Beguiled

by Darynda Jones

  “Yes. I was making a cake.”

  “You were making a cake in the middle of the night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  She blinked up at me and tried to focus through the soot on her lenses. “What?”

  Keeping a hand on Ruthie’s shoulder, I stepped closer to Annette. “Why were you making a cake in the middle of the night?”

  She shook her head and looked back at Percy. “It doesn’t matter. I just… How did this happen?”

  Realization dawned like a sledgehammer to my chest. “Oh my God, Annette. Today’s Austin’s birthday.”

  She lifted a noncommittal shoulder. Her brother had disappeared when they were kids, never to be seen again. She always celebrated his birthday, wishing on his candles that he would find his way home. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

  “I’m so sorry, hon.” I wrapped my arms around her again. I truly was the worst friend ever. The day had been filled with one horrifying event after another, but to completely forget her brother Austin’s birthday…

  She patted my arm. “Still not a hugger.”

  I hugged anyway.

  When she could take no more of the torture I was subjecting her to, she squeaked a protest and wiggled out of my embrace.

  I finally gave up and stepped back, but she kept her hand locked in mine. I’d take it. “We’ve had a lot going on,” I said.

  “I know, but I didn’t call my mom. You know how she gets.” Her smudged glasses sat lopsided on her nose. She pushed them up, then said, “She texted me. That’s how I remembered.”

  “Did you tell her why you forgot?”

  “Kidnapped,” she said, pointing to herself. “Turned into a bird. How am I supposed to explain that to her? She’ll never forgive me.”

  That was true. She’d been kidnapped by Minerva’s uncle, who’d been trying to force me to bring his dead wife back to life so he could get her inheritance. As leverage, he’d placed my bestie in a building about to be demolished, and the charges went off before anyone could get to her, so I had to turn her into a bird so she could escape.

  It really had been a busy day.

  Despite my best efforts, I hugged her again. The thought of her being crushed by a building, buried under its debris, almost ended me.

  She didn’t fight as hard this time.

  When I finished, Gigi hugged her, too. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  “Thank you,” Annette said, hugging her back.

  Hugging. Her. Back.

  What in the sphincter hell? She’d only hugged me back, like, twice our whole lives. She was probably still upset that I’d turned her into a bird, but she’d bounced back. She’s all womanly again, girly bits and all. Though I was dying to ask her more, I figured now was not the time. Especially since we were about to lose our home.

  Speaking of my grandfather… I turned toward the vines that covered the house and held out my hand. A vine curled around my wrist and laced into my fingers. “Are you okay, Percy?”

  A black rose, almost impossible to see in the starless night, blossomed, its crimson underbelly barely visible.

  “I’m glad,” I whispered to him.

  He squeezed my wrist then unlaced himself as a dark figure walked out of the house toward us, his gait like a predator, quiet and smooth. The last remnants of smoke billowed around him, curled, then sank back toward him as though reluctant to leave his side. I knew the feeling.

  “Should I call the firefighters?” I asked.

  “No,” Roane said. He stepped out onto the porch. The smoke that wafted around his shoulders gave him an even more surreal quality. A supernatural mystique. He gave me a quick inspection from over a bandana he’d wrapped around his nose and mouth before tugging it down and turning to check on Gigi. “The fire is out.” He stepped closer to her. “Are you okay, love?”

  She nodded and put a hand on his forearm for support. “Yes. Thank you, sweetheart. Was it a gas leak?”

  He covered her hand with his, and my heart melted. “No, but I turned it off just in case. I’ll have to disconnect the stove before I can turn the gas back on. I’ll do that tonight, but first we need to let Percy air out for a bit.”

  “What happened?” she asked, clearly shaken.

  We turned in unison to Annette.

  She stepped back, her face still a picture of shock. “I was just baking a cake.”

  “With nitroglycerin?” Roane asked, eyeing her suspiciously, though I doubted the suspicion was aimed directly at her. It was more of a general suspicion. A wariness.

  A master of the deadpan, she speared him with one of her best. “No, that’s a different recipe.”

  “Wait,” I said, making a time-out with my hands. “What do you mean nitroglycerin?”

  “There was nitroglycerin in the oven. It’s all over the kitchen now.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He turned back to me, let his gaze linger, and reiterated his earlier sentiment. “Wolf.”

  Of course.

  He looked at Annette. “Was there anything in the oven when you put the pan in?”

  “No.” She lowered her head in thought. “And I preheated it. If there was anything in there, it would have exploded before I put in the pan, right?”

  “Then how did it get there?” I asked, worry kneading my brows. I edged closer. “Is someone still trying to kill my grandmother?”

  She’d died over six months ago from poisoning. Someone had snuck into the house, a house guarded by two supernatural entities: my departed grandfather, Percival, and the wolf shifter standing before us.

  “No one knows she’s alive,” Roane said.

  That wasn’t entirely true. Her coven knew. And the fact that she had been poisoned without either Percy or Roane knowing suggested the culprit possessed some powerful magics.

  “Could whoever poisoned you, Gigi, have put nitroglycerine in something?”

  “It’s certainly possible, but why nitroglycerine?” she asked. “Even if I didn’t smell it, I would’ve tasted it instantly. I doubt I would have ingested enough to do any damage.”

  “She’s right,” Roane said. “Nitroglycerine is strong. It has a distinct scent. I would’ve smelled it long before now.”

  “So it just showed up?” Annette asked. “Out of the blue? That doesn’t even make sense.”

  She was right. None of this made any sense. The only person new to the house was Minerva, and I doubted she carried nitroglycerine in her backpack.

  I looked over at her. She was back to biting her abused nails, worry lining her flawless face.

  The chief pulled up, skidding his cruiser to a halt behind the Bug. I rather thought he would’ve stayed the night after Gigi had accepted his proposal earlier that evening. It was so romantic, especially since they’d been dating for more than forty years.

  The fact that he was here meant someone called 911. Surely more first responders were on the way. We needed to get Ruthie inside, away from prying eyes since, having died six months ago, she was supposed to still be dead.

  Also, the adrenaline was wearing off and I was in a T-shirt. In Massachusetts. In the middle of November. The cold was beginning to seep into my bones.

  “Ruthie!” the chief said, sprinting toward us, spry for a sixty-something. He pulled her into his arms. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  “Nannette blew up my house.”

  Nannette’s jaw fell open. That happened when being thrown under a bus.

  Roane walked over to me and pulled me into his arms, his embrace warm and inviting. He rubbed my back. “We should probably get you some clothes.”

  I nodded in agreement. Nannette was shivering, too, I thought to myself, giggling on the inside. I was totally getting her a Nannette bracelet. And a Nannette T-shirt. And maybe even a Nannette vanity plate for her car.

  Roane looked at Gigi. “I think you guys should get a hotel for the night. Let me get this cleaned up.”

  “No,” she sa
id. “I’ll just have my granddaughter clear out the smoke. It’ll be fine.” She turned to me, her gaze expectant.

  “Oh. Is that one of my powers? I’m a smoke whisperer?”

  “Defiance,” she said, her tone admonishing, “you are a charmling. If you want to clear smoke, you’ll clear smoke.”

  Great. No pressure. “Is there a spell for that?”

  “I keep telling you, sweetheart, you’re the charmling. I have only the vaguest idea of how you accomplish anything.”

  “Super helpful. Thanks, Gigi.”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “Are you guys okay?”

  We turned to see Parris Hampton standing at the black cast-iron fence that separated our property from theirs. The chief wrapped his jacket around Ruthie’s shoulders and pulled her closer, keeping her from Parris’s view, as Minerva maneuvered herself to block the woman’s line of sight. I knew I liked that girl.

  “We’re okay, Parris,” I said, offering a wave. “The oven threw a tantrum. It’s all good. Hey, Harris.” I waved at her husband as he scurried off to his own house. He lived on Percy’s other side. They maintained separate mansions yet still ended up in bed together several times a week, according to my grandmother.

  “Defiance,” he said with a sheepish wave.

  “Thank goodness everyone is okay,” Parris said. “It sounded pretty bad.”

  Of course it did. Her presence spurred me to get this over with. We needed to get Gigi inside.

  I stepped onto the porch. Most of the smoke had cleared out, but what lingered still watered my eyes and scraped against my throat. Roane stayed beside me as I walked through the house to the kitchen. The oven door hung lopsided off its hinges. Black soot covered the floor, the island in front of it, and the ceiling. It was the only room in the house that had a white ceiling. Until now.

  It made me realize just how dire the situation had been. Nannette could have been killed. If she’d been standing close to the oven, she likely would’ve been. And that infuriated me.

  “Honestly,” I said to Roane, “is someone just fucking with us?”

  “I don’t know, but we need to find out sooner rather than later.”

  He was right. They’d already killed Ruthie once. They could kill her again, I assumed. Or Nannette. Or Minerva. Or Roane. The thought seized the only heart I could lay claim to.

  I was the finder of lost things. Couldn’t a murderer be considered a lost thing? Someone who needed to be found just like a missing loved one would be? Or a missing pet?

  Anger flared inside me. I stormed out of the house, stopped short in front of Ruthie, crossed my fingers in hope, and asked, “Gigi, what are you searching for?”

  She’d blocked me somehow. I’d never been able to penetrate her magics. To see what she most wanted in life. What she was searching for. But she’d been murdered. She wanted to know by whom. Surely she’d let me in now.

  “Defiance,” she said, suddenly confused, “what are talking about?”

  I doubled my efforts. Gazing into her cerulean eyes, I lowered my head and repeated, “Ruthie Ambrosia Goode, what are you searching for?”

  A quivering hand rose to her throat as she said softly, “Defiance, don’t do this.” The veil began to part, just barely, centimeter by centimeter, when she said, “Please.”

  I felt a hand tug at my T-shirt. Minerva. But it was the chief’s loud “Defiance!” his voice hard and stone cold, that jerked me back to the present.

  I looked at him, then back to Ruthie. It hadn’t been an hour earlier that I’d been contemplating just how fast my newfound magics could take hold to a devastating degree, and I’d almost used them on Ruthie. My own grandmother. The woman who’d given up everything to keep me safe. “Gigi,” I said, stepping closer, “I am so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She put a trembling hand on my arm. “Sweetheart, it’s okay.”

  No, it wasn’t. I was about to force her to let me into her most private thoughts. Or try to, at least. To let me see through her and into the veil so that I, the finder of lost things, could see who killed her. But for some unfathomable reason, she didn’t want me ransacking her memories. Tearing through her past. Upending her life. Go figure.

  I’d always considered myself level-headed. I was beginning to question that consideration.

  I backed away from her. “I’m so sorry.” I looked at Annette, who was clearly none too pleased with me either.

  “Daffodil,” the chief said softly to let me know he wasn’t mad, “we need to get your grandmother inside.”

  He was right. Ignoring Parris, who still stood at the fence trying desperately to see the tiny woman in the chief’s arms, I turned back toward Percival. Of course, to do so, I had to look past an equally concerned Roane.

  I gave him my best sheepish expression of apology and thought about what I wanted to accomplish so that I could get it done and hide in my room afterward. I found it quickly. The spell. It appeared in my mind with little effort. It wasn’t so much a smoke-clearing spell as a house-cleansing spell, but it should work.

  I lifted my hand and drew it on the air with two fingers.

  In all reality, the spells pretty much drew themselves. The lines of this one burst to life in front of me. They cracked opened, and a bright hot yellow seeped out, its glow almost blinding. The smoke in the house obeyed its command. It swirled, converging into one billowing mass like a tornado. Then it darted out the front door and into the night air, dispersing above us.

  “Okay,” I said softly to the chief. “It should be safe to go in. Let me distract Parris.”

  He nodded. I looked at Annette for backup, but she was standing there with her mouth parted, staring at… nothing. I followed her gaze to… Percy? The front door? The lantern-shaped bug zapper? Poor little things. I made a mental note not to let my vintage mint-green Volkswagen Beetle anywhere near it.

  I waved a hand in front of her face. “Blink if you’re still in there.”

  “I saw it,” she said, raising her hand to point at… nothing. Again.

  After a thorough examination of the area, I turned back to her, trying desperately not to giggle. She looked like a cartoon character who’d been struck by lightning. Her glasses were still lopsided on her button nose, the turquoise frames barely visible in the starless night. Her bow-shaped lips formed a pretty O as she stood motionless. Her recalcitrant curls a wiry mop on top of her head. She was, in a word, adorable.

  “You saw what, honey?” I asked softly as I patted her back. Rubbed her shoulder. Smoothed her hair as though petting a cat. She hated that.

  It worked. She snapped out of it and slapped my hands away. Then she gazed up at me, her expression full of awe. Or horror. Probably horror. “The light.”

  “The bug zapper? I know. Poor little guys.”

  “No. The spell. I saw it on the air.”

  “Shut the front door.” I gaped at her, but she only nodded.

  She’d never been able to see the light from my spells. Only other blood witches and a handful of people with various mental illnesses could see the spells. Annette had never been able to.

  “Why now?” I asked. “What’s changed?”

  Coming out of her stupor, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Gee, I can’t imagine.”

  “The bird thing?” I squeaked. “Surely not.” I’d only turned her into a bird to save her life. I never imagined there would be other repercussions.

  “I can see them,” Roane said.

  I scowled at him. He was not helping. “You don’t count. You’re a—”

  “A shifter?” Annette asked, pursing her lips, her soot-covered glare accusing.

  Minerva stood staring, too. Or, well, gaping. As a witch with some degree of magics, I wasn’t surprised she’d seen. I was surprised she seemed just as shocked as Annette. I knew, as a charmling, my powers were different from most witches, but I didn’t figure they’d be that different.

  “Daffodil,” the chief reminded us.

/>   “Right,” Annette said, coming to attention. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry,” I said, reiterating. My eighty-something-year-old grandmother—though she didn’t look a day over fifty-nine—was only freezing to death. “Sorry, Gigi.”

  Annette and I walked over to the fence.

  Parris’s lids had rounded to saucers.

  “Sorry we woke you,” I said to her.

  “Oh, no. I was awake. I’m one of those people who only needs about four hours of sleep a night.” Her hazelnut hair hung in tangles over her shoulders, and she wore a thick white robe and fluffy slippers that I would’ve given my left kidney for, as it was the more obstinate of the two.

  “Wow,” I said, blocking her line of sight when she tried to look over my shoulder. “I wish I only needed four hours of sleep.” As opposed to six months.

  “Me, too,” Annette said. “If I don’t get at least eight, I’m a monster.”

  I laughed softly, and my teeth chattered. Nette was about as monstrous as my left pinky toe which, although a little deformed, was hardly vicious.

  “No, but really, what was that?” Parris asked, her eyes glued to the house.

  Annette cringed inwardly. “The oven. There must’ve been a gas leak.”

  “No, not that.” She pointed much like Annette had. “That bright light. Just now.”

  Three

  Question everything.

  Except coffee.

  —Meme

  I stilled for a solid minute before Annette and I exchanged furtive glances. After looking over my shoulder to make sure the chief got Gigi and Minerva inside, I took Annette’s hand in preparation to follow suit. “That was weird, right? That light? I have no idea what that was.”

  “My new 10,000-lumen flashlight,” Roane said, walking up behind us. He draped a blanket over my shoulders and kept his hands there.

  I sank into the warmth of him.

  He pulled me back against him, and added, “Sorry about that, Parris. I accidentally turned it to strobe. I must’ve blinded you with it.”

  “Oh.” Parris hardly seemed convinced, but the bones in my feet were screaming, the cold slicing into them mercilessly as cold was wont to do. “Who was that woman?” she asked, and my lids slammed shut.