“Krystal?”
“Devin,” she said, her words slow and annealed by urgency. “I need you to go to Torn Sails Bar and Grill right now.”
“Why?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter in his seat. He looked to Father Frank’s living room window and saw the man was still seated there reading his Bible with a pair of glasses perched at the end of his nose. “What’s wrong?”
“The killer. We know where he’s going to strike next.”
Devin looked sideways at Aaron and hoped his partner couldn’t hear her. “I told you not to get involved.”
“We had to get involved when he decided to attack my sister. We know who he is, too. Jacob Nathanson. He just moved to town.”
The memory of Sunday Mass came back to him and Devin slammed his fist on the console in aggravation. He should have known something was suspicious about the guy, but just thought him nervous and cynical. “I know the guy. We met on Sunday.” He turned to his partner. “Aaron, go to Torn Sails Bar. Now!”
Instead of questioning the snot out of him, Aaron must have seen the ire in Devin’s eyes and knew better than to ask anything. He revved the engine to life and peeled down the road toward the harbor, leaving behind Father Frank and all the wrongful suspicions they had toward the priest. They had been focusing on the wrong man the whole time.
“Krystal,” Devin said, his voice dropping. “Do not do anything without us there. Do you understand me?”
He didn’t hear a response.
“Krystal!” he barked.
“We have a plan, Devin. Jacob’s been charmed. We have to undo it before you arrest him. It won’t take long, and everything will be fine. I promise.”
Devin shouted her name again, but it was no use. The phone beeped to let him know the call had been disconnected. If he were driving, Devin would have flicked on the sirens and broken every traffic law to get to the bar before Krystal had a chance to do whatever it was she was planning.
He didn’t care if the guy was charmed, a warlock, or anything else supernatural. He couldn’t risk her safety. Images and flashbacks of his final day on the force on Boston resurfaced. He couldn’t let that happen to Krystal. If it did, his whole world might have fallen apart all over again, and no magic would be able to put him back together again.
“Are you done drawing it yet?” Valerie whispered to Sierra, who was crouched down in the alley beside the bar. They had moved the dumpster to partially hide what they had planned to do. Krystal could still see part of the binding circle her older sister was drawing into the asphalt with the chalk.
“It’s a little tough when the ground is so wet,” Sierra replied back, her whisper a little harsher than Valerie’s.
Krystal stood at the corner of the bar, watching the door. The salty breeze from the harbor chilled her skin and she regretted not bringing a heavier coat to wear. She could hear the music booming through the walls, the sharp crack of billiard balls hitting one another, and boisterous laughter coming from inside. For a Wednesday night, they seemed fairly crowded. Apparently, even when there was a murderer in town, people still needed to get together for a few drinks.
Beside her, she could feel every bit of nervousness bounding in waves off Alexa, who continued to repeat to herself the instructions for how to negate the charm.
“If you don’t calm down, it’s going to be that much harder for you,” she said, taking her friend by the shoulders and wishing she could have done something to sooth her nerves. If Krystal tried to charm Alexa into a more serene state, it would screw with the negation.
Alexa’s blue eyes fixed on Krystal and she nodded. “I know. I just can’t stop thinking about how all of this is my fault.”
Sierra could blame the half-blood witch all day long, but that wouldn’t convince Krystal that any of this was her fault. Accidents happened, lessons were learned. Second-hand charms happened often, even with full-blood witches casting the charm in the first place. If anything, it was Krystal’s fault for putting too much faith in her friend. But she couldn’t think about that now. They had to focus or all of this could go sour.
“This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.”
Alexa’s cheeks were already wetted by the tears she had shed earlier that evening behind their backs. “I was only trying to help Father Frank with his sermon.”
Krystal hugged her. “I know you were. You had good intentions, and that’s what matters.”
“We’re ready,” Sierra announced. “Is he here yet?”
Valerie checked her watch. “It’s almost eight twenty-two. Right when Amber said Jacob would be here.”
Krystal fled to the corner of the building at the end of the alley, her eyes fixed on the door and surrounding parking lot. “I don’t see him yet.”
“Does everyone know the drill?” Sierra questioned as she joined the three other witches in front of the dumpster.
“I’ll distract him away from the bar with an illusion,” Valerie said.
Krystal turned to face her sister. “Then the four of us bind him in the circle, so he can’t escape.”
Every pair of eyes drifted to Alexa and she stiffened under their stares. “And I’ll negate the charm,” she said, a complete lack of confidence in her statement.
Krystal’s guts twisted at the sight of her friend so distraught. She opened her mouth to try and give a few more words of encouragement before she heard a car door slam. She turned and saw a man charging toward the bar. There was a suspicious bulge beneath his long coat.
“Valerie,” she whispered harshly, signaling her friend to begin the illusion as they scrambled to hide behind the dumpster.
Devin spotted Jacob as soon as they pulled into the parking lot. If the way his dark hair curled out from the edge of his ball cap wasn’t enough to give him away, then it was the bulge underneath his trench coat. He unholstered his gun, ready to go at a full run to catch up with him from across the parking lot, but another sight made the very blood in his veins freeze.
It was a wonder he saw Krystal at all. Her jet-black hair blended in with the shadows of the alleyway next to the bar. Only the flash of the blue sweater she was wearing earlier that day drew his attention. He muttered a curse under his breath.
“Is that him?” Aaron asked as he shut off the engine. His partner must not have seen Krystal. Devin didn’t answer, but watched as something peculiar happened.
Jacob stopped, just a couple of yards from the bar. He turned and looked to the alleyway and took one stumbling step backward as if he were surprised. Only, there was nothing there. Krystal had disappeared behind the green dumpster that poked just out of the mouth of the alley, blocking his view.
“Stay here,” he told Aaron, suspecting that there was something witchy going on.
Jacob slowly walked toward the alley and Devin gripped his gun a little tighter as he quietly angled out of the car. Whatever Krystal was doing, he didn’t want to upset it just yet. If he could take Jacob alive, he would. If the perp ran, he might have to shoot.
“No way am I letting you go in there alone,” Aaron resisted. “I see what he’s packing.”
Devin kept his eyes fixed on Jacob as he neared the alleyway. “No, just stay here. I’ll explain later.”
That was a lie if he ever told one. There was no way he was going to explain any of this to Aaron in the end. He didn’t have any substantial proof that Jacob was the murderer. He was only going off of whatever source Krystal was pulling from. Maybe she saw it in the mist of some crystal ball, or she threw some bones and they spelled out Jacob’s name. He didn’t know how she knew, and he didn’t care. If he could get the murderer, he was willing to follow her lead. She wouldn’t have called him there if she wasn’t absolutely sure.
He kept a firm hold on his gun with both hands as he avoided the streetlamps and followed Jacob. The man in the trench coat disappeared behind the dumpster. Devin crept forward, and pressed his side to the cool metal. Before he even stepped f
oot into the alleyway, he could feel that familiar spiritual, otherworldly pull of energy like he felt while in the church and at Krystal’s home.
He now understood that it must have been magic, or some other kind of unseen force that they both shared. How ironic that the power of the witches could have something in common with the power of the church. Only, what he felt flowing from the mouth of the alleyway was stronger, bolder, and more aggressive than anything he had ever felt in Krystal’s presence.
There was a shout, and then a grunt, followed by something that sounded like a whirlwind coming from the alley. Devin raised his gun and jumped out from his hiding place, his heart pounding in his throat. Even after years on the force, he still felt that adrenaline pump hard when he was faced with danger.
What was going on behind the dumpster defied science, logic, and everything he thought he knew about the natural world.
He saw four witches standing around a chalk circle, their hands outstretched as magic billowed from them. Jacob stood in the center of the circle beneath confusing and twisting lines that must have only made sense to one who knew magic. The gun he had been carrying was tossed to the side, far out of reach and unable to harm anyone.
Devin pointed the barrel at Jacob, who struggled against the invisible force that whipped around in the circle. The only evidence of it was in the way the girls’ hair fluttered and flew out around their shoulders. It was something straight out of a movie, yet this was totally real. There were no props, no tricks or fans to make their hair and clothes move like that. The bay wind wasn’t strong enough to blow Jacob’s cap clean off his head the way it did.
Their lips were moving, muttering something that he couldn’t discern over the rising howls of the power that surged between them. Whatever they were doing, it was keeping Jacob trapped there, unable to escape.
“Alexa!” Sierra said. Devin kept his gun aimed at Jacob, just in case whatever they were planning didn’t work, but he shifted his eyes toward the little blonde witch.
What he saw wasn’t good. He knew that look on her face. It was the same look new cadets at the academy had when they were faced with their first real offensive fight. She was panicking. Usually, it took a good hard slap to the face to get someone to unfreeze like that.
By the way they all looked to her, Devin knew the next part of this scheme was up to her. He didn’t have to know what it was. All he had to do was see that Jacob had taken another step toward the edge of the circle, and he knew he had to help. This guy wasn’t going to slip through their fingers again.
“Alexa!” he barked, utilizing the same demanding voice he was forced to use on the rookies who couldn’t get their shit together in a fire fight.
Her blue eyes darted to him and she seemed to get a hold of herself. She closed her eyes and brought her fingers together, creating a diamond shape directed toward Jacob. Her quivering lips formed the words for the spell she must have been casting.
A misty, formless green aura drifted through the space between Alexa and Jacob, transferring from the murderer to the witch. Devin shifted, unsure of exactly what she was doing. By the way he continued to thrash against his captors, he knew the witch wasn’t stealing his life force or anything so sinister. That would have been a hard murder to explain.
The green flowed through the center of the diamond she had formed and channeled straight to her chest. Her arms buckled and the lips that had been muttering her incantation slowed. Her eyes squeezed together as if she were in pain.
But it wasn’t pain. Devin watched as Alexa began to cry. She fell to her knees as the sobs rattled her body with such force it looked as if she were having a seizure.
The mystic hold on Jacob weakened as the witch became crippled by the energy she absorbed.
Krystal broke from her post in the circle to aid her friend. Sierra looked up to Devin and gave a nod. This was where he came in.
The cop charged forward, stepping into the circle as the two remaining witches dropped their hands and released the magical hold over the murderer. He tackled Jacob to the ground and holstered his gun to make his hands free, so he could whip out his handcuffs. Only when he heard the final clinking of the locking mechanism, did Devin finally relax.
“Jacob Nathanson, you’re under arrest for the murder of Elizabeth Thatchman and Harry Middleton. Also for the attempted murder of Sierra Hayden.”
Jacob turned his head and looked up to the cop with wild eyes. “I dispensed justice!” he shouted in his defense. “Those sinners deserved to die.”
Before Devin could stop her – like he was going to anyway – Sierra came up and kicked Jacob hard in the ribs. She called him some pretty nasty names and began scuffing out the chalk lines with the bottom of her shoe, so anyone walking by wouldn’t see the circle they had drawn.
Devin pulled Jacob to his feet and finally looked toward Krystal and Alexa embracing one another.
“It’s not your fault,” Krystal kept saying to her over and over again.
He gave a questioning look to Valerie who approached him and Jacob. She reached out and tapped the murderer’s forehead with the tips of her fingers. Immediately, his body went limp and Devin had to adjust his hold on the man to keep him standing.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, his curiosity for their strange, magical way of life finally slipping through. He wanted to know everything about what they just did, how they did it, what that green smoke was, and how four girls single-handedly caught a violent criminal.
Valerie looked to her two friends and let out a tight breath. “Alexa absorbed the enthusiasm charm that Jacob caught second-hand from Father Frank. It intensifies whatever she’s obsessing over. It looks like she was really preoccupied with the fact that she was the one who cast the charm in the first place.”
Before Devin could ask more questions, Valerie set to helping Sierra get rid of the trapping circle. If he hadn’t had a criminal between his hands, he would have stayed.
“You can’t blame yourself for what happened,” he heard Krystal console to Alexa, who continued to weep so bitterly over her own intensified grief. “It was an accident. There was nothing you could have done to save them.”
Those words, though they weren’t spoken to him, swirled around his mind and his heart. He had heard those words before, many times. The therapist told him that, his former co-workers in Boston, even his sister told him the same before he left for Goldcrest Cove. None of them had the power to speak those words and have them hold any meaning whatsoever.
Not until Krystal said them. He paused, bearing most of Jacob’s weight against his chest as he listened to her continue to comfort Alexa with her adages. He watched her, loving her even more as she continued to heal the wounds of those around her, not just his.
She looked up and their eyes met. He wanted to tell her so much, to explain his behavior and tell her that he wanted her in every way possible, even if she was a witch. She was a good person, a kind soul. Devin needed her as more than a lover, but as a friend and companion. He needed her just as much as he needed air. That’s what he had come to realize earlier in the day, when he knew that he couldn’t live without her. As crazy as it was, that was the truth he had to tell her.
But this wasn’t the time or the place to go into that. There would be another chance for him to make things right between them, but not tonight. One gentle look from Krystal told him that he needed to move on. He had a job to do.
This was going to be a hard one to explain in his report.
Chapter Seventeen
As Krystal sipped on her black coffee, she wished she had at least added a little sugar. Maybe Devin could handle such a strong, bold roast, but she wasn’t as strong. Last night proved that. It took hours to calm Alexa down to the point that she could finally negate the charm.
It was no surprise that it took her so long, or that Alexa struggled so hard to get a grip on her emotions long enough to have a single, clear and positive thought. But for Krystal, it wasn’t so e
asy. Through the trail of blame, Krystal knew that it wasn’t Alexa’s fault. It was her own. If she had just charmed the coffee herself, then perhaps Father Frank wouldn’t have ingested the overly charmed coffee, and Jacob would have never been exposed to the overflow of magic, and both Elizabeth and Henry would be alive today.
She tried to use some of her own logic that she had dished out to bring Alexa back from the brink. But Krystal still couldn’t help but wonder that if she hadn’t made that fatal error, things would have been a lot different right now.
It was enough guilt to make her lock herself in her office at Perfect Books and Brews for the majority of the day. Outside, she could hear the flow of customers coming in and out of the store, talking and laughing as Alexa and Valerie made their drinks. She made the excuse that she needed to catch up on paperwork, which she did, but the negativity continued to pummel her in torrents.
It might have been a worthless endeavor to organize any of the receipts and reports on her desk. It wasn’t like the coffee shop would see the end of the year. After they had negated the charm, and everyone had gone home for the night, Krystal and Sierra had their talk. She told her sister everything about the coffee shop, and about what her friends had been doing to the community for the last five years.
The way Krystal saw it, they had done no harm up until now. This was just a fluke, a mistake, a bad judgement call that should have never happened. Alexa needed the practice, but Krystal should have seen that it was damn stupid to practice on someone like Father Frank. Second-hand charming was never even a thought in her mind.
Once Krystal explained her motives, Sierra seemed to calm down. She didn’t say one way or another if she would spill the beans. Krystal listened all night for her sister’s hushed words, suspecting that she would call their mother late that night, but she heard nothing.
Even if Catherine never found out about the shop, even if the Warlock Enforcers never came blasting through their front door, demanding they be shut down, Krystal’s faith in her dream had been shaken. What if this mission to help their town had been a disaster waiting to happen from the beginning, and it just took five years for it to finally catch up with them?
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