Owl's Fair (The Owl Star Witch Mysteries Book 2)

by Leanne Leeds

  “Oh, sure.” Nutmeg nodded. “Just give them water from the opposite well.”

  “I got it!” Archie shouted from the trees above us. “I’ll go get it! I’ll be right back!”

  “Be back?” Rex looked up. “That owl certainly is quiet.” Looking down, he tilted his head. “Which well is the opposite well? Is it from the men’s well or the women’s well? Aren’t they completely different?”

  “Totally different.” Nutmeg nodded.

  “Not even remotely different other than location. They’re springs,” Windsong snorted and glanced at the other pixie. “They’re both pulling up water from the same underground aquifer.” She smiled at me. “Just give them water from the spring without pixie dust. They’ll be fine.”

  “That’s blasphemy!” Nutmeg told the other pixie.

  “Maybe. Still true.” Windsong shrugged.

  Nutmeg’s eyes went wide and she gave a strangled little squeak.

  “Now that we’ve settled that, I have one tiny wrench to throw in your well-thought-out conclusion, Astra,” Rex said, turning. “It’s a small one. Just a small point.”

  “Oh?”

  “Amethyst Cloudspirit had no idea Meryl Hawkins and Paul Wakefield were having an affair. None. She was as surprised as Nutmeg and Windsong,” Rex said. “Maybe even more.”

  “Why didn’t you say something earlier?” I asked, frustrated.

  He paused for a moment, staring at me.

  Then the vampire threw his head back and laughed.

  “What the heck is so funny?”

  Rex tried to say something, but he started laughing again. I was starting to think that he was having some kind of weird vampire seizure when he caught his breath and wiped the tears from his eyes.

  “What is wrong with you?” I asked, thunderstruck at his reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, finally getting a hold of himself. “I shouldn’t laugh. You’ve been busy. It’s nothing.” Waving a hand, the vampire gestured toward Nutmeg and Windsong—who were now snickering.

  “He’s right. Totally nothing,” Windsong agreed.

  Despite my utter lack of comprehension regarding what the heck was so funny, Rex’s laughter was kind of contagious, and I smiled in spite of myself. “Really. Come on, tell me,” I asked again, my tone friendly. “What’s nothing?”

  “It’s nothing. I promise,” he said, wiping red-tinged tears from his eyes.

  “You don’t want to know, anyway,” Nutmeg explained.

  “Yes, because we’re laughing at you.” Windsong nodded. “So it’s probably better we don’t tell you.”

  Rex burst into a fresh round of laughter.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After the pixies and the vampire finished laughing at me, Rex and I took off after Amethyst Cloudspirit. The indignant pixie, according to Rex, was mono-focused on one thing—finding Meryl Hawkins. It didn’t take us long to catch up with the sprite on the edge of the swamp. Eventually, after a short trip, me in the vampire’s arms, we found her pacing a remote stretch of road.

  “Stupid woman thinks she can make a fool out of me,” Amethyst muttered. Her arms dangled at her sides as she moved, eyes wide and searching. Every so often, the pixie tensed, her hands clenching, and her knuckles turning white.

  “She keeps looking in that direction,” I whispered to Rex. The two of us crouched low behind a boulder so large the Angel of Death would have mistaken it for his own oversized tombstone.

  “I think she’s waiting for Meryl,” he whispered back.

  We stayed there, quiet. Only the sounds of crickets and the hooting of owls broke the silence. I glanced up. The hint of light in the clouds reminded me that Rex’s help was getting close to expiring. “Do you have somewhere to sleep tomorrow?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “Emma’s place has a basement.”

  “Is it comfortable?” I asked. Rex stared at me with a strange look on his face. “Just making small talk.”

  He shrugged. “If you like damp stone walls, I suppose it’s fine. Look.” Rex pointed. “There’s a car coming.”

  I looked out onto the street. A car drove up to the curb and stopped. Its headlights were off like it was trying to avoid being seen, but I could tell it was a large black SUV. The driver opened the car door with such a ferocious shove I could hear the metal complaining from my hiding spot.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Meryl snapped at Amethyst before both feet were on the ground. “Why would you call me? We shouldn’t be seen together, and we certainly shouldn’t have cell phone records tying the two of us. For a paranormal being, you’re not the smartest tack in the box, are you?”

  “Don’t you talk to me that way!” Amethyst fumed. “There is no aspect of your plan that has worked the way you said it would. Not one! Alice is still alive. Pistachio is still the chieftain. She and that detective are in the witch’s house surrounded by a gaggle of teen paranormals and the high priestess of a freaking war goddess! A war goddess, I might add, that decided at some point the person I want dead shouldn’t die.”

  “Calm down, Amethyst,” Meryl warned the pixie.

  “Calm down? The most I’ve been able to do is shrink some fuel injectors, and what did that accomplish? Exactly nothing.” The pixie stepped up to the reporter. “You’re not the mastermind you think you are.”

  “Your stupid pixie elixir isn’t the be-all-end-all of magical roofies that you claimed it was,” Meryl spat back. The reporter leaned forward, shaking her finger in the pixie’s face. “They were supposed to be controlled, not so ridiculously loopy that everyone knew something was wrong! How did you think that was going to work?”

  “I didn’t tell you to pour a gallon down the police woman’s throat!” The pixie had an angry light in her eyes, so angry it practically glowed.

  “Well, now we have a detective that’s too drunk on pixie elixir to be controlled. Alice is loopy because she’s next to the potion-soaked detective, so much so they know she’s messed up, too—”

  “The witch already spoke to Pistachio. She and that vampire probably know everything. Which is more than I knew two hours ago.” The pixie pointed a finger at the reporter and fumed with an almost unimaginable intensity. “Why didn’t you tell me you were having an affair with Paul Wakefield?”

  Meryl rolled her eyes. “The vampire and witch probably know everything? And you want to talk about who I’m sleeping with. I swear, Amethyst, you’re going to give my ulcers a workout.” The reporter groaned, rubbing one of her fists to her temple. “Look, we can still salvage this. It’ll just be a longer game, that’s all. It may take us a few more months—”

  “Months?” Amethyst’s face twisted into fury, and then, all at once, she seemed to deflate. With an exasperated sigh, she covered her face with her hands. Removing them a second later, she glared at her companion. “If you think I’m going to continue to help you without getting the satisfaction that I deserve—especially since you are lying to me—you have another think coming,” the pixie said dryly. “I signed up for this to unseat Pistachio, become the pixie chieftain, kill Alice Windrow for all she took from me, and to bring the pixies out of the swamp and into a luxurious condominium.” She crossed her arms. “One of those things needs to happen tonight, or I will take my frustration out on you, human.”

  “It’s not easy trying to take over a multi-million dollar corporation, you twit,” Meryl responded arrogantly despite the apparent threat the pixie had just issued. “You may have magic water in your world, but in my world? Stealing millions of dollars and actually getting to keep it involves some planning. Finesse. Patience.”

  “You stole the money to blame Paul Wakefield easily enough.” Amethyst turned and looked at Meryl’s vehicle. “Nice SUV. An Escalade, no? What do those run these days?” Meryl’s face remained impassive. “I may live in a swamp, but I’m not an idiot. You took it for yourself. I want my own satisfaction tonight, or this partnership ends.”

  Rex and I looked at each other. “
Should we grab them?” he whispered. Before I could answer, Meryl responded.

  “Fine. We can go by my house and pick up a knife that I took off of one of the cops at the station,” Meryl told the pixie. “It should frame him well enough for the murder.” She turned and walked toward her car. “Well, murders. We should kill the detective, as well, if she’s in the same place as Alice. That will send the cops scrambling every which way. Especially after I write articles accusing them of corruption.”

  Amethyst looked dubious. “That home and those women are under the protection of the goddess Athena—”

  “Stop being so superstitious. If the gods had any real power, we would’ve been stopped a long time ago. Get in.” Meryl slid into the driver seat, and the pixie complied, quickly shutting the door behind her.

  Rex’s tension as they drove away was off the charts. I was impressed that he had any self-control whatsoever while listening to two women casually discuss murdering his sister. Once they were gone, we stood up.

  “So, this was all about money and revenge.”

  “I got news for you, Rex. It’s usually about money and revenge.” I looked at Rex. “I assume we can get there way ahead of them if you take us?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay. I have an idea. Archie?” I called toward the tops of the trees. The owl had been quiet the whole time, but I knew, somehow, he was there. “You’re here, right?”

  “Here!” A voice called down from somewhere in the trees.

  “Give us the water, and go tell Pistachio what’s going on. Tell him not to go in the house until the lights are on. That’s really important, Archie. Really, really important.”

  “Got it!”

  The owl flew down and dropped two leather pouches of liquid from his talons. Without stopping to talk or make snarky comments, he launched off my arm and flew silently into the night.

  I jumped into Rex’s arms and explained my plan as we headed at breakneck speed to Arden House.

  Rex effortlessly leaped toward my mother’s window.

  We just didn’t have time to spare.

  “Mom, I need you to wake up,” I called as the two of us scrambled in her bedroom window. Once in, I tossed the water to Rex and pointed toward the hallway. “Let me know if it doesn’t work.” He nodded and took off toward Emma and Alice.

  “What time is it?” she asked sleepily.

  “Late. Or early. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Come on, get up. You, too, Aunt Gwennie.” I raced over to my aunt’s bed and shook her awake. “Get up. I need you guys to take down the wards. No, don’t turn that light on!”

  “Astra, have you lost your mind?” my mother asked huffily, her arm midway toward the lamp. Mom dropped her head back on her pillow. “It’s the middle of the night. Now get back into your bed this instant. Your aunt and I will help you in the morning.”

  “I haven’t been to bed yet,” I told her. “Come on. Hurry.”

  A delicate snore escaped my mother’s parted lips.

  Oh, come on!

  I raced toward her bed, then shook my mother’s shoulder, causing her to wake again with a start. In the darkness, I could see my aunt get out of her bed. “What is it, Astra?” Aunt Gwennie asked sleepily.

  “Meryl and Amethyst, a pixie, are on their way over here to try and murder Alice and Emma. I need you to keep the lights off and hide and be quiet and let them try. After taking the wards down, I mean,” I explained quickly.

  “You need us to what now?” Aunt Gwennie stared at me. “Astra, darling, did you hit your head?”

  “I need you to take down the wards so they can both get in. Since, you know, they actually intend harm for people in this house? Yeah, wards down.” I looked at the two. “Like, right now. Chop chop.” I stared. They stared back. “Now. I mean, like, right now.”

  My mother sat up. “Astra, you need to explain to us—”

  “I can’t. There is no time. I have no time to explain it to you. You’re going to have to trust me.” I glanced at the door. “I need to go warn my sisters, and tell them to hide upstairs and keep the lights off.” My mother and I stared at one another. “Mom, please. Please. You have to trust me.”

  The pause seemed to go on forever, but it really didn’t.

  “Okay.” She was still looking at me like I had my head turned backward, but she nodded. “We’ll trust you, Astra. If the goddess trusts you to save Alice, we have to have faith. Your aunt and I will stay up here and take down the wards. It shouldn’t take longer than a minute at most.”

  “I’ll get the things we’ll need,” Aunt Gwennie said, gathering a couple of items from a cabinet next to her bed. I watched. Pausing, she turned to stare at me. “I know your mother agreeing to trust you is a momentous occasion in your life that you might like to mark with reflection, dear, but someone still needs to warn your sisters. We can take care of this.”

  “Oh, right, yeah. Sorry.”

  I found all three of my sisters in bed. I quickly explained what I needed from them—and warned them the wards would be down. Each nodded, held their questions, and raced into their closets to hide.

  “Goddess, please keep them safe,” I whispered as I raced down to the first floor. I paused on the last step, realizing I just asked a god I didn’t believe in to protect my sisters.

  I shrugged, jumping to the first floor.

  No time to think about it now.

  “Okay, upstairs secure,” I told Rex. He sat on the coffee table in front of Emma and Alice.

  “Astra, this is all, like, completely crazy,” the detective told me. She sounded like herself and, lucky for us, awake and alert. “How did Rex even get here?” She turned and stared at her brother. Then she frowned. “You peeked, didn’t you? I thought you and I had a talk about that. It’s only supposed to be for emergencies.”

  “Are you off your rocker? What on earth would you call this?” the vampire asked her incredulously. “This isn’t an emergency? I swear, Emma.”

  I suppressed a smile.

  Rex, he of super-serious demeanor and inscrutable facial expression, sounded just like an exasperated non-vampire big brother frustrated with his little sister.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Alice whispered. She looked back and forth between all of us, trying to parse out what she was doing here. “He’s a vampire?”

  “That’s not important,” I told her. “This is what’s important. A reporter and a pixie are coming in here to kill you both. I need you both to pretend to be asleep on the couch. Rex and I will be right over there hiding.” I pointed to a door. “Just before they do the deed, we’re going to take them down. Then Emma will arrest Meryl, Pistachio can do whatever he wants with Amethyst—”

  “Pistachio is here?” Alice looked around the room like a lovesick puppy.

  “He will be. Guys, we have to hide. Is everyone clear on what’s going to happen?” Everyone nodded. “Okay, let’s all get in positions.”

  Emma and Alice appeared to wrap around each other on the couch in a sleepy pile of limbs. Still, I could tell that Emma had positioned herself so she could protect Alice from any attacks. Rex and I slipped ourselves into a space between the large herb cabinet and an open door. No one could spot us unless they went out of their way to look.

  “Now we wait,” he whispered.

  I looked up at him. “Now we wait.”

  We didn’t have to wait long.

  The two women picked the back door lock and slipped in with all the silent finesse of a pair of elephants. “Watch out, move out of the way!” Amethyst hissed. “You’re about as good at sneaking as a hippopotamus in high heels!” A flashlight scanned around the room. “On the couch! They’re over there!”

  The pair now crept forward carefully, as if they expected us to jump out and surprise them at any moment. When nothing happened, their stride sped up, and their voices became slightly louder.

  “Hold the knife by the plastic bag,” Meryl told Amethyst. “You don’t want to get yo
ur fingerprints on it.”

  “Wait, me?” The pixie sounded surprised. “Why do I have to stab them?”

  The sound of a blade sliding out of its sheath made me wince.

  “Because I’m a human, dummy. My fingerprints are probably on file somewhere. Do you even have fingerprints? Besides, aren’t you the one that wants her dead?” In the darkness of the living room, I could see the outline of Meryl holding out the blade to Amethyst. “You want her dead. You should stab her.”

  “Well, I don’t want the cop dead. She didn’t sleep with my fiancé,” Amethyst said, her voice dripping with ice.

  “I hear you. But I didn’t want anyone dead,” the reporter retorted. “I just wanted to be rich. You’re the one that started talking about killing people. If you don’t want to murder somebody, why did you even bring it up?”

  “Oh, I have had just about enough of these two,” Emma said, jumping up off the couch.

  She launched herself upward, fist balled, and delivered an uppercut to Meryl’s considerably-sized chin. Fist met face with a resounding crack, and Meryl staggered backward. Without drawing back for another punch, Emma slammed the bend of her arm into Amethyst’s face in a perfectly executed elbow strike.

  “Was that the plan?” Alice whispered, eyes wide.

  “Probably not,” Emma told her cheerfully. “But if I had to listen to one more statement from either of these two idiots, I would’ve had to kick them, and that just wouldn’t have been as efficient.”

  I raced out to grab the pixie. Before I got two steps across the room, I blinked and discovered Rex already had her. “Get the lights,” he told me. “I sense Pistachio out among the trees, and he’s distraught.”

  “About me?” Amethyst asked hopefully.

  “You really don’t have a very firm grip on reality, do you?” Rex asked the pixie politely.