Team Destiny and Archie's Apparition (Team Destiny Paranormal Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Belinda White

  Shaman Crowe shook his head. “I believe that is what Kalfu was counting on. Throwing magic on a god would be rather like throwing water in a river. To my guess, it would only strengthen it.”

  Okay, so now I was feeling more than a little light-headed. I really needed to sit down.

  Oh yeah, I was still on the floor, wasn’t I? I waved away the Shaman’s hand. The floor was nice right now. I wouldn’t have far to fall if the faint won.

  Chapter 24

  The faint didn’t win. At least, I don’t think it did. But I did totally zone out there for a short bit.

  When I came to my full senses again, I could hear sobbing. Who was crying? What had I missed? What had happened?

  Then I realized the source of the sobbing was Martha Donaldson. She was awake, cradled in Archie’s arms, and crying her heart out.

  I checked in visually with Mom and the others, but I saved Karen for last. Of all of us, she was the one I worried about the most. The rest of us had been through this kind of dance before. To my knowledge, she hadn’t.

  It took a minute to get to my feet and make my way over to her. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She turned to me, and the woman was practically glowing. “I’ll admit I was a little shaky there for a bit when that crazy man showed up. Not to mention that... thing... by Martha’s bed.” Then her head turned back with a nod to Martha and Archie. “But you all did it. You saved her. She’s back. That’s worth everything and then some.” Then she grew solemn. “I’m not saying that I’m okay with what happened—especially poor Frank dying like that—but at least some good came of it.”

  “I’m sorry that happened too. If we’d only been a day or so quicker, he wouldn’t have had to die. We’d have found the taint in time.”

  “True.” Then she shook her head. “But maybe, in some small way, that was a blessing too. Poor Frank wasn’t like Martha. I had hope for Martha.” She flitted a look to me and away. “I try to have hope for all my residents, mind you, but with some, it’s harder than for others. I don’t know why.”

  I smiled at her and put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s because you’re a witch, Karen. Most likely it’s your witch’s intuition playing up. Telling you who can be saved. You need to listen to it.”

  She nodded. “I will from here out. You can bet your last dollar on that.”

  “Crap!”

  All eyes turned to the door. Trevor stood there looking over the scene in horror. Well, mostly, he had eyes for the dead man on the floor. But at least he did check on all of us first. Then, knowing that all of us were still standing and drawing breath, he turned his attention to the biggest problem remaining.

  He knelt down to check the body, then looked over at us. “Has anyone called 9-1-1?”

  Crapsnackles. I glanced around, but everyone was shaking their head. I joined the chorus.

  “Sorry. Things got a bit crazy there for a while. I think we’re all still in shock,” I told him.

  His hand was now holding his cellphone, and he made the call. Then he took a deep breath and closed the door behind him.

  Then he walked over and shut off the video feed from the room. Double crapsnackles. I’d forgotten about that! What the devil had been recorded on that thing?

  As it turned out... nothing much. But only because Mom’s body was shielding the view from the camera during the whole levitation thing. And as for the whole MacCallister thing—well, that happened on the other side of the room and facing away from the camera. I really thought we were safe there.

  The police and paramedics came and went, then the coroner showed up and Martha’s room was officially made a crime scene.

  That was fine by all of us, especially Martha. She didn’t plan on spending one more night in that bed.

  Not that Mom and Archie would agree to just let her go home alone. That would not happen, either.

  After a little compromising, Martha agreed to stay with them for a week. She’d need time to get her system used to regular food and drink again. And you couldn’t ask for a better healer than my mom to help her through all that.

  WHEN TREVOR AND I WALKED through our front door, a very unhappy and insistent Destiny was waiting for us.

  “You need to dump some magic. Now. Like right now.” She wasn’t taking no for an answer.

  I fought a yawn and lost. “Can’t you wait until I fall asleep and just take me to the Ether then?”

  Then I noticed that Trevor and Destiny were both staring at me with a mounting terror in their eyes. I glanced into the hallway mirror at our reflection.

  Oh. Now the whole breaking the speed limit thing on the way home made a little more sense. My hair was practically standing on end.

  And I had fairly long hair.

  “Okay, new plan,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We ended up in my library slash crystal storage room. I leaned back in my fluffy rainbow-colored bean bag chair and tried to relax. With all the tension I’d felt in the past few days, it wasn’t the easy task it should have been.

  Having Destiny there helped. Not having to worry about stopping myself from falling asleep helped too. If I fell asleep after reaching the trance state, that was fine by Destiny. She could take it from there and lead me into the Ether.

  And that’s probably what happened, too. I couldn’t tell you for sure.

  All I knew was that when I finally woke up, hours and hours later, my hair was behaving normally, and I had a travel pillow supporting my neck and a fuzzy Sherpa blanket over me.

  It was almost enough to try to roll over and go back to sleep. And I might have done just that, too, if Trevor hadn’t been sitting right there at my desk watching me like a hawk.

  I rubbed my eyes. “How long have you been there?”

  “The whole time.” He paused. “Well, other than the pillow and blanket retrieval. I was really worried about you.”

  Scratching my head, I stretched. “I’m okay. But I’ll admit that was probably a lot closer than it should have been. I wondered why you hustled me home at the first opportunity.”

  “Yeah. I was half afraid you were going to spontaneously combust on me or something. I don’t think I could handle that, by the way.” He gave me a crooked smile. “From what the others said, I came close enough to losing you once tonight already. I don’t want to lose you to evil, but I don’t want to lose you to magic, either.”

  He got quiet for a minute. When he spoke again, his voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t want to lose you, period, Amie.” Then he rose, walked across the room, and knelt by my chair. Reaching out, he took my hands in his. “I know I’m a bit late on this—and this isn’t anything like as romantic as I wanted it to be—but, here goes anyway.” He took a deep breath. “Amethyst Ravenswind, will you marry me?”

  What do you know? For once in his long life, Shaman Crowe was wrong. I didn’t have to ask him after all.

  Chapter 25

  The next morning, Trevor left for his early day shift without waking me. But when I finally managed to open my eyes for the day, it was to find a small jewelry box on the pillow beside me.

  I smiled and opened it. Then I forgot how to breathe for a moment.

  Knowing Trevor as I do, I had expected a beautiful ring. That was a given. But I’d been expecting a more traditional diamond solitaire. My man was all about traditions.

  This ring was anything but traditional.

  The slightly wider band twisted as it rounded the front. Each end of the band surrounded a gorgeously cut gem. Purple and pink glittered up at me from not only my birthstone but Trevor’s too.

  It would not have been possible for him to have chosen a ring I loved any more than this one. And that was even before I noticed the inscription inside.

  You were always my light, witch.

  I may or may not have still been crying (happy tears) when my phone went off. After a couple of deep, cleansing breaths to steady my voice, I answered.

  It was Archie.

  “
Hey, honey. How are you this morning?”

  “A little sore, but other than that, fine. How about you and Mom?” Then, a second later, “And Martha?”

  “We’re fine, dear. Well, your mom and I are fine. Martha is on her way to getting there.” There was a pause. “I finally got hold of Opal, by the way. Turns out, she’d been holding back something for me at the shop. She said she figured I’d be calling her about Sapphire’s birthday sooner or later.”

  Crapsnackles. My eyes flew to the calendar on the wall. This coming Saturday was circled in red for a reason. Mom.

  “Sounds like she came through for you then.” And maybe sounded like I needed to call her myself. I’d been planning on going in with Archie for the gift. Looked like I’d have to come up with one of my own now.

  Or maybe not.

  “Well, kind of. The gift is rather... well, incomplete. Something I could really use your help with, actually.”

  “Incomplete? How can a gift be incomplete?”

  “It’s an antique picture frame—I guess it belonged to your grandmother. She says she found it in a chest while they were remodeling the attic.”

  “Okay.” Sounded just about perfect to me. Mom always did have a thing about pictures. It was one of the reasons I’d made such a good photographer. She’d always had my back on that one. “So what’s the incomplete part?”

  “The frame is empty. I hoped that you might go to the farmhouse and spend some time going through Opal’s albums to find the perfect picture for it? Things are a little overbooked here today, or I’d say I’d join you. I’m due in court in about ten minutes, and it’s probably going to be a long one.”

  “Sure, Dad. I can do that.”

  There was silence from the other end of the phone.

  “Dad?”

  “Sorry, it’s just... you’ve never called me Dad before.” Was that the sound of a sniff? Was the man crying?

  Not that he was the only one or anything.

  He rang off pretty quickly after that. Probably to get himself under control before hitting the courtroom.

  Good thing, though, because right then I was a blubbering mess. Too many emotions hitting me at the same time.

  When had Archie gone from being Archie to being Dad? I couldn’t put my finger on the precise moment, but that hadn’t stopped it from happening.

  Dad. I had a dad. Not an Archie. A dad. It was nice. Almost as nice as having a fiance in more than just name now.

  After the tears passed, I laid there and thought about the photos in Opal’s albums. I didn’t think I’d be needing to go through them.

  I glanced over at my dresser and one of the ornate frames there. It held a copy of Mom’s favorite photo of all times. They had taken it just moments after I’d been born. The shot was a clear one of just the two of us. Mother and baby daughter.

  It was a beautiful picture, but thinking about it, I realized it was missing something.

  In all my photography lessons, I’d learned to be a fair hand at photo manipulation. I’d be going through old photos today, after all.

  But they wouldn’t be from Opal’s albums, they’d be from the Mineheart stash.

  Dad deserved to be in that photo, too.

  Epilogue: Destiny’s Little Secret

  “You haven’t told her yet, have you?” Yorkie Doodle asked.

  It was a fair question, even if I did resent it more than a little.

  “The subject hasn’t come up yet, no.”

  “Not even when Amie pretty much came right out and asked you to take her to talk with the Goddess? You didn’t think that was a good time to tell her?”

  “She had a lot on her plate at the time, if you remember. Facing down a god isn’t an easy thing, you know. She didn’t need the added worry. Or the distraction. Amie needed her focus.”

  I spared my canine companion a glare. It’s not like this was an easy thing for me. He knew that.

  Yorkie Doodle let the silence grow. And grow.

  Finally, I snapped. “I’ll tell her, okay?”

  His little doggie head nodded slowly. “I think sooner might be better than later.”

  I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes. “If you don’t want to help me, just say so.”

  Yorkie took a deep breath, his sides heaving with the load. “I never said that I wouldn’t help. Just trying to make the point that maybe we shouldn’t be going alone, you know?”

  “But if you use that exceptional Goddess-given scent tracking ability of yours, then just maybe we won’t have to involve Amie at all. Why worry her if it’s something we can resolve ourselves?”

  He scratched his ear for a minute. I hated this. It simply wasn’t in a cat’s nature to ask for help. Especially from the lesser canine species. But unfortunately, they were the ones that had been given the superior sniffers.

  Guess the Goddess had to give them something, the poor things. It had to be rough, going through life, always wanting to be a cat.

  I waited him out. What else could I do? Other than try to appear a tad disinterested, of course. That was proving rather hard, the circumstances being what they were.

  “All right,” he finally said.

  I think part of his hesitation had just been to make me suffer. It was the kind of thing a dog would do. But just when I thought I had it made, he continued.

  “But I want to bring the boys with us.”

  I stared at him. “Huh?” Surely I hadn’t heard that right. He had to understand how important this was, didn’t he? I wasn’t in the habit of asking for help for trivial matters.

  “I want to bring the boys. They’re part of Team Destiny, too, you know. They have to start their training sometime. Why not tonight?”

  It was almost a deal-breaker. I studied him closely, but I could tell he was going to stick to his guns on this one. Besides, what could it really hurt? Other than my nerves, that is.

  “Okay, but you are in charge of them. Not me. I take absolutely no responsibility in getting them there or back. Deal?”

  He gave me a doggie grin and put his paw over mine. “Deal.”

  WE WAITED UNTIL THE humans had all gone to bed for the night. We couldn’t risk them walking in and getting all hyped up by seeing all of us in a trance state.

  If that was even the possibility that Yorkie Doodle seemed to think it was.

  I knew he’d been working with his pups, but I also knew they were still just kidlings. Puppy kidlings that had way too much energy in their tiny little bodies to be good for them. Or us.

  But if they couldn’t get to the trance state and come with us, that wasn’t on me. And, more importantly, it didn’t relieve Yorkie Doodle from his agreement to help.

  I hoped we could both agree on that one.

  In my mind, I really thought that was how it would all play out. I was more than surprised when I got to the Goddess tree to find all three of them waiting on me.

  Yorkie gave me that silly dog grin of his. “What took you so long?”

  I decided to ignore that. Instead, I peered closely into his eyes. “So?”

  Rather than answer me in words, Yorkie herded his pups together and started yipping at them. I could only guess that they had their own way to communicate with each other. A way that involved far too much high-pitched yipping to suit my tastes.

  As the pups weren’t familiars, they weren’t able to talk with me. And no way was I about to try to learn to speak dog. Yorkie would just have to be my translator.

  While I stood there on the warm and springy grass under the always full moon here, he and his pups went to work. They first sniffed the tree, working their way all around it, then they each took off in different directions, noses to the ground.

  It didn’t take long, however, before all three were standing back in front of me. Not the result I had hoped for.

  I swallowed. “Any leads?”

  Yorkie shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, but no. As it turns out, Her scent is the very scent of nature itself. It’s every
where.”

  “Then why all the running around?” Had they been toying with me? Not cool, if that were the case.

  “We were trying to sniff out anyone—or anything—that might have been here recently.”

  Oh. Well, that made sense. “And?”

  Another head shake. “Just more nature.”

  Well, crapsnackles.

  The unspoken question hung in the air, but at least Yorkie didn’t put voice to it. He’d already made his feelings clear on the matter.

  I needed to tell Amie. Not that I didn’t agree with that. I did. Whole-heartedly, in fact. The hard part wasn’t agreeing that she needed to know.

  The hard part was telling your witch that her Goddess was missing...

  THE END, FOR NOW. IF you haven't already ventured into reading the first few series starring the Ravenswind clan and the Gemstone Coven, be sure to check them out!

  The Accidental Familiar

  Witch Reborn

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