All the Pretty Witches (A Hannah Hickok Witchy Mystery Book 6)

by Lily Harper Hart

  “What’s happening?” she rasped out as she tried to keep herself from gulping in huge mouthfuls of oxygen.

  Cooper snapped his head in her direction, surprised by her sudden appearance. “Where have you been?” His tone was accusatory.

  Hannah widened her eyes. “Sharing our good news with Abigail. I was behind the brothel. What’s going on?”

  Rather than immediately respond, Cooper tugged her close for the briefest of hugs before releasing her. “I was afraid something had happened to you.”

  “Obviously not. I don’t understand.” Hannah edged closer to the overlook, frowning when she realized the lift wasn’t running. “Did it break down?”

  Cooper shook his head. “Not precisely, although in a manner of speaking ... .” He gestured down the steep embankment.

  Hannah had to strain her eyes to figure out what she was looking at. When she finally did, she felt as if she was going to fall over from the shock. “Oh, my ... .”

  One of the lift seats had somehow become dislodged. It was no longer fully attached to the cable. Instead, only the safety harness remained to keep it from plummeting to the ground. Had the seat been empty, it would’ve only been a minor inconvenience. Instead, though, two teenagers were in the seat ... and they looked to be hanging on by a thread.

  “What’s keeping them attached to that cable?” Hannah asked as she tried to judge the distance between the dangling chair and the ground.

  “It’s the harness.”

  “I know but ... how strong is it?”

  Cooper held out his hands and shrugged. “It’s supposed to be pretty strong. Of course, the chair itself is supposed to be pretty strong and never come loose. As you can see, that is not what we’re dealing with here.”

  “No.” Hannah let out a breath when several men scurried out from the woods in the direction of the chair. “Those are the emergency mechanics, right? They’ll fix this.”

  The look Cooper shot Hannah was full of exasperation. “Baby, they can fix the chair when it’s at the end of the line. There’s nothing they can do right now.”

  “But ... .” Hannah shook her head. “What aren’t you saying?”

  “We have no way to get those people down,” Tyler replied before Cooper could. “Usually the harness would hold steady long enough to get everybody to the end of the line and we would shut down the chair for maintenance after the fact. That obviously hasn’t happened here.”

  Cold dread smacked Hannah across the face like a mean tentacle. “What does that mean?”

  Tyler held out his hands. “We have no idea how we’re going to get those people down.”

  Hannah stood there a moment, slack-jawed, and then slowly fixed Cooper with a horrified stare. “How can we not have a contingency plan for something like this?”

  “Because it’s something we’ve never faced,” Cooper shot back, annoyed. “I’m not some great and omnipotent hero, Hannah. I don’t know what to do. This is beyond my purview.”

  “But ... .” Hannah thought she might burst into tears at any moment. Then, from somewhere behind her, a familiar presence joined the fray and she immediately started to calm herself. The coven had arrived. All was not lost.

  “We’re going to have to use magic,” Jackie Metcalf announced as she took in the scene. She was calm, although much paler than normal. “It’s our only option.”

  “Great,” Cooper replied, not missing a beat. “What sort of magic do you suggest we use?”

  “The sort that saves them.”

  “I’m going to need you to be more specific.”

  Hannah shoved the sound of their voices out of her head and moved forward. The instant Jackie mentioned magic, it was as if the cloud that had been hobbling her brain cleared. The other witch was right. The only way to ensure a happy outcome was to use magic.

  Behind her, Hannah could hear Cooper and Jackie arguing, but she couldn’t make out the words. Her attention was fixed on the cable. Inside her, the magic whispered, telling her exactly what to do.

  Of course, she told herself. Why didn’t I think of that? She reacted without thought, lifting her hands into the air. With the left, she raised the chair slowly — so as not to further frighten the people screaming as they clung on for dear life — and with the right she called on fire magic to essentially weld the chair where it belonged.

  She was fervent, focused, and she had no idea how long she worked before she was finished. She lost all sense of time and her surroundings. Then, when she was certain that it would hold, she waved her left hand at the control shed and watched as the lift groaned to life and began chugging along.

  “What’s happening?” Cooper jerked himself away from Jackie and watched in abject horror as the lift sprang to life. He was absolutely certain the chair would fall completely off because of the jerky movement and plunge to the ground, killing those on it. Instead, the chair landed in front of the shed as usual and the two teens disembarked. They looked shaky, as if they might throw up, but were whole and safe.

  “What the ... ?” Tyler glanced between faces, lingering on Hannah a bit longer than normal, and then took off toward the teenagers. He was smiling when he reached them, asking if they enjoyed their little adventure and offering to take them directly to the saloon for a free drink and sandwich.

  “We need to get everybody up here and then have the mechanics check that chair,” Cooper barked as he flicked his eyes to Hannah. He looked completely and totally dumbfounded. “Once we’re sure it’s safe, we’ll resume normal operations.”

  The guy running the chair, an individual Hannah recognized enough to say hello to but couldn’t put a name to the face, nodded and immediately set out to carry out Cooper’s orders.

  That left Jackie and Cooper to face down Hannah.

  “Did you do that?” Cooper asked in a strangled voice after a few seconds.

  Hannah nodded without hesitation. “Yeah. As soon as Jackie mentioned that we needed to use magic, it’s as if I knew exactly what had to be done.”

  “But ... .” Cooper broke off and licked his lips, uncertain. “How did you know that?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. I just did. You don’t have to worry about it or anything. It’s completely safe now. I fixed it ... although I’m still not certain how it came loose like that in the first place.”

  “I would suggest that perhaps someone sabotaged us,” Jackie replied, speaking for the first time since Hannah’s miraculous magical rescue became clear. “It’s likely the demon I heard about visiting yesterday is messing around, trying to distract us, or perhaps testing Hannah’s power so he knows best how to attack her a second time.”

  Cooper didn’t like the sound of that. “I would prefer if that didn’t happen.”

  “We both would,” Jackie agreed. “It’s what makes the most sense, though. The damage to that chair didn’t look naturally occurring.”

  “We can still check it,” Cooper insisted.

  “You heard Hannah. She fixed it. What are you going to check?”

  “I ... .” Cooper found he suddenly didn’t have the words to finish his thought. “I still don’t understand how you did that,” he admitted to his girlfriend, his gaze probing.

  Hannah found she was uncomfortable under his incredulous stare. “Um ... I just did it.”

  “You did a good job,” Jackie volunteered automatically. “I don’t think there’s anybody else here who could’ve pulled off what you did.”

  “So ... why are you guys looking at me that way?”

  “We’re not looking at you any specific way,” Cooper reassured her. “We’re just ... amazed ... at what you managed to do.”

  “Amazed,” Jackie echoed as she bobbed her head. “You’re amazing.”

  “Definitely,” Cooper agreed.

  “Totally.”

  Hannah stared between them for a beat and then took a step back. “I should probably get back to the saloon. Let me know if you need me for something.”

  �
��Absolutely.” Cooper matched Jackie’s movements and continuously nodded. “I’ll check on you in a little bit.”

  13

  Thirteen

  It turned out, the teens on the lift – who Cooper thought were likely stoned – managed to convince themselves that they had somehow overestimated the danger they were in. They were thankful for the free drink vouchers — and absolutely loved the special attention Tyler showered on them when they stopped by the animal paddock — but they were none the worse for wear.

  Hannah spent the rest of the afternoon working in the saloon with Lindy. Cooper watched her from the front window for long stretches of time, waiting for her to break down or at least acknowledge how fantastical what she managed to accomplish was. Neither happened and he finally left her to work in peace.

  At the end of his shift, he left Casper Creek — and Hannah — on the promise that he would bring back dinner. By the time he returned, the town was empty of tourists and most of the workers. That allowed him to carry his first load of clothes into the saloon and drop it on the floor without anybody noticing. When he returned to his vehicle to pick up the food, he almost jumped out of his skin when he found Jackie waiting for him on the side of the saloon.

  “You scared the crap out of me,” Cooper complained, swiping at his hair with his free hand. “Next time make a noise or something.”

  Jackie arched an eyebrow but didn’t respond.

  “Do you need something?” Cooper asked as he regarded her. “Something didn’t happen on the lift again, did it?”

  Slowly, Jackie shook her head. “No. Everybody made it off the mountain safely.”

  “So, what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is Hannah.”

  Cooper managed to keep his expression neutral, but it took a lot of effort. “She seemed fine when I saw her three hours ago.”

  “Oh, she acts as if nothing happened at all,” Jackie confirmed. “In her world, it’s a normal day and she didn’t blow all our minds with a magical display that should be well beyond her reach.”

  Cooper pressed the tip of his tongue against the back of his teeth as he debated how to respond. Finally, he offered up a shrug. “She saved those kids.”

  “She did.”

  “Why is that a bad thing?”

  “Because she’s had almost no training. Whenever I try to sit her down for a lesson, she balks. She’s antsy. She’s like a child with attention problems. She doesn’t like sitting through class and instead wants to experiment willy-nilly.”

  “While I concede that would normally be a problem, I think we can both agree that Hannah isn’t a normal witch. It’s instinctive with her. Somehow she just knows what to do.”

  “And that doesn’t concern you?”

  “Does the fact that she managed to save innocent lives concern me? No. I’m proud of her. I’m also proud of the other things she’s managed to do. Nobody else could’ve come so far so fast.”

  “That’s not entirely true. There is one other witch who could do the things she does at a fast clip.”

  For a moment, Cooper was confused ... and then realization dawned on him. “You’re talking about Astra.”

  Jackie folded her arms across her chest, as if bracing for an explosion. She was clearly expecting Cooper to lose his mind and start yelling. She was prepared for it. “Astra didn’t think the rules applied to her either.”

  “What rules?” Cooper struggled to keep his temper under wraps. “Last time I checked, there wasn’t a handbook for the witch gig. Hannah had no idea growing up that she was magical. Since landing here, she’s progressed at a fantastic rate. That pretty much makes her a miracle in my book.”

  Jackie rolled her eyes. “You’re blinded by love.”

  “I love her,” he confirmed. “I’m not blinded by it, though. I recognize who she is. I understand that she’s extremely powerful. Her heart is pure, though. Astra’s heart was — and still is, for that matter — dark.”

  “There was a time you thought Astra’s heart was pure. You loved her, too.”

  Cooper immediately started shaking his head. “I didn’t love her. I cared for her — I would be lying if I said otherwise — but I didn’t love her. She filled a void in my life when I was trying to rebuild after leaving the service.

  “Hannah is different,” he insisted. “She’s a good person. She puts herself on the line for us day in and day out. I don’t appreciate you casting aspersions on her when she’s done nothing to deserve it.”

  Jackie was exasperated. “Do you think I don’t like Hannah? Is that what you’re worried about?”

  “I think you have attitude where Hannah is concerned and I don’t happen to believe it’s earned.”

  “Well, then you’re an idiot.” Jackie huffed out a sigh. “I like Hannah. I think she’s going to be a fabulous witch. The things that have happened to her, though, are forcing her to learn too fast. She’s about eight levels past where she should be.”

  “So what?”

  “So ... what if she can’t control the magic and it takes her over?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “Why?”

  “Because ... because I have faith in her. She’s the best person I know.”

  “Again, you’re blinded by love.”

  “No, I’m not. I see her for who and what she is, a person who wants to help others and keep her grandmother’s legacy alive. She’s doing amazingly well.”

  “So was Astra when she first joined the coven here.”

  “Stop comparing her to Astra!” Cooper’s temper made an appearance and he was instantly contrite when Jackie’s shoulder’s hopped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling. I just ... you’re attacking Hannah and she doesn’t deserve it. She’s been through so much already. Just ... let her be. She will figure it out.”

  Jackie chose her words carefully. “Believe it or not, Cooper, I’m trying to protect you. Heck, I’m trying to protect Hannah. Astra wasn’t always evil. She allowed her desire for magic and power to turn her into a different person.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong.” Cooper’s voice was soft. “Astra was always power-hungry. I saw it in her, although you’re right about me not wanting to acknowledge it. I always knew that things would go sideways for Astra.

  “I don’t feel the same way about Hannah,” he continued. “She’s an amazing person and she doesn’t want the magic just because she yearns to be powerful. She doesn’t even care about the magic. She cares about helping people. That’s only one of the many differences between her and Astra.”

  Jackie worked her jaw. “I want to believe you.”

  “But you don’t.”

  “I want to,” she repeated. “In fact, I really want to. I’m afraid, though. She’s so powerful.”

  “She won’t abuse her abilities.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am right. She’s the best person I know.”

  “Okay.” Jackie held up her hands and took a step away from him. “I’m still going to be watching her. It’s obvious Bettina and the other one want her for a specific reason. They recognize she’s powerful.”

  “They won’t be able to turn her. I think you know that deep down.”

  “I’m worried that if they can’t turn her, they’ll destroy her. I think you’re worried about that, too.”

  Cooper hesitated and then offered up a stiff nod. “They’re afraid of her. She won’t ever willingly help them.”

  “Then they’ll try to kill her to keep her out of their way.”

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  “You don’t have the power to protect her.”

  “I happen to believe I do.”

  “Because you love her?”

  “More than anything.”

  Jackie let loose a heavy sigh. “I never realized you were such a sap,” she said finally, shaking her head. “It’s freaky.”

  “Everything is going to be okay. I have faith it’s going to w
ork out.”

  “And I’m worried that you believe that because you recognize you’ll be destroyed if it doesn’t work out.”

  “I believe it because it’s true. I know where this road I’m on is supposed to end. It ends at Hannah.”

  “I hope it’s not an end for both of you.”

  “That right there is something we can both agree on.”

  HANNAH HAD CHANGED TO SOFT JOGGERS and a comfortable tank top by the time Cooper landed in the apartment. He grinned when she shifted to greet him and he realized she’d washed off all her makeup and pulled her hair back. That meant she was gearing up for a comfortable evening at home.

  “Ah, home sweet home.”

  Hannah’s smile was flirty as she regarded him. “It’s kind of neat, huh? We’re now cohabitating. We’re cohabitators. Wait ... that’s a word, right?”

  He tilted his head considering. “If it’s not, it should be. It definitely feels like a word.”

  “I happen to agree.” She leaned in to kiss him before accepting the box of food. “You took longer than I thought you would.”

  “I stopped by my place. Er, my old place.”

  “Oh. Did you need clothes?”

  “Yup. That’s the only reason I still go there. So, because we’re cohabitating, I packed up all my clothes while I was there. They’re now downstairs in the saloon. We have to remember to drag them up — or at least hide them in a closet — before the guests arrive tomorrow.”

  Hannah laughed, the sound light and lovely enough to send a rush of warmth jolting through Cooper. “That was fast.”

  “It was,” he readily agreed. “I figured there was no reason to wait. I still have some other things that need to be packed up, but I have to give two months’ notice on the lease anyway so we can take our time with the rest of it.”

  “That sounds like a plan.” She stilled as she regarded him, taking in the lines around his eyes for the first time. “You look tired.”

  “I think I’m just anticipating you wearing me out tonight.”