by Mina Carter
Witch Wanted
Mina Carter
New York Times & USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Copyright © 2018 by Mina Carter
All rights reserved.
* * *
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
* * *
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.
* * *
This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.
* * *
The Author of this Book has been granted permission by Robyn Peterman to use the copyrighted characters and/or worlds created by Robyn Peterman in this book. All copyright protection to the original characters and/or worlds of the Magic and Mayhem series is retained by Robyn Peterman.
Foreword
Blast Off with us into the Magic and Mayhem Universe!
* * *
I’m Robyn Peterman, the creator of the Magic and Mayhem Series and I’d like to invite you to my Magic and Mayhem Universe.
* * *
What is the Magic and Mayhem Universe, you may ask?
* * *
Well, let me explain…
* * *
It’s basically authorized fan fiction written by some amazing authors that I stalked and blackmailed! KIDDING! I was lucky and blessed to have some brilliant authors say yes! They have written brand new stories using my world and some of my characters. And let me tell you…the results are hilarious!
* * *
So here it is! Blast off with us into the hilarious Magic and Mayhem Universe. Side splitting books by fantabulous authors! Check out each and every one. You will laugh your way to a magical HEA!
* * *
For all the stories, go to https://magicandmayhemuniverse.com/. Grab your copy today!
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
Epilogue
Also by Mina Carter
About the Author
1
The word “witch” did funny things to people.
It was one of those words that made the most sensible person think about pitchforks and bonfires, even in this modern age. Even in a time when every second Instagram star claimed to be in tune with Mother Earth, on a journey of illumination or—Livvy’s personal favorite—reclaiming her goddess-granted femininity... the suspicion that someone was an actual real witch still struck chords deep in the human psyche.
Unfortunately, unlike the instincts triggered when faced with something like a lion (namely, run the fuck away) those triggered by the word witch always involved sharp, pointy objects and fire.
It was one of two reasons Livvy avoided it like the plague. One, she didn’t take well to people trying to set her on fire, and two, she wasn’t a witch. Not really.
Suuuuure, she was a La Faye. Descended from the infamous Morgan La Faye herself. Yeah, that one. The one who’d tried to kill off good old King Arthur.
She was still in doubt about the proud tales her nanna had told when she was a kid about the greatly misunderstood sorceress and her treacherous brother. For a start, they differed greatly from the “official” versions everyone else knew. The only thing Livvy knew for sure was that she was descended from a long line of tricksters and con-women.
Her nanna always said she was a pure-blooded Romany gypsy (how that worked with being descended from Morgan La Faye, Livvy had no clue) but the records she’d pulled up while researching her family tree had pointed to Nanna being born Doris Smith. Not, as she claimed, around a camp fire somewhere in the south of Spain. Nor was she a gypsy princess. No, she was a miner’s daughter.
Like the rest of her family, Livvy was a fake witch—one with a talent for reading tarot cards, and, more importantly, people. Which made the situation she found herself in all the more ironic.
You know your problem, Livvy? You don’t let anyone get close.
The words of her former flatmate, Rupert, rolled around and around in her head. She’d sure as hell misread him. That had been just one of the things he’d thrown at her in his screaming meltdown fit when she’d turned down his romantic overtures.
One of the nicer things. One of the much nicer things.
Sighing, she dumped three sugars in her coffee and stirred it. She would have added more, but a loud tut from the vicinity of the counter made her settle for just three.
In hindsight, though, his toddler-level tantrum was maaaaybe understandable. A giggle-snort when he’d declared undying love for her hadn’t been the wisest of moves. What should she have done, though? The guy was OCD about cleaning, cooked to perfection, and had the kind of fashion sense that made couture designers weep. She’d thought he was gay. Who wouldn’t have?
Witch, he’d hissed at her while throwing her clothing down the stairs. Don’t think I haven’t seen the candles, the weird herbs and silver jewelry!
She’d been too busy grabbing her shoes from the steps before Sharon from number 216 had snagged them to answer. She lived in boots and had one... count them one... pair of good shoes. (They had red soles and everyone knew what that meant... so Sharon sure as fuck wasn’t getting her greedy paws on them.)
If he thought that was all that made a witch, though, every teenage girl out there was screwed.
Witch! His yelling had been loud enough to get most doors up and down the apartment block to crack at least an inch. She’ll lure all your men away, get them to do her bidding! I nearly fell for it! Witch!
Never mind the modern day and age or the new-age witchery all over the internet, or that she was a fake witch… she knew people, and certain words created a mob mentality. One she didn’t stick around to let develop.
If she did, the pitchforks weren’t far away, and in this area, no one needed any encouragement to start a fire. Shit, some did it just to watch the emergency services turn up and see who would try and nick the wheels off their vehicles.
If I’m a witch, I curse you with the evil eye! Curse you ALL!
Grabbing her suitcase, she’d stuffed everything into it and gotten the hell out of Dodge. Battered to fuck, the case was covered in dodgy leopard print with an even dodgier wheel, but she didn’t care. Nanna had bought it for her years ago. It had been with her longer than most of her friends and was a fuck-ton more reliable. Now it sat next to her in the tatty little café toward the back of Camden market, near the entrances to the catacombs.
She took a tentative sip of the coffee, making sure it wasn’t lava-hot and about to burn her lips off, and grimaced. Still not enough sugar. Looking up before she reached for the sugar turner, she found the café owner, Mrs. Assmart, watching her with a gimlet eye.
She might have been a fake, but that didn’t mean magic was and that there weren’t real witches out there. The rotund enough to count as an architectural structure Mrs. Assmart was one of them.
She sat, like a large spider in her web, behind her counter with various pots and pans bubbling on the stoves behind her. Spoons stirred the contents of their own accord. There were at least three cauldrons hidden in the masses, and a spatula flipped eggs on the hot plate industriously.
&
nbsp; Mrs. Assmart didn’t need staff to run the café. Just a healthy dose of magic and, apparently, a keen eye on the sugar.
Just one eye, though, since the other darted around at random, appearing unable to fix or focus on anything. Livvy buried her nose in the mug and sucked down the still-too-bitter coffee.
Born and brought up on the edges of magical society, she easily recognized the permanent aftereffects of a seer spell. Mrs. Assmart would often preemptively ban customers before they could skip out on their bill. She was infamous among the various beings who frequented the nonhuman part of the market, and no one wanted to be banned by her. So everyone paid up.
With another sip-grimace-sigh, Livvy snagged the paper sitting on the other side of the tatty wooden table. A battered copy of Witch Weekly, it had obviously been used as a coaster from the coffee and tea rings adorning it. She took a quick glance at the date before flipping to the back. Last week’s. Perhaps she could find new digs, this time with someone more in tune with the magical world... but the only rooms on offer were well out of her price range.
At the end of the accommodations section, her eye drifted over the “witch wanted” ads. They always made her laugh, and goddess knew she needed something to make her smile today.
Sure enough, between the nanny required for yeti twins (must be able to bench press small cars) and banshee singer for rock band (pitch perfect unnecessary), she found plenty to grin at. Seriously, did they think that pitiful amount was enough to risk tangling with crossroad demons in Siberia? One, however, was almost normal and stood out like a sore thumb.
Witch wanted for small mountain town in USA. Must like bears and be experienced in removing brownies. Food, board and relocation transport provided.
The ink on the listing was dark, indicating no one had replied to it yet. When they did, the advert would go grey like the rest. She wondered absently what the town had done to piss off a brownie. Usually the house spirits were helpful.
Putting it from her mind, she sipped her coffee as she went through a list in her head of people she could hit up for a night or two on their couch. It was a small list. A very small list. She settled on Big Steve. Part gargoyle and an old friend of Nanna’s, he owed her a favor or two.
“Did you check Big Steve’s? She’s known to go there.”
As though thinking of the big man conjured it up, a voice sounded in her head. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Not now...she couldn’t do the voices now. Not with all her worldly possessions crammed into the suitcase next to her leg (purchased in the nonhuman section of the market, it was a lot bigger on the inside).
She didn’t need voices. She needed work to pay for a roof over her head, which meant getting out into the human side of the market and telling fortunes. No point in doing it on this side. Anyone with an ounce of magical blood would see through her act in a heartbeat.
“Yeah, picked him up. He’ll be spending the next couple of nights in the cells until we have to release him.”
Shutting her eyes did nothing to stop the voices. She used to hear them a lot during her childhood but less and less as she got older. But the last few weeks, they’d come back.
Fuck my life.
Before they started up again, the door crashed open, making Livvy jump and whirl around in her seat. The goblin opposite did the same, a wand gripped between gnarly fingers as they both looked at the lanky blond in the doorway. The slight tips to his ears hinted at an elven heritage. The clothing indicated he’d been watching too many of a certain type of movie.
“Agents from eighteen headed this way,” he announced, and just like that, he disappeared to warn others.
MI:18 were the bane of the market, and the magical community’s, existence. Like the other, more famous units, they were run by the British government, but unlike them, they didn’t deal with human threats. Instead, they dealt with magical ones.
No one wanted to be on their wanted list. People on it disappeared.
“Girl... it’s you they’re after,” Mrs. Assmart hissed from the counter. “This way... out the back.”
Livvy didn’t argue, not with a seer. Instead, she grabbed her suitcase and, on a whim, the paper as well before she beat feet toward the counter. The big witch behind it lifted the hatch section partway, and Livvy ducked underneath.
“Thanks,” she whispered, not sure how far away the agents were.
“No problem.” Mrs. Assmart reached for an iced bun and shoved it in a bag before thrusting it at Livvy. “Out the back, turn left. Tap the third drain three times with your left foot. It’ll take you down to the catacombs. And...” She smiled, her one focusing eye twinkling kindly. “Take an old woman’s advice, duck. You’ll do well dealing with brownies.”
Livvy nodded, heading out the back at something approaching the speed of light. Eighteen had been on her tail for years, as long as she could remember. One of her first memories was hiding in a back alley with Nanna, hidden by rubbish, as eighteen agents raided their flat.
She didn’t know what they wanted with her, or her family, and she didn’t want to find out either. Not in this lifetime or the next.
Skidding through the back door, she hit the rough brick wall facing it, bounced off it and ran left. Shouts and Mrs. Assmart’s booming voice behind her said that eighteen had reached the café. She bit back a chuckle at the idea of anyone trying to get past the big woman when she didn’t want them to.
First drain... second drain... She slid to a stop as she reached the third drain, her case hitting the back of her leg.
“She’s out here! Hey! Miss La Faye, stop right there!”
She threw a glance over her shoulder to see an eighteen agent by the back door of the café. In his sharp suit and overcoat, he looked like he could have stepped right from the pages of a suspense novel. He reached a hand out to her, and panic and fear filled her. Eighteen agents were often spell slingers.
“Ohmyladyohmyladyohmylady...” she muttered to herself, stamping on the drain with her left foot.
Once... Twice... As her booted foot struck the grimy metal the third time, the alley, the agent and the world itself disappeared into a swirling vortex of peacock colors as she got sucked downward.
2
“Yer mother was a Chihuahua and yer father—”
Brock twisted his body, back leg straightened, foot partially off the ground as his club contacted its target with a loud THWACK. His follow-through was smooth, the driving iron ending the graceful arc behind his back. If he’d been on a golf course, someone would have shouted something like “fore.”
Maybe.
He didn’t know because he didn’t play golf or have any interest in it.
What he did have was an old club and a burning desire to rid his town of freaking brownies.
“Yer fucking bastaaaaaarrrrrrdddd...” the brownie yelled in its little tinny voice as it sailed over the garden fence and into the scrubland beyond. “I’ll be back!”
“Yeah?” he shouted, not at all bothered that he was arguing with the fairy version of vermin. “You try it, you little bastard, and you’ll get more of the same!”
He propped his club over his shoulder and whistled as he walked up the path to the house.
“Are they gone? Did you get rid of them?”
The owner, Mrs. Oakenthorpe, stood on the doorstep wringing her hands. It would have been a cutesy sight guaranteed to pull at the heartstrings since she was dressed in what Brock mentally labeled an “old lady uniform” of shawl, lace cap and tiny spectacles. But, given she was in bear form, the shawl held in massive taloned paws, and the glasses perched on the end of a vicious muzzle, it was a sight that would send most people running away screaming.
“Please tell me you got rid of them?” the old-lady bear begged, her large brown eyes pleading with him as she stared myopically through the little lenses. “They give me the creeps.”
Brock smiled reassuringly. “Yeah, they’re gone for now. And your wards aren’t in too bad a shape. They should
hold until the new witch arrives to strengthen them.”
“Oh good.” The big bear sighed at the reassurance, beaming at him with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. “I have the town kids here this afternoon for a tea party. I can’t have those little blighters running around and throwing things at them from the bushes. Where they get rocks like... like...” she dropped her voice to a discreet whisper and leaned in. “They were shaped like a man’s parts.”
Brock had rarely seen a bear blush, but Mrs. Oakenthorpe managed it. The thick fur over her cheeks practically glowed with embarrassment.
“No... that won’t do at all.” He stifled his laughter and bit the inside of his cheek to keep a straight face. His amusement was more to do with the bear with her paws pressed to her face in mortification than the fact the brownies had thrown dick-shaped rocks at kids.
“Do you think it will be long before the new witch gets here?” Mrs. Oakenthorpe asked, her deep-set eyes alight with hope.
“It’s been months since Briony—” The big bear paused and shuffled on her back paws uncomfortably. As far as Brock knew, the two women had been the same age. Then he kicked himself... both Shifters and witches had similar lifespans, so the death of her friend would remind Mrs. Oakenthorpe of her own mortality. “Since Briony passed on, the town hasn’t been the same.”
Brock nodded. Didn’t he just know it?
Most witches died with a successor already in place, but the non-bear population of Bottomslick had been in decline for years. Kids moved away to the city or to new and exciting jobs elsewhere... no one wanted to stay in a small old town in the ass-end of beyond where nothing ever happened.