Witch at Last: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 3 (The Jinx Hamilton Mysteries)

by Juliette Harper

  Then she became pregnant, the very thing the old crone had told her could never happen, and suddenly Brenna's concept of power evolved. The Hereditarium witches, the ones born with their abilities, looked down on her kind, refused alliances with the Creavit that would have ended the dominion of the puny mortals on earth.

  But what if Brenna could found her own dynasty? One that would control not just the mortals, but put an end to the restraining hand of the Hereditarium? Then the world would be hers for the taking.

  In whatever year Brenna now found herself, she knew traces of her own blood must still exist. Knasgowa interrupted the plan; she hadn't succeeded in stopping it.

  As Brenna watched, the witch in the cemetery conferred with the shade of the man in uniform. The other girl, the one with the flaming highlights in her blond hair, appeared to be a close associate. Perhaps a member of the witch’s coven? The blond girl felt oddly familiar to Brenna, but she could not understand why.

  A sound made Brenna look skyward. A massive flying creature crossed the blanket of stars, lights blinking at the tips of its rigid wings. Had she awakened in a time when giants once again roamed the earth? But she felt no magic from the flyer, no life. Had humans advanced to the point of building flying machines?

  The thought made Brenna smile. Her mind returned to an evening drinking wine with an artist. What was his name? Something Da Vinci? He’d shown her sketches of a flying machine. When was that? The 1400s? So like mortals. Slow. Stinted. Grasping innovation at the speed of the inconsequential little snails they were. But if the human world was more developed than it had been in 1853 that might well work to Brenna's advantage.

  Turning back to the cemetery, she saw the two women and the gray specter preparing to leave in the company of the insufferable little brownie Alexander had brought with him from the Orkneys. Some people harbor such affection for their pets. Before Brenna was done, she would be sure to put an end to that creature's obsequious interferences.

  Brenna moved swiftly along the wall to keep the group in sight. As she watched, they climbed into some type of conveyance that moved silently under its own power. Brenna muttered soft words, rising from the ground and fading from sight to glide unseen above the strange horseless carriage.

  When the vehicle reached the center of town, Brenna drew back. She recognized the square, or at least one building on the north side. Flameless lights on poles cast pale illumination over the scene. The carriage pulled behind the buildings. After a moment or two, Brenna saw a light in one of the store windows. That was when she felt it. The power of the aos sí.

  “So,” she whispered, a slow smile spreading over her face, “the battlefield is made anew, but the enemy remains the same.”

  Brenna knew where she was; now it was time to find out when.

  Only one other light burned on the square. The establishment appeared to be some type of eatery. Brenna could see a man sitting at a table, papers spread out around him. Periodically, he tapped his fingers on a box sitting to his right before making marks on the papers with a pencil.

  Silently, Brenna crossed the square and knocked on the glass inset in the door. The man looked up, startled. He pushed back his chair and walked toward her. “Uh, hi,” he said, “we’re, uh, closed.”

  “Forgive me for disturbing you,” Brenna said, fixing him with her stare. She barely finished the mesmer spell before his eyes glazed over.

  “That’s . . . I mean . . . it’s not a problem,” the man stammered.

  “Let me in,” Brenna commanded softly.

  The man unlocked the door and Brenna stepped into the building.

  “What year is this?” she asked.

  “It’s 2015,” the man said, his voice distant and compliant.

  So, they’d kept her imprisoned for 162 years this time.

  “Sit down,” Brenna told the man, “and tell me of this world. What is your name?”

  “Pete,” the man said, walking back to the table and pulling out a chair for her.

  Manners. That would work in his favor. Brenna sat down, pointing for Pete to join her. When he did, she asked, “What is this device?”

  “It’s a laptop,” he answered.

  “What does it do?”

  “Uh, stuff,” he said lamely, “like email and getting on the Internet.”

  “What is this Internet?”

  “It’s . . . well . . . it’s where all the information is,” Pete said hesitantly.

  “You mean a library?” Brenna asked.

  "Sort of," Pete replied. “Nobody really knows how it works. We just use it.”

  Brenna smiled at him, turning up the full force of her personality. She enjoyed the flush that spread over his cheeks and the look of hopeful pleasure filling his eyes.

  “How fascinating, Peter,” she said, turning her voice into a silken purr. “Show me. Show me everything.”

  By the time the first rays of the rising sun slanted across the square, Brenna already understood the potential of the 21st century. With her powers and abilities this could be a most interesting time for her. Better even than the Renaissance, or the Reformation when it had been so ridiculously easy to leverage self-righteous men of faith to do as she pleased.

  That peasant monk? Luther? The one who was given credit for starting the upheaval that served her and her kind so well? He had been even easier to manipulate than this man Peter who made his living covering circles of dough with tomato sauce. Pizza, he called it, a vile Neopolitan creation according to the Internet.

  Pete was in the front room now, preparing to serve the tedious fare to the general public at what he referred to as the “lunch run.”

  Brenna was comfortably ensconced in his living quarters. At least the insufferable fool had a decent supply of wine. She’d given him a list of items to procure for her, but had been gracious enough to allow him the time to attend to his business. There was no need in calling attention to the establishment, which was the only eatery on the square.

  Pete gratefully assured her that he often closed for the afternoon, and would promptly get her everything she needed as soon as his last customer left.

  Brenna was too busy to deal with the man at the moment anyway. She found the Internet both fascinating and ridiculously infantile, especially a location called "Facebook," an apparent monument to the narcissistic tendencies of humans. From it, however, she was gaining an excellent education in the prejudices, fears and foibles of the modern masses.

  When the stream of information had suddenly shut down earlier in the day, Pete babbled some gibberish about his “bandwidth” problems. Brenna dismissed him with a wave of her hand that also served to open the channel of data like a gushing torrent.

  The pathetic little box was incapable of handling it all, so now Brenna was surrounded by additional screens conjured with a wave of her hand. They floated suspended in the air around her. The Internet was proving to be far more useful than the looking glass that had once been her window on the world.

  Brenna had long since abandoned the ridiculous convention of the “keyboard.” She had no time for mechanical hurdles. Magic freed her to follow multiple avenues of inquiry spontaneously, to make connections and isolate items of particular interest, including the present location of her funds.

  Throughout the centuries, Brenna had made it her business to cultivate friendships with the greatest bankers. The Medici, Rothschilds, Welsers, Fuggers, Gosslers - she had known them all. The bulk of her life had been lived in times when the suspicion of witchcraft was a stain best avoided. In order to manipulate the affairs of men to her advantage, Brenna acquired the things they valued in ways they respected. Nothing spoke more powerfully than money.

  With meticulous care, Brenna created a modern identity for herself, and gained access to her long dormant, but highly secure accounts by posing as her own descendant. When a hurdle presented itself, she used a mixture of magic and technology to solve the problem and move on.

  When she was satisfied t
hat she "existed" at a level sufficient to move about freely in the mortal world, Brenna turned her attention to the next most pressing matter. Who was the witch from the cemetery and how had she come to be aligned with the aos sí?

  9

  I'd like to tell you my response to seeing Brenna was epic, that I did something to earn my broomstick, but honestly? Before I realized what I was doing, I waved back.

  Before you land all over me, admit it. Some things are just programmed in us. Saying "bless you" for a sneeze, answering "fine" to "how are you," and waving back.

  Trust me. The instant I did it, I felt like an idiot. Especially since Brenna gave me a smile that assured me she thought I was an idiot.

  The answering wave seemed to tell her all she needed or wanted to know, because she stepped back inside and closed the door. My disoriented brain stopped talking to my feet while it processed a wave of did-that-just-happen confusion.

  Irma’s voice snapped me back to reality. "Jinx, honey? Did you forget something?"

  "No, ma’am," I stammered.

  (Also an autopilot response in the south.)

  My legs finally picked up a wobbly nerve impulse and I moved, forcing myself not to run. That's how desperate I felt to get back to the store and Myrtle's protection. Thankfully Festus was no longer on the bench by the front door of the cobbler’s shop. I wasn’t about to try to explain what had just happened to anyone but Tori until I had some time to process the incident.

  The instant I made it through the front door, Tori abandoned her post and came out from behind the espresso to meet me in the middle of the store.

  "Are you okay?" she asked quietly but urgently, putting her hand on my arm. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Then she lowered her voice even more. "Oh my God. Did you see a ghost? I mean one we don't already know?"

  Shaking my head, I said, "Storeroom. Now."

  Tori turned toward the handful of customers seated at the tables. "Hey, guys," she called out cheerfully, "we'll be in the storeroom. Ring the bell if you need anything."

  There were a few raised-hand replies, but most of our patrons didn't even look up from their books or tablets.

  As soon as we were out of earshot, I told Tori what had happened. To my considerable consternation, her immediate reply to my bombshell was, “Are you sure it was Brenna?”

  “Oh my God, Tori, seriously?" I said, adrenaline still pumping through my veins. “You did not just ask me that question! Of course I’m sure it’s her! I'm telling you, Brenna Sinclair is right over there in the old hardware store this very minute.”

  Even saying the words scared me more than I was willing to think about, but something else had begun to stir in the back of my mind. Through the buzz of incoherence, a voice was asking, "Why didn't you go over there and ask her what the hell she's doing in your town?"

  That voice was a sign of things to come, and a huge leap from where I had been a few hours earlier -- gasping for air on the side of a country road in the middle of a panic attack.

  A girl can change a lot in a few hours when circumstances demand it.

  Believe me. I was definitely experiencing a period of high demand.

  Tori's next question surprised me.

  “How does she look?”

  Huh. Not what I was expecting, which may well have been what Tori intended, since to give her an answer, I had to stop and think. That slight pause let me get some of my focus back.

  “Um, she looks kinda fantastic,” I admitted. “High-end clothes, great hair. Not like someone who got fried with blue lightning.”

  “How is that even possible?” Tori said. “I mean, we tossed the bucket of water on her. We sang ‘ding dong the witch is dead.’ That should have been game over.”

  Until that moment, I viewed our confrontation with Brenna in the cemetery as a win for our side, too. Which I guess it was, since she left and all of the spirits I accidentally raised went back to their graves. But, if I broke that night down frame by frame, there was no proof we'd done anything except make Brenna disappear.

  Tori saw the realization on my face. "Uh-oh," she said. "What?"

  “We shouldn't have thought it was game over,” I answered. “All we can really say for sure is that we put on a heck of a light show. We assumed we killed her, or banished her, or something. We don't know that we did any of that.”

  Tori looked at me with a stunned expression. “And you’re just now thinking about this?” she asked incredulously. "Late to the party, much?"

  “Hey!” I protested. “You didn’t think about it either. You were as happy as I was to believe we’d seen the last of her. But you have to admit, the whole thing was a little too easy.”

  That won me Tori's signature cocked eyebrow. “Easy? Like the part where I sliced open the palm of my hand with a dagger?” she asked. "Thus creating blood?"

  “And that would be the same dagger that sliced my arm open,” I countered. "Thus creating more blood."

  We are competitive in all things, including knife fights.

  Honestly, neither of us had more than thin, pale scars to show for getting cut, but there had, indeed, been blood. In fact, it was the blood that saved us and opened up new potential avenues not just for my power, but for abilities that Tori and I might share. There had been a couple of kinda spooky, kinda cool mind reading moments in the last few weeks.

  Myrtle speculated that if we worked at it, Tori and I might master the skill. It was on the "To Do List,” but the list kept getting longer by the minute.

  “Okay,” Tori said, “so we drew the wrong conclusions from that night. Our bad. Moving on. The major point here is that you saw Brenna. Did she actually do anything or did she just stand there?”

  An involuntary shudder moved through me. “That was the creepy part,” I said. “She waved at me.”

  Both of Tori’s eyebrows shot up. “She waved at you?” she asked. “Are we talking an insincere-stuck-up-girl wave or a menacing I’m-ending-you-come-sundown wave?”

  I held my hand up and rocked it back and forth at the wrist. “That kind of wave,” I replied.

  Tori frowned. “Well, that’s not very evil-sorceress-raised-from-the-dead,” she said, sounding disappointed.

  “Tori!” I exclaimed in frustration. “What are you? The Russian judge who never gives a 10? Would you be happier if Brenna had hurled a fireball at me?”

  “You have to admit that would have been more in character,” Tori pointed out.

  Which was true.

  I glanced over my shoulder to double check no one could overhear us, and then hissed, “Myrtle! Are you listening to this?”

  Somewhere in the air above our heads, we heard the three-note trill Myrtle uses to signal agreement. She only appears to us in human form when we're down in the basement. Up top in the store, she relies on a creative language of sound effects and sight gags to get her point across.

  “How the heck did Brenna manage to set up shop right here on the courthouse square without you knowing about it?” I demanded. "You picked a great time to start sleeping on the job."

  After a few seconds, Rodney emerged from the liniment cans that hide his bachelor pad from view. (We don’t like to use the word “cage.” Rodney is very much a free agent.) He was running on three legs, holding a tiny parchment scroll in one front paw.

  As we watched, the rat jumped from his shelf to the top of the filing cabinet and held the roll of paper out to me.

  “Thank you, Rodney,” I said, taking the message. Untying the satin ribbon, I pulled the parchment flat and found an answer to my question, penned in Myrtle’s neat, precise hand. I read it aloud.

  “For the record, I do not require sleep, and I did not know Brenna was close by because she does not register on what you would call my 'radar.' I believe the status of her powers has changed. We’ll talk about it tonight. For right now, don’t sweat it.”

  I looked up incredulously. “Don’t sweat it?”

  Rodney cocked his head as if listening, re
traced his steps, and returned with a second scroll.

  This one said, “Lighten up, dear.”

  "Okay, fine," I grumbled, "but will you at least tell me if you think 'changed status' means her powers are gone?"

  The three-note trill sounded again.

  Tori held out her arm to Rodney, who accepted the invitation to position himself on her shoulder. "We're gonna have to get you a Western Union uniform like in the old movies, little guy," she crooned, stroking the silky fur between his ears. Rodney nodded his head eagerly.

  Looking over at me, Tori said, "Come on, we're letting perfectly good doughnuts go uneaten."

  That elicited more eager head nodding from Rodney. Aunt Fiona let him eat whatever he wanted when she was alive, but I insist on one meal of certified, fortified rodent chow per day. Rodney, like Tori, lives for junk food. He eats the pellets, but he doesn't love them. Doughnuts he loves.

  Tori took the white sack from me while I put the roach traps on a nearby shelf.

  Gesturing toward my favorite, battered armchair, Tori said, “Sit. I’ll get fresh coffee for us.”

  Since the health department would not have appreciated her walking around the shop with a black-and-white rat on her shoulder, Tori transferred Rodney to me before she left. He slipped under the collar of my shirt and snuggled against my neck, which was both a sign of affection and optimal placement for doughnut pilferage.

  Tori came back bearing two huge mugs of something hot and caffeinated.

  “Why didn’t you use the new witch mug?” I asked, taking the cup she held out to me.

  “Because it gives me the creeps, that’s why,” Tori said. “I still think that witch moved.”

  Snagging a jelly doughnut from the sack, I said, “Well, if she did, she’s all of three inches tall, so I think we can take her. Now, spill. What happened after I left last night?”