by Nova Nelson
“Of course,” I said. “That’s a great idea, Tanner.”
He smacked the desk. “Perfect! It’s settled! Phew, Nora … I gotta tell you, I sure am glad you wandered into Medium Rare when you did. Luckiest day of my life.”
He just meant in a professional sense. Right?
“Now that I think about it, that was probably the luckiest day of my life, too,” I said, already feeling the loss of the romance that could never be.
“And here you are,” he said, staring straight at me.
Then instantly, the vibe in the office shifted and it felt more like Ruby’s front porch swing that night, when we had our near miss. I felt magnetically drawn to him.
But all I could feel was deep annoyance. Freaking men! How were they so clueless? Didn’t he understand that we’d flattened any possibility of romance only seconds before? And now he was going to flash me those bedroom eyes? Why did it have to be up to me to exercise some emotional self-control? Ugh!
So, I brought up the first thing I could think of that would stop all romance in its tracks: murder.
“Can I run an idea by you?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure, anything.” Still with the bedroom eyes.
But once I filled him in on the Heather Lovelace case so far, it was like I’d poured a bucket of cold water on him.
“I can save you a trip to the Pixie Mixie,” he said. “Kayleigh doesn’t even carry silver in her store for this exact reason. And she would never poison a customer.”
“Kayleigh? She owns the apothecary, right?”
He nodded. “I go in there all the time for my supplies.”
“Right,” I said. “Because you’re a witch. Sometimes I forget.”
He laughed. “Admittedly, I don’t use my magic around here. Mostly at home. I could show you sometime.”
If I’m totally honest here, I wanted to shove him. Hard. He was not seriously inviting me over to his house right after we’d made a handshake deal that left the possibility of a fling dead in the water. An invite like this would have been better timed, oh, I don’t know, at any point in the last four months?
“Hey!” he said. “There’s an idea! While you show me how to run a restaurant, I can teach you some of the basics of witchcraft!”
“I don’t think I have a proclivity for that sort of thing, though. I’m not, like, a normal witch.”
“Psh. Please. You’ll do fine. There are certain spells that work better with certain types of witches—for example, I’m a West Wind witch and my specialty is healing, so I’m good with medicine and can do things that, say, a South Wind witch, who’s better with fire, can’t do. But stuff like protection spells and daily health potions and so on are things anyone with even a little bit of magic can learn.”
“Do I get a wand?” I asked. “Come to think of it, do you have a wand?”
“If you want a wand, we can get you one. And yes, I have one and keep it on hand, but I rarely use it. Seems showy, and since I don’t do magic around here, I don’t necessarily need it. Besides, you know how werewolves are about witches. Best for business if I don’t constantly remind them what kind of being runs their favorite werewolf diner.”
“Fair enough. I just remember that Donovan used his, and it made everything look much easier. Might help with the inventory if you use a wand.”
“Donovan?” he said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Are you two friends, or …?”
Oh holy smokes. I could spot this emotion in a man from a mile away. Tanner was jealous.
I had half a mind to hint that there was something going on between me and the frustratingly hot bartender at Franco’s Pizza, but I knew that would blow up in my face, seeing as how Tanner and Donovan seemed to be friends. Wouldn’t take long before the truth came out and Tanner learned that Donovan and I happened to, in fact, not like each other even a little bit.
“No, I’ve just run into him at Franco’s Pizza a few times.”
“Oh.”
“He made me one heck of a drink, though,” I said.
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded.
“Like, an alcoholic drink?”
I nodded again.
“I didn’t know you drank.”
Wait. Was that bad? Was I not supposed to drink? Did Tanner not like women who let loose every now and again with a little booze? “Yeah, I do sometimes. Not so much since I’ve been to Eastwind.”
“That reminds me,” he said, “I still need to take you to Sheehan’s Pub.”
Oh. Come. On. Totally sober, it was hard enough to resist Tanner’s charm and beauty. If I got a couple drinks in me, and he did one of the million unintentionally sexy things he did, like, say, smile at me, I would be toast. It would be lights out for any hope of maintaining a professional relationship.
Tanner was making it incredibly difficult to be a good friend to him.
“Yeah. Maybe we could close Medium Rare for an evening and make it a company thing. You know, to announce our co-ownership.” It was not a subtle hint, and he finally put the pieces together.
“Oh. Right. Yeah.” His furrowed brow relaxed. “That’s a great idea. I’m glad I have you around, Nora.”
He held up his hand, and for a moment I couldn’t believe what was happening. I almost laughed when I did. But it made sense, I supposed.
Tanner was offering me a high-five. Ah yes, that friendly gesture that brought instantaneous death to erotic dreams.
But I obliged and high-fived the most gorgeous man in all of Eastwind who was now my future business partner and witchcraft tutor.
Fantastic.
Chapter Eight
I was concerned, as I began retracing Heather’s steps that afternoon, that my timing was off. For one, it was a Sunday. Heather’s last day was a Wednesday. Things around Eastwind worked very differently from a weekday to the weekend—different pace, stores had different hours, and those who worked weekdays likely took the weekend off. And because of my morning shift at Medium Rare, I wasn’t able to set out until nearly three in the afternoon, whereas Heather had begun her route at around ten in the morning.
I was also concerned that Grim was going have heat stroke, and if he managed to survive, he would take his vacation in the Deadwoods and never come back.
Except for the occasional steak dinner.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he was settling into the luxury of domesticated life. They didn’t have fireplaces or dog beds in the Deadwoods, as far as I knew, and both had quickly become favorite napping spots for the hound.
But regardless, he grumbled about the heat the entire walk from Medium Rare to the emporium. It wasn’t the hottest day of the month so far, but, in his defense, it was still brutal with the early afternoon sun almost directly overhead.
“That one,” he said, motioning over to a sandwich shop overlooking the market.
“Are you just saying that because there’s shade and probably cold air?”
“Would you blame me if I were?”
I wiped beads of sweat from the bottom of my chin and led the way.
An older man greeted us at the counter once we walked inside, and I ordered two pastrami sandwiches, one with extra pastrami. And yes, it was a bribe for Grim. Maybe I was more concerned about him running away to the Deadwoods than I thought.
I got the man’s name immediately, and as he set out to make the sandwiches, I asked, “Hey, Thorwald, random question, but do you know Heather Lovelace?”
He folded the sliced meat onto the long roll as the corners of his mouth turned down. “No. I mean, I know who she is, but I wouldn’t say we’re friends or nothing.”
“She came by here earlier in the week. Do you remember that?”
He paused and looked up. “Oh, yeah, I do. She said she wasn’t well. You a friend of hers?”
“Yeah.” It was only a half-lie.
He went back to making our sandwiches. “She feeling any better?”
“Awkward …” Grim said.
“Um, yeah
, she’s fine last I heard.” Another half-lie. On the one hand, she wasn’t sick anymore. On the other, that was because she was dead with a capital D.
“Good, good.” He glanced up. “Swiss or provolone? I recommend the swiss. It’s aged in a dragon’s lair and has a nice, smoky flavor to it.”
“Swiss sounds great,” I said, eliminating Thorwald from my list of possible suspects. He wasn’t aware Heather had died. And besides, why would he want to kill her? They were hardly more than acquaintances.
My intuition was registering a big fat zero.
“You’re a witch, right?” he said as he wrapped the two sandwiches in butcher paper.
“Yeah.”
“How come I’ve never seen you at Coven events? Pretty girl like you, I’d have noticed.” He grinned at me, and on a scale of one to ten I was only at about a three for being skeezed out. Was I interested in Thorwald? Nooo. Was it nice to be complimented sometimes? Duh. Even though he looked almost twice my age, hey, you gotta get it where you can.
“I’m not much of a witch,” I said, meaning, of course, that I was a Fifth Wind witch, so most of the normal witchy stuff wasn’t in my bag of tricks, so to speak.
“I’d beg to differ,” he said, winking.
And my skeeze-o-meter went to about a six.
“No, I just mean, I’m a, um, I’m a medium. Fifth Wind. Not like a wave-a-wand-around, wear-a-pointy-hat witch.”
Even as I was saying it, I knew I was making myself look like an idiot.
Thorwald wasn’t wearing a pointy hat, and he hadn’t used a wand once to make the sandwiches. I was just stereotyping. Like a jerk.
He wasn’t a leprechaun, for fang’s sake. I’d met plenty of witches who didn’t conform to every stereotype.
You know when you dig yourself a ditch and it’s time to just scramble out of it as best you can and run off? Yep, it was one of those times. I paid Thorwald, tipping generously, grabbed the sandwiches, and ran.
Embarrassing as it was, it got me thinking. There was a whole society of witches in this town, and I hadn’t once looked into it. Not seriously, at least. Sure, I didn’t ride a broom—though to be fair, I’d never tried—and I had no wand, but I was still a witch, wasn’t I? Certainly, the Coven wouldn’t turn me away just because I was a specific type of witch. From what Ruby had said in our tea-time talks, each of the five types of witches—spirit, earth, air, water, and fire—were part of the same magical body. One type couldn’t exist without the other four types.
Well, I supposed every group had its black sheep, and I was definitely that in the witch community.
Still, it might not be terrible to look into it sometime soon. Was Tanner part of the Coven? Were there multiple covens? I wanted to kick myself, because I’d come to Eastwind and then done the same thing I always do, getting so focused on one aspect of my life, specifically work at Medium Rare and whatever this freelance murder investigating was, that it gave me complete tunnel vision to everything else, dulling my curiosity for the rest of life in this literally unbelievable town.
“Hot pastrami might’ve been a mistake,” Grim groaned after we’d finished our food, passing through Fulcrum Park at the center of Eastwind on our way to the Pixie Mixie. We’d switched up the order of Heather’s visits, but I didn’t see another option if I was to avoid a hangry familiar complaining so loudly I couldn’t properly speak with Kayleigh, who ran the store. “Makes sense that it was aged in a dragon’s lair, though; I feel like I’m about to blow fire out of my—”
“There it is,” I said, pointing to the small shop with a thatched roof and a large wooden sign hanging by the front door. “Pixie Mixie Apothecary.” Hopefully, they stocked something that eased canine flatulence. I’d learned from experience that there was no sleeping when Grim’s digestion took a turn for the worse. And if I did manage to drift off, there were only nightmares waiting for me.
As we entered the store, a pleasant tinkling of a silver bell announced us. The store was dim, but calmingly so. Gentle flute music wafted through the space, and the soothing sound of flowing water on my left caught my attention. It came from a miniature waterfall in a basin by the front desk, which was presently vacant.
The rich, earthy scent of herbs drew me in, and I figured I might as well take a look around while I was here. After all, I was a witch. Whether I understood it or not, I belonged in a place like this.
“Let’s explore,” I said.
“Have fun,” Grim replied, flopping down on the cool stone floor by the water feature.
Randomly selecting an aisle, I walked slowly down it, between two tall, wooden shelves, gazing at the various supplies. At waist height, the shelves held large barrels of dried ingredients, and I leaned down to read off the labels that had been scrawled on the side of them a long time ago. Some of the contents I recognized, like lavender, coriander, and myrrh. Others, like “star seeds” and “ground glory,” left me stumped. While others still, like “hornet’s heart,” “crocodile tears,” and “fairy dust,” sounded just familiar enough to make sense without actually making sense.
Above the barrels of bulk ingredients were small unlabeled bottles and tinctures. The shelves below them had labels, but it was easy to imagine that an innocent misstep by a clerk or a malicious switch by a customer could end disastrously if the mistake wasn’t noticed prior to using the ingredient.
Could that have happened to Heather? Could she have meant to grab something for her dizziness and accidentally grabbed a silver potion instead?
But then I remembered what Tanner had said, that Kayleigh didn’t stock silver because she didn’t want to risk it. Maybe Tanner was wrong about that. Maybe silver was the magical equivalent of a prescription medication, and the Pixie Mixie stocked it, just not where anyone could grab it.
“Blessed summer’s day to you,” said a light voice from behind me.
I turned to find a petite but beautiful young woman flying in the air behind me. She reminded me of the fairies I’d seen waiting tables at Franco’s Pizza, except her wings were longer, pointier at the end, and they didn’t have to flap as frantically for her to remain hovering. Her proportions were also different, more like a mini-human than the fairies, who resembled slightly compressed humans with big, childlike eyes.
It didn’t take a genius to guess this girl was a pixie. The name of the shop gave that bit away. “Hi. And a, um, blessed summer’s day to you, as well,” I said. Was that the way pixies greeted each other? Or was this one just a little hippy-dippy?
“I don’t recognize you,” she said politely. “Are you new to Eastwind?” Clear blue eyes stared kindly at me beneath her straight medium-brown hair. There was something familiar about her appearance. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, though.
“Yeah. I’m Nora.” I offered a hand, and she placed her tiny one in mine as we shook.
“Kayleigh,” she said.
“You own the place, right?”
She grinned widely. “Yes! I do. And now that you’ve told me your name, the pieces are coming together. You’re the psychic, right?”
Ah, the gossip of Eastwind. “Yep. That’s me.”
“Tanner talks about you a lot,” she said, nodding slowly. “I’ve been hoping you would come by so I could finally meet you.”
“Really?”
She took my hand again and fluttered forward, pulling me behind her. “There’s a whole section of the store perfect for people like you, and I almost never have buyers, now that Ruby only comes in once in a supermoon.”
“People like me? You mean you have stuff especially for Fifth Wind witches?”
“Yes!” She led me to a back corner of the shop, and paused at a shelf above which hung a sign with the word “necromancy” carved into it.
There had to be some mistake. Simply by chance, I’d learned what necromancy was during my short visit to New Orleans, just before I accidentally died and went to Eastwind. I’d overheard a tour guide talking about it as Neil and I passed by on Bourb
on Street … just before the voodoo woman stopped me and delivered the bad news that I would be joining the spirits in less than a day’s time.
I’d shrugged off the words of the haggard (and presumably disturbed) woman, and Neil had reported her to the nearest police officer we could find. I’d assumed that would be that.
But not so much. Turns out the voodoo lady was right.
I sometimes wondered if even she knew how right she would be. Regardless, I was neck deep in spirits now.
From my minimal understanding, though, necromancy wasn’t an awesome thing. It meant controlling the dead. I’d never been big on zombie movies (I had enough stress in my life without seeking it out in my entertainment), and I definitely wasn’t keen to live out a zombie scenario in real time.
“There’s gotta be a mistake,” I said, eyeing the wooden sign suspiciously, like it might jump out at me.
“Nope,” she said cheerily. “This is your playground!”
“But I’m not, like, actually a necromancer.”
She opened her mouth to respond then snapped it shut. Her bright expression drooped. “Oh. Um. Shoot.”
“What?”
“I didn’t realize no one had told you.”
“Told me what?”
“That you are a necromancer,” she said. “It’s just another term for a Fifth Wind witch, like pyromancer is another name for a South Wind witch. Sure, it’s a little old-fashioned, I’ll give you that.”
I shook my head. Nope. Not accepting that verdict. “I just see ghosts and speak with them. Doesn’t a necromancer have control over corpses?”
She grimaced. “Well, sure. An evil one does. I wouldn’t recommend you resurrect anyone. That’s messy business and goes against Nature’s wishes. And she gets mad when you do that.”
“Who does?”
“Nature. But there are plenty of other things a necromancer can do that don’t violate the earthbound laws.”
“Like?”
She reached forward and grabbed a small item off the shelf. The glass was tinted blue and looked a little like a perfume bottle. “Like this. With your magic, you can use this to ward yourself from ghosts. If, say, Tanner tried to use it, it wouldn’t work for him, since he’s not a necro— um, a Fifth Wind witch like you.”