Witch on First: A Jinx Hamilton Mystery Book 4 (The Jinx Hamilton Novels)

by Juliette Harper

  We parked the car in a clearing off to one side of the small parking lot in recognition of the prominent “No Cars After Dark” signs. Chase lifted my bike out of the car. While I checked the tires and tested the headlamp for the third time, he took off his shoes and belt, depositing them neatly on the backseat. I suspect if I hadn’t been standing there he would have stripped before he shifted. Instead, he looked at me and asked, “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  In bad horror movies when a werewolf shifts, the process looks contorted and painful. The makeup and special effects people must love the challenge of creating the gruesome transition, but you have to remember that fictional lycanthropy is a disease or a curse depending on how the author sets up the story. Real shapeshifters have inherent magic. They are born to live a dual existence.

  For werecats, the shift begins with a shimmer at the top of the head that slowly pushes the human form toward the ground. Werecats have two size options, large and small. I’ve never seen Chase as a house cat; I only know that he looks like a Russian Blue.

  On that evening, I went from looking at a six-foot tall man to admiring a massive tawny mountain lion in just the space of a few seconds. When the shift finished, Chase stepped out of the pile of discarded clothing puddled on the ground and looked up at me expectantly.

  “How are you doing with this?” he asked. His voice sounded deeper, more gravelly, but it was definitely Chase.

  As much as I hate to confess this, I said exactly what I felt, “I’m resisting the urge to want to pet you.”

  Something between a purr and a laugh rumbled up from Chase’s chest. “Don’t let me stop you,” he said.

  I knelt beside him and laid my hand on his head. Chase closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. Honestly, I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to tell him he was magnificent, but the words stuck in my throat. Instead, we just sat there quietly for a moment or two, enjoying the sounds of the night, the unexpected closeness in our opposing forms. I needed Chase to know I accepted him completely. I’d been careful not to allow myself to have any emotional expectations about being with him when he shifted, so I was both surprised and pleased by the feeling that washed over me — an incredible sense of peaceful warmth.

  Chase finally broke the mood, saying regretfully, “We have to get started for the waterfall if we’re to get back to the store and talk to the triplets.”

  Reluctantly I stood up and climbed on my bike. “Do you want me to go slow?” I asked.

  “No,” he said, “just pedal at your regular speed. I won’t be far away, I promise.”

  And with that, he melted into the woods, and I switched on my headlamp and pushed off down the trail.

  I’ve always said that there is no freer sensation in the world than riding a bike.

  Riding on through the deepening twilight with my growing powers of perception spreading out around me instinctively was nothing short of exhilarating. Without trying, I sensed Chase moving through the cover of the woods off to my right. As he negotiated the dark forest, a silent pathway opened before him. All the night-dwelling creatures stilled and drew inward. To them, Chase was an alpha predator, a thing to be feared.

  When the path opened into the clearing at the bridge that spans the pond, only the sound of the waterfall broke the quiet. Chase stopped at the edge of the woods and watched me as I parked the bike and descended to the water’s edge. The moon cast a long shining path across the water.

  “Grandmother?” I called. “Are you here?”

  “I am here, granddaughter,” Knasgowa answered — and she was — sitting on the flat boulder amid a cluster or rocks directly across from the waterfall.

  In whatever realm where she now resides, my ancestral mother appears ageless. She wears the simple blue gingham dress of a pioneer woman with her long, black hair parted in the middle and done up in a bun. Her rich, brown skin is smooth and flawless, and her smile gentle and kind.

  When I moved to sit beside her, she reached to embrace me. Unlike Beau, who in spectral form can manage only the cool suggestion of contact, Knasgowa’s touch is warm and strong.

  “You are troubled,” she said simply. “Tell me.”

  The recitation I gave her was different from the way I’d spoken with Barnaby. With Knasgowa, my fears and insecurities came tumbling out unexpectedly. The words gushed forth in a confused torrent that perfectly mirrored my desperate need to tell her everything. Through it all, my grandmother held my hand, absently stroking my knuckles with her thumb, her eyes never leaving mine.

  Basically, I had something in between a panic attack and a meltdown.

  Honestly, people, think about what I’d been through over the last few days.

  A dead man on the doorstep on Sunday, a demonic chessboard on Monday, and right in the middle of it all, doubting my mentor, and then having a fight with Chase.

  Sitting in the moonlight in the middle of the woods talking to my several-times-great-grandmother was the most normal thing I’d done since taking the trash out the previous Thursday. I really, really, really wanted her to just fix everything.

  Knasgowa listened until I ran completely out of breath. Then she patted the back of my hand and said, “You must focus your mind. You are not even aware of the thing that really frightens you.”

  “I’m not?” I croaked.

  She laughed gently. “No, you are not,” she said. “What you fear most, child is not the presence of a murderer in your midst or this chessboard with its unknown intent. The son of the McGregors is here with you tonight, lying just there at the edge of the trees, so your disagreement with him is forgotten. What you fear, Jinx, is the passing of the one you know as Myrtle and what that means for the responsibility you must assume for your own life and powers. Your fear, granddaughter, is the fear of every young person. You must face the prospect of taking your first steps on the journey to becoming an elder.”

  Did she have to use the word “elder?”

  The instant that thought crossed my mind, Knasgowa laughed outright. “Elder does not mean old, Jinx,” she counseled. “It means wise and in complete possession of your abilities. In your mind, in that safe inner space where you make careful plans that keep you secure, you had thought many years would pass in this apprenticeship with the aos si. They may still. That is not knowledge I possess. But like your friend, Colonel Longworth, I, too, know that all living things change with the passage of time. You must prepare your heart and mind for the possibility that Myrtle must now embark on the next portion of her own long journey in this existence.”

  “I don’t want her to die,” I blurted out.

  “Oh, child,” Knasgowa said softly, “I am not so much speaking of dying as becoming. Myrtle is an ancient being beyond our understanding. I know well the power that resides within her. That cannot die, but it can change form. Remember that the winter rain freezes against the earth to sleep until spring when it melts and fills the rivers. Life demands such cycles of us all. Fear is born of resistance to what is and must be. You cannot help the aos si, nor can you discover the answer to the old man’s death or the reason this game board sits in your store until you become the mistress of your own fears.”

  “What if I’m not ready?” I asked.

  “You would not have reached this point in your life if you were not ready,” she said. Then, turning toward the treeline, she called out, “Son of McGregor, I would speak with you.”

  Obediently, Chase emerged from the shadows and padded over to where we were sitting. He stood before my grandmother, bowed his head and said something in a language I didn’t recognize but guessed was Cherokee. Knasgowas answered him in English.

  “Your family’s debt to me has been repaid countless times these many years since Degataga’s death,” she said. “Callum McGregor’s sin is not your own. This trouble that has come to your doorstep stems from the fruit of a different tree. Look to the descendants of Jeremiah Pike for you
r answers.”

  Chase raised his head. “Do you know who the killer is?” he asked.

  “No,” Knasgowa said. “I only know that he is one who hates what he is and hates you for what you have.”

  “Can you tell us how to find out who he is?” I said.

  “The killer will come to you,” Knasgowa said, “in a way that will make you confront your fears and surpass the strength of your mothers. I am sorry, granddaughter, that is all I can tell you. I love you, child. Come to me again. Do not let your trust falter in those who have never done you harm. There are reasons that secrets must often be held close in silence.”

  And just like that, she was gone.

  If you’ve never dealt with your ancestors, let me give you a word of advice.

  Don’t expect straight answers.

  And don’t be surprised when they still manage to comfort you even though what they just told you makes absolutely no sense.

  “Any idea what that was supposed to mean?” Chase asked.

  “None,” I said, “but it’s starting to sound like this Fae hit man is also a Pike.”

  “And one who kills with fake claws because he hates being a werecat,” Chase said. “It’s not much to go on, but it’s something. We need to get back to the shop and talk to Merle, Earl, and Furl about this.”

  The timing may have been strange, but we needed a change of subject, and the triplets’ names — or at least one of them — had been bugging me since the day I met them.

  “Is his name really Furl?” I asked.

  Chase grinned. “His name is Ferlin.”

  He looked at me like I ought to be instantly getting the joke, which I wasn’t.

  “Sorry to be slow,” I said, “but what’s funny about that?”

  “Ferlin,” Chase repeated, “like Ferlin Husky.”

  I still didn’t get it.

  “Wasn’t he some old country singer?” I asked, searching my memory from the days when The Nashville Network constantly played on our living room TV. “Was he that guy with the pompadour and the rhinestones?”

  “No, that was Porter Waggoner,” Chase said. “Ferlin Husky didn’t do sequins. The triplets’ mother was raised in Nashville. She was a Grand Ole Opry groupie and named the boys after her favorite country and western stars.”

  The light was starting to dawn. “Merle Haggard?”

  “Right.”

  I wracked my brain. “The guy with the banjo?”

  “Earl Scruggs,” Chase nodded. “And Ferlin Husky.”

  “Him I still don’t get,” I admitted.

  “A Fallen Star?” Chase said. “Wings of a Dove?”

  For the first time in our relationship, he was actually sounding like a guy in his 80s.

  “I get the gist,” I said. “So people just shorten Ferlin to Furl so the names will rhyme, right?”

  “Wrong,” Chase said. “When Furl was little, he was indignant that he was the only brother named after a dog, so he changed his own name.”

  I frowned, “Named after a . . .”

  Oh! He thought his mother named him after a Siberian Husky.

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “Seriously,” Chase nodded, adding solemnly. “It’s a cat thing.”

  That did it. I cracked up.

  Between my grandmother being all wise and loving, and Chase telling me that ridiculous story, I was able to relax and enjoy the ride back to the car. The clue Knasgowa gave us wasn’t much, but it was something, and she had said I shouldn’t lose my faith in Myrtle. At least I thought that’s what she said.

  But then we got back to the car.

  Where we found Chase’s clothes neatly folded on the trunk.

  And the upholstery ripped to shreds.

  And the note.

  “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

  Hit man or not, this guy was starting to get on my nerves.

  16

  The whole evening made for an emotional rollercoaster. Knasgowa’s words comforted me, but looking back, her warning about the killer carried ominous foreshadowing. The lighthearted exchange over Furl’s name gave us a brief respite. The discovery of the shredded upholstery destroyed that. For the record, the thing about the seats pissed me off.

  You don’t want to mess with a girl and her hybrid.

  I fumed about the upholstery for the first mile or so back to town. Chase clearly couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. Banging the steering wheel with both hands, he said, “Jinx, the seats can be fixed! This guy is watching us.”

  “Really, Chase?” I asked sarcastically. “You think?”

  He opened his mouth to bark back, then caught himself, and clamped his jaws tightly shut.

  We drove another mile in complete silence before I said, “I’m sorry. My nerves are as shredded as these seats.”

  “Mine, too,” he said. “It just drives me crazy to think he was out there with us and I didn’t know it. It makes me feel like I’m not doing my . . . ”

  “If you say ‘job,’” I warned him darkly, “you will not like my reaction.”

  Chase pursed his lips but had the good sense to rethink his next words.

  “Let me rephrase that,” he said. “If this guy is a werecat, I should have been able to sense his presence.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Werecats have magically heightened senses,” he said. “I didn’t hear or see anything out of the ordinary tonight. He must have been fairly close to the trailhead when we parked.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “You were watching the rearview mirror all the way out here. Do you think we were followed?”

  Chase shook his head. “No. The road was empty, and nobody drove by while we were getting ready to go into the woods.”

  “Then the killer must have known where we were going and waited until he thought we were away from the car,” I suggested.

  He considered my words. “That’s one theory,” he agreed, “but he also could have been watching us from a distance, some place high up with a good pair of binoculars.”

  “So, the real question is: How did he know we were coming out here tonight?” I said.

  Chase frowned. “I just assumed it had something to do with that damned chessboard.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but we’ve been super careful not to say anything in front of it.”

  “But you told Tori we were coming out here, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but we were downstairs in the lair. Chase, there’s really only one place that you and I talked about the waterfall, and that was at Pete’s over lunch.”

  Paling visibly, Chase said, “That could mean the killer was right there in the pizza place with us.”

  He knew where I was going with my line of thinking; he just didn’t want to come with me.

  “No one was sitting near us,” I said. “The only person we talked to or who came near us was Pete.”

  Chase shook his head. “There’s no way Pete is on our list of possibles,” he said. “He’s not Fae, and he’s not a shifter.”

  “But he was preoccupied texting someone as we were leaving the restaurant,” I pointed out.

  “That could be just a coincidence,” Chase said. “I’ve known Pete for years. He’s a good guy.”

  By this time, Chase was guiding the car through the town square. I decided to drop the subject, but that didn’t stop me from looking across the courthouse lawn toward the pizzeria and wondering.

  Chase wanted a more definitive answer. “You think so, too, right?” he pressed. “About Pete?”

  “Hmm?” I said absently, snapping out of my reveries. “Yeah, of course, Pete’s a good guy.”

  There’s just one problem. Magic can do bad things to good guys.

  Chase parked the Prius in the alley, and we walked into a dimly lit, deserted first floor.

  I looked at Chase and shrugged. He pointed toward the basement door and raised his eyebrows. I nodded but held u
p my hand indicating we should wait a minute. I stepped closer toward the seating area and strained to look at the chessboard. All the pieces sat in proper order. I glanced at my watch and made a mental note of the time, 10:30.

  Nodding at Chase, I opened the door to the basement and started down. He almost careened into me when I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Twelve people and a rat sat grouped around the fire waiting for us.

  Tori, Beau, Festus, Myrtle, Moira, Barnaby, Aunt Fiona, Mom, Gemma, Merle, Earl, Furl, and Rodney formed a loose circle.

  “This,” Chase muttered, “can not be good.”

  As we negotiated the last few steps, I mentally agreed with him.

  The only member of the magical family not present was our fellow witch, Amity Prescott. She was out of town at an art dealer’s convention in Atlanta. We did, however, have a congregation of three alchemists, five werecats, one corporeal ghost, three witches, the aos si, a brownie, and a super smart rodent.

  Festus lounged on the hearth as his usual ginger cat self, but the three young men sitting with him could only be the triplets. I'd know those jovial, round faces and bright eyes with or without the striped fur and curled ears.

  As I held my hand out to the first of them, I said questioningly, “Hello. . . ?”

  “Earl,” he answered, taking my hand and giving it a bouncy shake.

  I made a mental note: Earl - cowlick.

  Merle was next. Nerdy glasses.

  And finally, Furl. Star Wars wristwatch.

  After the introductions had been completed, I hugged Mom and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “Myrtle sent a message to both Gemma and me asking us to come over tonight.”

  Clearly this was some sort of summit conference, which likely meant things were even worse than we thought.

  Chase claimed a chair near the hearth as if unconsciously seeking werecat solidarity with Festus and the triplets. I took the last remaining seat between Beau and my mother. No sooner had I settled down than Rodney hopped over Beau’s lap, hit my forearm, and ran up to position himself on my shoulder.