Abracastabra (Hex Falls Paranormal Cozy Mystery # 4) (Hex Falls Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series)

by Rachel Rivers

  “It’s not that. It’s just—”

  “What, Sotherby? It’s just what?”

  His eyes dart toward the hospital and back. “I was just thinking about poor Jeremy—”

  “You were not.” I swat at his chest, then stare him straight in his eyes. Eyes that seem to be harboring something that I’ve never seen in them before—a dark and desolate affliction. Wait a minute. I muse, my mood playful. “This isn’t about the case at all, is it?” I slide toward him, teasingly. “This is about you isn’t it?” I poke him again.

  “It is not,” he snaps, backing away from me.

  “Ooooh, yes, it is.” I step back toward him, reaching up and straightening his ghostly tie. “You don’t want me spending that much time with Jamie,” I say, in a light and sing-song way.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. What do I care?” he snaps, darting back from me again. A dark flash of lightning crosses his face, and he turns his back to me. “I’ve never cared what you do!”

  “As long as I’m was doing it in the company of a dolt.” I circle him, tilting my head sweetly to one side. “Isn’t that right,” I whisper, our faces hovering just outside of one another’s. “But the fact that this one is not like his brother really scares you, doesn’t it?” I grin.

  Sotherby bristles and then vanishes instantly, whisking away on a breeze. “Sotherby?” I call after him. “Sotherby, I was only teasing.” I chase his smoky black tendrils. “Sotherby, come back. Please!” Oh, what have I done?

  Chapter 23

  “So, that was quite the press conference.” Jamie grins and sips his drink, sitting across from me at The Cauldron. “Are the townsfolk here in Hex Falls always that cantankerous?”

  “No, not really…” I run a finger around the lip of my drink. “Just the one.” I raise a jaunty finger.

  “What was all that balderdash about you being a witch?” he asks tentatively, and I feel my face heating.

  “Oh, you know…” I look away from him. “Born in Salem and all that.”

  “You were born in Salem?” He looks excited.

  “Sure, why not.” I slurp my drink. “Anyway, about the murder.” I change the subject.

  “Oh yes. I guess that’s what we’re here to discuss, isn’t it?” He leans back in his chair and pulls his notebook and a pen from his back pocket, then leans in again. “I figure the next logical step is to figure out who might want to hurt your uncle.”

  “My uncle?”

  “Yes.” He shifts a brow. “Assuming he’s innocent.”

  “Which he is,” I stress.

  “Of course. So, go ahead, shoot.” He raises a brow and poises his pen over his notebook.

  “Shoot what?” I say.

  “The list. You know of possible enemies?” He waits. “Anyone, anyone at all you can think of who might want to do him in?” Jamie adds.

  You mean, my uncle, the vampire.

  Yeah, this is going to be a walk in the park. I tap my chin and look into the lights. “You know, I can’t really think of anyone,” I lie and have to use internal magic to keep my cheeks from reddening, so he doesn’t catch on.

  I have to. Of course, my uncle has enemies. He’s a vampire, for goodwitchnesssakes.

  If he didn’t have enemies, that would be suspect.

  I take a slow sip of my drink.

  Jamie makes a strange face like he’s just heard what I’ve been thinking. But that’s not possible. Is it? I panic. Don’t tell me he’s—

  My heart speeds up.

  I lean to one side, quickly checking his right pinkie for a crooked toe through his sandals and come up with… nothing. Thank gods.

  “You’re sure about that?” he questions me, looking serious, getting back to my uncle.

  “Well…” I say, “of course, I don’t really know for sure.” I stall. “You see, my uncle is rather a bit of a vagabond.” I bite my lip. “He doesn’t actually stay in one place long enough to develop any enemies, I don’t think.” I grimace. More like he gets the hex out of Dodge as soon as he makes one. I pick at the side of my drink.

  “Any scorned lovers, girlfriends, ex-husbands?” Jamie looks up.

  I nearly spit my drink. “Yeah. Sure,” I say.

  “Which ones?”

  “Um, girlfriends mostly.” My voice comes out as a squeak. “But you know what, you really should be asking him these questions, not me.” Unless of course, I beat you to it, which I plan to.

  “Fair enough,” he says and consults his notebook again. “So, just to recap,” he clicks his pen on then off, then taps it on the table, “we have an uncle, who’s a bit of a wanderer, who comes to town, ends up at a fair, and winds up being framed for murder.” Jamie is definitely more of a stickler when it comes to details than his brother. Another difference in the twins. “A murder that looks suspiciously like it could be a murder for hire or a mob hit,” he adds, looking up.

  Oh my gods, he hasn’t given up on that yet?

  “At least in my opinion,” he clarifies, then smiles and tugs at his beard. “So, if we go with my idea a moment, what do we get?” He narrows his eyes, thinking again, then they flicker open wide. “Maybe it was gang related.”

  “What?”

  “Your uncle, he could be involved in drugs. Owed a dealer some money. Something like that.”

  “My uncle?” I say, my brows rising.

  Jamie looks at me severely. “You know, we all think we know our relatives, but when it comes down to things, we don’t you know?” He throws up a hand. “I mean, for all you know, your uncle could be part of the Mafia.”

  I spit up my drink again. Perhaps the Paranormal Mafia, but never a mortal one.

  Omighost, he’s not serious.

  “Stranger things have happened?” Jamie scowls, looking offended that I’ve laughed. “And it would explain the viciousness of the murder.”

  “And the stakes? How do explain that wooden stakes were used?”

  He thinks. “Well, I can’t. But we shouldn’t rule it out.” He raises a finger. “We shouldn’t rule anything out at this point.” He flips to a new page in his notebook and writes it down.

  “Oh, yeah, sure, not even magic,” I mutter, folding back in my chair.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.” I sigh. “You don’t honestly think the mafia would show up at an old country fair and try to take out my uncle on a public stage in front of a tent full of witnesses, do you?” I blink.

  “If they could frame someone else for it, sure, why not?”

  “Really?” I arch a skeptical brow.

  Okay, now I’m seeing some twin similarities.

  Jamie expression tightens. “All right smarty pants. Do you have any theories you’d like to float that I could shoot down?” He looks cheekily up from his page.

  Okay, so I guess I deserved that snark.

  “No. Wait. There is something else I wanted to mention that’s been bothering me.” Especially after that display Mrs. Dumfries just put on at the press conference.

  “Oh, what’s that?” He leans back, pen again poised over the page.

  I think for a half-second about telling him about the sighting of the man in black, then think better of it. If they do turn out to be my runaway ex-Supreme Leader, how do I explain that? “It’s Mrs. Dumfries,” I say, stroking the side of my cup.

  “Oh, what about her?”

  “It’s just that, well, that night, before it all happened, she was acting really strange.”

  “You mean stranger than she just did at the press conference?”

  “Well, yeah, but in a different kind of way.”

  “What was that?”

  “Well,” I say, arching my brows, “it’s likely nothing, but…”

  “Go on.”

  “Okay. I’m just going to say it. She was overly… happy.”

  “Happy?”

  “Yeah, like giddy almost.”

  “At a fair, you mean?” Jamie says. “You’re concerned about a woman bein
g overly happy at a fair.”

  “Yeah, you know. She was inordinately…cheerful.”

  He looks at me like I’ve just grown horns on my heads. “

  Of course, she’d be happy at a fair. “Okay, yes, but… you don’t know Mrs. Dumfries like I know Mrs. Dumfries. She’s almost never happy. She’s usually like she was just now, suspicious and spreading controversy. Always lurking about, starting rumors and asking questions. She’s never once complimented me. And she did three times.” I hold up three fingers. “And her eyes looked weird too,” I add, quickly, nodding.

  “I see.” Jamie studies my face with growing skepticism.

  See now, I wasn’t going to include that last detail, but then he looked at me in that judgmental way and zoop… It just came flying right out of my mouth.

  “So… We have one overly happy patron with weird-looking eyes,” he says and writes it down, taps his pen to the page, and then looks up again. “Anything else?”

  Now, did I mock him when he was talking mafia?

  “No.” I sit back hard in my chair.

  “In that case, we’d better go before we lose the light.” He flips his notebook shut and snaps to his feet. “Oh, there’s one more thing,” he says, sitting back down. “I wanted to show you this.” He digs around in his short’s pocket. “I found it on the ground, not far from where Jeremy was thrown, last time I was out at the site. I’m not sure if it means anything, or even what it is, but it sure is weird.” He pulls the item from his pocket, and I gasp. My muscles tense at the sight of the strange-looking tangle of what looks to be black hair, twisted in a braid, wound around the end of a weathered twig.

  Goosebumps dapple my arms. “Wow, that’s weird,” I say, my voice shaky, pulling back.

  “Yeah, isn’t it?” He holds the item closer to me. “It looks like something used in an ancient ritual.” He chuckles.

  Oh, you have no idea.

  I gulp, drumming my fingernails nervously on the side of my cup. “That’s it? You find anything else out there?” I ask. Like, say the rest of it? Or a leaked a bit of black magic left over from a fleeing Druen? I swallow. Hard.

  He might not know what that strange thing is, but I do. At least, I think I do.

  Part of a burnt talisman.

  Jeremy’s talisman. The one he was mumbling about.

  Or whoever it is that’s been possessing him, I mean.

  Sweat breaks out on my brow.

  “It probably has no connection at all to the case,” Jamie says. “Likely just something a kid dropped at the fair, considering how many people were in attendance. Either that, or it’s been laying out there for years.”

  He tosses it dangerously up and down in his hand, and I cringe.

  “But you never can be too thorough when working a case, right? So, I picked it up.” He closes his hand over it, and I exhale the breath I’ve been holding.

  “May I see that?” I ask slowly, gesturing toward the object he’s still holding in his hand.

  “Sure,” Jamie says. He reaches out and drop it into my palm, and I wince as it sizzles.

  “Woah! What the heck?” Jamie shoots back as it scorches my skin with a small fiery zap. “What was that?”

  “I dunno.” I grin nervously. “Just a little jolt of static electricity I guess.”

  In truth, I’ve no idea what’s just happened. Spurned magic, maybe. The angry reaction of one witch’s talisman touched by another.

  Or at least I hope that’s all it was.

  “Darned carpet.” I smile and look down and realize my feet are nowhere near it. Quickly, I shift my shoes onto the area rug. “Happens to me all the time.” I shrug.

  Chapter 24

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.” I fan away his concern. Meanwhile, my hand is killing me. I look down to see the object has left a patterned black mark in my palm. What the hex is that?

  “You ready to go then?” He stands, clicks his pen, and slides it in his back pocket.

  “L-Like, right now?” I stammer, distracted by the pain in my hand.

  “Well, time is of the essence, don’t you think?” He slurps down the remainder of his drink and sets down his cup. “We are dealing with murder case here.”

  “Oh, y-yes. Yes of course.” I jump up to my feet. I really can’t be going out there right now. There’s something else I need to investigate.

  “Ready?” he says, pushing his way out the door, chimes ringing overhead.

  “You know what,” I wince, “I just thought of a something I really have to do.” Like, right now. “Do you mind going ahead, and I catch up with you in a bit?”

  “Sure, if that’s what—”

  “Thanks,” I say, blowing past him, out the door, and up the street before disappearing, the mark on my hand aching.

  “Aunt Kit! Kat! Cousin Viv!” I drop down into the parlor of Hex Hall, my feet slamming against the floor. “Aunt Kit! Kat! Cousin Viv!” I screech again.

  “Landsakes, girl. Is the house on fire?” Cousin Viv shows herself first.

  “My goodness, dear.”

  “What is it, dear?” Aunt Kat and Kit follow.

  “What does a talisman look like?” I cut straight to the chase.

  “A talisman?” Cousin Viv repeats as they all look at me blankly.

  “Yes. A witch’s talisman. Or a warlock’s.” I cringe.

  All three of them scowl back at me.

  “I don’t know for certain, dear. It all depends,” Aunt Kat finally says, Aunt Kit nodding.

  “Each clan within every coven usually has their own,” Cousin Viv adds.

  “Yes, it’s not publicly advertised information whose talisman looks like what,” Aunt Kat says, wiping her hands off on a tea towel and pushing her visor up from whatever she and Aunt Kit have concocted. Vibrant green goo drips in globs from her apron. Aunt Kit bends to pick them up before they scorch the floor, then raises her visor too.

  “So, then, you’ll have no idea who’s this is then.” I produce the small sample of what looks to be black witch hairs twisted around an ugly stick.

  Okay, so I lifted it from Jamie’s pocket before I left the Cauldron, sue me.

  I’ll give it back. I promise.

  I just had to know.

  “Egad!” Aunt Kat shoots backward.

  “Great brambles of fire!” Aunt Kit’s jaw drops.

  “Where on earth did you get that?” Cousin Viv squawks, diving away from me, the three of them huddling together.

  “Why? What is it? Was I right?”

  “Geez Lousia lemon squeeze, drop that thing now!” my aunts and cousin shriek.

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Only the curse of all curses, that’s what!” Aunt Kat shrieks. “Quick, get it out of her hand.”

  Cousin Viv lunges forward, conjuring up a stick, and pokes it from my hand. “My stars and garters, girl, do you want to give us a heart attack?”

  “Why? What will happen?” I scowl, first at them and then at the object on the floor.

  “Whomever shall touch the talisman of another, shall be bonded to them forever, that’s what?” Cousin Viv’s eyes flash.

  “Huh?”

  “Subservient to them and their coven until the last of their living days,” Aunt Kat adds. “Didn’t you read anything in the good book when you trained with Auntie Connie?” She glares at me.

  Well, the answer to that is basically…no.

  “Ummm…” I swallow.

  “Oh, gods, what has she done?” Aunt Kat swoops toward me, lifting my hands. “Aaaah!” She shrieks and jumps away.

  “What? What it is it now?”

  “She’s done it. She’s really done it. Look!” She points to the black pattern on the palm of my right hand.

  “Yeah, I know, it won’t come off,” I say.

  “Oh, no,” Aunt Kit gasps.

  “Oh, yes,” Cousin Viv says. She reaches out and grabs my hand. “Ghouls fools, girl, we can’t leave you a
lone for a second, can we?”

  “We have to do a reversal spell, right away,” Aunt Kat dithers, running in circles. “Now, where did I leave The Great and Wonderful Book of Spells!”

  “It’s no use, Kat, and you know it!” Cousin Viv calls after her. “You know how it goes. Oncesoever put asunder, may never put aback.”

  “Still, we have to try! We can’t leave her that way!” she hollers.

  “There’s nothing we can do, Kat!” Cousin Viv hollers back.

  I’ve never heard her so upset.

  “How many times have you touched that thing?” Cousin Viv swoops closer, checking my aura.

  “Um, once, maybe twice.” I count on my fingers. “Maybe three times. I think.”

  “Well, there’s the charm,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Oh gods!” Aunt Kat nearly faints, and Aunt Kit has to catch her.

  “We all know what that means?”

  “No. What? What!” I shout and stamp my foot, while they all look like they’re about to cry.

  “Whoever owns that,” Cousin Viv points to the talisman that’s still lying on the floor. “Is now bonded to you forever. Or rather, you to them.”

  “What? Why? How?”

  “Ancient mating tradition,” she tells me. “You’ve just been mated. Magically. Until the end of time.”

  Now I feel like falling down. “You’ve got to be joking. This is a joke,” I say, but no one laughs.

  “You silly, silly, girl, you—” Aunt Kat steps up and swats me.

  “Well, how was I supposed to know?”

  Cousin Viv crosses her arms. “Do you always go around touching magical things?”

  “How was I supposed to know it was magical?” I stare her in the eyes. “Oh…kay, hold on here. That’s just crazy talk,” I say, planting my hands firmly on my hips. “I am not, and will not, be magically betrothed to anyone. Ever. No matter what happens.” I pace. “Or whatever the hex you said.”

  “I’m afraid, by ancient tradition, you are. And there’s no undoing it.”

  “Well, aren’t you just full of happy news,” I say to Cousin Viv.

  “Besides, it’s mated, darling. Not betrothed. There’s a world of permanent difference.” She grins.