Wisteria Witches Mysteries Box Set 3

by Angela Pepper

  Bentley seemed to pick up on the same connection. “You think that what happened to Chessa might be connected to Corvin’s disappearance? I thought that case was closed?”

  I looked down at the tiny bricks in my hand. The pieces weren’t fitting together as neatly as I’d hoped. I had something backwards.

  “Corvin isn’t her genetic offspring,” I said slowly. “So, it’s different. Never mind me. I was just grasping at straws.” I shook my head. “That poor woman. What they did to her. And she took it all in with that ethereal grace of hers, like it was just some unfortunate thing, like getting stuck in the rain when you’re wearing a new suede jacket. Like it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “People are not always how they appear.”

  “You can say that again! Under that pretty platinum blonde hair of hers, there’s a lot of destruction inside that woman. Woman? I meant to say goddess. She’s got a direct bloodline to some seriously ancient powers. I don’t know why, but her powers aren’t watered down like most of ours. She could turn you inside out without breaking a nail.”

  Bentley chortled, as though he’d like to see her try. He had no idea. He hadn’t seen her like I had.

  I told him, “After what happened to her, we’re lucky she hasn’t burned this whole town to the ground just to be free of the reminders.”

  “Speaking of lucky, it’s good that the DWM was able to locate the material that was harvested from her.”

  I jerked my head up and looked at the detective. “They did?” I had a million questions, starting with why didn’t anyone tell me?

  “She destroyed the materials herself,” he said. “We don’t have to worry about an army of genetically engineered godlike creatures coming of age in about eighteen years and waging war against humanity.”

  “I hadn’t been worried about that. Until now.” I swallowed hard. Whenever I thought about what happened to Chessa, I’d only felt the ache in my heart of a mother not knowing where her children were.

  Now I felt a new ache. The one of a mother who had destroyed part of herself.

  Bentley continued, his tone grave. “Zara, I’m not sure if my intel is correct, but I believe Chessa had surgery to remove the potential of being targeted again.”

  The ache in my chest was replaced by a sharp pain. “Are you saying she won’t be able to have her own kids?”

  He shook his head. “All the more reason we have to get Corvin back home, safe and sound.”

  I swore under my breath.

  Talk about raising the stakes.

  Where was that hellhound?

  * * *

  We had the house model reassembled by two o’clock.

  I finished performing the object-location spell by five minutes past two. It would have gone faster, but Bentley kept asking questions.

  By two-fifteen, we’d ruled the attempt a failure. So much for Bentley’s magnificent idea.

  For a hopeful moment, I had detected a possible pull, but the direction kept changing. It was faint enough that it could have simply been wishful thinking.

  Bentley asked more questions, and I explained that there were a few ways the spell could be cast. If the object were nearby, and it was safe to use levitation, I could summon the object toward myself. That was how I usually grabbed my purse before I left the house.

  Another method, with larger objects in particular, was to get a magical reading on where the item was, and then draw myself toward it. I had to rely on the physical sensations, felt as a pull of attraction within my body.

  “Like a dowsing rod,” Bentley said. “It sounds like how pioneer settlers used those Y-shaped branches to find the best spot to dig a well.”

  “Some of those settlers may have had powers,” I said. “They don’t call it water witching for nothing.”

  He gave me a thoughtful look.

  “There’s another way the spell works that I didn’t explain. If you’re a ghost, floating around without your body, you can use it to ground your spirit to an object.”

  “What?”

  “It happened to me once, when my aunt killed me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s kind of a funny story. I was trying to listen in on a conversation, and I didn’t have my sound tunnel spell figured out yet, and—”

  Bentley cleared his throat and tapped the container of glue with one finger. “Are you getting anything now?”

  “Still nothing,” I reported.

  He couldn’t hide his disappointment.

  “It was still a good idea,” I said. “And sometimes there’s a delay on the spell. It could kick in after a few hours.”

  He made the face that said he didn’t believe me. He leaned over, peered into the open-backed house, and adjusted the remaining dolls. “This little guy was sitting on the other side of the table when we showed up,” he said, putting the boy on a chair at the table. “It’s not a perfect recreation of what we saw yesterday when we got to the house.”

  “Because the crime happened earlier that day. The boy might have been on the other side of the table then. Remember how William Tate was so sure we were salespeople? He must have had visitors earlier in the day.”

  “You do weave a compelling narrative.”

  He switched the boy to the other chair, then back again.

  “The clothes look right,” I said.

  He agreed that they did.

  “And the phone is exactly like the one we saw on the hall table,” I said.

  “Krinkle could have seen all those things from the view at the community center.”

  “What did she say about that, anyway? Has she admitted she’s seen the house before? Or why she lied to us about not knowing where it was?”

  Bentley pointed to his eyes. “She blames her poor eyesight. Claims she never noticed the unusual home, despite looking out that window multiple times.”

  “I’d love to question her in more depth.” I made a hand gesture similar to cracking my knuckles, but released a puff of pink smoke instead. “There’s a confession hex my aunt told me about.”

  “Do you mean Trinada’s Confession Hex?” He smirked, looking proud of himself for knowing the name of a spell. “I happen to know you need three witches for that. All the Trinada spells require a trio.”

  We stared at each other. He was so cute when he thought he’d tripped me up on some minor detail.

  “Look at you with your spell talk,” I said. “Memorizing things to whip out on me. Aren’t you clever?”

  “I’m thorough and detail-oriented.”

  “I bet you are.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  I looked down quickly and changed the subject. “I could still do the confession hex. I could get two more witches together in a heartbeat.” Zinnia wasn’t available, but there were the two Nixes. One wasn’t very sharp, and the other was way too sharp for her own good, but together they might balance out.

  “As much as I’d love to see you in action, my understanding is the spell makes people confess, whether they did something or not. It tangles anxiety with guilt, and amplifies both. They confess for relief. The last thing any case needs is a false confession.”

  “Right. Plus I’d need something called koodzuberry enzyme to cast the spell, and now that our local supplier of magical herbs is a pile of bones, supplies of certain compounds have dried up.”

  “I’m sure Vincent Wick could be of help, if need be.”

  I nodded, mulling over the suggestion. Vincent Wick had inherited the property his sister had used to grow magical plants, and was working on getting things growing again. It was no ordinary nursery, though. Some of the plants were extremely dangerous—as his sister, Tansy, found out the hard way.

  Bentley said, “Speaking of the Wick disappearance, whatever happened to those animals that were recovered? The ones that tried to eat you?”

  “Animals? They were plants. I thought you were up to speed? They were plants, called Droserakops.”

  “I read the report. They had
beating hearts. Wouldn’t that make them animals?”

  “Beats me. They were a whole new thing, whatever they were. There’s nothing about them in any of my books.”

  I reached into the dollhouse and rearranged the furniture.

  Bentley poked at the rooms and scratched off some beads of glue with his thumbnail.

  We were at a dead end.

  “I could try some other spells on Krinkle,” I said.

  Bentley considered my offer, then said, “Even if we could get access, she’s an elderly woman. Those spells of yours do a number on people. Even the bluffing one. We don’t want Krinkle’s heart to give out while she’s under a spell.”

  “Fine. No magic. I suggest we get a couple of phone books and beat it out of her, old school–style.”

  Bentley blinked at me, then got to his feet. “I’ll drive you home,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me we’ve already reached the point where you kick me off the case. I was joking about the phone books. Mostly.”

  “I’ll drive you home anyway.”

  “Seriously?”

  “You saw how difficult it was for me to get you access here,” he said. “These DWM people, they don’t trust witches.”

  He reached for my hand and helped me up from my position. I’d been sitting cross-legged on the attic floor just long enough to be wobbly when I stood. I held his hand a moment longer than needed.

  “No offense, but I’ll probably be better off without you holding me back,” Bentley said.

  I pulled my hand from his. “Holding you back? How could I possibly be offended by something like that?”

  “You know what I mean. It’s the shifters. They only trust their own kind. They barely tolerate me.”

  “In that case, I’ll go away on my own and leave you to it.” I dusted attic grime off the back of my jeans. “No need to drive me home. I can walk.”

  “Are you sure? We’re all the way across town.”

  “It’s a beautiful day to walk,” I said. “Walking clears the mind. Plus, I’ll cover a lot of new terrain, and without you around asking me dumb questions about spellwork, I can focus on sensing the location spell, if it starts working.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  “You can’t argue with me.” I leaned forward and dotted the dimple on his chin with the tip of my finger. His chin felt as stubbly as it looked.

  He caught my hand in his. “What are you doing?”

  I yanked my hand away. “It wasn’t magic. I swear.”

  “But you touched me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So? It didn’t mean anything.”

  He caught my hand again, and brought my finger to his chin. He touched the small depression in his chin once more with my fingertip. We locked gazes.

  Were we having a moment?

  I leaned forward, distributing my weight into my toes. Just in case.

  Then he abruptly dropped my hand.

  “Lund,” he said, looking over my shoulder.

  Dr. Lund, the coroner, was there. He’d come up the attic stairs quietly. Lund said, “Sorry to interrupt whatever’s going on up here.”

  In unison, Bentley and I said, “Nothing’s going on.”

  I added, “I was just leaving.”

  I squeezed past Lund and down the narrow stairs without looking back.

  Chapter 21

  The walk home did help clear my head... but only of thoughts about the missing persons case. Then my head was free to focus on a certain undead detective, and what it might feel like to have his lips on me. Or his teeth.

  Zara tries to be a good witch. Zara doesn’t get lost in her head thinking about kissing and nothing else for two miles of walking, plus an extra mile to backtrack because she missed the turn for her own street.

  Except I did.

  At least it had been a pleasant walk. Thinking about kissing while walking on a summer day is pleasant, no matter what else is happening in your life.

  The only thing that broke up my daydreaming was encountering a man walking his dog and his rooster.

  “They’re best friends,” the man explained. “I can’t take one out without the other.”

  The dog was large and black, like Corvin, but walked slowly due to old age and had a white muzzle. The rooster stared at me like he knew something, but that’s roosters for you.

  I wished them a great day and carried on.

  Unfortunately, the object-location spell didn’t kick in, nor did I come up with any new ideas for locating Corvin and the Tate woman.

  Once I was back at my house, I was restless in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. Maybe ever.

  I felt inspired to do something wild and crazy. Laundry. And other house chores, too tedious to detail, but one task involved the manual application of furniture wax to wooden furniture. The wax really brought out the wyvern and cat scratches.

  By four o’clock, my furniture was so shiny it hurt the eyes, and I still hadn’t heard anything positive about the case. Bentley asked me to stop messaging him.

  I paced the house, removing all the light bulbs from the ceiling fixtures, giving them a good washing, and then replacing them all. With the bulbs free of dust, the house was approximately one percent brighter. The gleam on my newly-waxed furniture was almost painful.

  And still there was no break in the case.

  Finally, I was so starved for a morsel of positivity that I caved in to Boa’s demands and gave her a small plate of sliced deli ham.

  The fluffy white furball dug into the ham like it was her job, her passion, and her duty to her country.

  When she was finished eating the ham and licking the plate, she climbed onto my lap and showed me her appreciation by massaging my thighs with her paws while gazing up at me with adoration. I had never felt so adored, not even when holding Zoey as a newborn. It was close, but Boa, with her feathery-white whiskers, was the new master of gaze-delivered adoration.

  The cat’s gratitude lasted exactly thirty-five minutes. Then she jumped off my lap and padded off to the kitchen to howl in front of the refrigerator door for—you guessed it—more ham.

  Ribbons flew into the living room and landed on the recliner across from me.

  “You’ve done it now, Zed,” he said.

  “I did. I broke the rules. I gave Boa deli ham.”

  The wyvern shook his seahorse-shaped head.

  Boa howled from the kitchen.

  “I am filled with regret,” I admitted to the wyvern. “But she did give me a very nice lap massage, and she temporarily took my mind off my worries. Cats can be quite soothing. They’re beneficial for mental health. People with cats have lower blood pressure. Did you know that?”

  Another blood-curdling howl for more ham came from the kitchen.

  Ribbons looked upward, squinting his beady eyes, and asked, “Is it brighter in here?”

  “I washed all the light bulbs.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  I tossed a throw pillow at him. “Everyone’s a critic.”

  * * *

  The front door opened, and my daughter called out loudly, “Hi, honey! I’m home!”

  “I’m right here,” I said, looking up from my book. “You don’t have to yell.” I set the book next to me on the couch. “And since when am I honey?”

  “Since I just worked my first full shift at my first real job.” She joined me in the living room, moved the book to the gleaming coffee table, and flopped on the sofa with her head in my lap. “Any news about the brat?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her use of the term brat. She couldn’t fool me. I knew she’d been worrying about Corvin all day, which was what I’d been doing, too, except for the time when I’d been thinking about kissing a certain silver-eyed detective.

  “No news,” I said. “He’s still missing.”

  “He’s going to be in so much trouble for making us worry.” She rolled on the couch, her head still in my lap. “That creepy little big-eyed brat! Or should I say pest, a
s in short for pestilence, which is what he is.”

  “Right.” I swept her hair off her face. She felt flushed and clammy. “It will be good to have the pestilence back in our lives, though.”

  She took a raspy breath and blinked back tears. “He’s really tough, Mom. Wherever he is, I know he’s going to be okay. Physically, anyway. Emotionally...”

  “He’s not like other kids,” I finished. “Chet always told me that, but I had no idea. Hellhounds aren’t even from this world. I’ve been reading up, and they’re only found in other worlds. That means he must have escaped from somewhere else.”

  “You mean Hell.”

  “The books don’t come right out and say Hell, but it’s implied.” I shook my head. “Every parent suspects their kids are from Hell, but Corvin actually is.”

  “Every parent?” She lifted her chin and look up at me, her head still on my lap.

  “Not me, of course.”

  “But genies are demons from another world, too. And since I’m half genie, I have as much in common with Corvin as I do with you and Auntie Z. I’m just like him. I’m technically Hellspawn.”

  A chill set into my bones. Corvin and Zoey did have that in common. What if someone or something was collecting the local Hellspawn? Was Zoey next on a list? She could be. And I’d let her out of my sight for the entire day. Zara tries to be a good mother, but Zara can’t anticipate everything.

  “Zoey, until we get Corvin back, I want you to be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.”

  “Extra careful. Especially around people we don’t know.” I gathered her loose hair into a ponytail at the top of her head and gave it a playful tug. “Speaking of which, how was work today? How do you like working for a living?”

  She scrunched her face, compressing her thoughts for a moment, then said, “After subtracting breaks, I only worked for seven-point-five hours, but it was the longest seven-point-five hours of my life.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  “Did you know that the general public is disgusting? I had to clean floors and the undersides of benches, and did you know that the general public leaves gum on everything?”