I sigh and lean on my man as we swing on our porch, listening to the very early morning sounds of the French Quarter.
* * *
“We only slept for an hour,” I say as I stretch in the bed, naked and sated.
“So, play hooky today,” he says and kisses my cheek. “Stay here with me, all day.”
“I can’t.” Regret hangs heavy in my voice. “I’m meeting your mother at the Brew this morning so I can keep training her, and I have to start getting ready for the Halloween street party next week. Which, I just realized, is only a few days away.”
“Well, damn.”
“But I’ll meet you back here later this evening.”
“It’s a date.”
I kiss his chin and then roll out of the warm bed. Despite the little sleep I got, I feel energized and ready to start the day.
Is this what being blissfully in love does to a person? Gives one energy they didn’t know they had?
Maybe.
I won’t complain because I’m going to need the extra oomph if I’m going to get through this day.
Lucien and I dress at the same time, and I raise a brow. “Where are you headed so early in the morning?”
“I might as well go into the lab and get started on my day, as well. I have an early meeting, and few things to do to get ready for it.”
“I know I said the other day at Miss Sophia’s that everything we’re involved in right now is cutting into my work and being available for the café. It has to be cutting into yours, as well.”
“A bit,” he says with a nod. I prop my hand on my hip and raise a brow. “Okay, a lot. There’s nothing to be done about that right now, though. I’m an independent contractor, so I’m able to say no to requests if I need to. Right now, my priority is the work Cash is giving me and our journey. The rest will still be there when it’s all finished.”
I hug him tightly and cast a small protection spell over him. I feel him kiss the top of my head.
“Thank you for that.”
“You felt it?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to mix a potion to put in your coffee, as well, but it doesn’t look like I have time.”
“Millie, I’m fine.”
“He’s hunting men who look like you,” I say, voicing my fears aloud. “If you think that doesn’t scare me, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“I know it does, and I’m telling you right now that I’m careful and safe. I promise. I’ve only just found you again, I’m not likely to do something stupid to lose you so quickly.”
“See that you don’t.” I soften my words with a kiss and then hurry out of our room and down to the kitchen, where I fill Sanguine’s bowl and take a moment to pet the feline. “Good morning, sweet girl. Have a good day today. I’ll take you to the café with me soon. If you’d stay in the reading room, you could go every day, but you’re stubborn.”
She rubs her cheek against my chin before I stand and reach for my bag and keys and smile back at Lucien.
“I’ll see you later, love.”
Before I can walk through the door, he catches my hand in his and tugs me to him, then kisses me long and slow until my mind buzzes.
“Have a good day.”
The drive to work is easy, as it’s still well before six in the morning and not many people are out and about quite yet. I used to be jealous of those who got to sleep in, but I’m used to the early morning hours now and enjoy the alone time at the café before my first customers of the day start filtering in.
The alley behind my shop is blocked today for maintenance, so I score a parking spot just around the corner, lock my car, and toss my keys into my bag as I walk around the block toward the front entrance of my little café.
There’s no one around, but I feel a shift in the air as I get closer, and squint when I see what looks like something blocking my entrance.
“What in the world?” I mumble and then stop in my tracks and stare.
A man.
A man is strung up, hanging from his hands in front of my door. He’s naked, and his torso has been sliced—no, hacked is a better word—open. His organs and intestines have spilled out, trailing down his body to the sidewalk below, where just a tiny pool of blood puddles under his feet.
I’m screaming inside my head, but I can’t make any sound come out.
I can’t breathe.
My eyes travel up the corpse and land on his face, where two things catch my eye.
One, he’s wearing glasses.
And a bloodstone has been embedded in his forehead like some sick third eye.
I swallow hard and reach for my phone, automatically dialing Cash’s number.
“I have a dead body,” I say into the phone around the lump in my throat. “At my shop.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t disturb the scene, Millie.”
“No worries there.”
I hang up and immediately dial Lucien, but it goes straight to voicemail.
If I have to stand out here by myself with this body, I’ll go insane. This isn’t just a hand or a foot. Or even a body in the street, surrounded by a horde of onlookers.
This is a disemboweled man, hanging in front of my door. The message is loud and clear.
It’s a gift for me.
I back away, one small step at a time as if any sudden movements might wake the poor dead man and startle him. My foot falls off the curb, and then arms encircle me. I let go of the scream that’s been stuck in my throat.
Chapter Eighteen
Millie
“It’s just me, dear.”
I’m staring at Gwyneth, relieved that it’s her and not a homicidal madman.
“Cash is on his way,” I whisper. “My goddess, Gwyneth.”
“I’m casting a spell so bystanders can’t see this,” she murmurs and swirls the air a bit with her fingers. “This is too brutal for anyone to witness.”
It doesn’t take long for Cash to arrive, followed shortly by other cops, and an ambulance.
“Where is it?” Cash asks.
Gwyneth gestures with two fingers and points to my front door.
“How did you—? You know what, never mind.” He shakes his head and walks over to the body, then shakes his head again and looks back at me. “I’m sorry, Mill.”
“Yeah, you and me both.”
“I’ll get this out of here as soon as I can. But we have to work the scene first.”
“Unfortunately, I know the drill.”
Cash’s men quickly block off the area and get to work, and I take Gwyneth’s hand and lead her around the back, not caring in the least that the alley is blocked. We enter the Brew from the back door.
“Why are the lights on?” I wonder, just realizing that everything’s on, the music, the lights. I can even smell coffee. “Who’s in here?”
We hurry through to the front of the shop, and I find Esme staring out the windows. She turns when she hears us approach from behind.
“Whoa,” she says and clutches her chest. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Likewise. What are you doing?”
“I came to work.” She gestures as if I should already know that. “You know, because I work here. What’s going on? Why is there a naked dude outside the door?”
I glance down at my phone and try to call Lucien, but it goes right to his voicemail again. “Call me as soon as you get this.”
Damn it, where is he?”
“You’re not supposed to be here until ten,” I remind her.
“You’ve been a little busy, Millie. I came in to help.”
“Did you come in through the front or the back?” Gwyneth asks her.
“The front. I hate going through the alley. Gives me the creeps. Besides, it’s blocked off today. What’s going on out there?”
“Was there not a body hanging by the door when you got here?” I ask her.
“A body? Uh, no. Pretty sure I would have noticed
that. I’ve been here for almost an hour because I wanted to mop the floor one more time this morning. Someone spilled a full mocha all over it yesterday, and I wanted to make sure I got all the stickiness up.”
“How is it possible that you’ve been here for an hour and didn’t see anyone hanging a dead body in front of the door?” I demand.
“I haven’t been out here this whole time. I spent some time sweeping the courtyard out back, and I straightened up the reading room. I had to clean the bathroom. Jesus, Mill, I do work here, you know?”
“What I know is that you’re here when you aren’t supposed to be, and I walked up on a dead body hanging outside of my business.”
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“Hold on,” Gwyneth says, holding up her hands. “No one is accusing anyone of anything. Millie, you need a minute. This is a scary thing, and you need to take a breath.”
“I can’t reach Lucien.” I feel tears threaten. I need to hear his voice, know that he’s okay.
“Go try to call him again,” she suggests, and I follow her advice because I’m about to accuse Esme, a woman I trust implicitly, of being possessed by Horace and hanging a dead man in front of my café.
That sounds ridiculous even to my own ears.
Just as I’m walking through the door to my office, my phone rings. “Oh, goddess, you’re okay.”
“Of course, I’m okay. I’m at work. What’s wrong?”
I clench my eyes closed, relieved to hear his voice. I tell him about what I found when I arrived at the shop.
“He looks just like you.”
“He’s not me, darlin’. Is Cash there?”
“Yes, he and his guys are taking care of it. I’m sure we’ll have some questions to answer, and they’ll want to talk to Esme, who was here when I got in. It’s weird, Lucien. She’s not supposed to be here, and she says she didn’t see anything.”
“Do you honestly think he possessed her?”
I scrunch up my face. “I don’t think so. I mean, she’s acting normal, and we put one hell of a protection spell on this place. There’s no way he could come inside.”
“That’s your answer then.”
“Yeah.” I blow out a breath. “I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.”
“I’m on my way over. I just have a couple of things to wrap up here.”
“Stay there,” I insist. “I’m going to work, too. We have to live our lives, Lucien. But I need for you to work that spell again, the one you cast when we went to the old house in the bayou. I need a line directly to you. It made me crazy that I couldn’t reach you this morning.”
“We’ll do it later today,” he says. “And we’ll keep it open for as long as you like.”
“Okay.” I want to be in his arms so I can have a good cry. “How can I go from the happiest night of my life last night to the scariest one this morning?”
“Ah, baby. I’m so sorry. Let me come over there, just for a little while.”
I sniff and reach for a tissue. “You’re always welcome here, but I’m okay. Let’s get through today, and then we’ll figure out what to do. I think I’m going to start bringing Sanguine with me to work. She adds a level of protection.”
“Agreed. We’ll cast a boundary spell that keeps her in the reading room.”
I smirk. “She’ll love that. I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon, darlin’.”
He hangs up, and I take a minute to pull myself together. I wipe my eyes and nose, brush my fingers through my hair, and then walk back out to where Gwyneth and Esme are already talking with the police.
The body is gone, thankfully.
“I need to ask a couple of questions,” Cash says. “First, are you okay?”
“I’m better now that I’ve talked to Lucien. I saw the glasses on that man, and—” I can’t finish the thought.
“I know. I had a bad minute myself. Tell me exactly what happened this morning.”
I run through it all from the minute I parked my car until Cash arrived on the scene.
“That’s all I know. Aren’t there street cameras or something you can check?”
“Yes, and my team has already put in a request for the footage. But we did the same when it was just a hand on the bench, and the footage was jumbled, so we couldn’t see who left it.”
“Of course, it was.” I laugh without humor and drag my hand down my face. “Because nothing can be easy with this.”
“I’m going to take the bloodstone straight over to Lucien. But there’s already a difference in this body compared to the others we’ve found.”
“What?”
“It still had blood in it. He didn’t drain the body. Not sure what that means. I have to think on it, but I thought I’d tell you. I shouldn’t, because this is an ongoing investigation, but hell, nothing about this is normal.”
“Thank you.” I impulsively hug my brother-in-law. “Thank you so much.”
“I haven’t caught him yet.”
“You will.” I kiss his cheek. “Blessed be, brother.”
His cheeks flush, and he squeezes my shoulder. “Call me for anything, any time.”
“I will.”
He and his men clear out, and I sit in a chair, just staring straight ahead.
“You know,” Gwyneth says, “if you wanted to just close for the day and take some time to rest and heal, no one would blame you.”
I swallow hard. “That’s what I want to do, but it feels cowardly. It feels like if I run and hide, he wins. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”
“Hell no, we won’t give him that,” Esme insists. “We’re working today.”
I smile at my friend. “I’m so sorry about earlier.”
She simply shrugs. “It’s a weird day.”
“It’s been a weird year,” I reply with a laugh and push my hand through my hair. Gwyneth catches sight of my finger.
“Oh, honey. Did you and Lucien perform a handfasting ritual?”
I nod and smile with excitement as I stare down at the plain gold band. “Just last night. It was the right time for us. But don’t worry, we’re planning to have a celebration, later, after all of this mess has calmed down.”
“I couldn’t be happier,” Gwyneth says and pulls me to her for a hug. “I’m so happy for both of you.”
“Thank you.”
“This calls for a little treat.” Esme starts whipping up a concoction behind the counter. “It’s too early for alcohol, but a fruity breakfast drink is just the thing.”
“I’ll take it,” I say with a smile. “I haven’t even told my sisters yet. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and it happened so fast.”
I want to tell them that these are the rings we wore a hundred years ago. That I remember so much more, but those details are just for Lucien and me.
“To my son and his beautiful bride,” Gwyneth says, holding up her glass. “Here’s to many years of wedded bliss.”
* * *
“Why am I elbow-deep in the business end of a pumpkin?” Cash asks. We’re all at Witches Brew, at different tables around the dining area, carving Jack-o-lanterns. “I should be out there in the mean streets of New Orleans trying to catch a killer.”
“First of all,” I reply as I dump pumpkin seeds into a bucket, “don’t be a Debbie Downer. Halloween is our Christmas. And our New Year, come to think of it.” I smile. “We have about thirty Jack-o-lanterns to make because while yes, there are killers to find, there are also a whole bunch of kids who want to celebrate Halloween.”
“Wow, that was a great lecture,” Cash says with a grin.
“You’re welcome. Now, paste a smile on your face and carve one into that bad boy there.”
I have a Halloween playlist on my phone playing through the speakers, and we’re actually having fun. No thoughts of demonic spirits and a killer. No researching spells and weapons to use against the undead.
Just me and my family, enjoying each othe
r.
I didn’t realize how badly I needed this.
“So, Lucien and I got hitched,” I announce and glance up to find everyone staring at me. I bust up laughing. “You should see your faces.”
“Holy shit, you’re wearing a wedding band,” Brielle says. “You’re not kidding.”
“And you didn’t invite us?” Daphne demands. “What the hell?”
“Very subtle, darlin’,” Lucien teases from beside me as he continues digging guts out of a pumpkin.
“It was just him and I, and it’s not legal yet—although we all know that the piece of paper is just a formality. We’re as spiritually bonded as it gets.”
Daphne crosses to me and takes my hand, then brushes her fingers over my band.
“Oh, my,” she says, her eyes wide. “Holy shit, Mill.”
“I know.”
“What?” Brielle demands. “What is it?”
“You can tell them,” I whisper to Daphne.
“She wore this ring in another lifetime.” Daphne smiles. “She was just as happy then as she is now.”
“This is the same ring?” Brielle asks.
I nod and explain to them how I found the box in the attic.
“I never find cool stuff like that,” Brielle says. “I only find dead people.”
“I’d rather have this,” I say with a laugh. “And don’t worry, we’ll do the bigger party thing later. I just didn’t want to wait.”
“I think it’s lovely.” Daphne kisses my cheek. “Happiness looks good on you, sister.”
I’ve just been hugged by Brielle and Cash when there’s a knock on the door.
I glance at Daphne, who’s glaring at the glass, and then unlock the door and open it. “Hello, Jackson.”
“Hi,” he says. “I’m looking for Daphne.”
“You found her.” I gesture for him to come inside, and I lock the door behind him.
“Hey, Daph. I’m leaving town in the morning, and I wanted to see if I might talk you into having a conversation.”
“You’re not good at hearing no, are you?” she asks him. When he just stands firm, she sighs and rolls her eyes. “Fine. Let’s go out back.”
Spells: A Bayou Magic Novel Page 14