Down

by Kirsten Weiss

  Table of Contents

  Books by Kirsten Weiss

  WHAT CAME BEFORE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Shamanic Dreams Sachet

  Welcome the Day Ritual

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Down

  Book Three in the Witches of Doyle Trilogy

  Kirsten Weiss

  Sign up for a free e-copy of the urban fantasy novel, The Alchemical Detective, exclusive content, and author updates at kirstenweiss.com

  Books by Kirsten Weiss

  Follow the links below for more information on each title and purchase links for all vendors.

  The Witches of Doyle Series

  Bound (Book 1) | Ground (Book 2) | Down (Book 3) | Spirit on Fire | Tales of the Rose Rabbit

  Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Series

  The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum | Pressed to Death

  The Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery Novels

  The Metaphysical Detective | The Alchemical Detective | The Shamanic Detective | The Infernal Detective | The Elemental Detective | The Hoodoo Detective | The Hermetic Detective

  The Mannequin Offensive

  Sensibility Grey Steampunk Suspense

  Steam and Sensibility | Of Mice and Mechanicals | A Midsummer Night’s Mechanical

  WHAT CAME BEFORE

  Once upon a chill winter’s night, the Bell and Thistle pub and its twenty-two occupants vanished. The next day all the baffled townsfolk found was a clearing filled with dead thistles. Some speculated the thistles had been planted in case the nearby pine forest considered staking a claim to the land. Others pointed to the saucer-shaped clouds floating above the Sierras and claimed aliens had taken pub and people.

  The sheriff never even considered Doctor Toeller might be responsible. Doc Toeller was a valued community member, and how could she have made an entire building disappear? As to that, Sheriff McCourt certainly never would have believed Toeller was a fairy. Fairies were passé, the stuff of children’s films, of nonsense and moonbeams.

  So, the inappropriate authorities descended on the small, mountain town of Doyle with their SUVs and badges and guns. They investigated, examining maps, combing the woods, interviewing friends and relatives. Satellite imagery revealed nothing but trees, sonar equipment nothing but rocks and stone.

  Doctor Toeller, whose magic was far older than man’s science, smiled.

  The media offered additional theories. Mass hallucination. Terrorists. A magic trick.

  Finally, most of the humans returned to their willful blindness and declared the vanishing pub a hoax. And if the townsfolk heard a mysterious, tolling bell that sounded exactly like the one that had hung beside the pub door, it was probably tinnitus.

  The Bonheim triplets, who knew better, understood it was magic all right, but it was no trick.

  Doc Toeller was getting seriously annoyed with those three. It was a good thing that the middle girl would be dead before year end. The other two, however… She’d have to take steps to finish them. And then, she could turn her attentions to the Rose Rabbit.

  Then things would get interesting.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Of course they’re unrealistic.” Officer Connor Hernandez curled the book in his meaty hand, and I tried not to wince at the damage to its cover. After years working in the bookstore, I should have had thicker skin. “It’s an urban fantasy,” he said, “a book about magic. Just ask Lenore.”

  I darted a quick glance at him. Okay, so I hadn’t exactly kept it secret I was a shamanic witch, but I didn’t advertise it either.

  Fortunately, Connor’s partner, Owen, didn’t follow that thread. Fair-haired and good looking in a smooth-faced, rascally way, he shook his head. “Yeah, but come on. Fireballs?”

  I pulled my long, blond hair over one shoulder and shelved a book. It was no use telling him magic didn’t work that way. That magic was more subtle than fireballs and levitating motorcycles. Magic was more dangerous in ways people preferred not to imagine.

  Behind the bookstore counter, my elderly boss, Mike Gallin, spoke in a low voice to a stranger in a well-cut suit. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the paned windows behind the register. It glinted off Mike’s balding head.

  The visitor wore too much suit for a May day in the California foothills, and I wondered what he was trying to hide. Then I wondered why I’d wondered that. Maybe it was the sharp, wary expression on Mike’s wrinkled face.

  Since last winter, we all wore that expression.

  “This weather.” Owen groaned and winked at me. “I wish the Sheriff would let us wear shorts on days like these.”

  I snapped my attention back to Connor. His muscular thighs strained against his slacks. On behalf of the women of Doyle, I thought shorts for the deputies were an excellent idea. Not that I would ever say that out loud.

  “So what do you think?” Smiling at me, Connor stepped backward on a carpet the color of cigarette ash and bumped one of the bookshelves.

  I opened my mouth, closed it. Seriously, I wasn’t going to talk sheriff’s sexy summer fashion with these two characters.

  Connor’s raven hair curled around his ears in black, dangerous spirals. In his police uniform, he looked like a hero from one of my sister’s romance novels – tall and muscular and with the sort of tortured, olive-black eyes novelists think cops should have and cops would rather not earn. His right eyebrow quirked upward in a perennially amused expression, though I’d seen it switch to a scowl quickly enough. There was something about his masculine solidity that I admired. His taste in reading was eclectic: urban fantasy, mystery, and political history. He was currently working his way through a book on John Adams.

  Owen didn’t read unless he had to. That’s not a criticism. I just felt kind of bad because of what he was missing.

  “Think?” Owen examined the lurid cover of a graphic novel and haphazardly jammed it back onto the shelves. “I think it’s nuts. Another story for Doyle’s F’d up Files.”

  Confused, I smoothed the front of my cream-colored, sleeveless tunic and felt the lump of my notebook in its front pocket. Obviously, I’d missed a step in the conversation. We’d gone from shorts for deputies to… what was he talking about? Though From Doyle’s F’d Up Files would make a good title for a prose poem. What would be in these surreal files? A mayor who thought a paperclip was a turnip? A rose rabbit? Urgh, I didn’t even know what the damned rabbit was, and I couldn’t get the alliteration out of my head. But the name kept coming up. Muttered by a dying woman. Encountered in a sister’s vision. Weaving through my dreams. It had to be related to Doyle’s magical problems somehow.

  I returned the graphic novel Owen had taken to its proper place.

  Noticing my action, Connor’s eyes cr
inkled with weary amusement. He rested his elbow on the rolling ladder. “I was talking to Lenore about getting the author in for a talk. I hear he’s local.” He jammed the sleeves of his white, sheriff’s deputy shirt to his elbows.

  “It never hurts to ask,” Owen said to Connor rather than me.

  I nodded and glanced again at Mike and the stranger. Most authors leapt at the chance for exposure. But the bookstore – the entire town – had experienced a sharp decline in visitors since the Bell and Thistle event. We’d even taken to calling it that: The Event. Capital letters.

  “Thanks, Lenore.” Connor rapped me playfully on the shoulder with the book the way a big brother would tease a baby sister.

  I bit back a sigh. I could drool over the deputy all I wanted, but it would never work. He couldn’t see beyond the twenty-two missing people standing between us. And I worked at a bookstore because fictional relationships were easier than real ones. I’d been disappointed too many times before, by men who wanted more or just got bored or couldn’t handle the real me. I could hardly blame them. Watching someone else read isn’t exactly riveting. The only thing worse was someone who’s attention constantly wandered to loitering ghosts.

  A woman in a bonnet strode past the windows. Carrying a basket, she walked through a Mini Cooper.

  “You going to the concert at the winery?” Connor asked his partner, but I could see his heart wasn’t in it. Pretending Doyle was normal only took one so far.

  “I have to work it,” Owen said, ignoring me. It wasn’t intentional. I’d perfected the art of fading into backgrounds, right down to my colorless tunic and slacks. “How’d you get off?”

  “I asked,” he said.

  At the counter, Mike wore his fixed, the-customer-is-always right expression. Which meant the customer, whoever he was, wasn’t right at all.

  I bit my bottom lip.

  “Lenore?” Connor asked.

  “Hm?”

  “Are you going to the concert?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so.” I brushed some loose strands of blond hair behind my ear. I avoided crowds. Even at the most innocuous events there was an undercurrent of violence. It attracted things I’d rather not deal with.

  “Why not?” Connor asked.

  “I’m behind on my reading,” I lied. “Jayce is probably going though.” Concerts were more my sister Jayce’s thing. Our other sister, Karin, of romance writing not-quite-fame, might attend in a pinch. But lately she’d been so caught up in her wedding preparations that I doubted she’d find time for this one.

  “Books aren’t life,” Connor chided gently.

  “They’re my life.” And I’d learned that fiction was often more true than what you read in the news.

  Uneasy, I glanced again at the counter. Mike’s expression had shifted to annoyance.

  The stranger’s arms crossed, his chin down, his legs apart. The body language said confrontation, but their voices remained low. The stranger turned. I caught a quick glimpse of a handsome face chiseled into a frown, dark brows slashed downward. Then he was striding to the door, his back to me again.

  “Still, you should come.” Connor’s expression turned grim. “The town needs a break.”

  “I can’t–”

  “Lenore?” Mike waddled around the counter. He wore a short-sleeved, brown-checked shirt, khakis held in place by suspenders, and a comb over. He looked like an elderly egg, and I adored him.

  I glanced to the open door. The stranger stormed outside.

  My skin twitched.

  “Would you start unpacking the new inventory?” Mike’s mouth tipped upward. “That nephew of mine has found another reason not to be here, and the new shipment’s in.”

  “Sure.” I smiled briefly at Connor and Owen. “I’ll ask about that author.” And then I realized I didn’t know which author he’d been talking about. But the two deputies were already joking and laughing and moving to the register with Mike.

  My cheeks warmed with embarrassment, and I hurried toward the back room. The bookstore was deep and narrow, so deep that the storage room at the rear was always a bit of a surprise. I flipped on its overhead light, and the florescent bulb pinged and flickered. Its beery light steadied.

  Glancing one last time over my shoulder – Connor was buying the book after all – I shut the door. The deputy would be the perfect man – he liked to read, was honorable and handsome. But he was a Doyle cop, and that was rough on a person’s psyche. Our sheriff had lost thirty pounds in the last six months.

  Doyle was caught in a web of powerful, fae magic. It had preserved the town, keeping the people who lived here dazzlingly beautiful. But there was a high price tag.

  Twenty-two missing people.

  I found the box cutter inside a battered metal desk. Slashing harder than I needed to, I attacked the boxes and sliced through the packing tape. I stacked the books on the desk by title, pausing to flip through a new urban fantasy. Connor might like this one.

  Picking up a new romance by my sister, I smiled. Mike had set me up – he’d known Karin’s book – a bundle of romance novels about shifters – would be in the box. Which meant he wouldn’t mind me skimming its pages.

  I read the first few pages, then a few more, finally losing myself in the story world. Karin’s stories always had happy endings – such lovely fantasies.

  Karin, Jayce and I were triplets, and we each worked our own flavor of magic. I worked shamanically with the spirit world and had seen plenty of weird spirit forms. Shifters though. Could they exist? I’d only recently come to believe in fairies. And if they were real...

  Something thunked in the bookstore, and I raised my head.

  Silence.

  I listened, intent. “Mike?”

  Nothing.

  Scalp prickling, I walked to the door. My hand paused, raised above the knob.

  Something shuffled behind me, and I whirled.

  A massive turkey vulture perched atop Karin’s stack of romance novels.

  I gasped, stepping away and bumping against the closed door.

  A vulture, an omen of death and rebirth.

  The bird cocked its ugly, blood-red head.

  “What are you doing here?” I croaked.

  Slowly, the turkey vulture extended its brown and gray wings.

  My breath quickened.

  And then it vanished.

  “Mike?” Dread pooling in my stomach, I wrenched open the door to the bookstore and hurried through it. Mike wasn’t behind the register. I hurried down the center aisle. A tasseled loafer stuck out from behind one of the shelves.

  My heart stopped. “Mike!”

  I raced around the bookshelf.

  Mike lay sprawled beside the ladder, his head at an unnatural angle. Blood pooled around his head. His blue eyes were open, staring.

  “Mike,” I whispered, my eyes burning, growing damp. No, not Mike. Anguish twisted inside my chest.

  “I got your favorite coffee.” Mike’s nephew Peter strolled into the bookstore holding two paper coffee cups. He tossed his shaggy blond hair. “It’s not as good as Ground’s, but...” He stumbled to a halt, his blue eyes widening. “What did you do?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I stared at Mike, dead.

  Slumped against a bookcase, he lay folded like a marionette on the gray carpet. One of his suspender straps had slid from his shoulder and hung loose about his short-sleeved, brown plaid shirt.

  My chest squeezed so tight I forgot to breathe. Mike, dead.

  I looked to Peter.

  Mike’s nephew held the coffees at an angle. In spite of their plastic lids, brown liquid dribbled onto the thin carpet. Peter’s soft, baby mouth was slack. His Nirvana t-shirt bagged around the hips of his jeans.

  “It’s Mike,” I croaked.

  “What did you do?” he repeated.

  The accusation jerked me from my bewilderment. “I just came from the storage room and found him like this.” I fumbled in my pocket for my cell phone. “I�
�m calling nine-one-one now.”

  He blinked, shook himself. “Is he...?”

  “He’s gone,” I said, my voice choked. His life force was gone. This wasn’t Mike anymore. His spirit had fled, and only a shell remained. But that shell was so vulnerable, so fragile, that there was something almost childlike about it.

  “If he’s dead,” he said, “nine-one-one won’t help.”

  He was right, but I was already dialing. I explained the situation to the dispatcher, and she promised to get someone to the bookstore.

  Doctor Toeller, frowning over a list, walked inside the bookstore. Her silver-gold cap of hair shone beneath the overhead lights.

  My adrenaline spiked, breath quickening, heart jackhammering, flight or fight kicking in. But I could neither fight nor flee. I glanced away, schooling my expression. Not her. Not here. Not now.

  “Have you got that book I ordered?” She looked up, and twin lines, the only furrows on her perfect skin, appeared between her brows.

  My heart made another frantic scramble for freedom.

  She hurried to Mike’s limp form.

  “What’s happened?” she asked me.

  I swallowed my bile along with the impulse to fling myself over Mike and keep her from touching him.

  “She said she found him like this,” Peter answered.

  My throat tightened, and I looked at the gray carpet, glad for the first time that someone had spoken on my behalf. I didn’t trust my voice.

  Kneeling in her white linen slacks, she pressed two fingers to the side of his neck. “I’m too late,” she said, her voice laced with regret.

  I clenched my jaw. Toeller was good. Good at pretending ignorance. Good at pretending she cared. Good at pretending she was human.

  Her magic brushed against my skin, and I shivered.

  She turned to me, her eyes wide with sympathy. “Are you all right, Lenore?”

  “It’s Mike,” I said faintly.

  She patted my shoulder, and it was all I could do not so sheer away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You two were close, weren’t you?”