Cut to the Crone (A Spell's Angels Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Amanda M. Lee

  Gunner rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t fretting. And I don’t think I like that word. It’s kind of weenie.”

  “You’ll survive.” Zoe watched Raisin happily dig into her root beer float. The teenager appeared to have put the fear she experienced when Sami invaded her dreams behind her. “We can’t know their exact plan. Emma is strong and she’s been working against us the entire time. In a nutshell, we underestimated our enemy. We can’t do that a second time.”

  “Do you expect her to call you?” Rooster asked. “Is that the assumption we’re working on?”

  “It is.” Zoe bobbed her head. “She’s going to call, but we’re not simply going to be waiting around. We’re going to be gathering more allies.” She focused on me. “You said there’s a powerful witch out here, one who has been around a long time. I want to meet her.”

  I was caught off guard. “Mama Moon?”

  “I don’t recall her name.”

  “It’s probably her. She’s been around forever, and she’s really strong. She’s not part of our group, though.”

  “That’s irrelevant. Rafael was tapping contacts the other day. I’m betting she was one of them.”

  “What do you expect to get from her?”

  “I have no idea. I want to talk to her. You never know, she might be more help than you realize.”

  “Okay, but I’m just warning you that she has a pet bear. His name is Barney and he’s huge. I don’t want you to accidentally blast him when we land because he’ll likely kill us before the big fight if we’re not careful.”

  “Really?” Zoe’s smile widened. “A bear?” She shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to ride into battle with a bear on my team. This might work after all.”

  MAMA MOON’S SHOP WAS A WRECK when we arrived. Something had obviously gone down, and it wasn’t good.

  “She’s quite the housekeeper.” Zoe’s expression was grim as she walked into the store, her head cocked and her hands raised in case she needed to unleash a torrent of magic.

  My stance was similar, but I was barely through the door when I recognized that whoever had attacked Mama Moon was long gone.

  “She’s not here.” Gunner checked behind the counter just to be on the safe side. “Do you think they took her?”

  Zoe moved to the wall and ran her fingers across a set of scorch marks. “There’s no body here, which means they either took her or she escaped. Where would she go if injured?”

  I didn’t have an answer so I looked to Gunner.

  “She’s a loner,” he replied. “She does what she wants when she wants. She’s kind of an eccentric. She still rides a huge hog with a sidecar. She once tried to train Barney to sit in the sidecar, but he refused. Last time I heard she was trying to find a domesticated cougar to sit in it, but apparently that’s still a work in progress.”

  Zoe barked out a laugh. “Well, now I definitely want to meet her. She sounds delightful.”

  “She’s crazy,” Gunner countered. “She’s also a good woman. I don’t understand why Emma would’ve taken her. She’s already grappling with us. Why take on Mama Moon at the same time?”

  “Because she knew we would try to get her on our side,” I replied. The appraising look Zoe shot me told me I’d hit the nail directly on the head. “As it is, Emma thinks there’s a chance she can stand against Zoe and me together. If we add Mama Moon to the mix, she knows she’s done for.”

  “So she either tried to assassinate the old woman or knock her out of the mix,” Zoe supplied. “Now she’s either wounded and recuperating or being held captive.”

  “Another reason for us to trade the book,” Aric mused. “She’s going to be really upset when she finds out the truth.”

  Zoe nodded grimly. “I’m really looking forward to that.” She headed toward the door.

  “Where are we going now?” I asked.

  Zoe was already gone and I had to scramble to keep up with her. Instead of heading to Aric’s truck, I found her circling the building.

  “What are you doing?”

  Zoe flashed a small smile and kept going. “I want to see the bear.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “It depends on who you ask.”

  “That joke is lame. I—” I cringed and lowered my shoulders as a roar assailed my ears.

  Zoe kept going, not stopping until she was directly in front of Barney, who looked positively rabid with rage. He stood on two legs and extended a paw in her direction.

  “Zoe!” Aric came racing around the building, skidding to a stop when he saw Barney. “Good grief. She really does have a bear for a pet.”

  “He’s awesome,” Zoe announced, holding out her hand.

  Suspicious, Barney merely stared at her, and showed his teeth.

  Zoe was never one to back down, and that didn’t look to be changing today. “Hi, boy.” She used a soothing tone, as if talking to a small child. I had to wonder if she ever sounded like that when trying to sooth Sami as a child. “How are you, big guy?”

  The bear made a huffing sound but didn’t move.

  “Okay, here’s the thing.” Zoe kept both hands up and sucked in a breath. “I need to know what happened here. I’m guessing you saw some of it. I want you to show me.”

  I was officially dumbfounded. “You’re going to meld minds with the bear?”

  “Do you have a better idea?” Zoe never looked away from the bristling animal. “I’m going to find her,” she promised. “Actually, I’m going to find all of them. I’m going to bring your mama back to you, you just have to trust me. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Zoe, if that bear swipes at you and I have to shift and fight it, I really will never let you hear the end of it,” Aric warned in a low voice.

  “He’s not going to hurt me,” Zoe assured her husband. “He’s just sad. I’m going to fix that for him.” Tentatively, she placed her hand on the bear’s shoulder. “It’s okay. Just give me a little peek.”

  To my utter surprise, the bear didn’t put up a fight. Instead, he watched Zoe with wide-eyed wonder. The blue pulse of magic she unleashed surprised me.

  “She’s healing him,” Aric said. “He must’ve been injured in the fight.”

  “He was,” Zoe confirmed. There was an edge to her voice that wasn’t there before. “It was Emma and several vampires. None of the shifters were present. They caught Mama Moon by surprise. Apparently she was drinking.”

  “She likes her bourbon,” Gunner agreed.

  “She put up a good fight, took out two of the vampires, but there were two others who snuck up from behind.” Zoe was grim when she turned back to us. Barney had apparently decided he trusted her because he rubbed his head against hers to cajole her to stroke his huge forehead. “I hate dirty fighters, and those two vampires are dirty. I’m totally taking them out first. As for Mama Moon, she was alive when they dragged her out, but beat up a bit. She should be fine as long as we can find her.”

  “Then we should get back to the Cauldron,” said Aric. “We’ll pick up breakfast for everybody along the way. We need to iron out our plan and get some fuel.”

  “What about Sami?” Zoe momentarily looked forlorn. “I was kind of hoping she would realize her mistake and come back by now.”

  Aric crossed to her, giving the bear a sidelong glance before sliding a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You know how we joke that Sami gets all her bad personality traits from you?”

  Zoe balked. “I wouldn’t say all.”

  “All.” He smirked and moved his thumb to her cheek to swipe at some dirt. “She gets this part of her personality from you, too. She’s not going to give up until she saves Rafael. She’s strong enough that she can hide from us. All those stupid games we played with her as a kid, training her, well now they’re coming back to bite us.” He kissed Zoe’s cheek. “She’s okay. You would know if she was in real trouble. You always ride to the rescue in the nick of time. This won’t be any different. You just need to hold it together for a few more
hours.”

  Zoe didn’t look as if she thought that was something she could stomach. “I’m still going to kill her when we find her.”

  “I’m going to help.”

  She slipped into his arms, barely paying attention to the bear as he moved behind her to involve himself in the hug.

  “We’re not taking that bear home,” Aric warned. “I don’t care how attached he gets to you.”

  That nudged a chuckle out of Zoe. “He just wants Mama Moon. He’ll forget all about me when we get her back.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so.” Zoe pulled back and forced a smile. “Let’s get breakfast and start planning. We might not have Mama Moon, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be part of the fight once we’re all together.”

  Aric was instantly suspicious. “Do I even want to know what you’re planning?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  Twenty-Seven

  The gang was all gathered and going through weapons when we landed at the Cauldron. I didn’t think dragging things out was in anybody’s best interests.

  “They have Mama Moon.”

  Rooster jerked up his head, his eyes flashing with something dangerous. “Are you kidding?”

  I shook my head. “Her store is trashed and the bear was injured.”

  “Barney?” Bonnie moved away from the sword she was eyeing. “Is he okay? Mama Moon loved that bear.”

  “We don’t know that Mama Moon has been killed,” I cautioned. “In fact, it looked as if she put up a fight.”

  “There was also no body,” Zoe offered. “If she’d been killed, they would’ve left the body behind as a message of sorts. I’m guessing they don’t really have a beef with her as much as they want to make sure we don’t use her.”

  “What about Barney?” Rooster queried. “If he needs help—”

  “I healed him.” Zoe offered up a wan smile. “He was bleeding, had clearly tried to protect his mistress, but he’s okay now. We left him out at the store.”

  “He seems depressed,” Gunner said.

  “He’s also fallen in love with Zoe,” I added. “She healed him and now he’s devoted to her.”

  “I have a way with men.” Zoe moved to the assembled weapons. “This looks good. We need to talk about how we’re going to handle this, because the moment Emma calls, she’s going to expect us to move. She won’t give us time to react.”

  “She’s going to make sure she has the upper hand.” Rooster picked up a sword. “She’ll pick the location.”

  Zoe nodded. “She will. She’ll be expecting Gunner, Scout, Aric, and me. She also knows about the domes because we went in under one last night. That means she’ll adjust.”

  “So you want to take her on without any subterfuge,” Rooster surmised. “That makes sense. She’ll spend all her time looking for the surprise you have planned and it will make her slow to react to a frontal assault.”

  “I’m not going to give her time to react.” Zoe was matter-of-fact. “Sami is out there. She’s going to be under a dome and trying to get close to Rafael. They’ll have to keep him somewhere where the sun can’t get him until the eclipse hits. The same with the other vampires.”

  “Once the eclipse starts, she’ll be able to harness the power of the shadow,” Bonnie pointed out. “She’ll be able to expand her army accordingly because of that.”

  “She will, but that army is going to do her zero good.” Zoe folded her arms across her chest and studied the weapons. “I think the shifters are going to be our biggest concern. I doubt the female shifters have been taken as much as recruited.”

  Gunner hiked an eyebrow. “How can you be certain? I mean, it’s not that I don’t believe you, but the kidnapped shifters would make good fodder. She could use them to keep us from attacking.”

  “Oh, she plans on using them as shields to protect herself,” Zoe said. “I have no doubt about that. She’s wily. They’re going to fight for her, though. There’s a reason almost all the shifters in question are females.”

  I was curious despite myself. “You clearly think you know what she’s doing.”

  “It’s an uprising.” Zoe cast a worried look toward Aric and received a curt nod in response. “Two years ago, Aric and I were looking for protection for Sami. There’d been an attack at our home. A dangerous witch tried to lure Sami into a net so she could kill her and drain her powers. It didn’t work, we defeated the threat, but it was obvious that more factions would start appearing because Sami was turning twelve.”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with anything,” Bonnie said, biting her bottom lip. “I’m usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but I have no idea what’s going on this time.”

  “Wolves tend to mature at twelve,” Doc volunteered. He was the analytical sort so he presented the information in a bland manner. “They’re not technically adults but it’s a significant age.”

  “And it’s what our enemies were waiting for,” Zoe explained. “Sami came into everything at once, although it didn’t happen overnight. It happened over the course of a few weeks and we felt vulnerable. We went to Aric’s pack because we thought they might be able to offer extra layers of protection. There was a fear that we would be overrun at some point and Sami would need someone to take care of her if we fell.”

  Aric’s hand moved to Zoe’s shoulder and he gave her a light squeeze. “We didn’t need additional help,” he said. “In the end, Zoe did what she always does and fought off the threat. For a time, however, the pack thought they had us where they wanted us.”

  “I still don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Bonnie pressed. “I mean, am I missing something?”

  Aric heaved a heavy sigh. “Wolf packs put higher emphasis on the males. It’s a patriarchal society. I was supposed to marry a female wolf and have numerous children with her. I broke from what was expected and followed my heart.” He offered his wife a rueful smile. “Zoe was a curiosity from the start. People knew she was powerful, so I was never completely cut off from the pack. I refused to play the game the way they wanted, though, and there was a certain amount of bitterness associated with that decision. On their part, not mine. I never doubted my decision.”

  Zoe cleared her throat to draw everybody’s attention to her. “In a nutshell, they wanted us to pledge our support to the pack. In exchange, they would’ve protected Sami, while using her and my powers whenever they wanted, and forced Aric to mate with another female in an effort to get a male heir.”

  My mouth inadvertently dropped open. “You cannot be serious.”

  She nodded. “It was an ugly conversation.”

  “One Zoe took control of and won,” said Aric. “Just for the record, I was never going to have a child with another woman. That’s not really important to this story but she’s all I’ve ever wanted. As for Sami, I never cared about having a male heir. Zoe and I knew going in that we could only keep one child safe. It didn’t matter if we had a boy or a girl. That was it for us.”

  “It’s a heartbreaking tale.” Rooster glanced between Zoe and Aric. “What does that have to do with this situation?”

  “It was the fact that it was all female shifters going missing that tipped me off,” Zoe replied. “When we were at Aric’s pack retreat, a few of the females mentioned that they were sick of the men getting all the accolades. Sure, it was tradition, but it was also getting tiresome.

  “Even though I wasn’t the favorite daughter of the pack and some of the females hated me for ‘stealing’ one of their prime prospects, they also respected me for telling the pack council where to stick it,” she continued. “After that, the females started exerting themselves, and that was blamed on me.”

  Realization dawned on me. “You think Emma is enticing the females with promises of anarchy.”

  “I think many of the female shifters, and not just from one pack, are fed up with their lot in life,” Zoe corrected. “They want to exert some control over their circumstances, and
they believe Emma when she says she can give them that.”

  “But ... how?” Rooster looked genuinely bewildered. “What cookie is Emma offering these females?”

  “The Archimage,” I answered automatically, things finally clicking into place. “She’s fed them a pack of lies about what the book can do.”

  “She might not even realize she’s lying,” Zoe said. “The book has always been mysterious. We still don’t know everything it could’ve done if I hadn’t made a decision to drain it fifteen years ago.”

  Rooster nodded in understanding. “Emma isn’t going to fall for your ruse for very long. She’s going to realize relatively quickly that the book isn’t the real deal.”

  “That’s why Scout and I are going to put a spell on it.” Zoe flashed a smile that didn’t make it all the way to her eyes. Clearly the day was starting to take a toll on her. “We’re going to put a protection spell on the book, one that’s going to be difficult to break. Emma is going to be so focused on getting through the barriers she won’t pay attention to anything else.”

  “Then what?” Marissa asked, speaking for the first time. She didn’t look happy with the turn of events. “What happens between the time we arrive and when Emma figures out the book is a fake?”

  “We take out every vampire and shifter between us and her.” Zoe’s response was calm, succinct, and ultimately chilling. “She doesn’t care about the creatures she’s recruited. All she cares about is herself. Now, she’s marked Scout as her equal. That’s who she’s going to be focused on, so we’re going to give her what she wants. Scout is going to take her on.”

  Gunner opened his mouth, but Aric cut him off with a head shake.

  “Scout will never be truly alone,” Aric promised. “We have to take out as many shifters and vampires as we can in that first wave, though. Emma is going to regroup by the second wave, and then things are going to get more difficult.”