by Nova Nelson
The man caught me and stared at me with well-deserved shock on his face.
This wasn’t James. In fact, this wasn’t anyone I’d seen before. The man was around my age with blue eyes that cut through the dim afternoon muck and a sharp, hooked nose. A few blond locks could be glimpsed underneath the yellow hood, and as he leaned over, still cradling me across his arms, raindrops rolled off the edge of his hood, splashing me in the cheek. “Sorry!” I said, blinking the water from my eyes. “I thought you were someone else.”
He laughed and helped me back onto my feet. “I think this is how every great romance starts.”
Um, creepy and no thanks.
I forced a smile and a single “Ha!”
“Fate brings two people together and the rest is history,” he prompted, but I wasn’t interested for so many reasons, it would take me until Christmas to list them all.
“Sorry, I don’t read much romance.” I reached down to straighten my overcoat only to realize one of the buttons had popped off. “For fang’s sake!” I looked around for it for only a minute—the dang thing was charcoal gray, and it was just as likely that it’d already floated away on one of the tiny cobblestone rivers as it was that it was completely blended in with the stone and dirt.
I didn’t want to linger too long around him. He’d probably think this was some stalling tactic to give him a window to ask me to dinner.
I apologized to the stranger and hurried back to Grim, who’d just grabbed the wrapped package of sausages. “What did I tell you? Drop it. Drop! It! Bad dog!” When I took a swat at his muzzle, both annoyed at him for never listening and humiliated for running at the stranger, he jumped back and his tail shot between his legs.
“I was just grabbing it for you! So we could take them home!”
“Unicorn swirls!” I snatched it off the ground where he’d dropped it. The paper was soggy in my hands. “Let’s get out of this rain.”
“What happened with James?”
“It wasn’t him.”
“You’re telling me two people were stupid enough to get swindled into that banana abomination of a raincoat?”
“I guess so.”
Grim shook his giant head, spraying me with water droplets. But I didn’t care—I was already soaked through and hadn’t bothered to open my umbrella after retrieving it.
“I tell ya,” he said. “It’s fashion trends like that that make me glad I get to run around buck naked.”
Chapter Fourteen
My astronomy textbook sat open on the parlor table in front of me, turned to a page on galaxy clusters, but I couldn’t get my eyes to stick to it.
I still had a large towel wrapped around my head and shivered despite the warmth from the orange flames of Ruby’s fireplace. Grim had been allowed inside only when I’d lobbied for him, saying he’d been a good boy today and kept me safe.
Ruby had eyed him suspiciously, and I thought I heard her threaten to curse him if he shook off near her.
So, as my eyes and mind dodged everywhere but my assigned reading, Grim snoozed by Clifford next to the fire, drying himself off with the heat, nearly catatonic after the pound and a half of raw bacon he’d consumed.
Ruby sat across from me, patiently sewing a new button onto my overcoat that she had wrung nearly a gallon of water from when I’d first returned home. She’d then used a drying spell on it, which she explained she couldn’t use on me because it would suck all the water from my body and I would end up looking like a dried husk.
And I would be very dead.
So I’d settled on dry PJs and a towel for my hair.
“How did the inspection go today?” she asked without looking up from her work.
“Bad. I failed again.”
“Of course you did, dear. It was rigged.”
“What?” I straightened and stared across the round wooden table at her. “How do you know that?”
“I assume it was Alfred that conducted the inspection?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “He’s been a little puppet of Cordelia’s for quite some time. Sniveling witch knows he lucked out matching with a circle of such powerful figures in Eastwind.”
“You mean outside of the mayor?”
Ruby nodded. “Pierce Linstrom is the Executive Director of the Parchment Catacombs, and Horace Frig is the Coven’s lawyer.”
“Oh, wow.” And Alfred was just a city safety inspector. “I guess it makes sense, then.”
“Of course it does. While I don’t know what long game the mayor is playing this time, it doesn’t surprise me that it involves keeping Medium Rare closed. She’s always hated the place. Back when Bruce and Jane first filed for a business permit, she did everything in her power to keep it from happening. I don’t know the full story, of course. I just assumed she was trying to prevent a couple of werewolves from the Outskirts from finding a little success in their lives. Seems like her.”
As much as I got a rush from Ruby’s trash talking, there was something else weighing heavy on my mind, a strange string of inconsistencies that each seemed to be leading back to one source.
I filled Ruby in on the details of what had happened in the diner and at Sheehan’s. She knew the basics, of course. It was all the town was talking about and even she couldn’t stay separate from it. As much as she tried to never leave the house, she did occasionally have to go buy more tea from the apothecary, which was a half-mile walk from her house, easily.
And then I told her about what I’d seen through the Bouquets’ living room window.
When I was done, she said, “First, that’s some Grade-A snooping, dear, and I’m quite proud of you. I used to be quite the skilled snoop in my day. If only I could manage to go so unnoticed now.” She sighed. “I can tell by the way you told those events that you seem to think they’re related. Let’s hear it.”
I shrugged. I did think they were related. The relation was where I was stumped. “My first guess would be possession, but I didn’t notice any signs on Efarine or Ansel. But then again, I wasn’t looking for them. And possession doesn’t explain why Ansel would have been in the Bouquet’s house.”
“Spirits aren’t the only thing that can overtake a man’s brain, you know.” She nodded down toward her lap.
My upper lip curled. That was the last thing I wanted to believe. The idea of a malevolent spirit possessing random Eastwinders and making them commit violent acts against others was still more desirable than the scenario where my best friend’s husband was cheating on her with a pretentious elf. “Of course I know that. You think it might be unrelated then? That he was possessed in Sheehan’s, the possession ended, and then he ran off to Hyacinth?”
Ruby shrugged.
“Wait,” I said. “Jane mentioned that she’d had an argument with him after Sheehan’s and he wasn’t making any sense. Maybe he was still possessed.”
Ruby sighed heavily. “Believe whatever you want, Nora. It doesn’t seem like you have enough information to form a sound conclusion anyway, so you might as well do what makes you happy.”
I planned on doing just that until I could dig up something more, but I had one last theory to run by her. “Is it possible a witch put Efarine and Ansel under a spell?”
“That’s always possible. But I believe the kind of magic you’re talking about is too powerful for any normal witch to do on her own. I’d say witchcraft is out on this one.”
That didn’t rule out magic completely, though. After all, witches weren’t even the most powerful beings in Eastwind. “Could it be Liberty or Emagine you think?”
She pulled through the last stitch, tied a swift knot, and tugged the string to break it. “Nobody knows the limits of a genie’s power, but I would guess it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that they’re able to control another much like a possession. Here’s what I would ask you, though: why would they do it?”
“No clue. I haven’t even seen either one of them in days. I’m pretty sure they just lock thems
elves up in their genie palace and, you know, make magic all day.”
She nodded. “I’m pretty sure you’re right. Lucky devils.”
The image of Ruby tangled up with Ezra Ares in bed leapt into my mind like a war flashback.
“So then, who is behind it?”
Ruby chuckled. “If I were a completely unbiased observer and this was all up to me to solve, I know who I would direct the sheriff to.”
Ruby was so good at this, it wasn’t fair. I realized how lucky I was to have another Fifth Wind to help out from time to time. “Who?”
She stuck the needle in the pin cushion and hung the overcoat on the back of the empty chair next to hers before looking up at me and saying, “You.”
“Me?!” I almost fell out of my seat. “Why would it be me?”
“Admittedly the motive is still fuzzy, but the means and opportunity are there. I said no normal witch could do it, but as you’re finding out more and more each day, Fifth Winds aren’t normal. Not by any stretch. Our magic isn’t earth magic like all the rest. It’s spirit magic. We draw from a different fount. And if we’re talking possession or capturing control of someone’s spirit, we’re not talking earth magic.” She waved it all off with a quick swish of her hand. “Of course, I’m not an objective observer, and I know you and where you are in discovering your powers, so I don’t believe you have the know-how to control anyone like that.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. It wouldn’t be the first time Ruby underestimated how deeply I’d tapped into my magic.
“Not at all.” She leaned forward, stretching across the table to place a hand on mine. “I’m trying to make you feel better, dear. That’s what you want, right? In reality, I do think you’re among the most likely suspects, but far be it from me to give two tarantula turds what you do in your free time.”
She let go of my hand and pushed up from her chair. “Tea?”
“You wouldn’t care if I spent my free time committing acts of terrorism against local establishments?”
“As long as you don’t bring it home with you, not really. And for what it’s worth, just because I think you’re a likely suspect doesn’t mean I think you did it. After all, why would you order Ansel to stick you in a witch’s snare? You could have died!”
I could have, if Tanner hadn’t shown up. His well-timed appearance still left me curious, but I decided against mentioning it to Ruby. Part of me didn’t want to know about any more new powers I might have tonight.
Things were getting strange, because when I tried to connect the dots now, I realized Ruby was right. Only one person stood at the center of the disparate data: me.
Chapter Fifteen
With the diner still closed, I had my first opportunity to get a great night’s sleep in months. I crawled in bed just after seven with a novel borrowed from Ruby’s extensive collection (it wasn’t half bad), and I even made it three pages in before I passed out on my pillow.
And yet, when I woke up at eight o’clock the next morning from Grim pawing me because his tank was full and he needed to be let out, I didn’t feel rested at all.
Had I suffered exhausting dreams? I couldn’t recall any. Stress dreams were nothing new for me—sometimes I’d wake up with my heart racing, having been reminded by my subconscious that I forgot to clean out one of the coffee pots at work or that someone had asked off and I’d forgotten to schedule someone else to fill the spot. I could see how not having work, how disrupting my regularly scheduled program could throw my mind into a frenzy of anxiety, and yet …
I couldn’t remember any dreams.
Eh, maybe it was just hormones. You never really can account for those things.
I padded stiffly down the stairs to let out the death omen (which sounds like it should be a euphemism but isn’t). Ruby was already lounging in her chair, her tea on the table beside her, her crocheted blanket over her lap, and a book in her hand.
I leaned against the door frame, waiting for Grim, and he returned a minute later, high stepping through the wet grass. I don’t think he knew I was watching him. If only his old hellhound buddies knew he didn’t like putting his pads in wet grass. He shook off the morning’s light drizzle from his coat on the front porch before coming in to remind me that it was breakfast sausage time.
“Knock it off,” Ruby grouched at him as he proceeded to howl excitedly about his breakfast. Then she raised her cup and asked, “Mind heating up another kettle?”
“Sure. You want a sausage?”
“No, I’m fine. Already had my bacon.”
Grim whined at having slept through a prime begging opportunity. “Oh, come on. You’re getting sausage. How are you going to whine about missing bacon?”
“How are you not?”
“Didn’t you have a month’s worth of bacon yesterday?”
“Yes, and it’s only heightened my appetite. I’m bloodthirsty, you know.”
“Right. How could I forget?” The image of him high-stepping through the wet grass popped up again. So bloodthirsty.
Ruby squinted at me. “You look like you didn’t sleep a wink. Our conversation got to you more than I thought it would. Well, I suppose it makes sense. Being a Fifth Wind means living in constant fear of your own abilities. The sooner you get used to it the better.” She went back to her reading, and I went back to breakfast.
As Grim was laying out an in-depth explanation of why he should get the entirety of Ruby’s unwanted sausage, there was a knock at the door.
I took a mental inventory, recalled that it was four knocks, and went to answer it.
Tanner stood on the doorstep, still in full uniform, looking more exhausted than I felt. He must have just gotten off his shift.
“Hey, handsome,” I said, rocking onto tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips. I must have caught him off guard, because he jerked away and didn’t kiss me back. Hmm. “Come on in.” As he trudged past me, I added, “You’re in luck; we have an extra sausage to spare.”
“Don’t make me murder pretty boy,” Grim said.
Tanner looked down at my familiar as he entered the parlor. “What’s he growling about?”
“Not sure,” I said. “He ate a lot of raw bacon yesterday. Maybe he’s hallucinating.”
Tanner held a copy of the paper in his hand and tossed it onto the table with a slap. “Bad news.”
Ruby looked up from her book. “Oh great, just how I like to start off my day.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He pulled out a chair from the table and flopped down into it. “The vote took place.”
“Vote on what?” I asked, still groggy.
“The Safe Haven laws.”
My stomach dropped. “It passed?”
He nodded.
“Oh, for fang’s sake,” spat Ruby from the corner. “Just when I think the High Council can’t stick its head farther up its—”
“Who voted in favor?” I demanded.
Tanner lifted the paper, reading off the front page and adding his own commentary as he went. “Mayor Esperia—obviously—Siobhan Astrid—not a huge shocker—Darius Pine—rather disappointing—and strangely enough, Quinn Shaw.”
“Count Malavic, Liberty Freeman, and Octavia Pantagruel opposed, then?”
He nodded.
Wow, I hadn’t expected to feel so much affection for Sebastian Malavic. “Do you think Ansel’s behavior had anything to do with Darius’s vote?”
Tanner shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Tanner cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, it was in the deep, practiced tone he reserved for his job or when he spoke to another man he thought was giving me the eyes. “Hey, question. Do you, um, remember seeing me last night?”
I laughed. “What? When?”
He watched me closely, as if trying to make up his mind. “You really don’t remember it?”
An unsettling air had settled on the parlor. “Remember what, Tanner?” His gaze darted briefly to Ruby, as if he wasn’t sure
he should say with her in the room.
“Oh, please,” she said. “If you’re embarrassed by some late-night liaison you two had, don’t mind me. I’ve heard—and done—it all before.” She settled back down into the book in her lap.
“No, it’s not that,” Tanner said quickly. His confident presence was slipping, and he chewed his bottom lip as he stared at me. “I stopped by the Bouquets’ last night to check in like we’d talked about.”
“Oh. Good. And?”
He opened and shut his mouth a few times before finally spitting it out. “And you were there.”
I was poking the sausages with a fork as he’d spoken. “Huh?!” I whirled around, holding the pan, and the sudden jerk caused hot grease to slosh out and onto the floor and my bare feet.
I haphazardly tossed the pan back onto the fire as I let loose a string of curse words I’d brought with me from my old life.
As I danced around, trying to fling off the scalding liquid, Grim sprinted toward me, tongue first.
“No, bad dog!” I yelled as he slobbered all over my toes.
“Oh great goddess! It’s so hot! Burns the tongue!”
“Then stop licking it!” I shouted, trying to free my feet of his slobber.
“Can’t … stop … too … savory …”
I was just about to grab him by the scruff and try to pull him back for his own good when I remembered what had caused me to spill the hot grease all over myself to begin with.
I stepped out of the kitchen, allowing Grim more space to neurotically lick the same square foot of the floor while whimpering over his loss of self-control, and approached Tanner, who’d watched the scene unfold, seemingly embarrassed for everyone involved.
“What do you mean you saw me at the Bouquets?”
He blew out a long breath and adjusted his duty belt at his waist, a move I’d seen Stu Manchester do every day he came into Medium Rare before or after his shift. “I mean, I knocked on the door and James answered. I told him I was just dropping by to see how the move went, and before he could answer, you appeared behind him. You telling me you don’t remember that?”