If the Curse Fits

by Kennedy Layne

  “She must belong to someone who works here.”

  I cautiously kept an eye on the feline, wary that the cat might try to sink her claws into my leg or something. The last thing I needed was to get cat scratch fever or anything of that nature. She just sat there, twitching her tail in an obvious show of displeasure. I wasn’t paranoid, like Orwin had the tendency to be, but I was cautious considering my situation.

  “I’m sure if we ignore her that she’ll go back to doing whatever it was she was doing before we got here,” I said, though my words didn’t sound as convincing as I’d wanted them to. I waved my hand in her direction. “Shoo.”

  The white feline was definitely a female. Normally, toms were bulkier and larger through the chest. They exuded a rather scruffy masculine look, where a female tended to be more refined. I did find it odd that her fur was completely devoid of even one speck of dirt. She was obviously a well-kept cat, though clearly not happy that she was surrounded by strangers whom she didn’t care for.

  “Well, what did you hear while you were up at the counter?” I asked after the cat decided that it was going to sit where she was for the remainder of our stay. I’d read somewhere that cats could be rather obstinate. We didn’t have time to concern ourselves with the animal, though. “Is Piper considering sitting down with us to hear more about my curse?”

  Who wouldn’t want to hear my story? It wasn’t every day that a witch was hexed by an immortal. Had this situation not been about me, I would have been the first to pull up a chair at the table.

  “Not exactly,” Orwin hedged before blowing his nose. I wrinkled mine when he crumbled up the napkin and shoved it in his pocket. Yuck. “Piper is currently trying to figure out when she can take a quick break to call her father.”

  “Seriously? She’s twenty-two years old. It’s not like I threatened her or anything.”

  One of the three women stood up from their table and began walking in our direction. No doubt she was seeing what was taking their friend so long in the restroom. If my friends were backstabbers like these ladies, I wouldn’t have stuck around, either. One of the women collected her purse with a frown on her face, and I wasn’t so sure she’d still be at the table when the other two came out of the restroom.

  “You told Piper about the curse, and then you mentioned her…gift.” Orwin had also seen the woman approaching the table, so he leaned in a bit closer so she couldn’t hear him. “It stands to reason she thinks you’re some hedge witch who heard of her family name and is looking to clear up some acne or something. I’m sure she just wants some advice and some protection for when her shift ends.”

  Orwin might have been right about waiting to speak with Piper until after her shift. That wasn’t for another three hours, though. I couldn’t help but run a hand over my jawline, making sure my skin was still as smooth as it was this morning. I had been blessed with porcelain skin, but that meant the slightest blemish could be seen like a beacon. Where did he come up with this acne stuff? I’d grown out of that hormonal stage in my late teens.

  “Uh, Lou?” Orwin had gone through another napkin, leaving the sides of his nose looking rather irritated. The expression on his face told me that I shouldn’t be worried about his allergies. His wide gaze was currently focused on the door to the women’s restroom. “We might have a—”

  A muffled bloodcurdling scream could be heard from inside the restroom, but it didn’t remain muted for long. The woman who’d just walked past our table came running out in a panic, yelling for someone to call 911. Her words were rather incoherent, but I did pick up on stabbed and dead.

  “Did she just say that her friend was stabbed?” I reiterated, because what were the odds of this happening? Maybe my bad luck didn’t just extend to my hex. Oh, I had a bad feeling about this. “Please tell me I heard her wrong.”

  “I wish I could,” Orwin muttered, scooting back his chair quickly as everyone in the café began to react to the hysterics. “But there’s definitely been a murder.”

  Multiple things happened at once.

  The white cat arched her back and hissed loudly before running behind the counter. The cashier and the three patrons in line all froze in shock. The young man on the computer was grappling for his phone and most likely trying to record the mania, while the older couple appeared ready to bolt. As for the college girls, they were watching everyone else, clearly attempting to see if this was some kind of prank.

  Crud.

  This was really happening.

  For once, my hex hadn’t played a part in this mystery. Unfortunately, there was no leaving this café with a dead body in the restroom. It was then that I saw a blur of a blonde girl go running for the small hallway.

  “Piper is going to sneak into the restroom to try and save or revive the victim,” I muttered as I quickly stood up from my chair, already hearing a rich, commanding voice talking to a 911 operator. Apparently, Knox Emeric wasn’t one to ignore a crisis. “Oliver, don’t let anyone leave this café. It stands to reason that someone inside this place is a murderer.”

  Chapter Two

  “Piper, you did all you could,” I consoled, understanding full well that platitudes like the one I’d just given her didn’t make anything better. This wasn’t how I’d pictured having a conversation with her, but these past three months had taught me that hardly anything ever went as planned. “We now have to leave this in the hands of the police. They have a job to do here, and we shouldn’t get in the way.”

  It was hard to miss the way Orwin’s thin black eyebrow arched above his glasses. He knew me well enough that I wouldn’t allow a little thing like a police presence to prevent me from doing a bit of my own sleuthing. He also probably didn’t agree with me about my outlook and told me often enough that I was far too obstinate for my own good.

  I liked to view myself as determined rather than stubborn.

  Anyway, I had no choice but to take advantage of the time I had with Piper.

  Unfortunately, the blonde barista had tried to save the victim, but the woman had been dead for at least a minute or two before she’d been discovered. It wasn’t like Piper’s ability extended to bringing back the dead, when the heart quit beating and the spirit had fled the body. Her abilities had limitations just like everyone else.

  I’ll spare you the gory details of her desperate attempt to heal a woman who was beyond saving.

  What I should share with you was that the town of Bedford was fairly small. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken the local police long to show up at the café. As for Orwin, he’d done a great job of keeping everyone inside until the authorities arrived, and the police had made each and every one of us sit at the tables farthest away from the restrooms until they could get everyone’s statements.

  I’d made sure that Orwin and I had claimed a table with Piper, leaving the other witnesses to gather round a few of the others nearby. Everyone was whispering to one another, probably all wondering who could have committed the vicious murder and speculating if the killer was someone sitting next to them.

  “This is all your fault,” Piper whispered accusingly, cautiously looking around to see if anyone nearby had overheard her. She brushed a blonde curl away from her face so that I wouldn’t miss her accusing glare. It was hard to take her seriously, though. “Nothing this crazy ever happens here. You come along, claiming to be a cursed witch of all things, and now a woman is suddenly dead. What did you do? Transfer your curse to her or something?”

  As if right on cue, the white cat Orwin and I had seen earlier jumped up in Piper’s lap as if she’d wanted to console the younger woman. I take that back. The feline was definitely defending her owner, especially after the hiss she’d given me.

  I’d never imagined that Piper would have a familiar, but now I completely understood why the cat didn’t like me.

  Okay, it was clear that she loathed me on sight.

  I tried to be a bit more understanding. After all, a familiar’s love was unconditional. This pretty whi
te familiar had been trying to protect her witch, and she undeniably considered me a threat.

  The thing of it was…the familiar wasn’t wrong if you thought about the sole reason I was here.

  “We had nothing to do with that woman’s murder,” Orwin denied, attempting to scoot back from the dander shedding feline. It was too late, and even I could see the silky white hairs floating in the air between them. He’d somehow managed to keep himself from sneezing…just barely. He shrugged, as if I should have known the answer. “I had some of my allergy medicine left in my pocket.”

  Oh, that’s right.

  Orwin and I had encountered a couple of werewolves on our last case. What everyday humans referred to as pet dander extended to the mystical beings of the netherworld. Ever since our encounter with the hairy beasts, he’d carried around his allergy medicine just in case of an emergency. One thing about Orwin I could appreciate was his need to be prepared.

  I guess he was a bit of a Boy Scout at heart.

  “You’ve managed to get me where you’ve wanted me this entire time,” Piper pointed out, clearly not happy that I’d cornered her at a table. It was easy to see the mixture of fear and dismay in her blue eyes, and I tried to relax a little to give off the air of tranquility. “The second I give my statement to the police, I’m heading home. You have until then to tell me whatever it is you’ve come to talk to me about. Is this about his allergies? Tell me that you didn’t seek me out to heal his stuffed-up nose.”

  I went back over our conversation, and it wasn’t odd that Piper hadn’t quite followed the exchange between me and Orwin. Piper had no idea that Orwin could read minds, not that he was showing any indication that he was doing so now. Maybe he just didn’t want to be judged unfairly for a talent he couldn’t control.

  A quick scan across the café assured me that the police were still busy currently taking Knox Emeric’s statement. I found it rather suspicious that he’d wanted to go first, especially considering he’d been in the men’s restroom seconds before the victim’s body had been found.

  Had he snuck into the women’s restroom to kill the victim?

  Was Knox Emeric the killer or just a hapless traveler like Orwin had suggested earlier?

  We definitely had a finite pool of suspects, and this murder could be solved before midnight if we played our cards right.

  “Fine,” Orwin sighed, glaring at the ball of white fur curled up in Piper’s lap. “I could do with some space from Snowball, there.”

  Snowball lifted her head and bared her teeth with another drawn-out hiss, letting Orwin know that the dislike was mutual. He didn’t waste time scooting back his chair, grabbing a handful of cheap paper napkins, and making haste before joining some of the other witnesses. They were currently all keeping busy by pouring the coffee from the carafes into disposable cups that Piper’s fellow workers had put out for the use of the patrons, free of charge.

  We had a routine between us that usually worked to our advantage. Orwin would garner what information he could from the gathered crowd, attempting to utilize his gift of telepathy to help find the murderer. I would then discreetly use my power of telekinesis to trap them until the police could arrest them. I know there were more than a few holes in that strategy, but trust me…I’d say that Orwin and I made it work out more than half of the time.

  “My familiar’s name is Pearl, and she’s not beneath using her claws to make her point,” Piper warned, though as I said earlier, it was hard to take the blonde’s threat seriously when I was probably five inches taller than her and didn’t find her cat frightening in the least. Piper’s petite stature made her appear vulnerable, which would motivate almost anyone to want to protect her. With that said, there was an underlying strength that practically emanated from the young girl. “Go on. What is it that you want from me?”

  Piper and Pearl.

  Go figure.

  While I did admire Piper’s spunk, Pearl’s demeanor left a lot to be desired. A witch or warlock usually acquired a familiar on her or his eighteenth birthday, if she or he was so inclined to attract one. I’d left my coven before my birthday, and Orwin had been seventeen when he’d decided to move on to college. We’d both parted from our families for different reasons, and neither one of us ever had the opportunity to cast the spell nor allow for a familiar to take this dangerous excursion with us.

  I guess we could now, given that our circumstances have changed. It was just something we hadn’t even considered, in part due to Orwin’s allergies. Even witches and warlocks had everyday hurdles to overcome.

  I was confused about something, though.

  I’d always been told that all witches and warlocks could hear a familiar’s thoughts. It wasn’t supposed to matter who they belonged to, but obviously that wasn’t the case here.

  Unless Pearl was defective in some manner.

  It could be that she just didn’t want to communicate with anyone other than her charge.

  I couldn’t worry about the cat’s issues, at the moment. It was best I didn’t waste any more time.

  “Piper, my name is Tempest Lilura, and I’m the oldest daughter to Cenawin and Dorothea Lilura from a coven in Salem, Massachusetts. I usually go by Lou to my friends, but it’s been three months since I’ve had any of those,” I said, hoping that a little injection of humor would get Piper to relax a little. I wasn’t sure it was working, so I followed up with another quip. “Unless you count Orwin, but I’m paying him a lot of money to accompany me on this quest.”

  Needless to say, Piper and Pearl just continued to glare at me as if I was the sole reason they were stuck inside the café with a dead body in the restroom.

  Talk about a difficult crowd.

  “I don’t need to know your name.” Piper leaned back in her chair with a clear sigh of frustration and began stroking Pearl behind the ear. “I’ll ask again. What is it you want from me? Is it to fix your friend’s allergies?”

  “Not exactly,” I declared reluctantly, having truly wanted this conversation to be a bit friendlier than its current course. So be it. I’d have to lay it all on the line, but I did make a mental note to see if Piper could rid Orwin of his allergies. At least one of us could benefit from this meeting. “I’ll be blunt. Ammeline Letty Romilda put a hex on me, and I need your help.”

  There.

  I’d said it aloud.

  It wasn’t surprising that Piper’s pink lips formed the perfect O.

  At least now I had her attention.

  And mine.

  I whipped around, instantly placing my right hand over my ear. It was as if someone had been standing right beside my chair with their lips attached to my earlobe. What a horrible sensation. Icky, in every sense of the word.

  “That’s just Pearl. She’s a bit…finicky…on who she chooses to speak with, and you aren’t exactly her favorite person at the moment.” Piper leaned forward, much to Pearl’s dismay, causing the white feline to sit in Piper’s lap instead of being curled up in a ball. It was good to see that Piper was very interested in what I had to say now. “Ammeline Letty Romilda? I thought she was just a legend made up to scare little children when they didn’t want to behave properly.”

  Didn’t we all?

  “And what kind of hex are you talking about? Do you only have months to live? Are you going to grow old in a matter of days?” Piper’s head was moving side to side in her disbelief, her blond curls rocking back and forth. “Ammeline Letty Romilda. Wow, that’s quite a story.”

  Piper wasn’t the one having a problem believing what she was hearing. I was still rubbing my ear, trying to get over the fact that I could understand Pearl.

  Every.

  Word.

  Her haughty tone reminded me of one of those fancy British ladies who’d been born into royalty. Either that or someone off the Great British Baking show on television.

  Haughty, am I? At least I’m not the one who is claiming to be hexed by the bogeyman, Miss Lilura.

  “Can Pearl r
ead my thoughts, too?” I asked in suspicion, lowering my hand slowly and wishing this place offered more than coffee. This was not how I’d imagined my talk with Piper panning out. “Forget it. Please tell Pearl not to talk anymore. Now I totally get why Orwin believes his gift is a curse. I would too, if I were in his shoes.”

  When had my life gone so far off the rails?

  I mean, I know the exact moment, but what had I done to warrant such bad karma?

  I’m sure there’s a list somewhere, Miss Lilura. Your parents might have it in their possession.

  Oh, I might have to rethink my proposition to Piper. This part about hearing voices in my head might literally drive me off the deep end.

  “The police are about to question Marna and Jack,” Piper shared somewhat conspiringly, most likely hoping to distract me from Pearl’s not-so-pleasant attitude. “Marna and Jack are new here in town, but they’re really very sweet. I can’t believe for a second that they had anything to do with that woman’s death. And what do you mean, Orwin’s gift is a curse?”

  “Don’t let the couple’s appearance fool you,” I replied, diverting the conversation away from Orwin. I only had so many minutes to state my case, and I for one knew firsthand how looks could be deceiving. “Piper, it doesn’t matter what hex Ammeline has cursed me with. What matters most right now is whether you can make it go away.”

  I instinctively held my breath, wishing more than anything Piper would give me the answer I sought. Orwin and I had disagreed about her abilities many times over the last few weeks after finding out about her existence. He didn’t believe that Piper’s gift of healing extended to ridding one of curses, especially one bestowed by a Lich. I was hoping he was dead wrong.

  “It all depends on the type of hex you’re talking about,” Piper replied cautiously, unknowingly making Orwin and I both right about her gift. She was still watching the older couple speaking to one of the police officers who’d been relegated to taking statements. It took a moment before her blue eyes finally focused back on me, her astonishment at my predicament not hard to miss. “Ammeline Letty Romilda. She really exists? I can’t believe she’s real. I mean, she’s an honest to goodness Lich queen from antiquity. Did you know that the mental abilities of the mind of a Lich queen stabilizes once committed to the phylactery object as their body deteriorates, leaving only a leathery corpse in an undead form?”