by K. J. Emrick
“Tell them what?” Lucian asked her. “What did Eugene do?”
She sobbed. It was a heartbreaking sound. “He killed Danny. I saw him do it. He didn’t want me to tell but I couldn’t keep that a secret. Not that. He’s a killer... oh, dear God, he’s a killer.”
Addie and Kiera quickly lifted their hands, knowing they had to find Eugene now more than ever. They sent their Essence out through the spaces around them, through the entire lodge, looking for him.
This much life force used all at once was bordering on too much not to be noticed. Anything in these woods that was magic sensitive, like butterfly pixies or trolls or a stray werewolf, would be able to feel what they were doing. It wasn’t enough magic to attract the big baddies to town, at least not yet, but it was getting there.
And lest they forget, the witch Belladonna was still out there, somewhere close.
They worked as fast as they could, making sure not to miss even the smallest of spaces. Only, when the search was done—
“Rosemary,” Lucian asked, “where is Eugene now? Where did he go?”
—he was nowhere in Pendulum Lodge.
“He’s gone,” Rosemary said. “He left and he’s gone and you have to protect me because I’m scared. Please. Please, protect me from that man!”
Chapter 7
“Oh sure,” Willow complained. “You’re up there casting spells while I’m down here missing all the fun.”
Addie tried not to roll her eyes, but she just couldn’t help it. “There was nothing fun about any of that. Besides, you got to cast your sleeping spell, didn’t you?”
“Yeah,” her sister pouted, “but it’s not the same.”
“Oh, whatever Willow. Look, there was nothing you could have done. It looks like Eugene was gone before we ever got here.”
“Correct,” Kiera put in, ending the discussion. She closed the neck of her cloak against the chill air outside, this close to midnight. “According to Dahlia, who turned out to be a private investigator, all of the cars that should be here are still here. So Eugene must have left on foot. A man can only travel a certain distance in a given amount of time that way, but it’s been a few hours. He could be halfway to Bellewood by now.”
A thought occurred to Addie. One she didn’t like. “Or he might have gone the other way. He could be hiding out in Shadow Lake.”
“Yes,” Kiera had to agree. “He just might.”
“At least we know why you could only sense four people here when we arrived. Eugene was gone, so there were only four people here and alive. Not counting Lucian, I mean.”
She felt her face heating as she said his name, and she saw the look that Willow gave her, but for now at least she kept her comments to herself.
They were all standing in the driveway, watching the ambulance drive away with Rosemary in it. The black and gold patrol car with not-Eileen handcuffed in the back was following behind, red and blue lights flashing just like the ambulance. The night here was almost at its end.
But their work was far from over.
“Come, sisters,” Kiera said to them. “The police have things in hand here. We should go back to Stonecrest and use the Circle to try and find Eugene.”
“Right,” Willow grumbled, “because we’ve had so much luck locating people with the Circle recently.”
Kiera stopped at that, standing very still, staring off at nothing.
Willow blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, Kiera. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“How else could you mean it, Sister?” She waved off anything else Willow was going to say. “Come. The Circle will aid us in our search.”
Willow looked away, knowing she had really put her foot in it with what she had just said. Addie knew her sister hadn’t meant to talk about Kiera’s son like that. They were all just tired and stressed, she supposed. Like she’d said before, she wasn’t just a witch. She was a real flesh and blood woman.
Using the Family Circle to search for Eugene was going to take hours. Maybe until dawn. She frowned, and sighed. Ah, the glamorous life of a witch. Staying up to all hours casting spells, looking for accused killers hiding in the town you swore to protect, all while keeping your abilities secret from the big baddies that would gladly rip you apart to steal the wealth of Essence hidden under your ancestral home.
There wasn’t even a retirement plan.
“Let’s go,” she said, putting her thoughts back on track. “I’ll drive. Do we need anything before we get to Stonecrest?”
Kiera nodded. “Yes. Sage. We appear to be out of sage.”
Addie pulled a face. “Seriously? How did that happen?”
Kiera shrugged, but she let her eyes slide toward Willow when she did. “I only noticed it when I was looking through our stocks earlier. It would appear that whoever made up our shopping list last time forgot to add that to the list.”
“Give me a break,” Willow said. “I missed one little thing. It’s not like we use the stuff every day.”
Addie and Kiera both gave her a look.
“Fine,” she shrugged. “We use it every day. Oh, like neither of you have ever made a mistake.”
“It’s fine,” Addie said, wanting to forestall an all-out argument. “I have some in the café. We’ll just stop there on our way back to Stonecrest.”
As they were heading for their car, Lucian came rushing out through the front door. “Hey, Addie? Hold up a minute.”
Kiera and Willow both kept going as Addie turned back, but she noticed the looks of mixed amusement on her sisters’ faces. She chose to take the high road and ignore them.
“Hey,” he said. “I wanted to catch you before you left. To, um, thank you. And your sisters, I mean. All three of you, really.”
He was nervously tripping over his words and his smile only quirked the one corner of his mouth. You didn’t have to be a witch—or a detective, either—to know that he was trying to work up to something.
“Well,” she said. “You’re welcome. This was our arrangement, after all. I think it’s working. You contact us for anything that happens in Shadow Lake because there’s always the chance that whatever is happening will be… beyond your expertise, let’s say.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “This one has more twists in it than an M. Night Shyamalan movie. His early stuff. When he was good.”
“I like his movies, too,” she said, a little surprised that they would have that in common. “I even liked The Village.”
“Ooh, see,” he laughed. “I might have to disagree with you there. Not one of his finest. I liked Devil better.”
“Now you’ve got to be kidding me.” She realized she was smiling. Standing here at the scene of a murder, knowing a killer was on the loose, she was smiling because this man was debating the finer points of cheesy horror films with her.
This was just the kind of man she needed in her life.
“Okay,” he said, “but can we both agree The Happening could have been better?”
“There. Now that, we can agree on.” She so wanted to talk about this more with him. If only her sisters weren’t waiting for her in the car, and if only there wasn’t a murderer to find. “I can see there’s just no two ways around this. You and I are going to have to sit down with several of Shyamalan’s films, and several bowls of popcorn.
His smile widened. “It’s a date. I’ll call you later, when it’s a decent hour and I’m not working. Don’t worry. I’ve got your number.”
He turned away, leaving Addie’s head spinning like she’d been caught in a whirlwind. “Hey, wait. Didn’t you have something you wanted to ask me?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, turning so that he was walking backward on his way to the other officers at the patrol cars. “I was going to ask you on a date.”
There it was. “So why don’t you then?”
“Because,” he said with a wink, “you just did it for me.”
She stared at him even after he�
��d turned away, talking to the uniformed officers who all nodded their heads as he directed them with a confident voice. It looked like his night was going to be just as long as Addie’s.
The nerve of him, though. Was she going to just let him believe she’d asked him out? All she did was say that they should get together, and watch some movies and have some popcorn, and… um… well.
He’d talked her into making a date.
She smiled in spite of herself, and hoped the night was keeping the blush on her cheeks from being completely obvious. Yes. He was just the sort of man she needed in her life. As long as he could handle all the weird that constantly invaded the world of the Kilorian sisters.
When she got behind the wheel, she started the engine, and pulled out onto the driveway. “I can feel the two of you watching me, you know.”
“Who, us?” Willow asked innocently. “Why, we would never intrude on you and Detective Hotcakes making a date to watch Shyamalan’s greatest hits.”
Addie winced. “You heard that, did you?”
“Every word,” her sister said gleefully.
“Sister Addie,” Kiera said, “we didn’t eavesdrop on purpose. Our hearing just happens to be better because we’re witches, as you well know.”
“Wonderful,” Addie grumbled. “The next time I need to have a conversation with Lucian, I’ll be sure to do it half a mile away.”
“Come on, sis,” Willow said to her. “I think it’s great that you’re finding a man to spend time with. Aren’t Typics the best?”
“I don’t think we can compare Detective Lucian Knight with your boyfriend Gary.”
“Oh, really? Why’s that?”
“Well, for one, Lucian is a police detective, and Gary is a grown up ex-jock who only wants to talk about his glory days in college football.”
Willow relaxed into the back seat. “You sound jealous to me, sis. Just because Gary is in better shape than Lucian doesn’t mean he can’t be just as good in bed.”
Addie nearly swerved as her hands clenched around the wheel. “That is not what I was talking about.”
“I’m just saying. If you ever think that Lucian needs pointers, I’ll send Gary his way.”
“Enough,” Kiera chided. “Both of you. The heart wants as it will. The most powerful magic in the world is love, and there are very few ways to protect your heart from magic like that.”
This wasn’t the first time that Addie had heard that bit of wisdom. In all of her twenty-four years she had never found someone that made her think maybe she could experience the kind of magic love that Kiera liked to talk about. Oh, there had been boys, and even men, in her life, but none of them had been that one magic person.
When she thought of Lucian, like she was doing right now, she thought that maybe that was going to change.
They were silent the rest of the way into town, until they turned onto the street where the Hot Cauldron Café waited for them. That’s when they saw that the lights were already on.
Willow leaned forward, in between the front seats. “Is someone supposed to be in your café tonight?”
“No,” Addie said, pulling the Jeep up against the curb outside. “They most certainly are not.”
“Well, we could always call the police. I’m sure Lucian would be glad to come out here and save you.”
“Very funny, Willow.”
“I’m certain,” Kiera said, opening her door, “that the three of us can handle a simple intruder. Come along, sisters.”
The café was a narrow building, a rectangle set with its shorter side toward the street. The light blue siding looked darker under the streetlights. Through the two bay windows at the front they could see all the chairs up on the tables, everything clean and ready for tomorrow’s customers.
The sign in the door read “CLOSED.”
Everything seemed fine and in order. There was no sign of a break in. Of course, there was a back door too, but somehow Addie doubted she was being robbed. She didn’t think thieves would bother to turn on all the lights like this. Wouldn’t they be using flashlights?
Willow folded her hands over her eyes and pressed her face up against one of the windows to look inside. “I thought you had an alarm system on this place?”
“I do,” Addie said. “I also put a hex in place to keep people out. The only way either of them gets disarmed is if someone uses a key to open the door…”
It couldn’t be. There was only one other person besides herself who had a key to the Hot Cauldron. That was her employee, Darla Pettigrew.
But why would she be here now?
Even as she was thinking it, Darla came out of the kitchen in the back. She stood behind the counter for a moment, looking through some papers next to the cash register, and then she looked up at the three of them standing outside, and waved like it was perfectly normal for them to be meeting like this at half past midnight.
She had her graying hair up in a net, and there was an apron around her front streaked with flour and what might have been cocoa powder, as if she’d been baking. She was a pudgy woman, but not to the point of being overweight, even if those dumpy dresses she liked to wear made her look that way. She was still wearing the purple one with the puffy shoulders that Addie had seen her in earlier today—no, yesterday now.
“Why’s she here?” Willow wondered out loud.
Addie still had her ring of keys in her hand from the Jeep, and she found the one for the front door by feel without taking her eyes off Darla. “I have no idea why she’s here, but I’m going to find out.”
Inside, they could smell the aromas of baking bread and something sweeter, like melted cinnamon. Darla leaned her elbows up on the counter as she continued to smile at the sisters. “Hi, guys. I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Obviously,” Addie muttered. “Why are you here at this hour? You had us worried that someone had broken in.”
Darla chuckled. “Oh, come on now, Addie. You and I both know there’s no way anyone could break into the café. Not the way you have it protected.”
That stopped Addie for a moment. That was an odd way of putting it. Most people would have mentioned the alarm, or how there was very little crime in Shadow Lake—if you didn’t count the recent murders. It was almost, Addie thought, as if Darla knew she was a witch and used protective spells on the building.
Only, that was impossible. No one in town knew they were witches.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Darla was saying. “I haven’t been sleeping much at all for the last few nights, actually, and I figured tonight I might as well do something constructive if my brain wasn’t going to shut off, you know? So, I came in to start the baking for the day. It’s all right, Addie, I don’t expect you to pay me for it. Just helping you out is thanks enough.”
Addie nodded absently. She couldn’t put her finger on it but there was definitely something off about how Darla was acting. The look in her eyes, the way she smiled with her teeth… it just didn’t seem like her at all. People were allowed to have an off day, she supposed, and if Darla hadn’t been sleeping well then that might explain the change in her behavior.
Besides. What else could it be?
If Addie wasn’t already on her way back to Stonecrest to try and find a killer, then she might have stayed right here and offered to sit and talk with Darla about whatever was going on in her life. Priorities were what they were, though, and she would be seeing Darla again in a few hours. She could ask about it then.
Darla began tapping her fingers on the countertop. “I just took some carrot muffins out of the oven. Would you guys care for one?”
“No, thank you,” Addie said. “We were stopping in to get some sage, is all.”
“Sage?” Darla stood up, giving the sisters a curious look. “Now there’s a strange thing to need in the middle of the night.”
“Sure,” Willow muttered under her breath. “Just as strange as coming into work to do a little midnight baking.”
Darla’s eyes slid t
o Willow, her smile set in place.
“I’ll just be a minute,” Addie said, hustling toward the back. This had taken far too long as it was. “You guys can head back to the car. I’ll meet you there.”
In the kitchen, on the shelves above the stove, were the spices they used most often in cooking here at the café, all arranged in order. There were unopened replacements in the supply room for when they ran out up here, and that’s where Addie headed. She knew they weren’t going to need much for tonight, but if they were out at home then grabbing a bottle or two from the café would save them from having to buy any more for a while.
She stepped into the supply room, the small space at the far corner of the kitchen next to the walk-in cooler, and pulled the chain on the overhead light so she could see.
Behind her, the door slammed shut.
Addie stared at it. That door never closed like that. It was perfectly hung and it always stayed open whenever she was in here. She could take a look at it later today, she decided. Just another thing on her list. Right now she just wanted to get back to Stonecrest.
Taking two small shakers of dried sage down from their place on a wooden shelf, Addie turned the doorknob.
The door wouldn’t open.
Above her, the light went out.
She had long ago lost count of the number of creepy situations she found herself stumbling into on a daily basis. She lived from one scary moment to the next, and some of those moments would have given the average person a heart attack long ago.
Addie had learned to keep her head when things like this began to happen. Locked in a dark room, by herself, late at night.
Screw this.
This was her café. She had nothing to be afraid of here.
Besides. She wasn’t exactly the helpless damsel type.
She gave the door one last chance to open on its own. When the handle still didn’t want to turn, she set her palm against the flat wooden surface and spoke a single word in Gaelic.
“Oscail.”