“You lost me,” I admitted, wincing as the music tore up my soul some more.
“It was a distress call to communicate to my allies.”
Britt scoffed. “Oh, right, your allies all over the woods? Come on, we both know you were just posturing.”
“I really do have allies,” Max snapped. “But they’ve gone to roost already. It’s the crows, the corvid shifters who live in this park. Some of them are ordinary people by day, others stay in crow form nearly all the time and are pretty wild. They’re the ones who found me and Kade when we were abandoned in these woods as babies. Some wanted to eat us, but the others persuaded them to wait . . . after a while they all considered us family. But crows move their roosts around and I’ve been so busy with all this investigation stuff that I haven’t kept up with where the roost is.”
I opened my mouth to tell her it was ok, that my priorities had also gotten out of whack during this whole investigation thing, but the music was cutting me up like a magical machete and all that came out was a yelp of rage.
Britt and Max exchanged a look of concern.
“If even Hazel’s feeling it, you and me are probably going to throw down soon,” Max deduced. “Nice knowing you both . . . well, Hazel anyway.”
“Ha, so you admit that you’d lose a fight with me,” Britt said.
“Without my allies yes.” She let out another series of distress yelps, and her horrible sounds did me the service of shutting out the music for long enough to let me think.
“Look, maybe we can’t work out all of the tension between us,” I ventured. “But at least the stuff from high school. It’s old and festering. We never talk about it, because it hurts . . . even after all these years . . . at least for me it does.”
“For me too,” Max looked down.
Britt shrugged. “I was a little freaked out that night but whatever.”
“No, not whatever.” I wasn’t going to let her Britt her way out of feeling stuff. My life—all our lives—depended on it. “You were traumatized the first time you ever saw magic. Yes, traumatized. Look, I’m afraid of tons of things that the two of you scoff at. But I’m not afraid of feelings.”
Max covered her eyes and moaned. “Augh, you sound like that sap Elton. I wanna kill him, too.”
“Elton’s not a bad guy. He just had Seasonal Affective Disorder and, ok, maybe he needed a therapist—a good one,” I added quickly before they went to the obvious zinger about my ex. “Bryson was a bad therapist, because he never helped people get their feelings out. He just fed off their energy, made them feel calm and relaxed. But they never got better at understanding themselves or their relationships. If we can do that, then this song won’t have any power over us.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Hazel, but your voice is grating on me like a mosquito in my ear,” Max said. “It would be fun to crush you. No offense.”
“Yeah, well, if we’re confessing what we want to do to Hazel,” Britt said. “I really want to take a bite of you and just fill up the tank. Drain you.”
“Not if I stake you first.” Max snapped a large twig off a nearby tree branch.
“No staking, no draining, just talking,” I insisted, and they both hit me with homicidal glares. Which I ignored. Because this was my moment. “Grad night was supposed to be fun, for everyone,” I began, speaking as quickly as I could. “It was like prom for those of us who couldn’t get a date to save our lives. It was like friend prom, where you stayed up all night with your besties and partied for the last time ever as classmates.”
“Oh, weird,” Britt interrupted. “From my perspective it was just another opportunity to get dressed up, look hot, party with my friends, and make out with fine guys. You know, like any Friday night. But on the school’s dime.”
“Ok, but I’m just saying for me it was special.” I shrugged. “Max and I were right in the middle of the crowd for once in our lives, fast dancing to some silly song, having the time of our lives. We stopped to grab some punch and before you know it a slow song came on, a really romantic one. This one.”
“No, no, I’m not hearing a slow song at all!” Britt said.
“Me either.” Max looked impressed. “This magical tech is really sophisticated. We’re each hearing totally different things.”
“Well, I’m hearing the romantic slow song and it hurts. Because I remember what happened when this song came on. A boy asked me to dance for the first time in my life. It was Elliot, and I’m sure he was only asking out of politeness. But I knew I should say no because he was . . . you know . . . Max’s.”
“What?” Max began to laugh. “That’s what you were thinking?”
“Of course. But you insisted I dance with him, and it was nice, ok? He was a little shy back then. But he was a really good dancer. I liked the way he held me, and he smelled so amazing. Then midway through the song I looked up and saw that you’d ditched me.” I was getting angrier and angrier just thinking about it. So much for talking things out. “You. Ditched. Me. All because I dared to shine for a moment. I dared to dance with the boy you liked.” I shoved Max hard, and she was caught off guard and stumbled back.
“Whoa . . . Hazel . . . is that what you’ve been thinking all these years?” Max sighed. “I guess I better tell my side of the story before you kill me. So, one minute I was dancing with a cup of punch in my hand. The next minute I was trapped in an extra large dog crate behind the school. Ashlee Stone was peering in through the bars, like I was her own private zoo animal.”
“Whoa.”
“What? Ashlee roofied you?”
“I was so panicked, I banged my head against the walls of the kennel trying to escape. But every time I did that she’d squirt bear spray in my eyes. It hurt so much I kept screaming. Then she’d say my name and laugh. She knew exactly who I was. She was torturing me on purpose. I think she’d been planning it for months.”
“Ashlee knew you were a shifter?”
Max nodded. “She’d seen my brother shift, one time, behind the school—he had even less control over it than I did—and put two and two together that I was one, too.”Then she said she would tell our parents unless I did everything she told me, she would basically destroy the peace in my family. So I shifted back and told her, sure, I’d do whatever.”
“Ugh. You did?”
“I had to. Was afraid if I didn’t she’d never open the door and let me out. I could hear the music from the gym, a fast tempo that felt like it matched my own panicking heart. I can hear that stupid song playing now.” She balled her hands into fists, then seemed to catch herself and released them. “I shifted back to human form and groveled to Ashlee—a memory that still makes me want to barf to this day. Anyway, I really sold it. Much as I detest lying, I’m good at it. She opened the door with a big smile . . . then I shifted again and jumped on her throat.”
“Holy goodness. You could have killed her.” Just picturing the scene made me want to faint.
“Don’t actually remember what happened after that. I woke up in the woods three days later.”
“Oh I can tell you what happened,” Britt said. “I was coming outside for a drink and a smoke—back then I smoked to keep my weight down from the drinking—when I saw a wild animal go for Ashlee’s throat. I tore off the paper bag off my bottle of booze and started beating the animal on the head with the glass bottle. To save my friend. And also because I had a lot of aggression in me back then. Anyway, it ran off towards the woods.”
“Oh that was you who caused the big bump on my head?” Max looked pissed off again.
“You’re welcome, I kept you from being a teenage murderess. And imagine how I felt seeing a freaking wildcat attack my friend!”
“Your friend was a jerk,” Max growled. “Honestly, of all the bad things Estelle did, killing Ashlee was the least offensive. I mean, what else can you do with a compulsive blackmailer?”
“Be that as it may,” Britt said, fangs out, “you can’t just go around killing people. If
you could, my meals would be a lot more satisfying. Anyway, we were all jerks in high school.”
“Speak for yourself,” I cut in. “After Max ditched me, I didn’t lunge for any throats or try to brain anyone. I just sat there and cried my eyes out.”
“Oh Hazel, blech.” Britt mimed shoving her finger down her own throat. “Face it, you were a sniveling wimp in those days, which is just another form of jerk if you ask me. And anyhow you did not just cry. You also erupted into magical green flames in front of the punch bowl.”
“Uh, what?” Max blinked. “Why would you do that, Hazel?”
“I wasn’t trying to. You disappeared, remember? And I thought it was my fault for dancing with Elliot. So I did a simple reunion spell to locate you. But since I was just a little baby apprentice witch, I didn’t realize those only work if the subject is seeking reunion with the spellcaster. Or thinking about them at all, in any way. I tried the spell over and over but since Max apparently had zero thoughts about me—”
“Are you really still mad at me, knowing the truth?” Max shook her head in disgust. “Knowing I was either screaming my eyes out from bear spray or running through the woods with a concussion.”
“Regardless of your reasons for not being there for me,” I said huffily, “all the energy from my spell boomeranged back in my face. It hurt, too. It could have killed me.”
“But then,” Britt remembered, a thousand-yard stare in her eyes. “Then you yelled some crazy rhyme and the flames were doused. I think the bad rhyming traumatized me, more than the burning to be honest. I may have called you some things, in the heat of the moment . . . ”
“A freak, a psycho, evil witch.” I recited ten more things that were R-rated.
“But for me the worst moment came afterward,” Britt admitted. “When I gave Ashlee a ride home at the end of the night, she showed me Max’s clothes and tried to convince me she’d left them behind when she turned into an animal, the animal that attacked her. Normally I’d just think Ash was drunk. Which she was. But after what I’d just seen Hazel do, it actually seemed plausible. To my last day, which could be today, I’ll never forget how I felt that night. I remember looking up at the moon from my convertible and thinking that our town, Blue Moon Bay, was chock full of magic . . . and I had no magic in me at all.” Britt looked forlorn, like a lost kid. “And this stupid song was playing on the radio, kind of a midtempo new jack swing revival thing—”
“Wait, you felt left out?” I said. “You, Britt, the queen of the school?”
Britt nodded sadly. “I think that’s why I flirted with my sire so soon afterward. I sensed pretty quickly what he was and I was hoping he would turn me. So I would be special too, like you guys.” Britt sighed. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry I was friends with people who tortured you with bear spray. I’m sorry that I kind of tortured you, too.”
“That’s really big of you to admit, Brittany. And Hazel, I’m sorry I never caught up with you and explained what happened, sorry I just ghosted on you. Once I was convinced it was all finally behind me, I just wanted to move on . . . and I wanted to forget everything about high school. Even you. I’m truly sorry about that.”
“Thanks for saying all that,” I said, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “As for me, I’m sorry I didn’t take either one of you seriously when you warned me not to settle for Bryson. I thought you were both bitter singles, so I discounted your perspective.”
“Oh, I may be single but I’m not bitter,” said Britt. “Girl, I play the field. Let me be your teacher.”
“And I may be bitter,” Max said, “but I’m not single. More on that once we break out of here. Hey, did anybody notice that the music just stopped?”
Max and I had just removed the silver chain bracelets from Britt’s wrists—they left behind a nasty black burn line—when we heard a golf clap ring out.
“Nice job girls.” Estelle was back, standing right outside David’s Porsche. “I guess you were all more emotionally well-adjusted than I gave you credit for.” She turned to David. “Well, it’s riskier and messier than plan A but I think we need to do it.”
From her powder-blue REI rainproof puffer jacket, she pulled out a pistol.
Screaming, I ducked behind the nearest spruce tree. Max shifted to cat form and began her pointless yelping thing again.
Luckily, Britt moved to knock it the gun of Estelle’s hand, but David shoved her before she could. Estelle fired once, shooting her in the chest.
I knew a bullet couldn’t do more than slow the vampire down for a moment, but while the hole in her chest was closing up David managed to slap a silver bracelet on her again.
Now we were screwed.
Over and over again, the bobcat that was Max yelped, a terrible wailing animal sound. Suddenly from the air above us, a responding caw rang out. Then another, and another. An angry chorus filled my ears, and I looked up to see that the sky was filled with black shapes mobbing the moon overhead. Swarming like angry bees, straight for us.
“The crows!” Britt yelled with relief, and some surprise. “They’re really here. She wasn’t making it up about the crows being her friends. Well, I’ll be damned.”
The whole roost must have picked up and headed here.
The whole murder of them swooped down, surrounding David and Estelle, pushing them to the ground.
“Ew, they’re going to peck their eyes out,” Britt muttered. “You might want to look away, Hazel. You don’t seem like you could deal with seeing that.”
“Thanks, yeah. There’s not enough therapy in the world.”
Before the crows could do anything gross, though, Elliot’s squad car zoomed up, lights flashing. He and another cop jumped out, guns pointed at Estelle’s head. David immediately put his hands up.
“Stop, sisters and brothers,” Elliot commanded, and the force of crows reshaped itself to surround him like a dark, feathered mantle. He handcuffed David first, then Estelle. “No one hurts our little sister,” he said sternly to the pair.
The crows cawed in angry agreement.
“Oh what, seriously? How could you crows call this cat sister?” David spat. “That’s not the natural order of things.”
“Yeah, well, nature’s overrated,” Elliot said, calmly setting a large blanket on the ground in front of the bobcat, who shifted back into Max and wrapped herself up cozily. “If you don’t agree, feel free to stay here and have your eyes pecked out.”
Strangely, neither took him up on the offer.
“I told you I had allies in the woods,” Max said, dreamily, snuggling into her blanket while Elliot led the two criminals to the back of his squad car.
“Thanks, bro.” She kissed Elliot on the cheek.
“Anytime, little sister.”
So Elliot’s interest in Max throughout high school and after had never been romantic? They were family, of a sort.
Elliot tossed a glance of concern at me and Britt. “Do they know?”
“Yes, they know everything, but it’s ok,” she assured him. “They’re my friends.” She glanced at Britt, who looked as if she was really wanting to argue that point. I sort of did myself. Yes, we were friends while solving this mystery. But what would happen now? “For the moment, anyway,” Max amended.
“Either way, your secret’s safe with us,” I said.
A second squad car pulled up behind him. “My buddies’ll give you each a ride home,” Elliot said. “Unless you want to take Hazel’s car?”
I shuddered. “No thanks! My car died. I mean, she’s really dead.” Poor Trixie. We’d never really meshed the way a witch and familiar should. Yet if I ever got another, I vowed I wouldn’t take them for granted the way I had her. Really hoping for a cat this time.
“Um, Hazel . . . ?” Elliot was staring at my feet.
“What?” I shrieked. “Did I catch a stray bullet? Am I bleeding?”
“No, nothing bad.” It was dark but with all the flashing lights, I could tell he was blushing a little. “I . . . was jus
t going to say I like your socks. Looks like the alligators are chomping on your ankles. Those are cool.” He shrugged. “See you around.”
“See you around.”
Chapter 19
The town of Blue Moon Bay was not exactly rocked to its core by the murder of Ashlee Kensington.
Most people who knew her hadn’t much liked her.
She had a fetish for blackmail, and was a shallow, scheming, mean and generally unpleasant person. The type that after age twenty-four or so becomes officially “not cute” and “tired” as Britt would put it.
Still, we were a town that loved its traditions. The Kensingtons were among our founding pillars. And as unsettling as it was to have the peace disturbed by a dead woman’s thousand-dollar shoes pointing toward the cloudy night sky, I worried that the arrests—especially Estelle’s—might shake people’s faith more than the murder itself.
How would Blue Moon Bay recover from seeing a much-admired leader of the community brought low?
“Mornin’, Hazel.” Margaret waved her copy of the Blue Moon Bay Gazette toward me. As usual this morning, she and Helen were the first ones in at 7 AM on the dot. “You hear the news,” she crowed, “about that awful Kensington woman being indicted for offing her own daughter-in-law?”
“All I can say is, thank goodness our sheriff caught that hussy,” Helen yelled at her companion. “Thought she could pull one over on Bill Gantry, but nothing gets by that man. He’s got Columbo beat for smarts.”
I gritted my teeth as I served up their twice-baked chocolate almond croissants.
Predictably, Gantry had stepped up to accept full credit for cracking the mystery and nabbing the bad guys. To my immense disappointment, Elliot strongly counseled us to let him. He swore he was close to collecting the proof he’d need to oust Gantry—hopefully for good. But in the meantime, it was hard to keep mum about the truth while Gantry strutted around like he was the town hero.
As if on cue, Sheriff Gantry walked in, with Elliot at his side. The police were among the first to come back to our bakery when Java Kitty abruptly closed its doors on Thanksgiving night. Granted, they needed coffee early in the morning. But I told myself it was more than that. They missed us. We were, ourselves, a Blue Moon Bay tradition, and unlike Estelle Kensington we hadn’t overplayed our hand.
Fangs and Frenemies Page 21