Midlife Strife: A Paranormal Women's fiction Novel (Bells and Spells - Book 1)

by M. L. Briers

  Claudia did the same. “It’s the kind of drink you’re looking for that we object to,” she informed him.

  Neal leaned in just a little, and the three witches eyed him with disdain. “This isn’t Eastwick, I’m not the Devil, and you can’t run me out of town,” he informed them, and then offered them a mocking wave. “Bye-bye.”

  Marilyn stood her ground. “Well, I want to see you gone by morning,” she announced and then internally winced. That didn’t sound right.

  “Be ready to be disappointed,” Neal said and sidestepped them to head back to the bar.

  All three witches turned as one to watch him walk away. Marilyn huffed and folded her arms, while Claudia tipped her head to one side and eyed his taut backside because there was no harm in looking, while Amber just scowled after him.

  “I wonder how my mother got rid of him the first time,” Marilyn said to herself, but Claudia caught it.

  “Told him she was going to put a spell on him to make him her next husband?” she said with a wicked smile.

  “That would do it,” Marilyn agreed.

  “You two are awful,” Amber said with a chuckle. “I’m going to find Sandy. It might be best if I stick close to her for now.” She took off, and Marilyn raised her left eyebrow as she thought about it.

  “She stays close to Sandy, and we stay close to both of them,” Marilyn said and turned to look at her friend.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Claudia agreed as a middle-aged David Bowie with less unruly hair than the real thing came towards her and blocked her view of the dance floor.

  Then he stopped in front of her and offered her the creepiest smile, boy, was he out of his depth; he was also too drunk to realise it when started his pitch. “Can I buy you…?”

  “No,” they both said as one before they sidestepped him on either side and headed after Amber.

  Things were undoubtedly different this weekend, but the absolute truth was that Marilyn hadn’t felt so alive in years.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  ~

  “So, this is Sandy?” Scott asked, looking at the Cher impersonator who was being dragged towards him by his sister. He was impressed; she didn’t look like the little mouse that Amber had told him about, at least, not dressed in a figure-hugging, barely-there dress, fishnet stockings, and six-inch heels.

  But he guessed his sister had a hand in that costume as the woman didn’t look all that comfortable wearing it, even if it did look good on her. The big hair was a little too much, and the dark curly wig didn’t suit her delicate features.

  Amber motioned for Sandy to take the next stool to her brother, that way she was a sandwich between them and if the vampire wanted to try to dazzle her with his eyes, then he’d need to go through them first.

  While it was true to say that witch blood to a vampire was the epitome of sugar and spice and all things – tasty – she had no idea why the vampire would be so brazen as to try it on in a wall-to-wall human bar. Especially when he knew there were witches present.

  If he were baiting her mother, then she’d risen to the occasion. Amber had never seen her mother so on fire with anger or magic.

  “Sandy, Scott, Scott – behave,” Amber said, warning him off, and calling the barman over with a friendly wave.

  Scott grinned when Sandy tossed him a curious look. “I’m always on my best behaviour around a beautiful woman,” he informed her and noticed the blush that hit her cheeks a second later. He liked it, and it suited her.

  Amber motioned to Scott’s drink and held up three fingers, and the guy behind the bar immediately turned his hand to making whatever her brother was drinking. “She’s my friend,” Amber informed Scott and offered him a hard glare that was like a red rag to a bull.

  “Any friend of my sister’s,” Scott said, offering Sandy a roguish grin.

  Amber groaned inwardly, turned on her stool to check out the area and see if the vampire was close, and on finding the area clear, she turned back to find the barmen placing her order down in front of them. She opened her purse and fingered the cash, but a twenty passed before her eyes and into the barman’s waiting hand, and when she looked at who had paid, she groaned inwardly. “No, thanks,” she said.

  “I insist,” Neal said. “Call it…”

  “Blood money?” Amber said and noted the way his gaze immediately dropped to where her heart was throbbing a beat at the side of her neck.

  “I never turn down a free drink,” he offered with a smirk.

  Amber angled her chin down and eyed him from beneath mascara caked lashes. “And I never accept drinks from…”

  “Strangers?”

  “Leeches,” she offered back with a sickly sweet smile that caused him to frown.

  “Ouch,” he said, and turned on his heels to leave, but he looked over Sandy’s head and caught Scott’s gaze.

  Amber caught that fast interaction between the vampire and her brother, and her suspicions were raised. She knew her brother better than she knew the back of her hand and the way he’d looked at the vampire said they had already met – but worse than that – they knew each other quite well.

  When Neal moved off, Scott turned his attention back to Sandy, but he caught Amber staring at him with a look of disbelief.

  Busted.

  Was he now going to have to come clean; or could he talk his way out of it the way he had over dinner?

  ~

  “Scott!” Amber called across the dance floor, but her brother was doing his usual disappearing act.

  The fact that she was dragging Sandy along behind her was slowing her down enough, but when Scott hit the back entrance, she knew she was going to have to go after him.

  With a quick change of direction that wrong-footed Sandy, she yanked her friend towards her mother and Claudia, who were standing off to the side, watching her come towards them. “Could you?” Amber said, and let go of Sandy’s wrist as she changed direction again to follow her brother.

  With a backwards glance to make sure nobody was following her, she palmed the metal bar of the security door and hit it down as she pushed out into the night. As she turned to scour the semi-dark alleyway outside, her foot kicked something on the ground, and she went flying forward – only to hit the hard wall of muscles and two strong arms that kept her from falling headfirst to the ground.

  Amber’s witchy alarm bells practically screamed a warning at her that she didn’t need. She knew who had saved her from falling – and it wasn’t the damn Tooth Fairy.

  “Let go,” she grumbled, trying to wriggle out of his arms at the same time that he was trying to put her away from him, but keep her close.

  “You’re welcome,” Neal muttered, but his mind wasn’t on her or her pride; it was on the scent of fresh blood in the air, and the body on the ground.

  Neal had a feeling that this was not going to go well.

  Amber pushed away from the vampire, and with her magic, at her fingertips, she was more than ready to put him in a late grave. The heartfelt, deep groan of pain and bewilderment that came from the ground made her jump to one side of the vampire and turn to narrow her eyes on the person she’d fallen over on her way out of the bar.

  It wasn’t until he lifted his head, and the dim light from over the exit fell upon his face that she realised who it was. Her heart thumped her ribs, her temper flared, and she turned her magic on the vampire – bringing him to his knees with a cry of pain that echoed off the cold walls of the building.

  “Scott?” Amber couldn’t do two things at once; take care of her brother and keep the vampire down, so she did something that she never thought she would have to do.

  Amber gritted her teeth and used her magic to snap the vampire’s neck.

  “Damn, Amber,” Scott said when the vampire almost fell onto him. “Why’d you throw a dead vampire at me?”

  Amber grimaced. “I … it had … oh, for Goddess sake, get up and let’s get out of her before Dracula rises once more,” she bit out – only then feeling
a surge of guilt for her actions. “It’s not like he’s dead,” she muttered to herself and stepped over the vampire to get to her brother.

  “I’ve got it,” Scott said when she bent to help him up.

  Aside from his pride, he didn’t feel too bad. He’d taken a hit around the back of the head, and when he touched the lump and pulled back blood on his fingertips, he didn’t show his sister.

  “Why’d he hit you?” Amber demanded.

  “I don’t know who hit me,” Scott said.

  Amber felt another rush of guilt – what if it hadn’t been the vampire whose only crime was to save her from falling on her face?

  Whoops. No, Amber had to hope for the best, and the best-case scenario would be that the vampire had done the deed.

  But, if he didn’t – then who did?

  “I’m taking you home,” Amber said, and then grimaced again. “Sandy…”

  “I’m fine,” Scott said.

  “You won’t be when I tell mom…”

  “Just don’t,” Scott said. He needed to figure a few things out first – like what and how to tell his mother that he was the reason the vampire was back in town.

  “Then come home with me,” Amber said. She hated to blackmail her brother – but she felt no guilt or shame in it either.

  “Blackmail – really?”

  Damn, he’d called her on it. “Revenge, for when you used to do it to me – mummy’s boy,” she shot back, yanking her car keys from her purse and offering him a wicked smile that he probably couldn’t see because the light was so bad. But it made her feel better.

  “Fine,” Scott grumbled. “What about him?” He motioned to Neal.

  “We both know he’s just slumbering there,” Amber said and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Come on; I’ll call Claudia from the road and get her to drop Sandy off.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  ~

  Sandy looked around at the crowd. Amber had left her with Claudia and Marilyn, and they’d dragged out onto the dance floor, but she felt self-conscience as she wasn’t very good at dancing. But then she found that there weren’t many people who were good at it as elbows flew and natural rhythm escaped them, and she relaxed a little.

  The music wasn’t bad, and there were a lot of songs that she knew from movies – she guessed that the eighties was the decade of movie tunes – and she did like old movies. Claudia turned out to be nicer than she’d first thought, and when they’d finally sat at the bar, drinking delicious rum and cokes, she felt as if she was still being interrogated, but in a nicer way.

  It seemed like Claudia really had a hankering to know where she came from and who her people were, but she didn’t have family, and her people weren’t anybody special.

  When Marilyn’s phone went off, Sandy could tell that something had happened, there was a look of panicked disbelief in the older woman’s eyes that Sandy knew well.

  “We need to go home, now,” Marilyn shouted above the music. It was a slow tune, and the evening was starting to wrap up anyway, and Sandy was ready to head home. “Come on,” Marilyn said to Sandy, and the woman was confused.

  Sandy started to protest. “I can walk…”

  “You’re not going to Amber’s, you’re coming home with us,” Marilyn informed her.

  “What’s going on?” Claudia asked, grabbing her jacket and throwing it around her shoulders.

  “Amber’s house has been broken into and trashed,” Marilyn said, and she heard Sandy gasp as the music lulled for the next sorrowfully romantic track. “You’ll stay with Amber at my house tonight,” she informed her, trying to squash her fears.

  “Oh, I couldn’t…”

  “That’s not an invitation, it’s what’s happening,” Marilyn said with her best motherly tone.

  And there; in that moment of taking responsibility for someone else went Marilyn’s return to her teenage, fun-loving days, and the eighties – in one puff of reality filled smoke – she was back in her lane again.

  ~

  Scott handed Amber a glass of Scotch and watched her take a sip of it. They’d walked into her house to find the place tossed and the look of devastation on her face was heartbreaking.

  “Things can be replaced, people can’t,” he said, trying to sound reassuring, but she just looked up at him from beneath her long lashes and then cocked an eyebrow.

  “Well, the person who did that will need replacing if I ever find out who it was,” she said, and he believed her, at least, he believed her for now. As soon as she calmed down, then she’d be back to never using her magic on a human for any reason other than good again.

  Amber was like the Bambi of the witch world.

  “I wanna say; way to go,” he said, swiping the air with his fist. “But I somehow figure it will backfire on me.”

  “You, I don’t want to kill,” Amber said, and her mouth turned down. “But that butthead that ransacked my house – oh, I’d like to get him a good one with my magic,” she practically growled the words out.

  “Listen, Amber…”

  “We’re back,” Marilyn called as she walked in the front door and beckoned Sandy in after her. The woman hesitated at the front door, and Claudia gave her a little shove in the back.

  “She doesn’t eat people,” Claudia whispered as she kicked the front door shut and shooed Sandy further into the house.

  “Come into my parlour said the spider to the fly,” Sandy muttered and Claudia chuckled.

  “No, that’s grandma Louann,” she informed her with a wicked smile to back up her words.

  Amber appeared in the doorway to the hall and tossed her hands up at the injustice of it all. “Why me?” she asked, and Marilyn felt that need to make things right within her daughter’s world again. It was a mother’s duty, no matter how old her children.

  “This too shall pass,” Marilyn said, hoping the words had some comfort for Amber as they seemed to work for other people.

  When she started to clip-clop across the hallway towards Amber, she found her six-inch heels were slowing her down, so she kicked them off, one went one way and the other hit a perfectly innocent lamp on the side and knocked it to the floor.

  Amber covered her mouth with her hands and gasped, but she couldn’t help but chuckle until she saw her mother’s face.

  “Whoops,” Claudia said and snickered.

  “Well, I guess I’m coming out in solidarity with my daughter,” Marilyn said, rolling her eyes at the lamp she’d just managed to slay, but headed for Amber anyway.

  When she got to her daughter, she did what mother’s do best and pulled her into her embrace, then held on tightly as if she could absorb all of the hurt from her daughter into her own body. If only.

  “It’s not a party until something gets broken,” Claudia said, and as the witches turned to look at her – she grinned – and boy, was it a wicked, wicked grin.

  “I think I’m all partied out,” Marilyn said.

  Now that she was home, she felt exhausted. To say she wasn’t as young as she used to be would have been an understatement, but boy, was it ever the truth.

  Amber noticed Sandy standing there looking lost. “Oh, Sandy, I’m sorry this has happened again…”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Sandy said, looking out of place and uncomfortable. “I feel like a bad luck charm or something.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel any negative energy around you at all,” Claudia said, contemplating it as she looked to the ceiling for answers.

  “Huh?” Sandy said, confused.

  Amber brushed it aside as she started towards her. “It’s not you, it’s me,” she said and felt rotten that Sandy had to move houses – again.

  “No, I think it might be my fault,” Sandy said and looked sheepishly down at the floor.

  “Actually, I think it’s me,” Scott said from the doorway, and they all turned to look at him.

  “Anyone else want to throw their hat in the ring?” Claudia asked with a big dollop of sarcasm.

&nbs
p; “Now that you mention it,” Neal’s voice drifted into the hallway from outside, and Marilyn groaned. She didn’t even try to hide it.

  Then she slowly padded to the front door and reached for the handle. But Claudia sucked in a harsh breath between her teeth.

  “We’re feeding the trolls tonight?” Claudia asked, and Marilyn frowned.

  “He’s not a troll, he’s a damn bloodsucking leech of a vampire,” she hissed, and then slapped her free hand over her mouth as she rolled her eyes, remembering that Sandy was there.

  “Drunk and feeding the trolls,” Claudia said. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  “Young lady,” Louann’s voice cut through the air like a knife as she nudged her grandson out of the doorway and stood in his place. “Did you really just utter those words?”

  Claudia considered it for a long moment. Yes, it was true that nobody, especially a witch, should tempt fate with the words; what could go wrong, but with the run of bad luck they seemed to be having, she’d bet it didn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things.

  Something was afoot, and Claudia just needed to figure out what that was. “You know, I think I did,” she said, and then put her hand over Marilyn’s on the handle, and they pulled the front door open together.

  There he stood, fix-foot odd of sexy silver fox, casually leaning against the wall like he was propping it up. He had his arms folded and a roguish look in his eyes like he knew something they didn’t. “Hello, ladies,” Neal said with a devilish grin that could make anyone swoon.

  “Thanks,” Scott said at the slight and folded his arms as he cocked just one eyebrow at the vampire and sighed.

  “You don’t count, puppy-lock,” Neal said, dismissing him. Then he turned his attention back to Marilyn and Claudia. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked, and his smiled brightened – not like someone had one too many whitening appointments at the dentist, but like a man who wanted to rub salt in the wounds.