Witching Ways

by T K Eldridge

  T.K. Eldridge

  Witching Ways (Sid & Sin #4)

  First published by Graffridge Publishing 2021

  Copyright © 2021 by T.K. Eldridge

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  T.K. Eldridge asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  T.K. Eldridge has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  Editing by Donna A. Martz of Martzproofing.com

  Cover by Lizzie Dunlap of PixieCovers.com

  First edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  This one is for Donna A. Martz. I wouldn’t be here without you, my friend.

  Your skill is a gift and I’m grateful you share it.

  Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

  - William Jennings Bryan

  Foreword

  This is the fourth book in the Sid & Sin series. The first book, Induction, is free.

  The point of view shifts from one sibling to the other with each chapter change. Sin - Sinclair Boudreau and Sid - Sidonie Boudreau may be twins, but they are definitely two different people.

  Want to stay up to date on new releases and what’s coming next? Sign up for my newsletter here: https://tkeldridge.com/newsletter/

  Enjoy the story!

  -T.K. Eldridge

  Chapter One

  Sin

  When I imagined having children of my own, I hadn’t considered the reality of them being magical beings. I didn’t think about what my own parents had gone through with twins who showed magic early. Although, with my new baby brother, Rohan, my parents were getting to experience raising a magical child all over again. It wasn’t the same as with us, as Rohan seemed to lean much more strongly toward the shifter strain in his bloodline, while my daughter, Reina, definitely embraced her fae and witch side. So much so that we had to have my great-grandmother, the Queen of Faery, put a magical tattoo on her hip that allowed us to keep her from doing magic when we weren’t there to supervise.

  Something about the baby bassinet floating into the bathroom where Mira and I were, uh, relaxing, was a bit of an eye-opener. I didn’t sleep at all that night, thanks to visions of her floating out into the street or getting stuck in a tree. Being the parent of an infant is tough enough on the sleep schedule. Add terror regarding untamed magic and you’ll never ever sleep again.

  Now we had to be extra vigilant because of fluctuations in the ley lines. Magic was going screwy for all magic users, but in particular, witches. It had been doing the weird stuff months before Reina was born, so it wasn’t her fault. I hoped.

  “You need to sleep, Sin,” Mira said as she rested a hand on my shoulder. I sat on the padded seat below the window in our room where I could watch Reina sleep in the bassinet, and see down the road that led to our house.

  “I know. I start to drift off, and I imagine she’s floated out the window and into the forest, or something.”

  “She’s not had any incidents since Queen Margaret put the tattoo on her. It works. And you need to sleep so you can function,” Mira said. “Do you not trust the Queen’s magic?”

  Well, when she put it like that… “I do trust her magic. I think I’m just adjusting to the reality of a magical child. Did Ethan ever do anything magical when he was small?”

  “No, but then Ethan is pure Fae. He won’t show his gifts until closer to puberty.”

  “So, another five or six years for him, then. Good. Maybe I will sleep,” I said. “As long as I can keep you all safe, I’m good.”

  * * *

  I thought back on those words Mira and I had shared eight months ago as I sat in a briefing in the Supernatural Police Department’s Special Forces conference room. My great-grandfather, Liam Walsh, sat at the head of the table in his position as Commander of the SPD. Not just Belle Cove’s SPD, but the Commander of all of the SPD units in North America. He’d given over control of the South American units just a few months back, after making sure the upper levels of the SPD had been fully cleared of corruption. Hey, it’s kind of what you have to do when you’d been considered dead for fifteen years and the one you trusted turned it all into a nightmare.

  Anyway, the Commander and our hand-picked team had spent a lot of time cleaning up the mess my other grandfather, the late James Boudreau, had created. Now, I worked with my twin sister, Sidonie, who did intelligence and research for the team, often partnered with our tech wiz, Tino Morales. Tino’s sister, Tasha Campbell and another member, Ian Tieman, worked with me on the street. My aunt, Sett Fortin, used to do street work with us as well, but a few months back she’d returned from a working vacation in New Orleans with her granddaughter, Rosalyn, and her partner, Lucia. Now Sett and Lucia worked as instructors at the Academy so they could juggle work and take care of a baby – and not be in high risk positions while Rosie needed them. The benefits of a lifespan that lasted centuries meant you could shift career focus without risking the death of that career.

  “…and so I’d like you all to welcome Grizzel Leonidas as the newest member of the team.” The Commander’s words penetrated my tangle of thoughts and I looked up to see Grizz, the Aerie leader of the griffins and other mythics in the region.

  Each member rose and greeted Grizz with a polite head bow before we all sat once more.

  “Thank you for accepting me into your team. As some of you know, I’ve been with the SPD for a few decades now, but always undercover. Now that the mythics are returning and the griffins are back in the Aerie, I can come back to the surface and help,” Grizz said. “I can also be a resource for information from outside the area, since we went to West Virginia first, then Colorado, until we ended up settled in the Cascade mountain range in Washington state.”

  Tino’s voice came over the speaker in the middle of the table. “Welcome Grizzel, I’m Tino, the tech guy. We heard of your various nests, and that some stayed in those other places while the majority moved on. Having boots on the ground that can confirm some of our intel will be very useful, thank you.”

  “The return of the fae, and the collapse of the fae pocket realm sent shock waves globally. But that’s not the only reason we’re back. With magic becoming unstable and the ley lines changing vibration, having all four species together to work on reclaiming the balance is imperative,” Grizz said.

  “The imbalance started a year and half or more ago,” Ian said. “Why are you only now coming to the table?”

  “The Aerie here was in bad shape and needed some major cleaning and updating before it could house us once more. There was �
� I should say, there still is – a lot of mistrust among my people in regards to working with the fae,” Grizz said.

  “Because they used to consider mythics – griffins in particular – to be stock. Owned, traded, sold, much like used to be done to humans and witches with skin as dark as mine,” Tasha said.

  “Exactly that,” Grizz said. “It’s been a while, but we have long memories, and some of the fae still speak to us as if we were lesser beings.”

  “I’ve heard from the Queen that the sylphs are back as well,” the Commander said. “Roisin Murphy and her clan have taken up residence on one of the islands on the edge of the fae community. I’ll handle communication with her for now, as she is my late wife’s sister. Sid, I’d like you to come with me this afternoon to meet with her, so you can eventually take over that task.”

  I watched my sister squirm a bit, then nod.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be ready,” Sid said.

  “The last thing on the agenda is the increased number of assaults by witches on fae. We need to get ahead of this,” the Commander said. “The retaliation by the fae has been sporadic so far, but the Queen warns that the anger among her people is growing. If we want to stop this before it becomes an all out war between species, we need to step up our game. Grizz, I want you to work with Sin while Tasha and Ian team up. There are a stack of files on the table here. You four split them up and do what you can. Any questions, ask Sid and Tino. Dismissed.”

  I got to my feet and moved towards the pile on the table while Grizz spoke to the Commander off to the side. I still had a knee-jerk reaction that had me wondering if Grizz was disappointed in who he was partnered with, but I had known Grizz before, as one of my father’s friends. I had not known he was a griffin, just thought he was a regular shifter who preferred the bear form – which is how I’d seen him. Grizz was a rarer form of mythic who could shift into multiple forms. Not all could.

  “Did you get us our share?” Grizz asked, and startled me out of my daydream.

  “Uh, yeah. We get half, they got half,” I said.

  “Where do you want to go over them?” Grizz asked.

  “Well, back at my desk? It has a computer, so we can fact check, look up addresses, stuff like that.”

  “Sounds good. I’m going to grab a coffee on the way, want one?”

  “Please, just black is good. Thanks.” I headed down the hall to my office and cleared off my extra chair so Grizz had a place to sit. Then I moved a pile of paperwork to the top of the file cabinet and grabbed notebooks and the laptop. By the time he got to my door with the coffee, I had both chairs at the round table in the corner, and the tools we’d need to get to work all set up.

  “Hey, you move fast,” Grizz said and handed me a cup. “I do have a question, though,” he continued as he sat down. “Are you upset at being partnered with me?”

  I choked a bit on the swallow of coffee. “Not in the least. I thought you were upset at being partnered with me.”

  Grizz chuckled. “Yeah, I think we’re both still adjusting. You’ve got a perspective and a skill set I don’t have – and I have one you don’t – which is why Liam put us together. He’s one of the best cops I know, your grampa, so how about we trust him and do our best?”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, and we opened the first file.

  Two hours later, we’d gone through all twenty-something of the files and had a pretty good picture of how bad things were in our community. We moved the mess and sat down with our burgers and fries from Bubba’s, thanks to Sid, and we were both quiet for a few minutes.

  “I’ve been hearing about individual incidents,” I said, “But I wasn’t aware how widespread it had become. When viewed in bite-sized pieces, it’s not as clear, but it explains why Sid has been so insistent that we shore up the wards and use some non-magical defenses as well.”

  “Your sister is a brilliant researcher and has an amazing grasp of the intelligence angle when it comes to policing. If she told me to build a better fence, I’d definitely be doing it.”

  “I guess I just wanted to think that everyone could play nice and my family would be safe. I want to fix things, heal things, but the idea of another Species War makes me want to puke.”

  “That’s not how the world works, Sinclair,” Grizz said, his voice soft. “I know you’re young, but you’ve got a vulnerable family to tend to now. You’ve grown up being the one everyone had to protect and shield – now it’s your turn to be the shield. I get that you were all set to go to med school, and someday, I hope you can fulfill that dream. But right now? Right now, you need to be the brilliant warrior your family needs.”

  I didn’t want to hear his words, not then. I only wish I’d listened.

  Chapter Two

  Sid

  I’d spent the better part of the last year doing research and gathering intelligence. When you were a supernatural being, that had a whole added layer of diplomacy and history that just human intelligence gathering didn’t require. When the fountain at our family farm had blown up after trying to recharge it, I started to collect stories from people whose magic had been acting odd. I now had over a thousand instances of magic showing power surges, miscalculations, and outright failures. My grandparents all said it was because of ley line fluctuations and that it happens every now and then – but my instincts, and my research said differently. I needed to sit down with Grandma Maggie, but our schedules had not meshed and impatience was taking hold.

  “I’d like to drive myself to the docks, Commander,” I told my grandfather and boss. “I’d like to stay on the island and visit with Grandma Maggie before I come back.”

  “Does she know you’re coming?” the Commander asked.

  “I’ll call her on the way,” I said and we both got into our separate vehicles and got on the road.

  “Call Grandma Maggie,” I said to the bluetooth and I heard “calling Grandma Maggie” just before the phone chimed.

  “Hello, granddaughter. How are you this fine day?”

  “I’m good, Grandma. Grampa Walsh and I are on the way to the island where the sylphs are residing. I’d like to stop and visit with you after we meet with them, if you’ve got time?”

  “I will make time, Siddie. I’m usually the one coming to you, so this is a treat. Besides, I know you’ve been trying to get time with me for a couple of weeks now. Things have quieted down a bit so I can make sure I’ve got time for you.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a pest, but you’re the best person I can think of to bring this to and get a viable answer. I’ll call you when the boat leaves the outer isle to bring us to the main island.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll see you in a bit. Bye, darling.”

  The call disconnected and I allowed myself a smile. My grandma was pretty awesome, all things considered.

  The trip out to the islands still impressed me, even though this was far from my first time out. Just a little over a year ago, these islands were uninhabited places that some locals liked to use for camping, or kids for partying. Then the pocket realm that the fae lived in began to collapse in earnest, and Grandma Maggie worked with many others to bring the realm out of the pocket and settled it on these islands. Magic and engineering had created a cluster of islands where the fae now lived. Many had moved onto the mainland and taken up residence in Belle Cove proper, or Sorsyville, the next town over, but most stayed on the isles. Some of the islands were tied together with bridges, but one still needed a boat to get to the islands at all, and to get from the main island to some of the outlying areas. We took the regular ferry over to the main island, then caught a shuttle boat that would carry us out to the island the sylphs had settled on.

  “They will seem different, when you first meet them,” Grampa said. “But don’t mistake their flighty behavior for a lack of intelligence or insight.”

  “Understood.”

  “Also, Roisin and my Bride were not close. They competed in everything.”

  “So, expect a flig
hty, vicious bitch with an agenda. Got it,” I replied and Grampa burst out laughing.

  “You’re quick, I’ll give you that,” he said and put an arm around me to hug me to his side.

  We got off the boat and three women were on the dock to meet us.

  “A pleasure to see you again, Roisin,” Grampa said as he approached the woman with long red hair done up in complicated braids.

  “I wish I could say the same, Liam,” Roisin replied. She looked past him to me, and one slender brow arched. “So this is my sister’s descendant.”

  “One of them,” I said. “Nice to meet you, Great-Grand-Auntie.”

  Her smile disappeared, and she turned back to Grampa. “Manners are lacking, I see.”

  “No, ma’am. You’re my great-grandmother’s sister – so you’re my great-grand aunt. Calling you just ‘auntie’ would be an insult as it does not speak to the years of power you hold,” I said. I could see Grampa’s lips twitch, but he held his smile.

  “I suppose,” Roisin said. “The way you humans track generations means nothing to us. We are all ageless and powerful.”

  “I’m not human,” I replied, chin lifted. “I’m of all four bloodlines. Fae, witch, shifter, and mythic. Which you well know, as I sent over the data myself so you would know who we were and permit us past your protections.” I turned to my grandfather. “We’ve met. I’m ready to go. Queen Maggie is waiting for me.”

  That settled her mood right quick. Apparently, Auntie Roisin had forgotten I was the Queen’s great-granddaughter as well.

  “It has been an honor to meet you, Princess and niece,” Roisin replied with a slight curtsy. “Perhaps the next time you come to the isles, we can have tea and some time for a conversation?”

  “Sure, Auntie. See ya.” I got back on the boat and Grampa gave the ladies a faint nod of his head before he joined me.