by Renee George
Driver stopped cold, his fingers clenching on the door handle. He hopped down the three steps to the ground, dust kicking up around his heels. He closed the distance between us fast enough to startle me. “What do you know about the Arete?”
The Arete? So it was a group. “Only the name.”
Relief eased the tension in his eyes. “If you were smart, you’d keep it that way.” He walked back up the steps. “Good day, Ms. Kinsey.” He stepped inside the trailer and closed the door behind him.
I shook my head. Driver hadn’t ordered me off is property, so I took it as permission to look around. The rows of cars set back farther than I’d first thought, and the junkyard reminded me of the Tardis, smaller looking on the outside and larger on the inside. I don’t know what I thought I would find.
My magic wasn’t all that strong, and with Danny gone for four months, I didn’t know if it would do me any good, but I tried my hand at a location spell.
“What I seek is what I find.
Danny Mason on my mind.
Hot or cold, let me see.
Trace Danny, so mote it be.”
My hands began to glow a bright blue, which meant, I was cold. I held them out in front of me, surprised I’d managed the magic, and walked down one of the lanes. Blue still.
When I got the end, I cut around the back stack of cars and began walking up the next lane. The blue didn’t change. It remained the same for every row I passed through.
Useless, I thought, and started back to my car, but when I crossed the open lot, my hands began to burn. I looked down at them. Bright orange.
I was hot now. I resisted the urge to celebrate the minor victory. Instead, I followed my magic flames directly to the large barn behind the office. The interior was dark, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The car up on the hydraulic lift was a beat up old Chevy muscle car. Tires, hubcaps, side panels, bumps, and a variety of grills filled the large space. The walls featured shelves of carburetors, hoses, distributors, and other small car pieces. Basically, what I’d expect to see in a junkyard garage. There were tool boxes, an acetylene torch setup with a mask, and lots of other equipment I couldn’t name. An air compressor kicked in, and I stumbled in surprise.
My flaming hands were turning red now. Super hot. Danny had been here. A lot. I walked around the backside of the Chevy. It had a squared off end, and the model was a Chevelle. Could it be Danny’s “Sweet Beast”? The one his girlfriend Lisa had mentioned? The doors were off, but it was too high up for me to easily get inside. I would have tried levitating, but the last time I cast that particular spell, I’d ended up on the ceiling of my high school gym, and it had taken two hours to chant myself down. Talk about humiliating.
When Clayton Driver didn’t show up to boot me out, I decided to press my luck. The panel for the lift had two buttons. Up and down. Efficient.
I pushed the down. The level of screeching as the car lowered was jarring.
“Crap!” I hit the up button. The car reversed but the noise the lift made got even louder. “Noooo,” I whined quietly.
I hit the down button again. Where the hell was the off switch? I cowered behind a trash barrel near the welder as I waited to be caught. No one came through the doors. The noise stopped when the car reached the ground.
I breathed a sigh of relief and came out of hiding. The interior wasn’t nearly as rough as the exterior. It had a manual transmission. An eight-ball, fairly cliché, had been drilled and set as the shifter knob. The seats were worn leather, old and a little stretched, but not cracked or torn. A shiny object hanging from the rearview mirror caught my eye.
It was a flower charm and a glass prism hanging from a silver chain. Not just any flower. It was a lily, and it was the same charm Lily used to wear around her neck when we were teenagers. This had to be Danny’s fixer-upper. I opened the glove box. Fast food napkins, ibuprofen, motion sickness medicine, and lip balm littered the small cubby.
Shifters could get hurt, Danny and Boyd were proof they weren’t indestructible, but I’d never in my life known a Shifter to get a headache, let alone motion sickness. His girlfriend was a wereraccoon, so who else had Danny been spending time with? A human or a witch?
I put my hand on the dash and felt a rough patch. A closer look revealed a barely scratched in capital H, just like the one I’d seen on Boyd’s dresser. Who was this mysterious H? I snapped a quick picture with my phone then reached up to check the visor. At that moment, an arm stretched around me, and a ginormous hand clamped over my mouth.
I screamed, but it sounded more like a muffled grunt. My arms were held tight to my sides, but I swung my fingers backed and zapped my assailant, releasing the aroma of roasted cinnamon in the air.
“Ouch, crap.” Ford Baylor’s low baritone made my heart skitter. “Shhh.” He added. “Someone is coming.”
I nodded, and Ford lifted his hand from my face.
“What the hell, Ford!” I whispered harshly.
He glared at me and put his finger to his lips then pointed to the door. “Move,” he mouthed.
I slid out of the car, Ford’s large body moving after me with a lot more grace than I thought possible with his frame. He directed me to where some four-foot by eight-foot sheets of plywood rested against the back wall. We crawled behind just as the door to the building opened wide.
Maniacally, I had to suppress the urge to giggle as his breath ghosted my neck from behind. Goddess, when it came to this guy, I was in seriously deep bear doo-doo.
“Why is this car down?” I heard Clayton Driver say. “I swear to Goddess, Frank. I told you to leave the Chevelle alone.”
Frank? Was it Frank the jealous beaver from the night before?
“It was up when I last saw it,” Frank said. I recognized his voice. It was definitely the Frank who’d tried to beat Tiz with his tail.
The smell of snickerdoodles made it hard to concentrate on the words. I turned to look at Ford, my lips thin with irritation. He stared back at me, and my stomach quivered. His lip curled into a sexy-ass snarl as his light blue eyes undressed me…or at least that’s the way I saw it.
I was going to tell him to kiss off, but instead, my throat stopped working at the same time as my good sense. I leaned my face to his, our lips centimeters from touching, and he…sharply diverted his head away, and my lips brushed his stubbled jaw.
What. The. Hell? I mean, what the hell was I thinking? We were hiding from potential bad guys, and I was trying to live out my school girl fantasy with the popular quarterback.
At that point, I missed anything else said, because it was hard to hear over the beating my brain gave my libido. The sliding door to the building closed, and Ford crawled out first. He stood up, his fingers flexing and clenching as he rapidly paced in front of me.
“What?” I said, keeping my voice down. “I’m sorry.”
He stopped in his tracks and turned his gaze on me. “There’s an opening in the siding over there.” He pointed to the north wall. “That’s where I came in.”
“Why are you here at the junkyard?” I asked. “Are you following me?”
“You accused us of dropping the ball on Danny’s murder. And now with Boyd Decker’s death, I agree with you. It wasn’t my case, but I knew Mitchell wasn’t doing everything he could.” Surprisingly, he grabbed my hand, and the intensity in his eyes made my knees weak.
“I get that,” I said. “But why are you here?”
He shook his head. “Why did you come back here, Haze?”
“You asked me that already, and I told you. I came to bring Danny’s killer to justice.”
“Is that all?”
“We should skedaddle while the skeddadling is good,” I said.
“Is that your professional opinion or are you just avoiding the bear in the room?”
I knew this conversation was leading back to him saying we were mates. While I’m sure he believed it, I didn’t. “Driver could come back at any minute.”
He grabbed
me by the arms and lifted me up until my toes barely touched the ground, and then…he kissed me. Just a quick brush. Nothing more.
When he set me back down, I couldn’t feel my feet, and I think my brain had short circuited as well. I froze in place because all I knew if I tried to move I’d end up jumping up on Mt. Baylor and scaling him until the air was too thin to breathe.
He lowered her face to mine, his fingers curling under my chin, and said in the sexiest-motherlovin’-pantymelting-lustinducing way, “Don’t kid yourself, woman. Danny isn’t the only reason you came back.”
I would have protested, but my tongue refused to do anything but wag.
“For years I’ve been a man half alive…until I saw you yesterday, Haze. I can’t go back to that. I can’t go back to being someone who doesn’t care whether a murderer is caught or not.” Just as suddenly, he let me go. “My truck is parked about a mile down the road. You go out into the yard and come up one of the rows. I live at 216 Harmony Street. Do you need directions?”
I found my voice, finally. “I have GPS,” I rasped.
The corner of his mouth tugged up. “We’ll meet up in an hour.”
“You want me to come to your house?”
“The chief has given us all direct orders to appear cooperative without cooperating. I want to help you, Haze, but not at the expense of my job.”
“Can you make it three hours?” I had the meeting with Adele Adams and the coalition, and after that, I wanted to touch base with Lily.”
“Fine.” He nodded. “See you in three.”
He nodded once then ducked down to slide out the side of the building.
When he was out of sight, I let out a stuttering breath and a quiet sob. Goddess, that man made every part of me want to touch every part of him. It was unnatural. When the cinnamon scent faded, I followed out the hole in the wall and made my way into the junkyard.
Chapter Nine
THE WITCH-SHIFTER COALITION office was down on Heavenly next to the DMV. I spent the entire drive settling down my protesting lady parts and trying to get the feeling back in my lips. Damn, that Ford Baylor had really done a number on me. Again. If it weren’t for Lily, I might have packed up my squirrel and got the hell out of Paradise. I didn’t have time for romantic complications. Especially from a tall, grumpy, and furry werebear. Why did I let him kiss me? Even worse, I’d tried to kiss him first, and he cheeked me. It wasn’t the first time I’d been kissed, and it hadn’t even been the most passionate, even so, it had rocked the very foundation of my world.
My alarm on my phone beeped. Shoot. I was missing my appointment. I cracked the windows of the car to vent the afternoon heat and went inside.
The coalition was housed in a historical brick two story building with lead glass windows, and large, wooden double doors. Adele Adams, a tall leggy blonde with big, blue eyes that made her look doll-like, greeted me at the front desk. She wore a tightly fitted A-line dress with a deep vee in the front that showed off her buoyant breasts.
“You’re late, Agent Kinsey. I expected you to be here by noon.” She tapped her watch. “I agreed, as a favor to Carol, to meet with you. At the very least, you could be on time.”
The way she said “Carol” made me think she was trying a little too hard to prove she had a personal relationship with Baba Yaga. From what I could gather through the witch-vine, Adele was nearly two-hundred years old and took great pride in her youthful appearance, which meant her magic probably packed a punch.
“Hi, Mrs. Adams.” I tried to look appropriately contrite. “I’m sorry I’m late. Will any other members of the coalition be joining us?”
Her blue eyes darkened, and her expression grew suddenly intense. She lowered her gaze to mine and held my stare. “All of them.”
I shivered. “Uhm, great. I’m ready to start when you are.”
She frowned as if disappointed. “Follow me.” With a flick of her hand toward a door behind the desk, she turned on her four-inch heels and headed in that direction.
The backroom reminded me of the temple rooms of the Freemasons or the Illuminati. Hey, when you don’t date, Discovery Channel quickly becomes a stimulating evening. Six ornately carved high-back chairs lined a stage-like area. Four people, two women and two men sat in the four chairs on the right. The two on the left were empty. I recognized the man in the third chair, Dirk Nichols, the friendly neighborhood chief of police.
Behind the chairs was a red curtain. With dramatic flair, a man stepped out of the shadows to reveal himself. My stomach instantly felt leaden. “Dad?”
“Hazel, sweetheart.” The handsome warlock took the second chair. His tailored suit fit him impeccably, but I knew, his affability, much like his expensive clothes, was all window dressing.
I grimaced. “When did you get out of jail?”
“Six months ago,” he said. “I tried to contact you.”
“I didn’t get the memo.” Outwardly, I affected indifference. But inside, anger clawed at me, a hungry dragon desperate to escape, but this wasn’t the time or the place to have a showdown with Kent Kinsey. I took in the other four players in the room. If I focused on my purpose, Danny’s murder, I thought I stood a chance of getting out of here without going into a patricidal rage.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m here with permission from Baba Yaga to investigate the suspicious death of Daniel Mason.” I pulled out the white card, though no one seemed interested.
“Yes, yes,” Adele said. “We are all aware that you are here with Carol’s blessing. Get on with your questions.”
I pulled my smartphone out of my purse and slid out the stylus. “My notes,” I explained when my action drew curious stares. “I have an app…” Almost as a group, they blinked. I shook my head. “Never mind. So, the coalition is made up of one witch, Adele Adams, two warlocks, the Chief and Kent Kinsey.” My mouth tasted bitter as I said his name. “And the three of you are?”
A woman, curvy with a bounty of strawberry blonde hair, said, “Mary Lowe, Matriarch for the Felidae.” Which meant she was the big momma to large cat Shifters, like Lily and Clayton Driver.
“Robert Townsend.” I recognized him from the station. “Nice to see you again, Agent Kinsey.” His black hair and a salt and pepper beard spoke up next. “You already know I am the leader of the paullulum mammalia. I, myself, am raton.” Which I knew was a fancy word for raccoon. He really had a thing for dressing up the simple.
“What Bob means is he represents the interests of badgers, chipmunks, and raccoons in town,” Mary said.
“The non-predators,” Chief Nichols said.
My father chuckled. “They’re half-human, Dirk. That means they are all predators. No matter the size.”
I rolled my eyes and refused to make eye contact. “And you are,” I said to a large man, at least six-foot-six with dark hair and gray eyes. He stepped toward me with his hand out. “I’m Bryant Baylor, Arcturus, alpha for the bear Shifters in Paradise Falls.”
Gulping, I shook his hand. His palm practically swallowed my hand to the wrist. This was Ford’s dad. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
Goddess help me. What were the chances that my father and Ford’s father were both in the coalition? It seemed astronomically impossible, but here they were.
“We should get down to business.” Some of the hardwood planks in the floor squeaked as I walked across the room. In front of the highback chairs, was a rectangular desk. The top reached my hips. I set my phone down and looked at Adele. “If there are a couple of small chairs, we can do the interviews right here.”
She nodded. Mary and my father retrieved two metal folding chairs. The desk was hand carved. The essence of the wood felt old under my fingertips. I placed my palms on the surface, and the space between my hand the wood began to glow with a white current. I lift my hands. The current died. “What is this thing made of?”
“It’s a combination of birch elm, elder wood, and interestingly, hazel wood,” my father said.
There was
an old leather-bound book in the center of the desk that was at least twelve inches wide by eighteen inches long and as thick as Dick Knuckles head with an unusual fractal symbol tooled into the cover. Next to it was an all-white athame, a traditional double sided blade used by witches and warlocks. I’d never seen one quite like it. I picked it up. It was cold to the touch and amazingly light. Symbols had been carved into the blade and handle, but I’d never been much good with rune work or the Theban alphabet, so I couldn’t tell what they meant. The wood in the desk was alive with energy. It made me wonder why the blade felt dead.
I slid my finger over the tip. It was dull. “Huh.”
Someone took the ornamental knife from me with one quick snatch. I looked up and blinked as Adele Adams put it back on the desk near the book.
“Please don’t handle the artifacts in this room,” Adele said with a tight-lipped smile. “We keep various historical pieces that originate from both sides of our community in here. They are for looking, not touching.”
I didn’t really believe the coalition was hiding things from me, but this seemed like a group with secrets so I quietly spelled.
“What is it that I must not see?
Second sight, so mote it be.”
The entire room began to glow with the exceptions of Mary Lowe and the red curtain. Hmm. I hadn’t been thinking of anything specific when I murmured the spell, so the only thing this told me for certain was that the cat Shifter was the only one with nothing to hide. Intersecting. I casually scanned the room until I landed on Adele, her eyes wide. “What did you do?”
My damn. Usually, I was the only one who could see the result of the location spell. I reminded myself this witch was two centuries old and raised my hands. “Whoops. Sorry.”
“What happened?” Nichol’s asked.
Adele ignored him. “How did you do that?”
I ignored the jerk as well. “It’s a simple reveal spell.” And much like her ta-tas, there was much to expose here at the coalition.
She narrowed her gaze on me. The glow in the room disappeared. Adele’s voice took on an ominous quality, and I could feel the power she shoved into her words. “There is nothing simple about a reveal spell, child.”