Sticks & Stones
Daughters of Hecate ~ Book 2
Meredith Medina
FireHive Media
Copyright © 2017 by Meredith Medina
All rights reserved.
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.
Contents
Exclusive Content
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
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
24. Epilogue
Moonlight Burns
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1
“One venti-triple-shot-extra-hot-no-foam-non-fat-two-pump-no sugar hazelnut-latte for Kim?”
‘Kim’ was exactly the person I expected to step up to the counter to claim their drink. The kind of woman who used a fake name that everyone in the office used so that their name wouldn’t be misspelled (even though I added an erroneous ‘y’ to the name just for my own amusement). Her hair was perfect; her makeup was perfect, even her eyebrows were perfect. Even after all this time, I still haven’t been able to master the perfect swoop of winged eyeliner, and I lived through the 1950s.
It must be exhausting to keep all of that up to scratch.
I smiled and pushed the high maintenance espresso vehicle towards the woman. “Kym?”
She took one look at the spelling of the name I had scrawled in sharpie on the side of the cup and rolled her eyes dramatically before swiping the drink off the counter and stalking over to the sugar station to check and make sure that I had followed her very specific instructions.
“You have a real nice day,” I said loudly, extra sweet, just like her drink. I didn’t hate my job, and I didn’t hate people. On the contrary, people-watching was one of my favorite things to do. They fascinated me, especially as the centuries had turned.
I know what you’re thinking. What’s a 330-something year old witch doing working a dead end job in a chain coffee franchise? I’ll let you in on a little secret; no one cares about people who work in coffee shops. We’re ‘the help.’ I’ve overheard more shady business deals, relationship failures, and the lamentations of aspiring screenwriters than I’d care to admit. I’ve lost count of the amount of times people have carried on conversations about me as though I’m not standing right in front of them.
This massive espresso machine renders me invisible, and I love it. Sure, I could have any job I wanted, live anywhere I wanted, but after the lives I’ve lived, I think it’s safe to say that I’ve earned a little down time.
They say that cats have nine lives, but we do too. The Daughters of Hecate are each given nine lifetimes. That’s almost 730-ish years to do with as we please, as long as we remember to follow the rules and pass down our knowledge to the next generation.
What sucks is that I’m the last Daughter of Hecate... but I may as well be an orphan.
Luckily for me, New York is a big city, and I’ve been able to keep a low profile pretty easily by working dead-end jobs, taking cash under the table for double shifts, and keeping my apartment in a no-questions-asked part of town.
I like it here. I may not have been born here, and I sure as shit didn’t bargain on anything that happened to bring me here, but this place is most definitely a part of me, and it would take a lot of bullshit coming down on my head to make me even consider leaving.
Survival is my main concern; it has been since I was a little girl. When I landed in New York, the world was a very different place and the city was a mess, but I had a protector and no one knew who I was. The Malleus didn’t exist, and I was safe… well, as safe as I could be.
Growing up, I was Sarah Smith, the ward of a newly widowed merchant woman. She treated me kindly and I had an interesting, if somewhat pedestrian upbringing. When Dorithie Askew died, she left me with a suitcase full of cash, and the deed to a warehouse that housed all of her trade goods.
I could have lived a very comfortable life, continued the business, and become a pillar of the community. But I sold everything and gave everyone who knew me the impression that I was going back to England to mourn my dearly departed guardian.
But I wasn’t leaving, I was disappearing again. If there’s anything I learned from my mother, it was that being a Daughter of Hecate meant that you needed to stay in the shadows.
We were caught because people were paying attention. I needed to fade into the background to survive, and that’s exactly what I did.
Unremarkable, with a face that no one could really remember. Even Haven regulars wouldn’t have been able to describe my face exactly. They might remember my red hair, but that would be about it.
Red like the fire that took my family from me.
I’d tried to dye it a few times but nothing ever stuck, and it only took a few times of waking up with a ruined pillow and bright red hair to make me give up trying. Hecate wanted me to be a redhead, so that’s what it had to be.
* * *
The bell on the shop door jangled, and I turned up the steam on the espresso machine to drown out its cheerful ding!
“Ophelia! Feeeelia…”
Mondays. Everyone hates them, except Lacey.
Lacey was one of my co-workers, a puppy-dog eager young thing who was a student at NYU. She was adorable, if you liked that kind of thing, and if unyielding positivity didn’t make you feel ill.
She bounded up to the counter and grinned at me, tapping her glitter polished nails on the hardwood counter.
“Lacey, you don’t even have a shift today, why are you here? It’s like 8am,” it wasn’t that I was annoyed to see her, it was just… it’s always too early for that kind of shit.
“I know,” she chirped brightly, cocking her head to the side. “I just can’t seem to start my day without one of your mocha’s. There’s just something different about them. You’ll have to tell me your secret one day!”
Sure kid, my secret is that I’m a witch and sometimes I let my magic do the work when it comes to making a million coffee’s every day.
Right. I chuckled lightly and cracked a bit of a smile, I did like her, but she definitely wasn’t my bestest friend ever.
“If I tell you my secret,” I leaned closer and lowered my voice, a dramatic pause looming. “I’ll have to kill you,” I finished with a wink.
“Fee, you’re the silliest!” Lacey shrieked, giggling with delight. I hated that nickname, but I let her get away with it because she made salted caramel brownies for me when she thought I’d had a tough week. I’d had three batches in the last month.
I started on Lacey’s mocha, letting a little bit of my magic flow from my fingers into the cup. Hecate wouldn’t mind if I used my magic just a little. It wasn’t strictly breaking the rules; I was just bending them a little.
&
nbsp; Not being able to reveal my powers was difficult, especially in New York. Back in the 80s I got mugged in Prospect Park on my way home from a late shift, and I got desperate enough to lash out with my magic and ended up putting the guy through a wall. I ran home as fast as I could, terrified that someone had seen me shooting a bolt of purple energy into the man’s chest. The whole thing had shaken me up enough to make me realize that if I was going to survive in a changing world, that I would have to be a little more… normal.
I’ve been taking martial arts ever since, and Lacey’s been bugging me to take her to a class. I’ll give in eventually, but not yet.
I set her mocha down on the counter and topped it with a tower of whipped cream, just the way she liked it. Lacey clapped her hands gleefully and reached for it with wide eyes.
“OH, OMG Fee, I almost forgot!” She turned around, and slopped some of the hot liquid over her wrist, causing her to yelp. I tried not to smirk, but I’m sure I did anyway.
“What?” I asked, almost afraid of what she was going to say.
“It’s October first! Don’t forget to open the Pumpkin Spice syrups and put out the decorations I brought in!”
I looked over my shoulder at the boxes she had set out after her shift last night and raised an eyebrow. “Decorations?”
“Yes! David gave me permission to decorate for the holidays so you’d better not ruin it for me!”
“Ruin what?”
“The spoopiest time of the year, silly! Don’t you just love Halloween?” Lacey took a giant mouthful of whipped cream and stared at me with wide eyes.
Spoopiest? What the fuck did that mean?
“Uh, ok Lace. I’ll do my best.” I shrugged and made a mental note never to ask Lacey what that word meant. I might look young, but I was definitely too old for that shit.
A group of new customers rushed through the door, eager to get out of the wind and into the warmth of the shop and Lacey took that as her cue to leave. Her sense of timing was impeccable.
I plastered a smile on my face and got to work, but my eye was on the box of decorations. How the hell was I supposed to ‘decorate for October’ anyway?
* * *
When I had chased the last Wi-Fi-leech out of the shop and turned off the flashing coffee cup shaped neon light, I finally took the time to lean against the counter and catch my breath. I stank like coffee, I had syrup and whipped cream stains on my apron, but I also knew that when I walked out that door I wouldn’t have to think about anything more complicated than what to shove in the microwave for dinner when I got back to my apartment.
All these office drones, they took their jobs home with them at night, made the families or their pets completely miserable, stared at the ceiling for hours (or drank themselves to sleep) and then got up the next morning to do it all over again.
My life might not have included an enviable Instagram filter, but at least my day ended at 4pm and I could sleep at night.
I mopped, cleaned, and re-set the shop for the next day, making sure to create a prominent tower of pumpkin spice syrup within Lacey’s reach. There was nothing worse than a passive aggressive text message full of accusations that I had put things out of reach on purpose.
The boxes of decorations were still sitting on the floor, like a neatly stacked pile of accusation. I sighed, opened the boxes, and let out a gusty sigh at the contents.
I pulled out lengths of garlands made of silk leaves in fall colors, fake pumpkins and glass bottles with poison labels.
I was fine with the garlands, they could dress the pumpkin spice shelf, but the poison bottles were ridiculous and might imply that we were putting poison in the coffee. These people knew what they were drinking already, no need to make an extra point. A string of pumpkin shaped lights could go on the edge of the counter. I pulled out a painted wooden sign that featured a glittery broom and a pair of gold-buckled shoes.
The witch is in!
Was that supposed to replace our hideous thrift store OPEN sign?
“Oh, no. Fuck no.”
I mean, on one hand it’s hilarious. But on the other, I still wasn’t really used to the idea that being a witch didn’t land you feet first in a bonfire. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but after spending a lifetime hiding who I was; this all seemed a little… too much.
I set the sign back into the box and picked up a black cat with glittery plastic fur and a bird covered in black dyed turkey feathers.
“Subtle.”
I looked at the cat and wondered how Suki would feel if I brought this arched monstrosity home.
The crow wasn’t so bad. I set him on the cash register at a jaunty angle and stood back to admire my handiwork.
The shop looked like a Midwest Fall Fair had exploded inside it, which would probably more than satisfy Lacey. The shop’s owner, David, would probably regret giving in to her pleading requests, but that wasn’t my problem.
I stashed the boxes and let myself out, locking the door behind me as the security system beeped softly. The string of pumpkin lights glowed orange and purple in the darkened shop and I found myself smiling just a little.
Maybe October wasn’t so bad.
2
My apartment wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but that didn’t bother me. Over the last few centuries I’d collected a few… things. Stuff that I could sell easily for a good chunk of cash no questions asked. A silver pocket watch I’d been given by a very earnest young man in 1880 had given me a bit of a financial buffer after a good auction sale.
I had a system now. I would pay for the year’s rent up front, in cash, on the understanding that the landlord never asked any questions, and never knocked on my door, which suited me just fine. I don’t open the door for anyone but the pizza guy anyway.
The brick walk-up was nondescript, and that was the way I liked it. The only thing that had changed in the last fifteen or twenty years was the business on the main floor. It had been a grocery store, a pizza place, and I was a big fan of the Thai family that had just opened up shop. I’ve also developed a weakness for Pho and spring rolls.
Those last two facts may be intertwined, but I’ll have to do more research. And by research, I mean having food delivered upstairs so that I can eat it in my underwear while telling my cat about my day.
The paint on the front doors was peeling, there was no way to sneak up on anyone while the hinges shrieked the way they did, and the lock was a little... finicky... but my neighbors don’t talk to me, and I’ve got three walls of exposed brick, and that’s kind of a big deal.
It was perfect. Well, perfect for me, anyway.
I unlocked my apartment door with a little dusting of magic, but made sure to jangle my keys to make it at least sound convincing. I didn’t know if anyone was listening, it was a force of habit, and even though I didn’t need keys, I have a bit of an obsession with keys and keychains... the tackier the better, really. My collection is really amazing.
My apartment was pretty normal; it wasn’t full of incense or candles or spell books like some of the so-called witches I’d met. However, I do have a wicked herb garden and a black cat who seems to have as long a life as I do.
Suki’s been there for me through a lot of bad shit, and she’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend. My favorite lump of black fur was sleeping on the couch in a very undignified position and couldn’t resist sneaking a photo with my phone.
As I walked through my apartment, I shed my jacket, scarf and a floppy hat I’d picked up at a thrift store on a whim. My TV, a relic from the 60s that I just couldn’t seem to part with, snapped on. Even though I didn’t need them, I loved those retro rabbit ears. Dick Van Dyke re-runs were the perfect background noise to take the edge off any day. No matter how shitty I was feeling there was something so unshakeably positive about Dick’s grin that never failed to lift any of my moods.
I scooped Suki up and twirled her around the apartment as the familiar theme song played. She whined in protest, and I planted a
noisy kiss on the top of her black head before letting her jump down to the worn hardwood floor.
Most of the stuff in my apartment had been acquired over my years in the city. I lived simply and traveled light, just in case I had to drop everything at the last minute. My paranoia had served me well enough over the years, and I only kept the best pieces for myself. Everything else was sold online or in auctions.
* * *
I had learned how to hide, and I was really good at it now. Up until the 90s it had been really easy to stay invisible. After I had shed Dorithie Askew’s protective influence, I worked as a scullery maid in several prominent houses. No one noticed me farther than commenting on my height, or my red hair. When enough years had passed, I moved on, taking a new name and forging references for my new employers. I won’t say that I hung around with a suspicious group of people, but when you had to survive below the notice of regular society, it was handy to have friends in low places.
I didn’t need to know how to pick locks, but when you start asking questions, the most interesting people come out of the woodwork.
Suki stretched and yawned before jumping up onto the back of the couch.
“Hard life, I know...” Suki winked at me and swished her tail. She couldn’t talk, but most of the time she didn’t need to. I don’t know what I’d do with a talking pet. The voices in my head were bad enough; Sabrina could keep her talking cat.
Sticks & Stones: (Urban Fantasy) (Daughters of Hecate Book 2) Page 1