One Bad Witch

by Danielle Garrett

  “Sorry, pal. But I have to do this,” I told him, before leaning over to tuck the coverlet closer around his plump body.

  Somewhat placated, he closed his eyes and gave a sleepy purr.

  I stepped into a pair of slippers to keep my toes from freezing on the hardwood floors and then moved to the built-in bookshelf across my bedroom. Up on the top shelf, I had a book that was actually a secret hiding place. The insides were carved out and the covers were warded to conceal the contents. If someone opened it without knowing the spell, the pages would be filled with fairy tale stories and soft, pastel illustrations. But when the right incantation was uttered, the secret compartment was revealed.

  I pulled the book down, whispered the spell, and plucked out the tiny glass vial. A lock of Nick’s hair was stuffed inside and sealed with a cork. He’d given the hair willingly, as a safety precaution sometime not too long after his first full moon. His first turn hadn’t gone according to plan, and before the next one, I’d wanted to make sure I had a foolproof way of tracking him down, no matter where he ended up.

  I’d promised to only use it in case of emergency, but I told myself Nick would forgive me if my gut instinct turned out to be wrong.

  Boots opened one eye as I removed a single strand of hair from the vial. I returned the vial to the book and placed it back up on the shelf. “You might want to close your eyes for this part,” I told him.

  He didn’t listen.

  With a shrug, I raised one palm and placed the hair on it. The spell was complex, and I hadn’t done it since my academy days, but once the words started flowing, it came back to me, and the spell rolled off my tongue in hypnotic waves. A warm tingling sensation pricked at my fingers and then bloomed into a web of golden light. I tilted my hand and dumped the hair out, but rather than fall to the floor, it hung suspended in its own pool of light.

  I said the last bit of the spell and then whipped my hand at the wall, as if throwing a string of spaghetti. The golden strands shot out and formed a large circle. The hair floated toward it, pulled as if by magnets, and when the two met, a flash of blinding light exploded through the room. When I peeled my hand away from my eyes, the circle of light and hair were gone. In their place, a gold line as thin as fishing line, but made of supernatural light, lead to the door.

  “Cool,” I breathed.

  Boots looked less than impressed.

  “You coming with?” I asked, knowing his proclivity toward following me whenever he sensed I was about to do something dangerous—or stupid.

  To my surprise, he put his paw back over his face, and after a moment, his belly rose and fell with a slow, sleepy rhythm.

  “Guess that answers that,” I muttered on my way to dig some clothes out of the mountain of unfolded laundry on top of my dresser. I changed quickly into a pair of jeans and a thick sweater. October in Beechwood Harbor was chilly and the nights had been in the upper 40s the past week. I swapped my slippers for a slip-on pair of boots and then scurried from the room, chasing after the golden line.

  The tracking spell wouldn’t hold forever, but I figured I had a good twenty minutes before it would start to fade. That is, if I was remembering my textbook notes from academy. Which was kind of a big if.

  The gold ribbon of light led out of the manor and down the hill into town. As I walked, rubbing my hands together to keep warm, I wished I had a car. Not that I knew how to drive one. Adam was supposed to give me lessons using Evangeline’s sporty little sedan, but we hadn’t gotten around to it with our busy schedules. At least, that was the excuse. If I was honest with myself, there was a part of me that was hesitant to learn to drive. I’d gone my whole life without getting behind the wheel, and something about it intimidated me. I could charge headfirst into a house full of angry vampires or square off with a deadly werewolf, but driving scared me? There were barely any places in the harbor where you could go over twenty-five miles an hour.

  It was probably time to reevaluate my sanity.

  The light shimmered under the streetlights as I got into the main strip through town. Human eyes wouldn’t see the tracking spell. All they would see was a determined redhead barreling down the street toward—

  I screeched to a stop and rocked back on my heels, peering up at the wooden sign. “McNally’s?”

  The line of light pointed right at the front doors. It couldn’t be clearer if it was flashing and shouting “hey, he’s in here” at me. For a moment, I considered turning back. The only dangerous thing in McNally’s was the artery-clogging food. But there really wasn’t anything I could do to protect him from that without sounding like a hypocrite, seeing as I’d never met a fry or jalapeño popper I didn’t like.

  It was closing in on midnight. What was Nick doing out so late with someone he’d only met earlier that day? It wasn’t like him.

  “You’re being a mother hen,” I muttered to myself. The windows on the front of the restaurant were dark enough that I couldn’t make out much of what was going on inside.

  “I’ll just walk through,” I said to myself, smoothing a hand over my ponytail. “Just a quick peak. It can’t hurt. Right?”

  I frowned. At least when Boots tagged along, I didn’t feel like a complete moron when I started talking to myself.

  Shaking my head, I tugged open the door and slipped inside the pub just as a couple were on their way out. With their puffy jackets and scarves, they made for excellent cover as I scrambled toward the hostess station. I reached out and snatched a laminated menu, whipping it up to cover the majority of my face as my gaze darted around the pub. The gold line from the tracking spell cut through the room and pointed my attention at a corner booth where Nick sat, one arm draped along the back of the booth seat. Judging by the grin on his face, he wasn’t alone. Still covering my face, I paced to the bar and peeked over my shoulder. From my new vantage point, I could see his dining—or, drinking—companion.

  Narissa.

  Seeing her wasn’t unexpected, but it still made my heart jump as Agent Bramble’s words rushed back into my head, charging like a herd of wild horses.

  What were they talking about? Did Nick know who she was? What she was? And if so, had he confided in her? If she’d told him she was a shifter, it would only be natural for him to open up and share his own supernatural identity. I squeezed my eyes closed and saw the newspaper clippings from Narissa’s file back in Agent Bramble’s office. The dead werewolves. Their pack members and family gathered outside a stone church, looking at a fresh plot in the small cemetery. What would I do if that ended up being Nick? It would be my fault. I was the reason he’d gotten dragged into the supernatural world and wound up with a scar that changed more than just the appearance of his chest.

  “What’ll it be, Holls?”

  My eyes snapped open at the sound of my name, and I shot a look at the corner booth, certain they would have overheard the bartender’s booming voice calling it out. Nick and Narissa were lost in conversation and hadn’t so much as glanced over. In fact, I didn’t think either of them was even blinking. They looked enthralled, under some kind of trance.

  “Holly? You drinking?”

  I jolted and turned back to Felix, the regular weeknight bartender. “Um, sure. A margarita, please.”

  “What flavor?” he asked, reaching for a fresh glass.

  “Erm, surprise me.”

  Felix raised an eyebrow. “You all right? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here this late before. You and Adam get into it?”

  “What?” I snapped, momentarily forgetting all about Nick. “Why would you assume that?”

  Felix reared back, likely seeing his tip count going down the toilet. He held his hands up. “Just a hazard of the job, I guess. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in here without Adam and never this late. So, you’re alone, drinking, I gotta assume something’s up.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Change my order to an iced tea.”

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said before going to get m
y drink.

  “It’s fine,” I told him. “Everything is fine.”

  Using the menu as I shield, I scuttled to the other end of the bar and took the last stool. There was an empty table beside theirs, but I couldn’t risk getting any closer. Nick would see me or smell me for sure. There was still another week until the full moon, but werewolves senses started sharpening in the days leading up to the change, and I wasn’t sure how close I could get without him picking up my scent. Although, with the commingled odors of the booze, fried food, and stale bar nuts, he’d likely have had a hard time singling me out even if it was the night of the change.

  In any case, my work with the SPA had provided me with a whole new bag of tricks, and I’d recently learned a little piece of spellwork that charmed ordinary objects into a temporary listening device. Essentially, I could create my own enchanted bug. Rummaging through my purse, I felt a plastic circle and pulled it out. It was a button that had popped off one of my coats a week ago. I’d kept the button, telling myself I’d learn to sew—translation, beg Evangeline to magic it back in place.

  I considered it for a moment, glanced at Nick and Narissa, and quickly muttered the spell.

  I’d worry about finding a replacement button later.

  The button briefly glowed an electric blue and I used my hand to shield it from Felix’s line of sight as he approached with my iced tea and an apologetic smile. “Iced tea, on the house,” he said, setting it down in front of me.

  “Thank you,” I replied, pulling it toward me. “Sorry I bit your head off. Been a long day.”

  He tilted his head. “You sure you don’t want that margarita? I could add an extra shot.”

  I nodded. “I’m good with the tea. Maybe next time.”

  For a moment, I thought he was going to linger and try to small talk me, but the door opened and he flashed a quick smile before darting away to assist his new—and presumably paying—customers. I tapped the charmed coat button to my ear, forming the connection, then dropped it to the slightly sticky floor and gave it a good kick in Nick and Narissa’s direction.

  It landed a good foot away from my intended target, but it was close enough that voices drifted into my right ear. Given the late hour, only a handful of tables were occupied, and it was easy to filter out the murmurs of other patrons and zero in on Nick and Narissa’s conversation.

  I sipped at my iced tea and glanced at their table out of the corner of my eye.

  Narissa was speaking, leaning in toward Nick with a sultry smile on her lips. “I can’t believe you’re a werewolf. That’s so cool.”

  Welp, guess that answered one question.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m relieved you think that,” Nick said. “I’m pretty new to this whole … thing, and it’s nice to meet someone who gets it.”

  “I hear you. It can be tough. Although, don’t you have a pack or something?” Narissa asked.

  “I do. Although, I only joined a few months ago,” Nick answered.

  “I see. What’s it like? Do you get along with the alpha?”

  What was she getting at?

  “It’s a little overwhelming, if I’m being honest. Most of the time, I feel like the kid who gets chucked into the deep end of the pool on the first day of swim lessons.”

  Narissa laughed at that, the sound carrying through the pub.

  All right, Nick’s clever but he’s not that funny.

  “Well, as part-cat, I imagine that’s unpleasant,” she said, the fake laughter dying away. “But having a pack must make some of it easier. At least you know who to go to when you have questions. Us shifters don’t really have that. Of course, I’ve heard pack life can be a little … volatile. But, I’m sure your pack isn’t like that.”

  She was baiting him. But why? And even more importantly, why couldn’t Nick see that?

  The answer to that probably lay in the wide smile, bedroom eyes, and killer cheekbones staring back at him from across the table.

  “The alpha’s name is Bruno. There’s been a lot of changes in the hierarchy, I guess you could say, but I’d say things are pretty settled now.”

  “What led to the unrest?” Narissa asked, her tone making it sound like she was merely asking to see the sports page in the paper.

  No, no. Don’t answer that.

  Nick faltered, a half-grin spreading on his face. “You know, I’m pretty new at this whole thing, but most of the time don’t werewolves and shifters kind of … I don’t know, stay away from each other?”

  Narissa didn’t miss a beat. She smiled sweetly. “Do you want me to stay away from you?”

  “No! No, no, of course not!” Nick said, his expression flustered. “It’s just—you seem so curious about us.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. “Sorry. You see, I was a reporter, before moving here, and I guess my instinct is to work the angles, figure out the motive when someone starts sniffing around.”

  Only then did Narissa’s flirtatious facade start to show signs of cracking. Her violet eyes sparked and the lines at her mouth went tense even as she held onto her smile. “I’m not sniffing around, Nicolas. I’m new in town and trying to get the lay of the land as quickly as possible, that’s all. I find it helps to know if there are any bad actors I need to steer clear of. For protection.”

  Nick’s cheeks flushed. “I’m really sorry, Narissa. I didn’t mean anything by it. I wasn’t thinking. Of course you want to know who … or, in this case, what, might be lurking around town.” He cut a sideways glance and then leaned in a little closer. “Things are calm now, but when I got turned, there was this wolf, his name was Ben—”

  My eyes snapped open wide and I sputtered into my iced tea glass. On reflex, I shot a surge of magic at the industrial light fixture over Nick and Narissa’s table, shattering the bulb and glass around it. Shards of glass showered down on the couple and I winced. Oops. Didn’t exactly intend that to happen…

  In any case, it worked. Nick and Narissa jumped apart, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Yikes! Are you okay?” Nick asked.

  Felix raced over, swearing under his breath. “Are you two all right?” he asked.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Nick helping Narissa brush glass off the booth seat so she could slide out. When she was standing, she patted herself down carefully and moved her fingers through her hair. She gasped and jerked her hand away. Nick stepped in closer to help her and my heart sank. I hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt. Stars, all I’d meant to do was kill the lights.

  As Nick consoled Narissa, he glanced up and I didn’t turn away fast enough. He spotted me and from the look on his face, he knew I was the one behind the fireworks show.

  He knew I’d been the one who’d sabotaged his tête-à-tête. Peachy. How was I going to talk my way out of that one?

  Narissa sucked on the tip of her finger as Felix asked if she was all right and offered to go get the first aid kit from the kitchen. She shook her head and wiped her finger on her jeans. “I’m all right. Thank you. I think I’m going to head home and take care of this.”

  “Please, let me drive you,” Nick said, shooting me a dark look over her shoulder.

  I sighed. This was going to be sticky.

  Narissa nodded, thanking him for the offer and excused herself to the ladies’ room. As soon as she was out of sight, Nick stalked across the bar. “Was that you?” he hissed. “Last time I checked, glass doesn’t just explode like that. What are you doing here?”

  “Um.” I held up my iced tea. “I was thirsty?”

  He crossed his arms.

  “Okay, okay.” I drew in a deep breath. “I can’t explain right now. But, Nick, you know better! You can’t just go around telling virtual strangers about Ben! What were you thinking?”

  He started to answer, but stopped short and shook his head. “I wasn’t. You’re right, it was dumb.” He narrowed his eyes again. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

  Out of
the corner of my eye, I saw a door swing open down the hall. “I’ll explain. Tomorrow.”

  Before he could object, I sidestepped him, swept the charmed button off the ground, and scurried out of the restaurant before Narissa could see me. It was bad enough Nick was irritated with me; I didn’t need to get on Narissa’s bad side, too.

  Once outside, I breathed a sigh of relief and then conjured up a flame to melt the plastic button. Once reduced to a small lump, I chucked it into the trash outside the pub’s doors and hurried up the hill back to the Manor.

  The following morning, I left the manor early and went to Siren’s Song. I wasn’t scheduled to work, but they had what I needed if I had any chance of coaxing Nick into forgiving me for sabotaging his date the night before: cookies and a large mocha with extra whipped cream.

  Armed with my supplies, I wandered down the street to his office. It was tucked inside an old log cabin that had been converted into a small professional building. The exterior was rustic and charming and starkly at odds with the renovated interior, which boasted beige paint, modern art, and frosted glass doors for each of the offices. Nick’s private investigator business was housed in the one at the end of the hall, and the door had his name in big, bold lettering. I knocked twice and then opened it just wide enough to stick my head in. Nick sat at his desk, his hands hovering above a sleek keyboard. He glanced away from his huge computer monitor but didn’t smile at me as I tiptoed into the room.

  “Peace offering?” I said, smiling cautiously as I held up the coffee cup and bakery bag.

  Resignation settled over his face, and he beckoned me forward. “Come on.”

  “Here ya go,” I said, handing him the coffee. “I had Cassie make it extra hot, so be careful.”

  Nick didn’t move to take a drink. “I gotta say, I’m looking forward to your explanation for last night. Because, Holly, I’ve been trying to put the pieces together and I can’t come up with a reason why you’d want to ruin my night like that. You could have seriously hurt someone with that spell.”