For Thor. A giant among giants.
And for Selena, my friend.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Huge thanks to my fabulous beta readers: George Annino, Selena Jones. Also to Bridget McKenna, for her very skilled, yet gentle editorial hand.
Editing By: http://www.bridgetmckenna.com/
Cover Design By: Dane House, LLC
DESCRIPTION
It’s nearing Yule in Amethyst, and the witchy reporter, Stacy Justice, is consumed with only one thing—getting through her cousin Cinnamon’s baby shower. Everyone is anticipating the arrival of the newest, tiniest Geraghty. Even Stacy's familiar, Thor, is searching for the perfect gift. When Cinnamon’s Italian relatives swarm the town like locusts, Stacy has only three things on her mind--provide a peaceful affair for both mother and unborn baby, spend some quality time with her own mother who is visiting from Ireland, and eat as much of her aunt Lolly’s famous food as she can stomach.
But someone else has an entirely different agenda. Someone consumed with rage, jealousy and bitterness. Someone who feels that the Geraghtys—and especially Stacy—are standing in the way of a fated prophesy.
When a ghost who doesn’t know he’s a ghost, follows Stacy home from a crime scene, she thinks her biggest problem is trying to convince the teenager that he’s dead. Until she discovers her mother conspiring with a secret coven, Cinnamon acting strangely magical, and Birdie and the aunts have lost their mojo. Then a spell is cast designed to siphon all of Stacy’s magic and rip away the very identity she’s worked so hard to accept.
Worst of all? A visit from an old friend warns Stacy that she has only one week left to live.
The sixth book in the heart-pounding, bewitching mystery series is sure to please long standing fans and new readers alike as secrets are revealed and loyalties are shattered. When the last page is turned, neither readers, nor the Seeker herself, will ever be the same.
OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES BY BARBRA ANNINO
Opal Fire: Stacy Justice Book One
Bloodstone: Stacy Justice Book Two
Tiger’s Eye: Stacy Justice Book Three
Emerald Isle: Stacy Justice Book Four
Obsidian Curse: Stacy Justice Book Five
Geraghty Girls Recipes
OTHER TITLES BY BARBRA ANNINO
Sin City Goddess: Secret Goddess Book One
Bourbon Street Goddess – coming soon
The Bitches of Everafter
Anthologies and Shorter Works
Gnome Wars
My Guardian Idiot
A Tale of Three Witches
Every Witch Way But Wicked
The Graveyard Witch
Stained
Cupid’s Arrow
Naughty or Nice
Chapter 1
Over the last year or so, life has launched quite a few curve balls at my head. Some of them I managed to bob and weave, and some of them made a direct hit. I’ve been shot at, betrayed, beaten, left without a pulse, sucked into another world, used as demon bait, bitch-slapped by a goddess, groped by dead people, and stuffed into a birdcage.
You might say my life was anything but boring.
Of all the cockfockery I have faced on my reluctant journey to becoming the Seeker of Justice and accepting my witchiness, none was so daunting as the task that lay before me now. It was a hand-wringing, jaw-clenching, heart-pounding clusterfluff of a problem.
That’s right, I was organizing a baby shower for my cousin, Cinnamon.
Now, anyone who knows my family and my cousin should understand this dilemma. But if you don’t, then let me just say that if you’ve never had the privilege, planning this sort of shindig for someone who is inherently repelled by all things labeled cute, cuddly, adorable, precious, sweet, or that invoke a murmur of “aww” expressed in a high-pitched feminine tone, is damn near impossible. Cinnamon didn’t even like sugar in her coffee. She liked it strong, black and bitter, like her personality. Her words, by the way, not mine.
It was a couple of weeks ago when Cinnamon got wind of what her mother and I were planning. Actually, truth be told, I would have been happy just buying a boatload of gifts for mom and baby and ordering a pizza. Angelica, Cin’s mother and my aunt, had a completely different agenda, which was what had Cinnamon’s maternity panties in a twist.
She pulled me aside one day when I was helping out at her bar and grill, The Black Opal. There was always a glint of anger shining in Cinnamon’s eyes, because that’s just the kind of woman she was. Half Irish, half Sicilian, and all feisty. But that day it was dialed up about ten notches, and I could have sworn I saw a red ring around her chocolate-brown peepers.
There really wasn’t much that scared me in this world these days, because if you were scared—if you showed weakness in the face of danger—you could get yourself killed. I learned that from some intensive training I received after I was appointed the role of Seeker. Opponents smelled fear like dogs smelled bacon, and with the same degree of enthusiasm and hunger.
But Cinnamon on the warpath made my stomach flip, and it never left my mind that she was a cop’s daughter who had an arsenal in her shed that would rival that of a militant compound in east Texas. And unlike me, she had no qualms about using it.
I preferred less lethal weapons.
I felt her staring at me over the freshly waxed oak bar, but I refused to meet her gaze, much as any sane person wouldn’t eyeball a tiger. Finally, she said, “Is there something you want to tell me?” Her voice was eerily calm. Not a good sign. I much preferred her loud and pissed off. She was more predictable that way.
“You’re looking lovely today,” I said.
She cocked her head. “I look like a weeble, for crissake.”
“You have a glow about you. Pregnancy does wonders for your skin.” I grabbed some straws and filled the cups with them. Tall on the left, small on the right.
“Don’t piss me off.” She slapped some clean spill mats on the bar.
There it is, I thought.
“Looks like that ship has not only sailed, but returned to the harbor and dropped anchor.” I arranged the mats in front of the station.
“I found mama’s baby showering notebook,” she mimicked her mother’s gravelly voice.
I cringed. Cinnamon had specifically instructed me not to throw her a shower. As the appointed godmother, and knowing full well that Cinnamon hated any shower that didn’t include water, I was more than happy to honor her wishes. However, this was Angelica’s first grandchild, and as stubborn as Cinnamon could be, Angelica was worse. Not to mention she was my elder, and if I had learned anything this last year it was keep the relatives happy and close to your hip.
Because when they got to conspiring on their own, bad things happened.
“Baby showering?”
Cin shrugged. “The woman’s been in this country for thirty years and she still can’t get a handle on the lingo.”
I sighed and ran my fingers through my red hair which I had just gotten trimmed to shoulder length. “Look, Cin, I know you didn’t want a shower, but your mother can be quite persuasive.” I rubbed my arm where Angelica had whacked me with a wooden spoon when I suggested that perhaps we could forego the shower and just have a small family dinner. “Plus, I can run away from you at the moment, but she’s surprisingly fast. And strong.”
Cin wagged her finger at me. “Yes, but I have a better memory and that fat joke will be filed away for when this baby is out of me. You can run, Stacy Justice, but you can’t hide.”
I wasn’t aiming for a fat joke, just stating the obvious. Which is that a woman who was normally as curvy as a belly dancer who wasn’t afraid of a cheeseburger may lose a step or two in the speed department when she’s carrying an extra thirty pounds
anchored in her mid-section. But good grief, her hormones were especially spiked that day. She grabbed a knife and I backed away as she pulled out a container of limes.
She didn’t say anything for a while and I decided to let her stew until she was ready to talk. After a couple of minutes of me stocking the bar with booze and her slicing limes, she spoke.
“Okay, Stace, here’s the deal.”
“I’m listening, boss.”
“No miniature anything. If I see so much as one tiny quiche, I’m out of there.”
“Got it.”
She waved the knife and a bit of fruit flew across the bar. “And no pictures. I look like something Goodyear flies over Wrigley Field.”
I thought she was being silly. Of course she was heavier, that’s what babies do to a body. Cinnamon is also vertically challenged, though, and can barely make it on a carnival ride, so I guessed she was feeling a bit rotund in her current state.
“Check.”
She reached into the refrigerator for the lemons. “And no freaking games. No baby bingo, baby trivia, nursery rhymes, or pin the sperm on the egg.”
I stopped setting up the station and looked at her. “That’s a thing?”
“Apparently.”
“Ew.”
“This is what I’m saying.”
“Roger that.”
I walked around the bar to clean the tables. “Anything else, your majesty?”
“Just two things.”
“I’m listening.”
“No guessing the baby’s name or what she will be when she grows up.”
I stopped, looked at her. “She?”
Cinnamon was washing the cutting board. “What?”
“You said ‘she’. Do you know for certain it’s a she?” Tony, Cin’s husband, had been adamant that he didn’t want to know the sex. Each checkup, he made her promise to stress that to the doctor.
She shrugged. “Just a hunch.”
I eyed her suspiciously. I knew my cousin was carrying a girl. One of the perks of being a witch was that sometimes you just knew things, especially about your family. This baby had connected with me from the womb, however faintly, a short while ago. There was something special about my goddaughter, and I couldn’t wait to meet her.
But Cinnamon didn’t believe in hunches or superstitions. “You’re lying.”
“No I’m not. A mother knows.” She didn’t meet my eyes.
This was something she just wouldn’t say. “Cinnamon Panzano, you’re lying to me through your teeth. How do you really know it’s a girl?”
She turned around to face me. “Fine. Birdie told me.”
I stood there, towel in my hand, mouth on the floor. “You asked our grandmother to do some magic didn’t you?”
Cin gave me a stern look, but I wasn’t backing down. I crossed my arms and tapped my foot, waiting.
She blew out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. I did. Just a little bit.” She pinched her fingers together.
“Birdie doesn’t do just a little bit.”
“I know,” she said, and a wave of worry swept over her face.
In a flash, it was gone.
To this day, that look haunts me. Because I know that had I paid closer attention then, none of the horrors we were about to experience would ever have happened.
Chapter 2
The Saturday before the Yule sabbat, the day of Cinnamon’s no-frills baby shower, I was wrapping up the perfect gift. I knew that Angelica and her relatives, along with Tony’s parents, my mom—who was coming for a visit all the way from Ireland—and a few friends were going to buy Cin everything she would need for those first months of motherhood. I had no idea what my grandmother Birdie and her sisters Lolly and Fiona had planned, but I was certain it would be something along the lines of the gifts young Aurora received from the three fairies in the cartoon movie Sleeping Beauty. I just hoped there would be no Maleficent.
Because unfortunately, in my family, we seemed to attract evil villains. The burden of hailing from a long line of Celtic witches was that people wanted to hurt you. Often. And with great intensity. And now that I was deemed the Seeker of Justice, there was a target on my back from every whackjob who was an enemy of my family or the Council. Or anyone, for that matter, who wanted to possess what we protected.
The Council is composed of the men and women who make up the secret society that granted me my role. They’re based in Ireland, and they guard ancient texts, invaluable artifacts, and treasures handed down by the Tuatha Dé Danann—the magical race descended from the goddess Danu.
It took me a long while to accept who I was and what I was born for, despite the efforts of the Geraghty Girls. (That’s how my grandmother and her sisters were known around Amethyst, the small Illinois tourist town where we lived.) But I now carried that responsibility close to my heart. And it didn’t hurt that I inherited a kick-ass sword and a powerful locket as part of my uniform.
They are my weapon and my badge.
The sword tended to attract attention, so I kept that at home in my cottage hanging on the wall. The locket—the Seeker’s amulet—went everywhere with me. I slipped it on now and tucked it under my cable-knit sweater. Then I strapped on some boots, zipped them up over my jeans, slipped an athame inside the left one, and called Thor, my familiar.
Thor once lived with my cousin. He was a stray Great Dane that wandered into town and found himself working as a bouncer at Cinnamon’s bar, apparently biding his time until I came to my senses and moved back home from Chicago. He’s one-hundred and eighty pounds of muscle with a sunny disposition that doesn’t match his fierce black-and-tan face. After knocking over one too many rows of bar glasses with his whip of a tail, Thor was out of a job and came to live with me, although if I was being honest, I felt as if I’d known him my whole life.
When Thor didn’t come the second time I called him, I went looking for him. He had been acting strange the last couple of months, visiting Cinnamon on a regular basis to ensure that she and the baby were safe. Fiona, whose main gifts were affairs of the heart and communicating with animals, told me he would outgrow this phase once the baby arrived.
That wasn’t soon enough for Cinnamon, however, so Thor and I made an agreement that he could only visit her once a week.
So where was he?
I searched the cottage and the yard and finally found Thor sitting in the front seat of the Jeep, waiting to go to the party.
I walked up to the door and opened it. “Thor, buddy, we talked about this.”
He grumbled at me, chastising me for making him wait so long for his visit.
How he managed to open the door I’ll never know.
I said, “Look, I just need to write the card, grab my jacket and the gift, and we can go.”
More grumbling. But I noticed his lips were just barely moving. Normally, Thor was all mouth and teeth, a vocal dog from the moment we met. If he were a human, you wouldn’t want to sit next to him on a long flight.
“What’s going on with you?”
He sat there, still as stone.
“Thor,” I warned, dragging out his name.
He flicked his eyes to me, but faced straight ahead, his left ear twitching.
“Is there something in your mouth?”
He didn’t respond.
There was no snow on the ground yet, and the sun was out, but it was still a cold December day and my patience was wearing thin.
“Okay, drop.” I stuck my palm beneath his huge jowl.
He ignored me.
“Thor, drop it or we’re not going anywhere, and if you try to make it there on foot, I’ll call Leo and have your big ass thrown in jail. And not doggy jail either. Those cages aren’t large enough for you, remember? Real jail. With no couch and no Milkbones.”
Leo was the chief of police in Amethyst. We used to date, but despite our breakup, I see him way more than I should, mostly due to my job as a reporter and, well, because people are always trying to kill me.
Thor gave me a look that would have made a marine soil his pants. He rolled his eyes and opened his huge jaw.
A chipmunk squeaked into my hand, and I screamed.
The chipmunk twirled his whiskers at me, then Thor.
I swear the dog purred at it. At me, he barked in protest.
“Look, Big Man, I know you want to bring a gift for the baby, but this isn’t the way to go about it. Cinnamon would have both our behinds in a sling if we brought a rodent into her bar. Now put Alvin here back where you found him because I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to be hibernating.”
Thor considered this. Then he shrugged and yawned. As his jaws opened and closed like a drawbridge, a long line of spittle fell from his tongue and hung there between his mouth and the upholstery of my new Jeep. He tilted his head just slightly to the right and eyeballed me.
One of his many negotiation tactics. I put my hands up. “Don’t do it, Thor, please don’t shake.”
One twitch of his lip.
Panic filled my voice. “Fine. How about this? I’ll add your name to the card for the gift I bought. Okay?”
He raised his eyebrows, appeased with that idea, and opened his mouth. To my astonishment, the small rodent climbed back inside and nestled onto Thor’s tongue. The dog jumped out of the car and lumbered off toward the woods behind the Geraghty Girls house bed and breakfast.
I called after him. “And when you come back, I better find you in the back seat. You’re not driving, Thor. You can’t drive without a license, not to mention thumbs!”
He swung his head back to me and harrumphed.
I jogged inside to shrug on a coat and grab Cinnamon’s gift, a gorgeous phantom quartz. The stone would be perfect for this occasion. It’s a smaller quartz crystal within a larger one, and it had always reminded me of a woman with child. It represents the many facets of the journey of life and facilitates healing and universal awareness. It’s also a spiritual stone and is believed to lead one to their spirit guides and open clairaudience channels. It’s most powerful attribute, however, is its ability to connect directly to the Akashic Records, the energy imprint of all thoughts, actions, and emotions that have ever occurred in time and space.
Phantom Quartz Page 1