Jinx & Tonic (The Magic & Mixology Mystery Series Book 3)

by Gina LaManna

  “Wait, Zin,” I called, padding down the stairs after her. She didn’t slow down, so I moved in front and forced her to stop. “It’s not your fault, you have to know that.”

  Zin looked over her shoulder to where Poppy leaned against the doorframe. “I see the red mark on your head, Poppy. Is that from where I hit you, or is that where your head hit the floor?”

  My insides twisted in distress. “Stop it.”

  “Take me away, X,” Zin said through gritted teeth. “For everyone’s safety. They were right all along. I was never cut out to be a Ranger.”

  My heart broke at the finality in her words. For so long, for years and years, she’d been hoping, praying, training for this opportunity. And now it was gone, washed away through no fault of her own. Zin hadn’t lost the battle; it’d destroyed her from the inside out.

  Ranger X exhaled a breath, but as always, he kept his mouth shut. Ever the professional, he raised a hand to her back, guided her forward. “After the events of today, I’ve made the decision to cancel the Trials. Until we’ve gotten to the bottom of this, there will be no new Rangers.”

  My fists clenched by my sides. Nobody—on this island, or the mainland, or in this entire universe—would destroy my cousin’s dreams. As Ranger X led her away like a prisoner, I shook my head, the anger boiling inside.

  “Come on,” I said to anyone listening. “Let them go. We have work to do.”

  CHAPTER 24

  An hour later, Mimsey had come and gone. I’d sent Poppy with her mother to fetch Trinket. Zin’s mother needed to hear the news from us—her own family. Mimsey and Poppy would bring Trinket back, and we could break the news to her here.

  This plan had the added benefit of forcing Poppy and Mimsey out of the house—they’d need to keep an eye on Trinket’s six other kids for the night, leaving Hettie’s house free for a meeting of The Core.

  “Have you called the others?” I murmured to Hettie.

  “I’ll send Tiger to retrieve the gang.” Hettie stood in the kitchen in her purple velour tracksuit, curlers still in her hair. She looked like she’d come from the beauty salon, not an assassination attempt. “Where is that cat?”

  “What you told me a few weeks back, Hettie…” I stepped closer to my grandmother, impressed at her nonchalance. “All that stuff about the target on your head. Is that what this is about?”

  Hettie patted her curlers and grinned. “Well, with a head this darn gorgeous, it’s no wonder people are out for it. I’d put a target on it, too.”

  “Hettie. . . ” My voice held a warning note.

  “What, Lily?” She turned, planting a hand on her hip. “Do you have a problem with my attitude?”

  “No, but—”

  “Would you rather I just curl up and die?” She crossed her arms. “I have limited years left on this earth, and if you think I’m going to spend them cowering under my bed, then you’re mistaken. Learn to laugh when others will cry, darling, and nobody will ever be able to faze you.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, I just thought that we needed to be serious here. Someone tried to kill you.”

  “Yes, they did. And now I have a choice. I can let life control me, or I can grab life by the cojones and be a boss.” Hettie uncrossed her arms and twirled around the kitchen. “I choose to be a boss.”

  Hettie made a few strange mewing noises, and in an instant Tiger appeared at her feet. She reached down, scratched his ears, and hissed at the cat.

  “Are you talking to a cat?” I asked.

  “Of course not.” Hettie stood up and gave me a look like I was the lunatic. “You sure are gullible, though—should’ve seen the look on your face. Here you go, Tiger. Get the others.” She handed the cat a few treats.

  Tiger took an uninterested sniff and then walked away, tail in the air.

  “She doesn’t like me much,” Hettie said. “But she’s a smart one.”

  “How does she understand you?”

  “I’ll teach you when you’re older. For now, what do you say to pancakes?”

  “I think we should focus on business.”

  “I am,” Hettie said. “Pancakes are serious business.”

  I sighed.

  “Stop your sighs! How do you expect to fight the bad guys if you have no energy? Sleep and pancakes, my dear. The secrets to success.”

  Ainsley wandered into the kitchen then and grinned. “Did I hear pancakes?”

  “Fine,” I said, mostly to avoid wasting an argument on this. “Trinket’s on her way here. We have to get her in and out before Gus and the others arrive.”

  “What’s the plan?” Ainsley asked.

  She’d utilized the break in action to shower and change, something I needed desperately after our jaunt through The Forest. However, I was too wired to stand still under a stream of water, so I settled for pacing around the kitchen while Hettie whipped up some batter.

  The doorbell rang, a resounding reverberation that almost shattered my eardrums.

  “That dumb bell is loud enough to wake the dead,” Hettie said, surprisingly cheerful. “I hate that thing, but I suppose if I had died tonight, I wouldn’t have stayed dead for long. That thing can rouse zombies.”

  I sucked in a breath. “Hettie!”

  Ainsley, however, covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

  I shook my head at the both of them and left to answer the door. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed Ainsley was the one related to Hettie.

  I pulled open the heavy front door, leaning all my body weight into it. It was so heavy I wondered how Hettie managed to do it with her eighty pounds of sass and sagginess—her words, not mine.

  “Trinket,” I said, greeting my aunt with a delicate tone. She stood on the front steps holding a single lily bloom in her hands. My spine stiffened, chills running down my back. “What is that? Where did you get it?”

  “Is it for you?” she growled. “I nearly tripped over it on the front steps here. It would have served you right if I squashed the thing to bits. Where’s my mother? I’ve talked to her about not leaving things on the floor, she’s going to break her hip, and all her responsibilities will land on me. . . ”

  Trinket shoved the flower impatiently into my hands and stomped toward the kitchen, grumbling about her “crazy mother” and Hettie’s “lack of thoughtfulness.”

  I forgot about following Trinket into the kitchen and instead moved outside. I left the door open a crack, the sounds of Trinket and her mother arguing filtering through the small opening.

  Underneath the moonlight, the white petals of the lily glinted strong, ethereal in its glow. I scanned the yard, but nothing moved. Even the wind had died down, the stillness overpowering. I looked toward The Twist, suddenly hit hard by Zin’s absence. She was gone, led away like a prisoner. And with her, Ranger X.

  The sense of loneliness nearly brought me to my knees. I had Hettie and Ainsley inside, and Trinket, too. Even so, the secrets I was keeping weighed me down, held me underwater as if I were drowning.

  Collapsing onto the front step, I sucked in air, but my chest struggled to expand properly. Breathing was a chore. My fingers clenched the stem of the lily flower so hard I nearly broke it in half.

  Forcing myself to take long, slow, breaths, I released the stem from my grasp and set the flower on the ground. It stood out against the richness of the jungle green grass. All around me the night seemed to come alive. Insects buzzed, birds flapped their wings and called softly to one another. Leaves danced on their branches, trees bent and swayed over the gurgle of the pond.

  The sounds of nature eased my breathing and calmed my worries. By the time I could think again, it was clear that nobody else was around. Whoever had left the flower on the front steps had dropped it off and disappeared. It was a message, just like the first lily I’d found in the storeroom.

  But how the messenger had gotten through The Twist was an entirely new question. A person needed West Isle Witch blood to navigate the
maze, or they needed to use the doorbell. As far as I knew, Hettie hadn’t had visitors today.

  I made a note to ask my grandmother about it, if she’d entertained anyone besides my family recently. Then I realized Ranger X had been here, but he couldn’t have… A sudden thought made my spine go rigid.

  I’d gone back inside the house before Ranger X and Zin had completely left the property. Could it have been one of them? Had Zin somehow left the flower while still under the influence of blood magic? And if so, was it a message from The Puppeteer? And even if I found out who left the flower, I still had no idea why.

  I cradled the lily between my fingers, pushed the door open, and moved inside. Tucking the flower into a huge vase near the door, I hoped that nobody would notice it—at least for now. I needed to gather my thoughts, and there wasn’t time to explain now when more urgent matters deserved our attention.

  When I returned to the kitchen, Hettie was halfway through explaining the events of the evening to her daughter. Trinket sat in a state of confusion, her ashen skin outlining a stony expression.

  “Mind bending?” Trinket said. “Are you certain?”

  “Are we certain of anything?” Hettie waved the spoon around, flicking tiny bits of pancake batter across the stove. “It’s impossible to say for certain when blood magic is involved, you know that.”

  “Mother.”

  Hettie faced her daughter. “Yes, I’m as certain as I can be that mind bending is involved, Trinket. And this isn’t the first instance.”

  “I just meant that Zin has always been…different.” Trinket folded her arms across her chest. “With the clothes she wears, her hairstyle—maybe she’s finally fallen in with the wrong crowd.”

  Horrified, I stepped forward. “Are you hinting that Zin made the choice to attack Hettie? Her own grandmother?”

  “I’m just saying that she moves to the beat of her own drum, and if someone had influenced her, or convinced her to—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “She’s your daughter, Trinket. Have a little faith in her.”

  Trinket blinked in surprise. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “You suppose I’m right?” I took another step, now inches away from my aunt. I’d never talked back to her before. Being new to the family, I’d counted my blessings just to be included in their homes. But enough was enough. “Look, Trinket, I’m grateful for all you and Mimsey have done for me. You brought me here, introduced me to everyone. . . but this is Zin we’re talking about. She’d never hurt her family.”

  Trinket tried to clear her throat and botched the job. In the background, Hettie’s eyes positively twinkled. Until one of her pancakes went up in flames, and she whirled around and smacked it with a spatula.

  The smell of burning batter permeated the kitchen, but I didn’t stop. “Zin has helped you out for years. Ever since I’ve been on this island she’s been taking care of her siblings and helping around the home despite her own dreams—she’s had her sights set on becoming a Ranger forever.”

  “How I run my household is my own business,” Trinket said, her nose tilting into the air. “She’s my daughter, and I will see her now.”

  I let myself collapse at the table as Trinket left the room. My head sank against my arms, and I banged my forehead into the wood a few times. “I’m an idiot.”

  Hettie joined me at the table and elbowed me with one arm. “You’re right, you know. Trinket has had that coming for years.”

  I didn’t bother to remove my head from the table. It was too heavy, too full of regret. “It wasn’t the right way to handle things. I just exploded, and now I feel worse than before.”

  “Uh, uh, uh,” Hettie said, scooching close. “I have been waiting for years to watch someone put Trinket in her place.”

  “You have? Why didn’t you do it then?”

  “Because I’m her mother. I’ve yelled at her plenty. Sometimes, it needs to come from someone else,” Hettie said. “Someone outside of her normal sphere.”

  “Outside the family,” I echoed, my words hollow.

  “No, of course not.” Hettie put her arm around me. “You are my granddaughter, and this is my house. You are in our family whether you want to be or not.”

  I sighed. Since the house was empty except for Hettie and Ainsley, I spoke freely. “This business with The Core is wearing on me. I hate keeping secrets from Ranger X. He has enough stuff he can’t talk about for both of us.”

  “Especially so early in a relationship,” Ainsley chirped. “I’ve been there.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Hettie said. “The way he looks at you is… well, it reminds me of when I was first dating Harvey.”

  “Really?” I look up. “You felt like this?”

  “Yes, I believe I did. It was a long time ago.” She smiled, her eyes light with memory. “But falling in love is one of those feelings you can’t forget.”

  “But all the secrets…”

  “You must keep it quiet for now,” Hettie said, her words round with apology. “There is too much at risk right now. The rules are changing, Candidates are dying—our island is in chaos. We need to stay small as a group, nimble. You have to understand I’m just trying to do what’s best for everyone.”

  “That doesn’t make things any easier.”

  A buzz sounded then, and Hettie looked up. “That’ll be the others out front at The Twist—I have to guide them through. Excuse me.”

  While she left to bring them through the maze, I stared into my glass, barely looking up as the group piled into the kitchen.

  “Pancakes, planning, and pandemonium,” Hettie declared, straightening her curlers. The crazy-old-lady tone she’d perfected had returned, and so had her grinning face. “We’re back.”

  Underneath it all, however, something had changed. Even Hettie’s best attempts to be loopy were dulled to a mere shadow of her former humor and sparkle. I forced my own smile up at her.

  “Something’s happened,” Gus said as he clanked his way into the kitchen. “Is that pancakes I smell? What’s got you cooking today, you old bat?”

  Hettie shuffled to the stove. “Why, tragedy, of course! Take a seat, you old nincompoop.”

  And so, our meeting began.

  CHAPTER 25

  By the time the sun rose, we’d come up with a game plan. It’d taken hours of heated discussion, four mounds of pancakes, and Ainsley’s sense of humor to keep things in check.

  Harpin had arrived with Hettie and Gus. As always, he got along with no one. Even Ainsley snapped at him once or twice, and she knew how to phrase things in a way that made everyone happy. As it turned out, she was a wonderful addition to The Core.

  “So Harpin and Gus, you’re responsible for tracing the blood magic,” Ainsley said, bouncing a pencil against the notepad in front of her. While Hettie poured a fountain of syrup over her pancakes, Ainsley took charge of the meeting and detailed the next steps in our plan. “Whatever it takes. Start your investigation around the prisoner and work your way back from her escape. If you find her, don’t do anything rash. Understood?”

  After a long hesitation, the two men nodded.

  “Great. Hettie, you’re going to wiggle your way into the Candidate hideout,” Ainsley said. “Use your position as Zin’s grandmother. Be senile. Whatever it takes—find out if the Candidates have heard rumors about what’s been happening.”

  “Aye aye, captain!” Hettie saluted so hard she nearly tipped off her chair. “Your wish is my command. Lily, I can see why you raved about this assistant of yours. She’s impressive.”

  “The very best!” I agreed.

  “And now I’m blushing.” Ainsley smiled. “Unfortunately, I have to head back to the mainland this morning. I’m going to check with MAGIC, Inc. and see if they have any information on The Puppeteer or mind bending. Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet and report back on any findings.”

  When Ainsley stopped talking, I cleared my throat. “What about me?”

  “
Oh, dear, isn’t it obvious?” Hettie looked to me. “Make sure Ranger X does not catch wind of our investigation. He can’t know about it or he’d put the kibosh on things faster than I burn pancakes.”

  I felt a touch of hurt bubbling up inside. “But I want to do something. . . something active. For the group. For Zin.”

  “You can actively distract him.” Hettie waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Can’t think of a better distraction than smooching.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “I don’t want to just be a distraction. I want to help. I want to look for The Puppeteer, or search for blood magic. I’m the one who went into The Forest with Ainsley, we should be the ones following it up.”

  “This is a group effort,” Hettie said. “We are all equally involved, and we have to do what’s best for all of us.”

  “Well, it doesn’t feel very fair,” I said. “I want—”

  “We all want things we can’t have,” Hettie said. “I’ve been dying to touch Ranger X’s butt since you brought him to my casa, but I don’t go doing that left and right.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said. “You do whatever you want.”

  “Well. . . ” Hettie shrugged. “I’m old and senile, and with age comes the great responsibility to do whatever I want.”

  I rolled my eyes, but something Hettie had said rang bells in my head. If Hettie did whatever she wanted, why couldn’t I? There had to be some way I could help—some small way nobody had thought of yet, while still doing my part with Ranger X.

  The group began to clear out, and as I gathered my plate, the first glint of sunlight popped through the kitchen window. With it came the feeling of ice being dumped over my head.

  “Oh, no!” I smacked a hand to my forehead. “Ranger X was going to come over last night to talk, and I forgot all about it!”

  “You were busy,” Ainsely said. “He knew where you were. I mean, you were at your grandmother’s house—it’s not a secret, and you weren’t doing anything wrong.”

  “He specifically asked me to be home. I have no good reason as to why I stayed so late.” My fingers shook. I was on thin ice already with him, and this wouldn’t help matters.