Brewing Trouble

by Christine Gael

  “Right,” Zoe agreed. “I want to know if they used real apple cider in the dough. You can always tell.”

  His face fell a little. “No problem. Later, maybe.”

  “What about those old shipping manifests you mentioned yesterday?” Trudy put in. “I still haven’t gotten a chance to look at them.”

  That seemed to do the trick, and Ethan smiled as he turned to her. “I almost forgot. I think they’re back in the reference section, if I’m not mistaken.”

  We watched as he and Trudy wandered off, the librarian casting one last, long glance to the displays in the corner.

  “That must be where the stuff from the velvet box is,” Zoe said in a low voice as she glanced around us surreptitiously.

  “Well, what are we waiting for?” demanded Mee-maw, already rummaging in her bag.

  “What are you doing?” Patrick asked, holding an arm out. “We can’t just use the compass in front of everyone.”

  “You know, hotshot, that’s actually a good point,” Mee-maw acknowledged, and together we began to creep towards the display. “I’ll just take a quick peek,” she added. “Did you work out the kinks in your copycat potion yet, Zoe?”

  “Not yet,” Zoe replied, “but I’m close.”

  We had to assume Ethan would realize pretty quickly that something was missing later that night when he packed up his offerings. And, while arguably the item belonged to Mee-maw and wasn’t technically being stolen, we still felt compelled to make it right with him. The plan was to make a duplicate of Mee-maw’s item once we had it in hand, and then have Trudy tell Ethan she found it in the library a few days after the exhibition cleanup.

  “Close to what?” The sound of a new, all-too familiar voice nearly made me groan, and I slowly turned around to see Marilee Rasmusson approaching us at mach speed.

  “Nothing,” Zoe and I replied in unison.

  “Ooh, okay,” she said, her tone turning conspiratorial, “I get it. Top secret. Is it about the…” Glancing around, she leaned forward and whispered, “Is it about the cult?”

  We all stared at her blankly.

  “Relax, it’s okay!” Marilee cried. “Mitch told me everything. He said something about human sacrifice? Scary stuff!”

  “Marilee,” Zoe said, turning to her, “isn’t it against the law for your husband to be talking about active cases?”

  “Oh, silly Zoe,” Merilee replied, her voice saccharine as she trilled a laugh. “That’s only for doctors and priests. Besides, the case won’t be active after today, anyway.”

  “Listen, Marilee, now isn’t really a good time,” I told her, my patience wearing thin. “How about we catch up later?”

  “No problem, I’m sure you’ve got your mind on other things than silly old me. Good luck with the cult!”

  She said it loud enough to garner a few curious stares, which I ignored.

  As soon as she had sauntered away, I turned back to the others. “Well?” I asked Mee-maw. “Do you sense anything? I’d really like to get out of here before she can corner me like that again.”

  Mee-maw nodded. “Actually, I think so,” she replied, pausing to glance into her bag where the compass was. “I think it’s at that table over there,” she said, jerking her head towards the display closest to the exit.

  “Good,” Patrick said. “Let’s grab it and get out of here. This place is making me uneasy. Too many people.” But just as the words left his mouth, I stopped short and clutched his arm, my whole body going rigid.

  A familiar-looking man stood in the doorway dressed in a dark suit, rocking a pair of black gloves and sunglasses.

  Crap.

  “Cricket?” Patrick asked, looking down at me. “What’s…?” He followed my gaze.

  “Is that…?” Zoe asked, leaning in.

  Patrick gave her a grim nod. “Yup. They either followed us in the Uber, or sent him out on a hunch when they heard about the exhibit. Let’s just hope he’s alone.”

  “What do we do now?” Zoe hissed.

  “We do exactly what we were going to do,” Patrick replied. “But instead of taking the item with us when we leave, we’re going to hide it in the basement and have Trudy get it for us later. They’re definitely going to tail us on the way home, and if there’s another confrontation, we can’t risk letting them get their hands on it. Let’s hurry before he can call for backup, though.”

  I turned to glance at the door again, and then blinked.

  He was gone.

  Frantic, I stood on my tiptoes, trying to catch sight of him again over the sea of people, but it was no use—he was gone.

  And somehow, that was even scarier than if he had stayed.

  What were they up to?

  I wasn’t sure, but things just got a lot more complicated.

  Chapter 20

  “Something isn’t right. I know you always say they won’t make a move with civilians around, Patrick, but I’ve got a bad feeling. We’ve got to get out of here before we put all these people in danger,” I whispered as a chill ran over me, so strong that my hands began to shake.

  No one argued with me.

  I’d barely taken hold of Mee-maw’s arm when the library doors burst open again.

  “Get on the floor, shut up and keep your hands where I can see them!” a voice shouted. “Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.”

  Two men in black ski masks brandishing pistols strided in, making a show of aggression by roughly throwing a nearby man to the ground.

  Too late.

  I dropped to the floor, pulse hammering as I pulled Mee-maw down beside me as gently as possible.

  And icy resignation settled over me as I considered my options, which seemed to have run dry. I couldn’t use my magic in such a public place. Especially when doing so would almost certainly have them firing those pistols if I didn’t manage to take them down.

  My magic was getting stronger, but I still didn’t have the kind of control that left me confident enough to wager the lives of innocent people on it.

  “I said get down!” the man repeated, aiming the weapon into the crowd.

  I heard a thud beside me as Patrick dropped and slung a protective arm around my shoulder.

  At least we were all together.

  I turned my head to the side, watching the “robbers” step carefully through the crowd, one man grabbing items from the displays and shoving them into four massive duffel bags while the other stood a few feet away, pointing his gun at anyone who shifted or seemed like they might try something. The process took all of five minutes, the entirety of which I spent wracking my brain for a good solution to our latest problem.

  I cringed as they began making their way over to us, one of the men seemingly aiming his pistol directly at me.

  Were they planning to use this as an opportunity to kidnap me and steal the object in one go? Would they really risk taking me in front of dozens of people?

  It would be a bold move. One that would likely result in a lot of headaches for the Organization, but they were clearly getting desperate.

  That caused a whole other anxiety. I feared what the others in my group might do if they tried to take me as much as my own kidnapping; would they try to stop them and get killed in the process?

  Mee-maw and Zoe were too valuable to kill, but what about Patrick, Trudy, and Ethan? If the Organization decided to surrender the facade of only harming witches, they were all expendable.

  As the thoughts raced through my head, though, they stepped right by me, to the objects on the table closest to us.

  “They won’t risk it,” Patrick whispered, inches away from my ear.

  I flinched, startled, and realized that I’d been shaking like a leaf. Hopefully, he was right. He had been one of them, after all, and he probably knew how they thought a heck of a lot better than I did.

  Sure enough, once they cleared off the final table, they made their way directly toward the door. I cringed as I heard a rustling sound next to me and found Mee-maw fumbling thr
ough her purse. “Stop!” I hissed. “Let it go.”

  She struggled for a moment longer before going limp with resignation. “I’m going to pop a cap in those bastards one of these days,” she vowed, her tone lethal.

  For a long moment after the doors closed behind them, everyone remained motionless. A few seconds later, the low drone of chatter began.

  “Is everyone okay?” Ethan was calling to the room in general as he helped Trudy to her feet and moved to help the older women closest to them.

  There were murmured yeses as everyone slowly stood, with a mix of bewilderment and anger on their faces.

  I stood, helping my grandmother up, before making my way over to Ethan and Trudy, along with Patrick and Zoe, who was already on the phone with the 911 operator.

  “Are you guys okay?” I asked. But, of course, they weren’t. Not really. Trudy’s cheeks were chalky and Ethan looked stricken and distraught.

  “We weren’t hurt,” Ethan said with a clipped nod. “You guys?”

  Understanding dawned as he shot a glance to Patrick’s hand, which was on the small of my back. A spike of guilt shot through me at the hurt in his eyes. Ethan really was a good man and it was a kick in the gut to know that I’d hurt him, but if I’d ever imagined a world in which we ended up together, the dream had been truly shattered today.

  He’d never had to witness the darkness that inhabited the earth. Who was I to steal that from him? Ethan deserved something lovely. Something easy.

  And me? I was a walking nuclear bomb. Hitching a wagon to me was tantamount to hitching up to a pack of dragons. This wasn’t how I’d wanted to tell him, but the results were the same, regardless.

  There would never be an Ethan and me. My life was way too complicated for normal, now. Assuming I even made it past next week...

  I shook myself out of that line of thinking as Trudy sidled closer to me. We had other things to deal with right now, I’d make things right once we handled things with the Organization.

  “That was really stupid,” Trudy said, wearing her stern librarian face as she glared at Ethan. “You’ve got a little problem with impulse control, don’t you?”

  He blinked at her. “I--”

  “Nobody needs a dead hero, Ethan,” she said waspishly before turning to the rest of us. “I had to practically hold him down when they were taking the stuff. Things are replaceable. People aren’t,” she said, her eyes going suspiciously shiny.

  “Some of those items were one of a kind, so not really. But I’ll get over the artifacts. One of those guys looked twitchy to me. I was afraid he was going to shoot someone,” Ethan admitted with a shrug. “We got through it unscathed, and I’m so grateful.”

  “So what now?” Patrick asked smoothly. “The police are on their way, but Mrs. Hawthorne isn’t feeling well, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to put her through even more stress.”

  Mee-maw opened her mouth to protest, but clearly thought better of it at a pointed glance from Patrick. “Yeah. I’m feeling a fit of the vapors coming on,” she said gruffly, holding a hand to her forehead like a mullet-sporting Scarlett O’Hara.

  Trudy nodded. “Ethan and I will handle the cops. You guys go ahead and call the Uber.”

  Ethan made a confused face, cocking his head at me. “You didn’t bring a car?”

  I opened my mouth to make some excuse but luckily, Zoe walked back over, saving me the trouble. “They’re on their way, shouldn’t be too long and they’ll be taking statements from as many witnesses as they can once they get here.”

  “We have to get Mee-maw home,” I said, pointedly meeting Zoe’s eyes as I continued, “she’s feeling weak, I think she might be having one of her episodes.”

  Mee-maw grumbled, squeezing my arm with displeasure, but said nothing.

  “Yeah, we’d better,” Zoe said, herding us quickly toward the door before Ethan could ask any more questions.

  It was a short and blessedly uneventful ride home, though Mee-maw had spent half of it letting me know exactly how annoyed she was at being treated like some ancient relic in need of protection. The adrenaline had left my body and I was no longer freaking out, but the situation seemed to be a hell of a lot more dire than it’d been less than an hour earlier.

  One moment, we’d been just about to put the entire coven back together with Mee-maw’s item within arm’s reach again, and the next, we were back to square one. At least nobody had been hurt, or worse.

  “Why were you so sure they wouldn’t nab us, or at least me?” I asked, plopping down next to Patrick on the office floor of the bakery.

  “People were willing to put their hands up and lay on the floor for a robbery, but surely there would be a good number who would balk at letting two gunmen drag a woman out right in front of them,” he added. “Plus, the cop guarding the bakery every night is a pretty clear sign that we’ve already spoken to the police. One of us being kidnapped in public would’ve added a lot more credibility to whatever we told them to get them involved in the first place. Most importantly, though, like the prophecy said, they like the cover of darkness. It’s a covert operation. Risking civilian lives in public is reckless. I don’t hold any delusions that they care who they hurt. Not anymore, at least. But the less scrutiny they’re under, the better. That means no human casualties if they can help it. Taking you could’ve triggered a violent encounter.”

  I nodded slowly. That made sense, too, and actually went a long way to soothing my immediate concerns for Lizzie and Jack. So far, the Organization had kept their sights firmly on me and my coven. They’d only burned Greg’s house down because I’d been there, and they wanted to scare me. If they’d wanted to hurt him or the kids, they would’ve.

  I paused a long time before continuing, my voice cracking as I spoke. “We were so freaking close. We only had one more table to look over when they came, and Mee-maw was just beginning to sense her item.” I clenched my fist tight, feeling hopeless. Maybe we could’ve come up with a better plan if I hadn’t been in such a rush.

  “Don’t count us out yet,” Mee-maw said, rummaging in her bag.

  “What do you mean?” Zoe asked.

  “Look!” Mee-maw said, pulling out her delicate golden compass and opening it. The needle was moving slowly to the right as I watched. “They don’t know about this bad boy, right? Which means, they’re basically going to lead us straight to their lair!”

  I stared at the compass for a long moment, stunned that I hadn’t thought of that, but afraid to let myself rejoice just yet. “Patrick, has the Organization ever seen something like our compasses in the past?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” Patrick said, shaking his head, “and my father will almost certainly want the items they just stole close by so he can keep an eye on them personally. The compass will almost certainly lead us to him.”

  Could this awful turn of events actually wind up being the best thing that could’ve happened to us? My mind went back to my partially completed prophecy...If time was ticking, having a path straight to the heart of the Organization and Finneas could speed up our plans considerably. Especially when we’d have the element of surprise on our side.

  “There’s still the problem of how we can actually face them all at once. My father is a cautious man and I’ve rarely seen him without at least a dozen armed guards around him.”

  “What if we lure them away?” Zoe said.

  I cocked my head. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Well, I spent most of the day yesterday working on a new idea I came up with as I was working on my copycat potion,” Zoe said, “and I made a breakthrough in the middle of the night with a batch of lemon bars. So far, they only last a couple hours, but I can work out that kink in the next batch.” She let out a breath and then grinned. “Eating one allows you to take on the appearance of another person, so long as you’re looking at them when you eat it. I’m calling it the doppelganger.”

  She dropped that on us like it wasn’t a bomb.

 
“Are you kidding, Zoe?” I demanded. “That’s amazing. Holy crap.” Her powers had ramped up so much more quickly than mine. Although, she did have the benefit of knowing what was happening to her and leaning into it, as opposed to spending the first couple weeks of her new adventure wondering if she hadn’t lost her mind.

  “That’s pretty amazing,” Patrick said, leaning forward with more enthusiasm than he’d ever shown about magic, albeit tempered by caution. “What exactly is the plan, though?”

  Zoe nodded, holding her head high with pride. “Well, I don’t have it all detailed out yet because I hadn’t thought about the compass leading us straight to them. With that in mind, I’m thinking that the Organization showed that they’re willing to take direct action against us when they went after us at the cemetery, right? They also found out how powerful Cricket is and won’t be likely to send such a small crew after her next time. They need a lot of firepower to take us down now. Why don’t we use that against them? What if one of us disguises ourselves as Cricket, as a decoy, to draw the bulk of the muscle away, while the rest of us use Mee-maw’s compass to locate their Rocky Knoll headquarters and attack Finneas and those left to guard him? If we get Finneas, the whole thing crumbles, right? The head of the snake, and all...”

  “It would certainly weaken them immensely,” Patrick acknowledged carefully.

  “And then we can also get my item!” Mee-maw added.

  “But who is going to pretend to be me? It sounds dangerous.”

  “Not as dangerous as you’d think,” Zoe said. “If what they did last time is anything to go by, they have a whole ritual they need to complete before they can kill you, so we’d have a window. Especially if they wait until midnight like last time. We can time the change back to normal so that they’d know we tricked them before they executed the wrong person.” She lifted her chin and eyed us all stubbornly. “Which makes me the best choice. Mee-maw needs to be on site with you to connect with her item, and I’m the only other one of us with a presumption of safety. They don’t want me hurt until I’ve fully charged my cauldron with power. They have no idea how strong I’ve become already. It’s got to be me.”