Magic and Mayhem: Witchin Impossible 2: Rogue Coven (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Witchin' Impossible Mysteries)

by Renee George

  “Take her, take her,” I said, shooing Lily and Tizzy from the scene.

  Ford knelt by the protruding legs. He motioned Tanya over. “Do you want to check them?”

  She’d already gloved up, probably when I’d been arguing with my tricky rodent. She lifted the pant leg and pushed at the leg with her fingertips. “Rubber or silicone again. This is not Agatha Milan. Just two fakes again with her clothes and shoes. She twisted the calf sideways and revealed a carved in S. “I think it’s our same prankster.”

  “Or pranksters,” I said. “Could be more than one.”

  “Do you think S stands for Shifters?” Parker asked.

  “Ford seems to think so.” And I had as well, but targeting one witch seemed strange. “If it is, they will make a claim for the competition. It could be an initial, though, or even a symbol. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Besides, artificial legs are a pain in the ass for us to have to investigate, but there’s no real harm.”

  Mitzy leveled a cold gaze at her partner. “I agree, Chief.”

  “I’m so glad,” I said with more sarcasm than I meant. Ugh. Too many years of hanging out with a particular squirrel.

  Parker smirked.

  “Is there a problem here?” I asked.

  “No, Chief,” they both said almost simultaneously. I had a feeling the prank competition was stirring up bad blood between the partners. Frankly, the tension between those two was the least of my worries, though. How in the world was I going to get a town full of witches to stop using magic?

  A far off boom sounded. I looked at my Dad. “We need to get the word out to the community sooner rather than later.”

  He rubbed his hand through his well-coiffed hair. His eyes crinkled with worry. “I’ll take care of it, Hazel.”

  “Since there’s no dead body for me to examine here, I’ll help Kent,” Tanya said.

  I blinked at the red-headed witch. Did she just call my dad Kent? I noticed then she was looking at him in the same way I’d seen her looking at Ford my first week back in town.

  “Eww,” I said. “He’s old enough to be your father.” In witch terms, that didn’t mean much. My dad looked my age. But still!

  Tanya’s cheeks reddened. My dad took her by the arm. “Never mind.” To me, he said, “I’ll call you tonight.”

  Ford put his arms around me. “You should let me take you home. You need to rest.”

  My ribs still hurt like a bitch, but I wasn’t ready to give up on the day yet. “I need to talk to Agatha Milan. These fake legs might be harmless pranks, but it seems pretty elaborate and suspicious that someone keeps putting Agatha’s clothes and shoes on the damn things.”

  As we walked back to his truck, a clown appeared, or rather, the clown, although something seemed different this time. Was he shorter?

  “Ooga booga!” yelled the clown as he lifted up a blue plastic bucket. He launched its contents, and a cloud of pink glitter descended on us. Ford roared, and his face started to morph. The clown threw the bucket, which bounced off Ford’s chest. Giggling madly, the clown ran away.

  Glitter clung to my uniform, my hair, my eyelashes, and damn, even some had gotten into my mouth.

  Ford looked like a pretty, pretty bear princess, but I refrained from laughing because he looked so miserable.

  “The next time he shows up, you can shoot him,” I said.

  “If he shows up again, I’ll rip him to rainbow-colored shreds.” He frowned so hard it created creases at the corners of his mouth. “I hate clowns.”

  Chapter Five

  AFTER WE HAD managed to get most of the glitter off ourselves, we tracked down Agatha Milan. Her home was on a three-acre plot in an older part of town that was known as Avalon. It still had some of the original homes from when the town was first settled back in 1861 by the witches who had traveled from the New England to escape persecution and get a fresh start.

  They’d called the town Paradise Falls because of a small waterfall that spilled into a lake on the far side of the city borders. When I say small, I mean it’s about twelve feet high. I remember my history teacher, Ms. Gedes, a witch who’d been born in Paradise Falls in 1868, said that the founding families, hers included, had believed the lake and the falls would magnify their power.

  There had been thirteen founders. A coven. Four witches died in the first year during some spell-gone-wrong. Nine members were left to carry on building the community. Ms. Gedes, who’d never married, had been proud of her mother. Back then they lived together in their own sedate version of Grey Gardens.

  “I wonder if Ms. Gedes still teaches at the school,” I said to Ford as we climbed the steps to the two-story Victorian Queen Anne home.

  It was buttery yellow with a large covered porch, white columns, and an intricately carved front door. I could almost imagine sitting in an easy chair on the second-floor balcony and listening to the birds chirp away as I read a book. Goddess, there was oak, hazelnut, and pecan trees all over the place. Tizzy would be in nut heaven.

  “What made you think of her?” asked Ford.

  I knocked on the door. “I don’t know. Just thinking about the town’s history.” I looked around. “I can’t get over how big this yard is.” The typical sounds of cars racing up and down the road were absent as well. “Or how quiet the neighborhood is.”

  “I think that’s by design.” Ford knocked this time, louder, and I rang the doorbell. The tune “Do You Believe In Magic” began to chime inside the house.

  “That’s so awesome,” I said.

  Ford gave me a look that asked if I’d done gone and lost my mind. I shrugged. “Agatha? Agatha Milan,” I said.

  A disheveled witch with purple hair opened the door. Her skin, like all witches, was flawless. She had a sharp nose, a narrow face, a protruding thin chin, and high cheekbones. If she hadn’t been beautiful, I would have called her classically witchy.

  “What?” she asked. Her query had been ruder than I’d expected.

  “Uhm, are you Agatha Milan?” Paradise Falls was a small town but not so small I knew all the residents by sight.

  “Yes.” Her answer was curt and annoyed.

  Then Ford stepped forward. My mate was much better at charming people. Not. “Look, lady, we can have a friendly conversation here at your home, or we can do it downtown in a ten by ten interrogation room.”

  I’d underestimated just how much clown run-ins had put my mate on edge, but his tactic worked. Agatha Milan backed up from the door and said, “Fine. Come in.”

  The interior was wall-to-wall hardwood floors. A fireplace in the living room had, what I imagined was, the original surround. Intricate woodwork accented everything. The white walls had a slight rose tint to them that gave the place an almost magical glow. When she escorted us into a sitting room lined with bookshelves, I sighed. “How good is business? This place is fantastic.”

  Agatha plopped down in one of the four leather chairs in the room. “It was my parent’s house.”

  Inherited. No wonder. “I saw you downtown this morning. Did you see anything unusual before the event on Main Street?”

  Her face pinched. “I didn’t see anything.”

  I didn’t believe her. “Do you know why your clothes and shoes keep ending up on rubber legs around town?”

  “What?” She seemed genuinely surprised.

  “Twice now, there have been legs sticking out from under something. Dumpster lid, crumbling wall. And both times, articles that have been identified as matching your pants and shoes were found on the legs and feet.”

  “Like the way the wicked witch was positioned when Dorothy’s house fell on her,” Ford said.

  “Are you calling me a wicked witch?” Agatha demanded.

  I stared at my mate as if he’d grown a second head.

  Ford kept his gaze leveled at Agatha. “If the shoes fit.”

  Agatha’s phone chirped. She pulled it from her pocket, her eyes widening when she saw the screen. It was simply a 5-5-5. “I have to t
ake this.” She left the room.

  Ford and I looked around, and other than some tiny shards of broken glass on one of the bookshelves next to an old picture of a man, woman, and child, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Her taste in books seemed to follow mostly fashion and romance novels. I wished like hell I could cast a location spell for hidden secrets. Secrets I was certain Agatha kept. I’d most likely destroy this gorgeous house in the process, so I resisted the twitching impulse.

  When Agatha returned, she said, “You have to leave. Now. Unless you plan to arrest me, I have nothing more to say to you.”

  When Ford and I were back out on the lawn and walking toward the truck, he said, “That was ominous.”

  I cackled at him in my best wicked witch impression and said, “I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little dog too.”

  “Don’t you mean squirrel?”

  Awww. He thought of Tizzy as his too. It hit home just how much I really loved this man.

  Chapter Seven

  AT MY INSISTENCE, Lily came over for dinner. I hated thinking of her alone in that house. I’d tried to talk her into moving in with us. We had three bedrooms and lots of space, but she liked her independence.

  Ford had cooked, another reason I loved him, and the pot roast smelled delicious. A Shifter buddy of his, Troy Dancy, was an electrician, and he’d come over while we were putting out fires all over town and fixed the short in the wire. It turned out the electrical problem had nothing to do with my coffee. Still. The hole in the center island and floor reminded us all that if the earth’s rotation was thrown off because of an imbalance in the core, it was probably my fault. At least nothing was coming up through the hole. Yet.

  At the table, Tizzy said, “Show them, Lily.”

  “It was probably just a fluke.” She brushed her unruly auburn hair back from her face and took a bit of roast. “Wow, Ford. This is excellent.”

  Tizzy climbed up on the table.

  “No feet on the table during meals,” Ford muttered. He didn’t bother making it a command because Tizzy wouldn’t obey anyhow.

  “Do it, Lily. Do it, do it, doo eeeet!”

  Tizzy’s insistence and Lily’s reluctance made me curious. “What is she talking about, Lils?”

  Exasperated, Lily put her knife and fork down. “Some strangeness happened this afternoon when Tizzy and I went to the store.”

  “I asked the grocer if her eggs were fresh, and she said she put them in new cartons because they were twelve days past the expiration date.”

  “Okay. Weird, but I’m not sure what’s exciting about it.”

  “She hadn’t meant to tell me, Haze. But it was like she couldn’t help herself.” Lily rubbed her face, looking more tired than I’d seen her in a long time. “My neighbor John Decker, I asked him about his wife. Instead of giving me the standard, ‘She’s doing okay. Getting there,’ which has been his answer almost every day since their son Boyd died, he said, ‘Terrible. Most days she’s in bed. I worry one day I’ll come home and find she’s taken her own life.’” Lily stuttered out a heavy exhale.

  “Yeah,” Tizzy said. “And we tested it with other people. All the Shifters we asked questions answered us with whole truths. Even embarrassing questions.”

  Lily blushed. “I had to know. I had to ask things they wouldn’t usually answer.”

  “What about witches?”

  “It worked to some degree with witches and warlocks, unless the questions were too outrageous,” Lily said. “They didn’t lie about them, but they were able to not answer truthfully.”

  Ford scoffed. “I find it hard to believe.”

  I felt an evil smile tug the corner of my lips. “Fine. Ask Ford why he’s afraid of clowns.”

  “I’m not afraid of—”

  “Why are you scared of clowns?” Lily asked him.

  Ford immediately started talking. “When I was five years old, my father took me to the circus, and I snuck away to check out the clowns. They trapped me in their tiny car and tormented me for what felt like hours until my dad finally rescued me from the jesters of Satan.” When he finished, his eyes widened. He set down his silverware and stood up from the table. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lily said.

  Tizzy, who hadn’t stopped laughing since the “jesters of Satan” line, was decidedly not sorry.

  “Aww, Ford. That’s terrible.” I stood up to hug him, but he stepped away from me.

  “I’m going to shower and wash the humiliation off me.”

  “Can I help?”

  His spicy scent detonated my senses. Yum. He turned and headed for the stairs, with me following close on his heels.

  “I’ll get the dishes,” Lily said.

  “I’ll supervise,” Tizzy added.

  ****

  AFTER OUR HOT shower, followed by an even hotter make-out session, Ford and I cuddled in bed. The room was painted in warm browns and cool blues. The comforter covering the king-sized bed, any guy almost seven feet tall would require, was chocolate with light blue circles. I’d added some extra decorative pillows to the mix, but everything else in the room was Ford’s aesthetic. No matter how many times he said the house was ours, I couldn’t help but feel like it was his. His fingerprints were all over the décor. Sure, I’d added a few touches here or there, just little things to make me feel less like a guest, but I still didn’t feel completely at home.

  “Poor baby,” I said, stroking Ford’s broad hairy chest. I loved the way he looked in uniform, but I loved him out of uniform even more. “If another clown attacks you, I’ll shove glitter right up his ass.”

  He plucked my hand off his chest and harrumphed. “It’s not funny.”

  Since we were out of Tizzy’s earshot, I said, “Yes, it is. Jesters of Satan.” I snickered and put my hand back on his chest and twirled a small patch of chest hairs into a pretty swirl. “You are a big, bad bear Shifter. Beyond that, you are an officer of the law. Trained in self-defense. What can a clown, with his size seventeen feet, bicycle horn, and foam club do to you?”

  “Those white-faced freaks with their squeaky red noses are as creepy as it comes.” I felt him shudder.

  To get his mind off clowns, I changed the subject. “That tar pit is pretty creepy. I half expected dinosaur bones to float to the surface.”

  “I thought Matty Deerfield was going to have a stroke as his truck sank down. I can’t believe it completely disappeared under the surface.”

  “That truck was junk. I take it if Matty had money to replace it he would have done so already.”

  “There’s a lot of grumbling in the Shifter community that witches are responsible for the boiling, black gunk. Tanya took a sample back to her lab to analyze.”

  “Tanya did, did she?”

  Ford grasped my hand as I reflexively bunched his chest hairs into my fist. “Ouch.” He brought my knuckles to his lips. “I’ve never wanted another woman the way I want you, Hazel. You are my mate. From now until I perish.”

  I relaxed my curled fingers. I sometimes forgot that Shifters mated for life, unlike witches and warlocks who mated until it was inconvenient. I hoped like hell that I never disappointed him. He rolled sideways and gathered me in his arms. He branded me with a fiery kiss as I threaded my fingers through his thick, brown hair. Goddess, the man tasted as good as he smelled. I could give up desserts for the rest of my life as long as Ford Baylor always kissed me just like this.

  His rumbly growl made me smile against his lips, and I could feel the solid log of his desire pressed against my hip. I chuckled and said, “There are no clowns in here so you can holster your gun.”

  He flipped me onto my back and pinned me beneath his massive body. I loved the way his hot skin felt against mine. He growled, raising shivers on my skin. “I’m planning on holstering this gun.”

  He pushed my thighs apart with his knees. I squawked with pleasure, a fine layer of perspiration forming on my chest and neck. I purred, “Oh, Officer Baylor, th
is is starting to feel a lot like police brutality.” I wiggled my brows. “I like it.”

  He kissed my cheek, my neck, my… brrrrring! Birrrrriiiiing!

  “No,” I whined. “Not now.” The caller screen showed the Paradise Falls Police Department phone number.

  “Don’t answer it,” Ford said.

  “It’s the station, and it’s eleven o’clock at night. It’s probably important.”

  Ford let out a heavy sigh but didn’t roll off me. He grabbed the phone off the nightstand. “It better be city on fire important.” He hit the green button on the screen and put the phone to my ear.

  “Chief Kinsey,” I said, as Ford kissed down my neck, his mouth hot on my breasts.

  “We have a body, Chief,” Officer Parker said.

  Within a nanosecond, Ford got out of bed and pulled on his pants. Not an easy feat since his erection hadn’t completely gone away. He winced as he tucked it down and zipped up his jeans. I mouthed the word, sorry, to him.

  I wondered why Parker was working. He’d been on day shift, so it didn’t make sense that he’d be on call tonight. I would ask him about it later. For now, I needed to know more about the body. I put the phone on speaker and set it down while I dressed. Ford had a T-shirt on now and was putting on his socks. “Are you sure it’s not just more rubber legs sticking out of something?”

  “These ones have the rest of the body attached, Chief.” His voice was solemn. “It’s Agatha Milan.”

  “What? We spoke to her this afternoon. Damn it. Where’s the body located?”

  “750 Elysium Street.”

  “Lolo’s Diner?”

  John Parker sounded angry when he spoke. “In the back Dumpster.”

  “In another Dumpster?” I shook my head as I snapped my bra into place. “We’ll be there in fifteen. Secure the scene.”

  “Already in progress, Chief.”

  “What do you think?” Ford asked after Parker hung up. “Prank gone wrong?”

  “We’ll know more when we get down there.”

  Chapter Eight

  POLICE CARS, an ambulance, and a generous amount of town’s folk occupied the front parking lot of Lolo’s Diner. The diner’s bright neon signs advertising burgers and shakes added to the pageantry. The place was open until midnight on weekends, which meant, it had been full of customers when the body was discovered.