Wicked by Any Other Name

by Linda Wisdom

  The Librarian eyed the hourglass as the last grains of sand trickled downward. When the final grain fell, the hourglass disappeared in a wink of light.

  “You barely made it back in time.”

  “Don’t ask what would have happened if we were late,” Jazz whispered.

  The wizard frowned at her then turned to Stasi. “You did not find the answers you sought.”

  She nodded, not bothering to ask how he knew. It was common knowledge he knew everything because he was quick to remind everyone of that fact.

  “It appears what we seek is a combination of things that shouldn’t be connected.”

  The Librarian set down his plumed pen next to the inkstand. “You must think from all sides, witchling. Look at what is within and what is beyond. And you would do well to learn to respect time, young witch,” he added, glancing at Jazz. “Good day.” He picked up his pen, dipped it into the inkpot, and began writing.

  “Good-bye, thank you for coming, and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out,” Blair muttered.

  “Thank you, The Librarian,” Stasi said politely, even though she didn’t feel he deserved any thanks, because she was more confused than ever.

  The wizard glanced at Trev. “Give your mother my regards.”

  “I will, Uncle Peredur.” Trev bowed again before following the three witches to the door.

  “Good-bye,” the griffin called after them before the door disappeared and the store’s windows slid back into place.

  “Wait a minute.” Blair reached out to clutch Stasi’s arm as they stood huddled together on the sidewalk. “How could all of this snow have fallen in the time we were gone?”

  As they looked around, one by one the streetlamps along the street dimmed, then winked out, leaving them in complete darkness. The same happened with the pumpkin-shaped twinkling lights ringing every shop window.

  “It’s as if someone is individually turning off each light,” Stasi whispered. She held up her hand. “Listen.”

  “To what?” Trev asked, turning in a tight circle.

  “That’s the thing. Usually you can faintly hear Grady’s jukebox this far up the street. Or someone’s TV from one of the cabins nearby. There’s always an electrical hum, but now it’s gone,” she whispered in keeping with the silence around them. She felt the cold seep through her jacket and settle in her bones. She began to hear the faint sound of voices in the distance and see bobbing lights that she assumed were flashlights, but she had no idea why they were out there.

  The pristine snow was so deep it covered the road and piled up onto the sidewalks. It was falling heavily around them, and the air was so cold their noses and cheeks rapidly turned red from the icy wind that assaulted them.

  Stasi felt her breath freeze in her lungs, and she labored to breathe, but it started to hurt. She noticed the others had the same problem. She opened her mouth to suggest they use some witchflame to warm their hands, when she noticed a heavily bundled figure struggling toward them through the snow.

  “Ginny?”

  The café owner stopped, keeping her distance from the group. Stasi felt that the distance was more than physical and the knowledge hurt.

  “I looked out and saw you out here. Why are you doing this to us?” Ginny asked, her voice breaking. “We know you and Carrie are quarreling.”

  “Talk about an understatement!” Stasi cried out. “That’s not even close to what Carrie wants to do to me.”

  “But you’re hurting all of us.” Frost punctuated her words.

  “I’m not doing this! I don’t know what’s going on,” Stasi said, anguished because she knew her friend was upset. But she had no idea why Ginny was blaming her now when she had been her biggest ally since the beginning of her troubles with Carrie. She felt the reassuring pressure of Trev’s hand slipped into hers and she took strength from his touch.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Look around!” She threw her arms out. “The power went out yesterday morning. The highway is blocked by the snowstorm, and even our men can’t go down the road far enough to clear it. And now Carrie’s youngest is missing. Everyone is out looking for him, and they think you had something to do with it.” She started to back up. “I don’t know you anymore, Stasi.” She continued to back up. “Please don’t come to the café anymore. You’re not welcome. Just please go away.”

  “Wait! Why are you saying this? This isn’t you, Ginny!” Stasi cried.

  But Ginny didn’t answer her.

  “I haven’t changed! I didn’t do this,” Stasi protested, starting after her then halting when Ginny’s face flashed with fear.

  The woman shook her head. “This is all wrong. We all loved you two, and now you do this.” She wiped her eyes with her gloved fingers. She turned around and returned the way she had come.

  Stasi wanted to cry, but she knew her tears would only freeze on her face.

  “Come on, Stasi, we need to get inside and get warm.” Trev took her hand and led her around the back of their building.

  The foursome was quiet as they climbed the rear stairs and stepped inside the kitchen. They were surprised to find the room dark and as cold as the outdoors.

  “It’s about time you got back,” Nick greeted them in a voice taut with worry. “All hell’s been breaking loose around here.” He hugged Jazz tightly.

  “It must have started snowing this hard right after we left in order for it to pile up this much,” Stasi said, pausing to allow a frenzied Bogie to float into her arms. The dog whined as he licked her face and brushed his paws against her shoulders. “Did the snowstorm cause a blackout? We were outside and watched the streetlamps go out one at a time, but the power had to have been out for some time to get this cold inside. We have a generator for emergencies.”

  Nick’s expression was grim as he surveyed the small group. “You’ve been gone for two days.”

  Chapter 16

  “Two days?” Stasi’s mind reeled. She knew that time moved differently in The Library, but any of the other times she visited the realm she returned home to learn it was only a few hours later. Never two days.

  Nick continued to hold Jazz tightly, as if afraid to let her go. She buried her face against his shirtfront, then moved her face to the side.

  “Nick, love, I know you don’t need to breathe, but I do, and I think you’re cracking a rib,” she wheezed, struggling in his embrace.

  “I was afraid something had happened to all of you,” he admitted, releasing her, but touching her hair as if he needed to assure himself she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. “The snow started falling hard and fast a few hours after you left and it was easy to sense the emotions going on out there.”

  “It’s been a nightmare,” Irma agreed, walking into the room wearing a flannel bathrobe and fuzzy slippers and with her hair up in curlers. Sirius and Fluff and Puff were on her heels. The slippers immediately raced over to Jazz, chattering away as they tried to slide up her legs. “I went with Nick when he went outside to see what happened when the lights went out. It was so cold out there I swear I thought my bones would turn to icicles.”

  “Says the dead woman,” Jazz muttered.

  “At least my nose doesn’t look as if it belongs on a reindeer,” Irma sniped back.

  Jazz immediately held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry. What was happening?”

  “The power started going out in the homes one by one. Even their generators won’t fire up.” No one bothered to ask Nick how he knew this, since his hearing was more sensitive than anyone’s. Not to mention Irma could enter any building without anyone being aware of her presence. Since the ghost had gained her freedom from Jazz’s T-Bird she liked to “visit.” Jazz never asked whom she visited or what she saw. She figured she was safer not knowing.

  Irma’s hand was shaky as she lifted her hand with a cigarette glowing in t
he darkness. No one said a word as she puffed on it several times.

  “None of this is good,” Irma pronounced.

  Stasi looked around her at their grim faces. “Raise your hand if you’re not spooked by all this.”

  No one moved a muscle. The silence was deafening.

  She couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her lips. If Trev hadn’t been holding her, she knew her knees would have given out on her and she would have been on the floor.

  “Okay, let’s get a grip. I’ll make some coffee.” Blair headed for the counter.

  “No power,” Stasi reminded her. “And the back-up generator is dead, too.”

  Blair wiggled her fingers. Sparks be-bopped around the digits. “Then it’s a good thing we have an additional backup, because right now I would kill for some high-test caffeine,” she said as she went to work.

  “What did you find out?” Nick asked. “Nothing useful,” Jazz replied. “Except that The Librarian has relatives. Who knew? It seems Trev’s his nephew. Which is further proof you can’t choose your relatives.”

  “Oh honey, everything will be fine.” Irma patted Stasi on the shoulder. Stasi tried not to flinch as a frigid sensation swept through her body from the ghostly touch. “These things happen to Jazz all the time, and somehow she always manages to get out of them. She usually leaves a mess behind, and that head witch is never happy with her, but Jazz always manages to come out of that dung heap smelling like a rose.”

  “Although I still have you in my life,” Jazz muttered, rummaging in the freezer. “Oooh! Cinnamon rolls.” She placed them on a paper plate and zapped them with a bit of her power. Pretty soon the kitchen smelled of cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar.

  The coffee was ready, and Blair handed out filled mugs.

  “Let’s go into the family room so we can be comfortable and see if we can re-group,” Stasi suggested and they filed into the other room. She walked around the room lighting candles. She wasn’t surprised that Nick hadn’t bothered with them, since he could see just as easily in the darkest night as anyone could see in the bright light of day.

  At that moment, she wanted to curl up in her favorite easy chair with the plump pillows. Trev wasn’t about to let her go too far from him, so she shared the chair with him and luckily, it was large enough for two. She discovered sharing the space wasn’t so bad, especially when she felt so cold inside.

  Blair dropped into her favorite chair and stretched her legs out on the matching ottoman, while Jazz and Nick settled on the couch.

  “Okay, so we don’t know any more than we did before?” Nick asked, stealing some of Jazz’s coffee. She took her cup back and took a big swallow. A flick of her fingers refilled the cup without her having to get up. A second cup appeared in Nick’s hand, and she grinned at him.

  Stasi laid her head back against Trev’s shoulder. “The Librarian said we should look up Fae, even if some of the spells don’t seem to be Fae inspired. The book said you could only ask about one type of magick at a time, except what we have here is inter-connected. But who says that there aren’t Fae working with someone else to create all this?”

  “Fae don’t play well with others,” Jazz brought up. “They have their areas and they don’t leave them. They always want to be the big fish in the little pond.”

  “And this is a small town,” Stasi murmured. Her brow furrowed in thought. “Not that many new people have moved here in the last couple of years.”

  “The Palmer siblings, Mr. and Mrs. Lucas, that wood sculptor who bought the Frederick’s vacation cabin,” Blair thought out loud. “That’s it.”

  “And the only ones who have basically constant interaction with everyone in town are Reed and Poppy Palmer,” Stasi said. “And now Reed’s sister is here.”

  “I’ve never liked them. They’re always bringing over cookies and muffins.”

  “Which we do our best not to eat except those couple times we weren’t able to refuse.” Thoughts came fast and furious, suppositions that Stasi refused to voice until she knew she was correct.

  Blair jumped to her feet when they heard a knock at the back door.

  Nick waved her down. “I’ll get it.”

  Stasi closed her eyes and pinched her nose. She felt the need of a good headache spell but was too weary to chant the words to make the pain disappear.

  “You need to relax,” Trev whispered, gliding his fingers across her forehead as he chanted a few words under his breath.

  She looked up and smiled as her headache disappeared. “First my forehead. Now you cure my headache. You should have been a healer.”

  “No way. I’ve been known to faint at the sight of blood.” He brushed a kiss across her temple. “I’m a lawyer, I’m not exactly hero material.”

  She kissed him back. “You’re my hero.”

  “This is cozy.” Jake followed Nick into the family room. He had shed his coat, but snowflakes still lingered in his dark hair. He grinned at Blair as he picked her up and sat down, then settled her down next to him. She growled at his highhanded manner but didn’t move out of the chair.

  Jazz got up and went back into the kitchen, returning with a coffee mug that she handed to Jake.

  “We heard the power’s out everywhere,” Stasi said.

  Jake practically inhaled the hot liquid. “Thanks, this really helps. Yeah, like you, everyone’s using candles and lanterns. Generators won’t kick in, and that makes no sense. But considering what’s going on around here, I guess it does make some kind of crazy sense. Cell phones aren’t working either. Word has it the cell towers are inactive, but no one knows why or why not one generator in this town works.”

  “I used telepathy to connect with Letiticia,” Nick said. “It’s the same situation at the resort. The guests are in a total panic, since they can’t get down the hill. Even the snowmobiles up there aren’t working. Some of the people want to hike down the mountain, but like before they only get so far and can’t seem to go any farther.”

  “So we’re trapped up here.”

  Jake nodded. “That’s pretty much it.” He finished his coffee and glanced at Blair. “Is there any more?”

  “Do I look like a waitress?” But she got up and came back with a coffee carafe, walking around to refill everyone’s cups, leaving Jake’s cup for last.

  “I’m sorry, everyone, but my witch here looks like she’s ready to fall over from exhaustion.” Nick got up and pulled Jazz to her feet. With his arm around her shoulders, he guided her toward the guest bedroom. “Good night.”

  A chorus of good nights followed them.

  “I guess I’ll be next.” Blair pushed Jake to one side so she could climb out of the chair. “Go home, Jake.”

  “You’re throwing me out into the cold? There’s no power, remember?”

  “If I remember correctly, your cabin has a fireplace. You won’t freeze.”

  “You can sleep on the couch, Jake,” Stasi said, not wanting to send anyone back out into the icy air. “There are blankets and spare pillows in the linen closet.”

  “Sounds good to me.” But he kept his eyes on Blair, who ignored the question in his dark eyes and headed for her bedroom, while Irma headed for the room she used and Bogie followed her.

  Stasi was grateful when Jake went into the hallway in search of the linen closet, giving her and Trev a bit of privacy.

  “With the roads blocked, you won’t be able to return to the resort,” she said softly.

  He kept his attention on her eyes. “Maybe Jake will let me share the couch, or I can make up a pallet on the floor.”

  She stood up and held out her hand. “Or perhaps you’ll receive a better offer.”

  Trev took her hand and got up, standing close to her. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded without a hint of hesitation.

  Jake returned with an armload of blankets and a
couple of pillows. He didn’t look surprised to see Trev follow Stasi into her bedroom and murmured a good night. She closed the door and ran her hands along the door seam. Magickal energy flashed along the door, effectively sealing them in.

  “Privacy spell,” Trev guessed.

  She nodded. “No sound will leave the room and no one can enter without my consent.”

  He grinned, sincerely hoping her intent was what he was imagining it would be. He stood there waiting to see. “Or leave.”

  She couldn’t help but grin back. “Or leave.” She paused long enough to pick up Horace and tuck him in a drawer, not only closing the drawer but also sealing it with a spell.

  “No fair!” The gargoyle’s muffled protest reached them from the drawer. “I never have any fun!” His grumbling finally settled down.

  “He can’t hear, or peek out either,” she assured Trev.

  “Good idea. We wouldn’t want Horace taking notes, would we?” he grinned.

  Stasi went around the room lighting candles until the room glowed warmly. She walked forward with delicate grace and curled her fingers along his sweater’s hem, then pulled it up over his head, dropping it to the carpet.

  “No just zapping the clothes off?” he teased.

  Stasi shook her head. “Let’s try it slow and easy this time.” She stood up on her tip-toes and bent her head to the side, inhaling the musky scent of his skin mixed with the dry musty whiff of old books, and magick. She lapped the rough skin the way a cat did, tasting what she smelled. Feeling his strength in his flavor. She smiled when Trev shifted from one foot to the other under her touch. “Don’t move,” she whispered, peeling off his T-shirt and dropping it to the floor to lie beside his sweater.

  “You’re already killing me here,” he groaned.

  “I haven’t even started yet.” She fingered the cold metal of his belt buckle and took her time unfastening it.

  Trev closed his eyes and took a deep breath only to discover it put him in closer proximity to Stasi. He inhaled the spring-like fragrance of her skin; something that reminded him of bright flowers and green grass. “I was afraid you’d say that.”