Hexes & Hot Chocolate (A Stella Storm Cozy Witch Mystery Book 3)

by Amy Casey

  I floated through the door, keeping present, keeping focused.

  And when I arrived inside the police station, what I saw wasn’t entirely what I expected.

  It was empty in here. Quiet. Just a large, dark room with smooth blue-ish walls.

  There was nobody around. No chairs. Nothing like that.

  I grunted. Weird. But I couldn’t let it hold me back.

  I kept on floating across the room, over towards the wall at the other side.

  And when I reached the wall, I felt it again.

  That forcefield.

  Only this time, it was stronger. And it was pushing against my weightless form.

  I concentrated harder. I couldn’t let a mere forcefield defeat me.

  So I pushed harder.

  But as I pushed, something else happened.

  I felt a strange heaviness filling my feet, my legs, and then my torso.

  I tried to shake free of it, but I was stuck. I couldn’t move. And it wasn’t long before I was dangling there, totally paralysed.

  My invisibility held for a few seconds.

  My weightlessness held for a few seconds.

  But then I dropped out of the air, fully formed, and landed on the spongy form of this room.

  When I looked up, I saw a hidden door slide open and a group of what I could only assume were magical enforcers racing through, wands in hand.

  “Intruder alert!” one of them said.

  But it was the man leading the way that caught my attention, as I lay there on the floor in a paralysed heap.

  It was Sheriff Butcher.

  He looked at me, disappointment in his eyes.

  And I felt myself peeing a little, all over again.

  Chapter 21

  So ending up in a cell in Nightthistle’s high-security police station and prison wasn’t exactly how I pictured my break-in playing out.

  But hell. It was my own fault for being foolish enough to assume there wouldn’t be some kind of magical boundaries or whatever signalling my break-in.

  I suppose naivety was still my weak point when it came to a town filled with witches and werewolves. But I’m sure that can be forgiven, especially when it’s so bat-shit crazy it’s beyond belief.

  Sitting opposite me, and not looking all that happy about the turn of events, was Sheriff Butcher. He hadn’t looked impressed when he’d caught me in that room I’d broken into, which I’d learned was just a trap to catch people trying to break in and out. My stupidity in that situation baffled me. I mean, the prison cells had people who used magic. Of course there had to be extra measures in place.

  But hey. Put it down to the learning process.

  At least that’s what I had to keep telling myself in order to feel like less of an idiot.

  “So,” Sheriff Butcher said, as he leafed through a rather large looking book. “I wish I didn’t have to do this, Stella, but I’m afraid—”

  “Procedure is procedure,” I said. “I get it.”

  “You were trying to break into the station. I can’t just allow that sort of behaviour to go down without some kind of punishment.”

  “Throw me in the trenches, then. Do whatever you have to do.”

  “Um, actually, I was just thinking of giving you a verbal warning. But if you’d like to go to the trenches, I’d be happy to arrange that for you.”

  I frowned. “No. No, the… the verbal warning will be fine. Verbal warning duly noted. Thanks.”

  “Well, I haven’t given it to you yet. I might shout very loudly, for all you know. Burst your eardrums.”

  I gulped. “Please don’t burst my eardrums. I like my eardrums.”

  Sheriff Butcher shook his head and smirked. “Don’t worry. I think we have an understanding here.”

  He leaned and spun the book around. And on it, I saw something remarkable.

  There were moving images. Moving images of me turning invisible then trying to sneak inside the station.

  “Wow. This is… this is remarkable. Is it some kind of magic?”

  “This? Oh no. There’s just a tablet computer fitted inside the book. Looks cool though, right?”

  I frowned. Nightthistle was full of surprises.

  “See, here’s the thing,” Sheriff Butcher said. “I have to warn you not to involve yourself in the case, as reluctant as I am to do so.”

  “Then why did you have me search the crime scene?”

  “Because, as you know, that’s procedure. It’s protocol. If the police don’t find anything untoward, the family are given an opportunity to.”

  “And did I find anything untoward?”

  Sheriff Butcher smiled. “Actually, yes. You did.”

  He pulled out an evidence bag. When I say “pulled out” I mean he lifted it using what I could only describe as telekinesis from the other side of the room.

  He placed it on the table in front of me.

  “Recognise this?” he said.

  I nodded. “The fur. The fur I found in the urinal where Curtis was killed.”

  “The very same,” Sheriff Butcher said. “And not just that.”

  He floated another patch of fur over to the table.

  “This is fur from Bertie.”

  “And?”

  “The DNA is a match.”

  I felt a wave of adrenaline hit me. “So he’s our guy?”

  “It’s looking very much that way. The fur is good evidence in itself. But then there’s a margin for error. After all, Bertie regularly visited the bar Curtis was at. He could easily have gone down into the bathroom, taken a leak, leaving his DNA all over the show.”

  He stopped. His mouth twitched.

  “I’m sensing a ‘but’ here,” I said.

  “You’d be right to,” he said. “Have you met any Syts on your stay here yet, Stella?”

  “Syts? What’re they?”

  “They make up a small demographic of the Nightthistle population. Their kind came over here approximately fifty years ago and settled. All female, but able to reproduce just fine. But do you know why the Syts are special, Stella?”

  “I’m guessing they don’t just have good eyesight.”

  “They can see events that happened after the event.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What?”

  “The Syts can visit a location and tell you something that happened there, as long as the energy is strong enough.”

  “Then it’s simple, isn’t it? The Syts are the key to solving all crimes. We could do with a few of them back in Goosridge.”

  “Not so simple, I’m afraid. They are a very discreet kind. And they prefer not to use their magic to aid other species.”

  Again, that pause. “But?”

  Sheriff Butcher smiled. “One very brave Syt called Hegathi came to visit me just before. And do you want to know what she told me?”

  I was on the edge of my seat now. “Go on.”

  He leaned forward. Intertwined his fingers. “Hegathi told me who was present in that bathroom on the night of the murder. The night Curtis was killed.”

  My heart pounded. My chest tightened. “And?”

  Another smile. But this time, more serious. “Hegathi told me that aside from Curtis, the last person who was in that bathroom was Bertie.”

  I leaned back. “That’s it? She didn’t see the murder?”

  “She saw enough.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “You said it yourself. Bertie was in the bathroom. He tried to attack you irrationally. There can only be one possibility.”

  “Bertie killed Curtis,” I said.

  Sheriff Butcher nodded. “I believe so.”

  “But… but the pact. The agreement between the Weres and the witches. This is going to cause—”

  “War,” Butcher said. “Absolutely. But we do what we have to do. We stay strong. And we remember that no matter what, we have a God-given right to be in this town. We all have a God-given right to be in this town.”

  Sheriff Butcher let me go. And as
I stepped outside, I felt a mixture of emotions.

  Bertie was in the bathroom.

  He’d attacked me.

  So it stood to reason that he’d killed Curtis too, right?

  But as I walked through the quiet streets, the scent of a storm on the horizon, I couldn’t deny that something didn’t seem right.

  And discreet or not, I knew who I had to speak to if I wanted to know more.

  Chapter 22

  It didn’t take too much digging for me to learn that the Syts resided in a dark corner of Nightthistle that outsiders didn’t visit very often.

  So naturally, that’s exactly where I headed.

  The sky was greyer and cloudier here. The streets were even more narrow and suffocating than they were in the centre of Nightthistle. Inside the dark buildings either side of me, I saw movement. Every now and then, I made eye contact with someone. I didn’t know who or what, but it was someone; something.

  And I could only assume it was a Syt.

  They really were as under-the-radar as Sheriff Butcher told me, then.

  The further I walked through the street, the more I memorised what I’d been told. A Syt called Hegathi. It was quite an unusual name, so finding her shouldn’t be impossible. But then I didn’t know whether it was an unusual name for a Syt to have. For all I knew, Hegathi could be the John Smith of the Syt world.

  I guess “Hegathi who helped solve the Curtis Mudthorpe murder” narrowed it down a little.

  Every time I got close to a Syt—they were small and hooded, and especially nimble—they ran away from me. It was like they knew I was trouble and that I shouldn’t be here. And as much as I didn’t want to cause any trouble, it was annoying. Because I just wanted to speak with Hegathi. I just wanted to know the truth about what she’d seen in that bathroom.

  But more than anything, I wanted to know why a member of such a reclusive species had cropped up to help at that moment, abandoning years of protocol to do so.

  I saw one, then. They were standing by a market stall, which was selling animal skins and the like. I walked over to them.

  “Hi there. I’m—”

  “We don’t speak to your kind.”

  I frowned. I tried to lower my head so I could see beneath the hood, but with no luck. “That’s a little rude. I mean, I’m not one for small talk myself, either, but I at least attempt it.”

  The Syt looked up then. And this time, I saw it right in its eyes.

  It had grey eyes. Pale skin. A shrivelled bald head.

  “Not lookers, are you?”

  “What?” the Syt said.

  “Sorry. Just thinking aloud.”

  “What do you mean by ‘not lookers’?”

  “I just… It doesn’t matter. Really.”

  “It sounded like it mattered.”

  “Look. I’m here to speak with Hegathi. Could you point me in her direction or am I going to have to climb that building there and shout out her name?”

  The Syt’s eyes narrowed with my questioning, like she thought I was the weird one. “I don’t know a Hegarthur.”

  “Hegathi,” I said. “Not Hegarthur.”

  “You just said Hegarthur again.”

  “I really didn’t. Maybe my Syt pronunciation isn’t on point. But please. I need to speak with her. It could be crucial.”

  The Syt looked up at me, narrowed her eyes. “I see desperation within you.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you have to be an all-seeing genius to see that. I can imagine I look pretty bloody desperate right now.”

  The Syt lowered her head. “If you wanted to speak with Hegathi… what would you ask her?”

  I scratched my head. “Well, that’s kind of personal, but…”

  I saw it, then.

  The look in this Syt’s eyes.

  And that’s what made me realise.

  “You—you are Heg—”

  “I am not Hegathi for the purpose of this conversation. But were I Hegathi… what would you want to ask me? I mean, ask her?”

  I panicked, searching my mind for the best thing to ask. “Curtis Mudthorpe. You came to our end of Nightthistle to help with the investigation. Why?”

  Hegathi looked to be pondering the question. “Because I knew I could help.”

  “But—but for years your kind have kept themselves to themselves. What’s different this time?”

  A look right into my eyes. More uncertainty, more mulling over. “There are things beyond your understanding.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That old chestnut.”

  “Chestnut?”

  “It’s… it doesn’t matter.”

  Hegathi looked bewildered. “You witches and your quirk for saying things that don’t matter. It’s weird.”

  I thought about the other weird things. And I figured the only thing I could really ask that would make a difference was for some insight into what Hegathi had actually seen.

  “Sheriff Butcher says you confirmed Bertie the Were was the last one in that bathroom before Curtis’ murder. Correct?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “And if you have this so-called gift of sight, why can’t you witness the murder itself?”

  Hegathi narrowed her eyes. “The energies to see such a thing were not strong enough.”

  “Not strong enough? For a murder?”

  “I don’t understand if that’s a question or not.”

  I shook my head. “I’m just kicking myself that the all-seeing, all-knowing Syt over here supposedly didn’t see the actual murder. And that this very Syt happened to break procedure to visit the police station and dob Bertie the Were in it. You have to know how that looks to me.”

  Hegathi’s eyes narrowed and twitched. “From the tone of your voice, I’m guessing it looks suspicious.”

  “Yeah. You guessed right.”

  I watched as Hegathi pulled her hood down. And when she did, I saw her in the light, and I realised she wasn’t as alarmingly ugly as she appeared under that hood.

  “You should wear it down more often,” I said. “You look good. Sunlight makes your features glow, a little.”

  “There is no sunlight right now.”

  “You get the picture.

  “The picture?”

  “Just…”

  I gritted my teeth. I wasn’t getting anywhere here. But my curiosity was piqued. I didn’t know what had happened to Curtis and I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t write the Syts off my list of suspects.

  Yet another possible species in this melting pot of chaos.

  “There was something else,” Hegathi said.

  “Something… something else?”

  She nodded.

  Didn’t say anything.

  “Well? Are you going to tell me what that ‘something else’ was?”

  “I might do.”

  “You… Are you just screwing with me now or… Yeah. Yeah, I see that smile. Syt banter. Okay, okay. I get it.”

  Hegathi smiled. Then her face went flat again. “The glow of a necklace. The clinking of chains. And that smile. That innocent smile. Sometimes a smile hides secrets.”

  And then she lifted her hood up, right as her muddled words spun around my mind. “Wait. What did you…”

  A gust of wind hit me from behind, almost knocked me off my feet.

  When I looked back up, Hegathi was gone.

  I was alone in the street.

  But there was one thing I knew that I hadn’t known beforehand.

  The necklace.

  The chains.

  The innocent smile.

  There was only one person I could think of.

  And that person was Bernard.

  Chapter 23

  “So I need your help with something.”

  Thomas glared at me through narrowed eyes as we sat around the dinner table. “Why do I get the feeling you’re about to ask me something I’m really not going to want to do?”

  I smiled. “You’re clearly getting to know me better.”

&n
bsp; It was late. Everyone else was in bed, at least I assumed. Aunt Hilda still hadn’t spoken to me since the incident at Curtis’ funeral. But she’d at least shot me a few harsh glances from afar, so I had to interpret that as some kind of progress.

  I leaned forward across the table to Thomas. I knew what I was about to ask him was of course dangerous. But he was the only person I could trust—and even admitting that went a long, long way. “There’s… there’s something I need your help with.”

  “Before you start, is it legal?”

  “Legal? Yeah. Yeah, I guess it’s legal.”

  “Does it involve breaking into somewhere?”

  I shuffled in my chair. “Well. Sort of, yeah.”

  “Then it isn’t legal.”

  “I thought you meant like drugs or something.”

  Thomas glared at me. “Don’t play dumb, Stella. What’s this about?”

  I sighed. Better if I just got my plan off my chest; what I knew off my chest. “I went to see Hegathi.”

  “Who now?”

  “Hegathi the Syt.”

  “Oh. Hegathi, not Hegarthur.”

  “I literally just said it how you said it.”

  Thomas shook his head, like it was obvious I’d got it wrong. “And… and why would you go to visit a Syt?”

  “I wanted to ask her a few things about what she’d seen at the crime scene.”

  For the first time, Thomas’ curiosity looked piqued. “And?”

  “She confirmed Bertie’s presence at the bathroom.”

  “Then we know all we need to know.”

  “It’s not quite as simple as that,” I said.

  “I could’ve guessed that, with you.”

  “She claims there was something else. Some… some talk of a necklace. Of chains. And of this innocent smile.”

  Thomas stared at me blankly. “Are you speaking in riddles?”

  “No.”

  “It’s just right then, you really sounded like you were speaking in riddles. I know you lot back home have a thing for riddles. Is this like one of those quiz shows you watch?”

  I let out a long sigh. “Bernard. Don’t you see? The necklace. The chains. And… well I guess he does have a pretty innocent smile.”

  “Bernard as in Vamp Bernard?”