The Cupcake Coven

by Ashlyn Chase

  “Well, of course I do. The task seems overwhelming though, and I’m just one person.”

  “Well, you don’t get somthin’ for nothin’, cupcake,” Fayleen said.

  “You never answered her question,” Hanna said to Fayleen.

  “What question?”

  “Can I take another person with me? And only if I need to.” Rebecca repeated.

  “Hmmm…” Fayleen tapped her chin. “Is Dru completely trustworthy? As in, you’d stake your life on his discretion?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can agree with that,” Hanna said.

  Fayleen wrinkled her nose. “Okay. To answer your question…Yes. You can do that with a little practice. Now will you take the job?”

  “How about on a trial basis?”

  Fayleen jammed her hands on her hips and stared at her for a few moments. Rebecca remained silent, refusing to be cowed.

  Hanna hesitated for only a moment. “If she wants to do it, I think she’d be a fine choice.”

  Finally Fayleen threw her hands in the air. “Fine. How long a trial do you need?”

  “Until the next supernatural coven meeting? I should imagine they’d want final approval.”

  “You’ve already been approved.”

  Rebecca raised her eyebrows. “Really? When did that happen?”

  “Before I arrived. I visited each coven member and told them about you. Hanna is someone they all trust, and her recommendation is all it took.”

  Rebecca turned to her and thanked her. Hanna simply nodded.

  “So, shall we get this show on the road?”

  As nervous as Fayleen made her, Rebecca had to ask one more question. “If after two weeks this isn’t working out, can the supernatural part be undone?”

  “Yes, but mainly because it’s not permanent until the next full moon anyway. As soon as you take a sip from the Unholy Grail, you’ll have your powers. Undoing the supernatural part after the full moon is difficult but it can be done. We don’t usually attempt it unless the witch abuses her power—as the Haitian witch did.”

  “The unholy grail?”

  Fayleen chuckled. “That’s just what we call it. You can call it the magic chalice or something else if you want to, but we don’t like to take ourselves too seriously. Here. Let me show you.” She disappeared and reappeared in seconds, holding the butt-ugliest chalice Rebecca had ever seen. It looked like something a child made out of clay with some gaudy colored stones about the size of gumballs sticking to it.

  “I think I know why you call it unholy. It’s not what I expected at all.”

  Fayleen snorted. “There you go being tactful. It’s ugly so no one will steal it. There are plenty of witches who want this thing, but so far they’ve only heard about it. You must swear you’ll never tell anyone what it looks like or where you’ve seen it.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Hanna rose and retrieved a glass of water Rebecca hadn’t noticed before on the sideboard. She poured a small amount into the goblet and handed it to her.

  “Down the hatch,” Fayleen said.

  Rebecca hesitated a moment, then thought of Dru and drank the contents in one gulp.

  “So, let me get this straight. You can teleport us to the ranch?” Dru set his fork down on the dining room table.

  “Yes. We can go anywhere. Hanna and I went to Florence, just to get the hang of it.”

  “Show me,” Dru said.

  “In a few…” Rebecca set her fork down too and grasped his hands. “First, I have to swear you to secrecy.”

  “Who would I tell?”

  “Your sister, for one.”

  “I can’t even tell my sister where I’ll be all day?”

  “It won’t take all day. I can manipulate time too.”

  Dru dropped back against the dining chair. “Well, if that don’t beat all…”

  “So, is it okay? We can leave April a note, but we’ll probably get back before her date with Mike is over.”

  Dru frowned. “You’re callin’ her April now?”

  Rebecca rubbed his shoulder. “It’s what she wants.”

  He was quiet for a moment. Ordinarily he’d make some crack about his sister always getting was she wanted, but he was sure she didn’t want to be raped. “Fine. She has a key, right?”

  “I gave her one yesterday.”

  Dru rose, slowly. “I suppose there’s no time like the present. How do we do this?”

  “First, you think of a place on the ranch where no one will see us when we materialize.”

  “Okay. That’s easy. My cabin.”

  Since I’ve never been there, you’ll have to picture it in your mind and I’ll have to…um, tap in.”

  “Tap into my brain?”

  “Just for a second.”

  “Sheesh. I don’t know if I want anyone in there. It gets dark and scary sometimes.”

  Rebecca laid her hands on his chest and rubbed. “It can also be romantic and sexy.”

  He smirked. “You can spin the story to good whatever the situation. You’d have made a great politician.”

  “Don’t taunt me. So, are you ready?”

  He wrapped his arms around her back and held on. “I trust you, darlin’. Do your thing.”

  “Okay. Close your eyes and picture the inside of your cabin in acute detail. Then ‘see’ us in that space.”

  He closed his eyes and did as she directed. “Warn me when is this gonna happen, okay?”

  “Open your eyes.”

  They stood face to face, just as they had been, but in his cabin. “Shoot!”

  She chuckled. “Cool, huh?”

  “I’ll say.”

  Rebecca stepped away from him and looked distressed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s far from cool. It’s hot as balls in here.”

  “Well, yeah. It’s Texas.” He reached into a cabinet and found his fan. The windows let in just enough sun to see without the light on and provide ventilation if he opened them, but it had been shut up for months. Someone was bound to notice if he opened them. The air was pretty stale. She might be more comfortable outdoors.

  She grabbed a magazine off the coffee table and began fanning herself.

  “We should go outside. There might be a breeze.”

  “First you need a cover story if anyone sees you. Can you say we took a cab here in the middle of the night?”

  “I guess so. What time is it?” he asked.

  “Same time as when we left. Just after six.”

  He chuckled. “You mean just after five. We’re in the central time zone here, darlin’.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “What am I supposed to say we’ve been doin’ all day?” He chuckled. “Never mind. One look at you and the guys will know exactly why we stayed in bed all day.”

  She blushed. “Are you apt to run into a lot of people out there?”

  “I imagine most are getting washed up for supper. There might be a few stragglers if there’s still work to be done.”

  “I’d like to see the place, but maybe we should wait until they’re all sitting down to dinner and try to avoid being seen altogether. Is there any specific time they’re expected?”

  “Yeah. When the dinner bell rings.”

  She grinned. “That makes it easy. So we’ll just wait until a few minutes after it rings before we go out, if I haven’t melted into a puddle on the floor by that time.”

  She lowered herself onto his sofa, and he wondered if he should open it into its bed form and mess up the sheets. Make it look like they’d slept there. Then he realized the guys might resent the fact that he’d spent the day making love to a beautiful woman when there was work to be done. Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t. “You know…this might be a mistake. Maybe we should go back to Portsmouth until we’re ready to stay.”

  She startled. “Stay? You’re just expecting me to live here? No discussion…no nothing?”

  Uh oh. He knew he’d stepped
in it, but he wasn’t sure why. Did she hate the heat that much or that he hadn’t asked her opinion? Or…oh, crap. He hadn’t offered a commitment. Shoot. He would have liked to have the ring, candlelight, and the whole nine yards, but it was safe to say he didn’t have time for any of that.

  He got down on one knee, took the magazine from her hand and placed it on the table, then took both her hands in his. Her eyes rounded.

  “Rebecca Colby. I love you more than life itself. I can’t picture us not bein’ together forever. I know relationships require compromise, and I’m sure we can figure things out. I had hoped to do this at some fancy restaurant with a ring, but I guess we can do that sometime later—if you want. In the meantime, I’d love to introduce you as my future wife. Will you make me the happiest man on earth and agree to marry me?”

  To say Rebecca looked taken by surprise was an understatement. Her jaw dropped open, and it seemed like she couldn’t make it work to form words.

  “I can see I shocked you. I just hoped we could, you know…make the commitment. We can work out the details later—together. I promise.”

  She took a deep breath and seemed to recover her decorum. “I’d love nothing more than to spend my life with you, Dru. But I don’t think it’s practical to say ‘yes’ and just hope we can figure out the details later.”

  He paused, replaying her words in his mind. “So, is that a maybe?”

  She smiled. “Yes. It’s a maybe. I can say it’s even a probably, but the final answer has to wait until after we figure out the logistics.”

  The dinner bell rang, as if to punctuate her words.

  He nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

  “What did you find out about the witches, Sal?”

  “A lot. I followed the baker to some kind of group ritual in Greenland last night. There were thirteen of ‘em.” Sal waved the book he’d managed to snag off a rock when everyone was preoccupied. “One of ‘em had this. Looks like some kind of textbook.”

  Marv picked it up and thumbed through the pages. “Yeah. Probably some kind of witch’s instruction manual.” He pressed the buzzer on his desk and waited for his secretary to answer.

  “Yes, Mr. Marvelli?”

  “What took you so long? Never mind. Just get my Aunt Velia on the phone.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He looked at the picture on the back and read the quote while they waited. “‘Certain things are everlasting. Magic is one of them. Magic belongs to no one culture or society or tribe—it is part of the universal wisdom…’ Laurie Cabot. Is she some famous witch or something?”

  Sal shrugged.

  “Was she there?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t know what she looks like.”

  “And you didn’t even think to look her up on the Internet?”

  “Sorry, boss. To me it was just a book one of the guys was reading.”

  “Guys? How many men were there?”

  “Only a couple.”

  “A couple or two?”

  “It was hard to tell. They were all wearing black and it was dark. Most of them had on capes, so I couldn’t even see their bodies.”

  “So there might have been ten guys?”

  He tried to recall the people he’d seen from his hiding spot behind the stone wall. “I don’t think so. The voices were too high.”

  Marv called up a website on his computer. “Cabot is in Salem, Massachusetts. Not far away at all. Jeez, she’s almost eighty. Did you see any little old ladies?”

  “I don’t know…it was—”

  “Yeah, yeah. It was dark,” Marv interrupted.

  His phone rang. He picked it up and pushed the speakerphone button immediately. “Aunt Velia?”

  “No, she’s out. This is Aunt Claretta.”

  “Oh. I was talking to Aunt Velia about a situation…”

  “We all know about it.”

  Marv shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Oh, uh, that’s good. Then I don’t have to go through it all again.”

  “I could use some details. You have a beef with a witch?”

  “Yeah. We were supposed to find out what kind of witch she was. Aunt Velia said she might be able to figure it out with some more information. I have a guy here who witnessed some kind of ritual they held last night.”

  Apparently Aunt Claretta was waiting for specific information. She didn’t comment except to say, “And?”

  “There were thirteen of them,” Marv continued, “all dressed in black—most of them wore capes. My guy managed to grab a book one of the men had been reading.”

  “Hmph.”

  Apparently she wasn’t impressed yet.

  “It looks like some kind of witch’s instruction book. Its author is a Salem witch named Laurie Cabot.”

  There was a soft gasp on the other end of the phone. A moment later Claretta blasted him.

  “You want us to go to war with the Cabot witches? What the hell? Velia said one of your men was attacked. That’s not like them. They’re peaceful. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “Sal, you were in both places. You tell her.”

  Sal had reservations before, but now his nerves really kicked in. “I, uh. Hi. I’m Sal, by the way.”

  “Get to the story,” Claretta said. “What happened?”

  “I went to see this girl at her bakery, and something invisible attacked me. It was like a hundred electric shocks hitting me all over my body.”

  “Did she touch you?”

  “Well, no.”

  “Taze you?”

  “No.”

  “Why were you there in the first place? I have the feeling you weren’t just ordering cannolis.”

  “No. Her father owes Marv a bunch of money.”

  “But what does that have to do with the witch?”

  “Well, her father disappeared and nobody knows where he is. She either doesn’t know or is refusing to tell us. We figured if we leaned on the daughter a little bit, her father would either show up or she’d pay to get us off her back.”

  “Marv?” The woman’s voice lowered and sounded menacing.

  “Yes, Auntie?” he said, meekly.

  “What does ‘leaning on the daughter’ include?”

  “Sal. You were there. What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing. I may have threatened her a little, but I didn’t actually do anything.”

  His aunt sighed. “Look, you nitwits, you can’t go around threatening witches and expect them to take it. Sal, were you permanently injured or disfigured?”

  “No. It hurt like a bitch, but my skin wasn’t broken.”

  “It sounds like she was acting in self-defense. I’d have done the same. Trading threat for threat. What did you threaten to do to her?”

  “Um…I might have mentioned breaking one of her legs.”

  “Idioto!”

  “You asshole!” Marv cried out a moment later.

  “You said—” From the wild look in his eyes and the color of Marv’s face, Sal deduced that he should shut-up while he still could.

  “What kind of coward tries to hurt women and children?” Aunt Claretta asked. “She isn’t even your problem. It’s her father that owes the money. But don’t be surprised if she has protected him by now too. Idioto!” Then the phone clicked. She’d hung up on them.

  What Rebecca and Dru chose to do was to teleport to an alley in town and take a taxi to the ranch. That way he wouldn’t get everyone “riled up” as he called it, for loafing all day while they were taking up his slack. When the taxi pulled up to the main house, it seemed as if dinner had ended. A couple of cowboys hung out on the porch smoking cigarettes.

  Dru stepped out of the cab and before he could run around to her side, she opened the door and got out. He paid the driver and waited for him to leave. The cowboys from the porch approached and he escorted Rebecca to them with a hand on the small of her back. It was still so hot she could barely breathe.

  “Well if it ain’t the prodigal son…” o
ne of the cowboys said.

  “Gus. Elvis. This is my girlfriend, Rebecca.”

  One shook her hand politely while the other doffed his hat. She didn’t know which was which at this point, but hopefully it wouldn’t matter.

  She smiled, politely. “Gentlemen.”

  One of them reared back and laughed while the other one stared at her.

  “I ain’t been called a gentleman in a while.”

  “Naw. You’re called shit-for-brains more often than not,” Dru said. He hugged the guys one and a time and they pounded on each other’s backs.

  Eventually, he returned to her side and said, “Rebecca here is from Portsmouth, New Hampshire,” as if that would explain everything.

  “New Hampshire? Is that where Shasta was? We heard you found her.”

  “Yup. Is Earl in? I’d like to introduce Rebecca to the boss.” He changed the subject so quickly, she got the impression he didn’t want to tell them about his sister. Maybe he wanted to tell his boss first.

  “Yeah. I think he went into his office after supper.”

  “Or maybe he’s in the library having brandy and cigars,” one of the guys laughed, his eyes twinkling at Rebecca.

  “Hell, for all I know, maybe he is,” Dru said. “I’ve been gone so long a few things might have changed around here.”

  The two cowboys glanced at each other with wrinkled brows as if there was something Dru didn’t know. Rebecca hoped he wasn’t in for a nasty surprise.

  “Let me take you inside, darlin’. It’s bound to be cooler in there.” He placed his hand on the small of Rebecca’s back and guided her up the stairs. “See you later,” Dru called over his shoulder.

  They hadn’t taken two steps into the house before a short, stout, Latina woman stopped in her tracks. Her eyes rounded. “Dru?”

  “Hey, Juanita…” He bent over and gave the woman a hug.

  “Hola! So nice to see you! Who is your beautiful lady friend?”

  “This is Rebecca.” As the two women regarded each other, he went on to explain. “Rebecca’s visiting from New Hampshire. Juanita cleans the place a couple times a week.”

  “I’m here more now,” Juanita said. “I cook during the week too.”

  “Oh. So I guess a few things have changed,” he said. “Is Earl busy?”

  “I don’t think he’s ever too busy to see you. Especially with you gone so long.” She nodded toward a door down the hall.