“But I’m the Supreme Leader.” I touch my chest. “The most powerful witch in the world. Surely, if I don’t want to be…mated”—I trip on the word—”there’s a way out of this.” I upturn my burnt palm.
“Not until you die, I’m afraid.” Cousin Viv’s eyes float to my hand. “You’ve been branded.”
“Taken.”
“Claimed.”
“Registered,” Aunt Kat finishes off the battery of comments.
“So, what now? Nothing? I just sit here and wait for my world to fall apart?”
“Unfortunately, since you’ve been scorched, we’ll just have to wait and let it take its course,” Cousin Viv tells me. “Within forty-eight hours, he—”
“Or she,” Aunt Kat interjects.
“—must reveal themself to you, and then we can go from there.”
“Go from there?” I say.
“The only way out of this, dear,” Cousin Viv tells me gently, “is for both of you to agree to dissolve the union, mutually. If you can get him to that, then you’re a free girl and life goes back to normal.”
“Well, then that’s what I will do,” I snap. “But if I can’t?”
“I’m afraid, tradition prevails.” Cousin Viv shrugs. “And you become a charitable case, as written in the ancient paranormal scriptures. Bed maid, barmaid, and chamber-pot washer, to the owner of that talisman.” She points to it on the floor.
“Oh gods…”
“You will also have to leave this coven and join his, or hers, where you will be recognized officially as the subservient mate,” Aunt Kat further explains.
“I will do no such thing on no such occasion!” I stamp my foot again.
“Oh, I’m afraid you will,” Cousin Viv says. “Paranormal scriptures dictate it.”
I heave out a heavy breath.
“Wait! There’s a codicil!” Aunt Kit shrieks, pointing to it in The Good Book. We all scramble over, hanging over her shoulders as she reads, “The talisman-made union can also be dissolved if one or more parties was drunk at the time of inception. Were you drunk?” She looks up at me, hopeful.
“Gods, no.” I clap my forehead.
“Hexing broomsticks!” Aunt Kat cusses.
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’ll all be fine.” I try to calm down and convince myself. “I’ll just wait for the owner of the talisman to show up and politely request that the union be dissolved, and everything will be right with the world again.” I smile. “I mean, who’s going to want to forever mate, by mistake, with someone they don’t even know?”
“When whoever owns that talisman finds out they’ve just been cleaved to the most powerful witch in the world, you might not be getting out of that easy,” Cousin Viv says sorrowfully.
“Oh, bubbling boils, I just had a terrible thought.” Aunt Kat’s face turns white.
“Worse than we’ve just been talking about?” I turn to her.
“What if the owner of the talisman turns out to be a Druen, as well?” she whispers, her voice breaking off. “What if this has all been a master plan set up by them to capture you?”
“With the help of the ex-Supreme Leader,” Cousin Viv growls.
“Or Jeremy, as the Warlock,” Aunt Kit suggests.
“Okay, I refuse to hear this. I’m not listening, I’m not listening!” I run around in a circle with my fingers plugged in my ears. “Please, stop, all of you!”
I can’t stand anymore. It just can’t be true.
Chapter 25
If a shudder could pass through your entire body twice in a loop, that is what happens next. Then again, and again, and again.
“Where is your familiar?” Cousin Viv says. She tips up her chin and shouts at the ceiling, “Reggie? Reggie!”
“I gave him the week off,” I say.
“What? Why?” Cousin Viv’s eyes bolt wide.
“Because he’d earned it. He’d lost twenty pounds in less than a month. I told him if he could reach his goal, he could have a week. And he did. So, he’s gone.”
“But familiars don’t get holidays,” Cousin Viv scoffs.
“Well, mine does.” I jerk my head.
“No wonder you’ve gotten yourself in trouble,” Cousin Viv hisses. “Your familiar is supposed to be at your side at all times, advising you.”
“Is that what he’s supposed to be doing?”
“Spells bells, girl, we need to find him. And find him fast.”
“Whatever for?” I blink at her, confused.
“Because, darling, he’s the only one who can sniff out the owner of that talisman and find out who he is, before he just shows up here and claims you as his prize. Now, where is he?”
“I dunno. On a beach in Monaco, I think he said.”
“Monaco?” She grunts in disgust, then turns her face to the ceiling again. “Auntie Connie!” she shouts to the ceiling.
“Auntie Connie? What are you doing?” I gasp, grabbing for her. “We haven’t seen her since we sent her packing after completing my lessons. What are you doing calling for her?”
“Drastic times call for dire measures. Besides, she’s the only one, besides you, the smarmy little thing responds to.” Cousin Viv slings me off. “Auntie Connie!” she calls again to the ceiling. “Auntie Connie. Materialize, now!”
She does. Right in the center of the parlor.
She stands before us, nearly naked, blinking and soaking wet, dripping onto the hardwood with a too small towel slung around her middle and a shower cap perched on her head. “Wow, you coulda waited until a girl’s outta the bath,” she says in her fake Aussie accent. Bubbles trail off her arms and legs. “Whatever this is, it better be stella. I was just about to enjoy a little bubbly.”
“I need you to go hunt down a rodent.” Cousin Viv flicks up her chin.
“Well, ain’t I’s just the right sheila for that.” Aunt Connie laughs and jacks up her towel like it’s her pants.
“Sheila?”
“Girl.”
“And he’s not a rodent, Cousin Viv. He’s a Canidae,” I say to her.
“Rodent, Canidae, whatever…” She throws up a hand. “Point being, I need you to go hunt down Violet’s little dog-faced familiar and drag his fury little bottom end back here, immediately. We need to send him on a mission to find out whose talisman that is.” She points to the object on the floor.
Auntie Connie spies it and shudders backward, howling, “UuuuuUUuuhhhh. Who— Did you— Egads— You didn’t?”
“I did.”
“Oh woolly-backed tarantulas.” She gulps. “So, she’s done for then?”
“Not yet, no,” Cousin Viv says.
“Oh phew!” Auntie Connie falls back, crossing herself, twice. “When’s ‘e due. Or she?” She blinks.
“Within the next forty-eight hours,” Cousin Viv answers. “So, it is imperative that we reach her familiar. As you know, in cases like this, time is of the essence.”
“Yeah, and I’d better hurry up too.” Auntie Connie nods.
“Oh golly.” I turn and slap my head, repeatedly.
How has my fate ended up in the hands of Auntie Connie? Yet again.
“Now go, fetch him at once,” Cousin Viv says, slinging out her arm. “Tell him it’s a family emergency!”
“Right, but aahhh…” Auntie Connie makes a face. “Shouldn’t I get dressed first?”
“Oh gods!” I nearly faint.
Chapter 26
So, not only is the ex-Supreme Leader still on the loose, and I have a murder on my hands, but now, I’ve inadvertently managed to make myself a match from hell—with someone who quite possibly could be a Druen.
What more could go wrong here?
Don’t answer that.
Oh stars. I was supposed to meet Jamie at the crime site fifteen minutes ago.
I huff and steam up the road toward the fairgrounds. Then stop and conjure myself there, not caring at this moment who sees me.
Mrs. Dumfries be damned!
I land in the fair
grounds seconds later and join Jamie inside the tent.
“Hey, good to see you.” He smiles as I approach, and I can’t help but think how much he’s like his brother, yet so very different.
“I’ve been thinking about what your assistant, Cherry, said the night of the incident,” he says.
“You mean, about her not having hired a female knife-thrower?”
“Right,” he says. “So, if we go with that a moment, instead of just assuming the knife-thrower was the woman we saw running from the scene. What if it was a man?”
“What do you mean? A man in drag?”
“I mean, what if someone else is missing?” He flicks up his brows and looks at me.
“You mean, the man she really hired?”
“Right?”
“Did he just not show up? Did he cancel at the last minute, and she took his spot? Or, just where is the guy?”
Good question. I sit back on my heels.
“We find the guy, we might get some answers. At the very least, he might know who she is.”
“Right. She’ll be much easier to find with a name that’s for sure.”
Now, why didn’t I think of that? I frown. Wow, my sleuthing skills have certainly gotten rusty. A clear sign I’ve been spending too much time out decorating people’s parlors and solving supernatural world problems. I need to work on that.
“Anyway, it’s just food for thought.”
“Oh no, it’s a really good idea,” I say. “I’ll get on it right away.” I back up and pull out my phone to text Cherry, as he wanders to the back of the stage again, and suddenly my heel becomes caught in something. There’s little light in the dark tent, so at first, I’m not sure what it is. But, jammed in between the stage and the wall, there is something red. When I press the wall, to get my balance, I discover a seam in it. There’s a hidden back door entrance, painted to look like it is part of the backdrop, that I hadn’t noticed before.
I look down, try to raise my foot again, but it’s stuck, the hair yanking on it, entwined around the cap on the heel of my shoe. Strands of crimson red wig hair. “Jamie!” I call out. “Jamie, come quick!” I fight to free my foot so I can get a better look.
“What is it?” He comes racing over, looking concerned.
“Look.” I point down at my heel. “Could that be what I think it is?”
“Holy smokes.” Jamie squints, then dives at the object, tearing it loose from my heel, and dislodging it from between the stage and the door. “I can’t believe it.” He holds it up. “The amount of times I’ve gone over this place.”
It’s the red wig the knife-thrower was wearing before she became the man in black and ran off. Or so I think.
“She must have dropped it as she was fleeing.” He stares at the strands, picking through them. “How could we have missed this?” He flips the wig over and examines the inside.
Because someone wanted us to. I look around.
“Would you look at this?”
I turn to see him scrambling to turn on the flashlight on his phone as he examines the wig further. Yanking tweezers from his pocket, he pulls something loose from the netting on the inside of the wig. “Looks like whoever our killer was, was really a blonde.”
He holds three long blonde strands of human hair for me to see, smiling.
“I tell you, Sotherby, this guy doesn’t miss a thing.” I brag about Jamie’s sleuthing conquests the next day over tea in the library. “It’s like he’s was born to do this. He’s so smart.”
“Is he now?”
“It’s like he’s on things before they even happen.”
“It that were true, there wouldn’t have been a death,” Sotherby mutters.
“What was that?” I frown at him.
“Nothing.”
Sure…nothing. “Anyway, I used to think I was a good investigator, until I met Jamie.” I sigh, then smile off at nothing over my tea. “It’s intimidating, you know, working with someone that bright.” Well, sometimes. There was that whole mafia thing.
“Is it now?”
“You’re rather a one-answer Charlie today, aren’t you?” I frown. “Anyway, he really is quite an amazing guy—and an investigator.” I laugh, tapping my fingertips together as I prattle on some more to a bored-looking Sotherby, sitting across the table from me, picking at loose threads of his armchair. “At first, we had nothing, and now we have…more. I just can’t believe the luck. I mean, we haven’t solved the case yet, but I know we will.” I smile with confidence. “How can we not with both of us on it?”
“Yes, how?”
“Honestly, when he picked up that throwing knife backstage that wasn’t among the rest, which I’d completely stepped right over in the darkness of the backstage, missing it altogether, I was really impressed.” I nod and sip my tea. “And then there was all that stuff with the wig. He’s completely on it, I tell you.”
“I thought you said you were the first to discover the wig?” Sotherby scowls.
“Yes, well, technically, I was. But then, it was Jamie who discovered the hairs inside it.”
“OooooOoh, well, that makes all the difference.” He exhales sarcastically, drawing a finger to the side of his cheek.
“I’ll have you know those hairs are going to be the key to everything. I can feel it.”
“Of course.” Sotherby nods.
“When I was up at the hospital the doctor said that Jeremy had muttered, ‘yellow not red,’ right before falling into the coma.” Not to mention the talisman thing…
Sotherby stares at me blankly.
“Well, clearly, he was trying to tell us something. You know, yellow not red, meaning you’re after a blonde in a red wig, get it?” I turn my hands up.
“And who put that together, you or the dolt’s twin?” Sotherby asks.
“Well, clearly me, but—”
“I rest my case.” He sits back.
“You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to give the man credit where credit is due, you know?” I raise an eyebrow at him.
“When you tell me something that impresses me, I will.” He counters my eyebrow with one of his own.
“Point being,” I grit my teeth and continue, “I couldn’t have figured that out if he hadn’t found the hairs.” I slide back in my chair and tap my lip.
“And you don’t think you would have eventually found them yourself?” Sotherby raises a brow.
“Oh, well, yeah, likely.” I shrug. “That’s a given. But still. It was impressive in the moment.”
“Oh, brother.” Sotherby slides down back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the side of his teacup.
“I’m sorry, am I talking too much about my investigative work?”
“Maybe just a little.” He shows me with pinched fingers.
I lean forward, dropping another lump of sugar into my tea and giving it a brisk stir.
“You’re very smitten with this chap, aren’t you?” Sotherby asks.
“No. Not really. Just impressed with his abilities.” I wiggle taller in my seat.
“Oh, is that all?” Sotherby drawls.
“You’re just full of cheek today, aren’t you?” I study him over the lip of my cup as I slurp my tea, which I know annoys him.
He cringes.
“You know, you didn’t have to leave in such a huff the other day. You had me really worried you were mad at me.” I slurp my tea again.
“I wasn’t mad; I was angry. Dogs get mad. People don’t.” Sotherby tilts his head.
“So, you’re still angry with me then. That’s why all the rude comments.”
“What rude comments? I am simply engaging a conversation.” He flashes me a disapproving look.
“Are we?” I quirk a brow.
“Back to the case,” he says, glowering across the tabletop at me. “Assuming, as you say, the long blonde hairs found in the wig do belong to the killer, where do you go from there?”
“Well, all we have to do now is submit the hairs and the fingerprin
ts Jamie so smartly lifted from the handle of the knife he found askew from the rest and submit both samples for DNA testing, then we’ll be that much closer to figuring out who the killer is. If the killer’s on file.” I take graceful mouthful of tea this time.
“I see.” Sotherby thinks a moment, then his expression sours. “And how does that work if the killer’s paranormal?”
“Hmmmm…good question.” I look into the air, thinking.
“Also, I thought you said the knife-thrower was wearing gloves at the time of the act.”
“That’s right. Red ones. To match her outfit, why?” I stall over my teacup.
“Well then, how could she have left her fingerprints on the knife handle.”
“Perhaps she took them off to throw the knives,” I say.
“But wouldn’t you have noticed that?” Sotherby squirrels up his face. “I mean, as her hands would have been skin tone in color, by comparison to her stark white face.” He leans forward in his chair. “Didn’t you say she wore white make-up?”
“Yes, she did.” I frown.
“Well, then I should think that would have made her hands stick out in your mind.”
I stare past him at nothing in particular, deep in thought. “You’re right,” I say. “I would have noticed that.” I’m a stickler for details.
“And you didn’t, so that means she stayed gloved the whole time.” I look at him. “Which, to me, would indicate she had no intention of ever throwing knives—as how could you ever grip a knife with gloved hands?” He pauses. “Unless of course, she slid them off during the time of the explosion, which blinded everyone. But then, wouldn’t you have found the gloves somewhere, discarded as she fled, along with the wig?”
I try to think if the figure fleeing from the tent, dressed all in black with the bowler hat, was wearing red gloves, but I can’t remember. Surely, Sotherby is right, I would have remembered that. I turn to him, scowling. “You know what, you’re pretty good at this sleuthing thing yourself, Sotherby. Perhaps you should be joining us.”
“I accept,” he says, springing forward.
“What?” I gasp.
“I said, I accept your lovely invitation.” He smiles and drops back in his chair, tea in hand. “I’ve always wanted to try my hand at sleuthing. So very nice of you to ask.” He nods.
Abracastabra (Hex Falls Paranormal Cozy Mystery # 4) (Hex Falls Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series) Page 15
