by Amy Boyles
“You would do well not to insult a vampire,” the stranger said in a low voice. It was a warning, but more than that. It was also a threat.
“Your vampires would do well not to insult me.”
His lips quirked slightly. I noticed they were well sculpted. In fact, his entire face looked to have been chiseled from stone.
“You’re on our territory,” he explained.
“I am a witch. This entire town is my territory.”
That was as true as I believed it to be. The mayor hadn’t told me there were places to avoid. If it had been such a big deal, she would’ve mentioned it.
Should’ve mentioned it, at least.
“There are some places witches aren’t welcome,” he said.
“Then maybe you should put up a bulletin to newcomers and let them know that.”
He glared at me, but I would not back down. This vampire couldn’t hurt me—not here. Not in public.
“I’m looking for someone. His name is Jimmy. He’s about yay high, blond hair—preppy young man. Easy smile. Have you seen him?”
The vampire scratched his chin. It sounded like his fingers were grating over sandpaper as they brushed the stubble.
“I can’t say that I have.”
I jerked my head to the table. “Maybe one of your cohorts over there has. My friend disappeared. Perhaps they know something about it.”
His eyes hardened to the color of flint. “They wouldn’t have harmed him.”
“They seem so kind and gentle. The type of men who know how to treat a lady with respect.”
He scowled. “Like I said, you’re on our territory. Witches—reputable ones—don’t come here at night.”
I gave him a sickly sweet smile. “Vampires, reputable ones, don’t threaten witches.”
“No.” He took a step forward. He was intimidating. I couldn’t see one muscle through the shape of his clothing, but there was no doubt in my mind that if he had wanted to, this vampire could’ve crushed my throat with one hand.
His mouth opened, and a flash of fangs glinted in the light. He was warning me. Maybe I was stupid. Maybe I was full of gumption, high on it, since I had come to Witch's Forge to prove something. Because of that, I would not be intimidated.
Not by anyone. Or anything, in this case.
“No,” he repeated, “reputable vampires don’t threaten witches. We make promises instead.”
I opened my mouth for a retort that would’ve landed me in more hot water when the bartender slapped a bag down on the shiny wooden surface beside me.
“Your food,” he said loudly as if to break up the oh-so-amazing conversation the vamp and I were having.
“How much?” I said.
“Five witch’s dollars.”
I groaned. “I don’t have witch’s dollars. I have my dollars. American currency.” I shot the vampire a dark look. “It’s a country that you might not know about since you’re probably as old as the dawn of time and who knows how long you’ve been holed up here.”
He smirked. “Quite the attitude.”
I rolled my eyes and turned to the barkeep. “Can I pay for it tomorrow? I’ll have to get some money.”
“Fine.” But he added sharply, “Come during the day.”
I hooked my fingers through the door handle and glared at the bloodsucker beside me. “Don’t worry. I don’t have to be told twice.”
I moved to leave but heard the vampire’s voice behind me. “I didn’t catch your name.”
I pushed my backside against the door until it gave. When I was halfway out, I replied, “That’s because I didn’t give it.”
With that, I vanished into the night.
Well, not really vanished. I couldn’t do that if you paid me. But I did saunter from the bar and back to the house, where I greedily ate my meal atop the lavish bed and then slid under the covers.
But sleep would not come. The image of glowing silver eyes—those belonging to the nameless vampire filled my head and wouldn’t leave.
I awoke refreshed. I checked my phone. No one had called. First things first. I had to track down Jimmy. He would have had a file with the names of folks to match, so I needed to find it. I also needed to know if he would answer his phone.
I dialed his number.
Not sure why I hadn’t done that before. I was both horrified and relieved to hear the ringing coming from inside the room.
The sound died before I could pinpoint the location, so I dialed Jimmy again.
I followed the bleating to behind the wardrobe, where I retrieved Jimmy's cell. I sighed and leaned against the wall, my elbows on my knees.
I stared at the screen. A picture of Jimmy stared back at me, his blue eyes shining.
My stomach twisted. “What happened to you, Jimmy? Where are you? Where is your file?”
The house rumbled and shook. It sounded like something was crawling in the walls. I rose and crouched in the center of the room.
One of the air vents on the floor lifted, and a file spit from the hole and slid across the floor, landing at my feet.
I clutched my heart. “House, you and I need to have a come-to-Jesus. You about scared the life out of me.”
The house did not reply.
I picked up the folder and thumbed it open. Inside was Jimmy’s calendar. Much of it was blank except for meetings with the mayor, but I noticed in one square Jimmy had written LH and BF. Hmm.
I peeled back that page and found the completed matchmaking questionnaires for the first couple Jimmy was to help fall in love.
Belinda Ogle, an air witch, and Langdon Huggins, an air wizard, were supposed to have been set up.
I glanced back at the initials—LH and BF. The LH must’ve stood for Langdon Huggins, but I didn’t understand why Jimmy had gotten Belinda’s last initial wrong.
Setting that thought aside, I flipped through the documents, but Jimmy hadn’t made any notes in the margins. Hmmm. First thing I would do after meeting with the mayor would be to track down Belinda and Langdon, find out what they knew.
My first look at Witch's Forge in daylight made me cringe. The town looked like someone had taken a grime-filled paintbrush and sloshed it over the buildings. Everything was sort of tainted with a dirty hue. The kudzu was more prominent in daylight, snaking around streetlamps, over benches and down buildings.
People milled around, but not very many, and the over-the-top shops looked like they had seen better days. Thick coats of dust covered the windows, and the paint was faded.
An antique shop called Southern Antiquities featured old cauldrons and cast-iron skillets. That might be interesting to check out. There was also a magical monogramming shop.
I rolled my eyes. We were definitely in the South. There wasn’t much that was bigger than monogramming. If you could place your initials on it, you bought it, even in the human world.
Looked like the witch world wasn’t much different.
But what struck me the most was the faded, dirty appearance. Why was Witch’s Forge withered up? Why did spells backfire? Why was the magic broken?
I strode over to the mayor’s office for answers. She jumped from her chair as soon as I entered.
“Charming!” She reached for me with both hands. Thank goodness it wasn’t a hug. “So glad to see you.” The mayor turned to a redheaded woman sitting on a chair. Her long tresses were pulled into a ponytail, and she was dressed smartly in a silk blouse and black pencil skirt.
“Charming, this is Emily, my assistant.”
Emily rose, wide-eyed and smiling brightly. “Charming, it’s so great to meet you. I’m so sorry about Jimmy. He seems like such a good person.”
I nodded. “He’s a great guy. Did anything seem amiss?”
She shook her head and clasped a hand around my arm. “He was supposed to meet with the mayor, but that was a couple of days ago. I spoke to him the night before, to set up the meeting, but that’s the last I heard from him. If I can be of any help, let me know.”
/> “Thank you.”
Winnifred gestured toward her office. “Charming, there are some things we need to discuss.”
I agree. Like why is your town like this?
I nodded and followed her inside. Her heels clacked all the way to her chair.
I shut the door behind me and settled down. Mayor Winnifred Dixon may have hired me, but I wasn’t about to be steered the way she wanted. I laid my elbows on the table and leaned forward.
“What in the world is going on in Witch's Forge? The place is a mess. There’s kudzu everywhere. The town looks horrible. What happened here, and why do you think I can save it?”
Winnifred settled back in her chair. She studied me. “Charming, there are some things I need to tell you—things that might explain what happened to Jimmy.”
I sucked in my cheeks. “I found his cell. He would never have left without it.”
The mayor sighed. She folded her hands in her lap and, without breaking eye contact, said, “Witch's Forge is cursed. I’m afraid Jimmy may have succumbed to that curse and is dead.”
FOUR
“Cursed?” I nearly shouted, “More like damned.”
She sniffed. “I resent that.”
“And you think Jimmy succumbed to it?” Good grief, this just got better and better. I wanted to strangle someone. How could she not have told me before now? Wasn’t this something that should’ve been discussed as soon as I appeared in town—like last night? I might have appreciated knowing that, as well as being informed there was a gang of vampires who took over the local watering hole on a nightly basis.
She patted the air to calm me down. “I don’t know for sure. Let me start at the beginning. Witch's Forge used to be a great hub for witches of all kinds. It is one of the few places in the country where you’ll find all the elements; therefore, witches used to come here to master their magic. It also worked out that we could be a tourist town.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Not anymore.”
Winnifred hesitated. “Anyway, yes, within Air Town we have Tornado Hollow, that’s where the winds grow—that’s for the air witches. In Water Town are the main Enchanted Falls but also a smaller set, also by the same name for the water witches, and then there’s Mystic Bluffs in Earth Town for the earth witches and of course Fire Springs for the fire witches. As I’m sure you’ve guessed, Fire Springs is located in Fire Town.
“All the elements are represented in this area, which is what makes it so special.”
“But all that magic should fuel the town, not destroy it,” I argued.
“Yes.” She paused again. “It should. But about ten years ago is when it started happening. The kudzu started growing, and the grime appeared. Those of us in upper management”—she giggled—“as I like to call it, did the best we could to fight it. We used spells and incantations, magic and whatever we could.”
“Ever consider a pail of bleach and a rag?” I said sarcastically.
I mean honestly. This was the problem with magic. In my opinion there wasn’t anything rational about it. Growing up, my mother always told me to feel my magic. Let it guide me. What the heck? How could you let a feeling guide a bolt of ice? You couldn’t. You needed precision.
So for the inhabitants of this town to think they could kumbaya this problem away was ridiculous.
At least to me.
“We never used bleach, no,” Winnifred admitted a little too guilty. “And then the worst started happening—folks left. They just up and abandoned our town.”
“Who wants to be attacked by kudzu in the middle of the night?” I muttered.
“Exactly!” She slammed her palm onto her desk. “No one, that’s for sure. We did everything we could to keep them, but after a few years people started leaving in droves. Yet it didn’t change anything—their power was still broken, even after leaving. Then I got the idea that if we started marrying witches off to each other, people would want to stay. Even if I can’t fix everything, I can at least keep folks in my town.”
“Which is where I come in,” I said.
Winnifred gave me a toothy grin. “Correct. I admit I was a little disappointed that you sent Jimmy and didn’t come yourself.”
“I’m very busy.”
She raised her hands in understanding. “I can appreciate that, and I thought everything was going great with Jimmy until he disappeared. And he was doing wonderfully,” she quickly added, “matching an air witch to an air wizard. That’s how it’s always been done in Witch's Forge—water marries water, earth marries earth…you get the idea.”
“But it’s not like that in the rest of the world,” I said.
Winnifred shrugged. “Our founders wanted to keep the magical lines pure, so marriage within magical elements became the law.”
I rubbed my temple. I could feel a migraine coming on. “Has anyone looked into Jimmy’s disappearance? Do you have police here?”
Winnifred looked a bit startled at the question. “We don’t exactly have what you would call police. Not men in uniform, per se. We have something else.”
Did I even want to hear this? From the looks of the town, that something else was probably an army of ants that communicated with antenna signals.
“Okay then. Does that something else know about Jimmy?”
“Yes, they do. As far as I know, it’s being looked into.”
I sighed. Okay. Well, I’d have to follow up on that. “What about the curse? You said the town is cursed?”
“Oh yes.” Winnifred perked up as if I’d given her an injection of caffeine. “Yes, well—that’s what we decided. After we couldn’t stop the magic from dying, we decided we’d been cursed.”
The mayor laced her fingers together and placed them on top of her desk triumphantly.
I glanced around the room as if I’d missed something. “I’m sorry. So, y’all just decided the town is cursed because it was the easiest explanation? Is that right?”
“Well, yes.”
I licked my lips and prayed for patience. “So there was no evidence. No wizard in the background stirring a cauldron full of malice.”
Winnifred chuckled as if that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “No, of course not. It was the easiest explanation.”
Okay. So I had one missing Jimmy, a possible curse and a collapsing town. Where was I even supposed to start?
Oh! The local authorities. “Tell me about the police, or whatever it is you have in this town.”
She laughed nervously. “Funny thing about that.”
“Yes?”
“Well,” she hesitated. “The beings—I won’t say people—but the beings who watch over Witch’s Forge make sure witches are punished if they break the law. Mind you, people here are generally very good, but sometimes they do get out of line. But anyway, sometimes we have issues and um, the ones who deal with it are—”
I knew what she was going to say before she even finished her sentence.
“Vampires,” she said. Red creeped up her throat.
I had no doubt Winnifred Dixon was embarrassed. “What in the world are vampires doing lording over witches?”
It was a travesty. Aside from my own issues with vampires, bloodsuckers and witches hated one another. It was simply in our blood to despise the other. Vampires sucked blood, and sometimes, a really evil vampire would suck a witch’s blood in the hopes of gaining some of her powers. There was a vile, horrible history between the two.
Eventually vampires swore never to drink witch’s blood and witches swore never to curse a vampire.
It was a tenuous pact and one that I never worried about until I’d stepped into Witch's Forge and realized that a bunch of bloodsuckers were the freaking police.
An old scar on my neck itched. I rubbed the spot where two small puncture wounds had been made and then pushed memories of a dark night from my mind.
“Well, some things happened in the past,” Winnifred admitted. “Because of that the joint committee of vampires, witches and oth
er magical beings decided it was best that an impartial group should be sent in. All of the vampires who are here volunteered for their positions.”
“And it’s a bunch of vampires that keep to themselves, keep folks away from the bar at night and scare the witches.”
Her eyes flared with surprise. “You met him?”
“I met them.” I leaned back in my chair. “And they weren’t too pleasant. If I didn’t know any better, I would say they should be looked at as suspicious characters in Jimmy’s disappearance. But now I’m supposed to turn to them for help? No thanks.”
“Oh not them,” Winnifred said as if that should make me feel better. “Not all of them, just one.”
I rolled my eyes. That wasn’t any better. “If it isn’t all of them, then who is it?”
“Tall vampire, dark hair.”
I cringed. I’d met him and been a royal witch to him. “I know who you’re talking about.”
“His name is Thorne Blackwood.”
Of course it was. I cleared my throat. “So if I need to talk about Jimmy, go to him.”
She nodded. “He’s aware of the situation.”
That was funny. When I’d asked Thorne about Jimmy the vampire had said he hadn’t seen my friend. So right off the bat, the bloodsucker had lied to me.
I rose. “Good. Where does he work?”
“You mean like an office?” Winnifred said with a tremble in her voice.
“Yes.”
“Oh, it’s best if you don’t visit his office.” She laughed nervously. “Going to the police might make you look suspicious.”
I rolled my eyes. “How is he supposed to watch over and help if he doesn’t have an office?”
“He has an open-door policy at his house.”
Great. How medieval could we get? “And this great Thorne allows the peons of Witch's Forge to bow at his vampire feet and ask for scraps?”
“He’s not that bad,” she said.
“He’s a vampire. The fact that a town would allow a bloodsucker to be its police is beyond unfathomable.”
Winnifred rose. “If it makes you feel better, I believe Thorne is searching for Jimmy.”