Witches Get Stitches
Dakota Cassidy
Witches Get Stitches
Published 2019 by Dakota Cassidy
ISBN: B07SLHS7TC
Copyright © 2019, Dakota Cassidy
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Book Boutiques.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, locales, or events is wholly coincidental. The names, characters, dialogue, and events in this book are from the author’s imagination and should not to be construed as real.
Manufactured in the USA.
Created with Vellum
Acknowledgements
Cover artist : Renee George
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Editor: Kelli Collins
Author’s Note
My darling readers,
* * *
Please note, the Witchless in Seattle series is truly best read in order, to understand the full backstory and history of each character as they develop with every connecting book.
Especially in the case of the mystery surrounding Winterbottom (I know it drives some of you crazy. Sorrysorrysorry!). However, his story is ever evolving and will contain some mini-cliffhangers from book to book. But I promise not to make you wait too long (mostly) until I answer each set of questions I dredge up.
I do, however, promise the central mystery featured in each addition to the series will always be wrapped up with a big bow by book’s end!
Also, please note, I’m prone to taking artistic license with locations and such, so forgive any places near and dear to your heart in Seattle if they’re not completely accurate or don’t actually exist.
And on a final note, Witches Get Stitches picks up immediately where book 8 left off, published in 2018 and titled Witch Way Did He Go?
* * *
Dakota XXOO
Witches Get Stitches
Chapter 1
“Steeephaaaniaaaa!”
I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw for the eleventy-billionth time since Win had possessed his twin brother’s body.
I realize that sounds like an exaggeration, but I promise you, after all the jaw clenching I’ve crammed into the mere week since he’s been home from the hospital, I’m going to need dentures before we’re through.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m over the moon Win is finally here with me on the earthly realm.
Thrilled, I tell you. It was hell getting him here (for both of us) and my eternal gratitude knows no bounds.
But holy canola oil, he was a lot easier to deal with when he was only a voice in my ear. I knew he was opinionated. I mean, how do you suppose I ended up with a woodfire pizza oven in the middle of my kitchen that I’ve never done anything more than warm my socks in?
And listen, I get it. He’s reached a level of frustration known only to a man who’s used to jumping from building to building in order to latch onto a helicopter blade, climb up the side of said winged bird, and catch the bad guy helicopter pilot.
In other words, he was in top-notch shape before he kicked the bucket. Even in the afterlife, he’d been no slouch if you listened to Arkady.
To be reduced to doing nothing more than lying in bed and resting while his new, totally untrained, non-spy body healed involves a certain level of irritation for someone who was so active and healthy before he died.
I only wish it were a level of frustration that required inner reflection rather than such a vocal stance.
Because again, yikes. Had I known Crispin Alistair Winterbottom would be such a crummy patient, one who constantly tried to defy every doctor’s order known to the medical field, I might have ducked out until he was on his feet again.
Yet, here we were, a week since he’d returned home, his recuperation moving far too slowly for the likes of my stickler-for-details British spy. Me hiding in the kitchen, him in his sick bed, calling my name out of what I suspect is boredom.
“Steeephaniaaa!”
I cringed once more and let out a long-held breath. We should add a cell phone to the list of the many things he needed, so he could text me instead of bellowing my name like he was calling the fisherman’s wife. It was either that or a bat for me, so I could clunk his demanding arse over the head.
Unless…unless he was calling me because more residual effects from my attempted spells gone awry were afoot.
Eep.
So look, during those two days Win was gone from my ear, when no one could find him in the afterlife, not even Arkady, I’d done some things.
Holy crow, had I done some things—all in my attempts to get him back, mind you. Things like trying every stinkin’ spell I knew and some I didn’t. Locations spells, time travel spells, spells-spells. I’d done them all.
Read: All. The. Spells.
And okay, my magic isn’t exactly up to snuff. I’m an ex-witch with a serious glitch. But I thought my powers had been stripped from me forever. I really believed that. Also, it’s been a long time since I’ve even bothered to attempt to cast a spell.
I’d had a modicum of success with an incantation a little while ago when my nemesis, Adam “The Angry Warlock” Westfield, had hunted me down and I’d fought back, but by no means were my powers fully restored.
So who knew, even if the spells’ results ended up wonky, that they’d ever in a million years work? Deep in my subconscious, I’m pretty sure I thought I was simply going through the motions to pacify my fears until a better solution came along. You know, sort of like in times of trouble, turn to what you know?
Turns out, my powers aren’t as dead as I thought. They still, in small instances (see: desperation), exist.
They just don’t work the way they’re supposed to, and since the day I’d tried every spell in the book to bring Win back to me, the residual aftereffects of all those sad attempts had been popping up in the weirdest ways. Namely, the baby dinosaur I’d conjured.
I know, I know. A dinosaur can be an inconvenience, sure. However, you say inconvenience; I say history in the making. Seriously, how many living, breathing dinosaurs do you get to see in this lifetime?
None. That’s how many.
But even if he’d been a snippy little bugger, he really was quite cute. And he disappeared after a couple of days with only a few plants torn to smithereens in his wake. No harm, no foul.
But add to that, Win was still hearing ghosts. Something he wasn’t at all displeased about. I, however, was not hearing little but the roar of his demands. We’d set aside the fact that he could still hear Arkady and decided not to delve too deeply into the whys and wherefores (we don’t even know why I was ever able to hear Arkady or Win).
Win was simply glad he could still hear his friend, and I was, too. We’d deal with the afterlife and all its complexities once he was on his feet.
“Stevie?” Belfry poked me with a wing.
I stared out the kitchen nook bay of windows, watching the choppy waters flow by without really seeing anything. Their frothy caps bubbling along soothed me. “Uh-huh?”
“Winterbutt’s calling again.”
“Really? I’ve grown so used to him bellowing my name, I almost didn’t hear.”
“Don’t be a sass-face. You did so hear him.”
“Okay. I lied. I heard him.”
“So what do you think he wants now? You suppose another one of those hinky spells you whipped up is seeing some more nutty fruition?”
I narrowed my gaze at him and cocked my head. “Meaning?”
“Meaning maybe you’ve raised David Bowie from the dead but he h
as no eyeballs and arms?”
“Well, that would certainly change a live performance of ‘China Girl,’ wouldn’t it?”
Belfry sounded out a derisive snort. “You’re making with the funny when this is anything but funny, Stevie B. How many heckin’ spells did you cast, anyway?”
I stroked the top of his head. “You were there, too, Bel.”
“Yeah, yeah. I was there, but I was so focused on your mental state and wiping the beads of sweat from your brow, I can’t remember. So what’s left? The apocalypse?”
I swished my coffee around in my mug, my shoulders slumping. “Like I can remember? Desperate times, my friend. That’s all I can tell you. I was terrified, and I was willing to try any incantation I could remember.”
“Welp, I think you tried them all. What I still can’t wrap my head around is that they sort of worked, in an abstract, messed-up way. Your powers—all of your powers—were totally slapped out of you. You’re not supposed to be able to so much as lift a thimbleful of water. So what gives?”
“Working is a relative term, Bel. They’re not exactly working. And sure, maybe some flakey things have happened in the last week, but nothing so horrible we haven’t been able to deal with it.”
Bel lifted his tiny chin and looked up at me with his soft brown eyes. “You don’t think that glacier in the backyard was a problem, Boss?”
I sighed. Okay. That had been hard to hide. But we’d managed. “Nothing some heat lamps and a hundred tarps from Home Depot didn’t cure while we waited for it to melt.”
“I gotta hand it to you. The fancy footwork you did with Dana and Melba when they came to check on you after your meltdown was inspired. I can’t believe you told him you were thinking of taking up ice sculpting. Way to think on your feet.”
Dana and Melba had indeed come to see how I was faring after an epic meltdown just at the moment I thought Win was lost to us—to me—forever. It was ugly and painful for me to remember the sheer rawness of my emotions that night.
But like the true friends they are, they’d come back to reassure me I could count on them, even when I’d pushed them away. I would always be grateful for that kind of unconditional friendship and support.
But when they’d shown up this week, I was in the middle of dealing with one of my spells gone rogue and it had taken some quick thinking to explain why we had twenty or so heat lamps in the backyard.
I shot Bel a coy smile and winked. “Even I have to admit that had a little bit of genius. And don’t you give me any grief about telling them I have the bird flu. I had to keep them from seeing the whole glacier somehow.”
Bel rolled to his back and giggled. “But the bird flu, Stevie? C’mon. Does that even exist?”
I pulled out my phone and typed “bird flu” into the search bar and held it up to show him.
“It most certainly does. I read about it somewhere in a book, I think. Yes, you have to have been in the proximity of a bird to catch it, but how do they know I wasn’t? They don’t. I needed something that sounded horrid and contagious. Something that would make them think twice before pushing their way into the house to see after me. I love them, but we can’t afford to have Win exposed just yet. We need to figure out how we’re going to explain him to our friends, where he came from so out of the blue, all the details of a life for a man of his age. I’m not ready to do that until he’s in better shape.”
And yeah. There was that. How were we going to explain Win? Forget the rogue spells floating around, forget the hysterical condition Dana and Melba had found me in.
How were we going to explain away all the things his brother Balthazar had done if Win planned to assume his identity? For all intents and purposes, Balthazar wasn’t a very nice person. Not on paper and definitely not in person. Add to that, he was a criminal with a rap sheet as long as a country mile.
But we had yet to discuss the pros and cons of taking over Balthazar’s life.
Thinking about it exhausted me. I pressed my thumbs into my temples to abate the dull throb beginning in the middle of my forehead.
“Malutka?”
“Dah, my favorite Russian?”
“Win is calling. Do you not hear him, my spring roll?”
“Oh, I hear him, all right, and I’m choosing to ignore him for now.”
Arkady’s laughter rumbled in my ear. “He is difficult patient, dah?”
“He is very difficult patient and it’s all I can do not to strangle him at this point.”
“Ooo-wee,” he teased. “Harsh words from the pretty lady who was ready to fall on sword for him not so long ago.”
Yeah, yeah. “And I’d still do it all over again, Arkady.” I held up my hand in a second thought gesture. “Okay. Maybe I wouldn’t do aaall the spells again, but mostly I’m hashtag no regrets.”
“Except?” Arkady asked.
“Except holy cats, Win’s a real PITA, buddy. I mean, I knew he was a fussy pants. But I guess I didn’t have to deal with a lot of it because he was up there and I was down here. But now I’m cutting his toast in triangles, not squares. As if that changes the taste of the bread. I’m close to using a thermometer in his fancy-pants English tea to ensure its room temperature, not lukewarm, because apparently there’s a difference. And worst of all? I’m ironing his dagnabbit socks. Who, in their right mind, irons their socks, my good friend?”
Arkady barked a laugh. “He is particular, my Zero. But these were all things that make him most excellent spy.”
I jabbed my finger up in the air at the ceiling. “Well, they don’t make him a most excellent patient. They make him persnickety. And let’s not even talk about his recuperation, where rest is crucial, according to the doctor. He seems to forget the body he inhabited was in a coma and it’s weak as a kitten. That means he has to rest, not make reservations for the New York Marathon.”
“Do you make reservations or do you just enter?” Bel asked, flying to Whiskey’s back to tuck himself into the fur of his neck.
“You’re asking me like I’d know about any other marathon but one that includes a bowl of popcorn, a liter of grape Fanta and Criminal Minds? Don’t talk crazy, Bel.”
Both Belfry and Arkady chuckled, their mingled laughter cheering me a little.
“You didn’t think Win being here on this realm wouldn’t come without its problems, did you, Stevie? I mean, seriously. You’ve been googley-eyed over Winterbutt for two years now, but it’s been a long-distance relationship. You didn’t have to clean up his dirty socks or, in this case, iron his socks. You’re both gonna have a bunch of idiosyncrasies and bad habits that drive each other bananapants. That goes without saying,” Bel reminded, his voice growing sleepy. “All the mystery of what it’d be like to physically be together is gone and the curtain’s pulled back. You’ve seen the wizard, honey, and he’s seen you. Now the real work comes.”
“Little ball of fluff speaks truth,” Arkady agreed. “All relationship come with compromise, and it take time to learn each other.”
“And you know this how, Casanova? Weren’t you divorced?” I teased, taking my last sip of coffee.
“Do not be fresh with me, my little borscht,” he chastised. “I watch Dr. Phil and learn from my mistakes, and he say you must put in the work. Now is time to put in work.”
Letting my head fall to my arms, I nodded. “You’re right. You’re both right. I’m thrilled he’s here, but we need to get to know each other, really know each other, warts and all. I suppose his persnickety ways is a wart.”
“You have warts, malutka?”
I rolled my eyes. “Not today, but I’m pretty sure somebody might have a knot on his head by day’s end if he doesn’t stop screaming my name.”
As if on cue, Win bellowed again. “Stephaaaania!”
I cringed and sighed before pushing my chair out and rising to bring my mug to the sink. “His highness calls. I’d better get my butt in gear. What do you suppose he wants now? A mint under his pillow at bedtime? Hospital corners on
his sheets?”
Bel buzzed to my shoulder while Whiskey trotted alongside me, pressed to my thigh as we made our way toward the stairs and up to Attila The Persnickety’s room.
“Now, Boss. He’s just bored. You know, like kids get when they have to sit through a longwinded mass at church. He’s a fidgety-fidget. Clearly he’s not used to so much down time. He needs something to keep his mind active while his body heals.”
I narrowed my gaze as I made my way down the long hallway to the room Win had turned into his personal therapy station. It was on the opposite end of the hall from mine, something Win insisted was the decorous behavior expected of him at this point in our relationship.
I’d internally gushed at how chivalrous he could be and outwardly agreed we were doing the right thing.
“So how do we keep his fidgety mind busy? You think some crossword puzzles might do the trick, Bel?”
“I dunno. I do know he’s binge-watched pretty much everything on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime, and I’m running out of suggestions.”
Stopping at Win’s doorway, I peeked inside to assess his mood as he sat amongst his rust-and-blue-colored Egyptian cotton sheets. His room was as manly as he was, decorated in dark colors and bold art pieces—all chosen by His Highness, of course.
Sometimes Win simply called to me out of boredom. Sometimes he genuinely needed aid. Sometimes he was merely frustrated by his new body’s unwillingness to bend to his will and he needed a distraction.
As I gazed at his handsome face, all sharp angles and rough, dark stubble, as I admired his fit physique in a T-shirt and some flannel pajama bottoms, all of my irritation melted away.
His devilish good looks that somehow managed to be elegant and rugged at the same time, his wide hands, the way his inky-black hair curled against his neck, never failed to make me exhale in breathy admiration. He was a treat for the eyes, and I didn’t doubt he’d used those good looks to gain whatever he’d needed back in his spying days.
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