A Cauldron of Hot Coffee: Enchanted Enclave Mysteries Books 1-3

by Samantha Silver

  “So you went there that morning when construction was supposed to start.”

  “One of the workers called me. Hugo. He knew the workers were refusing to work, and he wanted a recommendation for a lawyer to talk to so they knew their options. Someone had told him that the best way to find a lawyer was to ask the richest person he knew, so that was why he called me. I gave him my lawyer’s number, then I drove down to the construction site to see Barry. He was there in a mad rage. He kept yelling about how he owned those workers and they were never going to get another job again and how he was going to make every single one of them pay.”

  “And so you went up to him and sucked all the blood out of him.”

  “I did. I stabbed him first, so it would look like a regular human death, but I drank all of his blood. And oh boy, did it ever taste good. Barry deserved it. He should have sold me the land. That would have solved all of the problems. But he just didn’t want to, so I killed him.”

  “You left the body there to be found.”

  “I figured it would be too suspicious if he just disappeared. No one was going to be able to link him to me, anyway.” Suddenly, however, something clicked in Peter’s brain, and I knew this was my chance. “Hold on,” he said. “How do you know that I sucked all his blood?”

  This was it. Peter looked over at me, confusion written all over his face as he tried to parse the fact that I knew he was a vampire, and I reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, yanking it towards me and driving the car off the road. It was a risky move, but a low chance of death was better than the guaranteed death I was going to face if I stayed in the car with Peter.

  He let out a shout as the car careened towards a large fir tree and smashed into it, the airbags releasing. There was an extra pop; I was fairly certain the gun had gone off, but when I didn’t feel any pain, I figured – and hoped – that I hadn’t been hit.

  The driver’s side was the one most affected by the hit of the tree, so I was able to open the passenger-side door and jump out, rolling into the brush. I grabbed my wand from my pocket and held it out in front of me, but I wasn’t going to hang around and see if Peter was ok. Instead, I just ran headlong into the forest as fast as I could.

  “I know you’re there. I’m going to get you, and I’m going to kill you, and then I’m going to drink all your blood. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not getting out of here alive,” Peter called out to me as I ran through the forest. I suddenly realized that I did, in fact, have a huge advantage. Peter had no idea I was a witch. I might not know a huge number of spells, but I did know some, and that was more than Peter knew I could do.

  I kept running, but I could hear the rustle of the bushes and trees behind me as Peter followed. He was going to catch me if I didn’t do something.

  I stopped, tried to slow my breathing for a second, and then quickly cast the invisibility spell on myself once more. I disappeared and smiled. Now I was the one with the upper hand. Of course, in the thick forest I had to be sure not to touch anything – I would still make noise from stepping on twigs or brushing against branches – but for now, I was completely invisible. Peter ran past me, panting, still holding his gun.

  He had no idea that I was now behind him.

  “Come on, where did you go?” he muttered, slowing down and listening for my footsteps. I stayed as still as possible, not wanting to give him any hint as to my location, when I looked down and saw a rock about the size of a tennis ball. Picking it up, I hurled it as far away from myself as I could, and it hit a tree about thirty yards away. Peter pricked up at the sound and started heading that way.

  Because I was invisible, I wasn’t going to be able to use my phone; I’d have to speak to get Siri to call for help, and I didn’t want to make that much noise. I started creeping back towards the road, hoping that someone would have come across the wreck and called for help, but when I stepped on an errant twig that snapped, I paused and saw Peter looking back towards where I was, and I winced as he started making his way in my direction.

  “Where are you? What are you doing?” he shouted. “What are you?”

  For the first time, I detected a small note of fear in his voice. Peter was a vampire, used to being the only paranormal in the world. He had no idea that he was living on an island with witches.

  I decided to use that to my advantage. He might have been using magic to mask his vampire tendencies, but I had a feeling he was still more sensitive to light than most people.

  “Saturn, god of plenty, blind my enemy with lights many.” I pointed my wand at Peter, and thousands of tiny lights, each so bright that I had to close my eyes, darted towards him. I had never actually seen this spell in action before. I had only heard Aunt Lucy threaten Leanne with it one day. She had then told me the incantation and gotten me to write it down, just in case I needed to blind someone. I figured it would never come in handy, but I was too scared of Aunt Lucy to refuse, so I did as she asked.

  And oh boy, was I ever glad for it.

  “What the…?” Peter shouted as the lights completely blinded him. I ran forward through the lights, trusting they wouldn’t hurt me, and tackled him to the ground. The gun fell out of his hand, and I immediately punched him in the face. As soon as I did, the lights dissipated, the energy transfer from me having been broken.

  The sickening crack of his nose breaking beneath my fist reached my ears and he shouted in pain. I took the moment to grab the gun from the ground and took few steps away from him. He was about thirty feet away when I finally stopped, and he struggled to his feet. He looked around.

  “Where are you?” he asked. “What’s going on? Why can’t I see you?”

  I reversed the invisibility spell so he could see that I had his gun pointed at him. “I’m right here. Get on the ground.”

  Peter shook his head. “You know I’m a vampire. You should know you can’t kill me with that.”

  Oh, poop. This wasn’t good. What could kill vampires? Silver bullets. I was just learning how to turn one object into another. Would it work for bullets? I was about to find out.

  I pulled out my wand and cast the spell I’d learned only a few days earlier. “Saturn, god of plenty, transform these bullets into silver bullets for me.”

  I pointed the wand at the gun and felt the energy inside of me transfer through it. Peter paused as he narrowed his eyes at me. He was obviously trying to tell if I had just cast a real spell.

  “So you’re from the coven of Saturn?” he asked. “What town are your people from?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “We don’t live in that world.”

  “That’s ridiculous. If there were any witches or wizards that lived here permanently, I would have heard of them.”

  “Well, aren’t you special? But no, you obviously haven’t.”

  “Let’s just see about that.”

  Peter made a move that I was fairly certain was supposed to be him baring his fangs, but because his vampire teeth had been magically made to look normal, there were no fangs to show.

  “I don’t believe you’re a real witch. You would know where you came from.”

  “I’ve spent my whole life not knowing where I came from,” I retorted. “But if you come any closer, I’m going to shoot you.”

  Peter chose that moment to lunge, and I closed my eyes as I squeezed the trigger. The gun exploded once, twice, three times, and I finally opened my eyes once more to see what had happened.

  Peter stood in the middle of the forest, gaping at me. Two red spots were soaking through his shirt on his abdomen, and my eyes widened as I realized I had shot him. I had just shot him.

  “They… they were real silver,” he stammered before falling to the ground.

  I stood in shock for a split second before jumping into action. I called Ross’s personal number, but I don’t know what I said. I was pretty sure I was crying. But I must have told him where I was because he arrived a few minutes later along with a couple other police officers
and an ambulance.

  “It’s over,” he whispered as he took me into his arms, holding me close. “It’s over. It’s all over.”

  Chapter 26

  It turned out the silver bullets did kill Peter Toole. That wasn’t one of those things we learned in the human world about vampires that had no basis in reality. They really could be killed with silver bullets.

  Of course, it didn’t take long before it was determined that I had acted in self-defense. I was never even placed under arrest.

  “So he did it because Barry wouldn’t sell him the land. Peter didn’t want the project to go forward so he could force Barry to sell,” Leanne said that night at dinner. It had been a very long day, and even Aunt Debbie – who ended up taking over the running of the whole front of the coffee shop after Kaillie and Leanne found out what happened and insisted on spending the day with me – wasn’t up for cooking. Instead, we were digging into a feast of Chinese food with Aunt Lucy making her chopsticks run around the table on their own, waving her wand to direct them around boxes of food and people’s plates and glasses.

  “That’s right,” I replied as Aunt Debbie snatched the chopsticks off the table and handed them back to her sister with a glare.

  “You’re over fifty years old. You should be mature enough not to play with your utensils.”

  “Barry refused to sell the land to Peter, since obviously he wanted to build the resort, and Peter eventually realized the project was going to go through and killed him,” I explained.

  “How did you figure it out, though?” Kaillie asked, shoving a giant piece of orange chicken into her mouth.

  “Well, it was as Aunt Lucy said: I had all of the information, I just hadn’t put it all together yet. When we went to that morning yoga session, we were focused on Jordan since her husband was the one acting suspiciously, but what about Michelle? She said her husband’s name was Pete, and I never put it together that she meant Peter Toole. But once I did, I realized: he had told us he was in bed, asleep with his wife when Barry was killed just before six in the morning. But his wife goes to yoga every day from five to six. So his alibi was bogus. What else was he lying about? That was why I went to the house: I wanted to confirm that Michelle was his wife. I didn’t know he was the killer then. I suspected because of the lie, but I had no proof. Then when he pulled up next to me and pulled the gun on me, I knew.”

  “I reversed your spell, by the way,” Aunt Lucy said. “They’re going to be normal bullets when they pull them back out of the body, not silver ones.”

  “Good,” I said. “I don’t want there to be more questions about the gun than there already are.”

  “There won’t be any questions,” Aunt Lucy said. “The thing about humans is they don’t believe in magic and witches. Even when something completely out of the ordinary happens that’s obviously caused by the paranormal, they’ll climb all over themselves looking for a ‘rational’ explanation that doesn’t involve magic. They’ll completely refuse to accept the paranormal as a reason for anything happening.”

  “That’s a relief,” I replied. “The entire time that I was giving Ross my statement I was worried I was going to mention something about magic by accident.”

  “You’ll get used to speaking around magic eventually,” Aunt Debbie said kindly. “Personally, I’m just glad you’re alright. I can’t believe he kidnapped you in the middle of the day or that you crashed his car. I’m so glad you weren’t hurt.”

  “I agree with Deb,” Uncle Bob said. “It was very risky, and I’m glad you’re safe.”

  “Thanks,” I said with a smile.

  “Me too,” Kaillie said. “If you’d asked me a few days ago, I’d have told you to take any risk necessary to find the killer vampire, but as soon as Leanne told me what happened and that we had to go see you, I felt this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, and I was so worried about you. I’m glad you’re ok. I’d rather have let the killer go free and missed my chance to visit the paranormal world than to have lost you.”

  “Sheesh, you’re all talking about Eliza like she died,” Aunt Lucy said, helping herself to another spring roll. “I mean sure, she found a vampire, but I posted all the information I found to Sean’s Facebook group, and Tom Jeffers was arrested this afternoon for accepting bribes.”

  “So it was all true?” I asked, and Aunt Lucy nodded.

  “Yup. He spent all the ill-gotten gains on the house in Oregon. I found the property records and managed to get the details from the bank that he used to hide the money.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s another jurisdiction out there looking for Glitterella as well,” Aunt Debbie groaned.

  “Oh no, I was more subtle. I didn’t want Tom to know I was onto him before he was arrested. I sent Kevin Harman the files I had, and as soon as I heard Tom was arrested, I put them online. Now I just need to find the second person who was bribed. If there was a second bribe, anyway.”

  “What I want to know is why you did it,” Leanne said.

  “A sense of civic duty.” Aunt Lucy replied, and Aunt Debbie snorted.

  “You? You’re the least civic-minded witch I’ve ever met.”

  Aunt Lucy glared at her sister. “Oh please. Just because you don’t see that side of me doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  “Come on, Aunt Lucy,” Leanne said with a grin. “We all know you’ve got some sort of ulterior motive here; you always do. What is it?”

  “Well, now I’m not telling you,” Aunt Lucy sniffed. “You can find out with everyone else when the time is right.”

  “So there is something,” Leanne said with a grin. “I knew it. I’m going to find out what it is.”

  “You’re going to keep your nosy nose in your own business,” Aunt Lucy said, wagging her finger in my cousin’s face. “You got that?”

  “Sure,” Leanne said in a tone that all but explicitly screamed, “I have no intention of doing that at all.”

  “Come on, you guys. It’s a nice night to celebrate. Eliza found the vampire and killed him, and Aunt Lucy found proof of corruption here in town. Let’s just enjoy that without fighting,” Kaillie said, holding up a glass to toast. We all clinked glasses and the conversation moved to lighter subjects with everyone wanting to know how Rudy was holding up, and as I sat around the table, looking around, I couldn’t help but feel that I was where I really belonged. These were my people. And the longer I spent in Enchanted Enclave, the more I understood that.

  Three weeks later, on our day off, Leanne, Kaillie, Cleo, and I were all hanging out in the backyard, waiting for Rudy’s mother to appear. She had gone off about two hours ago to do whatever it was squirrels did, and Cleo had told her to be back when I returned with Rudy from the vet’s office.

  He had gotten a clean bill of health. His cast had been removed, and he was cleared to go back to living life in the wild. Doctor Chiu’s new X-ray had shown that the leg healed perfectly.

  “She’ll be here soon,” Cleo told us. “She’s probably just lost track of time. Squirrels don’t wear watches, and they’re not nearly as intelligent as a queen such as myself.”

  “That must be it,” I replied with a smile. “Don’t worry, Rudy, your mom’s coming soon.”

  He let out a chirp from inside the box, as if he could understand what I was saying. I didn’t want to take the lid off and let him run free too soon; without his mother around, who knew where he would go.

  “I still can’t believe Aunt Lucy,” Leanne said, shaking her head. The previous night our Aunt had announced at taco night that she had purchased the Enclave Examiner, the local newspaper, from Tom Jeffers. Apparently he had let it go at a significant discount, requiring the cash quickly to pay for his legal fees on two fronts – his criminal lawyer and his divorce attorney.

  “Can’t you?” Kaillie replied sourly. “Everything always works out for her. She even managed to get Jordan Jeffers on board since technically it’s still communal property.”

  Kaillie had been in a
bad mood for about a week now. The day after I killed Peter Toole, Kyran came by the coffee shop and thanked me, saying he would pass on our efforts to the powers that be in the paranormal world. Kaillie had spent the next few days constantly on her toes, wondering if anyone who passed by was a witch or wizard about to come and invite her to meet the rest of her coven.

  But as the days passed and we heard nothing, her hope and happiness quickly turned to despair and depression.

  “I’m sorry, Kaillie,” I said to her gently. “I was really hoping you’d have heard something.”

  “You never know. Maybe things work more slowly in the paranormal world,” Leanne offered. “You know how there’s island time? Maybe there’s paranormal time, too.”

  “Maybe,” Kaillie muttered, but I could tell she didn’t believe it anymore. “I just wish I knew what we had to do to get accepted. I know that our ancestor tried to overthrow the entire paranormal government, but that was years and years ago.”

  Leanne and I shared a look. Unfortunately, neither one of us had an answer for her.

  Just then, Rudy’s mother ran along the fence towards us. “Here’s the proud momma,” I announced, and even Kaillie perked up. “Ready to go home, Rudy?”

  I opened up the lid of the box, and the little squirrel jumped nimbly out of it and onto the picnic table. He spotted his mother immediately and darted towards her, running up and down the table, the porch railing, and the fence like it was nothing.

  “Bye, guys,” Leanne said with a wave. “Thanks for the visit.”

  “It was nice having you around, but I’m glad you’re not going to poop on the counter anymore,” Kaillie added, and Leanne and I laughed.