Whether true or not, one source I discovered also mentions that glass mirrors were banned during medieval times because of a belief that the devil watched us through the opposite side of the mirror… perhaps there’s another story to be written there.
This Spells Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Series Book 3)
Olivia Hardin
Copyright © 2014 by Olivia Hardin
All rights reserve. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
“Vampire,” I sighed to Beck when he motioned with his head towards a couple just stepping onto the dance floor. I uncrossed my legs, shifted my weight and then crossed them again in the opposite direction as I took a sip of my rum and soda. My chin was down but my eyes were raised as I watched people walk to and fro past me. A touch to my knee brought my attention back to Beck.
Beck’s brows pulled in close. “How do you know that? He’s kind of pale, but I didn’t see any fangs.”
I shook my head and patted his hand. “Not him, her. I thought that’s who you were looking at.” I raised a finger to point at the raven-haired woman grinding against the man Beck meant. “She’s the vamp. See how she’s sniffing at him and running her tongue over her lips? She won’t release her teeth until the moment she’s ready to feed. Also, see the mirror against the wall? No reflection.”
“And him?”
Shrugging, I downed another huge drink. “Just a regular human. Probably her lover. Lots of vamps have long-term relationships with human lovers.”
“Is that woman sick or something?” His attention now diverted to another party-goer.
I yawned and followed his eyes. “No, she pretty much always looks like that without her makeup on.” The woman, Miranda, had a greenish complexion. She raised a black-tipped finger to her nose and scratched. No one would know it, but those nails weren’t painted black. Her kind just had black fingernails.
“Oh,” Beck pondered the woman with a quirky frown. “A witch?”
“Alien.”
He glared at me with eyes wide. “Shut up! There’re aliens? Why didn’t you tell me that?”
Raising my shoulders again, I swallowed the last of my drink. “I forget about them most of the time. There are only a handful of them here. Shipwrecked about a century ago. Only another fifty years and their people should be back for them. The trick’s been to keep them on birth control so that…” I shook my head, “Sorry, probably more information than you wanted.” I jingled the ice in my glass and leaned forward to stand.
“Oh. My. Word… is that what I think it is?”
I looked up and saw one of my former charges enter the room. Esperanza was a witch, but there was nothing special about her looks. In fact, she sort of reminded me of a librarian on some level. I always thought she regretted that she wasn’t spectacular to look at. Her magic was weak, and she couldn’t hold a glamour long enough to permanently affect her image. To make up for her visual deficiencies, she was always showing off in other ways.
Entering the party with her pet unicorn on a chain was a sure way to get attention. I reached out to gently tip Beck’s chin so that his mouth would close.
“I thought it would be bigger,” he said.
I snorted a laugh as I raised a hand and rubbed my eyebrow. “That’s what she said.”
Rolling his eyes at me, Beck took my glass and stood. He smiled and pecked my cheek then headed off towards the bar. We’d been back together for a year almost to the day and yet the man could still turn my insides to goo with just a grin and a kiss. I definitely had it bad for him.
That should have scared the hell out of me, but I was getting used to love. We had a good system. On the weekends, I stayed with him and the kids, but during the week I spent most of my time on the job as a Neutralizer. Sure, it was true that sometimes my MAUCs—Magical And Undead Creatures—kept me busy weekends too, but when that happened, we managed to compensate with date nights. I liked the routine and the structure of it. Safe and comfortable.
“This was your best idea ever!” My best friend Rhiannon punched my arm as she sat down next to me. I refused to rub the spot even though it hurt like a son-of-a-gun. The were-vamp just didn’t know her own strength. “It’s like a Halloween costume party where no one even has to wear a costume.” I cut her a hard glare. She had a huge plate of food balanced on one hand. A single meatball rolled off and onto the floor. She reached down for it and popped it into her mouth. “Five second rule.”
“This wasn’t my idea. It was his idea.”
I flicked my wrist to motion in the direction of the hot tub and wrinkled my nose. There was my mentor and former boss, Tig Durhnam. Most of his squatty body was submerged, thank goodness. The ugly little goblin was surrounded by several attractive mermaids. For some reason, mermaids had a fettish for goblins.
“You are such a party pooper, Lynlee. He was just trying to help you out. Last year you spent all of Halloween chasing your charges to hell and back. This year they’re all together here at this party. No better way to keep tabs on them.”
I wasn’t convinced. Getting this many magical and undead people together was like asking for trouble. At about that time I heard a scream followed quickly by a growl. Rhia bolted to her feet, an abject “oh no” falling from her lips.
And “oh no” was right. One of my zombie clients, a young woman named Desiree, was dancing a little too exuberantly and had lost her prosthetic leg. This was a common problem for her. I had yet to create a prosthetic that could withstand her crazy gyrations.
Losing a limb in a crowd of MAUCs wasn’t much cause for concern. It wasn’t as if most everyone in the room didn’t know she was a zombie. The problem was that said leg had flown across the dance floor and struck a werewolf in the back of the head.
I didn’t know the offended party’s name; he must have been one of Tig’s people, but like any werewolf he didn’t take kindly to being knocked to the ground. As one would expect, he came up swinging… er, growling and baring his teeth.
What little blood Desiree had in her face drained out, and she recoiled in fear, hobbling back on a single leg. Her stump was a decomposing mess of flesh that was none too attractive. Our treatment for the zombie virus could halt its spread through the infected person’s body, but any parts already affected would continue to decay pretty much forever. At the sight of her leg, some of the more sensitive MAUCs began to back away, covering their mouths.
I stood and conjured my wand, approaching the scene carefully. Rhia put her hand on my shoulder to stop me. She shook her head with a grin, then she stepped in front of me and approached the were. I could see the man’s back was bowed, a sure sign he was considering a shift.
I couldn’t hear what Rhiannon was saying to him, but within a few moments, his body relaxed. Desiree laughed, still nervous, but more at ease. She put out her hand in an offering of peace, but the guy didn’t take it and instead walked away. I was a little incensed by his rudeness and thought of saying something until I saw him bend down to pick up her prosthetic.
“Huh. Will wonders never cease,” I muttered under my breath.
“I’m the luckiest guy in the whole paranormal world. My girl’s amazing, isn’t she?” A male voice came from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and raised an eyebrow at the Sandman.
Sandy
had been dating Rhia almost as long as Beck and I had been together. Even so, their high-octane lovey-dovey talk tended to make me nauseous. It was on the tip of my tongue to make a smart comment centered around the words “were-whipped,” but Beck returned with my drink to distract me.
“There’s a lady over there who looks really familiar to me.” He sat down and directed me to the spot beside him as he took a pull from his beer. “She gave me the strangest feeling.”
My first thought was a succubus. I had a few of that particular demon as clients, and they could do strange things to a man’s psyche. Not interested in fighting off some sex-craving MAUC for my man, I immediately scanned the crowd and looked for who Beck might have seen.
“There she is,” he said as if he knew what I was about. I glanced in the direction of his finger and nearly laughed in relief.
The woman had long brown hair that flowed down her back. She was wearing a yellow and white dress, not at all Halloween-like, but completely suited to her demeanor. Everything about her spoke of softness and beauty.
“Ah, I’m glad she’s here. I want to introduce you to her.”
He tossed me a confused frown and then looked at the lovely woman again.
“Breena.” I waved to her, and when she saw me, she started our way. “Breena, this is Beck. I told you about him and his daughter a few months ago.”
“She’s the nymph?” Beck asked, finally catching on.
It had been my intention to have Breena work with Jilly in the Spring, but she insisted that it would be better to begin instruction in the Fall and Winter. Based on Jilly’s age and what I described of her powers, she believed that Jilly wouldn’t be ready to begin her duties until the following growing season, so this Fall would be the appropriate time to train her in understanding the magic the young girl possessed.
“It is a pleasure.” Breena smiled, reaching out her hand and taking Beck’s. Her smile was sweet and soothing, and it reminded me of the feel of warm creek water running over bare feet. “Lynlee’s told me so much about Jilly. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, too. I know Jilly’s been looking forward to learning about becoming a nymph. I’ll warn you, she can be a bit precocious.”
Breena chortled, her hand still in Beck’s. “Well, that’s normal for nymphets.”
I eyed them a moment, then turned when I heard my name called. Tig was standing beside the hot tub, water dripping from his mole covered body. He rolled his arm a few times to motion me his way. I said a little prayer of thanks that he hadn’t chosen to wear a speedo. Keeping my eyes focused on his face instead of his goblin body, I moseyed towards him.
“Swingin' party, eh?” he asked, gyrating his hips as he spoke.
I tried not to gag. “Yeah, swinging.”
“Ahem.” I noticed an extremely tall man with piercing blue-grey eyes looking down his nose at Tig. “Mr. Durhnam, we need to speak in private.”
“What’s going on?” I queried, my mental hackles immediately raised in alarm.
“C’mon.”
I narrowed my eyes at the stranger before following Tig to one of the anterooms. I closed the door behind us and then propped myself against it as I waited for someone to tell me what was happening.
“Okay, you got our undivided attention. What’s the problem?”
I grinned a little at Tig’s impatience, but I was feeling pretty impatient myself. I wasn’t sure who or what the man was. There was a power to him that I couldn’t place. That probably meant he had a blocking spell. And if that were true, then it meant he was a full-fledged Enforcer. Tig and I were Neutralizers, but we also had some minor Enforcer authority. Because of that, we had nifty tricks like the Net to trap MAUCs who were so much trouble they needed to be brought before the paranormal justice system.
Enforcers were like the FBI, CIA and NSA of our world. They had a bag of tricks I couldn’t even dream of, and they had the authority to step into situations that were otherwise above the Neutralizer pay grade.
I didn’t like authority generally, at least not any besides my own.
I didn’t like Enforcers, either.
The tall man pulled a phone from his pocket, tapped and slid his finger over the screen a few minutes, then held it out to us. It was a video of a reporter I recognized from one of the national news stations. I didn’t hear what she was saying because I was so intent on the scene behind her. My jaw dropped, and I put my hand to my head in alarm.
“We’re in trouble,” Tig groaned.
“Oh my… that’s Grammie,” The words tumbled from my mouth as the camera zoomed in on the old witch. Her hands were behind her back and considering that she was flanked by two cops, I figured she was probably in handcuffs. Head down, I could see little tears streaming down her face. “What happened?”
It was probably a silly question. The headline just before the camera panned to Grammie Charley clearly indicated the story: “Modern day witch exchanges children’s candy for ‘magical toys’.”
“I’m here to ask you that question, Miss Lincoln. She is your client, is she not?”
“Whoa,” I held up my hands and waved them in the air, “You’re here to interrogate me about my client? Who the hell do you think you are? If someone had called me about this I could have gotten down there and cleaned up this mess before it got on the national news.”
“Mr. Durhnam?”
The Enforcer glared down his nose at Tig, and I saw my mentor shift his weight on his feet and stare at his fingers a minute. Then he raised his beady eyes, pleading, “You need to answer his questions, Lynlee.”
A sick feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on here, but it definitely was something more than Grammie Charley’s appearance on the headline news. I cut my eyes back up to the man with the grey eyes.
“I’d at least like to know your name.”
I tried to strip the rancor from my voice, but there was probably just a twinge still there when I spoke. The Enforcer raised a black eyebrow and some sort of spark of energy passed between us. It was as if he let his guards flicker for just a second so that I could feel his magic. It wasn’t a challenging or threatening sort of action, but more like a magical handshake. Or maybe a caress?
I swallowed and waited, maintaining a stony expression.
“Vincent Prieto.”
He said his last name with a rolling “r” and the way he did let me know his first language was probably Spanish. Funny, I hadn’t noticed any accent prior to that single word.
When he spoke his name, I became aware of how attractive he was. His black hair was on the longer side, combed back but still loose and wavy. The super-trim beard he sported gave him a shadowy look. He had more than a foot on me in height, and the fact that I had to tilt my head up to look at him made me feel so insignificant that I wanted to do something to elicit his attention.
But really I didn’t need to do that. His eyes, those strange-colored eyes were watching me like an animal hunting its prey. I remembered having the desire to run a year ago when I first met up with Beck again. This man made me want to turn tail and never ever come back. This man made me want to run just to see if he’d chase me.
I wondered what he might do if he caught me.
“A series of text messages were sent to local news agencies. They included photographs of children with strange and unusual toys. One child had a magic carpet. His parents had to chase him onto the roof of a house to get it away from him. A little girl had a doll that looked almost identical to her and talked. It didn’t just repeat phrases. It spoke to the child. Answering her questions and interacting with her. There was a set of twin boys with little army figurines that moved just like miniature soldiers, attacking each other and even bleeding.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. Why would Grammie do something like this? Sure she loves kids, but she’s always careful.”
Prieto broke eye contact with me, tapped a few buttons on
his phone and slipped it into his back pocket. My eyes followed the movement, admiring the form of his rear end. “I understand you were called to her residence last year at this time.”
I sucked in a breath and narrowed my eyes at Tig. He shook his head, denying any involvement in reporting last year’s activities to the Enforcers.
“Last year was a minor accident. Grammie would never intentionally create a crisis. And she isn’t careless either.”
“When is the last time you spoke to Mrs. Gould?”
Gould? Her last name was Gould? I hadn’t ever thought to ask, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let Prieto in on the fact that I didn’t even know my own client’s full name. I inhaled a breath to calm myself and then put my hands behind my back. “I spoke to her a few weeks ago to invite her to this party. There was nothing unusual in the conversation.”
Prieto watched me a moment, as if he were looking for me to offer some tell of a lie. I was glad I had a good poker face. He broke eye contact and walked over to the window, glancing out into the darkness. “Why is it she isn’t here? With the rest of your clients?”
“This isn’t mandatory. It’s a party. Tig and I thought it might be a good way to keep all of our MAUCs together, in one place. You know how Halloween is for our people.”
He didn’t look back at me but nodded, then slid his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “Did Mrs. Gould say why she wouldn’t come to this event?”
My hands gripped each other behind my back. I didn’t like the guy at all. His tone was condescending, and even if it weren’t, I didn’t like the integrity of my clients being questioned. Sure, some of them were a handful, but they were all good MAUCs, and I took my responsibility to them very seriously. I was in this to protect them, even from our own people.
A Bundle of Trouble (The Lynlee Lincoln Sets Book 1) Page 19