by Ruby Loren
When she said as much to Simon, he looked pained. “Exactly! That’s why everyone skips the basics and moves straight onto the fun part, because it’s easier. It’ll bite you in the long run if you don’t learn the basics. That is one thing upon which I agree with my father.”
January looked at the doorknob using her witch sight and could see a new colour of magic superimposed on the blue of Simon’s spell. It was black.
“My magic’s black?” She frowned, wondering what that meant.
“It’s just a signature colour. It will probably change, depending on the spell you use. Or it might be that colour for everything. It’s all to do with the way you make the spell. We’re all different. That’s why witch sight is so great. You can learn to tell who’s done what just by looking.”
January stored that information for later use. She was glad she’d accepted Simon’s request to move in. He was actually turning out to be rather useful.
January slid her bag across the counter and collapsed onto the sofa, appreciating the moment of calm after a long day working at the tearooms. The unexpected phone call was still running through her head. She sighed and wondered what Ryan would say if she told him. She had no doubt he’d tell her to do it. In fact, he’d probably be the one wielding the stake!
If she were being completely honest with herself, she wasn’t even sure she could kill Gregory. He knew her far too well now. There was no longer any element of surprise.
“Also, I don’t want to kill him, not really,” she said, trying not to think of how annoying he could be. She also tried not to think of how attractive he was and the way he’d made her feel those few nights they’d spent together…
“No! None of that!” She said aloud and got up to make herself dinner, so she wouldn’t get distracted again. If Gregory knew how easily her thoughts were slipping to him, he’d probably be delighted.
Simon walked into the kitchen and grabbed something from the fridge. January was amused to see that it was a tin of tuna.
“I’m making enough spaghetti for two, if you want some,” she said to him, knowing the poor man hadn’t had a chance to get a job yet.
Simon looked at the tin of tuna. “Thanks, but I still can’t seem to wean myself off tuna. This cat thing is still a real pain!”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something. When you warned me about the cupcakes being bad… do you know who did them and why?” The Cake Off competition was only a few days away. January had to know if there was going to be foul play afoot.
Simon laughed into his tuna. “I’m afraid you’re probably in for a bit of a rough ride. You’ve met the Witchwood coven. A couple of their members have made it through to the final round, but so have two of the Hobbling witches. Their group is small - in fact, there are only three of them - but they are not to be messed with. Naturally, some friendly competition has sprung up between these two groups. Everyone else in the competition is likely to get caught in the crossfire.” Simon ate another forkful of tuna and smiled at January, like he expected her to find it funny.
“This Cake Off competition is important! I’d really like to win it,” she reminded him.
Simon’s expression sobered a little. “Well, you’ll have the advantage of knowing exactly what’s going on when strange things start to happen – and they will. If you can keep your head down and protect yourself from sabotage, there’s every chance you could come out on top.”
“But I have friends in the competition! They’re just average people who won’t know what’s happening.” Technically, Lucy was not her friend, but January still didn’t think it fair that they should have their shot at the prize ruined by rampaging witches.
Simon just shrugged. “Maybe if you ask the witches really nicely, they’ll leave you all alone and keep their fight confined to their group. Don’t count on it, though.”
January stirred her beef mince with more force than was strictly necessary. Another complication to deal with! “Witches are even more difficult than shifters!” She complained.
Simon nodded in agreement. “Oh, definitely. Every coven is out to stab other covens in the back. Never trust a witch!” He tucked in to more of his tuna, unaware of January’s dubious glances. What he was saying almost certainly applied to him, too.
Half an hour later, she was tucking into her homemade spaghetti, remembering how good she was at cooking. It had been a while since she’d had time to make something from scratch with work and shifter business always getting in the way.
Her phone buzzed. She reluctantly pulled it out of her pocket, quickly shovelling another parmesan laden forkful in her mouth. The name on the screen was Leah.
“Hey January, just calling to say I think I might have solved the mystery of who’s trying to kill Cherri. I invited her out for coffee. We bonded over our mutual deep dislike of you, and then I asked her again if she could think of a reason why anyone would want to kill her.”
“Great! Wait… what?” January said, picking up on the mutual dislike bit.
“Sorry, Jan, I had to turn traitor for the greater good. By the way, you’re really fun to gossip about!”
“Thanks,” January said, darkly.
“Anyway, being Cherri, she couldn’t think of anything she could possibly have done to make anyone mad at her. In her own eyes, she’s a saint. So, I thought back to the night you said the razor wire turned up, you know, where she was so off her game, and wondered if it was something that had happened the night before. I asked her about that and she said she didn’t remember much because she was so drunk. All she can think of is walking down a street to get back home and accidentally bumping into a couple. She thinks one of them was in a worse state than she was, because the woman with the guy was sort of bent over him, trying to hold him up.”
Alarm bells started ringing in January’s head.
“That didn’t sound so good to me,” Leah continued. “I’m thinking that Cherri might have seen something she wasn’t supposed to see and that the drunk man might actually have been dead, or dying. This woman with him might have killed him. Cherri walks by and sees everything, and the murderer is afraid that Cherri’s going to tell someone exactly what she saw. They have no idea she was too smashed to have a clue. Plus, she’s also as dumb as a box of rocks.”
“What did she say when you told her all that?” January asked.
Leah made a noise of derision. “Are you crazy? I didn’t tell her anything! It would have ruined our cosy bonding experience. Anyway, it’s just a theory. I ended our lunch date and did some research to check if any of it was more than just speculation and - drum roll please - Stanley Goode was found dead from a head injury on a street that’s definitely on Cherri’s route home. The date fits perfectly. Also, the police haven’t arrested anyone yet.”
“They don’t seem like a very experienced killer. They’re panicking,” January said, sharing what she thought with Leah, whilst hoping it didn’t sound too much like she knew what she was talking about from personal experience.
“Yes, so their attempts to get rid of Cherri might get more desperate. Or maybe they’ll stop. After all, she hasn’t gone to the police because she doesn’t know she’s seen something. The killer might have thought she wasn’t going at the start because she was planning to blackmail them, but in reality, she doesn’t have a clue. If they actually spoke to her, they’d figure that out in about two seconds…”
“I know Cherri is blissfully unaware of all this, but it doesn’t seem right that the murderer goes free because of it. Not without knowing the circumstances behind the murder, anyway,” January commented.
“What are you thinking?” The drummer asked.
January chewed her lip. Now she knew the location of the murder and what had taken place, it would probably be a piece of cake to find the killer. The problem was making it sound plausible to Leah. “I used to do some private investigation work. I could do some digging about this guy, Stanley, and also maybe work out where that wine was bought f
rom. Witchwood doesn’t have that many off-license shops. Then we’ll have our killer!” It sounded simple when she put it like that.
“Okay, let’s say that all works out. What do we do then?” Leah asked.
“We pay them a visit,” January said.
She liked how ominous that sounded.
15
“So, we’re almost a hundred percent certain that the woman who lives in this house killed Stanley Goode,” Leah said to January.
They were stood outside a house on an estate in Hailfield. It was actually only a couple streets over from where the band’s old drummer, Lewis, had lived. January was starting to think that these nicey-nice estates held a lot of secrets behind their bright brick walls.
“Yeah, I checked the CCTV in the shop that sold the pink wine and that was the only bottle they’d sold that night. Also, I looked on Facebook and she had friends in common with Stanley, so there’s a good chance they could have met.”
It had been two days since she’d visited the crime scene and picked up on the scent of the killer. Then she’d walked around Witchwood until she’d found it again, only stronger, and had traced it straight to a woman working behind the counter in a pharmacy. January had watched her for the next hour and was reasonably certain that she’d looked more stressed out than your average till worker. Then she actually had gone around the stores in town and looked at their CCTV - but already knowing who she was looking for.
“This woman and Stanley live within a few miles of each other. It stands to reason they probably know some of the same people!” Leah protested.
January shrugged her shoulders. They didn’t need enough evidence to convict the woman. All they were doing was dropping by for a friendly chat.
January started to walk down the neatly paved path, edged on either side by bare-looking hydrangea bushes.
Leah grabbed her arm. “Is it really a good idea to knock on the door of a potential murderer?”
January blinked. She hadn’t even considered that doing something like this might be worrying for a normal person. “You said it yourself, she might not have done it. I could be completely wrong.”
Leah hesitated and January broke free. She marched up to the door and rang the bell, turning to shoot an encouraging smile at the drummer.
A woman in her thirties with a dark brown bob answered the door. January immediately recognised her from the pharmacy.
“Jasmine Spencer? Did you by any chance murder Stanley Goode?”
The woman’s face turned white, and she tried to shut the door in January’s face.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” January muttered, moving backwards and then shoulder barging the door open.
“You’re crazy! You can’t come in here. Who are you? Why are you accusing me?” Jasmine yelled at January and Leah, whilst backing away from them.
January shut the door after the drummer and waited for the woman to stop shouting. “I have to ask. Did you also try and kill Cherri Fine? She’s small, blonde, and very annoying, if that helps. We found razor wire and a poisoned bottle of rosé. You were caught on CCTV buying the wine, by the way.” January tilted her head and waited for a response.
Jasmine’s mouth just hung open. January glanced across at Leah and found that she too was staring at her like she was completely crazy.
“All I want to do is have a friendly chat about what’s happened, so it can all be sorted out in a sensible manner. Does anyone feel like a cup of tea?” January said.
There was silence in the small sitting room.
“I want you people out of my house right now,” Jasmine whispered, her eyes wide and angry.
January sighed and perched herself on the arm of a sofa. “We’ll be happy to leave right now, but we’ll go straight to the police. This visit is to give you a chance to tell us what really happened on the night that Stanley Goode died and Cherri saw too much. We just want to know if it was an accident, or if something else happened. The justice system doesn’t always make allowances for things like that. Before rushing off to inform the authorities, I’d like to know the truth. It’s for your benefit,” she added, smiling in what she hoped was an encouraging manner. Judging by the expression on Jasmine’s face, she needed to work on it.
“That sounds fair,” the woman conceded after a long pause. “I think I will go and make us all some tea. I’ll be right back,” she stood up and so did January. “I’ll be right in the kitchen,” Jasmine reassured her.
January sank back down onto the chair, remembering that this woman wasn’t someone she was hunting. They were trying to help her. If she decided to run, that was her decision.
“Whatever you do, do not drink the tea,” January whispered to Leah when Jasmine had left the room. This woman was a known poisoner.
“Drinking tea is the last thing on my mind right now,” the drummer said, looking pale beneath her pixie cut. January bit her lip, regretting dragging Leah into this. Now she and Cherri might genuinely share a deep dislike of her.
They both heard the front door slam and jumped to their feet.
“She’s running!” Leah said, sounding excited, before she frowned and shook her head. The adrenaline was catching.
“I guess that’s that then. We’ll have to go to the police with what we know,” January said, feeling that the whole thing was rather anticlimactic.
There was a strange ‘hurk’ noise from somewhere outside the house.
January was on her feet and at the door in a second.
She peered out into the night, looking around for any sign of Jasmine.
Underneath a streetlamp was the hunched up form of a too-still body. It took January a few seconds to realise that it was missing a head. She looked around, but it was only when her gaze fell on the bottom of the small set of steps, leading to the house, that she discovered where the head had ended up. Jasmine’s glazed eyes stared up at her, her mouth fixed forever in a surprised ‘O’. January drew back from the door, squinting as she checked the area with her witch sight.
“What happened?” Leah asked, coming up behind January.
January blinked at the bright pink trails that crisscrossed the path and garden in front of the house. Someone had been very busy indeed.
“You don’t want to look! Someone else must have known that Jasmine was the killer and exacted their own justice. It’s not pretty. It’s probably best if we go back inside and stay there until the police come.” January was hoping that she’d be able to fake calling the police in front of Leah and get some magical assistance instead.
Jasmine had walked straight into a mass of spells, which had resulted in her being violently beheaded. January didn’t think her own magical abilities were any match for the be-spelled muddle that circled the house. I guess this means my few days’ grace for killing Gregory is up, she thought.
They were at war again.
Leah ducked beneath January’s arm. Her hand jumped to her mouth when she saw the head on the floor.
“To hell with the police. We have to get out of here,” she said and made to jump straight over the head. January grabbed her with both hands and pulled the other woman back, her witch sight showing her just how close Leah had been to touching a band of bright pink magic.
“We can’t! The killer is almost certainly still out there. Don’t you feel like we’re being watched?” January was hoping to freak the drummer out, so that she’d want to stay. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect.
“We’ll be fine together. Let’s go and forget this whole thing happened. I don’t want to have to talk to the police about this. We’ve got to leave now!”
January kept her iron grip on Leah’s arm. How was she going to get them both out of this one alive?!
“I swear it’s cold enough outside tonight to take your head clean off.”
January pushed Leah behind her in one swift movement and jumped to attack.
Gregory caught her fist an inch before it connected with his face. “Fast, but still pre
tty slow. How long has it been since you killed a vampire?”
January relaxed a little, knowing she wasn’t fighting the witch bounty hunter after all.
“I’m with Leah,” she said, pointedly. Gregory needed to shut up right now about vampires.
“Is it the murderer?” Leah asked, sliding around the other side of January and goggling at Gregory’s tall-blonde-and-beautiful form.
He smiled at the drummer and Leah’s cheeks turned a little pink.
January sighed. “No, he didn’t kill Jasmine. Gregory’s a friend. Were you passing by and happened to see us?” She prompted.
“Actually, I was just passing and a headless corpse caught my attention. Did you know the whole garden is covered in magical traps? One wrong move and off with your head! I’m starting to think that this witch really has a thing for sharp objects. It took quite a lot of contortion to get through it.” Somehow, he made it sound the same as if they’d been discussing the weather.
January half-choked and looked desperately at Leah, who had a stunned expression on her face.
“Magic? Vampires? Is this all some kind of practical joke?” The drummer was starting to look very annoyed indeed.
January turned back to Gregory to tell him she was going to kill him.
“There’s no such thing as magic or vampires! You and January went out for drinks tonight at The Star Inn and you had a few too many. You’re going to wake up tomorrow morning and remember having a good night.”
January could see the gold threads of glamour wrapping around Leah and leeching into her eyes. She’d always been able to see this little trick and had always been inexplicably immune.
“We’re having a good time,” Leah repeated, looking around the garden and not appearing convinced.
Gregory winked at January. She shook her head at him and turned away, not happy about his carelessness. She was just in time when she turned back to witness the gold threads of glamour unwinding themselves and fading to nothing, when they were pushed back out of Leah’s closed eyes.
