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

by Juliette Harper

  She greeted me as warmly as Barnaby had, but when she took Tori’s hand, Moira looked long into her eyes. “Are you ready for this?” Moira asked her.

  “I honestly don’t know,” Tori said, “but I’m game if you are.”

  A slow smile spread over Moira’s face. “My dear child,” she said, “I was born game.”

  “Me, too,” Tori replied.

  “Would you like to see my workshop this evening after dinner?” Moira asked. “We can discuss both your calling and your training.”

  “That sounds great,” Tori said, “but I want to go to the stables with Amity first.”

  Moira’s smile broadened. “The unicorns?”

  Tori nodded happily.

  “Good,” Moira said, “I’ll go with you. I love them, too.”

  “Excellent,” Barnaby said, clapping his hands together. “It would seem the plans for the evening are falling into place of their own accord. You will be staying at the inn next door to my quarters beside the town hall. Allow me to show you all to your rooms so you can rest a bit before we gather for the evening meal. Agreed?”

  When Moira excused herself to return to her workshop, Myrtle said, “If you don’t mind, Moira, I’d like to come with you and talk for a bit.”

  “A pleasure as always, aos sí,” the Alchemist said.

  Aunt Fiona promised to join us for supper, and Chase went off to locate Festus. That left Amity, Tori, Rodney, and me to follow Barnaby to the inn. Darby was nowhere to be seen.

  Barnaby introduced us to the innkeeper, Mrs. McElroy, before excusing himself as well. She was a jolly, red-faced woman who talked non-stop as she lumbered up the stairs, first getting Amity settled in a single room and then putting Tori and me in two adjoining rooms.

  “I’d be appreciating it if you’d not be working any incantations involving smoke, fire, noise, or noxious odors after 10 o’clock,” she said, as she threw the curtains back and flooded our shared sitting area with light. “And will your rat be requiring anything special?”

  From his position on my shoulder, Rodney shook his head. Then he lifted one paw, kissed it, and blew the smooch toward Mrs. McElroy who burst into delighted twittering. “Get on with you then, Sir Rat,” she said. “It’s a right flirt you are.”

  Rodney trotted down my arm, hopped onto the back of a chair, executed a gallant bow, and winked at Mrs. McElroy, sending her into another gale of giggles. Something told me there was a hunk of cheese in Rodney’s future.

  When Tori and I were finally alone, she looked at me and said, “Seriously. We’ve been in an accident. I hit my head and am massively concussed, right?”

  “Nope,” I said, putting my pack down. “We’re really here and you really petted a unicorn.”

  “Would I sound like a total moron if I said ‘oh my God’ like 50 times?” she asked.

  “Yes, you would,” I assured her, “not to mention irritating. But I get where you’re coming from. Can you believe this place?

  Tori flopped down in one of the chairs and held out her arm so Rodney could join her. “How about you, little man?” she asked, peering into his bright, black eyes. “Are you believing this?”

  Rodney nodded and held out his paw for a high five, which Tori gently returned with her index finger.

  “I guess we really are not in freaking Kansas any more,” she said.

  Taking the chair opposite her, I said, “We’ve never been to Kansas either.”

  “God, Jinksy!” she protested. “That is completely not relevant. You’ve got dragons flying around after you, I made friends with a unicorn, and I’m pretty sure you had a heart-to-heart with the great Mother Tree of all trees. You were talking to her, weren’t you? Come on. Dish. What did she say?”

  “Just that we’re here to learn, and that I should go out there and really talk to her when I’m ready,” I said.

  “Is she like the other trees?” Tori asked.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “She’s ancient. I think she’s older than Myrtle.”

  “Which brings up mystery number two,” Tori said. “What do you suppose Myrtle and Moira are talking about?”

  “What else?” I said. “Our futures. I just hope they’re ready to give us some answers. I mean this is all cool, and clearly Shevington is going to be a major part of our lives now, but am I the only person who is worried that Brenna Sinclair is sitting back there in Briar Hollow undoubtedly up to no good?”

  Tori stretched in her chair. “You are not,” she said, “and I’m not too thrilled about this Irenaeus dude, either. Myrtle can tease me all she wants to, but I’m telling you, arch villains are never done when you think they’re done. Penguin, Joker, Magneto, Poison Ivy, Mystique, Lex Luthor. Scumbags like that are hard to put down.”

  Pardon me if I wasn’t comforted by that recitation of comic book . . . excuse me, graphic novel . . . bad guys. Unless Batman, Superman, and Wolverine were waiting in the wings to help out, we were the ones who were going to be out there dealing with Brenna and any buddies of hers who happen to show up. I was feeling a whole lot better about my powers -- until Chase told that story about Festus and Moira dueling with Irenaeus Chesterfield.

  I distinctly remembered a reference to a lightning bolt melting the bone in Festus’ hip. That experience was definitely not on my bucket list. Before I could say so, however, light snoring floated over from the vicinity of Tori’s chair. Both she and Rodney were down for the count. It had been a long walk. Maybe I’d just close my eyes for a second, too.

  When a light tap on the door awakened me, I was surprised to find the sun had gone down. I glanced around the room looking for a light to turn on. Then it occurred to me that there probably was no electricity in The Valley, at least not the kind involving wiring. As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I made out the vague shape of a lamp sitting on the table. Purely to be a smart ass, I looked at the lamp, snapped my fingers, and almost fainted with the globe came alive with a bright, golden light.

  “Huh, uh, what?” Tori mumbled, blinking in the sudden brightness.

  “Check this out,” I said, moving to another lamp. I snapped my fingers again and it sprang to life as well.

  “Whoa,” she said. “Nice one.”

  The tap at the door sounded again. When I opened it, Amity was standing there. She looked me up and down and said disapprovingly, “I hope you’re not planning on having dinner with the Lord High Mayor of Shevington looking like that?”

  Busted.

  “Sorry,” I said. “We fell asleep. Give us 10 minutes and we’ll be down.”

  15

  Earlier that summer

  The little witch’s lack of control amused Brenna. The spirits from the graveyard now milled around the courthouse square growing more confused and restless, searching in vain for a connection with their former lives. Soon their discontent would generate enough energy to make them visible in the living world. Then the real fun would begin. The only thing humans feared more than death was a return of the dead.

  Brenna stood beneath the statue of a soldier. She’d read about his war, a doomed economic conflict between the industrial north and the agrarian south. So typically human to erect a monument to a lost cause. She chose the spot purely for its location, directly across the street from the store that embodied the aos sí.

  The power of the ancient Fae spirit prevented Brenna from entering the building, but she knew the fledgling witch and her tiny band of misfits could see her. Brenna opened her mind’s eye and searched the darkened windows. The girl’s aura pulsated like the trembling heart of a terrified bird. It made Brenna smile, which only sent the pathetic creatures shrinking deeper into the shadows. How deliciously amusing it would be to torment that one into submission.

  Brenna turned her attention back to the aimless ghosts. Surely one of them would be of use to her. She raised her hand, softly chanting the words of a spell that activated the large ruby set in gold adorning her index finger. Alas, it was not the elusive Philosopher’s
Stone, but the blood-red gem still served her well. She’d cut it from the finger of an Alchemist who insisted on attempting to thwart her. With the ruby, Brenna could see into the hidden world of motivations.

  Still holding her hand aloft, palm out, Brenna scanned the crowd. A few of the ghosts, misinterpreting the gesture, waved at her. Brenna ignored them, concentrating instead on exploring the sins weighing against their eternal slumber. Most of the petty transgressions she found barely qualified as trivial in her estimation.

  A Sunday school teacher tormenting herself for taking a few dollars a week from the collection plate to obtain the cigarettes her husband would not allow her to buy even though he drank his own paycheck.

  A smattering of garden-variety adulterers.

  Some enterprising tax evaders.

  Brenna’s hand stopped over a man in a disgustingly cheap garment. The pale residue of his living aura bristled with arrogant self-importance. Brenna intensified her scrutiny and found a viable catalog of misdeeds on which she could draw. Land fraud. Election rigging. Gambling. Cheating.

  Ah, it was the cheating that did him in. A contest over . . . fish? The fool died by the hand of a man he wronged over the weight of a game fish and the awarding of a cheap hunk of brass. Oh, yes. This one would do nicely.

  Brenna glided across the courthouse lawn, the dark cloak falling from her shoulders billowing behind her. The spirits she passed shrank away. Even as pale shades, they feared the sight of the sorceress.

  But the one she approached took no notice until Brenna cleared her throat and said, “Pardon my intrusion, sir. You seem the most levelheaded and responsible of this throng. May I ask what has transpired to bring you all here?”

  “That’s the $10,000 question, lady,” he snapped. “The little twit who runs that insufferable Fiona Ryan’s store insists I’m dead, which is impossible since I’m following a five-year action plan.”

  Feigning sympathy, Brenna said, “How incredibly inconvenient for a man of your stature, but I do fear that you are indeed no longer in the world of the living.”

  “How would you know that?” he blustered.

  “I am a sorceress.”

  “Yeah, right Glenda,” he scoffed. “What are you going to do? Wiggle your nose and turn me into a rabbit or something?”

  Under normal circumstances, his insolence would have won him a transformation, first into a rabbit, and then into dinner, but Brenna had need of his services.

  “I am willing to give you a demonstration,” she demurred. “What, pray tell would convince you?”

  A speculative gleam came into the man’s eye. Looking around, his gaze stopped on a spout rising from the lawn. “Turn that water faucet into gold,” he demanded.

  Gold. They always wanted gold. From the alchemists to this strange modern world, humans continued to nurse their fascination with that weak, malleable metal.

  “Very well,” Brenna replied. She focused her power on the material of the spigot, moving her awareness into the mass of minute particles that constituted its substance and that of all matter. Slowly she rearranged their order, altering the orbits and combinations.

  As she worked, the hue at the base of the pipe lightened. The discoloration crept upward toward the open mouth of the spigot, where a single drop of water hung suspended, building tension toward its ultimate descent to the wet earth below. Granted, it was a bit of unnecessary showmanship, but Brenna turned the droplet into a glittering diamond.

  The ghost beside her gaped at her handiwork. “Holy shit,” he said, adding hastily, “pardon my French.”

  French? His command of that language was thin indeed if he could not even muster the word merde.

  “Have I convinced you?” Brenna asked.

  “Yeah,” he greedily, “can you do that again?”

  “As many times as you like,” Brenna said, “but is that your only goal? Accumulating wealth?”

  The man gaped at her. “What else is there?” he asked stupidly.

  For just an instant, Brenna considered selecting another of the spirits. This one’s dim thought processes required entirely too much patience, but then again, a mind so weak was, like gold itself, enticingly soft.

  “Perhaps you would like to regain your life,” she suggested.

  “Huh,” he said, appearing to actually require time to consider her offer. “I guess I can’t do anything with that gold if I’m dead, right?”

  Brenna inclined her head demurely to one side. “How very perceptive of you . . . ”

  When the man failed to understand the pause as a prompt to supply his name, Brenna prodded, “I don’t know your name.”

  “Howard McAlpin,” he said, puffing out his chest, “mayor of Briar Hollow.”

  “And I am Brenna Sinclair,” she said.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said perfunctorily. “Now bring me back to life.”

  Stupid, rude, and demanding. No wonder he’d chosen politics as his profession.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Mayor,” she said, “my magic is not simply at your beck and call.”

  With a snap of her fingers, she broke the loose threads holding the metal’s transformation in place, relishing the disappointment that flooded Howard’s face as the gold vanished and the diamond crashed to earth, shattering into a fine, liquid spray.

  “If you want your life,” she continued, “and enough precious commodities to facilitate the reacquisition of your own brand of power, you must give me something in return.”

  Dim though he might be, Howard clearly knew a negotiation when he saw one. “What does a dead guy have that a woman like you wants?” he asked.

  “Information,” Brenna replied.

  “About what?”

  “The affairs of this town,” she said, “and the opportunities they present to complicate the life of the woman who runs that store.”

  Howard grinned. “Dirt,” he said. “That I can give you, and if it screws over Fiona Ryan’s niece in the process, I’m good with that. What do you want to know?”

  PRESENT TIME

  AS BRENNA WATCHED, Jinx turned on her heel and walked rapidly back toward her own store. At least, the girl didn’t quite turn tail and run, although the fact that she had waved proved the depths of her vacuity -- a fact that still made Brenna seethe.

  To be stripped of her powers by the likes of Jinx and with the aid of Brenna’s own blood! The irony infuriated her. Still, of the two young women, Victoria -- Tori -- had far more inner fire. If her misguided loyalty toward Jinx could be broken, Tori could easily claim her place as the first member of Brenna’s own coven.

  But that would all come in good time. First there was the matter of getting past the aos sí and into the basement of the store. According to Iranaeus Chesterfield, the space was a treasure trove of magical information and artifacts, and more importantly, the gateway to the Valley of Shevington and the last Alchemist.

  Going to the cemetery to confront Jinx and Tori had been a tactical mistake on Brenna’s part -- one she would not make again. Nor would she ever again underestimate their ability to blunder into solutions. The moment the duo comingled their blood Brenna knew they had her. Bound in crackling tendrils of blue lightning, she could do nothing but shield herself from yet a third exile in limbo.

  When her powers exploded against those of her adversaries, the blast threw Brenna down a long, dark corridor. She landed on hard earth, gasping as the force knocked the breath from her lungs. Lying on her back, staring up at the canopy of night stars, Brenna slowly became aware of a cold hollowness at the center of her being.

  Humanity.

  Mortality.

  The screams of anger and frustration that rose in her throat sent the forest animals retreating into the shadows. Only when her voice broke against the parched walls of her throat did Brenna curl into a ball on her side and fall silent. There she stayed for the remainder of that night, and until the sun went down the next day.

  There was no sleep. Brenna focused her thoughts inward, g
oing into the deepest recesses of her mind in search of any surviving remnant of her power, any glowing ember she could nurse back to life. For centuries her power had been her companion and her consolation. Now, she found nothing but thin echoes of memory.

  She was alone. Vulnerable. Frightened. But even as those alien, foul emotions clouded her thoughts, Brenna’s own practical strength fought back. If she had attained her power once, she could do it again. In the meantime, how would she live? On what resources would she draw? What was her next move?

  As the sun moved behind the mountains, Brenna summoned every degree of mental focus she retained and sent a single cry out into the Universe. Long moments passed. Sweat formed on her brow and her breathing grew labored. Then, the air around her stirred and a voice said, “Oh my, Brenna, this is a bit of a pickle, isn’t it?”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at Irenaeus Chesterfield. “You heard me,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said, leaning against a boulder across from her, “I heard you.”

  Gritting her teeth against the weakness of the question, she asked, “How?”

  The wizard regarded her speculatively and allowed his own arrogant mask to slide away. “How long has it been since you were last human?” he asked with surprising gentleness.

  Brenna swallowed hard against the lump that rose in her throat. “Hundreds of years. Not since I was a girl used cruelly by my father and brothers.”

  Irenaeus nodded. “What did you do to them?” he asked quietly.

  “Ensured they died slowly and in screaming agony.”

  “Good,” he said simply.

  Brenna regarded him speculatively. “Irenaeus,” she said, “are you being sensitive?”

  He chuckled. “I will deny any such thing should you say that outside of this forest.”