by Raven Snow
“Spooky Moves”
Supernatural Witch Cozy Mystery
Harper "Foxxy" Beck Series Book 8
Raven Snow
© 2016
Raven Snow
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. If you have not purchased this book from Amazon or received it directly from the author you are reading a pirated copy. If you have downloaded an illegal copy of this book & enjoyed it, please consider purchasing a legal copy. Your respect & support encourages me to continue writing & producing high quality books for you. Copyright 2016 Raven Snow.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover images are licensed stock photos, images shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are models.
Edition v1.00 (2016.10.22)
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Dedicated to Tamara, thanks so much for the support.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
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
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
I rolled into the funeral like hell on wheels. Only in my case, it was more like a witch on wheels—well, a non-practicing one anyway.
Immediately, people turned around in their seats to peer at me. There were mixed reactions to my too short black dress, now covered in too much sweat. The town of Waresville took in my lackluster appearance, complete with roller skates that I’d pulled out of my trunk when my old bug had stopped in its tracks a couple miles from the church. One by one, the townspeople shrugged, chalking it up to the Harper Beck syndrome and returned their gazes to the front of the church.
Luckily, my family was seated near the back, so I didn’t have to roll too far. Wyatt Bennett, my fiancé and a detective for the local law enforcement, smiled at me. His icy eyes made my insides all warm and tingly. His brown hair was slightly grown out from its usual military style cut, and his skin was a little darker because it was just starting to get warm again. Not that it actually got very cold in Northern Florida.
“You made an entrance, as always,” Wyatt whispered into my ear.
His closeness made my skin feel tight, and I was suddenly sorry we were in front of a crowd and in a church. Neither of those hindrances would have stopped me, but Wyatt’s a little shy with his affections in front of crowds and God himself.
“Cooper will be sorry he missed this,” he continued.
Cooper, Wyatt’s eleven-year-old son, was already sulky about missing the event of the social season, but Wyatt figured he was a little young to go to funerals for men he didn’t even know. When I was Cooper’s age, I’d crashed lots of funerals. They were usually a great place to get a little free air conditioning and food—things I didn’t have enough of at home.
But that was ancient history, and I focused on the gloomy present. At least, it was gloomy for those who had liked the late Geoffrey Tucker, also known as G.T., a mortician born and raised in Waresville who’d been in Tennessee for the past decade. As not very many could be included in that column, there were a lot of dry eyes in the tacky little church.
The preacher went on with his sermon, highlighting the very long and very boring life of G.T. From what I could tell, the man hadn’t done anything of interest in over half a century. Finding myself blinking more and more, I rested my head on Wyatt's shoulder, sighing and wondering again why I was there.
After the funeral, the town stuck around for the social event of the season: gossip over some stale cookies and a whole lot of the blood of Christ. I'd sworn to myself I wouldn't drink at any more funerals after a few notable instances, but after listening to the high pitched keening of Melanie Gross, my longtime nemesis, I succumbed to the desire to kick back a little wine.
"Stroke in his sleep," I said to Wyatt, staring at the plaster-like face of the mortician in his coffin. "The man didn't even die with a bang."
From the back, I couldn’t see much of the body except his girth and a strange red staining around his mouth. It was bright as hell, and I wondered idly if they’d put lipstick on the dead mortician.
Wyatt pressed his lips to my forehead, saying, "We can't all be Harper Beck."
Despite the light words, my fiancé was distracted. His eyes weren't completely on me. They were darting around the church with obvious discomfort. Usually you can rely on Wyatt to stay cool as a cucumber. It's part of what makes him such an amazing detective, and an amazing partner for me, the hothead. He was decidedly ruffled tonight, but I knew he wouldn't appreciate me bringing it up in front of all these people.
Of course, there are a lot of things I do for which Wyatt is less than grateful.
"Is it Vic?" I asked, referring to my best female friend who had just decided to join the Waresville police and had been assigned to Wyatt. "You can't take her wardrobe malfunctions so seriously. Everyone has nipples. Who cares if they're out in the open or behind closed blouses?"
He didn't smile, which made me frown. That was funny, damn it.
Before I could grill him on his sudden mood change, a man in a deep blue cape swept up to us. His New Orleans accent was deep and luscious, his eyes roaming the crowd for potential bedmates even as he spoke to me.
"They're sleeping together," Oliver Belafonte said to me, nodding at my grandmother and the owner of the local hardware store, Hardie. They were sitting in the back, Hardie as cheerful as could be and Gran—well, no one had ever accused her of being too cheerful. Tonight, however, she almost looked downright normal. Like an old woman who didn't cook children in giant ovens and curse the local newlyweds with infertility.
"I'm not listening," I told Oliver, looking away before I could meet my Gran's eyes.
Our relationship was complicated. She didn't like that I spent my life at the disco skate handed down to me by her late son, and she really didn't like that I didn't practice magic—much, anyway. Besides that, we were like oil and water. Or, more accurately, we were like a no nonsense old lady and her very pro-nonsense granddaughter.
&nbs
p; "Everyone is getting laid but me," Oliver pouted. Wyatt chose that moment to move away towards a coworker. It wasn't that he didn't like Oliver; it was that he didn't like when Oliver and I got together because we usually ended up in the local jail cell by the end of the night.
"Can't you think of anything else?"
"What fun would that be?"
He had a point there.
Our playful banter was cut short when a crowd that had been blocking our view of the cemetery moved from the window. Neither of us were the type to balk at mass graves, but the woman standing in the cemetery was enough to make even me shift uncomfortably.
Collapsed next to a fresh headstone was a small, gruff looking woman of Asian descent. Her body was curled in on itself and it shook with silent sobs. I turned away after a bare second of watching her, Oliver only lasting a moment longer.
"Poor thing," Oliver said in a rare moment of empathy.
But then, Leah Anthony, a new widow, had been stirring the rarely affected town for weeks. In a place that advertised as the spookiest town in the south, citizens were mostly immune to the sadness of death. In Leah's case, her grief was strong enough to make even my grandma wince in sympathy. And she'd seen her fair share of death.
Like the people before us, we moved away from the window. Raw emotion is hard for me to stomach. I prefer using sarcasm to express myself. When that doesn't work, I set the occasional fire. Very cathartic.
Not long after we left the grieving widow to her death watch, Oliver had to do his own version of a disappearing act when one of his many vengeful ex-lovers popped up. In a true show of friendship, I distracted the guy long enough for Oliver to slip out the back door to the church. Unfortunately, that left me with an upset human to deal with.
“Why didn’t he call?” the man with very white teeth blubbered. In the back of my mind I had the suspicion his name was Bill or something equally bland.
“Maybe his phone broke,” I said politely, giving manners a try.
“Do you think so?”
“No.”
The conversation went downhill from that point on, and I soon had to make myself as scarce as Oliver. Luckily, I had a strapping young detective who was more than willing to be my excuse. Still, even Wyatt’s twinkling eyes and spuriously good humor couldn’t light up the funeral—which, apart from the free food, was really a dud.
“Make sure there’s a disco ball and strobe lights at my funeral,” I told Wyatt on our way out.
“I’ll make note.”
With the bug somewhere down the road leaking noxious, black smoke, Wyatt and I started through the cemetery towards his squad car. Unlike mine, it ran consistently and never had loud, groovy music blasting from the speakers.
My foot connected with a slightly raised headstone, and after recovering my balance, I was hyper-aware of where I was. Being the supernatural hotspot Waresville was, the town had more than its share of cemeteries. Only one of them, however—this one—housed my father’s remains.
But it wasn’t my ghosts that caught up with us that night. It was Wyatt’s.
Just as we were bounding up the last hill before the parking lot, I realized we weren’t alone. We’d left the mourning Leah in our dust a mile go, and the figure in the distance was far taller and more muscular than any woman—even a factory worker.
I tapped on Wyatt’s arm, cutting off our shared laughter by pointing at the figure that seemed to stand just far enough away that I couldn’t get a good look at him. Wyatt stiffened beside me, going paler than I’d ever seen him.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
Grabbing my arm, he shook his head and dragged me along towards the car. I frowned but followed, taking frequent glances at the man. Being just as nosy as me Wyatt knew everyone in town. I glanced back again, and the man was gone.
Almost tripping over my feet in surprise, I made a little strangled noise at the back of my throat. After that, it was me dragging Wyatt to the car, locking the doors twice for good measure, and egging my beau to speed off into the night, back to the safety of our Victorian style home.
Wyatt practically raced up the stairs, leaving me frowning in his wake. I was usually the closed-mouth one, but it seemed our roles were reversed for the time being. Unfortunately, Wyatt had all kinds of experience coaxing things out of me, but I had no such experience with him.
There was no time to ponder my plan of attack, however, because a sulky eleven-year-old came thumping down the stairs, shooting daggers at me with his eyes. The dramatics of youths are truly inspiring.
Rolling my eyes, I followed Wyatt’s smaller, carbon copy into the kitchen. He went for the chocolate cereal that made me gag, and I lunged for the leftover pizza—God’s gift to us mere mortals.
“You didn’t miss anything,” I said between bites. “It was a snooze fest.”
“I don’t see why I couldn’t go.”
“I’ll take you to the next funeral. Promise.”
We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, both of us chowing down on our unhealthy food. Cooper, unlike most children, was actually quite interesting and mature for his age. I always joked with Wyatt that I was only with him so I could hang out with Cooper.
When I looked up from my slice, I realized the kid was staring at the bright green engagement ring around my finger. I shifted a little, about to open my mouth and say something—what, I had no idea—when the phone rang.
Cooper and I shared a look. The phone never rang with good news.
“Bennett residence, Harper Beck speaking,” I said in my sweetest voice, just on the off chance it was my future mother-in-law calling. I should have known better; she always shows up unannounced. Like the devil.
Instead, it was my large bouncer Jeb.
“Miss Harper,” he said a little breathlessly. “You’ve got to come down to the rink.”
“Is there another body strapped to the floor? Because I’m already in my comfy clothes, and they’ll hopefully still be dead in the morning.”
There was a loud bang, like something falling to the ground, and Jeb gasped. Very little scared the ex-convict. Probably because he had at least twenty pounds on most fully grown grizzly bears.
The animals of the house were waiting for me at the door, looking worried. Biscuit, the large, sandy colored dog whined at me, nodding at the door. It was a very human gesture, which would have surprised any onlooker that didn’t know Biscuit was a werewolf.
Whale, on the other hand, fluffed his orange fur in a very cat-like manner, but he wasn’t a normal cat. Though I chose to not actively practice magic, I’d still managed to stumble onto my familiar, an animal whose magical power complemented and boosted my own.
Both of the “animals” had saved my life or someone close to me at some time or other, so they’d earned their right to stay under my roof—much to Wyatt’s chagrin. He hated fur on the furniture.
“You both stay here,” I said to the pets, edging past them to the door. When Cooper rounded the corner, opening his mouth, I continued, “All of you are staying here.”
“What am I supposed to do until you get back?” He put his hands on his hips in a very Harper move that made the corner of my mouth twitch.
“Finish your cereal and play with some matches or something,” I said. “There’s also some exposed wiring behind the TV. Go nuts.”
The Funky Wheel, my father’s gift to me, was in the very heart of Waresville. It’d been a church, once upon a time. The only real change made to the outside was that the stained glass windows had been blacked out and a large, service window that led to the office had been placed so people could pay before entering.
Though it was during prime business hours—for a disco skate—the closed sign was up. Likely Jeb had sent everyone packing when whatever had spooked him had showed up. There was really no guessing as to what that could be. We’d had everything from werewolves to murder victims visit our humble abode.
The purple carpeting was as damaged as ever wh
en I stepped through the door, clashing nicely with the darker, purple half wall that enclosed the peach colored rink. On the other side of the short wall was the dining area, which consisted of some booths and a fully decked out concession stand.
Everything was dirty and in a state of disrepair, but I’d inherited it like that. It wasn’t until I turned towards the DJ’s corner—a literal corner—that I saw the reason for the bang I’d heard over the phone. I made the same gasping, strangled noise Jeb had and rushed over.
All the expensive sound equipment had been knocked over. Sparks were flying all over the place, and there was no funky music to be heard. None of that spelled good things for my wallet.
The only thing left untouched was the hideous record player that had been left over from my father’s days. I’d left it less out of sentimentalism and more because no one without an industrial crane could lift the thing.
Pinching my nose, I said through my teeth, “What happened?”
Jeb, formidable in his size and hard face, seemed to shrink before my eyes. “I don’t know, Miss Harper.”
“It’s Foxxy at work,” I corrected automatically, though my stage name was the farthest thing from my mind just then.
“Right. Miss Foxxy,” he said meekly. “Equipment just started flying! Like invisible hands were doing the damage.”
Or ghostly hands, I thought with a shudder.
“I tried to hold the equipment down.” He shook his head mournfully. “I’m so sorry, Miss Foxxy.”
I noticed his hands, then, which resembled pieces of hamburger meat, there were so many cuts on them. Dragging him over to the bar, I sat my bouncer down and ran to get the first-aid kit. He protested the whole time about needing to call someone to try and save the speakers, but I cared a lot more about Jeb than I did some sound machine. Even if it was a very expensive sound machine.
