“A little?” I laughed, as I managed to twist the door open. “Here we are. Cole and I did a lot of the prep last night, so there’s not really too much to do. We’ve got to get the loaves in the oven and ice the Chelsea buns and—”
The door slammed against the wall with a heavy thud. I stood in gape-mouthed horror as I surveyed the scene in front of me. Tears sprung to my eyes when I saw what had been done.
The store had been completely trashed. The tables and chairs were overturned, many of them had been broken in two, the legs in splinters, utterly irreparable. The glass display counter had been smashed, all the shelves broken, and the cakes inside thrown against the walls. They’d pushed the coffee machine from the counter, and it lay in a mangled heap on top of a pile of smashed crockery. I could see that every item on the kitchen shelves had been swept on to the floor, and the doors of the oven torn off and bent in the middle. And in a final act of vicious hatred, someone had opened all the milk and cream cartons from the fridge and overturned them, so the whole place was covered in a sticky, milky film that was already beginning to smell.
No.
Chairman Meow sat on the counter, licking up a puddle of milk as it leaked from one of the overturned cartons. He looked up and gave me a pitiful meow, as if to say, “I didn’t do this! I’m just making hay while the sun shines.”
“Belinda …” Alex’s voice caught in her throat.
Oh, no.
I blinked once, twice. I hoped dimly that I was dreaming, that this was some horrible nightmare, and soon I would wake up in the big, soft bed in Raynard Hall, with Cole’s strong arms around me, the scent of him still clinging to my skin. But when I opened my eyes again, there was no Cole, no soft bed, no lovely modern bedroom. There was only the ruins of my beautiful bakery.
The nightmare was real.
I took a step into the room, my heart plunging down to my feet as I kicked aside splinters of tables and chairs. They were only good for firewood now. I could make a bonfire of my hopes and dreams. And as I picked up Chairman Meow off the counter and held him to my chest, I realised with a hard feeling in my heart that I knew who had done this.
“Ethan,” I whispered, the tears spilling down my cheeks. He’d done this, I knew he had. There wasn’t anyone else who could possibly have hated me this much. I thought back to the other day when I thought I’d seen him on the street. I’d chalked it up to my mind playing tricks on me, but I was wrong. It had been real. Ethan had returned to take the last piece of my life from me.
“I don’t think it was your ex.” Ryan stepped forward, and from the debris he picked out a large, black feather. “This belongs to a Bran.”
“But who? And why?” I sniffed, burying my cheek into Alex’s shoulder. Staring at that long black feather made me feel sick. If it wasn’t Ethan, than what had happened here?
“My guess is it’s one of Morchard’s servants. They must have found Cole here, and decided to pay him a visit. You’re lucky you weren’t here last night.” Ryan held up the feather, turning it around in the light. “This was left here deliberately. It’s a message.”
“What does it mean?” Alex asked.
“It means, ‘Stay away from Cole, or else.’”
14
Cole
The charm around my neck weighed me down, restricting my ability to soar high or manoeuvre through tight corners. But it was worth it if it kept my movements invisible from my pursuers.
It was such a stupid risk to go out again while the sun was rising, knowing that both Sir Thomas and Morchard were probably looking for me. But I owed it to Mikael. The Carnarvons lived in a beautiful Hall on a sprawling estate just outside of Crooks Crossing. I’d visited the estate several times in my life with my master. Even though the Morchards and Carnarvons detested each other, they had an alliance of sorts when it came to protecting their own affairs, and it was important to make a show of gentility for society. But neither family would travel to the other without a Bran for protection. That was how Mikael and I knew each other.
We were supposed to be enemies, but when I’ looked into his angry eyes, I saw the same distaste for servitude that I knew burned in my own. Perhaps the other Bran suspected something, for we were never allowed to speak to each other. But when our bitter eyes met across the room at a ball or garden party, I knew I was communicating with an ally.
The first time we’d spoken, Mikael had brought me the news of my father’s death. He risked punishment by leaving his post to find me. I never forgot what he’d done, but it was not long before I had to return the favour.
Mikael’s younger sister was born with a strange deformity. She couldn’t fully shift from her raven form into human form. Each time she tried she became stuck in a strange half-human, half-bird state, her limbs deformed painfully and her skin itching with half-grown feathers for days before she reverted back to her bird form.
A Bran that couldn’t shift into human form was basically useless, so the Carnarvons loaned her to Victor Morchard, to see if he might be able to put her to good use in the aviary. He was planning to conduct experiments on her, the same kind of experiments he’d performed on my mother.
Two years ago, Mikael had come to me while I was out on patrol, begging me to help him get her out of the aviary. “But what’s the point?” I’d argued with him. “She’ll still be your master’s property. He can just send her back here again. Her only option is to go rogue, but then, how does she break the bond?”
“I know all this,” Mikael’s beady eyes blinked furiously. “But I have to do something. I can’t just leave her in there to be poked and tortured. Maybe I can find a witch to help me break the bond, so we can both go rogue together. There are still plenty of witches in Crookshollow. But to do that, she needs to be free of your master’s cage first.”
I thought of my mother trapped inside that thick cage, too sick to move, to attempt an escape. She probably didn’t feel a lot of what my master did to her. But Mikael’s sister was perfectly healthy, apart from her strange disability. She would be able to assist in her own escape. Which meant we had a chance.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
We engineered a pretty daring plan. I stole a pair of gardening shears and every night when I came back from patrol, I cut a few small wires on one low corner of the aviary. After two weeks we had a large enough hole to sneak in and out of. Next, I managed to procure a glass cutter. One day when the Morchards had some workmen over to lay concrete to extend the patio, I snuck around the aviary and, my deed hidden by the noise of the concrete mixer, cut away a section of the glass just large enough for a raven to fit through. I hid the hole with a potted plant, and dumped the glass cutter in the workmen’s lorry.
Meanwhile, back at the Carnarvon’s, Mikael created a diversion and snuck away. He met me over Crookshollow forest, and we swooped into the estate, crawled through the hole and pulled his sister out, replacing her with the body of a dead raven we’d found in Fauntelroy Park. Morchard would never know the difference.
Mikael took her to a witch he’d found. She knew the dark rite that would free a Bran from his or her servitude. We begged her to perform the same rite on all of us, but she said it stripped her of her power, and she would only do it once. We’d had to leave her there, and return to our lives of servitude.
Mikael’s sister was free, and her secret would remain safe as long as she went far away from Crookshollow. She spoke a tearful goodbye in caw-tongue, then flew away, following the witch toward the Witches’ Cemetery. Mikael and I shook hands, and he promised me that if I wanted it, he would help me escape next. We agreed to work together, to free both of us from slavery.
“If you’re ever in need of help, you have only to call on me.” He said in his monotonous Scandinavian voice. “I am in your debt.”
He’d already helped me by slipping me the note about Harry. I never would have known about the death if it hadn’t been for Mikael. But now he was doing something even more vital – fin
ding another witch who could perform the same rite on me. Now he was in danger. I had to get to him before Sir Thomas’s servants did.
I flew over the wall surrounding the Carnarvon property, my path crooked as the ring tightened around my wing. The pain was getting worse. I resisted the urge to peck at the ring, to try to dislodge it. I knew from years of trying that was fruitless. I just need to hold on a little longer ...
The Bran roost was toward the rear of the garden. If Mikael wasn’t on patrol he would be there. As I dipped lower, I noticed several cars and a white van parked in the drive. The cars flashed their lights. People rushed in all directions. The police are here, and an ambulance …
I swooped lower, a sinking feeling settling on me as I registered the scene below. Several black feathers littered the front steps of the hall. Two ambulance officers wheeled a body covered with a sheet across the lawn. I didn’t have to get any closer to figure out who it was.
Shit.
My warning would come too late for Mikael.
15
Belinda
I didn’t want to involve the police. I was worried that alerting the authorities might somehow came back to bite Cole, but Ryan insisted. “You never know when it could come in handy to have this crime on record,” he said. So I called my old friend Detective Sanders, who had been the officer in charge of Ethan’s case. I still knew his number by heart. He came around later in the morning with the faithful Sergeant McCalister, who busied himself immediately taking photographs of the mess.
“I’ll get the SOC unit over to have a look as soon as I can,” Detective Sanders explained as he scribbled down notes. “They’re currently out at Crooks Crossing, at the scene of a particularly gruesome murder.”
“That’s fine.” Talking to Sanders gave me a terrible feeling of déjà vu. Every time I tried to speak, my words would catch on the lump in my throat. I was trying desperately to keep my tears at bay, but standing in the entrance looking at the mess was testing the limits of my composure.
“In the meantime, please don’t touch or move anything. As soon as the SOCOs are done, you can start to clean up.” Sanders cleared his throat. “I have to ask, have you seen him around lately? Has he tried to contact you?”
“I … I don’t know.” I whispered, hugging my arms to myself. “I thought I saw him on the street the other night, just leaning up against that crystal shop across the road. But I didn’t get a good look at him. It could have been anyone.”
“Oh, Belinda.” Alex squeezed my hand. “You should have said something.”
Sanders scribbled that down. “And you can’t think of anyone else who might have reason to do this?”
Oh, just a couple of homicidal ravens employed by the richest family in the county, and some guy named Gillespie who I’m not supposed to talk about. “I don’t know anyone else who ... who hates me … so much.”
It was too much, too much. The lump in my throat grew larger. I turned away from the shop, blinking away a stray tear that trickled down my cheer.
“Don’t worry,” Detective Sanders looked me in the eyes. “I haven’t given up. We will get him, Belinda. Guys like Ethan are too smug, too pleased with their own genius. Sooner or later, they get cocky. They slip up, and we’ll be ready to swoop in.”
“Sure,” I croaked. Sanders asked me a couple more questions, and I answered as best I could, my mind working on autopilot. I watched McCalister pawing through the remains of my broken kitchen.
“Have you called your insurance company?” McCalister called out. “They’re going to want to see this.”
“I don’t have insurance.” I mumbled. I’d had to stop paying the premiums, so I could afford flour for the bread. The tears in my eyes spilled over again. How am I going to repair all this? I’ll have to close. I’ll have to sell everything. But then how will I pay the debt ...
I felt a reassuring hand slide around my shoulder. “Come on,” Alex led me away. “Let’s go to the pub.”
The pub. Yes, that was what I needed. A stiff drink.
My legs were shaking so hard that I wasn’t certain I’d even make it to Tir Na Nog, but as soon as I sank down into the bar stool, I knew I’d come to the right place.
“Get me a gin and tonic,” I told Ryan. “And make it light on the tonic. In fact, I’ll have two.”
“One for me as well.” Alex said, placing her arm around me. Ryan wandered off to the bar.
I placed my head in my hands, tears streaming down my cheeks. They came thick and fast now, all that held-in emotion welling out of me and streaming down my face. My chest felt tight, and there were pins and needles stabbing at my heart. I kept thinking about my overdrawn bank account and my huge credit card debt and my lack of insurance and the fact that I couldn’t open the shop again until all the mess was cleaned up. I was going to lose weeks of business, not to mention all those supplies, all the tables and decorations I’d lovingly chosen. The task of digging myself out of this mess seemed impossible.
Gone, all gone. Finally, Ethan had taken everything from me.
“Belinda, I’m so sorry.” Alex patted my back. She had that tone in her voice where she was trying to be reassuring, but didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t blame her. There was nothing positive about this, no lemonade to be made. I tried to say something to her, to tell her it was OK, but I couldn’t even form words. All that came out was a strangled sob.
“Oh, girl. It will be all right. You’ll see. We’ll find who did this, and Cole and Ryan will make them pay. We’ll all help you do the repairs – Ryan and Elinor and Bianca and I, we’ll all pitch in – and Bewitching Bites will be up and running again before you know it.”
I shook my head, burying my face into my hands. Everything seemed hopeless. I couldn’t see a way to fix this. I would have to sell the shop. I would have to go back to my mother’s house and live in my old room and listen to her smug husband go on and on about how he’d told me retail was a loser’s game—
Alex was glancing all around the restaurant. “That’s odd,” she said.
“What’s odd?” I glanced up briefly from my misery, but didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
“Well, there seem to be quite a lot of people in here for a Friday morning, and they’re all staring at the TV, but there’s no footy game on. It’s only the local news station talking about a murder. And both of the waitresses are crying.”
“Huh?” I couldn’t even bring myself to care. So what if everyone in the pub was acting weird? At least they all had homes and businesses to go back to. At least they had lives. I had nothing.
“Can I get you ladies anything?” A sniffly voice interrupted my thoughts. The waitress had come over. She dabbed a napkin in the corners of her eyes, not even noticing that I was drowning in my own sorrow. I took a longer look at the waitress’s swollen eyes and blotchy face. She didn’t look much better off than me.
“We could do with a beef and Guinness pie to go with our drinks, and a slice of peanut butter cheesecake to share..” Alex said. She reached over and touched the girl’s arm. “What’s going on, honey? Are you OK? You look really upset.”
“Didn’t you hear?” The waitress wiped another stream of tears from her face. “Mikael’s dead. He’s been murdered.”
I snapped my head up. Mikael – the Bran bartender who’d given Cole the note and driven us the other night – was dead? “Murdered?”
“Yeah, apparently someone snuck onto the estate he lives on out in Crooks Crossing. They got him while he slept, so he didn’t stand a chance. Rachel went over to look for him after he didn’t show up this morning, she found the body. They …” she sobbed. “They tortured him. His whole body was covered in tiny cuts. The police say he slowly bled to death. He was missing two pints of blood. It’s just … I can’t believe …”
She walked away, still sobbing. Alex turned back to me. “Wow, that’s rough. I don’t think we’ll be getting our pies.”
I nodded, too stunned to say anything
. First my shop was destroyed, and then Mikael shows up dead. There was no way this was a coincidence. It could only mean one thing.
Cole was being followed. Someone knew that he was alive, and they were pissed as hell.
I figured we were safe enough in the pub, in broad daylight, surrounded by people. We polished off another two rounds before we eventually got our food. I checked my phone and found four messages from Elinor, who had come round to the shop at her usual time and seen the police tape. I tapped out a reply, then put my phone away. I couldn’t bear to think about it anymore. Just telling Elinor made my chest ache with sadness.
Back at the bakery, Ryan declared that I would need to come and stay with them at Raynard Hall. “We have strong protective charms there,” he said. “If there’s anyone else Cole has talked to who you think might be in danger, we should bring them in, also. I don’t want to see anyone else dead.”
I thought back over my interactions with Cole. “Just his brother, Byron. But I still can’t figure out if he’s a friend or enemy. And Chairman Meow, of course. And maybe my friend Elinor, just to be safe. She’s talked to Cole a couple of times.”
Alex’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, let’s get Elinor over. We can even ask Bianca, too. It will be like a sleepover.”
The thought lifted my spirits a little. It was rare that I got to see all my girlfriends all together outside the shop. At Ryan’s house we’d be safe, and maybe they could take my mind off the shop and help me figure out my feelings for Cole. “It’s a great idea. Let’s visit the shop on the way back and ask. Ryan, has Simon set that meeting with Thomas Gillespie yet?”
Ryan shook his head. “He texted me to say he’d called their hotel in Northampton, but they told him the Gillespies checked out yesterday. I’m concerned they could already be in Loamshire. When we get home I’ll look up some of my local contacts and see if I can find them. I hope Cole has been sensible enough to lay low today.”
Watcher: A raven paranormal romance (Crookshollow ravens Book 1) Page 17