Witches of the West - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel)

by S. M. Blooding

  “Whoa.” Paige rushed to her sister and sat in front of her, entangling her feet in her sister’s legs. “What’s wrong?”

  Leslie sniffed and grabbed a paper towel off the roll beside her. “I’m stupid.”

  Shit. Dumb talk. Leslie was having a minor melt-down. “No. You’re not. Stop it.”

  “But I am. Look at this place.”

  Paige had seen it on her way in. “Yeah. It looks like a work in progress.”

  “What was I thinking?”

  “That you needed something to do?”

  Leslie flung out her hands. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

  Paige’s first response was to tell her sister she was stupid for calling herself stupid. She puffed out her cheeks and released a breath. Neither one of them were real great at the pep talks. “I know what you mean.”

  “Huh?”

  “This…” Paige gestured toward where her building was somewhere behind Leslie’s. “This task force or whatever we’re calling it? I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “But…” Leslie’s chest stopped vibrating as the tears slowed. “In Dallas…”

  “I had Henry.” Her old boss. “Do you have any idea how much he held my hand? I do. Because all that stuff that I should know now? Yeah. I’m failing. Miserably. Dexx has got to know. Same as Ethel—who’s pretty fucking wicked smart, by the way—and Michelle, who I have to keep reminding to call Michelle because I’ve been calling her Gomez since I met her.”

  Leslie waved her off. “You and that whole police thing and calling people by their last names. It’s weird.”

  It was safe. “And I don’t even know if that’s right. Should I be calling them by their first names? Their last names? The same rules I’ve been following for almost twenty years? Gone. Out the door. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Leslie took in a deep, shaky breath. “This isn’t going as planned. Is it?”

  Paige shook her head. “I thought you had a business plan for this, like, for the last few years.”

  “Oh, I have.” Leslie let her hand fall to the dirty concrete floor. “But I didn’t account for this.”

  Paige glanced around. “What ‘this’?”

  “Setting up? I’m redoing all my layouts because of what Chuck wants. This was just going to be a soap and wine shop. Soap and wine. Fun. Easy. I’ve been practicing this for years.”

  “Wine? Really?”

  “Yeah, Pea,” Leslie said in a tone that told Paige just how thick she was. “All that wine you’ve been drinking? I’ve made or mixed myself.”

  “Oh.” And she’d just been too busy to pay attention. Paige sucked as a human being.

  “Now…” Leslie released a tear-clogged breath. “I need herbs and I don’t even know what herbs I need. My original plan had me setting up the soap making stations over there and the winery over there.”

  Paige wasn’t an expert on this, but… “They shouldn’t mingle.”

  “They’d be on opposite sides, dork.”

  “Of a fairly small room.” Which was still larger than her new bedroom, but smaller than the kitchen.

  “It’s more than enough space. My plan was to start making soap by now so it could start curing, and to start making wine and to start stocking wine from local wineries.”

  “Don’t you have to make those contacts?”

  “I did. But now the money that was going to go to wine is going to herbs…that I don’t even know what to buy.”

  “Then don’t buy the herbs.”

  “But that was a condition of the agreement.”

  Dumb agreement. “I mean don’t buy them yet. Get your wine. Wine sells, dear. Then, take the money from what you sell and the gross—or whatever it’s called—from after you buy more wine, and buy the herbs after you know what you need.”

  Leslie released a ghost of a chuckle.

  “Go with the old plan. Then as the money rolls in and as the information comes in, then get the other stuff, but stay with the plan you had so you can get going.”

  Leslie sighed and gave Paige a tired smile. “I love you, sis.”

  “I love you, too.” And she did. But Paige was really starting to think that moving to Oregon had been a bad, bad, bad idea.

  “Did you know that we have a whole bunch of mythological creatures—people here?” Leslie smiled like she was drunk—probably drunk off of frustration and desperation. “Not just shifters.”

  “Yeah. I interviewed a goblin today.”

  “Whoa.” Leslie’s face folded into a grimacing smile. “What?”

  Paige nodded, the tip of her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “And he reeked. Oh my word. He stank.”

  “A goblin. As in fae.”

  “Fuck if I know, but yeah. Goblin. And a harpy and a valkyrie.”

  “Seriously.”

  “As the goddess knows me. Yes.”

  “Wow.”

  “And I’m hiring a rusalka.”

  Leslie pressed her fingertips into her lips for a moment. “Don’t they drown people?”

  “Apparently, just one old woman from a long time ago.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, actually, it was three old women.”

  “What?”

  “Well, no. It was three old women and one young woman.”

  The red around Leslie’s eyes receded. “Am I not supposed to know what you’re saying?”

  “No. Really it’s most rusalkas, but Rainbow Blu just tracks down missing persons.”

  “She—wait. What? Rainbow Blu?”

  “Yeah.” Paige couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

  Leslie shook her head in wonder. “Her parents must have hated her.”

  “From what I learned—didn’t learn—heard—and didn’t hear about rusalkas, I’m almost confident she chose that name.”

  Leslie paused, her mouth open. “I take it that’s how she talks.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Wow. How are you not going to kill her?”

  “She’s…” Paige shrugged, struggling to find the right word. “Infectious.”

  “Like athlete’s foot?”

  Paige chuckled.

  “But you hired her?”

  Paige nodded slowly, her eyebrows high. “She’s been tracking down a lot of missing persons cases, most of them are homicide cases now. And they all involve the Eastwoods.”

  “So…” Leslie frowned, her lips rounded. “You’re going to build a case against the Eastwoods? All of them?”

  “Well…” Paige rested her head against her shoulder. Well, as much as her aching shoulder allowed her to. What had she done to make it hurt so bad? Ugh. She was getting old. “If this Council of Elders, or whatever, really is a ruling entity, then we can provide justice. Not just deal with these witches in—” She shook her head, raising an open-palmed hand.

  “Like in a raging witch battle?”

  “Yeah.” A witch battle. This was the 21st century, for crying out loud.

  Leslie relaxed and joined her. “I met Tyler’s voice teacher today.”

  “Oh?” Paige perked up. “Who?”

  “A siren.”

  Oh, hell. “Quinn Winters?”

  Leslie pulled her head back. “Tell me you didn’t interview her.”

  “Oh, I did. Did she melt your panties off, too?”

  “Uh-um.” Leslie pressed a finger to her forehead, closing her eyes for a moment. “Melt my pan—what the good damned fuck?”

  Oops. “Well, I think she was letting me feel the effects of her abilities so I could see for myself what skill set she brings to the table.”

  “Melting panties.”

  “Geez, Les.” How to dig herself out of this one. “That voice. I’m not fucking kidding. It’s incredible.”

  “Good to know. And she’s his teacher.”

  “Well.” Paige scratched her nose. “She does know how to use her voice.”

  “She’s my son’s teacher.”

  Paige smiled, duckin
g her head. “We talked about that, actually, and I’ve hired her to keep her on the straight and narrow.”

  Leslie chuckled. “It sounds like you’ve got quite the team. A rusalka and a siren.”

  “Yeah. And a dryad, a djinn, a demon hunter, a human, and a witch.” Paige glanced out the window. The light was getting dimmer. “We should go pick up kids.”

  “Yeah.” Leslie untangled her limbs from Paige’s and pulled herself to her feet. “I met a dragon today. A real life dragon.”

  Paige looked at her sister, her lips flat and out. “You live a charmed, charmed life.”

  “Yeah.” Leslie picked up her purse off the floor and headed for the door. “He was really hot. Really, really hot.”

  “Hmm. Like you would ditch Tru in exchange for a fuck buddy?”

  “No, dork. Literal. Like, if I had soap, it would have melted.”

  “Oh.” Not what Paige had been thinking…at all. “So…”

  “So, I’m going to have to rethink a few things if I find more of them.”

  “Yeah. Wow.” She waited for Leslie to unlock the car then got in.

  “Wait.” Leslie slid into the driver’s seat. “You said you hired a djinn and a dryad?”

  “Yeah. Michelle is the dryad.”

  “I know, but I thought they were enemies.”

  “Yeah.” Paige drew that word out a ways. “We’re gonna see how well that works.”

  “Should work about like poop in a bath.”

  Paige wasn’t thinking so graphic, but, yeah. She could see it like that. “What kind of help are you going to need to finish setting up shop?”

  “Oh.” Leslie sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “Looked like you had some supplies.”

  “Soaps I’d made in Dallas.”

  “That’s thinking. Let’s get them out.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And what about those contacts in the wine business you made?”

  “I’ll call them tonight.”

  “Okay. When are you going to need help stocking? Or test-driving? I’m really good at test-driving wine.”

  “You’ve already test-driven the wine.” Leslie turned down the road that lead to their driveway. “Don’t you have your own thing you need to set up?”

  Paige sighed, thunking her head against the window. “I’m out of my league. We don’t have a case.”

  “You have the murder in Portland.”

  “That’s being handled by the Portland PD.”

  “And you have the Eastwood murders.”

  “That are being handled by the Portland PD.”

  Leslie scratched her forehead. “How do you get jurisdiction? Because you have the ability to solve these.”

  “Yup.”

  “And you’ve got Rainbow,” the name seemed to stick in Leslie’s throat, “Blu’s files. Track that down.”

  Yeah. That sounded like a great idea. “And I will just as soon as we are official.”

  “And how do you do that?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “What are you going to do? Wait for a murder to fall into your lap?”

  “I just have to figure out how to make this all official.”

  “Can’t you just fucking Google this?”

  “Yeah because how to create your own police department will just show up on Google?”

  “Beats doing nothing and whining, doesn’t it?”

  “I fucking hate you.”

  “Ah.” Leslie smiled and pulled off the road onto the driveway leading to the school. “I love you, too.”

  Oh, Paige loved their sisterly banter. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Sure it is. So, you don’t have jurisdiction. You go in all John Wayne, flash some phony badge, and take the case from them. It’s witch magick. This is your jurisdiction.”

  Oh, if only. “I could get arrested for that.”

  “You were hired by the city of Troutdale.”

  “I’m pretty sure I was hired by Chuck.”

  “Who…” Leslie put the car in park and shook her head. “…seems to be the city of Troutdale.”

  Paige chuckled and got out of the car.

  Bobby was probably up in the main school room with the other babies. She wasn’t too worried about him.

  In the past couple of days, Leah had been the problem.

  She wasn’t taking this whole going to school thing very well. When she’d lived with Rachel, she’d been homeschooled and, apparently, not really well.

  She was behind in a lot of her studies. Rachel had done a pretty decent job in keeping her daughter safe, but hadn’t taught her a lot on how to be a functioning human being. Including how to do her homework. When she didn’t want to. Because the world allowed everyone on the planet to not do what they didn’t want to do.

  Paige really needed to crack the whip a little harder.

  She found Leah in the barn, brushing down the horses. “Lee.”

  Leah ignored her, continuing to brush.

  The horse flicked a black ear toward Paige, though.

  Yeah. Leah’d heard her.

  “Okay. Well, if you want to stay, stay. The bus is rolling out in ten.” Paige turned around and left. She didn’t wait to see what Leah would say, or the look of exaggerated hurt that would be all over her face. No. She just left.

  Leslie talked to Mandy’s friends. The boy who’d set himself on fire their first day—Toby—was telling a story, his arms flying in the telling.

  Paige shook her head and headed to the main school room building.

  One of the other kids, a girl, shifted suddenly, becoming a brilliant blue fox. She ran at Leslie, sinking her teeth into Leslie’s arm.

  Leslie yelled and slapped the girl in the nose.

  The fox let go, fell to the ground, and shifted back into girl form.

  Faith flew out of the main school building, her human face half-formed into her wolf. “Abigail Nevens. What the hell happened?”

  Abigail stood, a confused frown on her face as she stared at Leslie’s arm. “I don’t know. Just, something came over me and the next instant, I was on the ground.”

  Paige touched Leslie’s arm. It bled, but not bad. “She has the bite of a young pup.”

  “Kit,” Faith corrected. “That doesn’t matter.”

  Paige growled with irritation. Because she’d been corrected? Probably not?

  Because Faith was an alpha? Probably so.

  Leslie shook her head and waved the girl off. “I’ve got Band-Aids and Neosporin at home. I’m fine.”

  Faith nodded, but her concerned gaze remained on Abigail. “We’ll keep a better eye on her.”

  Paige wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. “If you’re concerned that we witches are going to be upset because a little kid bites us, please give us a little bit of credit.”

  For as bad as it could have been if Abigail had been older and stronger, it really wasn’t bleeding bad. They did need to clean it, but it didn’t warrant much more attention than that.

  But Paige needed to ensure that this united front lasted. “Our kids burn down houses and reanimate the dead. So…”

  Faith blinked, then forced a tight smile onto her face. “Of course. Thank you for your understanding.” Faith looked down at Leslie’s arm and frowned. “Please let me know if that doesn’t heal properly.”

  Leslie shook her head and gestured for Mandy to get to the car. “Trust me. It’ll be fine. Neosporin is practical magick.”

  Faith took a step back. “Of course.”

  Something seemed off. Paige was going to keep an eye on things just to be sure everything remained okey-dokey.

  The next morning, Paige dropped the kids off at school by 5:30 a.m. and headed into work early. Dexx said he’d be late. Needed to work on cars or something. He’d been rather vague.

  Paige needed a game plan. Leslie was right, of course. They needed to be able to take magickal cases. There was no way Google would know how to start up a police department. That w
as way too official to be on something so public as Google.

  She called Lovejoy.

  “Yes, Ms. Whiskey. What can I do for you?”

  Paige hadn’t really thought the director of the FBI would accept her phone call, much less on the third ring. “We have a team. The city of Troutdale, officially, hired us.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Now for the time to look stupid. “Only thing is, I don’t know what to do with it.”

  “What do you mean?” Lovejoy’s tone let Paige know she was a bit disappointed.

  “I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve always worked inside of an organization that had already been created. The rules. The badges. The authority.”

  “Oh. I see.” Lovejoy’s tone softened. “Yes. I see. There’s literature on-line for this.”

  “What?” Seriously? Why would this be on the internet? Paige opened a browser. “Why would there be literature on opening a police division?”

  “You seriously think you’re the only one?”

  “Uh.”

  “No. With suburbs growing and small developments wanting to be towns of their own?”

  A thought hit Paige upside the head. “And you know this because this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.”

  “Yes.” Lovejoy sighed. “It’s getting harder and harder to keep the paranormals safe. So, yeah.”

  Paige typed her search parameters into Google and blinked. Sure as shit. There it was.

  “What I’d recommend is attaching yourself to the Troutdale PD to share resources. Like 911, the morgue, etcetera. Go introduce yourself. Let them know that you’ll be taking some of the stranger cases off their desks. Let them know you’re not stomping all over their territory.”

  Police were like dogs in that respect. Territorial.

  “Then find a badge that represents what you’re doing.”

  Bringing the witches and the paranormal community together. Yeah. That should be easy.

  “I’ll send you a link where you can get your badges made, but then just get to work.”

  “What happens when things pop up outside of Troutdale?”

  “Like the murder in Portland?”

  Plural murders? “Yeah. Like that.” Because she really needed to investigate those. Witch magick in murder? Yeah. The Portland PD would get their asses handed to them. Or it would just remain unsolved like most of Rainbow’s cases remained. Either way was bad news.