by M. L. Briers
“Yeah, that works for me.” She didn’t sound so enthusiastic, but a couple of nips of Scotch and she’d get in the spirit, and Eileen could take one for the team – again.
~
The shrill screeching that came from inside the bathroom the next morning made me shoot up from where I lay face down and drooling, and my head kicked me like a Highland Coo in protest. I groaned and pushed up further, and that was when Moira shot up to a sitting position on the floor beside my bed looking like she’d taken hair tips from a hedge witch and with wide, bloodshot eyes.
“Eileen!” she bit out and then chewed her furry tongue for a moment or two, and I know it was furry because mine felt like that as well. Gran’s good Scotch was potent.
I was in the middle of deciding how best to make my arms and legs work when Eileen screeched again. “I’m going to kill you two!”
“Glamour spell!” We said together before collapsing back in place, her on the floor and me on the bed.
“How could you?” Eileen demanded as she rushed into the room, and I pried open an eyelid and the other one shot open in surprise.
She sort of looked like a multicoloured chicken that had mated with an ostrich. I spat out laughter at the sight of her, and she stomped her foot on the carpeted floor, the whole upstairs vibrated. I have to admit that we’d gone overboard this time. I would also like to state for the record that I didn’t remember the spell at all.
Moira pushed up once more, slapping her palms against my mattress and eyed her handiwork because that wasn’t all me. The grin started slow on her lips and spread to the point where she was laughing uncontrollably.
“It’s funny, is it?” Eileen stomped again. Then she lifted her hands and zapped Moira.
“Well, now you’re in touch with your magic again, you can glamour that away,” I said and incurred her wrath as well.
“I hope Ross is your match,” she bit out at Moira.
“Be careful what you wish for,” I warned her.
“I wish Ross and Moira many happy years together in wedded bliss, and a handful of a litter to keep her occupied!” she rushed it out so fast that by the time Moira’s hangover fuddled brain caught up and zapped her, it was already too late.
“Bite your tongue,” Moira hissed, zapping her again, and Eileen yelped at the double pain, one from getting zapped and one from biting her tongue.
“What goes around comes around – thrice fold,” I reminded Eileen, and she swallowed hard.
“What? I didn’t spell her…”
“Close as makes no difference,” I said, to which her answer was mumbled curses as she turned and stormed off.
“What’s worse than a werewolf?” Moira scowled at the thought.
“A vampire!” We both said together.
~
I saw Ross pacing back and forth outside the bistro in vary stages of scratching his head and pondering his very existence on the planet. At least, that what I thought he might be doing. He knew we were witches, but what I guess he didn’t know was if we knew he was a werewolf.
I admit that on spotting him my first thought was to bar the windows and doors to him using a few well-tested magic wards that kept evil at bay, but it was Ross, and he didn’t exactly have his fur coat and fangs on, and quite frankly; he looked kind of pitiful.
When I yanked open the front door he froze in place; then he slowly turned toward me like he’d felt the Devil perched on his shoulder. I lifted my hand and shook the cookies that I’d put in a bag for him.
“Scooby snack in a doggie bag?” I asked with the brightest smile I could muster and watched his lower jaw sink.
I couldn’t help my chuckles, but I did have the good grace to try to bite down on them.
“You…?” he started and stopped.
“Last night was … different,” I said, spotting the gossips on the corner and not wanting them to overhear our conversation.
For a moment I envisioned them running down the street screaming; werewolf here, werewolf here, and that wouldn’t do any of us any good. Least of all Ross, people here still owned pitchforks.
If they could read lips, which I wouldn’t put past the canny old duffers, then good luck to them.
“I can…” he stopped again. “I can’t explain, but, Maggie, I swear, it’s not something I knew I…” He stopped again. “It wasn’t me…” he whispered.
“I have to say, Ross, it didn’t look like you, unless you count that weekend bender you went on last year…”
“T’is not funny, Maggie,” he grumbled, looking guilty and ashamed all in one look. “You’re a…” he gave a nod at me.
“Not a dog trainer…”
“A…” he nodded again.
“Respected business owner and pillar of the community?”
“Witch,” he whispered.
“I don’t think there’s a spell for what ails you.”
“Does Moira hate me?” That was a quick change of subject, but he was male.
“Why? Because you tried to make her supper, in more ways than one.” I eyed Mrs. Dougall who was edging closer to us, and she wasn’t very subtle with the whole leaning and craning her neck thing going on.
“I don’t think that was my attention. I was drawn to her like…” he looked confused.
“She smelled of cookie dough?” I offered. Mrs. Dougall took another step, and I rolled my eyes. “Come inside, you daft beggar.” I said loudly for Mrs. D’s benefit, “I’m sure Moira won’t hold it against you like a dog with a bone.”
I turned on my heels and wondered if Ross would follow me. It might have been the lure of the cookies, but he walked in behind me, just as Moira walked in from the kitchen carrying a tray of scones and wearing a shocked expression the moment that she saw him.
“No dogs, says so on the sign,” Moira hissed out.
“Play nice, kitty,” I chucked, tossing the bag of cookies over my shoulder and heard Ross catch them.
“He’s…” she bit down on a whole lot of anger issues that I could see on her face.
“Still our friend,” I said as I rounded the counter and took the tray from her hand. “Unless you want it otherwise.”
Moira pouted a word, but the sound never left her lips. She eyed Ross across the way.
“Sit!” She pointed to his regular table, and Ross made a beeline for the chair like he was a naughty schoolboy. “Hungry?”
“Starving,” Ross admitted.
“No midnight snacking then?” she tossed back, and he shook his head so fast that I had to wonder how he didn’t make himself dizzy. Moira snorted and started to turn away.
“Can we stop with the dog jokes?” he asked. Poor, sweet, Ross, did he not know us at all?
“Not while you’re still in the doghouse,” I offered, and he groaned.
“We’re going to be all over it like fleas on a dog,” Moira tossed back over her shoulder.
“Maggie,” he pleaded.
“Stop with the puppy dog eyes – you made a dog’s dinner of it, and you’re just going to have to come to heel.” I think I had all my bases covered, and when Ross spluttered out a chuckle, I knew he was going to be alright.
I just didn’t want to meet his alter ego again anytime soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
~
“Eileen, what are you doing here?” I couldn’t see Gran anywhere, and Eileen was in charge of keeping her out of trouble.
“She’s with Duncan…”
Yeah, that was going to keep her out of trouble. Wait … Duncan could walk around in the daylight? I know Skye was pretty overcast most of the time, but still, I would have thought that he’d been sleeping it off in a coffin somewhere.
I guess the books got that one wrong.
“And who’s watching him?” Moira asked.
“Gran – it’s symbiotic,” Eileen shot back, looking way too pleased with herself.
“You can have something to take with you, go find Gran,” I berated her, and she sighed.
/> “You really want me to go visit with all the old witches on the Isle?”
“All the old ones that haven’t been murdered, yes, but if you can connect with Earnest or Leonna’s spirits, bonus, ask them what happened,” I whispered back and got the stink eye from her.
I expected no less, and she didn’t disappoint me.
“For a vampire, Duncan’s very…” she leaned in across the counter at us and considered that for all of two seconds before big mouth jumped in with both feet.
“Sexy?” Moira grinned.
“Mate like?” I admit I couldn’t resist getting in on the action, and she huffed.
“There’s no talking to you two.” She was snappy – that meant we’d hit home.
“Us?” We said together, and both with looks of surprise plastered on our faces. Then like we were twins and had a psychic connection, we grinned together.
“I hate you,” she snapped.
“Which one of us?” Moira asked.
“Can’t be me, I’m loveable,” I said.
“Not as loveable as I am.”
“Both,” she hissed.
“You know you’re not allowed to hate both siblings at once, it goes against the rules,” I teased her, and she huffed again.
“Too bad,” she snorted, snatching the bag of her favorite muffins from my hand and scooting back towards the door, where Ross was just coming back for his top-up feeding.
She froze in place. Ross stopped in the doorway and scowled at her.
“In or out, you’re holding up traffic,” I called to let Eileen know that we were on good terms with Ross.
“Eileen,” Ross said with a nod of greeting, and I was sure I heard her whimper just a little unless it was Ross.
“Got to go, move!” Eileen said, shooing him out of the way, and when he obliged; she rushed out the door that he held open for her like she didn’t want to catch werewolf lurgies.
“H-ow-l you doing, Ross?” Moira grinned.
“Tell me it’s going to get old for you two,” Ross practically begged.
From the corner of my eye; I noted Moira turn to look at me, and I turned to meet her gaze. We counted down together. “No.” We had perfect timing. Classic.
“And I’d advise you not to bite the hand that feeds you,” Moira said, before turning on her heels and stalking into the kitchen.
~
“You really didn’t know?” I asked Ross as I sat opposite him at the table, a cup of coffee in front of me, and watched him do the unthinkable — pick at his food.
“There was talk — crazy stories, a crazy old man — you know what my grandfather was like…”
“I thought I did, obviously not.” I offered back, and Ross nodded.
“He kept trying to steer me away from you and Moira; I guess it was because you were witches, and maybe you could discover that part of me that was buried…”
“When did this happen?”
“The first I knew about it was what you saw last night — I know I scared the hell out of you — I scared the hell out of me, and Moira.” His eyes flicked toward the kitchen, and the last time I’d seen him looking that sad was when his father had died.
“Moira is resilient; she should get over it, although the Scooby snack jokes aren’t going to stop anytime soon,” I offered. “So what happened to trigger it last night?”
I had to know, I didn’t want to push him, but strange things were going on around this isle, and it was best to be prepared.
“I don’t know. I was going home — there was this feeling — something started crawling all over my skin, and I felt pain like I’d never known before, and then I don’t remember anything until there was you, and Moira, who the hell was that guy?”
“I’d say you don’t want to know — but, you need to know. He’s a vampire…”
“Maggie, please, not now with the jokes,” Ross groaned.
“Oh, the disbelief, and from someone who just turned into a mythical creature,” I offered back and brought Ross’s attention toward me.
He questioned me with his eyes and found the answer with his mind. I watched him swallow hard as he took the information in.
“Damn.”
“That’s understated.”
“So what now?” Ross asked.
“There’s more you need to know…”
“I really don’t want to.”
“But, you need to.”
“Can it wait until my brain isn't mushed?” Ross asked.
“Sorry, not really.”
I couldn’t in all good conscience, let him walk out again blind to what was happening on the Isle. It wasn’t just that we were witches, it wasn’t just that there was a vampire on the island, it was so much more than that.
For all, I knew, and I admit it wasn’t a lot, that feeling on his skin last night was akin to what I’d felt that day at the Point with dark magic.
Maybe, because his grandfather was the werewolf that supplied the blood for the spell all those years ago, the dark magic was targeting him. I had to wonder why it just didn’t kill him in its quest for revenge.
Maybe it wanted to use him somehow. Maybe something went wrong.
But Ross needed to be able to see something coming at him from a mile away. He might not have had magic, but I’m sure he could feel it too.
The one thing I had discovered filled me with a sense of peace. If Ross had only just shifted into his beast for the first time last night, then it wasn’t him that was out there killing people.
~
I let Moira go home early in the hope that she could check on Gran, Eileen was about as useful as a chocolate teapot in that department. It didn’t help that she seemed to have an aversion to all things vampire.
I’d closed the shop down by myself, so when the sound of the front door opening snatched me out of my thoughts about our family and friends, and how life had upended itself for all of us, it brought me out of the kitchen and into the shop front with a little more trepidation than I’d normally have.
I thought I’d closed and locked that door. But tourists never seemed to respect a closed sign anyway.
I was half expecting to be waving my arms like one of those guys directing planes on a runway at some tourist as I tried to communicate with them, and the other half of me was expecting trouble to have walked in the door. There was Jack, so I guess the other half had won that round, and I found myself kind of wishing for the blank expression of a tourist.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about him all day, I had. It was more that I didn’t want to think about seeing Jack again, not after last night.
“I still need to speak to your grandmother, and you, and…”
“Now is not a good time.”
I didn’t lie. With everything that was going on the last thing that we all needed was to sit face-to-face with Jack and lie, be evasive, and generally run rings around the man until his head wanted to explode.
While normally I would find that amusing, there was just too much going on right now to have to deal with Jack as well. Especially in his professional and official position as the man who didn’t see the underbelly of the island that had become exposed over the last few days.
Goddess, was it really only a few days ago that I lived in blissful stupidity thinking I knew everything that there was to know about magic, the supernatural world, my home, and our family and friends?
I felt like I’d aged.
“It’s sort of official, well, your grandmother is official, but for the rest of you…”
“Jack…”
“No, Maggie. Don’t make me make it official on the record. It’s the last thing I want to do,” Jack said, and I believed him.
“Fine.” I only hesitated long enough to wonder if I was doing the right thing or not. But, Jack wasn’t about to give up. “You had better come by the house tonight then.”
“After dinner,” Jack said with a nod.
“No,” I said. If the man wanted to see how witches
behaved, and if we were going to show him just how normal we were, Gods help us if my family could ever pass for normal, and not cold-blooded murderers who sacrifice animals and other evil things, then the best thing for him was to come to dinner. “Dinner is at seven, be there.”
I turned on my heels and walked back into the kitchen.
He could have protested — but didn’t.
~
“Dinner you say?” Gran asked, and her eyes sparkled with mischief. I groaned inwardly.
“Yes, Gran, dinner. And no, Gran, you’re not going to do anything to harm him in any way,” I berated her.
“I must consult my grimoire,” Gran said and turned to leave the room.
My hand shot out, and I clamped down on her sweater, making sure she couldn’t go off and busy herself with mischief without me.
“I didn’t know you had recipes in there.”
“There are recipes, and then there are recipes,” Gran offered back as she turned toward me.
I could see it in her eyes — mischief – I just didn’t know what she was planning.
“No accidents — no mind control — no forgetful memories — no magic,” I berated her.
Jack wasn’t my friend, but he wasn’t my enemy either.
“Is there a reason why you don’t want Fiona to have any fun?” Duncan asked from his perch on the kitchen stool across the other side of the room, and I considered knocking him off it with a large magical wrecking ball.
“Keep out of this,” I warned him.
I still wasn’t happy that we’d adopted him like a family pet, but Gran seemed to like him. Our familiar didn’t; the poor cat had taken to sitting up on the roof.
“One thing you should know about vampires — just like witches, we can’t seem to not meddle in other people’s mischief — and we are drawn to witches,” Duncan said with a teasing smile and amusement in his eyes.
I was happy for him that he seemed to be enjoying himself, me, not so much.
“That’s two things. They obviously didn’t have schools when you were a human lad.” That soured his smugness. “One thing you should know about this witch, me — leading my grandmother down the path called astray isn’t going to win you any brownie points with this family.”