Witch Hunt

by Cate Conte

  Fiona would know. But I didn’t have time to run to the apartment building, and I didn’t know how to summon her otherwise. And maybe I didn’t really want to involve her anyway, on second thought. The police? Yes, that’s what I should do. Call the police.

  I dialed 911, whirling around when I heard my door open. I’d forgotten to lock it. “No, no, no, I’m sorry, I’m—what are you doing here?” I demanded when I saw Zoe in the doorway, holding a paper boat of french fries.

  “I came to see your place and to bring you some of these amazing fries, since you barely ever eat.” She eyed me. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. You should go. Not you,” I said, realizing the dispatcher had answered and was asking my emergency. “Uh. I’m at 873 Water Street. The Full Moon.” I lowered my voice to a whisper, turning away from Zoe so she wouldn’t hear. “There’s a body.” I hung up, even though she was still trying to ask me questions.

  But Zoe had stepped into the shop, clearly on alert. “Violet. What’s going—uh-oh.” She sniffed the air, her face contorting as the smell hit her.

  “I know. It’s probably toxic. You should go.”

  “No way. I need to call Mother. Oh, crap,” she said when she reached my desk and saw Mazzy.

  I locked my door and flipped the sign, torn between waiting outside where everyone who passed would know something was wrong and waiting in here with . . . whatever that was.

  “The cops are coming,” I said. “You really don’t need to be involved in this, Zoe.”

  “Vi,” she said urgently. “You don’t need the cops for this.”

  I snorted. “I don’t need the cops, but I need Fiona? What is she going to do about it? Perform a magical cleanup?”

  “I can do that too, darling, but first I need to figure out what’s going on here,” Fiona said in my ear, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I looked at Zoe.

  “What?” she asked with a shrug. “You think I need a phone?”

  I threw up my hands, then turned to the door, distracted by the sound of sirens. Less than four minutes. Record time. I didn’t know that for a fact, of course, and they were around the corner, but probably news of a body got them moving. I’d been dreading seeing Denning or Haliburton, but when the car pulled up to the curb, lights flashing, I was relieved to see Gabe step out of it. A minute later, another car coming from the other direction joined him at the curb.

  “Oh, darling. Tell me you didn’t call them.” Fiona sighed reproachfully. “We’ll be right back.” She grabbed Zoe’s arm, and the two of them disappeared. I waved at the puff of smoke they’d left behind and tried to kick the glitter away with my shoe as Gabe and the other cop came to the door.

  I didn’t know the other guy. I unlocked the door and motioned them inside.

  “Vi. Are you okay? What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I was at the protest and left Josie here. When I came back, she was gone and I found . . .” I swallowed.

  “Where . . . ?”

  I pointed. “Behind the counter.”

  “Stay outside and make sure no one comes in,” he said to the other cop—a young guy with a shaved head and a worried look on his face. The cop nodded and went back outside, planting himself in front of my door.

  When Gabe got to the counter, he paused. Peered behind it, then looked at me, his eyes curious. And a little worried.

  “Thought you said there was a body?” he asked.

  I nodded, coming over to him. When I looked, I could still see the shimmery outline of Mazzy on the floor. It made me queasy. “Yes. What do you think that is?” I pointed.

  He looked from me to the floor again, then back at me. “Maybe you should go home. Get some rest. The past few days have been really rough on you,” he said. “But Vi. Seriously, you’re lucky it was me who answered the call.”

  I stared at him, completely confused. “But,” I said, then trailed off. “But don’t you see that?” I tried again.

  Gabe sighed. “Look, Violet. I’ll take care of it. I’ll say someone passed out and you panicked. But be careful what you’re calling us about, you hear?” And he walked out the door, leaving me dumbfounded and once again on the verge of tears.

  I watched him go, feeling like I’d just gotten surprised by a giant ocean wave that had knocked me under. When I turned again, a crackle and a loud pop filled the air, then Fiona and Zoe appeared in a shower of glitter right in front of me. “Now are you ready to listen to me?” Fiona asked, her eyes dark.

  CHAPTER 44

  “Listen to you?” I asked in disbelief. “I don’t have any idea what listening to you has to do with anything. There’s a body right there”—I pointed at Mazzy, horrified to realize her image was fading even as we spoke—“and the police can’t seem to see it. Now they think I’m messing with them, on top of everything else they think I’ve done this week. Care to tell me what any of this has to do with you?”

  Fiona swept around the counter, as regal as if she were a queen, her long cape brushing the floor and sending the glitter scattering even farther. “This,” she announced, pointing at Mazzy, “is a witch who’s been Genied.”

  Well, at least she could see her. But wait. Mazzy was a witch too? “Genied?” I repeated.

  “Genied.” She nodded. “Worse than killed.”

  “Worse than . . . Fiona.” I rubbed my temples with my knuckles, wishing desperately for some aspirin. Or a drink. “You do know that makes no sense to me, right?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I figured as much. Another favor Grammy did for you in the name of humans,” she muttered.

  “Fiona.” I hadn’t even seen Josie standing behind her until just now. “Tell her what it means and save the commentary.”

  I gaped at her. “When did you get back? And where were you?”

  “I was with Fiona,” Josie said. “I closed up the shop and went to see her. We needed to talk.”

  “You can explain to her later,” Fiona said. “Violet. This woman is a witch. Her name is Mariza Diamond. She’s an investigative reporter with ties to both human and magickal news outlets. She uses a pen name for her work . . . over here.”

  Mazzy the reporter, playing both sides. “Magickal news?” I shook my head. “Okay. So?”

  “So, someone obviously didn’t want her reporting on something,” Fiona said grimly. “So they followed her here and Genied her. It’s a particularly brutal form of magickal kidnapping. She’s basically turned into a pool of slime and put in a bottle, where she’s destined to spend the next two hundred years unless someone finds out who did it and can break the spell. It’s not sanctioned by the Magickal Council,” she added, as if that made it any better. “It’s actually a very rogue, criminal act, punishable by, well, we won’t get into that now.”

  I didn’t miss the look Josie had sent her to shut her up, but I let it go.

  “The point is, whatever she’s doing here, someone doesn’t like it. Which means you’re in danger.”

  “Me?” I pointed a shaking finger at my chest. “But why? She came in here to see my shop a couple days ago. She wrote a nasty article about me and I called her out on it. She was supposed to print a retraction and stay away from my shop. But she wasn’t happy about it, so apparently she snuck back in to, I don’t know, try to find out some other bad thing to write about. I have nothing that secret going on in here that any kind of magickal criminal would be interested in, I can assure you.” I looked down at the floor again. The holographic image of Mazzy was almost completely faded, leaving only a sticky, slimy mess and that putrid stench in its wake.

  Fiona joined me to gaze down at the floor. “Terrible,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. It’s very hard to find the exact person who committed the act. In my lifetime, only one person who’d been Genied was returned to their proper form.”

  Josie stepped up, flanking me on the other side. “I agree,” she said. “This certainly seems like extreme lengths for a council seat.”

  “Exact
ly my thoughts,” Fiona murmured. “I’m not quite sure what’s occurring, but it isn’t good.”

  “Wait. One person? Out of how many?” I interrupted.

  Fiona shrugged. “About as often as murders happen in your world, my dear.”

  I cringed, thinking of Carla. “Not many. At least not that I’m used to.”

  “Come now,” Fiona said. “I’ve been reading the papers. In any event, Violet, my point is I’m concerned about you. This, happening here in your shop, is a warning.”

  “Oh, for the love of—” I stomped my foot on the floor. “A warning about what? This is all nonsense. Absurd nonsense that I don’t have time for. Did you do this?” I pointed at the mess on the floor. “Is this your idea of trying to scare me into believing you? Did you send Mazzy here in the first place to spy on me, then set it up to look like whatever your fictional horror story is so I’ll be scared into trusting you?”

  Zoe let out an audible gasp and pressed herself against the wall. Josie covered her face with her hands.

  Fiona’s eyes darkened to the point of twin storms. “Fictional, eh?” she said in a deadly cold voice that actually gave me shivers. She waved her hand, and my blinds slammed shut around me. Waved it again, and the lights went off. A third time, and a giant screen appeared in front of me, a bit smaller than something you’d see at the movies, but not much.

  “You think this is fiction?” She swiped at the screen with one ring-clad finger. Images of women being tortured flashed in front of me. Medieval tortures, from the looks of it, but the images went so fast I couldn’t get a grip on them.

  “Or this?” She swiped again. These I recognized. Images of the Salem witch trials—women being hanged, burned at the stake, waiting at the gallows.

  “Or this?” A third swipe and I cringed, recognizing a story I’d seen about a woman burned alive in a Middle Eastern country not that many years ago, accused of witchcraft.

  “And this,” another swipe, “really is fiction. But this is how they depict us now. To take our power away.”

  I stared at the screen and the images of old, ugly witches with warts on their noses and wrinkly faces cackled over a smoking cauldron.

  “You can’t let them push you around like this. These bad witches, they are trying to make you vulnerable. They found a way to overtake your grandmother. And they’re using this,” she waved her hand around again, bringing the air to life around me with snaps and crackles, “this human life, to do it. This is not your priority,” she said, stepping up to me so we were nose to nose. “Wake up, daughter. This is bigger than you. And if you don’t step up and take control of your life, and let me help you, this”—and now an image of Mazzy’s slimy remains filled the screen—“this could be you. So go ahead and Lululemon your way into a noose. Or a Genie bottle. The choice is yours.”

  And with that, she passed her hand in front of her face and disappeared. Another crack and the blinds snapped back into place, the lights came back on, and all that was left of her was her signature pile of glitter puddling around my feet.

  CHAPTER 45

  I stared at the glitter on the floor, then at Josie, hoping she’d shake her head at the drama of it all and tell me to get back to work—body hologram on the floor notwithstanding.

  But she wasn’t smiling.

  I was getting the feeling this could be serious.

  “So you think she’s for real?” I asked casually.

  “Oh, sweetheart, she’s for real,” Josie assured me. “If there’s one thing about Fiona, it’s that she doesn’t mess around. There’s plenty of drama, but it’s real drama, not pointless drama.”

  It stung a little, hearing these casual references to how well they knew each other. A reminder that people I’d trusted had kept me in the dark. I looked around for Zoe, but she was gone too. Fiona had probably taken her with her.

  Josie read the look on my face and came over to take both my hands. “Listen. I know you’re upset about all this. I can’t blame you. All I ask is that you reserve judgment until you know the whole story, and that you try to put that on the back burner for the moment because your mother’s right. There are more serious things to contend with at the moment.”

  I didn’t necessarily agree—they both seemed like serious contenders for attention and processing—but I was hardly in a good position to argue. I pulled my hands away, eyes trailing to the sticky goop on my floor. “So is this related to Carla?” I asked, waving a hand at the mess.

  Josie’s eyes followed mine, lips pursed as she studied the floor. “I can’t say with certainty, but my instincts tell me no. That your mother is right, it’s bigger than that. Carla is a human problem. No offense,” she added at the look on my face. “I know that’s the only world you’ve ever related to. But there’s more to our lives than the human world. Which is why your mother was so frustrated with what happened. With your family.”

  “So why didn’t you step in?” I demanded, the question that had been weighing on me all this time finally escaping my lips. “You knew me. You knew Fiona and Abigail. Why didn’t you talk to them? Or at least tell me?”

  “Because it doesn’t work that way,” Josie said. “I know how hard it is for you to understand, in our human world of ‘see something, say something.’ But you see how she turned out?” She waved at Mazzy’s rapidly disintegrating form. “Meddling in another family’s affairs in our world is no joking matter.”

  I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around that. “But don’t you know how to get around all that? Aren’t you able to figure out if something is connected, like Mazzy and Carla?” I was still frustrated. “With all these powers you guys have?” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm from the word powers, though I did try to tone it down some.

  Josie just smiled, albeit a little sadly. “It doesn’t really work that way, my dear,” she said gently. “We all have the powers we’re predisposed to. We can develop other powers along the way, also, but all of it takes practice. And being a witch doesn’t mean we are all-seeing, all-knowing beings about everyone and everything. We have to work at our expertise just like everyone else. It just so happens we have a different sort of expertise than the people with whom you’ve been spending your time.

  “The magic we hold is part of our being. It’s been passed down to us through generations of our mothers. Which is why female witches are more powerful than male witches. And our world is a world where women lead, and everything is better for it. But some people don’t want women to lead. And they see an opportunity to stop it.”

  “Who are these people?” I asked finally.

  “Another family of witches,” Josie said. “They’re largely male dominated, and they are desperate to have a foothold in some power. They see your grandmother’s death as a way in.”

  “What family?”

  “The Sagebloods,” Josie replied. “They aren’t . . . well, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

  I thought about that. “Is she serious about my grandmother?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Had someone killed her?

  “She’s looking into it,” Josie said finally. “Very carefully. But Vi. You need to let her help you. Even if Carla isn’t related to this, you need her help with . . . this.” She motioned to the floor. “You know, that smell I smelled on Monday? It was her that was here, wasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “She’d already been tagged for this,” Josie said grimly. “I always had a nose for that kind of thing. I wish I’d been here. I could’ve warned her. They were waiting for the right time.”

  “I felt something when she was here. Heard something,” I corrected myself. “I heard it throughout the day Monday. With Mazzy, with Fiona and Zoe when they showed up. And I’ve been hearing it on and off ever since. A staticky sound. What does that mean?”

  “You were starting to open up,” she said. “To the witches around you. People experience it differently at first. Sometimes it’s a vision. Other times it’s a sound.”


  “I saw it too,” I said, suddenly remembering. “I saw her in the mirror and she was just a shape. Formless. It’s hard to explain.”

  But Josie snapped to attention at that. “You experienced both? Violet, that’s amazing. Most people don’t. That means . . . well, we can talk about it later. But it’s powerful. And maybe that’s why you’re in someone’s sights.”

  That kind of gave me the creeps. Maybe I did need to listen to Fiona and take her seriously and let her help me figure out what was going on here with this sort-of dead witchy reporter. But right now, whether she liked it or not, there were mortal things that needed my attention. I needed to figure out who killed Carla before it got pinned on me. I needed to see what Sydney had to do with it, if anything. And for the love of everything holy, I needed to get my shop cleaned up and opened before I was out of a job and an income.

  But first, I needed to go to the one person who always had the answers to everything.

  “I’ll be back,” I said to Josie. “I have to take care of something. Then I’ll clean this up.” I waved at the floor, wrinkling my nose at the smell and the mess.

  But Josie shook her head. “I’ll have someone come in and deal with this. It’s not a traditional cleaning job,” she said. “It takes, well, magic.”

  “So you have to call in some witch cleaning service?” I asked, only half kidding.

  But she nodded. “Yes. I’m sure I can get someone in today. Don’t worry. These people aren’t far away, Vi. I would ask Ginny, but she only does it on weekends.”

  “Ginny Reinhardt?” I was stunned.

  Josie nodded with a small smile. “You haven’t realized it, but you’ve been living among your community all along.”

  CHAPTER 46

  I let the shop door slam shut behind me, leaving it to Josie to lock. I was a little curious about this magickal cleaning company, but maybe I was better off not knowing. I’d had enough surprises. Like Ginny. Next thing she’d be telling me Pete was magickal or something absurd like that.