Witch on First: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 4 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels)

by Juliette Harper

  Dad finally agreed, but he didn’t like it.

  Chase showed up in the lair wearing fresh clothes just after my father left. His hair was still damp from the shower, and his eyes were dark with fatigue. “You okay?” I asked.

  I got a short nod in response, followed by, “I just wanted you to know I’m on my way to The Valley to talk to Merle, Earl, and Furl. I’ll check on Myrtle and get the details on transporting the Orb of Thoth from Barnaby and Moira.”

  “Uh, sure,” I said, more than a little startled at the curt tone in his voice.

  Tori waited until he was out of sight. “Wow,” she said, “fighting makes him grumpy.”

  “It was not the fighting,” Beau said, “it was the killing.”

  That didn’t make any sense. Chase couldn’t wait to confront Ferguson. Then I started to put the pieces together.

  “But Chase didn’t kill Malcolm Ferguson,” I said. “Festus did.”

  “Precisely,” Beau answered.

  We had now wandered into the unknown Territory of Maleness where interpretation services were required.

  “Why is that important?” I asked. “Dead is dead.”

  “To Chase’s mind,” Beau said, “his father succeeded where he failed. It is a hard thing for a man of pride to swallow.”

  I wanted to say something snarky about “pride goeth before a fall,” but decided to keep my mouth shut. Surely Chase would get over it when he had time to get some sleep and think about the outcome of the night’s events.

  The call from the Sheriff came in right at dawn. Tori and I delivered Oscar-worthy performances of daughterly concern, rushing to the emergency room and listening with wide-eyed horror to the story of the abduction and unlikely rescue of our mothers.

  “I have to tell you,” Sheriff Johnson said, pushing his hat back on his head, “they got real lucky.”

  “Do you have any idea why the man kidnapped them?” I asked.

  “Well,” Johnson said, lowering his voice, “I can’t say anything on the record, but he was just as big a nut case as poor old Fish Pike. They were both obsessed with mountain lions. I’m betting this guy was feeding that big cat thinking he’d tamed it, and the cougar turned on him. Normally they’re pretty shy around humans, so this fellow must have been messing with the natural order of things.”

  That was an understatement.

  “Were you able to identify the kidnapper?” Tori asked.

  “Yeah,” the Sheriff said. “The guy’s pack was right there. Looks like he lived out of the thing. His driver’s license says, Malcolm Ferguson. Lived in Seattle, where, coincidentally, there were three killings similar to Fish Pike’s a year ago. Like I said total nut case. You can go see your mothers now.”

  A few steps down the hall, I stopped and turned back. “Sheriff,” I said, “was there anything about this Ferguson guy in that room at Fish Pike’s house you told us about?”

  Johnson’s face darkened into a scowl. “Damned if I know,” he said. “That idiot deputy of mine must have left the back door open over there. Bunch of coons got in. Guess they smelled all the open cans and garbage in the kitchen. They had themselves a high old time. The whole place is wrecked. We couldn’t salvage anything out of that room.”

  I made a mental note to buy the triplets a round of Litter Box Lager and nip nachos at the Dirty Claw.

  “That’s a shame,” I said, “now we’ll never know.”

  “I’m satisfied that Ferguson was the killer,” Johnson said. “Those weird gloves of his with the claws have to be the murder weapon. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a closed case.”

  Behind him, the doors of the emergency room burst open, and my father came charging through. “Where is my wife?” he demanded.

  “Calm down, Dad,” I said. “We’re going to see her right now. Follow us.”

  When I opened the door of the examining room, Mom was sitting on the edge of the table. The cut on her forehead was closed with a couple of butterfly bandages. She looked tired, but she smiled at us. “Hey, you all,” she said in greeting.

  Dad threw his arms around her and hugged her so hard, he lifted her a little ways off the table. “Jeff,” she said, laughing, “I’m fine. Put me down.”

  “No,” he said in a choked voice, hugging her harder. “I knew getting your magic back was only going to get you in trouble.”

  Mom put her hands on his chest and forced him to loosen his grip. “You know I have my magic back?” she asked. “How?”

  “Woman,” he said, finally relaxing a little, “I’ve been living with you for more than 30 years. I knew when you took the plastic off the upholstery.”

  Mom laid her hand on his cheek. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she asked.

  “I was hoping I was wrong,” Dad admitted, “but then you had to go and get yourself kidnapped and scare the holy living hell out of me. Kelly, I don’t care if you brew up potions in the kitchen and grow toadstools on the roof. I love you, magic and all.”

  “Even with . . .” she faltered.

  “Even with what happened with Connor,” Dad assured her. “I’m sorry, honey, but I blurted it out. Jinx knows.”

  Mom looked at me. “You do?” she said.

  “I know Dad says I have a brother,” I said, “but I think we have a long family conversation in our future.”

  “Definitely,” she said, laying her head on Dad’s shoulder, “but for right now, can somebody just take me home?”

  27

  So, you think all the hard stuff was over? Yeah, I did, too.

  It turns out the mechanics of murder were easy compared to what was coming next — negotiating the fallout from the whole series of events leading up to that night in the clearing.

  First, everything with the Orb of Thoth went off perfectly. The merfolk ambassador agreed to take the artifact into safekeeping at an undisclosed location in the deep ocean. He even suggested the transfer through an alternate portal so Myrtle could convalesce as long as she liked in The Valley.

  Within hours of her arrival in Shevington, Myrtle knew all of us again, and her memory and perceptions continued to improve steadily. But, she showed no signs of wanting to return to the fairy mound, preferring instead to spend hours in meditation at the base of the Mother Tree.

  When I expressed concern to Moira, she tried to quiet my apprehensions. “Myrtle was born in the roots of the Mother Tree,” she said. “Communing with the essence from which she originated is a natural response to such traumatic events.”

  That was a hard point to argue. We were all more than a little traumatized. The only one who seemed blissfully pleased with the outcome of events was Glory, who was newly ensconced in a dollhouse Tori found for her that is an exact replica of Graceland. They’re still working on completing the furnishings, but between that and an iPod Touch loaded with Elvis hits and hooked up to Netflix, we have one happy mini witch on our hands.

  Beau helped them put up a shelf in the lair complete with a tiny, ornate staircase down to the top of the desk. Glory doesn’t want to go into the espresso bar any more than she has to as long as the chess set is still there. I don’t blame her.

  We don’t know if Chesterfield hired Ferguson, so every night Glory sends the Creavit wizard a carefully worded fake report. I think she likes the idea that she’s a double agent and has started trying for a femme fatale look.

  The matter of her clothes has been a little problematic, however. Glory is Barbie sized in terms of height, but not figure. Tori never told Glory the red pants suit was for the Rosie O’Donnell Barbie doll. When subsequent outfits proved to be too small, Mom stepped in. She’s a whiz with a sewing machine and is working with Glory to create a whole wardrobe.

  One of the first items on the list was a trench coat. When we asked Glory why, she said, “Well, it is always chilly down here.”

  A few nights after the big rescue, Mom, Dad, and Aunt Fiona sat down and told me the story about my brother. As it turns out, the two girls killed in the high
school car accident were also Fae, members of a clan of Strigoi that migrated to the Americas from Transylvania in the 18th century under the protection of a Romanian Orthodox priest named Samuel Damian.

  The Strigoi aren’t vampires in the sense that they don’t feed on human blood. They do, however, take energy from their victims and are especially associated in the old legends with the death of infants. Damian believed the Strigoi could be cured of their hunger, and seems to have found a way to help them. The Ionescu family, the Strigoi clan, living in the area around Briar Hollow, have existed peacefully side-by-side with their Fae neighbors for generations — that is until the car accident.

  Anton Ionescu, the father of one of the girls, cursed my mother to be forever parted from her first-born child, my brother, Connor. “Forever parted” translates in Strigoi speak to “drain the boy of his life force until he dies.”

  With help from Myrtle and Barnaby, a deal was struck. Connor would be sent to Shevington to live with Endora Endicott as her grandson. My parents were never to see him again. If they did, his life would be forfeit.

  We all agreed that we had to come up with a better solution. I have every intention of knowing my brother, and my parents have been heartbroken for years over his loss. Until we can figure something out, however, trying to contact Connor would only put us all in danger. We’re all in agreement there’s been quite enough of that for one summer.

  So far, Mom has honored the bargain. She hasn’t made contact with Connor, but the mere fact that she’s been to the The Valley could mean Ionescu hired Malcolm Ferguson. Tori looked into the guy. He’s a well-respected attorney who spends more time in Raleigh than in Briar Hollow. I think it’s a long shot, but we’ve learned not to rule anyone out.

  Barnaby and Moira want to focus on finding out what Chesterfield is up to, and I agree with them. My suspicions about Pete the Pizza Man are on the table as well. Something is up with him, and we need to know what.

  In general, however, things seemed to have calmed down. We finished the sweep of the archives and found nothing unusual. Moira triple warded the fairy mound and started work with Tori and Gemma building some kind of alchemical alarm system.

  I made the mistake of thinking everything was going great until I got up on Sunday morning two weeks to the day after we found Fish Pike’s body. When I went downstairs, Chase was sitting in the espresso bar.

  “Hey,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

  “I asked Tori if she would mind going down to the lair so you and I can talk,” he said. “Will you sit down?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Mind if I make a pot of coffee?”

  “It’s already made,” he said. “I’ll get you a cup.”

  My Spidey sense was screaming, but I sat down and waited for Chase to come back. When he did, I sipped my coffee and waited for him to speak. This conversation was all his show.

  “Jinx,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about everything that happened with Malcolm Ferguson and all the history behind his hatred of the McGregors.”

  “Okay,” I said, “and what have you come up with?”

  He stared into his coffee cup, running his finger around the rim in slow, nervous circles.

  When a couple of moments passed, I said, “Chase, if you have something to say, just say it.”

  “We can’t be involved with each other.”

  The words stunned me, but I asked him to be direct, so I willed myself to respond calmly. “And how did you arrive at this conclusion?”

  I don’t know what reaction he expected, but that wasn’t it.

  He blinked uncertainly and then seemed to gather his resolve. “The taboo about dating outside our kind is in place for a reason,” he said. “I think it’s dangerous to ignore that.”

  “Do you now,” I said evenly. “Did you have any plan to ask my opinion about this or am I just supposed to accept your unilateral decision?”

  Word to the wise. The bigger the words, the madder the woman.

  Chase could have responded almost any other way than the one he chose. He got his back up. “Nothing you can say will change my mind,” he said.

  Bad response. Really, really, really bad response.

  “I have no intention of begging you to stay with me if that’s what you mean,” I said. “If you’re the kind of man who thinks he can arbitrarily make decisions for the woman in his life, I don’t want you anyway. We do, however, have to work together. Did you think about that when you were designing this whole dictated break up?”

  Picking up on the coldness in my tone, he said, “I assumed we could be adults about that.”

  “You assumed correctly,” I said, “but right now, I’m very angry at you. I took you for many things, Chase McGregor, but a coward wasn’t one of them. I’d like you to get out of my store, please.”

  It was his turn to be stung, but I wasn’t the one who started this whole mess.

  “Jinx . . .”

  “Don’t,” I said, putting up my hand. “You’re getting what you want, now be a gentleman and leave.”

  He stood up. “I had hoped this would go better,” he said.

  “I’m sure you did,” I answered.

  As his footsteps echoed across the hardwood, I sat quietly drinking my coffee. I didn’t move when the basement door opened and closed. Five minutes later, Tori came upstairs and sat down across from me.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “He told you?” I asked.

  “He did,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know if I want to throw things or cry for three days,” I replied.

  She reached over the table and laid her hand over mine. “If you want me to shoot him,” she said gravely, “I will. I’ll even wound him real bad first.”

  In spite of myself, I laughed. “You would, too, wouldn’t you?” I said.

  “Damn straight,” she said. “You want me to go for the knees or the . . .”

  “Tori!”

  “I’m just saying there are lots of ways to hurt a man,” she observed. “I’m creative by nature.”

  “Stop,” I said, laughing and crying all at the same time.

  “What do you want to do?” Tori asked.

  “I want to sit here and drink my coffee with my best friend and talk about anything other than Chase McGregor,” I said.

  “Done,” she answered. “Mind if I throw some bear claws into the mix?”

  “Mind?” I said. “I think today they’d be considered medicinal.”

  So that’s where we were sitting, drinking coffee and eating pastries when the second bombshell dropped.

  A beam of light opened above us, and a parchment scroll dropped on the table.

  “Oh Lord,” Tori said. “Now what?”

  I opened the scroll. It was a message from Myrtle.

  When I read it to Tori, she said, “Is that what I think it is?”

  “A suicide note?” I said. “Yeah, I would say so. Get dressed. We’re going to The Valley.”

  28

  “I am not committing suicide,” Myrtle said calmly. “I am returning to the source from which I was born.”

  If Myrtle felt well enough to argue semantics with me, she didn’t need to be going anywhere.

  “Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying ‘kill yourself?’” I said.

  “You are being quite obstinate about this,” Myrtle said.

  Dang straight I was.

  “Why are you even thinking about doing this?” I demanded. “Moira told us you’re getting better.”

  Tori, Moira, Myrtle, and I were sitting in Moira’s workshop in a pool of light thrown by the picture windows behind her desk. Myrtle looked wonderful. She was her usual, radiant, golden self. Not one thing about her looked in any way unhealthy.

  Myrtle looked at Moira. “Why don’t you try explaining it to her?” she suggested. “Perhaps you will have more luck.”

  Moira didn’t look hopeful, but she tried anyway.

  “Myrtle has most
definitely improved,” she said. “It would be a mistake, however, to think that she emerged unscathed from her brush with the Orb of Thoth. The best way I can describe her situation to you is to compare the effect to that of radiation poisoning in your world. The source of the radiation may be removed, but the damage wrought assumes a momentum of its own.”

  Yeah, nice try.

  “So you find a way to treat the poisoning,” I said. “You don’t just up and decide to commit suicide.”

  Myrtle was starting to lose patience.

  “Jinx,” she said, “do not make me correct you again. For the last time, I am not killing myself. I plan to merge my energy with that of the Mother Tree so that I may heal.”

  Seizing the opening, I said, “So then you’ll be back, right?”

  I know. It sounded desperate, but that pretty much sums up how I felt.

  Myrtle moved her chair closer to me and took my hands in hers. “It is possible that one day I will assume this form and return,” she said, “and it is possible that I will not. I do not know where this next portion of my journey will take me, but I believe this is the right thing to do.”

  Desperation started to give way to despair in my heart.

  “Please don’t go,” I whispered. “Stay with us.”

  “If I did,” Myrtle said, “I would not be as you have come to know me.”

  “That doesn’t matter to me,” I said fiercely.

  “It matters to me,” Myrtle said, “and I must ask that you respect my feelings.”

  What was there to say to that?

  I’d just gone cold as ice on Chase and done nothing to stop our break up because I refused to let anyone make decisions for me. Now I was trying to do the same thing to Myrtle. That wasn’t right, even if I didn’t like admitting it.

  “When will you go?” I asked.

  “Today,” she said, “and I would like you both to be there.”

  Tori and I weren’t the only ones who had received a scroll from Myrtle. When we walked with her and Moira to the base of the Mother Tree, everyone was there waiting for us, including Beau and Rodney. For only the second time since I’d known him, Festus was in human form, wearing a dark suit, no less.