Wisteria Wyverns (Wisteria Witches Mysteries Book 5)

by Angela Pepper

  I kept rubbing my forehead as I walked down the long hallway toward the door of the wine cellar. I knocked on the door.

  Someone yelled on the other side of the heavy door, “What’s the password?”

  “Open sesame?”

  There was a murmur of discussion, then, “Close enough,” and the door opened.

  I was greeted by the grinning faces of Rob and Knox. Both men were DWM agents and giant bird shifters. In their human forms, Rob was a wiry and perpetually grinning Asian man of about thirty, and Knox was a more solemn yet friendly giant of a man with deep brown skin and black hair cut so short his head was shiny. In their animal forms, Rob and Knox were a giant crow and a giant eagle, respectively.

  The room behind them looked how it had in Josephine’s memory, only now it was filled with six people—or seven, including me. Chet Moore wasn’t in the wine cellar, not unless he was hiding behind a floor-to-ceiling wine rack. In addition to Rob and Knox, there were four other people, whose names I didn’t know, all stationed at a makeshift desk covered in computer equipment and monitors. They barely looked up at me.

  Knox reached for my hand and gave me a powerful shake as greeting. “Zara,” he said with the deep bass voice that went perfectly with all his muscles.

  Rob pretended to cower behind Knox. “Hold your fire, witch!”

  I clasped my hands together. “How many times do I have to apologize for that?”

  Rob slunk out from behind Knox, grinning. “I dunno, man. Maybe until my nostril hairs grow back?”

  Knox turned and gave his coworker a curious look. “You don’t have all of your nostril hairs?” He leaned way down to take a look.

  Rob laughed and pushed him away. “It’s just a joke, on account of that time the elevator doors opened and Miss Snap Crackle Pop took that shot at us.”

  Knox frowned. “But that wasn’t funny. I hurt my coccyx. Hurting your coccyx is never funny.”

  “Sure, it was funny,” I said. “Pain plus time equals comedy. For example, remember that time my father left me to be eaten by a carnivorous plant? Hilarious.”

  A slow smile spread across Knox’s face. “That was funny. You should have seen your face when Charlize stopped your heart. You looked like this.” He scrunched up his face and squeezed one eye shut while his tongue lolled out.

  “No way, man,” Rob said. “It was more like this.” He grimaced painfully and made a gagging sound.

  “Yup,” I said. “That was a real wild night up at the Wick Estate. Nothing says fun times quite like betrayal by all your friends.”

  Rob pulled his tongue back into his mouth and gave me a serious look. “Zara, we didn’t know about your father. Neither of us knew you were part of a trap, or that your old man was working for the bad guys.”

  “He didn’t work for the bad guys.” I looked down as I scuffed the stone floor with my shoe. “Rhys Quarry works for himself,” I explained. “In Dungeons and Dragons, his alignment would be Chaotic Neutral. He’s not truly evil.”

  Knox guffawed softly. “Zara, I like it when you talk about us like we’re all playing a game.”

  Rob reached up to pat his buddy on the shoulder. “That’s exactly what life is, big guy. I keep telling you it’s all a game, and you should make more time for drinking beer on a sunny patio. What’s the point in all those workouts if you don’t use your muscles to hoist a few pints of ale?”

  Knox frowned. “A pint of beer barely weighs one pound. I could lift a whole keg if I wanted to.”

  “You’re on,” Rob said. “After we wrap up this job here, let’s take Zara out for a beer. Whoever lifts the most kegs gets to buy the first round.”

  Our plans were interrupted by the creak of the old door and Chet Moore walking in.

  “Finally,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. “I got here right on time for our meeting, and I’ve been waiting for you for ages.”

  “You were late,” he said. “I went to look for you.”

  “Well, you didn’t look very hard, because I was standing on the stairs at the end of the hall, having not one but two visions from our murder victim.”

  He looked me up and down, frowning. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  I stuck my hands in the front pockets of my shorts. “All day long. Your buddy Charlize sent this outfit to me, courtesy of Air Wyvern Delivery.”

  “She was supposed to send something that would help you blend in.”

  “Blending in is boring.” I scanned the walls of the wine cellar. “She could have sent me some petrified stone clothes, so I could blend into the walls here like a chameleon, but that doesn’t sound very comfortable.”

  “No,” Knox said in solemn agreement. “Petrified stone clothes do not work.”

  Chet shot a look of annoyance at his two coworkers. “It’s past lunch. You two go rustle up some food and give me a moment alone with Zara.”

  Rob and Knox argued that lunch wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as hanging out with me, but Chet was in charge. The other employees who’d been stationed at the computer equipment also took the opportunity to leave for some daylight and food.

  I was left alone with Chet.

  After a moment, he said, “I feel like I haven’t seen your face in a while.”

  My forearms prickled with goosebumps. Chet had a way of making me feel like I’d won a door prize but also that I’d been called to the principal’s office.

  “Funny you should say that,” I said. “Because I literally just saw your face right before I ate lunch, which was delicious, FYI. The fancy chefs here don’t call it a grilled cheese, but trust me, it’s a grilled cheese and it’s magnificent.”

  Chet showed no sign of being amused. “You didn’t see my face because he’s not me. What name did he give you?”

  “He says he’s Archer Caine. Don’t you think that’s a little on the nose?”

  “On the nose?” His voice was as neutral as his face.

  “The last name of Caine, as in Cain and Abel. The brother who slays his brother.”

  “I understand the biblical reference,” he said, still with no emotion. “Other than the fake name, what else did he tell you?”

  I paused and looked over at the makeshift computer lab. “Wait. Are all of you people here to investigate the murder, or to check out your evil twin?”

  “You don’t think the two things are related?”

  “He doesn’t strike me as a killer, Chet. I think he is who he says he is.”

  “There is no record of a man with that name matching his description. Not in any database.”

  I held out both hands. “Maybe he gave me a fake name. So what?”

  “People with good intentions don’t give fake names.”

  “You seem to have made up your mind about this guy. Is there something you know about him that you’re not telling me? My daughter used to have these two friends, Francie and Jade, who were obsessed with these conspiracy theories about famous pop stars being replaced by clones. Are you worried that’s what’s going to happen to you? That you’ll get replaced?”

  “No.”

  “Good, because you’re not getting replaced. You’re not losing anything. You’re gaining a brother. He’s just here looking for his birth family.”

  “Is that so?”

  “He told me a pretty convincing story about how a woman giving birth to twins on a dark and stormy night convinced his adoptive mother to take one of her babies. He didn’t know about any of this until she recently made a deathbed confession.”

  “Lies,” he said. “All lies.”

  “You don’t believe your mother would give away your brother? Well, I didn’t believe my mother would fake her own death and hide from me for five long years, then show up as a zombie, but that’s exactly what she’s done.”

  “Zara…”

  I crossed my arms. “Don’t tell me you knew about my mother all along and didn’t tell me. Honestly, I can’t take another betrayal. I’m bound to shoot someone full of blue li
ghtning or…” I turned and plucked a dusty wine bottle from the rack on the nearest wall. “Or start drinking way more wine than usual.” I blew some of the dust off the bottle. The dust cloud flew directly into Chet’s face. He sneezed.

  “Gesundheit,” I said. “That means good health.”

  He sneezed again.

  I continued. “Some people believe the soul can briefly exit the body during a sneeze, which is what causes you to catch a cold or flu. That’s why people say God bless you. It puts your soul back into your body.”

  He sneezed a third time.

  “God bless you.” I made a shooing motion with the tip of the wine bottle, as though herding his spirit back toward his body.

  He took the bottle of wine from me and carefully placed it back on the shelf. “There was no twin brother,” he said. “My mother had a doctor, and prenatal care. She was only having one child that night. Me.”

  “But what if they didn’t see your twin on the ultrasound? Doctors make mistakes. And then it was a crazy night when you were born. Between the storm and the road blockages and all the rum-based party drinks Winona Vander Zalm was serving to keep everyone calm, I’m surprised people remember anything at all.”

  He frowned. “Rum-based party drinks? How did you know about that?”

  I pointed to my head. “Ghost memories.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My brain is gradually becoming a library for transient ghost memories. Well, technically it’s more of an archiving service than a true library because people aren’t checking out the memories on loan, and we don’t have an actual circulation database, plus nobody ever brings cake. If I could get Frank in there for a few shifts, I’d like to tidy up—”

  He cut me off with a raised hand. “Zara, now is not the time for one of your colorful yarns.”

  “But you asked.”

  His hand hung in the air. His eyes were on mine. I felt a tickle run up my spine. Jo Pressman pushed me forward. I grabbed Chet by the wrist, brought his hand to my mouth, and nibbled on his index finger. Chet’s eyes widened, but he didn’t yank his hand away. Not at first. The room was hot and blurry and spinning, but not in a bad way. Why not have some fun? Jo had his finger in my mouth up to the second knuckle by the time he yanked it away.

  The wine cellar snapped back into focus. She was dormant again—dormant or frightened. The look on Chet’s face was twisted and terrifying. He was partway to his wolf form. In the blink of an eye, he was human again, but the image of his twisted face lingered.

  “Chet, that wasn’t me,” I said.

  “Zara…” His voice was hoarse, wolfish.

  “It was Josephine,” I said. “It turns out she was a Turbo Flirter in her life, and also in her death.”

  He looked at his hand. His finger was still glistening from my saliva. I started talking faster and faster, hoping that would ease the awkwardness.

  “Chet, she must have mixed you up with Archer Caine, or whatever his name is. The two of them had an encounter inside a storage room not far from here. I saw it in her memory, and he all but made a full confession.”

  “He confessed?”

  “Not to killing her. Just to using her body to crinkle some perfectly innocent cardboard boxes. But, from what I know of the young woman, he wasn’t the only person she was getting friendly with. I caught a memory of her cornering one of the young men who works here. His name’s Oberon. He can’t be more than sixteen, and she was threatening to make him a man. Poor guy looked so scared.”

  “Scared enough to kill?”

  “He’s just a kid, and a sweet kid at that. You can check him out, but I wouldn’t waste your resources.”

  “Noted. Who else?”

  “A guy named Nash. He’s an ex who’s staying here. But I can vouch for him personally. He’s a gentle soul, more of a lover than a fighter.”

  “You’ve just named three suspects, and then told me none of them killed her. If it wasn’t one of them, who was it?”

  “I know she was being treated by your resident mad scientist doctor. How about her? Where was pouty-mouthed Dr. Aliyah Ankh yesterday afternoon?”

  “At the department. Working.”

  “Great alibi. Ideal for committing the perfect crime. Where does Dr. Ankh get her volunteers for her reanimation experiments?”

  “That’s classified.”

  I gasped and pointed at Chet. “I knew it! She’s doing experiments on bodies, isn’t she? Jo Pressman could tell she was up to something.” As I talked, snippets of memories came back to me. “The doctor kept wiping Jo’s memory, using a glowing amber rock, but Jo’s brain did something after that night in the attic. It split into compartments, and some of the memories were able to stay hidden and survive. She was investigating Dr. Ankh. I think she took the job here at Castle Wyvern because she wanted money to pay a private investigator to look into her father’s death. Does that sound about right?”

  He stared at me steadily. “Zara, you need to be very careful with these memories of yours and who you talk to about them.”

  “Maybe if you gave me some more clearance and information, I would know exactly who to talk to and who to avoid.”

  “Fine.”

  “Really? I’m getting security clearance?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But for now, you need to keep a low profile. Don’t talk to anyone about anything. Don’t even tell your mother any more than you already have.” The corner of his mouth twitched with the threat of a smile. “I’d tell you to stay in your room, but I know you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Who, me?”

  He shook his finger at me. “Behave yourself.”

  Suddenly, Jo’s spirit flickered back to life. She was like a guttering flame given a blast of oxygen. Chet’s eye contact and physical proximity was the fuel.

  Jo spoke through my mouth, her tone sultry. “Keep waving that finger in my face and I might bite it.”

  “Stop it,” he hissed. “This is no joking matter.”

  “All work and no play are making you a grumpy boy.”

  “Smarten up.” He grabbed both of my wrists. “The poison that killed her was powerful, far stronger than it needed to be to kill a regular human girl. It was meant to kill someone else. Someone of great power.”

  I batted my eyelashes. “Who? What are we even talking about? I forget.”

  “You’re enjoying this.” He released my wrists and took a step back.

  We stared at each other.

  Someone sneezed. It wasn’t either of us.

  Both of us whipped our heads toward the door. Someone was in the hallway, listening to our conversation.

  I had my telekinetic energy twisting the door handle before Chet had taken a single step toward the door. I yanked the door open with so much force, the hinges groaned in protest. Open sesame.

  Standing in the hallway was someone who looked very stunned by the sudden removal of the barrier between us.

  Chapter 26

  The person in the hallway was a very short man, less than four feet tall. He appeared to be over seventy, with deep-set dark eyes and a big, round nose. A pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses sat on top of his bald head. I recognized him immediately as Griebel Gorman, the man who’d been running the appliance repair shop when I’d first moved to Wisteria. The shop had been closed for business following the Vander Zalm homicide investigation. Mr. Gorman had been the one who’d modified a toaster for Dorothy Tibbits, not knowing it would be used for murder. Or so he claimed.

  I hadn’t seen him recently, which, in a small town, probably meant he’d been avoiding me. A few months back, I’d bumped into Griebel outside the police station in Wisteria. He’d freaked out and run away. I tried to catch up with him, just to talk about a few things, but the little guy beat a hasty retreat and disappeared in an alley behind the Gingerbread House of Baking. And now here he was.

  Chet pointed at the short, big-nosed man. “You,” he said. “I told you I never wanted to see your ugly mug eve
r again.”

  Griebel looked at me, opened his mouth, closed it with a click of his teeth, and then started to run away down the hallway. Here we go again.

  Chet and I exchanged a look. At the same time, we both said, “Do something.”

  “Use one of your gadgets,” I said.

  “Use one of yours,” he said indignantly.

  Griebel wasn’t the fastest of runners, but he was nearing the end of the dim hallway.

  “Maybe I will,” I said. “Let’s try a little something I’ve been working on. I call it Invisible Tripwire.”

  I cast the spell, and it worked even better than I’d dared hope. Griebel tripped, curled into a ball, and rolled like a roly-poly pill bug.

  “Not bad,” Chet said. “Now approach him in a calm manner. Whatever you do, don’t startle him or trap him in a corner. Try to be pleasant.”

  “Me? You’re the one who told him you didn’t want to see his ugly mug.”

  He frowned and pushed me to walk ahead of him toward the still-rolling man.

  I asked, “Mr. Gorman, are you okay?”

  He stopped and unfurled, flat on his back. His glasses had fallen off and lay several feet away from where he was now cautiously feeling around on the floor with one hand.

  “I’m okay, Zinnia,” he said. “You didn’t have to cast a spell on me.” He kept feeling around for his glasses.

  I leaned in toward Chet and whispered, “He thinks I’m my aunt. His eyesight’s not so good.”

  Chet nodded as if to say go along with the misunderstanding.

  “Griebel,” I said, using his first name the way my aunt would. “Why were you listening at the door?”

  “I wasn’t listening,” he said, squinting in my direction. His fingertips nearly grazed his eyeglasses. I used my magic to shift them out of reach.

  “Then why were you down here?”

  “To get some wine.”

  “Do you work here?”

  He laughed. “Good one, Zinnia.”

  “How were you going to get through the locked door?”

  He gave up on searching for his glasses, sat up, and pulled a ring of keys and tools from his pocket. “No door is locked to Griebel.” He seemed proud of himself.