Here Comes the Witch (A Paranormal Witch Cozy Mystery): (Main Street Witches #1)

by Ani Gonzalez

  Holly nodded, satisfied. "I have to return to the library. We're redoing the history section. Congratulations and remember my offer. You too, Liam. I guess I can't let the house kill you."

  "Very gracious of you, sis," he said.

  She gave him a patently insincere smile and walked off.

  "Are you going to take her up on her offer?" he asked Kat.

  "I don't know. That ice cream sounds pretty tempting right now."

  He laughed. "We can get some on our way to the house. It's time you got to see the famous cursed house."

  Kat grinned. "Home, sweet, home."

  "For a year, at least." He felt a sudden urge to get her out of here. To go where they could be alone. "Where are your things?"

  "My car is parked in front of the bakery. All my stuff is inside."

  They started to follow Holly out of the room, but Caine intercepted them.

  "Whoa, not so fast, lovebirds," he said, holding up his hands. "You don't think we'll let you out of here without a party, do you?"

  "Actually," Liam replied. "That's exactly what we were hoping for."

  Caine laughed. "Nonsense. The Chinese restaurant is already working on a brunch spread and Patricia agreed to bring a cake. This is a big day for the town. We have to celebrate! Also, we need more footage for our YouTube channel." He waved to the other couples. "Everyone's invited."

  The Spookies giggled. "That sounds wonderful. Thank you."

  Great. If they backed out of the impromptu reception, they'd be ruining everyone's weddings. Liam turned toward Kat as Caine walked off to gather the invitees.

  "Do you mind?"

  Kat grinned. "Brunch isn't exactly what I had in mind, but, hey, I could eat."

  Liam smiled, relieved. "I apologize. Things can get a little crazy here."

  She glanced at the PRoVE camera crew, who were playing back the wedding videos. "I'm sorry," the guy with the green hair told his assistant. "The bride just doesn't look creepy enough. I think we can fix that with a green filter. We want it to look ominous, you see? The audience should feel an impending sense of doom."

  "Oh, I can see that," Kat replied, a smile tugging at her lips. "It's been pretty interesting so far, and we haven't even gotten to the cursed house."

  He considered his renowned family seat, the legends and stories surrounding it, and the fact that PRoVE now wanted in on the curse-breaking action.

  "Trust me. It's going to get a lot worse."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WOULD THEY ever get to see the house?

  Kat reached for a frosted fortune cookie, trying to look suitably bridal while stretching across the buffet table. It was a tricky proposition. She'd never had a fake wedding reception before and wasn't sure how she was supposed to behave. They'd done the bouquet toss and the requisite dance. What else was left?

  As faux weddings went, though, this one was probably pretty good. The Pu Songling Chinese Restaurant had set out a lovely dim sum buffet with assorted dumplings, Moo Shu pancakes, and Peking duck. They'd even found some romantic instrumental music with Asian rhythms.

  But that wasn't all. The spur-of-the-moment reception was a town collaboration. Poltergeist Pizza contributed a fizzy plum sangría and the bakery sent, in lieu of a wedding cake, a tower of cupcakes with sparkly vanilla icing and little flags bearing Chinese characters.

  A sizable crowd had shown up as well. Some were members of Caine's ghost hunting society, and a few others were locals. Patricia, the owner of the bakery, was hanging out with the owner of the pizzeria—Zach or Jack, or something like that. Apparently the restaurateurs were a couple. Patricia had caught the Kat's bouquet, a backup one with miniature faeries that the PRoVE prop department had provided, and this was the cause of much teasing.

  The local real estate agent—a glamorous blonde in high heels and bright red lipstick—was taping an interview with the PRoVE guys. Was she the one who'd dodged the crashing chandelier? If so, she did not seem any worse for wear.

  Most of the partygoers, however, were tourists joining in the fun. The other recently-married couples were posing for pictures next to a giant foo dog. As a festive touch, someone had added a wedding veil to the statue.

  The restaurant had brought out a karaoke machine and Caine was giving a rousing rendition of "Werewolves of London." All things considered, that was probably an unfortunate song choice. She and Liam had lucked out as far as the groom-and-bride dance song was concerned. Their first dance had been to "Monster Mash." It had been the perfect choice, fun and completely unromantic with—how did the PRoVE guy put it earlier?—no sense of impending doom.

  But still, not bad for an impromptu wedding at a haunted Chinese restaurant. Kat even had a ring, a vintage one no less. It felt odd on her hand, but she had to admit it was quite stunning with a small diamond and antique filigree detailing.

  The ring was a touching detail. A plain wedding band would have done as well, but Liam had picked something special for her. It was thoughtful and a bit disturbing. She was carrying out a business deal. Shiny trinkets were not a part of that.

  But she loved the ring. She couldn't help it. She was a sucker for antique jewelry.

  Someone behind her sighed. "They put the veil on the male lion. Of course they did."

  Kat turned toward the speaker, a slender Chinese woman with long straight black hair. She was dressed in a dark business suit and stylish patent leather heels that screamed "I'm practical and efficient and my shoe obsession is totally under control, I swear."

  "Not that we mind," the woman clarified hastily. "It's all good fun." She stretched out her hand. "I'm Amy Chan. My family owns the restaurant."

  Kat shook her hand, smiling. "Thank you so much for doing all this."

  Amy's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "You don't have to thank us. I'm sure you two wanted to be done with the ceremony with as little fuss as possible. You have, er, things to do, after all."

  Jeez, the whole town knew they were going to break the Hagen House curse. At least, she hoped that was what Amy was referring to. Come to think of it, the PRoVE team had recorded their wedding ceremony and put it up online, which meant the whole world knew that they were breaking the curse.

  "Thanks for agreeing to the lunch," Amy continued. "It's been great publicity for us."

  "That's great." Kat had already figured out that, like all tourist towns, Banshee Creek loved publicity. "I guess this place is also haunted."

  "The building itself isn't, thankfully. I don't think I could handle a poltergeist on top of everything else."

  Kat glanced at the pictures on the wall. They were all Chinese paintings and they all depicted ghostly figures and monsters. A poster near the entrance explained that Pu Songling was China's Edgar Allen Poe and was known for his collection of ghost tales, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. "So why do you have all the supernatural stuff then?"

  "Because we have that." Amy pointed at a Chinese opera mask hanging on a wall. It was red and black with ferocious eyes and fangs.

  "The mask? It's haunted?"

  "Or something like it. Whatever it is, it's super creepy."

  "What happened?"

  Amy shrugged. "The usual story. Mysterious old beggar shows up asking for dinner. He has no money, but you give him rice and soup and tell him it's on the house. In gratitude he leaves behind an old mask."

  "That sounds ... nice."

  "You'd think. Weird things happen as soon as the mask arrives. Kitchen fires. Strange noises. Spooky shadows. What do you do?"

  "Er, move?" Kat suggested. As far away as possible, she added silently.

  Amy shook her head. "Nowhere to go. You sank all your savings into this place. So you take the mask and leave it in the forest. What do you think happens then?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Someone brings it back. So you leave it at Goodwill. Someone brings it back. So you take it to the Smithsonian. Guess what?"

  "Someone brings it back?"

  "Every single time. My mom was pregnant with me
and my parents were frantic. My dad wanted to burn it, but my mom was afraid that would make it worse. Thankfully, Yolanda gave them a ritual and some candles and they managed to neutralize the mask. They were too embarrassed to tell anyone about it for a long time, but when I took over the restaurant I decided to turn the evil mask into marketing genius."

  "And the mask never bothered your family again?"

  "Nope. Yolanda's spell worked like a charm." Amy grinned. "Pun intended."

  "You did a great job with this place," Kat replied, relieved to find out that Yolanda's spells were effective.

  "Thanks. We do our best. We had some of Songling's stories adapted for the PRoVE radio station and we're sponsoring the Hong Kong Horror Movie Celebration next spring." She grimaced. "We also have the Ghost Festival coming up. That's driving me crazy."

  "You're busy. Wow."

  Amy nodded, her voice lowering to a whisper. "We're trying to get investors interested in the restaurant concept. The pizzeria got a multi-million dollar franchise deal out of their poltergeist. The supernatural is big business now."

  "A million dollars?" Kat gasped, thinking of the Hagen House. Could it possibly be worth that much money?

  Maybe the curse was actually a good thing. You go, curse!

  "Much more than that," Amy clarified. "But that was for the intellectual property, not for the building."

  "I don't suppose they'd like to buy a haunted house?"

  "You mean yours?" Amy shrugged. "Who knows? Once you get rid of the curse, the building is fabulous. Liam did a great job remodeling it. I've heard it could go for a pretty penny."

  "Why hasn't anyone bought it then? Is the curse really that bad?"

  The karaoke machine shifted into an eerie theme and a little girl picked up the veil and ran around the restaurant making ghost noises.

  Amy winced. "Sorry. That's our normal music. It's the soundtrack to The Eye." She motioned to one of the waiters who ran to the back of the restaurant. The romantic instrumental music resumed.

  "Why'd you do that?" Caine's baritone voice growled behind them. "That was a great movie."

  Amy was not intimidated by the biker. "It's not appropriate to the occasion. And Kat here is already worried about her jinxed house. She doesn't need any more creepiness."

  "It's not that bad, is it?" Kat asked, now genuinely nervous.

  Caine smiled broadly. "Not now that you're here to break it, it's not." He laughed. "You're the Santelli heir. You have nothing to worry about."

  "Really?" Kat fiddled with the fortune cookie in her hands. "What exactly do I not have to worry about? Evil spirits? Is the house built on an ancient burial ground?"

  "Nah," Caine scoffed. "Nothing like that. It's actually more of a ... well, think of it as a romance."

  Amy coughed, but it sounded very much like an attempt to cover up a laugh.

  "A romance?" Kat asked doubtfully. Nothing about the Hagen House curse seemed romantic.

  "Like Romeo and Juliet." Caine sighed theatrically. "Two young people, Micah Hagen and Violetta Santelli, torn apart by a family feud."

  "You can't be serious," Amy countered.

  Caine gestured for her to be silent. "Forget the bloodshed. Forget the deaths. If you ignore all that, you have two young people madly in love, eager to start a new life together."

  "They were madly in something, all right," Amy muttered. "And by something I mean opium trafficking."

  Caine glared at her. "Those were only rumors."

  "What rumors?" Kat interjected. Her grandmother's genealogical records hadn't mentioned any drug smuggling. She'd pictured Violetta, her ancestress, as a shy, bookish young woman with a passion for herbalism. Apparently, she'd been wrong.

  "They were Banshee Creek's answer to Bonnie and Clyde," Amy replied, disapproval clear in her voice. "Except several decades earlier. Violetta's brothers killed Micah because of a business dispute."

  "Nonsense. Violetta's family had him killed because they disapproved of the match. The Santellis didn't do any drug trafficking. They just had, er, interesting ingredients in the potions they sold."

  Amy rolled her eyes. "William had just stolen their primary opium juice supplier. Of course they disapproved."

  "I'm disappointed in you, Amy. You have no sense of romance." Caine shook his head. "The poor girl killed herself after she found out. Before she died she cursed the house and its inhabitants."

  "That's when she hung herself from the chandelier, right?" Kat interjected. That fact had definitely been in her grandmother's records.

  "She didn't hang herself," Amy clarified. "Micah's family hired a hit man and he shot her in the foyer."

  Kat stared at them, fascinated. Okay, so maybe her grandmother's records were slightly inaccurate. She was going to have to revise her opinion of Violetta Santelli. Her ancestress, it seemed, wasn't just an herbalist. She was some kind of early-twentieth-century drug-gang moll.

  "That's nonsense," Caine replied. "Of course she hung herself."

  Amy crossed her arms, her expression mulish. "You can supposedly see the bloodstains on the marble floor at midnight. Why would there be bloodstains if she hung herself?"

  "Maybe she botched the hanging and fell to the floor," Caine growled. "It's paranormal phenomena. It doesn't have to make sense."

  Amy raised a brow. "That's going on your headstone."

  Kat considered their words. Blood on the floor, suicide, crime. That was the curse she was supposed to break. It sounded, she had to admit, quite bad.

  She disengaged from the group. "I'm going to look for Liam. We should get going."

  She left them to argue about the history of the house and headed for the bar. Did it really matter if it had been a murder or a suicide? They had to break the curse anyway.

  But that had sounded a lot easier in her Bronx apartment several hundred miles away. Just have a Hagen heir marry a Santelli heiress then live in the house for a year and show people that the curse was gone. Problem solved. Once that was done, sell the house and make lots of moolah.

  But it might not be as easy as she'd expected. It bothered her that no one seemed to know exactly how Violetta had died or why she'd cursed the house. How could you break the curse if you didn't even know how it originated? Presumably Yolanda knew what she was doing, but still, this made her uneasy.

  She needed a drink. The town's plum sangría was a lot more attractive than its ghost stories.

  On her way to the bar, she passed one of the PRoVE cameramen filming the little girl with the veil. The girl had found a couple of packets of ketchup and had used them to finish off her ghost ensemble with bloody streaks. She struck a pose and stuck out her tongue.

  "What are you, Lindsey?" the cameraman asked. "The Lady of the Falls?"

  Lindsey eyes widened in disbelief. "No, silly. I'm a nu gui, a Chinese ghost." She pointed at her veil. "Messy hair, white dress? Any of this ring a bell?"

  The cameraman sighed. "Everyone's a freaking expert in this town."

  Kat had to agree. She'd never heard of a nu gui, let alone dressed up as one. Did the Hagen House curse have a special term? She made a mental note to look it up on the Internet before someone quizzed her about it.

  "There you are." Liam stopped Kat before she reached the bar and handed her a full wineglass. "I got this for you. Apparently, it's pretty good."

  She grabbed the glass with a grateful smile. "Perfect timing. I needed one of these."

  He glanced back at Caine and Amy, who were still arguing about early nineteenth century crime syndicate policies. "I guess they gave you an earful."

  Kat nodded. She felt a lot better now and it wasn't just because of the alcohol. Something about Liam — his warm brown eyes, his easy smile — made her relax.

  "Is the curse really that bad?" she asked, taking a sip of cool sangría. The icy, fruity liquid slid easily down her throat. Liam was right. This stuff was delicious.

  "It used to be," Liam admitted. "I won't lie to you. The curse is famous for
good reason."

  She stared at the fruit pieces in her drink. Yep, that was Liam all right. No lying. Just the plain truth. That was somewhat reassuring.

  "But that's all past," he said. "Nothing really bad has happened in the house in a long time. I worked in it for months and I'm still in one piece. We've had a couple of accidents but nothing fatal."

  She smiled, feeling a lot better. "Nothing fatal, huh? That's not a very high bar."

  He laughed. "It's mostly the chandelier that keeps crashing down. Other than that, we have nothing to worry about." He leaned down and caressed her jaw. "Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you."

  She tensed at the unexpected physical contact. Liam's touch, his nearness... somehow it all gave her the feeling that he was about to kiss her.

  She held her breath.

  But he stepped back and scanned the room instead. The bar was distributing pitchers of sangría and the party was in full swing. The waiters had put on the "Banana Boat" song from Beetlejuice and Lindsey, the Chinese Ghost Girl, was leading an enthusiastic conga line.

  Kat relaxed. False alarm. Was she feeling a little let down? No way, she wasn't disappointed about the close-but-no-cigar kiss. This wasn't that kind of wedding.

  Not at all.

  "These guys will be partying for hours," Liam said. "But I should show you the house. I'll get my truck and meet you at the entrance." He smiled. "Finish your fortune cookie."

  Kat watched him as he thanked Amy and Caine and walked out of the restaurant, oozing ease and self-confidence. The sight raised her spirits.

  Liam didn't seem very worried about the curse. Caine finished his discussion with Amy and headed back to the karaoke machine. He seemed to be taking requests.

  Great. Caine would keep the crowd distracted while Kat and Liam sneaked out.

  She bit into the fortune cookie, enjoying the sweet tang of melted white chocolate and almonds. It was a lovely combination. Banshee Creek knew its food and the Pu Songling kitchen — or was this from the bakery? — was first class. The bridal fortune cookie was amazing.

  She even had a fortune to go with it. It wasn't a mass market one either. The paper was thick and frayed at the edges, giving it an ancient appearance.