Charmed to Death

by Rose Pressey

  “Do you see him?” I asked.

  Thomas had switched back to human form. “My eyes aren’t that good.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed Thomas. There was something fishy going on here. Our eyes were locked on each other. The man didn’t exactly look as if he was angry or that he was going to run after me. Regardless, his presence scared me.

  “Does that man have any clothes on? What kind of freak is he?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know, there are all kinds of weird people in this world.”

  I was all too aware of that.

  The naked man stood there for a moment longer. After a few seconds of staring, he took off. He flashed a full view of his naked self as he ran. That was completely strange. I seriously needed to consider a large fence around my property to keep out all the weirdos. It would do little to help though. With all the paranormal shenanigans going on they would either fly over the fence or just knock it down. Either way, something had to be done. I couldn’t keep living on edge like this.

  “You’re my familiar. Aren’t you supposed to protect me or something,” I said.

  I was pretty sure Thomas smirked.

  “There’s only so much I can do,” he said.

  Thomas was right. I was the leader, for Pete’s sake. What had gotten into me? I’d just defeated the vampires. Now I was scared of some weirdo in the woods? That was when it hit me. A werewolf. Of course. That all made sense now. The man in the woods was a werewolf. He was the wolf chasing after Thomas.

  I placed my hands on my hips. “If you know something about this werewolf then you have to tell me now. Do you know that werewolf?”

  He gestured at himself. “Me?”

  “Yes, you,” I said through gritted teeth. “What do you know about the werewolf?”

  “I may have made a few werewolves angry.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Perhaps it has something to do with a little gambling debt.” He studied his fingernails.

  I shook my head. “Well, take care of it. I don’t need a bunch of angry men coming around here trying to beat you up or worse. You’re my responsibility now.”

  I’d never had any problem dealing with the Werewolf Association. There had been no murders like with the vampires. Perhaps a few fights between the werewolves, but other than that it had been no issues. So why now did my familiar have one chasing him? I had a feeling there was more to this than he was letting on, and I planned on finding out.

  “I tell you, Thomas, I just have a feeling that you’re not telling me all that’s happening between you and the werewolves. What did you do to them?” I asked as we headed back over to the others.

  “Halloween, I am offended that you would think so poorly of me.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that innocent act. This isn’t over.” I warned with a point of my finger.

  He walked along beside me with that cheesy grin as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Now I had to explain to the others about my familiar.

  “Everyone, I have something to tell you… or rather, I need to introduce you to someone.”

  They stared at me for a moment and then looked around. No one had allowed me to finish telling them about Thomas being my familiar.

  “Who is it?” my mother asked.

  I gestured at Thomas.

  She scowled. “We’ve already met Thomas.”

  “There’s more to Thomas than you know,” I said.

  “Like what?” Annabelle asked.

  I knew she would be the most surprised. Everyone else had heard of familiars.

  “Thomas is really the cat. The cat is my new familiar.”

  “Thomas is your what?” Annabelle asked with a frown.

  “He’s here to help me. Okay, Thomas show them.”

  Her eyes widened. “Thomas is a cat?”

  Chapter 29

  “So the brooch reads not only everyone’s thoughts, but the cat’s too?” My mother pointed at it.

  “This could be trouble,” Nicolas said.

  “Yeah, like when she asks if that dress looks good on her,” Liam said.

  I glared at both of them. “Can we focus here?”

  Liam held his hands up. “Please continue.”

  “Well, the brooch worked for a while and I read all of your thoughts. Maybe it will work again soon on all of you. As of right now it’s just allowing me to communicate with Thomas when he’s a cat.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Nicolas said.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” I said with a smile. “Anyway, I guess this works for the cat only now.”

  “Maybe it’ll start working again,” my mother said.

  “Possibly. I don’t know that I want that power anyway.”

  “I’m glad it’s not working. It would only add to your problems,” Annabelle said.

  She was right, I didn’t need more problems. “Yes, but it could also have its advantages. Perhaps if I knew how to turn it on and off. Maybe Gramps will remember and tell me.”

  “That’s unlikely,” my mother said.

  “I had a feeling someone would be looking for the brooch,” I said, peeking down at the sparkly jewelry again.

  “Maybe they’re not finished searching for it?” my mother asked. “Someone else could want it.”

  “I suppose they would show up at my door.”

  “Maybe they’re still on their way here,” Liam said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t even want to think about that. I hope no one comes here for it. And why would they need it if it’s only able to be used with this cat?”

  “Please refer to me by name,” Thomas said.

  “Right. Why would they want to if it was only to talk to Thomas?”

  “Just keep that thing locked up,” my mother said. “You don’t want anyone getting it, just in case.”

  “No one’s going to get a hold of this thing,” I said. “I can guarantee that.”

  I did quite enjoy wearing it. Plus, if I needed to talk to the cat I would always have to have it whenever he was in cat form. When he was in Thomas form I wouldn’t need it. I didn’t know what made him shift between the two. I’d have to find that out later.

  I turned my attention to Thomas. “So why were you talking to the vampires that night?”

  “They were talking with the witch. Plus, she was there at the graveyard that day. My understanding was that they were on to the witch and knew she was involved in a murder. They went to track her down. I guess that was ultimately their demise,” Thomas said.

  “How did you find out this information?” Liam asked with a bit of suspicion in his voice.

  He had a point though. Since both of the vampires were gone, then who had told him this information? We hadn’t found the witch.

  “One of the vampires He called my cell phone. I have a voicemail from him right before he was murdered. I didn’t know he had left it. I never check my mail.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You need to change that now.”

  “I’d like to think so, but no, probably not.” He shook his head.

  I looked to Nicolas. “The night I saw the witch in the manor. I thought for sure I heard you talking to a man. When I looked in the bedroom, you were asleep.”

  Nicolas grinned. “It was Thomas… in cat form, of course.”

  “I suspected that after I found out about Thomas,” I said.

  At least everything made more sense now.

  We all walked back toward the manor. I glanced back one more time, looking at the scene. It was strange to think about all that had happened, but we’d made it through once again.

  ***

  We had set up my mother’s beauty products at the booth for the summer festival. It was nice being able to enjoy the sunshine and activities. At first my mother hadn’t wanted to come. She said that everyone would think she was using her vampire status to sell face cream. Everyone knew vampires had flawless complexions, but I told her that wouldn’t matter, everyone knew she h
ad awesome potion-making skills. She’d established that a long time ago. Her products spoke for themselves. My mother always told me that wrinkles didn’t matter. What mattered was that you ended up with more laugh lines than frown lines. Besides, my mother and Annabelle were only half-vampires now. Apparently, the bad vampires hadn’t finished the job. Basically, this meant they had all the vampire traits, but everything was only half as intense.

  Nicolas and Liam were walking around the festival somewhere and Thomas was sitting beside me. Apparently, he didn’t want to get too far away anymore. I was hoping that clinginess would fade as time went on. Yes, now he was my familiar. He’d decided to be in human form right now. I still didn’t know how all of this worked. Sometimes he was a cat and other times he turned into human form.

  I hoped he found a place of his own soon. Honestly, I couldn’t have him living with us all the time, right? Even if he was my familiar. Though he couldn’t take care of himself when in cat form. I didn’t know what to do.

  “The whole point is that I’m around to help you all the time,” he said.

  “Well, I can always give you a call,” I said. “Isn’t that what the brooch is for?”

  “Not when I’m a cat and you’re not wearing the brooch.”

  “Can’t you just stay in human form all the time?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “I don’t know how this works,” I said.

  Nothing in the Book of Mystics told me what to do. When I’d told Gramps about the brooch he’d remembered, but he still didn’t recall all the details, so getting him to fill me in on the familiar situation wasn’t helping.

  Thomas leaned back in the lawn chair. He had a smile on his face like the cat who’d just eaten the canary. I supposed he’d won the debate for the time being.

  Sun blanketed the park where the festival was being held. It was amazing how relaxed I felt now that the bad vampires had been stopped. The receptionist, Marissa, had wanted to be leader of the vampires. Thank goodness she’d been unsuccessful. Who knew where she would have gone from there? She’d had a plan to take over the National Vampire Association. The other vampires had been murdered when they’d found out about her plan and tried to stop her. She’d eliminated them and was determined to eliminate anyone in her way. She just wanted the power. With the current leader Cassandra out of the way, she could step in and obtain her goal. It was scary to think how close she’d to come to making that a reality. Thank goodness I had been able to stop her. But a huge thanks to my new familiar.

  I glanced over at Thomas. He winked. To think I had turned him away and thought he was the bad guy. In my defense, he had acted suspiciously.

  Thomas said he took care of the gambling debt, but I didn’t completely trust him. I knew I’d have to keep my eye on him. Thomas was trouble waiting to happen. Especially since he had his eye on Annabelle. I wasn’t sure the werewolves were finished with Thomas either. The other night was a full moon, and I’d heard howling in the woods around the manor. It could be a coyote, but with Thomas around I felt the werewolf scenario was more likely. I thought I’d seen that same werewolf too when I went to town the next day. When I looked back though he had disappeared. Thomas hadn’t been with me at the time. I’d convinced Thomas he didn’t have to guard me twenty four seven. Yes, I had to keep my guard up, but that had always been the case since becoming the leader.

  Marissa had used the spirit witch to help with her goal. That was how she was able to put a binding spell on us. That made a lot of our spells not work. Without that she wouldn’t have had an advantage. She would’ve never been able to get anything over on us. The calls I found on Cassandra’s phone had been from a number Marissa had gotten with one of those disposable phones. She’d thought she’d covered all her tracks, but it hadn’t worked.

  I hadn’t seen the witch again, but I hoped to find her. She needed to be stopped. Thank goodness she wasn’t doing any harm at the moment. Since we hadn’t been able to find her I had a feeling that she might pop up sometime. I would be ready for her though. She had been able to get one over on me this time, but she wouldn’t be able to—if there ever was a next time. Eventually, we would get more information on her and track her down. I was confident of that. I wouldn’t stop until I did.

  Nothing could take down Halloween LaVeau. Bad witch extraordinaire.

  The end.

  About the Author

  Rose Pressey is a USA Today bestselling author. She enjoys writing quirky and fun novels with a paranormal twist. The paranormal has always captured her interest. The thought of finding answers to the unexplained fascinates her.

  When she’s not writing about werewolves, vampires and every other supernatural creature, she loves eating cupcakes with sprinkles, reading, spending time with family, and listening to oldies from the fifties.

  Rose suffers from Psoriatic Arthritis and has knee replacements. She might just set the world record for joint replacements. She’s soon having her hips replaced, elbows, and at least one shoulder.

  Rose lives in the beautiful commonwealth of Kentucky with her husband, son, and two sassy Chihuahuas.

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