Southern Magic Christmas

by Amy Boyles

  I was so confused. “I don’t understand.”

  She pressed the pad of her finger to the center of my forehead. “The alarm bell is blaring. Wake up, Pepper! Wake up!”

  I did. With a gasp. I was on the floor, staring up at Axel’s concerned face.

  “We’ve got to go,” he said.

  All around us, Cordelia’s alarm bell was blaring. The alarm! I knew what that meant. Ellis Mobley was on his way. He would find us inside. Worse, he would find me on his pantry floor, exactly where Cookie had been murdered.

  I shook myself off and rose.

  It was exactly as Cookie had said. The alarm was blaring. It was time to go.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Axel dragged me from the floor and toward the back door. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Fine. I don’t know what happened.” I rubbed my head. “I saw Cookie.”

  He did a double take. “We’ll talk about it when we’re safe.”

  “You mean when we’ve averted Ellis?”

  He flashed me a delicious smile before shoving open the back door. “You got it.”

  We spilled onto the backyard. Arsenal had come with us. Of course he had. Trying to avoid this dog was like trying to avoid living my life—pretty much an impossibility.

  Moonlight pooled over the lawn. The ground looked white and crisp. I shivered. My teeth chattered.

  “It’s…it’s getting worse.” The cold, that was. My face burned from the wind. There was no way anyone would be able to last outside for longer than a few minutes at this rate. We needed to get into Axel’s car and get away.

  Axel jerked to a stop. I toppled into his elbow. “Ugh.” I rubbed my stomach. “What is it?”

  “Ellis?” Axel said.

  I glanced at what Axel was staring at. A figure stood facing away. From our vantage point it looked exactly like Ellis Mobley.

  “Mr. Mobley?” I said weakly. The cold was quickly zapping my strength. Had to get inside. “Listen, we can explain.”

  Ellis didn’t respond.

  I leaned into Axel’s ear. “Maybe he can’t hear us.”

  Axel lifted a hand. “No. It’s something else.”

  We crept slowly toward him. “Mr. Mobley?” I repeated. But no answer.

  Moonlight washed over him. Ellis wore a thick coat, pants and a fur hat. He stood with one leg splayed forward like he had been walking but had stopped. I waited for him to turn around, but he didn’t.

  I closed in. “Pepper,” Axel growled. “Wait.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  I stepped around Ellis until I came face-to-face with him. I gasped. “Oh dear Lord!”

  I extended my hand, but Axel swept in and clutched me to him. “Don’t touch him. Just leave him.”

  “Why?”

  “It might be catching.”

  I recoiled and fell back into Axel’s embrace. Tears stung my eyes as I gazed at Ellis Mobley.

  He was frozen. From head to toe Ellis Mobley stood with a thick coat of ice covering him. Even his clothes sparkled with the glittery stuff.

  “But what happened?” I said.

  “Two possibilities,” Axel whispered in my ear. “One, it was natural.”

  I really didn’t want to hear number two. I really didn’t. But I had no choice.

  “Either that,” he continued, “or someone murdered him.”

  I knew I hadn’t wanted to hear number two. Time to call the cops.

  By the time Garrick Young arrived, my fingers hurt from the cold. Axel held me close to him. His body heat warmed me everywhere except my toes.

  Luckily, there was a spell for that.

  Smoke billowed from Garrick’s mouth. “So Ellis was out here frozen?”

  Axel nodded. “Found him like that.”

  His gaze swept over us. “And what were y’all doing out here?”

  “Going for a walk,” Axel said flatly.

  “In this weather?”

  I nodded. “Good for the lungs.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Garrick walked around Ellis. “Did you see anyone else out here? Anyone who could’ve come up behind him and done this?”

  “No,” Axel said.

  Garrick nodded. “Think he’ll thaw out and remember what happened?”

  Wait. “But he’s frozen. Like frozen so hard he’s dead.”

  Garrick considered my statement. “Maybe. Maybe not. We won’t know for sure until we get him someplace warm. Like the station. See what’s really going on.”

  A team of police officers appeared in vaporous columns of smoke. They surrounded Ellis. Garrick placed a hand on his hip. “I’ll call y’all if I need anything.” He glanced at the sky. “Stay warm. A freeze is coming.”

  The police disappeared in plumes of smoke.

  I tugged on Axel. “I didn’t see anyone. Did you?”

  “No.”

  I glanced around nervously, but all that greeted me was a white snowscape of glittering ice. “Let’s get out of here. Find Cordelia and Amelia, see what set off the alarm.”

  We found my cousins nearby and went home. It was too cold to talk outside. Besides, I was still in minor shock after my conversation with Cookie Mobley.

  Arsenal came with us, of course. Such a sweet dog. Too bad he didn’t talk—couldn’t talk.

  When we reached the house, Betty whipped up hot cocoa for all of us. Everyone but Axel took some, though he did have a packet of jelly beans in his pocket so I plopped a few in mine.

  I sat near the fire, and Arsenal slouched over my feet. When we were all settled, I turned to Cordelia. “What made you sound the alarm?”

  “I thought I saw Ellis heading toward the house.” She shook out her mane of golden hair. “I know I did. He parked on the street and then went around back. I don’t know why he did that. It seemed weird. I figured he’d just go straight in his house.”

  “He didn’t park in the garage,” Axel said. He didn’t phrase it as a question. “Strange.”

  “Did you see anyone else?” I sipped my cocoa. Mmm. It had a hint of peppermint from the jelly beans. Delicious.

  “No one else,” Amelia said. “At least I didn’t.”

  “Me neither,” Cordelia said.

  Axel stroked his chin. He leaned against the wall. “So either Ellis froze from his walk to the back, which seems unlikely, or he was spelled by someone that nobody saw.”

  “Right,” Amelia said energetically. “I like it. Sounds like a brilliant theory.”

  Cordelia rolled her eyes.

  Betty stirred her cocoa with a finger. “Pepper, what happened to you in there?”

  I blinked. Now how could Betty know something happened? “What makes you think anything did?”

  She tapped her nose. “Grandmother’s intuition. Or witch’s intuition. Both, probably.”

  I cleared my throat because I didn’t want them to think I was crazy since nothing like that had ever happened to me before.

  But as everyone was waiting and staring at me expectantly, it didn’t look like I was going to get out of this anytime soon.

  “I had a vision.”

  “What?” Amelia said. “A vision!”

  “I’ve got to hear this,” Cordelia chimed.

  “About time,” Betty said. “All good head witches have visions.”

  My gaze snapped to her. “It’s one thing to talk to animals. I didn’t sign up for visions as well.”

  She shrugged as if I had no choice in the matter. If you asked me, there was always a choice. Besides, I didn’t attribute that ability to anything other than the fact that I had more power thanks to the heart fire, and that would vanish in a few days anyway.

  So there you go, no more visions after that.

  “Tell us the vision,” Betty said.

  I sighed. “We were at the spot where Cookie had been murdered. Axel placed my hand on the floor, and suddenly I was someplace that was covered in black. It was black all around. There wasn’t a sky or a ground—just darkness. And Cook
ie. She was there. You know what, she was actually nice, so it made me think that maybe she hadn’t been that bad in life.”

  Betty shot me a look that said, oh you naive girl.

  “Anyway, I asked her about the cold.” I glanced at the windows. A sheet of ice covered the pane. In the silence I could hear the house shudder against the freezing temperatures. The cold would rip the house apart if we didn’t stop it. First the windows would crack, then the wood would splinter.

  I shuddered. “Cookie said the cold and your powers, Betty, are connected. She hinted that they’re supposed to be a clue to her death. She also said he stopped talking the night she was murdered.”

  “Who?” Amelia said.

  I fingered a lock of hair. “I don’t know. She also said the stone that the cold was connected to was right in front of me, and if I wanted to break the cold, I had to use my heart. Then she made me leave. Said I couldn’t stay there forever.”

  Betty tapped her mouth. “So the cold spell and my powers are connected to a certain stone. Sounds like the stone is what the killer was after.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Axel glanced at me. “And she said the stone’s right in front of you?”

  “She said I’d already found it,” I said. “Maybe not right in front of me, but I went over some things in her spell room and she denied it was any of them.”

  Axel frowned. “But how are the cold and Betty’s powers connected?”

  “Maybe they’re only connected in the way that Cookie wanted us to know she was murdered.” All our gazes swept to Amelia, who shrugged. “It makes sense. If Cookie had been poisoned or some other form of death and no one had suspected she’d been murdered, then the weather and Betty’s power breaking still would’ve happened, right?”

  I nodded. “Right.”

  “Because Betty’s powers don’t go wonky,” Amelia explained, “so that in itself means something is wrong. And the weather? Any of us can control it, but we can’t stop this cold. So maybe it’s that simple. Maybe it was just that both were simply supposed to let us know that Cookie had been killed.”

  Axel stroked his chin. “Sounds simple enough to be brilliant.”

  “Cookie didn’t say that,” I argued.

  “She also didn’t tell you how to stop it or who killed her,” Cordelia pointed out. “Not exactly helpful.”

  “Okay,” I admitted. “So we’ve got two murders—Cookie and now Ellis, a cryptic message from Cookie and very little help.”

  “We don’t know that Ellis was actually murdered,” Axel said.

  “He was found in his backyard. Who would’ve had access to him?”

  “The neighbors, for one,” Amelia said.

  I took another sip of cocoa. “There’s no way Brittany Barker froze Ellis.”

  “Why not?” Betty said.

  The memory came to me quick as lightning. “Well for one—wait—he did threaten her in front of her children today.”

  Axel rubbed his chin. “And she’s the one who told us that it seemed that Ellis and Cookie were having money problems.”

  “What if she was lying?” Cordelia said. “What if she only told you that in order to throw you off the scent? What do we actually know about this woman anyway?”

  I chewed the inside of my mouth. “She did say her husband taught her children how to magically appear.”

  “Her young children?” Betty said. “That could be dangerous. They could appear anywhere, possibly somewhere miles away. Maybe it’s not the mother you need to look at. Maybe it’s the father.”

  A knock came from the door. We threw each other confused looks.

  “Who could that be?” Betty waddled to the door and threw it open.

  Garrick Young stood on the porch. “Miss Craple.”

  “Sheriff Young.” Her gaze zipped from his head to his toes. “To what do we owe this honor?”

  Garrick stepped inside. “Brr. Cold out there.”

  “You can thank Cookie Mobley for that. She threw a spell on this town that plunges us into frigid temps. Have no idea how long it’s going to last, so we need free rein to do whatever we have to in order to save Christmas.”

  Garrick opened his mouth and shut it. When he opened it again, he said, “Fine by me. But that’s not why I’m here. Axel—”

  Axel quirked a brow. “Yes?”

  “Looks like Ellis Mobley was spelled. I need you to come down and free him from the case of ice he’s trapped in.”

  Axel pushed away from the wall. “I’m following you.”

  I grabbed my coat and threw it over my shoulders. “Not without me, you’re not.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Garrick and his men had placed Ellis, who looked more like an ice sculpture than a human, in the very center of the station. Under the harsh fluorescent lights the statue looked sickly and unearthly, as if someone had sucked all the life from Ellis and spit out what remained—a bluish chunk of flesh.

  Yes, I know it’s gross. It was pretty gross to gaze at, too.

  Garrick crossed his arms. “What it looks like is that instead of killing him, someone sprinkled old Ellis with a freezing spell. I’ve seen freezing spells before, and they usually kill.” Garrick pointed to a wizard with unusually large ears. “But Warren over there is telling me he hears a heartbeat.”

  “I do,” Warren with the big ears said. The better to hear you with, my dear.

  I giggled.

  Everyone glanced at me. I coughed into my hand. “Sorry. Just had a weird thought.”

  Garrick dragged his gaze from me and back to Ellis. “Like I said, I’ve seen lots of freezing spells, and the one thing they usually do”—he knocked on the ice with his fist—“is kill a person. But apparently good old Ellis isn’t dead.”

  “Is he in a coma?” I said.

  Axel nodded. “Sort of. More like hibernation, if I had to guess.”

  The ice glittered under the light. I studied the immobile Ellis. “But why would someone do that? Garrick, you said yourself freeze spells were meant to freeze a person, not put them to sleep.”

  Garrick scratched the stubble on his cheek. “Could be weak magic. Could be a warning to Ellis.” He grinned. “We won’t know which until we wake him up.” He pointed to Axel. “That’s where you come in. You and Betty are about the only folks I figure know how to work a reversal spell the likes of what I need. As Betty has mentioned to me every time I’ve run into her in the past few days, her power is off so she can’t help. That leaves you, Reign.”

  Axel scratched his head. “It’s been a while since I’ve worked a reversal spell.”

  Garrick patted him on the back. “I know you can do it. There’s a lot riding on this. I know I don’t have to go into details about it.”

  There was. I’m sure it had gotten around town that Karen had been singled out by the prison wraith only to be sent back to the caverns by me. If Axel could wake Ellis and Ellis fingered someone else, that meant Karen should be off the hook.

  Should be.

  If it came down to it, I’d fight tooth and nail to make sure that’s the way it went.

  Axel pressed his hands to the ice. He closed his eyes. “He’s alive. I don’t know why I didn’t sense it earlier, when we found him. I should have. Could have gotten him out sooner.”

  “Well, when you run around people’s houses and find them outside frozen in ice, you’re probably a little distracted.”

  My eyes flared at Garrick Young. The knowing smirk carved on his face said it all. He knew. He knew what we’d been doing but hadn’t said anything about it.

  Axel chuckled. “You’re right, old friend. I was distracted.” He opened his eyes and relaxed his hands. “Unfortunately, the easy part was sensing him inside. The hard part is going to be breaking him out.”

  “Why’s that?” I said.

  “Protection spell.”

  I frowned. “Why would there be a protection spell on the ice? What’s being protected?”

  “Ellis,” Axel said
. “Whoever encased him wanted to make sure Ellis was alive. Now, is he supposed to remain stuck for a thousand years like Sleeping Beauty? I have no idea. But what I do know is that it’s going to be tricky to work around.”

  “You can do it,” Garrick said confidently.

  Axel studied the ice. He walked around it. Stopped. Came back the opposite way. Finally he raked his dark hair from his face. With his blue eyes burning brightly, he crossed to me.

  “You’re going to help me with this, Pepper.”

  “How?”

  “With the fire.”

  “The what? I don’t have any matches on me.” I opened my purse. “Wait. Let me look. Maybe I stuck a lighter in here or something.”

  Axel rested his hands on my shoulders. “That’s not what I’m talking about. The kind of fire I mean is the one still burning in you.”

  Oh! The heart fire.

  I laughed. “Silly me. How could I forget that?” I stared at Ellis, wondering if I would burn him up if I used the power improperly. I glanced nervously at Axel. “You’re going to help me, right?”

  His lips curled into a smile. “I’ll be right beside you.”

  “Okay, then I’ll help.”

  Axel took my hand and led me to Ellis. “Place your palms on his back and just think warm thoughts.”

  I slumped. “You’re kidding? Warm thoughts?”

  He grinned. “Exactly. Think about keeping him warm. About warming him up and just focus on those coals burning inside of you.”

  “What’re you going to be doing?”

  “I will be directing your power through him, making sure the heat is at the appropriate level and we’re actually breaking through but not hurting him.”

  “Okay.”

  He nodded. “You ready?”

  No. I would never be ready for this. “I guess so.”

  Axel glanced over his shoulder. “The rest of you need to stand back. Not sure how this is going to go. At the worst, we’ll explode.”

  That wasn’t good. Maybe I should back out. “Axel—”

  “Go,” he commanded.

  The sharpness in his tone took me by surprise. I felt like he’d cracked a whip above my head.