by Emery Belle
Beyond the Seer
A Magic Island Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Emery Belle
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Afterword
About the Author
BEYOND THE SEER
A Magic Island Paranormal Cozy Mystery
Book 4
By Emery Belle
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© Copyright 2019
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For Maddie, my forever best friend and the inspiration for every “Pierre” I write.
Run free, beautiful girl.
Chapter 1
“Tell me again why we’re doing this?”
Garnet sidled up to me, casting a suspicious look over her shoulder at the dozens of brownies standing at attention behind us, wielding their mops, brooms, and buckets like deadly war weapons. The leader of the brownie pack I’d hired, a short, stocky, leather-skinned fellow by the name of Quincy, who resembled a potato that had been left baking in the oven for at least a week, was standing solemnly in front of his comrades, his golden eyes latched onto the door in front of us. He was clenching the handle of his mop so tightly his hands were blanching, and his entire body was quivering with barely contained excitement.
“We’re doing this for Glenn.” I shot Garnet a pointed look. “Do I really need to say more?”
Sebastian poked his head between the two of us, the morning sunlight catching the strands of gold in his thick brown hair. “Don’t you think we should have at least called first?” He nodded toward Glenn’s house, which was, as usual, masquerading as a rickety, tumble-down shed. “He isn’t expecting any company, so what if he’s, you know…” He hesitated and screwed up his lips, trying to think of a word that wouldn’t inspire nightmarish images. “Indisposed,” he finally settled on.
I waved my hand in the air impatiently. “It’s fine. What could he possibly be doing? And, anyway, telling him ahead of time that we were coming would have ruined the surprise.” I glanced over my shoulder at Calvin, the last member of our surprise entourage, looking for support. He, too, wore a dubious expression as he exchanged glances with Garnet.
Our quartet—not counting the hordes of brownies, of course—was supposed to have been a quintet, but Hunter had developed an uncontrollable, mysterious, and completely out-of-the-blue hacking cough the moment he’d arrived at this morning’s meeting spot, the dorm room I shared with Garnet, to find her locked in a passionate embrace with Calvin, her new boyfriend… who just happened to be our familiar training instructor. He’d practically knocked me over in his haste to escape, insisting he needed to see a doctor as soon as possible, but I suspected he was probably holed up in his own room, licking his wounds and plotting out the various curses I knew he was just dying to test out on Calvin at our next training session.
Sebastian, my own new boyfriend, rested his hand on my arm as he came to stand beside me. I gave him a quick smile, then turned and cupped my hands around my mouth so that the brownies at the very back of the line could hear me. “Okay, everybody, listen up,” I called out. “Glenn’s been having a really tough month, and he’s very special to me, so I want to make sure we give his house the best cleaning it’s ever seen. Please don’t leave even a speck of dust anywhere, and…”
I trailed off when I realized that the brownies’ eager faces had suddenly turned mutinous, their long fingers wrapping around the handles of their cleaning tools just a little bit tighter as they began muttering to each other in rapid, high-pitched voices that sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Garnet’s eyes were now wide with fear, and even Calvin, whose muscles had muscles, was looking mildly alarmed as the chattering grew to a fever pitch.
“What?” I asked in confusion as Sebastian yanked me by the arm off to the side of the shed and stepped in front of me protectively. “Was it something I said?”
“Never,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, his lips barely moving, “ever, imply that a pack of brownies would do anything less than an impeccable cleaning job. You might as well have walked right up to a dragon and spat in his eyeball. In fact, that probably would have been safer—he would just burn you to a crisp before you knew what was happening. Have you taken a look at their teeth…?”
Indeed, they did look like rows of tiny razors, and I swallowed hard as Sebastian shoved me further behind him, like the gentleman he was. Just in time, too, since Quincy chose that moment to aim his mop in my direction and give it a hard shake, splattering Sebastian from head to toe in filthy water and eliciting a raucous cheer from the assembled brownies, several of whom performed a jolly little victory jig on the sidewalk outside Glenn’s shed.
Snarling in annoyance and cracking his knuckles threateningly, Sebastian wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his face and started advancing on Quincy. The brownie, not to be outdone, stuck the wooden handle of the mop into his mouth and raked his teeth across it, quick as a flash. When he pulled it out again, I saw that the rounded tip had now become a deadly spear that Quincy was pointing squarely at Sebastian’s heart.
“Stop, stop!” I shouted, jumping in front of Sebastian and spreading my arms wide. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause any offense. I would never dream of implying that you would leave any dirt or dust or… anything,” I finished feebly, my cheeks growing warm under the scrutiny of the dozens of pairs of angry golden eyes that were now narrowed on me.
There were a few beats of silence before one of the brownies at the very back of the line squeaked out, “Charge!” and they began to surge forward as one, brandishing their brooms like battle axes. Calvin grabbed Garnet around the waist and heaved her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry as I seized a heavy ceramic planter from beside Glenn’s front door, tipped it onto its side, and rolled it toward the advancing brownies with as much force as I could muster. The planter knocked over half a dozen of the little beasts like bowling pins, and they stood up after a few moments, looking dazed, and began wandering off in the opposite direction, stumbling slightly on their large, hairy feet.
Meanwhile, Sebastian had pulled his wand from his pocket and was waving it around in the air wildly, setting off several loud warning bangs and flashes that had precisely zero effect on the rest of our foes. One particularly lumpy brownie who had yellow warts sprouting on both arms launched himself forward and wrapped his jowls around Sebastian’s ankle before sinking his teeth deep into the skin. Sebastian howled in pain and tried to shake him off, but he tripped over the metal planter and landed on his bottom on the sidewalk, where he was immediately overtaken by several female brownies wielding feather dusters.
“Jumping jellyfish, what in the name of the bearded banshee is going on here?”
Glenn stood in his doorway, his eyes as round as saucers, one hand clutching a tin of peanut brittle and the other trying to tug a
pair of cheetah-print leggings on under his purple silk robe, which was open all the way to the waist, showing off the rows of curlers wrapped around his tufts of gray chest hair. His shoulder-length hair was also wrapped tightly in dozens of tiny curlers, and his face was smeared with some kind of unidentifiable green goop that was smoking slightly.
“I told you we should have called first,” Sebastian muttered to me from the ground as Glenn’s robe blew open in a sudden gust of wind, exposing him in all of his centuries-old glory. Taking advantage of the shocked silence all around us as everyone gathered on the sidewalk stared open-mouthed at the grandfatherly wizard, Sebastian shook off the brownies straddling him and climbed shakily to his feet.
I could feel my entire face turning bright red with embarrassment as I tried looking every which way but at Glenn, who seemed not to notice the sudden change in temperature. “Wren?” Glenn took a concerned step toward me, causing the robe to flap open even further. “Is everything okay?” One of the brownies cleared his throat politely and gave his head a subtle tilt in the vague direction of Glenn’s wardrobe malfunction.
“Whoopsie-daisy!” Glenn said, finally catching on after what was, perhaps, the most excruciatingly long thirty seconds of my life. He shook his finger good-naturedly at me as he tugged his leggings on the rest of the way and wrapped the silk tie of his robe firmly around his round belly. “You can’t put a price on a view like that, Wren, which is why I reserve it exclusively for my lady love.”
His face crumpled on the last three words and he drew in a deep, shuddering breath as his entire body seemed to wilt before my eyes. As several fat tears sprang up out of nowhere and wobbled on the tips of his lashes, he slumped against the sagging wooden side of the shed and pressed a shaking hand to his face. I immediately rushed forward to comfort him.
Only a month had passed since Glenn had lost his lady love, Hattie, to a crime of passion that had involved her deranged ex-husband, an unsuspecting vampire surfing instructor, and, of course, me. Once again, I had barely escaped the final confrontation with my life, but that was nothing in comparison to the torture Glenn had been enduring since Hattie’s death. He’d become increasingly reclusive, refusing to show up for his mixology classes at the Magic Island Academy and ignoring my repeated attempts to visit him; the last time I knocked on his door, he’d used a bouncing spell to send me ping-ponging back down the sidewalk head over feet.
And I was one hundred percent responsible for his misery. I’d had the chance to rescue Hattie, to pull her to safety before the entire manor she was trapped in crumbled to the ground. But I’d left her in a choice that still haunted me around the clock, causing me nights filled with sweaty, restless sleep and days spent warding off the flashbacks that swept over me without warning, paralyzing me and stealing the breath from my lungs.
I knew from past experience that a miserable Glenn meant a Glenn living in near-squalor, hence my early-morning surprise cleaning crew with the best team of brownies Magic Island had to offer. The best—and most worthless—“I’m sorry” I could offer right now, even though Glenn hadn’t placed the blame on me for one second. And he never would, because that’s the kind of wizard he was. Selfless. Kind-hearted.
And very, very brokenhearted.
Moving Glenn gently to the side, I looked around at the assembled brownies, who were looking so sorry for the old man that our earlier squabble had been completely forgotten. “You know what to do,” I said to them gravely, and they nodded in unison, squared their little shoulders, and surged toward the house, their faces blazing with feverish excitement. Garnet and Calvin brought up the rear, and Sebastian joined me at Glenn’s side as I pressed a tender kiss to my guide’s wrinkled cheek.
“You’re a good girl, Wren,” he said, a solitary tear tracking down his face as he watched the brownies get down to business. Quincy took charge, bellowing orders from his perch atop Glenn’s coffee table, and before long the brownies were racing around in a frenzy, scraping dried-out old food splatters from the floor, siphoning cobwebs off the ceiling, and fluttering dust cloths over Glenn’s collection of magical gizmos and whirligigs. I could feel myself getting dizzy as I watched them work, and the shrill tune they were singing as they got Glenn’s house back in order was giving me a blinding headache.
But it was all worth it, especially when I caught sight of the look on Glenn’s face when the brownies gathered back on the sidewalk a mere five minutes later, their leathery foreheads shining with sweat and identical pleased expressions lighting up their tiny faces. Quincy stepped forward and held out his hand expectantly, and when I reached out to shake it, he yanked it away and bared his teeth at me.
I frowned at him in confusion. Were we back on bad terms? I was apparently a very poor judge of proper brownie etiquette. Sebastian cleared his throat, then nudged me in the ribs and rubbed his fingers together subtly.
“Oh!” I reached into my pocket and retrieved the small sack of silver coins I’d stashed there this morning. “Thank you for a job well done,” I said, dumping the coins into Quincy’s hand with a grin. He bowed low, then snapped his fingers, and the brownies lifted their hands in a unified goodbye wave before disappearing with a crack that split the quiet morning air.
As I stuffed the empty coin sack back into my pocket, my fingers brushed against something else—a folded-up piece of paper I’d brought with me to show Glenn, just in case the opportunity presented itself. But judging by the second tear now trickling down his face as he wandered around his spotless home, clutching a framed photo of Hattie to his chest, I knew that now wasn’t the time to unload my problem on him.
And what a big problem it was.
Lord Macon. Lord Macon, of all people—the man who had done his best to boot me off the island from the moment I set foot on it; the man who had been nothing but rude, snide, and downright hostile to me; the man whose icy demeanor could only be matched by his cold, impenetrable eyes—had hired a gargoyle to protect me. I would never have believed it, but Cole Noir, the gargoyle in question, had no reason to lie to me.
The evidence—the contract signed between Lord Macon and Cole—had arrived on my doorstep in the form of an anonymous piece of mail, and I could only assume that Cole had sent it… though that, too, was a mystery, because the gargoyles were bound to secrecy, to the oaths they swore to those who hired them. If Lord Macon ever found out what Cole did…
No. Don’t go there.
My stomach twisted with anxiety, and the knot only tightened further when Sebastian stepped up behind me and pressed his hand to the small of my back. “You did a wonderful thing for Glenn today,” he whispered, and I vaguely felt him giving me a soft kiss. “Have I told you lately just how lucky I am to be dating you?”
He nuzzled his lips against my neck, and a shiver ran up my spine as I continued to imagine all the horrible punishments that might be awaiting a gargoyle who broke a sacred oath. Banishment? Torture? Dismemberment? Oh, God… I had to save him, I had to hide him…
If only I could find him. Since receiving the letter, I’d searched the island high and low, bordering on—no, completely embracing—stalker-like behavior, to no avail. He’d simply disappeared, and I had no way of knowing if he was okay.
“Wren?” Sebastian pulled back, frowning at me as his gaze swept over my face. “Is everything okay?”
“Huh?” I gave him a blank stare, registering his presence beside me for the first time, and blinked a few times, drawing myself back into the present. “Oh, uh, yeah. Dinner tonight sounds good. How about Mexican this time?”
Sebastian squinted down at me and opened his mouth to say something more, but Garnet stepped between us. Seizing me by the arm, she dragged me off to the side of Glenn’s house, leaving Calvin and Sebastian to make awkward conversation with Glenn, who had recovered from his bout of sadness over Hattie with remarkable speed and was now rattling a tin of peanut brittle under their noses while they shook their heads politely.
“What’s going on?” Gar
net demanded as she positioned me in front of her, forcing me to look into her green eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a stern look. “You haven’t been yourself lately, Wren, and I’m worried about you. This isn’t about…”
She glanced over my shoulder toward the men to make sure they were completely out of earshot before lowering her voice. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Lord Macon, does it? Because I can assure you, Wren, that you can just forget anything you may have heard. It’s not worth your time to even think about it.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. I hadn’t told anyone about the letter I’d received from Cole—heck, I hadn’t even told anyone in my life yet about Cole’s very existence—so how in the world had she found out about my confounding connection to Lord Macon?
“How did you… what have you…” I babbled, then cleared my throat. “How did you find out?”
“How did you find out?” Garnet toyed nervously with the end of her long auburn ponytail. “I heard about it at work, of course—Lord Macon came storming into Lady Amabelle’s office, insisting that you be put on the ‘dangerous creatures’ list. He said there was no way you were ‘accidentally’ on the scene of three separate murders.” She hesitated, then shot me a sympathetic look. “He thinks you’re deranged.”
“What?” I shouted, outraged, then lowered my voice to a hiss when I saw Sebastian glancing my way in concern. “What in the world is a ‘dangerous creatures’ list? And what did Lady Amabelle say?” Garnet had recently secured a position as the secretary for the Sparrow Coven’s second-in-command, and, as such, she was now privy to all sorts of coven gossip, a perk we were both thoroughly excited about. I just didn’t think I’d be the target.
