Krystal rolled her pretty eyes. “Yeah, I know, but I swear an alien hasn’t abducted me or anything. A lot has been going on in the past few days.”
“I’d have to agree with that,” he replied with a smile. “A lot of amazing things, though.”
A slight blush rose to her cheeks and he wondered if the heater kicked on, because the temperature in the room must have spiked. He might need to take his jacket off. He pushed himself off the desk and leaned over the chair, his weight supported on the arms to trap her there. Devin kissed her, letting himself drown in her perfume and the electrifying energy that was so signature to every touch they exchanged.
“What about tomorrow night?” he asked after he eased out of the kiss. “Are you doing anything special for Halloween?”
Krystal sighed and he could see her body tensed a bit. “Sort of. Sierra’s going to a costume party and I had thought about meeting with Alexa and Valerie after they closed up the shop. I get off early tomorrow.”
Devin grinned. He loved it when she got off early. “Maybe dinner at my place? Or your place? We won’t burn the meal this time. We can answer the door for trick-or-treaters, too.”
“I’m not too sure about that,” she said, a sliver of apprehension in her voice that he couldn’t quite make sense of. Did that apprehension have something to do with how her muscles went rigid when he kissed her?
“About burning the dinner, coming over to my place, or the trick-or-treaters?”
She pulled away and the solemnness in her expression sent a spark of fear through him. “None
of it.”
“Dare I ask, why?” he said, hoping this didn’t have anything to do with the murders. If she was afraid to go out, he would gladly come to her place. He’d stay there all night, sex or no sex, and stand guard over her home as long as it meant he could be with her.
“I… I just need some time to think.”
Just like that, Devin’s world went into a spiral. He knew those words well. It was the same thing his previous girlfriends had told him when they learned about his troubled childhood, or about the demands of his job as a cop in a big city.
He never expected to hear this from Krystal. She knew about his past. Perhaps not all of it, but there was plenty of time to gently tell her about those things. Or, was there time? Was she going to drop him now, after they had already experienced so much together? Was the chemistry he felt not reciprocated?
He blinked for a long couple of seconds, but he refused to release her from the chair or let that mind numbing dread take hold. “What is there to think about? Did I – “
She reached up and slipped her fingers through his hair in that way that drove him crazy with desire. “No, no!” she cried. “It’s not you. None of it is you. I just need to get some personal things sorted out, that’s all. I promise it won’t take long.” She kissed him, long and hard as if to prove that she was still interested in having him, all of him. “As soon as it’s all worked out, I’ll let you know.”
Devin wasn’t sure how long she needed. Days, weeks, months? He would wait as long as she needed, but he hoped that it wouldn’t change the way she felt for him. There were two adages he couldn’t forget. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and out of sight out of mind. He’d go to the coffee shop twice a day if it meant he could keep the bond between them fresh and alive.
He nodded in mock understanding and left it at that. He desperately wanted to know what it was that made her so hesitant now. What it was that she needed to work through exactly, but he was sure that she would tell him when the time was right. She had to, or he was going to lose his mind.
“You look exhausted,” she said, her gaze drinking in the mess he must have looked like.
He chuckled. “I was up all night.”
Krystal patted his shoulder. “Come on. I’ll get your usual coffee and pump a shot of espresso in it to wake you up.”
He could think of plenty of other things that could wake him up. Coffee would be the most convenient at a time like this.
“Maybe make that two espresso shots,” he said as he straightened and let her stand. “I’ve got a laundry list of people to see today about Elizabeth before I’m off duty.” Krystal stiffened when he spoke the murder victim’s name and he regretted his blunder. “Are you going to be all right?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I wasn’t that close to her, but it’s still hard to think that someone would kill another human being. She didn’t do anything to deserve that.”
That seemed to be the general consensus, but there had to be a motive behind the murder and Devin was determined to find it out. Even if it meant coming back to get more espresso shots until he could think straight enough to find an answer.
There was no way Krystal was going to tell the girls about the extra charm she put in Devin’s drink. Not only because they had two tick marks on the chalkboard and it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, but because she didn’t want to get into the conversation about the murder that took place last night.
It was already unsettling enough that Elizabeth Thatchman, a woman who had done no real wrong to anyone, had been murdered in cold blood. She hoped, despite her initial reactions to the news, that Devin would tell her more in time. She also hoped that she could get her shit together before he started to give up on having a relationship with her.
When she told him that she needed time to think, she might as well have driven a stake through his chest. His eyes, tired as they were, couldn’t hide the pain he felt when she said those words. She wanted to take them all back, say to hell with safety, and jump him right there on her desk. The papers strewn across the desktop would ignite, and they would all burn to ashes, but at least she wouldn’t have put him through such emotional pain again.
Krystal and Sierra had stayed up half the night, leafing through the rolodex catalogue for anything that might help. They looked under passions spells, emotion spells, fire rituals, fire suppressants, emotion suppressants, everything. Not one spell or charm seemed to fit what she needed. They either came at such a high cost to the recipient – such as no emotions at all, the unending feeling of cold, etcetera – or they wouldn’t do the job exactly as she needed.
Sierra hadn’t come into her own full dark magic yet, so she was clueless on how to contain or control it. They had thought to call Amber, who had come into her dark magic long ago. Like Krystal’s mother, she had the ability to scry, or see things that weren’t in the physical or present time.
But her ability was much more passive, indirect. Her abilities weren’t harmful in any way but to herself. Krystal remembered the day when she came in, talking about all the weird stuff she had seen like ancient battles and futuristic space discoveries. After a while, she learned to focus her abilities, but it wasn’t elemental magic like Krystal was dealing with.
Taylor, just like the rest of them, hadn’t come into her dark magic, so she was of no help either.
Their last resort was to call her parents, but Krystal was still determined to figure this out for herself. That’s why she needed time to think. Time to search through other family spell books to see if there was something, anything, that would help her get a handle on the fire that burned inside of her for Devin.
When the two cops left, Krystal still felt no more at ease than when he had come in. She was too tired and there was the strong temptation to charm her own coffee like she had for Devin. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be bouncing off the walls with the extra spritz of energy and focus she had put in his coffee. It might have been risky mixing espresso with that kind of charm, but she did it anyway.
She let Alexa take over the front counter for the rest of the morning and banished herself to the coffee machines, turning out drink after drink. She needed something to distract herself, and she didn’t look her best for the customers anyway. The only reason she had put herself on the register at all was in the hopes that Devin and Aaron would come in.
Just when she thought the flow of custo
mers was slowing down, the brass bell over the door jingled again and Valerie let out a groan before she even turned around. Krystal didn’t have to look when she heard her sister bounding across the floor in her high heel boots.
“Krystal! Oh, my goddess! Krystal!”
She turned and saw Sierra scrambling around the counter.
“Get back over there!” Krystal hissed, pointing toward the lobby.
“No, no, no.” Sierra grabbed her arm that was holding a peppermint latte and nearly spilled it.
“No, I’m coming to warn you.”
“Warn me?” Krystal carefully pried her sister’s fingers from her and went to deliver the drink to the customer who was waiting off to the side of the front counter.
“I was getting out of my car to go to the salon and I saw her.”
Krystal shot Sierra a look. “Her, who?”
“Mom,” she whispered. “She was talking with Mrs. Macy outside the antique shop on the corner.”
Alexa took the next drink order as Krystal was faced with this new emergency. “Did you call her?”
“No, I swear, I didn’t. She must have seen or felt or whatever it is she experiences when there’s trouble and now she’s here to check it out.”
Not two seconds later, the brass bell jingled, and their heads swiveled toward the door. A woman, just old enough to have earned a few splashes of silver in her dark hair, stepped into the lobby. Her brown eyes searched for her daughters, but she didn’t have to look for long. Her smile, warm and radiant, made the coffee shop ten times more welcoming than it was before. Just having her there improved the atmosphere somehow. Their mother had that effect everywhere she went.
She strutted forward, the flaps of her long white coat opening to show her bell-bottom jeans and black turtleneck. “There are my girls!” she exclaimed with her arms wide open.
Krystal loved her mother, and enjoyed her visits, but now was not the best time. With a murderer in Goldcrest Cove and her dark magic busting loose, she wanted her mother, Catherine, as far away as possible.
Instead of telling her to turn around and drive right back to Albany, Krystal came forward and embraced her mother. “What are you doing here?” she asked with a laugh, hoping to hide her irritation.
“I came as soon as I knew something wasn’t right.” Catherine cast a derisive glance to Sierra.
“You told me everything was fine when we talked on the phone last week.”
Now it was Sierra’s turn to hug her mother. “Everything was fine and still is fine,” she replied.
Catherine gave her girls the look. The same look that told them she didn’t believe anything they just said. “Let’s talk in private.”
“Mom, I’ve got a coffee shop to run,” Krystal whined.
All Catherine had to do was give her the other look. This look was the one all mothers gave when their child was being unruly or unreasonable.
The sisters exchanged glances, and then walked straight toward the back office, admitting defeat. Krystal mouthed a quick apology to Alexa and Valerie who watched on in mild amusement. They were probably glad Catherine was there, because now it meant Krystal would get the help she really needed. So much for trying to be a grownup witch and do everything herself.
For the second time that morning, Krystal closed the door to her office for another private meeting. This one wouldn’t be so pleasant.
“So, tell me,” Catherine began as she shed her coat and made herself comfortable in one of the chairs, “what’s going on with my girls.”
Sierra tried to step in and save the day. “Well, the salon is doing great. I had to take on another hairdresser to pick up more appointments.”
Catherine nodded. “That’s great, dear. But, I’m talking about bad news. I know something is going on with one of you, and if you won’t come out and tell me, I’ll have to use magic to figure it out. And you know how I hate to do that.”
Krystal didn’t have to know how to scry to know that her mother just told a fib. She loved to use her magic when it came to raising her daughters. She used it every chance she got. It was completely possible that Catherine already knew what was going on, but wanted the girls to tell her on their own. Just like when they were little and had done something naughty.
With a pinched face, Krystal took a deep breath and let it out. “I’ve started my dark magic.”
The way it sounded, anyone might have guessed it was a code word for when a young girl started her first menstrual cycle. Dark magic was way more problematic than that though.
Catherine’s face lit up. “This is wonderful, honey!” She stood up and embraced Krystal once more, a little tighter this time. She pulled back and cupped Krystal’s face in her hands. “My little baby is growing up.”
Krystal wondered if her mother was going to start crying.
“Tell me what it is,” Catherine said, taking a step back. “Is it scrying? Oh, I hope it is. It’s such a useful magic, after all.”
Krystal shook her head.
“Flying? Green thumb? Dream magic? Time travel?”
She shook her head to each of them. “It’s fire, mom.”
Catherine’s face opened up with delight. “Elemental magic! Oh, that’s wonderful!”
“Nothing gets you down, does it?” Sierra asked as she moved to lean against the file cabinet.
Krystal cracked a tiny smile and tried to hold in her giggles. Her sister had a point. Her mother was probably way too excited about this. This was far from exciting for Krystal.
“My dear,” Catherine said with a certain flair of crossness in her tone, “when you have daughters and they come into their dark magic, then maybe you’ll understand. This is like when I took you two shopping for your first bras, or when you started liking boys. It’s a part of growing up and coming of age. It’s a celebration!”
Krystal crossed her arms over her stomach. “It sure doesn’t feel like it. I burnt my dinner last night, because the oven overheated.”
Catherine was still grinning. “Oh, you poor thing. What else has happened?”
She told her everything about feeling feverish when she was emotional, and about the fire growing in the fireplace. So far, that was all that had happened, and she was thankful it wasn’t anything worse.
“That’s not so bad. One of my good friends on the council has elemental dark magic, but with air and he can suck the oxygen out of a room as quick as that.” For extra emphasis, Catherine snapped her fingers.
Krystal grimaced. “Well, I could probably burn the house down and I’m sure you don’t want that.”
Catherine took a hold of her shoulders. “Don’t worry. Mama is here now, and we’ll get this all taken care of. It doesn’t take much to learn how to control fire.”
“You know how?” Sierra asked in disbelief.
“Of course! I birthed two fire babies, after all. An Aries and a Leo. I thought one or both of you might have a knack for fire conjuring, so I did my research. Especially after you set fire to your bedroom curtains when you were five.” She gave a pointed look to her eldest daughter, who only shrugged helplessly without a hint of remorse for the trouble she had gotten into that day.
“We’ve been trying to look through the catalogue,” Krystal said, “but we didn’t find anything. Why didn’t you add that in when you were learning?”
Catherine shook her head. “Because this is not a charm or a spell, dear. This is just good ole’ fashion witch training. We’ll get started tonight. Call all your friends and tell them to meet at the house. They need to bring all the candles they’re willing to use up.”
“Mom, I have to work tonight.”
She waved off the excuse. “That’s fine, dear. We’ll get started after the coffee shop closes. Besides, you shouldn’t wait until the last minute to start your training. This isn’t something you can just get a handle on as you go.”
Now, she was glad that she hadn’t made a date with Devin. It would take a bit of time to explain that her mother deci
ded to make a surprise visit, because she could sense that her daughter just came into her dark magic and needed to start her training.
Then again, she would have much rather taken care of the mountain of work on her desk. The unthinkable had happened, and her coffee shop was beginning to slip through her fingers. Too much was going on too quickly and she couldn’t juggle everything. Work and Devin might have been easy enough to get a grip on after a while, but throwing dark magic and her mother into the mix was like trying to herd cats. She would definitely need a cup of charmed coffee to get through this week.
Chapter Twelve
“What is that supposed to mean, anyway?” Devin asked as Aaron turned from Twin Hills Lane to Reichman Street and toward Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church.
By this point, Aaron must have been thinking that Devin had taken something to make him so wired. He was beginning to wonder the same thing. After just three or four sips of the special coffee Krystal had made for him, he was ready to run a marathon while carrying three full grown men on his back. It must have been the bitter espresso he tasted. Potent stuff.
“In my limited experience,” Aaron replied as they eased through the school zone, “it’s a soft warning that the girl is about to dump you. But, that’s me. Krystal is nothing like any of the girls I’ve ever dated. I’m sure it means something completely different.”
“She said it had nothing to do with me.” Devin watched as three elementary school children made their way across the crosswalk.
“Then I would believe her until she starts to show otherwise,” Aaron said.
He looked to his partner. “What signs should I be looking for? The last time a girl said she needed time to think, I never heard from her again and she never answered her phone.”
Aaron winced. “Well, there’s that. If she keeps turning you down for dates, if you see her with another guy, you know, that kind of stuff.”
Devin ran his fingers through his hair for what must have been the hundredth time since they started off on their mission to interview everyone on the list. Those who lived on Jackson Creek Road didn’t hear any screams or notice any suspicious activity last night either. So far, almost no one had given them any real clues except for this lead they were following.
Bewitching Fire Page 17