Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn
Wonky Inn Book 8
by
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JEANNIE WYCHERLEY
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Copyright © 2019 Jeannie Wycherley
Bark at the Moon Books
All rights reserved
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Publishers note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and for effect or are used with permission. Any other resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn was edited by Anna Bloom @ The Indie Hub
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Cover design by JC Clarke of The Graphics Shed.
Formatting by Tammy
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
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Wonky Continues
The Wonky story begins…
The Wonky Inn Series
Also by Jeannie Wycherley
More Dark Fantasy from Jeannie Wycherley
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“Parva venire magicis viventem!” A bolt of blue light shot out from the tip of my wand.
Something intent on a quick escape—and to be honest it could just have been a large purple squirrel—scuttled away at high speed making for the bushes. That wasn’t the idea.
Beside me, Silvan tutted and levelled his own wand at the retreating creature. “Evanescet.”
The thing, whatever it might have been, evaporated into a wisp of steam.
“By all that’s green, Alfhild,” Silvan muttered in his most world-weary tone. “What is it that you are actually envisioning here?”
“I’m not sure.” I giggled. “I’m tired.” I flopped down onto my belly, ignoring the slightly damp feel of the grass beneath me. It was October after all. “I’ve been up since half past five this morning. I’d quite like a nap.”
“Go and have one, then.” Silvan dropped to the ground beside me. “I would.”
“You’ve only been up a few hours,” I pointed out. “You don’t need one.”
“Naps are one of life’s necessities. We should embrace every opportunity to nap whenever the occasion arises.”
I shook my head at him. Like he needed any more sleep. He truly was an incorrigible rascal. “I daren’t go to bed because I’d never wake up. Besides, I need to supervise afternoon tea. Florence has some guests coming.”
“Florence has?” Silvan grinned in amusement.
I rolled over on to my back and chuckled along with him. “I know, I know. She’s much in demand.” Since Florence had been runner-up in a Witchflix baking show called The Great Witchy Cake Off, the world had been going mad for her. Behind us the grass was still recovering from the imprint of the giant marquee we’d had on the lawn while the programme had been filmed here in the grounds of my wonky inn. My once impeccable lawn had faded to a pale wan-looking yellow; we’d had little rain in the ten days since the production had wrapped. Over the past week I’d caught Ned, my loved-up general handyman ghost, out here most mornings and evenings surveying the damage and sucking the wind between his teeth. I didn’t fret. It would all come right again. Soon the rains would arrive, the grass would be refreshed, and we would have our lustrous lawn once more.
“I’m getting so many emails addressed to Florence… and fan mail by the score. She gets more post than I do.”
“And people are coming to see her?”
“Well she’s invited a few people to tea. I don’t see any harm in that.”
“Are you charging them?” Silvan asked, ever the mercenary.
I reached over to thump his arm. “Of course I’m not charging them. What do you think I am? They’re Florence’s guests!”
Silvan caught my fist easily and immobilised it. You don’t mess with a witch who is a master of the dark arts. His eyes glowed though as he held my hand captive, and a shiver stirred my insides. “You’ll never be a millionaire,” he scolded, but his tone was playful.
“I don’t need to be a millionaire.” I frowned at him. It worried me that all he seemed to care about was money at times. He lived his life as a witch for hire. He went wherever he’d been summoned by whoever agreed to pay him the highest reward.
“What do you want then, Alfhild?” he asked, his dark eyes soft on mine.
I shrugged. “What most people want. To be happy.” It sounded trite and maybe it was, but in the eighteen months since inheriting the inn, I’d known amazing contentment. For sure there had been some crashing lows, but the good times outweighed the bad. I’d met people I would consider friends for life, such as my efficient hotel manager Charity, Millicent my nearest witchy neighbour, Vance the Ent who lived in Speckled Wood, and Mara, the emotional witch who lived in the back of beyond with her faery changeling, Harys. Then there was Finbarr and his annoying band of pixies. To be fair, I couldn’t imagine life without any of them.
In addition, I’d worked with witches and wizards of sheer genius, such as Wizard Shadowmender, Mr Kephisto, and Penelope Quigwell. And of course I’d connected with deceased members of my family, namely my father Erik and great-grandmother Alfhild Gwynfyre Daemonne (or Gwyn as I called her), among other ghosts who would probably plague me forever in the afterlife too.
“You’re obsessed with this inn.” Silvan stretched out on his side and studied me from under a hooded gaze.
“I suppose I am.” There could be no disputing the fact that I’d been charged with a great responsibility when I took it on. Initially I had no idea what it would come to mean. Now I understood implicitly that I acted only as the current custodian. I held it in trust for the generations that would come, and safeguarded the huge number of occupants, both inside the inn—my ghosts—and in the grounds and Speckled Wood beyond.
I met Silvan’s gaze and held it. I didn’t understand what, if anything, was happening between us, but he had to know that there could be no negotiation about my responsibility for Whittle Inn. I was here to stay.
He reached out a hand and it hovered in the air above my face. I thought he intended to cup my cheek and for a moment I wanted him to, but then, abruptly, he flicked something from the side of my forehead and the moment was gone.
“Spider,” he explained, but the carefree way he said it didn’t convince me.
“So what about you?” I asked, curious as to his ambitions for life.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the sky. My crazy imagination thought I saw an element of yearning in his expression, but when he noticed me scrutinising him, he pulled a face. “I’m going
to make wads of cash and travel the world, live in a big house, drink a lot of whisky and carouse with dozens of women.”
“Um hmm.”
“I’ll eschew all responsibility for anything and everything and everybody.”
“Right,” I said, my tone heavy with sarcasm. Is that really what he wanted? Well, as long as I knew. “Sounds like a plan.”
I held my hand out above his face as he had done to me, my fingers gently massaging the air. Then I slapped his forehead—not particularly hard, just enough to make a noise—and shot to my feet as he reached for me to retaliate.
“Spider!” I shrieked and ran away, laughing fit to burst.
“What have you been up to?” Charity, my young inn manager, regarded me with amused suspicion as I raced into the kitchen. “Your cheeks are flushed.”
“Are they?” I flapped my hands at my face to cool myself down. “I’ve been outside. Silvan’s been teaching me how to conjure djinns.”
“Djinns?”
“They’re little creatures some witches and wizards use to do jobs for them. Like if you can’t get into a certain space or something. Or if something is particularly dangerous, you can just conjure your djinn and tell them to do it.”
Charity raised her eyebrows. She’d recently had one of them pierced. I was still getting used to the sight, but it kind of went with her current peroxide blonde ultra-short hairstyle. Unlike my wild self, Charity—while a little on the unconventional side—always managed to be immaculately turned out with flawless make-up and perfectly fresh clothes. I don’t know how she did it. I was a dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards kind of girl. If I hadn’t donned my witch’s robes, you’d find me in a crumpled black t-shirt and a pair of ancient black jeans with my ridiculous hair scrunched up on top of my head for convenience.
“And you can do it now, can you? Conjure a djinn?”
“No,” I admitted. “Mine keep running off.” In fact without Silvan’s intervention, there would have been a dozen or more roaming the Whittlecombe countryside and wreaking havoc.
“Hmm.” Charity didn’t sound surprised. “And does conjuring these things involve rolling around on the damp grass?” She eyed me with scepticism, and I glanced guiltily down at my now green-tinged grey robes.
“I’ve been having a rest.” I arched my own eyebrows at her, feigning innocence.
She nodded, a knowing look on her face. “Well listen, oh-magnificent-djinn-conjuring-boss-of-mine,” she said. “Florence’s guests are due here any minute. I really don’t think they need to see you looking like that.”
“Where is Florence?” I asked. The kitchen smelled of freshly baked scones, and cinnamon swirls. Pretty serving platters of freshly made sandwiches—delicate triangles of egg and cress, ham and tomato, salmon and cucumber—had been laid out on one of the work surfaces, ready to be carried through to the bar, along with small ramekins containing freshly made blackberry jam and enormous bowls of clotted cream.
My mouth watered.
“Laying the tables in the bar.”
“Tables?” I queried. “How many tables?” Come to think of it, there was an awful lot of food for a couple of guests. “How many people are we expecting?”
“Florence is expecting eight people. We’re staying out of it,” Charity reminded me. “This is her affair. Remember?”
I sighed in slight exasperation. I was happy for Florence. Of course I was. But I wanted a cream scone too. “Alright.”
“I sense your reluctance.” Charity smirked. “I think you need a little job to keep you busy, and out of the way. Just let Florence get on with it. Another few weeks and all the fame and notoriety of the programme will be over, and we can all go back to normal.”
I grunted. What is normal at Whittle Inn, after all?
Charity produced a huge wad of letters, held together by a fat rubber band. “Why don’t you take these up to the office and sort through them?”
I took the post from her with a grimace. “I expect most of these are for Florence. More fan mail. Is it ever going to stop?”
Charity looked confused. “Aren’t there six episodes of this programme?”
“Yes, I believe so.” I drifted towards the kitchen door and the back stairs to the next floor.
“Well, you’d better get used to it. Witchflix has only aired the first episode, so there’s five more to come.”
I had a wash and changed my grass-soiled robes for slightly cleaner ones before meandering through to my office. Gwyn, my long-deceased great-grandmother, hovered at the window, while Mr Hoo chirruped and twitted from his perch next to the fireplace. Thankfully Zephaniah, in Florence’s absence, had set it ablaze for me. The nights were starting to draw in, with a tendency to be damp. A roaring fire made all the difference, but you needed to let a fire burn and settle before it would begin to give off a decent amount of heat and cheer.
I scratched Mr Hoo’s head and he chirruped away happily; preening himself and shedding feathers and fluff all over the rug.
“Everything alright, Grandmama?” I asked, slipping the rubber band away from the letters to begin sorting through them.
“Yes, my dear,” she answered. I cast a quick glance her way, not convinced by her distracted response, but decided I didn’t want to know. Trouble had a way of finding itself to the heart of my wonky inn and I could do without any more of it for the time being.
“Miss Florence Fidler.” I placed the first letter down on the desk. “Miss Florence Fidler.” Another one. “F. Fidler. Flo Fiddley. Gas bill. Gas bill again?” I absently sifted through the letters and created separate piles. “Florence. Ms F Fidler. The Ghost on Witchy Cake Off. Invoice from Whittle Stores.” I nodded at Mr Hoo, who had paused in his grooming routine to watch me through his huge golden eyes. “That’ll be all that flour we had to buy,” I told him and tossed another couple of envelopes onto Florence’s pile, before pausing.
A familiar style of envelope.
Red ink on fine quality stained parchment; the address written out in long hand, in a neat cursive handwriting.
I sighed.
It could only be Sabien Laurent, an old French vampire who had arranged a wedding for his hideous playboy son here at Whittle Inn, nearly twelve months before. Until they’d arrived in the dead of night, I’d had very little experience of vampires. After the groom’s escapades over the following week, I’d quickly decided I never wanted anything more to do with the nocturnal menaces ever again.
Nope. Never again. Uh uh. No way, Jose.
Sabien however seemed to have other plans. He insisted on writing to me. I never bothered opening the letters, merely burning or shredding them as they arrived on my desk.
Why write to me at all? I could only imagine that the wretched man desired a return visit. Or maybe he intended to put pressure on me to tell him the whereabouts of Marc Williams, a previously important member of Sabien’s nest of vampires. Marc had broken free from Sabien’s clutches after the horrible events during the previous October.
I’d never tell. I’d been sworn to secrecy and a witch’s oath is sacrosanct.
Blowing out my cheeks in exasperation, I screwed the envelope up, but as I took aim to throw it into the fireplace, Mr Hoo shot off his perch and blocked the way, flapping his powerful wings and hovering in the air.
“Get out of the way, you great daft featherball,” I told him, but he only fixed me with a determined glare. I frowned. This wasn’t like him.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Hooo. Hoooo-ooo.”
“You want me to open this?” I scowled.
He flapped his wings harder, sending loose papers and Florence’s pile of fan mail fluttering across the floor. “Hoo!”
“Okay, okay,” I said and gestured him out of the way. The second he shifted and made for his perch, I threw the balled-up envelope at the fire.
Quick as a flash he turned in mid-air and dived for the missile, heading straight for the flames. Seeing what would happen I shrieked in
alarm. Without thinking I jumped to my feet and shot a spell his way. “Impediendum.” My little owl buddy froze where he was, the tip of one wing dangling just millimetres above the blaze. The envelope bounced off the grill and back onto the rug in front of the hearth. The slightly singed scent of burning feathers shocked me out of my daze and I quickly looped back the energy I’d sent, pulling it towards me so that Mr Hoo fell to the floor. He shook himself in indignation and twitted angrily at me.
“Are you crazy?” I squawked at him.
“Hoo! Hoo!”
“I am not!” I waggled my finger at him. “That’s was a stupid stunt. You could have been seriously burned. You might have ended up like Florence. That’s the last thing I need, having the pair of you old nags haunting me together!” I bent over him to check for damage and he took aim at my finger with his sharp beak. “Ouch!”
He carried on twitting in indignation and shook himself before making a leap for his perch. I observed his movements, looking for the slightest hint of injury, until satisfied everything appeared to be normal. Then with a sigh of relief I rescued the scrunched-up envelope.
“So much drama,” I grumbled, returning to my seat where I smoothed the envelope out on the desk. I cast a quick look at Mr Hoo. He in turn watched me.
I tutted, rolled my eyes and then ripped the envelope open to withdraw a single sheet of vellum.
The message was short and to the point.
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Vengeful Vampire at Wonky Inn: Wonky Inn Book 8 Page 1