Star Witch (The Lazy Girl's Guide To Magic Book 2)

by Helen Harper

  Given the pentagram on the wall, so would the Order but I figured it would be better not to mention that just yet. ‘And we don’t know whether there are any traps. If you enter you could trigger something else.’

  Bellows blanched, going even paler than before if that were possible. ‘Uhhhhnnn,’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  Two of the security detail marched up. ‘What is in there?’ the first one asked, even though he had exactly the same view as I did.

  His partner had considerably more savoir faire. ‘We need to seal this area off immediately,’ he barked. ‘Someone call the police too. No one is to enter.’ He twisted back towards the still-moaning Marcus. ‘Find out what the hell happened!’

  Morris Armstrong, looking surprisingly gentle, took control. He ushered everyone else back and crouched next to Marcus. ‘What happened?’ he asked softly. ‘We need to know, Marcus. You need to pull yourself together.’

  Marcus hugged his arms to himself and continued to moan.

  ‘There are no injuries that we can see,’ said one of the medical team. ‘But he should be checked out anyway.’

  Armstrong nodded and tried again. ‘Marcus, tell us what happened. Why were you in Trevor’s trailer?’

  It was the implication that he’d been up to no good that finally broke through Marcus’s brain and encouraged him to pull himself together. Somewhat. He was still shaking like a leaf and his voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. ‘I went to fetch Mr Bellows’ stick,’ he said.

  We all looked at the wannabe witch. He swallowed and nodded, his purple robes flapping gently in the breeze. ‘My staff. I’d left it here and asked Marcus to get it for me.’

  His staff? Who did he think he was? Gandalf?

  ‘Good,’ Armstrong said. ‘That’s good. What happened next?’

  Poor Marcus looked like he was about to keel over. ‘I went inside. I was sure no one was there and it looked empty. I went to the corner and picked up the sti— I mean the staff, and then something hit me on the back of the head. When I came round, I was surrounded by blood. It was everywhere.’

  He began to moan. Any second now he’d be screaming again. Someone probably ought to fetch him a cup of sugary tea but I wasn’t going to suggest it. If I said anything, I’d be the one sent off and I needed to find out everything I could about what had happened. Winter would not be happy if I missed the salient details of another murder because I was waiting for the kettle to boil.

  Armstrong glanced up at Bellows. ‘What time did you send him to get your staff?’

  Bellows scratched his head. ‘It was just after the final sound check so that would have been…’

  ‘Just after ten.’

  Bellows jerked his head in assent. ‘Yeah, I guess.’ He cleared his throat and tried to sound more confident. ‘After ten.’

  I tapped my mouth thoughtfully. This was supposed to be a closed set. Either someone who was already a crew member had sneaked inside when no one was looking or someone from outside had found a way in.

  It seemed impossible that someone could have created that kind of bloody mess and stayed clean themselves and there was certainly no one here – other than Marcus, of course – who looked like they were splattered in O neg. I stepped back and edged away from the rest of the crowd, most of whom were still wringing their hands. It was inconceivable that our murderer had just blithely strolled out of the front door with no one noticing.

  The intelligent security guard was giving instructions to the others. I tapped his arm. He paused in mid-sentence and looked down at me. ‘You need to find out who’s not here,’ I told him. In other words, who had been drained of their blood.

  He gave me a grim nod. ‘That’s what we’re doing.’ I watched as Mazza appeared, handing him a clipboard with a long list of names on it. The police would get here before he got even a quarter of the way down it.

  I let him get on with it and headed towards the back of the trailer, sucking in a breath when I spotted the open window. It was definitely large enough for a person to squeeze through. There was also a trickle of blood dripping down from its edge. Here was the point of entry. Beyond the blood, I couldn’t see any other clues.

  I sketched out a quick rune designed to reveal that which was hidden but all it revealed was a rabbit hole by the trailer’s left side. Without forensic analysis, there was nothing else to be seen here.

  I abandoned my scrutiny of the trailer for now and turned round in the other direction. There was a makeshift fence and, beyond that, a copse of pine trees. I studied the fence. Given that it had probably only been erected recently by the film crew, it was surprisingly sturdy – but it wasn’t all that high. Even I could probably scale it.

  I scanned its length, eventually spotting something that had snagged along the top several metres along. I frowned and picked my way through the long grass to get a closer look.

  Tufts of straggly white hair had caught in several places. I raised myself on my tiptoes just to be sure. What had happened inside the trailer – and why – was still a mystery but it wasn’t quite as disastrous as it had first appeared. I nodded to myself and backed away, just as the first sirens began to sound.

  ***

  The police who arrived might have been from a small local force unused to dealing with elaborate television productions and murder cases, but they seemed to know what they were doing. They immediately cordoned off the site and took down the details of everyone who’d been present. Naturally, the big show-stopping opening of Enchantment was postponed, if not cancelled for good.

  Eventually we were all allowed to leave. I might have been persona non grata on the journey in, but the fact that I’d been the first to approach Marcus meant that I had suddenly gained a raft of new buddies. Several people wanted to sit next to me to go over in detail what I thought had happened and who had died. No one yet seemed to have clocked that every crew member was accounted for.

  ‘It’s just as well we don’t film live,’ someone behind me said. ‘Can you imagine?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ another person dismissed. ‘It’ll be front-page news tomorrow morning. This show is scuppered for good. I just hope we still get paid.’

  I suspected that all of this would boost Enchantment’s ratings rather than diminish them. This was reality television, after all; it invited voyeurism. I kept mum, however, sitting next to Amy who I felt I could count on to be at least a little circumspect.

  ‘This is just terrible,’ she said, over and over again. ‘Simply terrible.’

  I took off my shoes and started to massage my feet. ‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘I’ve got at least three blisters. And the next person who complains because I’ve got their coffee order wrong is likely to end up with it upended over their head.’

  She blinked. ‘I meant the murders.’

  Oh. I bit my tongue and nodded. It would probably be easier to keep my mouth shut.

  It would have been nice to get back to Tomintoul and put my feet up for a bit but news travelled fast. There was already a crowd of townsfolk waiting for us when the bus pulled up outside our hotel. Moonbeam was more than ready to regale them with the whole story. That boy sure loved an audience.

  I was prepared to sidle past the lot of them and go to my room for a well-deserved nap but Winter was hovering on the other side of the street, trying to look inconspicuous and failing massively. The sight of him was more than enough to perk me up. I trotted over. ‘Hello!’

  He glared at me with icy intensity. ‘What the hell are you doing? We can’t be seen talking to each other like this!’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I assured him. I leaned in and lowered my voice. ‘I’m on a secret mission. Not your secret mission, Morris Armstrong’s secret mission.’

  ‘Huh?’ He gave me a blank look. I didn’t blame him.

  ‘I’m to get close to you and find out what you’re up to,’ I said cheerfully. ‘Then I have to report back to him.’ I paused. ‘He wants me to seduce
you to gain access to all your secrets. I’m the new Mata Hari. You can call me Ivy Hari.’ I frowned. ‘No, wait. Mata Wilde.’ That sounded better.

  Winter’s astonishment was palpable. His blue eyes flared and he took a step backwards. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  ‘Yeah. Well,’ I amended, ‘about the seduction part.’ Unfortunately. ‘But he does want me to pretend to be your friend so I can pass on information about you. He knew you were here from the start, so I told him you were spying on me rather than the show.’ I grinned. ‘Pretty awesome, huh?’

  Winter’s jaw clenched. ‘He must know we’re working together. He’s testing you.’

  ‘You’re saying that he has a secret mission to put me on a secret mission in order to stop our secret mission?’ That made my brain hurt. I shrugged. ‘Either way, I have permission to talk openly to you.’ I looked at him meaningfully. ‘And we have a lot to talk about.’

  He drew in a deep breath. ‘So I hear. It’s all over the town.’ He glanced from side to side. Amy was looking curiously at us but no one else seemed to care.

  Winter shook his head and then yielded. ‘Meet me at the Dog and Whistle in twenty minutes. I’ll order a drink and sit at the bar so it’ll appear that you just bumped into me.’

  ‘Can we have a secret handshake?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ He raised his voice. ‘I told you, Ivy Wilde. If I find out you’ve been using magic, there will be hell to pay. The Order will see to it that you’re kept off the streets for good.’ He jabbed his finger sharply into my chest for good measure and stalked off.

  I watched him go while Amy sidled up. She let out a low whistle. ‘Who was that?’

  I made a show of looking unhappy. ‘My old partner. He just can’t let it go that I don’t want to be in the Order.’

  ‘The Hallowed Order of Magical Enlightenment?’

  Was there any other? I nodded. ‘Yep. I’m a witch. But I don’t want to be with them.’

  Amy’s eyes widened. ‘You’re really a witch? That’s why you’re here on Enchantment! You want a job with Trevor Bellows as a magical consultant.’

  Er, no. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sure.’ I warmed to my topic. ‘He’s amazing.’

  ‘Is he?’ Amy’s nose wrinkled. ‘He knows a lot about magic, I suppose.’

  I thought about the strange pentagram drawn on the wall of his trailer. Maybe Bellows did have a smattering of talent after all. I smiled at Amy. ‘I’m going after him,’ I said, pointing to Winter. ‘He needs to butt out of my life.’

  ‘He’s gorgeous,’ she said. ‘He can butt into mine any time he wants.’ Then she suddenly looked sorry. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound the way it did. It’s not fair to talk about someone like that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want him anyway,’ I snapped. ‘He has terrible halitosis. And he’s lazy. Really lazy. Plus, he’s deformed. He has a wooden leg.’

  My tone must have been harsher than I thought because Amy looked slightly hurt. ‘Uh, okay then.’

  I felt a flash of guilt – but not enough to make her think that Winter was worthy of her attention. ‘I’ll catch you later,’ I muttered. Then I walked off in the same direction as Winter.

  Chapter Seven

  Winter smelled good. Really good. I hopped up onto the barstool next to him and inhaled deeply. Then I raised my arm and sniffed an armpit. I grimaced. I guessed he’d have to smell good enough for the both of us.

  ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ I drawled. ‘Do you come here often?’

  He threw me an irritated glance but didn’t comment. Other than the barman, this place was empty no doubt because everyone else was still out and about trying to find out what on earth was happening with Enchantment.

  I gave up trying to get Winter to smile and got to the point. ‘Things are afoot. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, or how accurate it is, but Trevor Bellows’ trailer is covered in blood. Drenched in it, in fact.’

  ‘Do we know whose it is?’

  ‘It’s not human.’

  A frown marred Winter’s forehead. ‘That’s not what everyone is saying.’

  ‘I reckon the lab results will be out by early morning tomorrow. The blood belongs to a sheep.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Not magic, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ I said airily. ‘I know it because I’m a super-awesome sleuth with immense powers of deduction.’

  Winter exhaled. ‘Ivy…’

  ‘The set is closed,’ I explained. ‘It’s pretty hard for someone to gain access to it. Not impossible, but difficult. I wouldn’t bother. But then, that’s me. However there are a few blind spots around the back of the trailers where it’s possible to clamber over the fence.’ I began to tick off on my fingers. ‘First of all, none of the crew members are missing so the blood doesn’t belong to anyone involved in Enchantment. Secondly, security was complaining earlier about a sheep trying to get inside. Thirdly,’ I finished with a flourish, ‘on top of the fence and almost directly behind Bellows’ trailer, there’s evidence that wool has snagged.’ I paused. ‘And we all know how much you love evidence.’

  Winter stared at me. ‘So what you’re saying is that a sheep tried to get access and was foiled by security so climbed over the fence instead, which is … how high?’

  I considered. ‘About two metres.’

  ‘So this sheep climbed over a two-metre high fence, walked through Bellows’ door—’

  ‘Went through the rear window, actually,’ I interrupted.

  Winter gave me a long-suffering look. ‘Fine. Went through the window, hit a crew member over the head, slit its own throat, disposed of its own body and created enough havoc to stop Enchantment from filming.’

  I smiled. I hadn’t told him about my pièce de resistance. ‘This sheep also drew a pentagram on the wall of Bellows’ trailer.’

  His spine stiffened. ‘A pentagram?’

  ‘Yep.’ I reached over and grabbed his pint glass, taking a long swig and smacking my lips. I deserved it. ‘A crude one but definitely a pentagram. Obviously, someone bewitched the sheep to do all this.’

  ‘So, in your infinite wisdom, Ivy,’ he said, ‘what’s the motive for all this?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I figured I’d leave that part to you.’

  Winter snatched his drink back from me. Boo. ‘Have you ever tried to bewitch a sheep?’

  ‘No. I don’t meet many sheep in Oxford. I tried it on Brutus once. I attempted to bewitch him so that he’d go and buy his own cat food.’

  ‘You attempted?’

  ‘Yeah. It didn’t work.’

  Winter rolled his eyes. ‘You’re probably the most naturally talented witch I’ve ever met, Ivy, even if you do let those talents go to waste. If you can’t bewitch your own familiar, how would someone else manage to bewitch a sheep? Even if they could, how could they bewitch a sheep to scale two-metre high fences?’

  I opened my mouth to speak but he held up a hand to forestall me. ‘If it really is sheep’s blood, then someone brought the sheep over and killed it in Bellows’ trailer.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Although what they did with the body is anyone’s guess. Perhaps Bellows is the next target and this is a warning.’

  As much as I liked my theory, Winter’s did make more sense. ‘It would have to be someone strong to get a damn sheep over the fence and through the window.’

  He grunted in agreement. ‘Probably male, then.’

  ‘And,’ I added, ‘probably a witch, given the pentagram.’

  ‘Or someone who thinks of themselves as a witch. When was the last time you used a pentagram?’

  I tried to think. Then I remembered: it was when I wanted to go out with Mickey Jones, the best-looking guy at school. The theory was that he would fall in love with me instantly and invite me to be his date at the end-of-school dance. It hadn’t worked. Too embarrassed to tell the truth, I just shrugged. ‘It’s been a while.’

  ‘Yes. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.
It’s good intelligence though, Ivy. The pentagram means the Order has to be involved. I can get on set and you can go home.’ He gave a self-satisfied smile.

  I sat up bolt upright. ‘Go home? Why would I do that?’

  ‘Oh, come on. We both know you don’t want to be here.’

  ‘It’s been barely a day,’ I argued. ‘And I’ve discovered a damn sight more than I’ve just told you. I’m the lynchpin of this entire operation.’

  ‘Really?’ he said drily.

  ‘Really! For example, the presenter, Belinda Battenapple, who is all things fabulous and wonderful and who I would one day like to grow up to be, is wearing some kind of magical vial round her neck.’ I described it in great detail, including how she’d hastily hidden it when it accidentally revealed itself. Winter didn’t appear particularly impressed. ‘That’s not all. Her son, Moonbeam—’

  ‘Moonbeam?’

  I waved a hand at him. ‘Don’t interrupt. Moonbeam told me that he wanted to scare the contestants so that one dropped out and he could take their place. He really wants to be on the show. The sheep thing might be completely unconnected to the murder. It might just be him trying to create enough of a stir to get what he wants.’

  Winter looked at me. ‘Was he gone for any part of the day before the blood was discovered?’

  I wrinkled my nose. I’d been watching him every chance I’d had to find out how I could copy his avoidance of work. Moonbeam hadn’t left the set. ‘Um, no. But he might have had something to do with it.’

  ‘All the same, Ivy,’ Winter said, ‘I think it’s best if you leave this to the professionals now.’

  For just a moment, he lost some of his allure. ‘What? You plonker! You can’t say that! I can be professional. I’ve not even told you about Gareth yet. He’s the one who found the body – or what was left of it. He’s bound to have some good information to spill and I bet he’ll only want to tell it to me. I’ve already developed a relationship with him.’