Poison and Potions: a Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Erin Hayes

  Inside the tiny cafe, Kyra inhaled the comforting smell of roasting beans. The walls were paneled in deep tones of red and brown, highlighted with dusty artwork, the price tags long since faded to the point of ambiguity. She ordered a coffee and multi-grain bagel and sat down at a table near the door.

  She let her shoulders sag and looked down into her Styrofoam cup. Nothing made sense anymore. Maybe life really did rotate on an endless wheel of reincarnation to even the score. She furrowed her brow and dumped a creamer into her coffee distractedly, knocking the empty plastic container onto the floor. She let out a sigh, and leaned down to retrieve it.

  “Hey, how bad can it be? The day has barely begun.”

  She blinked up at a damp-headed jogger, clutching a coffee and wiping sweat from a tanned brow above sterling blue eyes.

  “Caffeine doesn’t have quite the power of endorphins to kick start the day,” she quipped.

  He laughed and gestured at the empty chair opposite her.

  “Mind if I join you? That is, if you can hang with the grunge look.”

  She shrugged. “Help yourself. I have to leave in a few minutes anyway.”

  He stretched out on the chair and took a swig of his coffee, resting a worn, neon-green sneaker over his left knee.

  “So, what’s on your heart?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “That’s heavy for an opener, but perceptive. I am sitting here pondering life’s big issues.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “Why the soul searching?”

  She stirred her coffee, averting her eyes briefly. A philosophical jogger; that was a first. But, she wasn’t about to tell a complete stranger that spirits were stalking her. She gave a small shrug. “It’s just sad to see all the homeless in the early hours. Collateral damage in the game of life. No one to care if they live or die.”

  “Death’s about the only thing in life we can count on.” He paused, and then added. “I’m Danny by the way, Danny Riordan.”

  She swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “Kyra Williams. And now that I’ve shared a philosophical moment with you, I need to get to work.”

  He drained his mug and stood.

  “Life doesn’t have to be a riddle. If you ever want to chat more about the big picture, you can find me at Transition House, two blocks down on the south side. I work with the homeless.” He gave a broad grin. “I care if they live or die—you could say it’s my calling.”

  Kyra raised her brows. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  He winked and saluted as she grabbed her purse and exited the cafe. Great! Some broke do-gooder working Rescue Mission Boulevard just propositioned her. She drove to work with his words stuck in her head--life doesn’t have to be a riddle. It sure felt like it.

  At her desk, she clicked on her email inbox and groaned. Todd wanted to meet her at five o’clock to coordinate the final presentation to the Chevron board. This would be their first one-on-one conversation since she’d humiliated him in front of the entire department. Awkward, but unavoidable. She would just have to keep things on topic, not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much his sick pranks with the notes had shaken her. She typed out a quick response and hit send.

  Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t throw herself into her work. She wasn’t performing up to her own standards lately, and it scared her. Yesterday, she’d made a critical miscalculation on an important bid to a client. The strain of keeping up appearances at the office while being stalked by malevolent specters was getting to her.

  The day dragged on, and she was almost relieved when Todd finally buzzed her extension. “Can we meet in my office? The cleaners have the conference room tied up right now.” She twisted her lip. Power play, no doubt, meeting on his turf. She wouldn’t let it faze her. After checking her hair and makeup, she headed down the hall to his office.

  She took a deep breath and strode in. “Ready to go over the presentation?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  She flashed him a smile as she sat down, masking her distaste for the humorous advertising headlines plastered haphazardly over his office walls. It was hard to imagine someone as disorganized and ingenuous as Todd could really be behind those perverted attempts to terrorize her. Unpredictable as he was, it still seemed a stretch. But what other option was there?

  She pulled her pen out of her briefcase. “Let’s begin with the launch.”

  While he listened and jotted some notes, Kyra sketched out the bones of her marketing campaign and went over the timing of the various phases of implementation. Afterward, Todd leaned back in his chair and stretched. “That should be enough to impress the Chevron boys.”

  She nodded assent and started to gather up her paperwork.

  “You know,” he said, getting to his feet slowly. “You were really on a roll at the department meeting a few weeks back.”

  She paused and shot him a questioning look. He was building up to something.

  “But we both know you’ve stalled a couple of times since then. That miscalculation yesterday, for example, totally out of character for you.”

  Her heartbeat quickened. How did he know about the erroneous bid?

  “If you need some vacation time, I’d be happy to run your projects for a couple of days.”

  She swallowed back the hot saliva bubbling beneath her tongue.

  “Look,” Todd continued, his tone empathetic, “I know you’re under a lot of mental duress. Deborah told me about the voices you’ve been hearing since the accident.”

  Kyra clenched her teeth. So Deborah had blabbed. Her mind raced. There wasn’t much point in denying what was going on if he already knew. Might as well bring up the mysterious notes and see if he incriminated himself in any way.

  She set her pile of papers on the desk and exhaled. “There are some very odd things going on.”

  “Shoot.” Todd settled back in his seat and folded his hands behind his head.

  She watched his face carefully while she talked. His expression didn’t change when she mentioned the note in the manila folder, or the gray envelope she’d found in her mail. When she was done, he slid up in his seat and gave a long whistle.

  Kyra frowned. “That’s your dazzling interpretation?”

  “It’s a wild ride, I’ll give you that, but I’m not buying the supernatural spin. You were concussed; the right side of your brain was in hyperdrive. Creative people are wired to experience things differently, but that’s as far as it goes.”

  “But that doesn’t explain some of the things I’ve seen since the accident.”

  “Come on! You don’t have a degree in advertising for nothing. People see what they want to see, you know that.”

  He scribbled something on a pad and shoved it across the desk to her. Kyra looked at it curiously.

  The azmanig pweor of the fmeale barin. Bilveenig in thnisg that don’t eisxt!

  He was laughing at her now. She should let it go, but she needed proof he was behind the malicious messages.

  “What about the notes?” she asked, leveling her gaze at him.

  “You mean, the note ... that wasn’t? And the nasty piece of junk mail ... that wasn’t either?” He elongated the words as if he were catering to her limited mental capacity. “Disappearing ink, maybe?” His eyes were wide with amusement.

  She pushed the pad of paper back across the desk and threw up her hands. “Okay, you win. My mind was playing tricks on me. I’ll be a good little trauma victim, keep taking my pills, join a twelve-step program, and one of these days the jelly in my head will quit wobbling.”

  “Now that’s indulgent, even for you. Was I that unconvincing?”

  “I’m still exploring every angle,” she said, with a shrug as she rose. “But, I appreciate your ingenious insight.”

  She ducked the paper wad Todd tossed at her as she exited his office. He was acting way too friendly for someone who harbored the level of animosity the notes communicated. Was she mistaken in believing he was behind those vindictive messages?
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  Chapter Nineteen

  Martina pulled into her driveway and shut off the engine. The screaming radiator fan whirred to a halt and a weary sigh slipped through her lips as she reached for the door handle. Half the day had been wasted at the police station getting Taggert interviewed, fingerprinted, and lined up with free legal counsel. Her head throbbed, as she trailed him up the crumbling concrete steps to their front door.

  “What’s this?” he muttered, ripping off a piece of paper taped to the peeling paint on the door.

  Martina peered over his arm. A surge of panic racked her. This can’t be happening. Taggert flicked his hair out of his eyes and handed her the thirty day Notice to Quit. She leaned against the doorframe, pretending to read it, her legs about to give. They hadn’t made rent in three months, but she’d been dumb enough to believe that she and Tag would be driving to Chicago by now, with the plastic trash bags of clothes she’d stashed in the trunk that morning and Eddie’s money to tide them over until she found a job.

  Stuffing the notice in her bag, she pulled out her key and jabbed at the lock. “It’s nothing. We were late with the rent again. They’re trying to scare us into paying on time.”

  The key finally connected with the lock and Martina shoved open the door and stepped into the cheerless, wallpapered hall. Hal wasn’t home. The one saving grace of an awful day. She traipsed into the kitchen, threw her coat on a chair, and slumped down at the table. Now what? She was back where she’d begun, dragging behind her out-of-control life, with no clue where it was going and no way to do anything about it. A cloud of despair thickened around her.

  Taggert hovered and kicked at the table leg, hands still stuffed in his pockets. “The weed wasn’t mine.”

  “Quit kicking the table. My head’s about to explode.”

  The whole thing was her fault. The drugs were Taggert’s way of escaping the hell she’d forced him to live in. There was nothing she could say to him to make that right. She pushed another chair in his direction. “Sit down.”

  It wouldn’t do any good to yell at him. Hal did enough of that for both of them. What he needed more than anything was to know that she was there for him. And she couldn’t even be sure of that anymore, since she’d helped herself to Eddie’s money. “Look, Tag, what’s done is done. You’re a first timer. The judge isn’t gonna send you to jail for possession.”

  He slumped down on the chair, legs sprawled and began jerking a knee up and down. “What about the fines?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t have any money, they know that. The judge will keep it light if you don’t go missing any of your therapy appointments.”

  “I ain’t going.”

  “Why did you do it?” she asked, ignoring the challenge as she scrutinized him.

  He looked down at the cruddy linoleum. “Dunno, gets my mind off stuff and all.”

  “Hal?”

  He kicked the table leg again by way of response.

  She leaned across and gripped him by the shoulders.

  “We’re leaving him. We’re getting out of here.”

  His face screwed into a ball as he flung her hands off him.

  “I’m sick of hearing that!”

  “I have a plan this time. Taggert, listen to me, please. I have the money.”

  He slid back down on his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “So where are we going? You don’t even have gas money outta here.”

  “Chicago. Big enough to get lost in, close enough to drive to.”

  Taggert jutted his chin out and looked away.

  Martina fumbled around in her purse and pulled out an ATM withdrawal slip. She flattened it on the table in front of him. “I told you I had the money, here’s proof.” Her finger shook as she pointed at the paper. “I was planning to leave this morning—before the school called.”

  Taggert snatched up the withdrawal slip and stared at it for a moment. He tossed it aside, stood abruptly, and stomped out of the room.

  “Wait! Where are you going?” She half rose out of her seat, then grabbed the slip and crumpled it in her fist before sinking back down. He didn’t believe her. She should have shown him the bags in the trunk. And the new sweatshirt she’d packed for him.

  Moments later he strode back into the kitchen swinging a plastic, Walmart bag tied in a knot at the top. “You’re gonna need this,” he said, tossing the bag on the table in front of her. She drew her brows together and threw him a questioning look.

  “Open it.” He plunked into the chair beside her and hung one arm over the back rail. A smile skirted his lips.

  Martina grasped the bag and fumbled with the knot for a moment, then reached inside and pulled out a rubber-banded wad of notes several inches thick. The air left her lungs. She released the bundle of money and shrank back from the table.

  Taggert laughed and leaned over to grab it. “It ain’t a grenade.” He slipped off the rubber band and pressed the pile of banknotes into her shaking hands.

  “How much?” she whispered.

  “Two.”

  “Two?”

  “Two grand.”

  She tipped the cash onto the table and stared at it. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Don’t matter. It’s enough, ain’t it?”

  She inhaled slowly. “You didn’t steal it, did you?”

  “Did you?” he spat back, narrowing his eyes at her.

  The blood drained from Martina’s head. She looked away, searching desperately for a response.

  A truck door slammed and the sound ricocheted inside the room. They both froze and locked eyes. Martina jumped up first, frantically scooping the money from the table and into her purse. She darted across the kitchen and stuffed the bag in a drawer, under a pile of cleaning rags. Not likely Hal would look there. With a bit of luck, he’d stagger through the door too hung over to ask why Taggert wasn’t in school.

  Chapter Twenty

  At noon the following Tuesday, Kyra stacked the remaining print estimates for review on her desk, and headed out to Buffington’s employee parking lot. The fluffed out sky was thick with cloud banks edged with gray. She shivered as she unlocked her car. Something about the air reminded her of the charged atmosphere the morning of the accident. Maybe this appointment wasn’t such a good idea, after all. The muscles in her shoulders tensed as she drove to Dr. Brenner’s office. Did she really want a stranger probing around inside her mind? She tightened her grip on the wheel. She had to commit. If she did have any repressed memories from the day of the accident, she wanted to know what they were.

  At twelve-thirty, she pushed open the etched door to Dr. Brenner’s practice. The waiting room was empty, eerily silent apart from the trickling cadence of shimmering water in a mirrored wall sculpture. Andrea’s chair was pushed under the floating-glass reception desk.

  Kyra reached for a Psychology Today magazine just as Dr. Brenner emerged from his office, his smooth, brown fingertips steepled together, full lips arranged in a placid smile. “Kyra, it’s good to see you again. Andrea’s at lunch. Come right in, please.”

  She met his gaze, and a tiny tremor ran down her spine. His dark eyes exuded an even more intense aura of power than she had detected on her first visit. She followed him into his office and he closed the door behind them. She adjusted the strap of her purse and threw a glance over her shoulder at the soundproofed door. Shouldn’t someone else be present while she underwent hypnosis? He gestured toward a chair, took a seat opposite her, and crossed his legs.

  “So, how have you been? Has anything else come back to you?”

  She shook her head. “Not really.”

  He reached for a pen and pulled a leather notebook on his desk toward him. “Very well, let’s move ahead. I want you to place both feet comfortably on the floor and lay your palms in your lap. I’m going to use an induction technique to draw you into an imaginative experience. Just follow my suggestions.”

  “So, I will be in control at all times?”

  “Absolutel
y. You will move into a trance that will allow a heightened state of perception to help you recall additional details from the accident.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “Go ahead and begin to relax in whatever way is most soothing for you.”

  She closed her eyes and took a few shaky breaths. “Okay, I guess I’m ready.”

  “Kyra, we are going on a journey, away from this moment. You are peacefully passing familiar landmarks. Leaves sway in a gentle breeze. As they undulate back and forth, your muscles mimic the movements, becoming limp and slack.”

  She followed along, vaguely aware of the light fading, the doctor’s alluring narration, the diminishing desire to break the spell and open her eyes. She floated, physically, emotionally, and mentally weightless. Flexing her fingers, she released herself fully.

  “And coming back, coming back slowly, stepping softly, three, two, one. Kyra, you are back.”

  Her eyes snapped open and lit on a sea-green, Sago palm tree in a blue-washed ceramic pot. A faint whiff of Dior cologne tickled her nostrils. Her mind tuned in to a vaguely familiar voice.

  “Excellent. That completes our first session.”

  She inched her head toward Dr. Brenner. His outline trailed in duplicate before her eyes, and she blinked rapidly until the blurred images aligned. She furrowed her brow and stared at him, struggling to remember where their conversation had left off.

  He rose without breaking her gaze, dark eyes charged and glistening. The silence in the room was suffocating. Kyra caught her breath, startled by his overpowering stare.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me any questions?”

  He stretched a vacant smile across his face. “I’ve completed my questions. Our time is up for today.”

  Her jaw went slack. “But, I barely closed my eyes.”

  “It’s perfectly normal for some sense of time distortion to occur when you have reached a state of deep inward focus.”