Ned cleared her throat. ‘Yes, well … you know how it goes, Derek. She does amazing work, and I’m sure that everyone in Samhain Street will welcome someone with investigative skills who’s not a Wayfarer.’
There was a loud snort, and I looked behind the bar, where the flower-waterer was standing, giving me a sarcastic smile. ‘Frightened of her own shadow, that one. You’re saying she’s a private eye? Nah. I’ll believe it when I see it.’
The middle-aged man reached out a hand. ‘I’m Derek Carey, owner of this establishment. I didn’t mean to be rude, love. It’s just that my daughter Diane is … well, she’s gone missing. She’s being chased down by the Wayfarers for crimes she didn’t commit, and I’m worried about her. Oh, and the smartarse behind the bar is Cullen. He’s my chief cook, bottle-washer and barman. If he’s rude to you, it’s not because he’s worried about my Diane. It’s just his personality.’
Cullen waved a hand, somehow managing to do so sarcastically. ‘Hey, Katy Cakes. Nice to see you again. I’m betting you’ll make it one night before running back home. Where is home, by the way?’
Derek shook his head in exasperation. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be mashing potatoes or something?’
Cullen gave him a mock-salute. ‘As you wish,’ he said, and sauntered away.
Derek left us and made his way behind the bar. When he was gone, Ned smiled and waved at two guys seated close to the jukebox. ‘There’s our friends, Jonathan and Donal. Come on, let’s go join them.’
Donal was a pudgy but sweet-looking guy, dressed in jeans, a checked shirt, and a pair of wellies. Jonathan was his total opposite, dressed in an expensive shirt and neatly-pressed jeans, with his blond hair gelled into submission. Despite his put-together appearance, he was biting at the nubs of his fingernails when we sat down. He had one of those cute but dumb faces, too, the kind that said he’d never had to consider the cost of anything he bought.
‘You must be the new arrival,’ he said, reaching out to shake my hand. As I took a seat, he continued. ‘Ned phoned me and Donal a few minutes ago and told us all about you.’
She gave me a guilty shrug. ‘We don’t like surprises on Samhain Street.’
They didn’t like surprises, they didn’t like the law. What did they like? Hopefully killing well-meaning witch hunters wasn’t one of their favourite pastimes.
‘So I hear you’re rather a mystery,’ Jonathan said. ‘Kicked out of your original coven for being unempowered, lived as an orphan in the human world, and now, because of your knack for finding people, you’ve decided to return to the magical world into which you were born and see if you can help other unfortunates like yourself.’ He took a swig from a tankard of what smelled like cider. ‘It could be a novel, your life, couldn’t it?’
‘You know what they say. Life is stranger than fiction.’
‘Indeed,’ said Jonathan. ‘But your life would make a far juicier piece of fiction if you’d only tell us which coven you were born into. I’m betting the Berry coven. They have a habit for that sort of thing. Kicking their nearest and dearest out into the big bad world, stabbing each other in the back and so on. Plus, most of their leaders are in Witchfield Prison right now, so you’d feel safer returning.’
Donal shook his head at Jonathan. ‘Leave the poor girl alone, will you?’
‘Thanks, Donal, but that’s all right. Jonathan’s got good reasoning skills,’ I said with what I hoped was an enigmatic smile. ‘But even so, I’m not telling you any more about me until I know you better.’
‘Very wise.’ Ned patted my hand. ‘I mean, you never know who you’re talking to, do you? I could be a member of the Society of Cacklers for all you know.’
Jonathan gave Ned a look of brotherly admonishment. ‘Now, now, now, Nedina. Poor Katy has only just become a part of this world. She probably has no idea what you’re on about.’
‘I don’t,’ I admitted. I’d told that story out of desperation, but now I realised just how well it could work out for me. I didn’t need to pretend to know about this strange new world. I could ask as many dumb questions as I liked without breaking character. Maybe I wasn’t so bad at this witch hunting lark after all.
‘The Society of Cacklers are … well, they’re em … they’re a little old-fashioned,’ said Ned. ‘Let’s just leave it at that.’
‘That’s good with me.’ I looked around the table. ‘So how do all of you know each other, then?’
‘Well, Ned was a couple of years above me and Donal at Crooked College,’ Jonathan replied. ‘She had to tutor us, because we’re absolutely useless at just about everything. Then all of us did a channelling class over at Wentforth’s College for Wizards, and that’s when we met Hamish.’
‘College friends.’ I smiled. ‘It’s really great that you’re all still in touch. I always felt a little different to everyone I went to school with.’ That much, at least, was true.
Hamish nudged me with his head and said, ‘That’s just tragic, Katy. Now open the menu, will you? I’m starving.’
My own stomach hadn’t stopped rumbling since Ned mentioned going for dinner, although now that I was here, I couldn’t help but remember that almost every book my uncle gave me warned me never to eat a witch’s food.
‘You’re sweating,’ said Hamish.
‘Am I?’ I pulled at the collar of my T-shirt. ‘Well, it’s warm in here. You wouldn’t know because you’re naked.’
‘I am not naked.’ He held his nose in the air. ‘I’m wearing a hat. Anyway, I’m going to have the steak tartare with a bowl of the house red. I know Ned will have her usual chicken salad. What about you, Katy? What do you fancy?’
I scanned the menu, wondering what was least likely to kill me. There was an awful lot of vegan food, which seemed safe enough. ‘I em … I’ll have the pasta in the cashew sauce with the smoked tofu,’ I said.
‘Hah!’ Hamish let out a bark of laughter. ‘You’re as bad as one of those softie vegan weredogs.’
Weredogs were vegans? Hadn’t my uncle said they were descendants of hellhounds, beasts so ravenous that they’d eat you as soon as look at you?
Hamish was watching me carefully. ‘Wait a minute!’ He smacked a paw on the table. ‘When you thought I was a weredog, you were scared of me.’
‘No I wasn’t.’
‘Yes, you were. What did you think weredogs were? Did you think they were as bad as werewolves?’
‘Maybe,’ I admitted. ‘Okay, yes. I mean, how was I to know any different? So they’re really not dangerous? They’re just a bunch of big vegan softies?’
‘Namby-pambies of the highest order,’ he confirmed. ‘Just like you, with your tofu pasta.’
I shrugged at Hamish and said, ‘Oh well. At least I don’t look like a weredog.’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘That was low, Katy. Very low.’ His tail began to wag and he turned to snap at it. ‘Dratted tail. It always gives me away when I’m pretending to be outraged.’ He nudged me with his hairy shoulder. ‘I think you and I are going to get along famously.’
I was about to reply when Cullen arrived to take our orders. This time he made no wisecracks in my direction. In fact, he completely ignored me and beamed at Ned. ‘Looking good,’ he said. ‘As usual. So what’ll it be?’
She gave him all of our orders with a cool tone to her voice. It didn’t seem to put him off his attempts at flirtation, though. As he walked away, an unbidden sigh escaped my mouth.
Ned grimaced. ‘Don’t tell me you fancy him.’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I mean, I know they say chicks dig scars, but he’s really not my type.’
‘Well, his scar is hardly his worst quality.’ She leaned closer to me and whispered. ‘His name is Cullen Keats. He’s twenty-nine, a former broom thief and love-potion dealer who’s done time at Witchfield Prison. Oh, and he’s also a warlock.’
Why had she said “warlock” like it was the worst of his crimes? What had my uncle told me about warlocks again? Oh yeah, they were
the heads of the covens, with the witches and wizards answering to them. Seeing as he’d already been proven wrong about wizards and weredogs, I imagined he was wrong about warlocks, too. And it wasn’t just Faster who was wrong – every one of the books he’d gotten me to read had said much the same.
‘I honestly have no idea what a warlock is,’ I told Ned. ‘Other than what human movies have informed me.’
Ned sniggered. ‘Yeah, I’ve seen a few of those myself. Look, there’s no need to feel ignorant, Katy – I mean, it’s not your fault you don’t know any of this. Warlocks are witches – genetically speaking, anyway. But they think men should be in charge of the supernatural world. They formed the Warlock Society centuries ago, and ever since then they’ve been trying to put men in charge. They are not happy that the last few Ministers for Magical Law have been women. And they also, unsurprisingly, have quite a high divorce rate. Derek is one too – the owner of this place.’
‘You know, if you want to know all about the supernatural world, I have a book I can lend you,’ offered Hamish. ‘For a price.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s the price, Hamish?’ I asked. ‘Some tummy rubs?’
He let out an awkward woof. ‘Not quite. But there is a spot just behind my right ear that I can’t seem to reach.’
As I obliged, he happily panted, his tongue lolling out. Our food was on the way, and I couldn’t help but look at Cullen as he brought it. So he was a warlock or, in other words, a misogynist. At least I didn’t have to feel bad about him preferring the tall, blonde and gorgeous Ned over me.
The food was surprisingly good, but watching Hamish lap up his wine from a bowl was the highlight of the meal. We all got the same for dessert – a seasonal crumble served with ice cream. I was half way through mine when I noticed Donal’s face was growing incredibly red, and he was clutching at his chest.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘I … I have a pain, shooting up and down my left arm,’ Donal rasped. ‘And my chest feels … it feels …’
Jonathan tutted. ‘It’s just heartburn. Donal always rushes his food.’
‘I don’t think that’s what it is,’ I said. I stood up, about to approach Donal, when he let out one last rasping noise, and his face fell into his crumble.
13. Those Stupid Wayfarers!
The entire place was in uproar.
‘Nobody call for a doctor!’ cried a woman at the table next to ours.
‘And nobody call the Wayfarers!’ screamed a man who was standing by the bar. ‘Those stupid Wayfarers!’
Luckily, Derek decided to ignore that advice. ‘I’m calling the stupid Wayfarers! I’ve nothing to hide from the law, after all,’ he said. ‘None of us do.’
Looking around at the faces of the patrons in the Bank, I wasn’t sure that was true. Either way, Derek did his civic duty and phoned for help. A few seconds later, the Wayfarers arrived. The cute young woman and the fair-haired guy from this morning were there, but there were so many others with them.
A handsome, dark-haired guy bent over Donal, waving a stick around the body (I was guessing it was a wand, but what did I know?) and shaking his head in futility. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘It looks like Broken Heart potion to me. What do you think, Wanda?’
The young woman approached, checking Donal’s eyes first, then opening his mouth and staring inside, even sniffing his breath a little bit. She was thorough, that was for sure. ‘Yeah, it looks like you’re right, Shane. I think he was killed with Broken Heart all right.’ She gazed around the table. ‘We’ll need to confiscate everything you all ate and drank for testing. And this whole place is on lockdown till we’ve questioned you all.’
≈
It felt like an age before I was called for my interview. In that time, I learned that Broken Heart was a potion that mimicked the effects of a heart attack. I also learned that people in Samhain Street would do anything to avoid the supernatural police force known as the Wayfarers.
I watched one man break his ankle while trying to climb out a window. I saw a young woman collapse, exhausted, after trying and failing to use magic to escape. A group of what Hamish told me were werewolves had decided that tunnelling out would be a good idea.
The Wayfarers stopped all of this quickly and without fuss, and finally I was called for my interview. It was happening in what seemed to be Derek’s office, a tiny room next to the kitchen. There were photos all over the walls, of Derek with Diane and a slightly older woman, who I assumed was Diane’s mother. She had the same gorgeous dark skin and hair, and a come-hither look in her eyes that made even me a little bit hot under the collar.
The fair-haired guy was slugging back coffee and scribbling some notes, and the brown-haired young woman consulted a notebook and then smiled at me. ‘Katy, I take it. I’m Wanda Wayfair, detective with Major Crimes, and this here is Captain Finn Plimpton, who runs the department. We just want to ask you a few questions and then we’ll let you on your way. Sound good?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I mean, I’ll do whatever I can to help.’ I really meant that. I’d known Donal for barely more than an hour, but he’d seemed like a really sweet guy.
Captain Finn Plimpton drained the last from his coffee and, wiping his mouth, he said, ‘I don’t recognise you. Are you new to Samhain Street?’
‘Ned told us about her, remember?’ said Wanda. ‘They’re living together now. Seems like our sweet necromancer finally found someone dumb enough to rent that room. Ned was a little bit vague about whether or not you’re renting the shop space too, which means you probably are. What are you going to do with it?’
I bristled. I wasn’t doing anything, but they didn’t need to know that. As soon as I found Diane, I was out of here. But I was curious about these two, and about the Wayfarers in general. If they were a sort of supernatural police force, then surely that meant they were decent people. Was it even possible that there were good witches? It didn’t fit in with anything Faster had said – although he hadn’t been right about much.
‘I’m not sure,’ I replied. ‘I’m just feeling the place out for now. I mean, I’ve only just met Ned, and even though she seems nice enough, I’m going to give it a few days before I decide to stay for sure.’
Wanda shivered. ‘Well, I can’t blame you for being cautious. In another reality, Ned isn’t a necromancer and me and her are best friends. We even go to see musicals together, I bet. But in this world, she is a creepy necromancer, and she hates my guts because she thinks me and Finny chased away her boyfriend.’
The captain shook his head at Wanda. ‘You’re calling me Finny in front of the witnesses now? It’s fine that you have no respect for me in private, Wanda, but could you at least pretend to act like I’m your boss once in a while?’ He turned to me. ‘So, Miss Kramer – that’s your name, right? I feel like it rings a bell. Is it a Dublin-based coven?’
Oh, fluff. ‘I don’t belong to a coven. And um … I have no idea why you’d have heard of my surname.’
‘Are you maybe thinking of Connor Cramer?’ Wanda suggested.
Finn gritted his teeth. ‘Ah. My girlfriend’s dead ex-boyfriend. Yip, that’s the one. So are you any relation to Connor Cramer, formerly of Cramer’s Candles?’ He looked down at his notebook. ‘Back when he was alive, he spelled his surname with a C. Do you spell your surname with a C, Katy?’
Gulp. ‘Um, with a K. Anyway, listen, shouldn’t you be questioning me about how poor Donal died?’
‘But we all know how he died already, don’t we?’ the captain pointed out. ‘He was poisoned. By some Broken Heart potion. His cider has tested positive, and he displays all the signs, so the autopsy is just a formality. Who poisoned him, though – that’s what we’re trying to discover.’
He glanced down at his notes. ‘Everyone at your table says you were all sitting there the whole time and no one even got up to go to the loo. Now, seeing as you’ve yet to be indoctrinated into the Samhain Street way of doing things, maybe you’ll have a diffe
rent way of approaching us. Maybe you won’t see us as the big bad Wayfarers, and instead you’ll tell us the truth.’
I shook my head helplessly. ‘I’m not planning on hiding anything about Donal’s death. But it’s true – no one got up during the whole meal, and I didn’t see anyone messing with his drink, either.’
He lifted a brow. ‘Well, someone did mess with it, clearly. Katy, what do you know about a woman called Diane Carey?’
My eyes widened. ‘You think she has something to do with Donal’s death?’
‘We think she has something to do with a lot of deaths,’ said Captain Plimpton. ‘Donal was the second to last supernatural she dated, before she scarpered from the witch enclaves and set her sights on human guys instead. She’s what we used to refer to as a wayward witch. These days, we just call her a stone-cold murderer. So Katy, is there anything you can think of? Any point at which Donal’s drink could have been poisoned? Did you see the drink being served?’
I thought back over the meal, desperately trying to remember. ‘Well, he and Jonathan both had tankards of cider when I arrived with Ned and Hamish, and I bought everyone another round of drinks halfway through dinner. I didn’t leave the table to order – Cullen was hanging about, trying to flirt with Ned, I think, so I ordered them from him and he brought them to the table a couple of minutes later.’
They exchanged a glance, and I saw Captain Plimpton scribble: Cullen?
Wanda quickly closed Finn’s notebook and smiled at me. ‘I heard that a lot of other people asked Ned about that room – don’t ask me why anyone would want to live above a necromancy supply store. But every time, she turned them away, making some excuse or another. It’s one of the reasons we were sure she was hiding Diane Carey. We figured she was advertising the room so it would look like Diane had scarpered, but she was secretly keeping her hidden. The fact that you’re living there now puts paid to that theory though, doesn’t it? So Katy, what did you do to convince Ned to rent you the room?’
The Case of the Wayward Witch Page 8