Witch on Second: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 5 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels)

by Juliette Harper

  “Daddy isn’t being level-headed,” Tori said, “he’s being unreasonable.”

  On reflex, Gemma said, “Don’t criticize your father, young lady.”

  “Mom,” Tori said, “this time he deserves it.”

  Still looking at the stacks of wood, Gemma said, “When your Dad first bought this place, and you were just a baby, we’d get hamburgers at the M&M Drive-In and come over here for family picnics. Remember?”

  “I remember,” Tori said.

  Pointing to one of the upper bins at the far end, Gemma said. “That one was our favorite because of the view of the mountains. Your Daddy kept a box of wood scraps up there for you to use for blocks.”

  “I remember that, too,” Tori said. “When I told him I needed arches for the palace I was building, he cut them for me himself.”

  Gemma swallowed hard. “Scrap has always been a good father and a good husband,” she said. “But I’m starting to wonder if I’ve been a good wife.”

  Tori took her mother’s hand. “Don’t even think that,” she said. “You are the heart of this family.”

  Squeezing her daughter’s hand, Gemma said, “Thank you, sugar. But your daddy is right. I lied to him all these years.”

  “You thought you were doing the right thing,” Tori said. “And honestly, Mom, I think you were. If anyone had known you were still practicing magic, Brenna Sinclair could have found out. You got the drop on her because she underestimated you.”

  Gemma sighed. “We understand that, Tori, but I don’t know if your father will ever be able to see it that way. When he gets an idea in his head, sometimes dynamite won’t blast it back out again.”

  “Well,” Tori said, “we’re not going to make any progress with him just sitting here. Let’s do this thing, Mom.”

  They got out of the car and crossed the parking lot, moving toward the outside stairs that led up to Scrap’s office, which sat above the main loading dock. About halfway up, Tori suddenly laid a hand on her mother’s arm.

  Gemma opened her mouth to ask Tori what was wrong but stopped when Tori shook her head and put a finger to her lips. She pointed up and mouthed, “Listen.”

  The sound of voices floated down to them. Female voices.

  “The Sisters?” Tori whispered.

  Before Gemma could answer, a woman’s voice called out. “Do join us, Gemma, and bring your spawn with you. We’re having a lovely talk with your husband. He’s just the most interesting man.”

  Both mother and daughter set their jaws in a hard line. “These bitches have got to go,” Tori said tightly.

  “They do,” Gemma said, starting back up the stairs, “but you may have noticed they’re a little hard to kill.”

  When mother and daughter stepped through the door, Tori took one look at the scene in the office and started forward only to be blocked by her mother’s restraining arm. “Easy,” Gemma said, under her breath. “Let this play out.”

  Scrap sat behind his desk with a dazed expression on his face. Seraphina lounged across his lap while Ioana, who was standing behind the desk chair, ran her fingers through his hair.

  “Hi, Gemmy,” Seraphina purred. “Wherever did you find this one? He’s fun.”

  “Leave. Him. Alone,” Tori said tightly.

  “Now why would we want to do that?” Ioana asked. “He smells so nice.”

  “We haven’t hurt your Daddy, kitten,” Seraphina said. “We’re just getting to know him a little better.”

  “Yeah, well, pardon me for saying so,” Tori said, “but it doesn’t look like he’s into either one of you.”

  Seraphina laughed, waggling her fingers in front of Scrap’s eyes. “He’s just a little dazed. Men are ever so much easier to control when they’re dazed. Ever so much easier to . . . drain.”

  She emphasized the last word by dragging a razor sharp fingernail across Scrap’s cheek opening a thin, scarlet trail on the skin. Leaning closer, she ran her tongue along the blood.

  “Ohhhhh,” she said, “he is tasty. Salty and sweet, with just a hint of fatty flavor. Like good barbecue. Maybe we’ll have him with a side of coleslaw.”

  Later, when Tori tried to describe the next sequence of events to Jinx, she only remembered the wind. The hot torrent swept through the doors and windows all at once, wrapping them in ever-tightening tendrils of pressure. At just the moment when Tori thought all the breath would be sucked from her lungs, the air stilled, leaving a tall, red-haired woman dressed in black standing in the center of the room.

  The woman turned toward them, and said, in a lilting Scottish brogue, “Sorry for the dramatic entrance. In a bit of a hurry. No time to knock.”

  “No problem,” Gemma said. “As long as you’re on our side.”

  “Totally,” the woman replied, looking toward the Strigoi. “Isn’t this just adorable? The little Romanian vampires want to play.”

  “Mom, do you have any idea who that woman is?” Tori asked.

  The red-haired woman glanced over her shoulder. Green fire now danced in the depths of her emerald eyes. “Greer MacVicar,” she said. “At your service.”

  Seraphina gasped. “You are the baobhan sith.”

  “Ah,” Greer said, “my reputation precedes me. How gratifying.”

  “You can’t kill us,” Ioana said. “You can’t kill one of your own kind.”

  “Oh, no, dear. No, no. You are not one of my kind,” Greer said. “You’re a cheap Transylvanian vampire knock off. I may not be allowed to kill you, but I can certainly make you wish you were dead. Now . . . leave.”

  Seraphina and Ioana hastily disentangled themselves from Scrap and joined hands. “This isn’t over,” Seraphina said. “Gemma and Kelly ruined our lives. We will have our revenge.”

  With that, they raised their clasped hands high in the air and disappeared in a cloud of acrid, gray smoke.

  Greer wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Repugnant creatures,” she said. “And smelly. Are either of you harmed?”

  “We’re fine,” Gemma said, “but what about my husband?”

  “He’ll be right as rain when the mesmerization wears off,” Greer said. “Give the poor man ten or fifteen minutes and he should be coherent again.”

  “Are you really the baobhan sith?” Gemma asked curiously.

  Tori interrupted. “Okay,” she said, “could I at least get the Cliffs Notes’ explanation here? What is a baa-van shee?”

  “A Scottish vampire,” Greer said. “The only sort that counts.”

  “Uh, okay,” Tori said. “So, Romanian vamps bad, Scottish vamps good?”

  “Precisely,” Greer said. “You can, in general, assume that any product of Scotland is superior.”

  “Oh,” Tori said, “Festus is going to love you.”

  19

  As for the rest of Tori and Gemma’s visit to the lumberyard, things didn’t get any better. Waking up out of the mesmerized state scared Scrap half out of his mind. Then he looked in the mirror, saw the bloody scratch on his cheek, and lost the other half.

  He chose to cope with his fear by getting mad as hell at everyone and everything in sight, but most especially his wife. The longer he ranted, the madder Gemma got, with Tori not far behind.

  She didn’t hear everything her parents said to each other because Gemma asked her to wait in the car, but on the way down the stairs to the parking lot, Tori heard the word “divorce” used for the first time.

  Whether Scrap was serious or just over-reacting under the circumstances remained to be seen, but it was safe to say the Andrews’ spat was rapidly escalating toward an actual separation.

  Mom and I listened as Gemma described what happened after Tori left the office. Scrap not only wouldn’t come back to the shop, he refused to let Gemma ward the office.

  “That’s when Greer stepped in,” Gemma said.

  The red-haired woman fixed Scrap with an almost feral smile, and said, “Mr. Andrews, what goes on between you and your wife is none of my business, but I’ll venture to
say you don’t want Seraphina and Ioana coming back, now, do you?

  The suggestion of dealing with the Strigoi Sisters again made Scrap turn as pale as one of the cemetery ghosts. “I most certainly do not,” he declared, “and if those women show up again, I’ll call the law.”

  Gemma paused and took a sip from the glass of Scotch in her hand. “Greer laughed in his face,” she said. “Then she told him ‘the local constabulary cannot protect you from the Strigoi.’ He demanded to know what the hell a Strigoi was, so I told him.”

  Mom was sitting beside Gemma on one of the sofas in the lair. She had her own glass of single malt, a request that shocked me — especially since it was 10 o’clock on Sunday morning. My mother drinking whisky neat almost rocked my world more than the whole vampire thing.

  “What exactly did you tell him, Gem?” Mom asked.

  “The truth,” Gemma answered. “That the Strigoi are vampires. And do you know what that man had the nerve to say to me?”

  None of us had to ask because she was fired up and ready to tell us.

  “Scrap said, I wasn’t just a liar, I was a crazy liar,” Gemma said, anger filling her eyes again. “There I was trying to protect his sorry butt, and he has to go and say something like that.”

  We all knew what was going on. Anger was the only thing holding Gemma together at the moment, so we let her be mad.

  “So that’s when Greer offered him this amulet you told us about?” I asked.

  Gemma nodded. “Right. It was in a linen bag. Scrap laughed at her and said he wasn’t going to wear some sack on a string when he didn’t even know what was in it.”

  Now we were getting somewhere. Gemma related Greer’s explanation of the amulet; a bag holding nine pieces of elder twig cut before the full moon to be worn over the heart.

  When Scrap responded with a less than polite answer, Greer suggested he get a civil tongue in his head when he addressed his wife.

  Way to go, Scrap. Piss off your wife and a Scottish vampire.

  Never a man to back down, Scrap tried to get up in Greer’s face, and she handily turned the tables on him. At that point in her story, Gemma couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

  “It was a thing of beauty,” she said. “Greer let that green fire come back into her eyes and said, ‘If you don’t start treating this woman with some respect, the Strigoi may be the least of your worries.’”

  Good answer.

  “What did Scrap do?” Mom asked.

  Gemma snorted. “What do you think he did?” she said. “He took the amulet. Would you argue with that woman?”

  As she spoke the words, Gemma gestured with her glass toward the hearth where Festus and Greer were trading stories by the fire about great bars they had known and loved.

  Tori was right when she predicted Festus and Greer would hit it off, she just got the timeline wrong. They already knew each other. Correction. Make that “knew each other well” judging from what little of their conversation I was able to overhear.

  “Did Greer tell you why she’s here?” I asked Gemma quietly.

  I shouldn’t have bothered whispering. It didn’t work.

  “She did not,” Greer answered cheerfully.

  At my startled expression, she said, “You know what they say about vampires. We all have bat ears.”

  Festus cracked up and laughed himself to the point of a hairball toss. “Bat ears,” he wheezed. “That one never gets old.”

  Actually, the line was so old it was mummified, but I let it slide.

  “Come on over, ladies,” Greer said. “Join us by the fire, and let’s all talk.”

  Chase hadn’t come around since the evening before, and Beau and Dad were up in the espresso bar, so it really was just us girls plus Festus.

  “Do I need to get everyone together to hear this?” I asked.

  “Oh, heavens no,” Greer said. “We’re just going to have a little professional girl talk.”

  That got a grumbled, “Seriously, Greer?” from Festus.

  “You can stay, you old rascal,” Greer replied, reaching over and ruffling his ears. “You’d just go slinking off in the shadows and listen anyway.”

  “Dang,” Tori said, “you do know him.”

  “Better than he knows himself, sometimes,” Greer laughed. “But we’re not here to talk about Master McGregor’s misadventures. You want to know why I’ve shown up on your doorstep.”

  “Not just that,” Gemma said, “But how did you know to come to the lumberyard this morning?”

  Greer smiled, “Now, if I had a mind to self-aggrandize like some yellow tomcats I know, I’d tell you my timely arrival was due to a vampiric superpower. Truthfully, luck was on our side. Ironweed Istra called me and told me his GNATS drone picked up the Strigoi girls going in the office.”

  Now that was an interesting development.

  “Ironweed is watching Scrap’s movements?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Greer said. “Chase asked him to put a GNATS unit on Mr. Andrews when he learned there was some . . . dissension in the family.”

  For once, I blessed Chase for doing something without talking to me.

  “Are the drones going to keep watching him?” Tori asked anxiously.

  Greer patted Tori’s knee. The woman had beautiful hands with slender, elegant fingers. She wore a single gold signet ring set with a ruby the size of a dime on her left ring finger.

  “Don’t worry about your father,” Greer told Tori. “The fairies will keep a close eye on him, and he’ll be none the wiser.”

  Tori thanked her, visibly relaxing at the news that Scrap had more protection than a cloth bag around his neck. There had been no time yet for me to get Tori alone and find out how she was really doing, but if I had to guess, the answer would be, not good.

  “Why did Ironweed call you?” I asked.

  “He knew I was on the way to you with a package,” Greer said. “Lucas would have delivered it to you himself, but he’s on an errand in Istanbul.”

  An errand in Istanbul?

  “What’s the package?”

  “Elder amulets,” Greer said. “One for each of you, and wee ones for your rat and the little witch. The werecats don’t need any extra protection beyond their own magic.”

  She reached into a leather pouch hanging at her waist and drew out the amulets, each one bound in the same kind of linen bag on a heavy thread cord that Gemma had described to us.

  After Tori’s description of the way Greer literally blew into the lumberyard office, I wasn’t going to inquire into her magical credentials. I slipped the amulet over my neck. When the material touched my skin, a cool blanket of power wrapped around me.

  “Why elder twigs?” I asked, putting my hand over the bag, which now rested above my heart.

  “In Scotland,” Greer said, “elder and rowan are used to ward off witchcraft and evil spells directed at you. Don’t worry. It won’t affect your powers. Either wood would have worked in these circumstances. I just happened to have a bit of elder on hand, and the amulets have to be made before the full moon, which will be Tuesday night. I saw no reason to waste them.”

  “How do the amulets work?” Mom asked, tucking the linen pouch in her blouse.

  “The amulet will protect you outside of the ward guarding the shop,” Greer said. “The Strigoi cannot mesmerize you so long as you’re wearing the elder, or cloud your mind in any way. The amulet won’t stop them coming after you claw and fang, but it will keep them from being stealthy about it.”

  I would have preferred a magic Easy button that would make Seraphina and Ioana go “poof,” but beggars can’t be choosers.

  “Uh, Greer,” Tori said, “not to be indelicate about this, but aren’t you a vampire, too?”

  The woman’s green eyes sparkled with mirth. “Only if you believe that Bram Stoker nonsense,” she said. “Not that Bram wasn’t a most interesting man, but I am Fae, not some demon risen from the dead.”

  “But the girls said you aren’t allow
ed to kill them.” Tori said. “That you were their own kind.”

  Greer made a dismissive noise. “They should be so lucky as to be baobhan sith,” she scoffed. “Bram’s novel and all the vampire myths it created have caused quite a lot of trouble among those of us who require the taking of energy to survive. Around 1900 there was a conclave of the various creatures — the Strigoi, the baobhan sith, the Incubi, and such. The meeting led to a peace accord. After all, if the humans were all trying to kill us, the least we could do was not help them.”

  Seemed reasonable.

  Tori looked a little uncertain, so Greer helped her out. “You want to know if I drink blood to survive,” she said.

  “Uh, yeah,” Tori nodded, adding hastily, “no offense intended.”

  “None was taken,” Greer said. “My ancestors used rather unrefined methods to gain the life force they needed. Traditionally we feed on the throats of young, male travelers. The hunger need not be addressed daily. Periodically I attend corporate conventions and spend a pleasant evening with an attendee. The next day, my companion remembers only the best parts of the evening.”

  “And the marks?” I asked.

  Greer smiled. “Are not on the neck,” she said.

  From the hearth, Festus chuckled, which told me my interpretation of the remark was accurate — which also meant we were going to let that topic go.

  “Sooooo,” I said, “do you and Lucas work together at the DGI?”

  Mom and Gemma exchanged glances. “Uh, honey, I think we’re a little out of the loop here. How did you find out about the Grid and the DGI?”

  First, the Mother Tree busted me, and now the moms were going to get their turn at bat.

  I shared a somewhat abbreviated version of my excursion to Shevington to spy on Connor, which did win me a lecture from both moms, but then my mother said, in a small voice, “May I see the picture you took of my son?”

  When I held my phone out to her, she took it and cradled the device in her hands like a priceless, fragile object. As she gazed at the screen, her face filled with light. “Oh, Gemma,” she breathed, “look at him. He’s so handsome.”

  Gemma put her arm around Mom’s shoulder, and they leaned their heads together, staring in unison at the photo. “I never thought I’d see him again,” Mom whispered. “My baby. He’s a grown man now.”