Storm a-Brewin'

by Nova Nelson

  Storm a-Brewin’

  (Eastwind Witches 8)

  Nova Nelson

  FFS Media

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  You’re Invited …

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Do you mind?” I mumbled to the ghost reading over my shoulder.

  “What? It’s an interesting read,” he snapped back, but he also gave me a little more space to study.

  With Halloween only a week away, the veil was thinner than a cobweb, and spirits popped in and out of my day, even here, at Medium Rare. It made work even more interesting than it already was.

  As rain pounded the roof, I had the astronomy textbook that Oliver had assigned me open on the countertop, hoping to sneak in some of my studying after the lunch rush. I flipped to the next page.

  “Hey, I wasn’t done with that!” griped the spirit.

  “You know they have a copy of this at the library, right? And you can even turn the pages yourself there.” I pulled my black cardigan closer around my shoulders, shivering. These ghosts had no regard for personal space, and with so many around, I’d resorted to a sweater when I couldn’t have my overcoat, despite the heat from the kitchen.

  Of course, most of the customers couldn’t see the spirits, so I had to keep a low profile about it. It was no secret that I was a Fifth Wind witch and had the ability to commune with the deceased and whatnot, but that didn’t mean the town of Eastwind was comfortable with the fact, so I kept low-key about it.

  Especially when Lot Flufferbum from the Eastwind Watch was camping out at Medium Rare each day, watching me like a hawk.

  I knew what headline he was after and it wasn’t Fifth Wind Studies Astronomy During Shift. It was Missing Piece of Witch’s Circle Discovered.

  Ted, the town’s grim reaper, and Deputy Stu Manchester had been spot on with their assessment that the town would be desperately scrounging for clues as to who the fifth witch of our newly formed circle was. Because Tanner, Donovan, Eva, and I had been seen leaving Sheehan’s Pub together just before Eastwind’s first complete witches circle in three hundred years was formed, it was pretty obvious who four of the five witches were.

  And because a complete circle required one of each type of magic, it didn’t take a genius to figure out which kind of witch to search for. Between the four of us we accounted for East Wind (Donovan), South Wind (Eva), West Wind (Tanner), and Fifth Wind (yours truly).

  The hunt for the North Wind had been conducted mostly in hushed gossip and sharp whispers, but that didn’t make it any less tenacious. And leading the pack was the Watch’s most ambitious assistant chief editor, Flufferbum himself.

  I glanced up from my textbook and gave him my most charming and innocent grin. He scowled.

  I would tell him Landon Hawker was the North Wind of our circle over my dead body. And not just because Lot was a terrible tipper. But maybe a little bit because of that.

  “Do you want me to pee on him?” asked my familiar Grim from underneath the counter. The large black hound must have sensed my thoughts.

  “Yes, want that very much. But no, I don’t want to clean up after you do it.”

  “I could wait until he steps outside and then—”

  “No,” I said, shaking a finger at him. “Bad dog.” “There’d be no point anyway with the rain,” I added through our telepathic connection. “He wouldn’t even notice.”

  “You underestimate the pressure of my stream.”

  “Or maybe you underestimate the intensity of this storm.”

  “That sounds like a challenge.”

  If it was, it was a challenge I didn’t want to issue. I wouldn’t put it past Grim to know how to unload that giant tank of his with more pressure than a fire hose.

  “Maybe some other time,” I added to placate him. “I’m sure Lot isn’t going to change his ways anytime soon.”

  Tanner, who sat across the counter from me, already in his deputy uniform ahead of his night shift, waved to get my attention.

  I blinked. “Yes?”

  He pointed to his coffee mug. “Mind getting an officer of the law another cup of alertness brew?”

  “Of course not.” I returned with the pot of freshly made coffee. “Especially considering it’s the only potion I know how to make.”

  “You’ll get there,” he replied encouragingly, pouring copious amounts of sugar into his drink. “The great thing about brewing potions is that anyone can do it. Sure, witches do it more than anyone else, but you don’t need magic to pull it off. You just need to follow directions and keep your intention laser focused. I mean, look at Stella. She’s the best there is, and pixies aren’t witches.”

  Stella Lytefoot was the top potion master in Eastwind. She’d saved my hide more than once with her concoctions.

  “Ah, see?” I said. “There’s the kicker. I don’t follow directions well.”

  He shrugged. “I guess that’s why you’re the boss.” He saluted me with his mug and a wink before taking a sip, which he immediately spit back into the cup, having forgotten it was still scalding.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing at him and handed him a napkin to dab his chin.

  Yep, that was Tanner, the man I loved and Eastwind’s best hope for lawful protection between the hours of 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., give or take.

  I figured that while I had the pot out, I should make a round of refills for the handful of tables remaining. I headed for Oliver Bridgewater and Zoe Clementine first, not because they were the first on my path, but because someone needed to intervene on the impending PDA.

  There were a lot of useless laws in Eastwind, so the fact that it was legal to give as strong of bedroom eyes to a person in public as Zoe was Oliver and vice versa, well, that was beyond my comprehension.

  “Coffee?” I said, already leaning across Zoe to grab her cup and break the intense eye contact before either could reply.

  “Oh, um, thanks, Nora,” said Oliver. “How’s the studying going?”

  “I would say magical, but astronomy is the opposite of magical.” While it was interesting, I’d expected a little less science when I’d asked Ruby to teach me about the stars.

  “It’s not astrology,” he said, “that’s for sure. But you need to know both halves of the story when it comes to the night sky. You need to know what a comet is, and you need to know what it means when a comet passes through the Sangretta constellation. Since I’m not a Fifth Wind, I can only teach you the first part. Ruby has the second handled, I’m sure.”

  “Yep.” If our grueling late-night lessons were any indication, Ruby believed that the best thing for me was to learn astrology or die trying. I was closer to the latter than the former.

  However, with the rain coming in the day before and showing no signs of letting up in the near future, I might actually catch a break and get to skip my astrology practicum, since the clouds would obscure the necessary view I needed to connect with the stars.

  Piquing Oliver’s nerdier interest worked like a charm, if that charm specifically poured a bucket of cold water over him. As he began prattling on about the doppler shift to Zoe and I saw her eyes cross just a little, I knew my work there was done.

  “Warm
up?” I asked, approaching the corner booth that was unofficially reserved for Ted.

  The grim reaper paused. “Sure. What’s an eighth cup? Already had seven.”

  “That much caffeine doesn’t make you jittery?”

  “Doesn’t affect me at all. I just like the taste. And it gives me a reason to linger in the same spot all day without making everyone too nervous. Heh.”

  Did he really think a mug of hot coffee could keep him from giving everyone the creeps? That it would somehow counteract the crackle and pop of his skeleton every time he moved or the mysterious black hood that obscured his face or the fact that he carried with him a scythe and a cloud of morbidity that made everyone keenly aware of their own mortality when they got within spitting distance of him?

  But Ted was a nice guy and I had a newfound respect for him ever since he’d helped me banish the archetype a week before, so I didn’t mention any of that.

  “You’re here later than usual,” I said. “You usually clear out right after lunch.”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, as if that was a sufficient answer.

  “Well, what? Afternoon plans canceled?”

  “Oh no, not that at all. The opposite. I think I might have some important business to attend to.”

  Considering his job was to clean up after a death and then serve as afterlife GPS to the deceased, that didn’t bode well.

  “Where?” I asked, trying not to let my anxiety show.

  “It could be nothing,” he said. “I get pulled toward a location when the threat of death is looming, but it doesn’t always come to pass. Fingers crossed. Heh.” He lifted one of his gloved hands, crossing his fingers, which cracked dryly.

  “Where, Ted?” I asked more sternly.

  The reaper fidgeted in his seat. “Nearby. Not sure exactly. For all I know, it could be the Deadwoods.”

  “Not that I don’t trust you, but that smells like unicorn swirls to me.”

  “Truly, Nora. If I knew with a certainty that someone was about to die in Medium Rare, I would tell you.”

  “Would it help stop it from happening?”

  “Oh ghoul’s grime, no. But at least you’d be able to mentally prepare.”

  Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t me on the chopping block. I knew from experience there was no way to prepare for your own death.

  “Would you like the check, then?” I said. “You know, since you might have to skedaddle out of here in a hurry with a body in tow.”

  “Yes, please.”

  I already had it in my apron and set it on the table, glimpsing the curtain of rain rolling off the roof, obscuring everything beyond it, despite there being a few hours left before sunset.

  The front door jingled, pulling me out of my quick reverie, and I smiled at Fiona Sheehan, a rosy-cheeked, orange-haired leprechaun, as she entered the diner and took a seat at the countertop next to Tanner.

  “I’ll start some water,” I said as I passed. She preferred tea over coffee, and seeing as how she regularly served me so many good drinks where she worked at Sheehan’s Pub, I figured it was the least I could do to keep the loose leaf she preferred on hand.

  She was a new regular at Medium Rare, and I was glad to have her, even if her recurring visits had less to do with our food and more to do with eating somewhere she knew neither Ansel Fontaine nor Darius Pine would be. Things were a bit awkward with them after the love spell that overtook Eastwind had brought the two werebears to blows over their rekindled passion for her.

  Strangely enough, the whole debacle had only brought her and Jane, Ansel’s wife, closer together, commiserating over how barbaric and annoyingly territorial men could be. “Jane should be in here in an hour,” I said, dropping off her tea.

  “No worries. Mostly just want to get out of the house with all this rain. Making me a little stir crazy.” She lifted the top of the teapot and inhaled, moaning quietly. “This hits the spot.”

  “You working tonight?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but not for a few hours. Kelley has the early shift.”

  I returned to my textbook as Fiona and Tanner struck up a conversation about a new recipe for sleeping draughts Stella had published in the paper the week before.

  But I was hardly a paragraph into the characteristics and behaviors of red giants before Eva set a stack of dirty plates down on the counter next to me just a little too hard. The clatter made me jump. I looked up to see if I could help her with something. She scowled at a threesome of fifty-something werewolves (bitches, to be precise, though I still wasn’t in love with that term despite it not being considered offensive in Eastwind) as they gabbed to each other in a booth, finishing up the last of their meal.

  “I swear,” Eva said, “why even come here if you hate witches so much?” She turned to me. “It’s like they drop in just for the sport of talking down to me and dropping racist jabs.”

  Although Eva was black, I knew she didn’t mean “racist” in the sense that it applied back in our old world. What color anyone was in Eastwind was irrelevant when it came to bigotry. The kind of creature they were, however …

  Tanner paused in his conversation with Fiona. “Don’t worry about those old biddies at table five,” he said, waving them off. “Gladys was more than happy to have a witch respond to her emergency owl last week when she thought someone had cursed her shower to keep it from getting hot.”

  “Someone cursed her shower?” I asked.

  Tanner sipped his coffee then shook his head. “Just your average plumbing problem.”

  “Listen, Eva,” I said, “if they get too rude, just let me know and I’ll ask them to leave.”

  She waved it off on a deep exhale. “Nah. I’ve dealt with worse. It just seems a little more, I dunno, obvious than usual lately.”

  “Because it is,” I said. “Can you blame them with how hard the Coven is backing that dumb Werewolf Protection Act lately? I’d be grouchy, too, if I thought the government was trying to pass laws that took away my rights.”

  “Maybe,” said Tanner, “but you wouldn’t be such a hag about it to others.”

  If I started kicking out every were who showed hostility toward myself or Eva solely for being witches, Medium Rare would go out of business from lack of clientele. That was the tricky thing about being a witch-owned establishment in a werewolf part of town.

  “I think what’s the most upsetting,” said Eva, “is the weres that are trying to be polite, but I can tell from the way they look at me that they just don’t trust me like they used to.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. The Flannerys had always been kind and open, but even they had started to give me side eye. “Which is why we have to keep serving them,” I reminded her. “Every positive interaction we have is a win for all witches. We’re in a unique position. I know it sucks right now, but in how many other places can you find witches and weres spending so much time in close quarters nowadays?”

  “It’s true,” Tanner said. “That was part of why Bruce Saxon, rest in peace, hired me in the first place.”

  When Tanner said “rest in peace” I knew it was more an order than a blessing; Bruce’s ghost had come back twice since he’d been murdered, and we were all hoping he’d stay gone this time. But perhaps he was also trying to be respectful, seeing as how Fiona had been secretly dating Bruce back when he was killed.

  “Bruce always wanted this to be a place anyone could come and feel welcome,” Tanner continued.

  Fiona nodded. “He was proud of it. We try to do that at Sheehan’s as well. But the tension has become palpable everywhere. Bar brawls are reaching all-time highs, and I’m not even talking about the ones from the love spell.” She cleared her throat, obviously embarrassed to have brought up that sensitive subject.

  Eva jumped in. “It’s like you said, Nora. Places like here and Sheehan’s are more important than ever. Back in New Orleans, sure, there was a lot of tension between races and classes, but the only time I ever saw it improve was when people had to com
e face-to-face with those they claimed to hate. Nothing like proximity to force people to get over themselves.”

  “And the ones who can’t manage it leave,” I said regretfully. “Speaking of which, you reckon the Bouquets will ever pay us another visit?”

  Tanner chuckled. “Don’t tell me you’re sad they don’t come anymore. There are few things I can depend on more than you rolling your eyes as soon as you turn your back on a conversation with Hyacinth.”

  Sure, the elf wasn’t my favorite person, but I’d always thought her werewolf husband, James, had liked me well enough.

  “She’s not the best conversation, no,” I conceded, “but I’d take her gossiping and intrusion to my personal life over Flufferbum’s intense stare.”

  Tanner glanced over his shoulder at the assistant chief editor, giving him a friendly wave before turning back. “Eek. Yeah.”

  I leaned over the counter so my rude question wouldn’t be overheard. “What is he anyway? Witch? Were? Something else entirely?” I was still terrible at this guessing game, but Tanner and Fiona understood and didn’t judge.

  “Were-beast,” Tanner said. “Werebunny, to be exact.”

  I could feel my right eye twitch as I tried not to laugh. “You’re joking, right?”

  Tanner shook his head. “No, why?”

  “Oh, come on. Werebunny can’t be a thing.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  I looked at Eva, who appeared equally incredulous, before addressing Fiona. “Is he telling the truth?”

  “Yep.”

  I leaned to the side to take in the sight of Lot again, this time through new eyes. A werebunny? “Yeah, I guess I could see it,” I said.

  Tanner shivered. “It’s like he thinks if he stares at us without blinking long enough, he’ll discover who the fifth witch is.”