by Nova Nelson
Queso de los Muertos
Eastwind Witches 4
Nova Nelson
Copyright © 2018 by Nova Nelson
All rights reserved. FFS Media and Nova Nelson reserve all rights to Queso de los Muertos, Eastwind Witches 4. This work may not be shared or reproduced in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
* * *
Cover Design © FFS Media LLC
Illustration elements by Kerry McQuaide
Eastwind Witches #4 / Nova Nelson -- 1st ed.
www.novanelson.com
Contents
Foreword
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
Epilogue
Thank you!
You’re invited …
About the Author
Foreword
Queso de los Muertos is the forth book of the Eastwind Witches series, which is best read in order.
The three Eastwind Witches books leading up to this were originally published as the Nora Bradbury series in the Witches of Salem World that I shared with Harmony Hart.
Those books have since been revised to exist in a separate world (Eastwind), and as a result, some of the character and location names have been changed since the first editions.
All other aspects of the story have remained largely the same. I apologize for any confusion this may cause, and I hope you enjoy reading Queso de los Muertos as much as I enjoyed writing it!
-Nova, 4/2/18
1
The breakfast rush was running itself out, making way for the impending Monday lunch rush at Medium Rare, when Deputy Stu Manchester slogged in. I almost laughed at the friendly jingle of the bell above the door in contrast to his haggard appearance, which was, I should say, not that much more haggard than it had been for the past seven weeks.
“Ms. Ashcroft,” he said hoarsely, sliding up onto a stool at the counter, adjusting his laden duty belt as he did. I set his coffee and apple pie in front of him and waited. Once he stirred in sugar and took his first bite of pie, his rigid shoulders rounded, and he sighed. Then he did exactly what I’d expected him to do.
He gave me the scoop.
“Still no sign of the gold.”
Should Eastwind’s only deputy be divulging the progress of the missing gold reserves with me, the new witch in town who runs a diner in the sketchy Outskirts neighborhood? Pretty sure not. But who was going to get mad at him, Sheriff Bloom? She was too busy digging her way free of an avalanche of paperwork at any given moment to reprimand him for playing a little fast and loose with the investigation. Besides, what was she going to do, fire the only other law enforcement officer in the town? Not likely.
“And no suspects?” I asked.
He laughed humorlessly. “No, the opposite. Too many suspects. It could be anyone in this town!” Then he lowered his voice and added, “Well, except for you, Donovan, and Grim.”
“Nice to know I’ve been ruled out,” I said, just as quietly. The reason Manchester had ruled out the three of us was something I didn’t want making its way into the main arteries of Eastwind’s gossip channels. Because it had to do with an encounter Stu and I had never outright talked about and had only ever acknowledged in tightlipped innuendo in our daily chats.
It went back to our brush with one another in the Deadwoods, while Donovan, Grim, and I were tracking the drought god who’d been terrorizing Eastwind and Stu was out for a little R&R, galloping through the woods in his elk form. Though the deputy had paused in the clearing and bowed his large antlered head at us, we hadn’t bothered to explain ourselves, and he hadn’t asked … not that he could when he had elk lips.
The following day, when he’d entered Medium Rare for his usual post-shift coffee and pie, he’d nodded, saying “Ms. Ashcroft,” then quickly added, “I believe I understand what yesterday was about, and thank you for handling that particular disturbance. Also, thank you in advance for your discretion.”
Ridiculous, I know. Why was Deputy Manchester embarrassed that he sometimes shifted into his elk form and ran around the Deadwoods to blow off steam? It wasn’t a secret that he was a were-elk.
But that was deep-seated bias for you. If you come at it logically, you’ll only end up puzzled, because it’s not a thing of reason.
Eastwind, despite how it prided itself on acceptance and hospitality, still had a serious hang-up about shifting. Something to do with the war between the werewolves and the witches when the town was first founded. As an effect, the Deadwoods was where the were-things went to let loose. I suspected that was part of the reason it was so dangerous. A small part. There were plenty of other strange and fierce things running around there to make the forest a death trap.
Deputy Manchester’s assumption, then, after seeing us foolishly venturing through the most dangerous area of Eastwind, must’ve been that we were on his side or doing him a favor by handling the entity that had brought intense and targeted drought to town. That way, he could focus all his efforts on cleaning up the mess over in Erin Park. The one that resulted from the demon … god … whatever she actually was, drinking all the booze in Sheehan’s Pub and causing Rainbow Falls to slow to a trickle, exposing the town’s gold reserves, which immediately went missing.
His assumption was correct.
If that got my name scratched off his list of suspects, great. With all the trouble that trip had caused, I would take whatever silver lining I could get.
And if Stu Manchester had the sense not to mention to anyone else that I’d gone traipsing through the Deadwoods with an incredibly attractive man who was not the one I was dating, then Stu was alright in my book, and I’d keep having his pie and coffee ready for him when he showed up each morning.
“Just between us,” Stu said around a mound of warm pie shoved into his cheek, “I think the gold is long gone. Probably stashed in some connecting realm. All the gold reserves in Eastwind would be nothing more than a drop in the bucket in, say, Avalon.”
“You think the person who took them is also gone?”
He sighed. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it? Why send the money someplace where it’s not readily available to you? That’s the lead I’ve been following, but I haven’t heard about anyone moving out of Eastwind around the time of the theft. I’ve even asked Blanche Bridgewater and the Flufferbum brothers.” He rolled his eyes like, don’t ask. “If anyone keeps up with the mundane comings and goings of Eastwind, it’s them.”
“Maybe you’ve got a smarter criminal on your hands than you think.”
He frowned, bobbing his head, then sipped his piping hot coffee. “Yeah, I’m afraid that’s the case. Probably stashed it until the heat dies down on the investigation then he or she will fin
d some convenient excuse to leave town. The death of a relative, a made-up job opportunity. You know, something like that.”
The bell above the door rang again, and I looked up to see two of the last faces I’d wanted to see today. Or ever, really.
I wasn’t entirely certain Lucent Lovelace and Seamus Shaw were allowed in here. If anyone had the honor of being on our no-dine list, it was those two. Surely someone—either Tanner or the former owner, Bruce—had banned them.
To my memory, they’d never been by Medium Rare before. I didn’t doubt that they spent quite a bit of time causing trouble in the Outskirts, which was a predominantly werewolf neighborhood, even though Lucent still lived in Hightower Gardens, Eastwind’s wealthiest werewolf neighborhood and the socioeconomic antithesis of the Outskirts.
I’d had the privilege of avoiding Seamus Shaw for the last couple months. The last time I’d seen the leprechaun was when he’d made a sloppy pass at me in Sheehan’s Pub and Tanner had set him straight.
Seamus didn’t appear drunk at the moment, which struck me as odd. Never in any of the town’s gossip I was subjected to on a daily basis by loyal patrons was there a mention of Seamus sober. Never mind that it was currently noon on a Monday. I’d once heard about him fighting a duck—a regular one, not a wereduck—just after sunrise on a Tuesday. I wasn’t sure if “It’s five o’clock somewhere,” was a phrase Eastwind was familiar with, but regardless of if he had the words for it or not, it was a creed Seamus lived by.
And, strangely, one that everyone just sort of tolerated. I wondered if they knew about staging an intervention in this town.
“Well, hello there, beautiful,” Seamus said, leaning against the countertop on one side of Stu with Lucent flanking the deputy on the other.
I tried not to laugh at Seamus, who was hardly tall enough to peer over the counter at me. Leprechauns were sensitive about their height (or lack of it), and I didn’t want to give him any reason to cause a scene.
Seamus nodded at Stu. “Sorry to cut in, Manchester, but I could tell she wasn’t into your flirting.”
I glanced at Stu who rolled his eyes. “Probably because I wasn’t flirting, Shaw. Ms. Ashcroft was simply asking me about the ongoing investigation of the missing gold reserves.”
“Oh yeah?” Seamus said, perking up. “Can’t do it yourself, Deputy? Trying to get a woman to help ya out?”
Stu scrunched up his nose like he’d smelled something rotten. “Obviously. I have women help me all the time. The sheriff of this town is a woman, if you’ve forgotten. Most intelligent person I know, too. Ms. Ashcroft is a close second. I’d be lucky to have her help in just about anything.”
While I appreciated the compliment, I couldn’t help but suspect Stu’s adulation was due more to a desire to put Seamus in his place than it was a special fondness for me.
Don’t get me wrong, I let it go straight to my head regardless.
“What are you two shysters doing up this early anyway?” Stu added, changing the subject. “Decide to get an early start on the day? Get a little food on your stomach to soak up last night’s liquid dinner?”
Rather than trying to fight the deputy, which wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, Seamus laughed and patted Stu on the back. “Ya got me pegged, Deputy.” Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small fistful of coppers, setting them on the counter. “Stu’s meal is on me.”
“What?” said Manchester, jerking his head back to stare down at the leprechaun. “Why?”
“For the bang-up job you did over in Erin Park. Got the placed cleaned right up and kept the rioters from destroying Sheehan’s Pub.”
Ah yes. Seamus’s home away from home. Made sense that he would be protective of it. You know, when he wasn’t busy stumbling around in it, breaking arms off the wooden chairs and sending the wall decorations crashing to the floor.
I decided not to point out that Seamus’s name had come up in every story I’d heard about the rioting at Sheehan’s when the bar dried up.
“And now,” Seamus continued, “they’re opening back up after the Lunasa Festival tomorrow, and I can get back to my routine. I owe ya one, so there it is.” He nodded to the coins then turned his eyes on me. “Tanner better keep watch on you or else someone might just snatch ya up. And when us leprechauns sink our fingers into a woman, she’ll never again spare a thought for the likes of a simple West Wind witch. We don’t need wands to work magic.” He winked.
“Ew,” I said without meaning to.
“That’s no way to speak to her,” Stu said, puffing up paternally. “You leave Ms. Ashcroft alone. Hellhounds, I’ll take your order myself if I have to.”
“Grumpy,” said Lucent with a smile like a glass shard. But then the werewolf and leprechaun stepped away from the counter and headed for a booth at the corner.
Only one problem: it was already occupied.
“Don’t you own this place?” Stu said.
“Half of it.”
“Which half? Because if it’s the front half, I suggest you kick those two no-good scoundrels out of here and tell them not to come back. The only good sense I ever saw from Echo Chambers was when he banned Seamus from Lyre Lounge. You have every right to—”
Shouting at the back of the diner cut him off before he could finish.
If Seamus wasn’t drunk, he must have been high, because only someone not in their right mind would holler at a grim reaper like he was.
From everything I knew about Ted, he was a pacifist, and while I wasn’t always keen on his awkward flirting, I knew he had a good heart.
And no one was going to treat one of my most loyal customers that way.
I yanked off my apron, tossing it onto the counter, ready in case this turned into a school-yard brawl, and stomped over toward the trouble.
“But I always sit here,” said Ted calmly from his seat on the shiny red booth. His book, which he’d been quietly reading before Seamus approached, was open and facedown on the table. Ted may have appeared calm and collected to anyone who happened not to notice that his gloved hands gripped the handle of his sickle, which rested across his lap.
“Always except today,” said Seamus, standing a pace ahead of Lucent, whose arms were crossed as he leered over the leprechaun’s head with a silent scowl.
“Seamus Shaw,” I said, closing the distance in a few long steps. “There are open tables all over the place. I suggest you take one of those or find another place to eat.”
He turned toward my voice and sneered as his eyes crawled up and down my body. “Ah, I see it now. Tanner lets ya think ya run this place. But I know a lass who could use some taming when I see one.”
I opened my mouth to shut down whatever twisted fantasy was forming in Seamus’s head, when a sudden dark movement caught my eye. Ted stood quickly from his booth, his sickle still gripped firmly in both hands, and slammed the end of the handle down on the linoleum floor.
A shockwave rolled out from it, one I couldn’t see or hear but could feel ripple through me.
Dread. Bone-chilling dread. Like everything I’d ever feared was about to pounce on me from behind.
And then, in a blink, it was gone.
At least for me, it was. It didn’t seem to work that way for everyone, though.
The handful of other diners in Medium Rare leaped out of their seats and sprinted from the restaurant, not screaming exactly, but making low wailing noises that were somewhere between a moan and a shout.
While Seamus and Lucent appeared more reticent to show their fear, they, too, skedaddled, and the bell above the door whipped back and forth, ringing like a fire station alarm as everyone left.
Everyone except for me, Ted, Deputy Manchester, and … Grim.
My familiar pushed through the double doors connecting the kitchen to the dining area and padded over. He’d undoubtedly decided to sleep by Anton’s feet today, hoping the ogre line cook would drop a morsel here and there, sometimes by accident and sometimes just feigning accident.
He had a soft spot for Grim, which I suspected had something to do with the fact that he couldn’t hear my familiar’s thoughts like I could.
“What the jumping jackalope just happened? I’ve never felt so alive! Life has never felt so full of endless beautiful possibility,” he said, communicating telepathically to me like he always did.
“Care to explain?” said Deputy Manchester, wiping a splotch of apple from his mustache as he dismounted the stool and approached the epicenter of the shockwave.
The grim reaper bowed his hooded head like a chastened child. “Sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean to run off all your customers. I can cover their walked tabs.”
“More like sprinted tabs,” I said, then waved him off. “Don’t worry about that. You were standing up for me. Consider us even. But seriously, Ted, what was that?”
He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, his bones rubbing together like pieces of chalk. “Just a trick I learned for work. Sometimes when I come to collect a body, everyone’s so sad and dramatic, throwing themselves on top of the corpse and so on, that I can’t get them out of the way. If I pound the edge of my sickle on the ground like this—” He made to do it again, but I reached forward and grabbed the handle so I didn’t have to experience the same wave of dread. However, the handle felt repulsive in my grip, like holding a thick, ice-cold snake, and I immediately released it and recoiled. Ted got the point. “Oh, sorry. Doesn’t affect me the same, so I forget how potent it can be. Anyway, you saw the effect. Sort of clears a room. Heh.”
“Sure does,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Hey!” he said, straightening up. “I bet you could do something like it, Nora. It’s just death magic after all! You’re a death witch—”