The Cat in the Lighthouse (A Mystic Cove Witches Paranormal Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Lilly Graves

  “Okay.” When I enter the base of the lighthouse, the first thing I notice is the tripod thingy isn’t there anymore, clamping the moonstone.

  I walk ahead of Julian, up the stairs. Once I reach the top, the cool ocean air blows back my bangs, and the sounds of someone scuffling around meets my ears.

  “Sy? I call out.

  Completely out of the stairwell, I can now turn around to get a one-eighty view of things.

  “What are you doing here?” asks Henry gruffly. He’s positioned with the moonstone set-up facing the sea.

  “I was looking for someone I know, not you,” I respond. “What are you doing here?”

  Frustrated, he fidgets with the iridescent stone in the clamps, peering at the orange harvest moon, like he’s precisely lining things up. Once he has it, he turns to me. “Fine, you want to know?”

  “Yes, I want to know.”

  He lifts something that reminds me of a Nerf gun. He doesn’t aim it at me. Instead, he pridefully points at the chamber with his free hand. “This baby has tranquilizers strong enough to make ten horses sleep like a baby.” He then points to his moonstone. “And I just lined this puppy up with the harvest moon. I’ve got all my ingredients here for the incantation to work, but this is the most important part of all. The moonstone will draw any shifters within hundreds of miles to me, right here. I’ll finally have the last ingredient—the blood of a shifter.”

  This little dude is super weird and super creepy right now. I’m sure glad he doesn’t know about my blood. Where’s Julian? I look over my shoulder, but don’t see him coming up to meet me.

  He rattles on with a fervor, “And once I tranquilize the beast, I’ll strap him into my trusty chair I picked up from Shady Pines, and can draw as much blood as I want.”

  That sends a shiver down my spine. “Don’t you just need like a drop?”

  “Sure, if I were some small-minded pansy! Don’t you see, I can sell the blood to others for millions of dollars.”

  “Why would others do that? I don’t get it.”

  He rolls his eyes at me like I’m too dimwitted to understand. “I’ve found the last line to the incantation. With all of the ingredients to the spell in possession, and saying all of the right words, then in theory, anybody can become a shifter. So, you tell me what price someone would pay for that ability?”

  I’m dumbfounded. People would want to pay that much to be like me?

  Henry makes the sound of a high-pitched game-show buzzer. “Times up! They’d pay millions, like I said. Not only will I become a shifter myself, but I’ll become an inexplicably wealthy one at that!”

  “But it sounds horribly cruel what you’ll do to the shifter that gets lured here.” I shiver. “You want them to be your blood slave. And you’re not a doctor. They could die.”

  “I’m smarter than a doctor, honey!” His eyes glaze over. “Ever heard of a mad scientist?”

  “Put your hands up,” a voice booms from behind.

  I turn to see Julian, aiming his gun. I move completely out of the way, my heart pounding.

  “Detective?” Henry responds. His eyes still hold that eerie, glazed overlook and he points his own gun right back. “You’ve just made a grave mistake.”

  A blast hits my eardrums, and automatically I drop to the floor in response. Henry falls back against the concrete, his weapon skidding from the fall. The area between his shoulder and chest is starting to bleed out.

  “You shot me!” Henry screams. “How could you shoot me?!”

  I swipe the tranquilizer gun, thankful it wasn’t Julian who got shot.

  “You got where you’ll easily recover.” The detective pulls Henry up and cuffs him. “You say this moonstone will draw shifters to this very spot?”

  “Yes, but don’t you steal my idea! That’s what you want to do, right? You’re a crooked cop. You want the millions for yourself!”

  Something strange buzzes within me. I become heady and my eyes pull to the moonstone. The orange harvest moon is making it sparkle. It’s prettier than anything I’ve ever seen before. The next thing I know, I find myself gazing at it from less than a foot away.

  Everything else around me fades like it’s meaningless. This stone. This moonstone is life. Its beauty surpasses all. The power within is my goddess. I will do anything for this precious stone. Anything. What do I need to do?

  Like a distant echo, I hear the words. “Is she a shifter?!”

  I reach to touch the most beautiful little gleaming thing on earth.

  “Don’t touch it!” That distant voice yells. “It can only be yours, if you do as I say.”

  How? How can it be mine? Can’t I just reach out and grab it? Do I need this voice to command me in order to keep it, earn it for myself?

  “What’s she doing?” Another, different echo reaches my ears from the far deep. “Stop talking to her. You’re under arrest.” Then I hear some garbled words that fade. Something to do with “back up.”

  Chapter 24

  How do I get this stone to be mine? I must have this stone for myself. It beckons to me.

  Like an answer to my pleading thoughts, the first distant voice calls out. “To get the moonstone, you need to take out the cop. Take him out now!”

  Now.

  Now.

  What cop? Who?

  My vision is bleary, like looking through the ocean deep. I see two shadows, one holding on to the other. He’s taller, bigger.

  That must be the cop.

  Why does the moonstone want me to hurt him? Does he deserve to be hurt? I’m so confused.

  “Chloe...” The one assumed to be the cop speaks to me. “Are you okay?” He asks the other shadow. “What’s happening to her? She doesn’t look right. What did you do?”

  I can hear my breath, loud in my ears, in and out, in and out, faster and faster.

  “Get him!”

  What can I get him with? I don’t have a weapon. What’s that? Something on the ground. It looks like an umbrella. It fades in and out of my vision. Before it fades again, I take it in my hands. I feel powerful. I am powerful. This will do. The umbrella will do.

  Raising it above my head, I charge toward the cop, crying out.

  “Chloe, no!” The larger shadow turns to me, his hands up. His eyes come clearly into view. Piercing, hazel green eyes.

  I stop short, my heart in my throat. “Julian? Is that you?”

  Who’s Julian? Why did I just say that?

  “It’s me. Hand me the umbrella. Something strange is happening to you, like you’re hypnotized. You’re not being yourself. Give it to me.”

  “She’s not going to listen to you. I own the moonstone. I’m her master now.” The smaller shadow is now pointing something at the cop and shoots. THWIP! Something ejects from the gun, hitting the cop and he fades to the ground.

  What just happened? Is the cop going to be okay? This is all so confusing.

  “Now I’ve just wasted my concoction on you.” The smaller shadow talks down at the ground, and then blinks over to me. “What kind of a shifter are you, honey?”

  “Uh… um…” Why is he asking me this? Am I shifter? What about the moonstone? I peer back at it. Its luster is more brilliant than that of a thousand sunsets. “I want that… that… I want it.”

  “You can have it, dear. It can be all yours. Just come downstairs with me. I have a little something to show you first.”

  What can he show me that’s better than the moonstone?

  “If you obey me, it’s all yours.”

  “I-I want it.”

  “Come here.”

  I follow him down the stairs, against my will. My legs are just moving like they have a mind of their own.

  He brings me to a chair. “Have a seat.”

  The leather straps. There’s something eerily familiar about this chair, and it doesn’t feel good. My stomach roils at the sight of it.

  “Have a seat,” he repeats.

  Have a seat. The moonstone will be yours
. This is all it takes. Obey.

  Slowly, I take my position in the tall-back chair. As soon as I do, my shadow master pins my wrist hard against the armrest and straps the leather band over it.

  “That hurt,” I slowly utter. My next wrist is bound without me putting up a fight.

  I did it. I obeyed. Now where’s my moonstone? Where’s my pretty stone? I need it! Tears sting my bleary eyes.

  The shadow pricks my vein with a needle, and I cry out. “Where’s my stone? Where is it?”

  Master doesn’t answer me. Something is wrong. I don’t think he’s going to give me the moonstone, as promised.

  Words drift through the air.

  “A many man has sought moonlight and magic.”

  That’s familiar too. Part of a poem I’ve heard.

  “But beware of curses; They can be tragic.”

  Yes, I’ve heard this before.

  “Power pumps lifeblood through organs. Arise, awake, O beast!”

  A shooting pain courses through my body, throwing back my head and arching my back. I cry out.

  A boom interrupts things and sunlight pours in. Someone has thrown open the door. This shadow is bigger than any other. He’s massive. A loud roar comes out of him. “Let her go!”

  Who is that?

  “There, there!” Master calls out. “Be a good boy. Another shifter has come to the party, but I have room for another.”

  Master bolts up the stairs. The beastly shadow tears the straps off my arms with quick slashes of his sharp nails. “I said I owe you one.”

  The beast takes off up the stairs.

  Another shadow enters the scene as I’m rubbing my painful wrists. This one is slender. “It’s happening again,” she mutters to herself. “Just like twenty-four years ago.”

  What is she talking about? What is happening? The slender shadow goes up the stairs herself, and I can’t help but follow.

  At the top, Master is holding up the moonstone himself, the large heavenly orange orb shining through it like a spotlight. “Don’t touch me or else I’ll say the last sentence to the incantation!”

  The beastly shadow roars again, scratching at the ground, restraining his fury. “Speak it! I dare you!”

  Master hesitates, but ultimately nods. “As you wish.” Slowly and powerfully, he yells out, “Arise, awake, O beast. For you will never be one of the least!”

  The moonstone drops out of Master’s hold and shatters into a thousand pieces on the concrete.

  Oh no! He’s destroyed it!

  But in that moment, a fog lifts, my bleary vision clears, and I can see right before my eyes Henry the treasure hunter. He’s shrinking and morphing into none other than a scrawny little cat. His clothes, suspenders and glasses now surrounding him, he looks down at himself in horror. “Meowwww!”

  Chapter 25

  Every bit of knowledge I have comes back to my mind with absolute clarity. Henry had hypnotized me! Sy saved me! I look around. There’s a woman up here with us, wearing a black, white-streaked wig, her eyes hollowed out with black make-up. I don’t know who she is.

  And, most importantly, Julian—Where is he?

  “Oh my gosh! Julian!” I cry, rushing over to his crumpled position on the ground.

  I try and wake him up, shaking him, to no avail. “Henry shot him with a horse tranquilizer,” I cry out to Sy and the stranger. I press my ear against his chest. “I don’t hear a heartbeat. I don’t hear a heartbeat!” Tears spring from my eyes.

  The stranger woman comes over and feels for a heartbeat and breath. “He’s gone,” she says.

  A moan forces out of me like rushing water. “I got him into this mess. He can’t be gone. He can’t be. Julian!” I crumple against his chest, crying.

  Sy solemnly lumbers over as his wolf self. “I’m sorry, Chloe,” he says. “There is one way to save him.”

  “He can be saved? How?” Hope rises from the depths of my heart.

  “I have to bite him.”

  “You what?” I scrunch my brow, tears running down my face.

  “I can heal him, but I have to act fast.” Without waiting another moment, without saying another word, Sy bites Julian’s wrist with his razor-sharp teeth. Blood spills and then he releases him.

  Nothing happens. Julian doesn’t wake up. Maybe the Afterlife already took his soul. Maybe we’re too late.

  Sy comes over and nuzzles me for comfort. I grab onto his thick fur and cry. For a long moment, I let his thick fur absorb my tears.

  The stranger woman crosses her arms and looks down at us. “Pitiful,” she says.

  “What?” I ask, pulling back from the wolf.

  “You look like her too.” Those hollowed-out eyes bore into mine.

  I wipe my tears with my parka. “What are you talking about?” The woman looks like she hates me to my core, and she doesn’t even know me.

  “Raven?” she says.

  “I-I’m not Raven.”

  “She’s not Raven,” Sy repeats.

  The witch shakes her head. “Is this some sort of cruel joke from The Afterlife or something? I had done away with you before and now I need to do away with you again?”

  I gasp. “Are you her murderer? Did you push my mom off of here?”

  “You stole Sy away from me before and now you’re going to steal him away from me again?”

  I slowly stand up, trying to get my bearings. This is the murderer. We’re standing face to face; at the same place she pushed my mother from to her demise. “Who are you?”

  The woman sighs. “Oh, you know me as the perky little cheerleader girl from twenty-four years ago, who was dating Sy first.”

  The wolf growls. “You killed Raven. Sandy, tell me it isn’t true.”

  Sandy? Sandra? From Marney’s Moon pies? Oh, wow.

  “It’s true, okay?” the baker goes on. “I had you first, and then the annoying goth came around and she steals all of your attention and affections away from me.”

  Sy growls some more. “It had been a year after we broke up, when I started dating Raven. A year.”

  “Well, like, what could she give you that I couldn’t anyway, huh?! Do you know what lengths I’ve gone to be with you, Sy? I haven’t even dated anyone else since. You put the bar too high. No other man could live up to that!

  “When you were released from Shady Pines, and you had told me all of the things that the wretched nurse Maggie had done to you, who’s the one who murdered her? Who’s the one who put a spell on the moon pies, so they would give people false visions? It was so they couldn’t track things back to me. It’s so that we could both be free! So that we could finally be together! Don’t you see?! While Raven was more interested in hunting some unknown treasure, I treasured you!”

  I can’t believe it. Sandra killed my mother over jealousy. She killed Maggie as a token of her “love” for him.

  “CeeCee tried stopping me, but even with her ten cats as familiars to boost her magic, she wasn’t powerful enough. I scared her so bad, she promised not to tell a soul.”

  CeeCee. She tried saving my mom.

  “You…” Sy starts, breathing hard through his chompers, “you are worse than Maggie could ever be. You stole the love of my life from me, ripped her right out of my life! You killed her.”

  Sandy drops her head to her chest, like she’s truly sorrowful. When she looks back up through her blackened orbs, they’re steelier than before. She focuses on me. “I’m not a terrible person. I will be with you, Sy. We will have a happy life together. I just have to get one last obstacle out of the way.”

  The vengeful witch throws her arms out, blasting me with red light. It knocks me against the edge of the lighthouse, throwing me over.

  I’m dead!

  The wolf leaps right over with me, diving. He grabs a hold of me, and I scream. When we hit the ground, he’s beneath me, his big barrel chest. His paws let go and his breathing is strained.

  Sy had softened my landing. He’s my hero. He never was the murderer.
I roll off of him and look into his shining brown eyes. They’re wet and blinking in pain.

  “Sy, you saved me.”

  “It’s all worth it then,” he says in a croaky whisper.

  “But now…” I start to cry again. “...it looks like you’re fading.”

  He suddenly morphs back into his male form. “Everything is going to be okay now,” he looks directly up at the sky, sweat across his brow. “I can... see her.”

  The light of life leaves his eyes, but a soft smile stays across his lips. In that moment, I know that he’s having the happiest reunion with Mama Raven. I can’t help but feel a strong peace come over me, because of that.

  “You can’t arrest me!” screeches Sandy from atop the lighthouse. “You didn’t hear anything. You were deader than a doornail a moment ago!”

  Officers are running toward the lighthouse, along with some EMTs. I remember back-up that was called just a few minutes ago. Minutes that felt like hours! “Thank you, Sy.”

  “There’s a man over here!” I call out to the EMTS. I want to tell them he’s already gone, but everything is alright. For once in his adult life, he can feel relief and happiness.

  I run into the lighthouse just as Julian is escorting Sandy down the stairs.

  “You’re alive! You’re alive!” I jump and rush over to him.

  He gives a weak smile. “Let’s hug after she’s safely taken into custody. I don’t want to let another criminal loose on accident.”

  Happiness is bursting from me. I can barely contain myself. I follow Julian and Sandy, the murderer, out of the lighthouse, across the sand, until he meets up with the first two cops.

  “Take her into jail,” Julian instructs. “Don’t let her out of your site. She’s a killer. I’ll tell you more in a bit. Just give me a moment.”

  “Yes, sir,” the officers respond.

  Julian takes my hand and pulls me over the side of the lighthouse facing the sea. He helps steady me as we get up onto some large rocks.

  I can’t help myself. I immediately dive into him for a hug. “You’re alive.”

  “I’m alive.” He strokes my hair around my ear and gazes down at me. “You’re alive too.”