for denting my shiny new broomstick. If I can’t find the real bad guys before I’m put in jail, I’ll be locked away for a crime I didn’t commit.
However, when magic is involved, things are never as simple as they appear…
Chapter 1
It’d been far, far too long since I’d flown under the stars, the moonlight washing over the world below while I sailed high above the streets.
A simple Invisibility Incantation allowed me to blend in with the inky black of night, ensuring that any stray humans up late would see nothing more than a wisp of air as I sailed past their open windows.
Feeling especially daring, I dipped deeper into the trees, skirting much closer to the street than normal. My broomstick was fast—really, really fast. It’d been a gift from my boss, the director at MAGIC, for a recent job well done, and had come with instructions to use it wisely. Then he’d laughed because we both knew wise was not in my vocabulary.
MAGIC—of MAGIC, Inc.—is an acronym that stands for Magical Agents and Guardians Investigative Committee. I work for the Guardian team, which means I’m basically a bodyguard for paranormal folks. It’s my job to ensure the safety of any given target for the duration of the allotted assignment.
Meanwhile, the Agent branch of MAGIC acts as the paranormal version of the police. There’s a rivalry between the two branches, and it goes without saying that Agents are loud, obnoxious, and cocky, while the Guardian team is polished, intelligent, and fabulous. Obviously, I chose the better branch. I followed in my dad’s footsteps, and I never looked back.
In fact, I’d just completed a monster-sized assignment. After handing over my latest target, a cute little witch by the name of Lily Locke, I was flying high, in all senses of the phrase. I’d just wrapped up the mountain of paperwork that went along with a successfully completed mission, and now I was a free bird until MAGIC handed me a new assignment.
I sailed past a bunch of cheap apartments, heading toward the ritzy area of town. The house at the end of the block was the biggest, the most extravagant, the most beautiful of all. It sparkled like a castle, and I wondered for the thousandth time who could possibly afford the luxury.
As far as I knew, the owner preferred to remain anonymous. I’d heard legend on the street that it belonged to the Frost King—the ruler of the north—but as far as I was concerned, it was nothing more than a rumor. I’d never seen nor heard of the house being occupied, yet still, it remained beautifully decorated and exquisitely maintained.
As I circled the moat around the enormous estate, my mind drifted to the party I’d just left. Not only had I completed my largest assignment yet, but it was my birthday the next day, and my coworkers had thrown me a party. The broom had been my birthday present from the boss man. Though the party itself had been mediocre, a certain someone had made it better than average—a certain someone named Ace.
Ace and I had been flirting for years. I’d always thought he’d looked at me like a little sister, but then things had changed earlier that evening. For the first time in history, he’d almost kissed me.
My body tingled head to toe at the memory, and I drifted lower and lower toward the streets. Ace ran the most successful speakeasy in town, the only place safe to throw magical events in the Twin Cities area. Years of flirting had finally, finally turned into something more—almost. I closed my eyes at the memory of Ace leaning in, smelling of spice and sugar and all things nice, his lips—
Screeeeech!
A thud followed the screech, and before I could process the car slamming into me, I landed on the ground sprawled in an unflattering, spread-eagle position. My face licked the cement as I gripped the broomstick tightly in my fist. I suspected my butt waved freely in the air,
but I was too stunned to check.
Fighting to keep my eyes open, I took deep breaths. My concentration had been shattered when my head smacked the ground, which was problematic for one big, fat reason. Without my full concentration, I couldn’t maintain the Invisibility Incantation. Peeling one eye open, I looked down at myself and realized that sure enough, my spell was broken. I had become visible to witches and humans alike.
Forcing my other eye open and ignoring the pounding in my head, I came face to face with a set of amber eyes peering back at me. The color was so clear, so strong—it was like gazing into a pool of brandy.
“Are you okay?” Worry clouded the man’s stunning eyes. “Where did you come from? I am so, so sorry, I didn’t see you at all.”
He said all the right words, but his voice was laced with doubt—and rightly so. After all, it wasn’t his fault I’d been drifting too low in the streets and ran myself right into a moving vehicle, let alone doing so while I was invisible.
Pulling myself to a sitting position, I rested my head in my hands. It took a moment for the stars to fade, but when I glanced up, even those gorgeous golden eyes couldn’t distract me from the sight over his shoulder.
Lights. Flashing lights. Blue and red flashing lights.
I swallowed. “You’re with the police?”
He nodded, and I swore under my breath.
“Excuse me?” Those amber eyes glinted in amusement. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
“I said that’s fantastic.” I forced a smile. Then, without wasting any more time, I hauled myself to my feet and straightened my party robes. They happened to be black and frilly and spray-painted with sparkles. Robes didn’t grow on trees and neither did money, so it’d been a homemade craft project. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Policeman.”
“So where did you come from?” Mr. Policeman turned to me, crossing a pair of tanned, muscular arms across an even bigger, even more solid-looking chest. “And why are you holding a broomstick?”
“Um…” I cleared my throat and clutched said broomstick to my chest. “No reason.”
It was difficult to think straight when I’d just bounced my skull off the ground like a basketball, and it didn’t help that the man in front of me resembled Hercules in human form. “I’m Detective Wesley Beck,” he said. “And you are?”
“I’m nobody important,” I said, forgetting his name just as quickly as he’d said it. It was too distracting trying to lie to a man who resembled a Greek god.
“No name?” He stifled a smirk. “Then may I ask where you’re coming from?”
“I came from…” I paused. “A party.”
“A costume party?” he asked.
“How’d you guess?” I laid on the sarcasm and did a twirl. “These are my party robes. I wear them all the time.”
He snorted. “Right.”
I shook my head. Then I got a little frustrated. Why was it that some girls got a Prince Charming—a handsome stud who’d sweep them off their feet all gentle and romantic-like—while I was stuck with Mr. Prince-in-Flashing-Police-Lights—a man who swooped the feet right out from underneath me and didn’t bother to catch me when I fell?
I rubbed my elbow. “Ow,” I said pointedly. “I think you should apologize.”
“I said I’m sorry,” the cop repeated, his eyes fighting back amusement. “Let me take you to the hospital. On the way, you can explain how you move around so…swiftly.”
I yanked my broomstick closer as he surveyed it in the same way I surveyed ice cream buffets. “Maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you should’ve been paying attention.”
“I was paying extremely close attention.” He stepped closer, his eyes almost otherworldly, piercing in their stare. Mere inches from me, he let his gaze travel from the tips of my colorful hair down to the bottom of my sparkling robes. His breath smelled like spearmint and spice, and I would have bet if I’d leaned another inch forward, his lips would have been soft as velvet when they touched mine.
Taking a step back, I shook myself. I wasn’t the type of girl to fantasize about boys, not with my job. At my day job, I was one of the guys. My love life consisted of Harry Potter, also known as my blowfish. Even though I was a witch myself, I loved those books more than anything, and I sort of wished I had an owl named Hedwig instead of a blowfish named Harry.
“A costume party, huh?”
I nodded.
“Whose party?”
I mumbled a response—a response that happened to be the name of my aforementioned fish.
“Did you say Harry?” He coughed, then nodded at my robe. “I should’ve guessed. The kid wizard?”
“Boy wizard.”
I looked over his shoulder, more concerned with the action happening at the mansion down the road. Not one, not two, but at least six or maybe even ten cop cars had joined the first policemen on the street, lighting up the swanky area with blue, red, and white lights.
The entire lineup of cars swerved to a stop in front of the famous mansion. I watched as the gates out front opened for the first time in ages and let the policemen inside.
From where I stood, the mansion resembled a castle straight out of the wonderful world of Disney. Lights lined the outside, and the landscaped lawn spanned acres of close-cropped grass slathered with fancy rosebushes and blossoming fountains.
“What’s happening here?” I asked, sidling up shoulder to shoulder with Detective Hotterson. He wore gray dress pants and a black button-down shirt, no sign of a uniform, and no sign of a nametag, either. The latter was unfortunate because I couldn’t remember what he’d said to call him, probably because I’d been distracted by staring a little too deeply into his eyes.
He glanced down at his shirt, sighed, and then brushed a splotch of glitter from his shoulder. “I think it’s time for you to get going.”
“You seemed so keen to talk before.”
“If you’d like to keep talking, we can do so down at the station later this evening. Maybe then you can tell me where you really were tonight because I don’t think it was a costume party, and I don’t think it was my lack of paying attention to the road that caused us to collide.”
I held my breath as he turned to face me.
“I’d love to find out some answers,” he murmured, shaking his head as he shot a bewildered look at my robes. “Because I have so many questions.”
“Never mind, I think we’ve chatted enough,” I said. Glancing one last time over my shoulder at the estate, which was now crawling with cops, I gave my nosiness one last shot. “I wouldn’t want to take you away from the…murder?”
He shook his head. “Nice try, but I’m not giving any information out.”
“What a bummer about the…robbery?”
Another head shake.
“The…” I paused. “I’m really running out of ideas here, so if you feel like tossing your hat into the ring, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
He winked, leaned close enough to whisper a secret into my ear, and then pulled back and scrunched up his nose. “Nah, I’ll let you keep guessing.”
“But what about—”
“On second thought, what if you and I got together for that chat at the station? I find it quite suspicious that a female carrying a potential weapon was found only blocks away from a crime scene, unable to explain her state of appearance. What was your name, again?”
“My state of appearance?” I said, trying to cut back on the offended tone. “Do you have a problem with my robes?”
His eyebrows shot up. “What is your name, ma’am?”
I huffed. “You are frustrating. Are all policemen like you?”
“I’m one of a kind, honey. Now, if I could just get a bit of information from you…”
I narrowed my eyes on him. “Honey?”
He opened his mouth, and I had no doubt that little smirk of his meant he was about to test me again when his radio crackled a name. Detective Hotterson turned away from me with one last contemplative stare.
>
By the time he’d taken two steps and glanced back, I was gone.
Chapter 2
Okay, so that’s a bit of a lie. I wasn’t gone completely, but I had managed to gather enough concentration to perform an Invisibility Incantation. A few steps later, I broke into a jog and took off on my functional-though-slightly-dented broomstick.
My journey toward home lasted only for a second, however, before my curiosity won out, and I swiveled back.
Cutting a tiny bit closer than I needed to, I accidentally ran my fingers through the detective’s hair as I skimmed over him. He raised a hand and scratched his head, glancing up into the sky. He still wore an annoyed expression, and I probably hadn’t helped his mood by vanishing.
I bypassed the gates to the estate with ten feet to spare, circling far, far around the moat as I hesitated, waiting for something, anything, to tip me off to the presence of magic. Usually, I could feel it in the air; at that moment, however, I was getting nothing. Zip, zero, zilch.
The sensation of magic was impossible to explain, though someone had once said it was like the idea of “smelling snow” or “sensing a storm brewing”. Everyone understands it, but nobody can spell it out. Magic is like that, too—a feeling deep inside, somewhere in the vicinity of that thing people call a soul, or emotions, or a heart.
The windows of the castle were brightly lit. Though we were in a suburb near the capital of Minnesota, the house had been there for ages, and it didn’t garner much attention anymore. The current owners were reclusive, tucked away in their home, their identities kept private.
Then, in the shadows of the backlit windows, I saw it: a figure, slight in nature, most likely a female form. The movement didn’t last but a second, a brief flash in an upstairs hallway, and then it was gone. Someone was upstairs.
Voices rose in the air from the front hallway, startling me from my frozen position, but the humans weren’t saying anything interesting, so I took advantage of their inane conversation to swerve around the upstairs windows several more times. Nothing. Whoever had been moving around had stilled; the shadow was gone.
