A Very Merry Witchmas

by Ani Gonzalez

  "I hear ya," Kenny replied, even though he couldn't be older than nineteen. "'Empanada,' however, sounds like a fantastic EVP."

  "Doesn't it?" Cassie replied, grinning. "Now that's a ghost with her priorities straight."

  Kenny looked around. "Speaking of sustenance, aren't we supposed to have dinner brought in? I'm starving."

  Cassie frowned. "We ordered Chinese food, and it should be here by now." She dug into her jacket and extracted a phone. "Let me call Amy."

  Well, that was a lot more useful than EVPs. And maybe some lo mein would spark his imagination. Liam was having trouble coming up with a supernatural Christmas theme. Caine said it had to be cute and charming, as he was hoping to attract a young audience. Elves seemed, well, not appropriate for Banshee Creek. Flying reindeer were definitely supernatural, but, again, not something one would associate with the town. A Merry Devil Monkey Christmas? The Ghosts of Christmas? A Spooky Wonderland?

  That last one was promising. The gym could easily be turned into a snowy landscape, and the school's owl mascots would fit right in. The high school drama club had offered to help, and they could produce a decent backdrop, maybe something featuring a bunch of ghosts building a snowman. That should be cute enough to satisfy Caine.

  It didn't feel quite right, but it was the best he could come up with.

  Liam was still drawing Christmas ghosts when Caine showed up, mopping his brow with a bandana.

  "Those lights are hot as Hades," the biker said. "But it's all worth it. Our electric layout is likely to be approved."

  "Good," Liam answered. "Now all we have to worry about is the tulle."

  "Tulle?" Caine frowned. "What tulle?"

  Liam was about to explain his Spooky Wonderland idea, when Cassie walked up.

  "Caine," she said with a concerned look on her face. "Wasn't Jonas supposed to pick up the food?"

  "Yes," Caine answered. "He's not back yet?"

  "No," Cassie said, looking unhappy. "Amy says no one's gone by. Do you know where he is?"

  "No idea," Caine replied, scratching his head. "He was here this morning, but he left. He said he was going to get his Claire Delacourt file, then stop at the Chinese restaurant."

  "What?" Cassie asked. "He has a file on this poor woman? What does that even mean?"

  Caine shrugged.

  Cassie gave him a look. "Listen, I know you like the kid and all, but he's seriously obsessed. Why does he have to debunk everyone?"

  "It's his schtick," Caine replied, sounding defensive. "He's just getting started, so he needs some kind of hook. He's actually a great kid once you get to know him."

  Cassie's eyes narrowed. "He called my alma mater to verify my PhD. He assumed I had a fake degree because I said I studied in Cambridge."

  "You do say that all the time."

  Cassie glared. "It's a euphemism for Harvard. It doesn't mean I'm claiming a British degree."

  "He misunderstood, Cassie. Let it go."

  Cassie did not look mollified. "Thanks for the lovely advice, Queen Elsa, but I don't think I'm going to take it. If you see Jonas, tell him that I went to pick up the food. Maybe he can join us for dinner after he finishes whatever stupid scheme he's carrying out."

  With those parting words, she stalked out of the room.

  "She really doesn't like him, does she?" Liam asked.

  "Jonas is not trying to harm anyone," Caine explained. "He just has high standards and he expects everyone to meet them. He's a genius at research, even better than I am. He can find out anything about a property or a person. It's amazing what that kid can do with a computer." He shook his head. "If only he used his powers for good."

  That last sentence seemed like an understatement. Cassie was a college professor in a particularly eccentric field and she was patient and tolerant to a fault. If she'd taken a dislike toward this kid, he was probably a real jerk.

  Caine glanced back at the inspection team, who were huddled together in a corner. "Looks like the firebugs are done, let's go see what they have for us. If it's not an approval, I'll eat my sprit box."

  It was an approval, sort of. They had to move a couple of extension cords and wrap some cables in insulated tape, but that was it. They spent a good half-hour discussing the changes, which was par for the course. Liam then signed the paperwork with a sigh of relief. The Fire and Rescue guys were, it seemed, going to be reasonable this time.

  "You're doing the event during the day, correct?" Firefighter DeShawn Davies asked, pointing at an empty space on the form.

  "Yes," Caine replied. "We need to be done filming by sundown."

  Liam frowned. "Why is that? Because of the light?"

  "Mostly," Caine said.

  DeShawn arched a brow. "That's one way of putting it."

  "Is there something I should know?" Liam asked.

  "There have been reports of strange happenings in the gym at night," Caine said. "People hear music playing and kids chatting. Two students broke into the school last month to play a prank on their science class and they claim they saw lights in the gym and heard 'Last Dance' playing."

  "Really?" Liam asked. "I don't remember any of that happening when I was in school."

  "The calls started a couple of months ago," DeShawn said. "Before that, nothing."

  Caine nodded. "We had a team come in during the summer, but they didn't get much because they couldn't get into the school. They recorded from the playground."

  "Who was in the team?" DeShawn asked.

  "Cassie, Gus, and Jonas," Caine said. "They found nada. It was so boring Gus fell asleep in mid-investigation. His snores almost broke the recorder."

  They were interrupted by a cheerful shout.

  "Guys, the food is here," Cassie exclaimed, carrying two large brown bags. Her announcement was met with a chorus of cheers.

  The group congregated around a portable table. Cassie took out paper plates and plastic utensils from one of the bags and handed them around.

  "By the way," she said when she got to Liam. "I saw Kat leaving her store. She said she would bring us some cookies for dessert. Apparently, she has to change her contest recipe because one of the judges hates coconut." She rolled her eyes. "Can you imagine? Who doesn't love coconut?"

  "Oh, no," Liam replied. It took Kat a whole month to find the perfect recipe. She'd spent weeks making nut cookies, chocolate cookies, shortbread cookies, and even a particularly ill-conceived foray into macarons, and he'd had to taste every single one of them. Now she had to start over again?

  This was going to be hell—floury, sugary, sticky-fingered hell.

  "Don't worry," Cassie continued. "It won't make any difference. She doesn't stand a chance against Gus and me. Wait till you see our creations. You won't believe your eyes."

  "It actually has to taste good, Cassie," Caine said, approaching them with a plate full of lo mein. "Looks aren't everything."

  Cassie's face fell. "We're still working on that aspect. Gus promised he wouldn't forget the sugar next time."

  Kat entered the room carrying a large cardboard box. Liam waved to her. She didn't seem to see him at first, but eventually her eyes focused on him.

  Poor Kat, she seemed horribly distracted. The coconut catastrophe must have hit her hard. He resolved to be a good husband and eat his own body weight in revoltingly-sweet Christmas confections. It was the least he could do given how pale Kat looked right now.

  Cassie frowned. "Has anyone seen Jonas? Is he still bothering that medium person?"

  Caine looked around. "He should be here by now."

  Kat reached them, eyes wide and glassy. Liam instinctively put an arm around her, but she shrugged him off.

  "Is he a tall, skinny guy with a patchy goatee?" Kat whispered.

  "Yes," Cassie said. "He's here?"

  "No," Kat said, a slight tremble in her voice. "He's in the hallway with the science posters." She took a deep breath. "He looks dead."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KAT FELT Liam's arm aroun
d her, guiding her to a chair. Someone offered her a glass of water. A voice she vaguely recognized—Caine's?—kept telling her to breathe.

  These events vaguely registered. She felt numb and woozy. The sight of the young man, lying still on the floor, his broken glasses by his side, was etched in her brain. He'd looked peaceful, as if asleep, but who would take a nap in the middle of a school hallway?

  She'd known he was dead almost immediately. Her first instinct had been to scream, but the anguished shout for help had been lodged in her throat, unable to come out. Instead, she'd walked blindly to the gym, and blurted out the news, stuck in a zombified state of shock.

  Poor kid. Poor, poor boy.

  "I'm taking her to Urgent Care," she heard Liam say. "She's in shock."

  "Good idea," Caine replied. "DeShawn is taking care of...things."

  Kat tried hard not to think about what that meant.

  "It's a boy, not a thing," someone said.

  That voice had an edge of hysteria to it, and it wasn't until everyone turned toward her that she realized it was her own.

  Liam's hand tightened on her shoulder. "The paramedics are doing all they can, Kat."

  Which was nothing, she thought. There was nothing to be done.

  A loud clap rang through the room, followed by a shout.

  "Are we ready for some dead serious ghost talk?" a short, tubby man wearing a cartoon skull t-shirt and a gray newsboy cap shouted cheerfully.

  Cassie cringed. Caine went to greet the man, shaking his hand and leaning in and whispering in his ear. The man's face fell.

  Caine pulled him toward the group. "This is Jeff Santos, host of the Ghost Talk radio show."

  "I'm so sorry," Jeff said, taking off his cap. "I didn't know. I hope Jonas ends up being okay."

  "That's very kind" Cassie said, not correcting his assessment of the victim's health.

  "He called my show all the time," Jeff mused sadly. "Always with an interesting point of view. Was it his heart condition?"

  Caine frowned. "Heart? I didn't know he was sick."

  "He mentioned a heart murmur or something," Jeff replied. "It was when we did the equipment roundup. He said he couldn't handle certain items because they could affect him. I thought maybe he had a pacemaker or something."

  The thought of a teenager with a weak heart getting all wound up over a possible scam made Kat tear up. Liam led her away through brightly-decorated corridors that suddenly seemed full of malice. He steered her deftly toward the exit, then helped her onto his truck.

  "I don't need Dr. Lebensburg," she said when he climbed onto the driver's seat. "I'll make some tea when I get home."

  "It can't hurt," Liam said, tires screeching as he steered the truck out of the school's parking lot and onto Main Street.

  She couldn't help but notice that he wasn't driving toward their house. Kat, it seemed, was going to urgent care whether she liked it or not.

  She tried to come up with enough energy to make a coherent argument, but it was useless. An odd sense of lassitude had fallen upon her and she felt helpless to resist.

  The clinic was empty, and the receptionist waved them through to a consulting room. The doctor showed up shortly, a round figure with short black hair and wire-rim glasses.

  "Caine called," she said, in a clipped, no-nonsense voice. "He said there was an accident at the school."

  "One of the kids was found unconscious," Liam said. "Jonas."

  "Dead," Kat corrected. "He was dead."

  Dr. Ingrid Lebensburg's glance was both kind and penetrating. "That must have been a shock, dear."

  But she did not deny Kat's statement. Kat felt a dark cloud fall over her. That meant the poor kid really was dead.

  "He wasn't a bad guy," Kat said, her voice choked with sobs. "Even if he kept claiming that my shop was a scam."

  "What?" Liam asked. "You were one of his targets?"

  "Not me," she explained, as Dr. Lebensburg checked her temperature. "Yolanda. He kept saying that santería was a tainted offshoot of the real Yoruba religion. Yolanda just laughed at him and made jokes."

  The old santera had been endlessly amused by the boy's antics. She said he was a son of Eleggua with a very special destiny, and she made him tamarind shakes.

  "Oh, no," Kat exclaimed. "How am I going to tell her?"

  "Don't worry about that now," Liam said, giving her a worried glance.

  "Maybe Yolanda knew about the heart condition," Kat continued. "Perhaps she won't be so surprised."

  "Heart condition?" Dr. Lebensburg asked. "Jonas Hartley?"

  "That's what the Ghost Talk guy said," Kat replied.

  Dr. Lebensburg raised a brow. "A ghost told you that Jonas had a cardiovascular ailment?"

  "No," Liam interjected. "Not a ghost. The guy from the Ghost Talk radio show. He's Caine's friend."

  "Oh, well," the doctor muttered. "That explains it."

  "Did Jonas have a heart condition?" Kat asked sharply, wondering why Jeff Santos would lie about something like that.

  "I can't discuss other patients, dear," Dr. Lebensburg replied. "You know that."

  She made a few notes on her tablet and turned to Liam.

  "She had a big shock," Dr. Lebensburg said. "But she's coming out of it."

  "Should I just take her home to rest?" Liam said.

  Dr. Lebensburg nodded. "She's fine. Keep her busy, so she won't dwell on it. She entered the cookie contest, right? Maybe she can do some baking and distract herself."

  Liam's face fell. Poor guy, he'd been eating a lot of baked goods lately, and he looked like he couldn't stomach any more. Come to think of it, the thought of more cookies made her feel a bit nauseous. Maybe she should take a break from baking. After all, it wasn't like she was going to win the contest. Her chances were, at best, slim.

  She felt a scalding tear fall down her cheek and brushed it off quickly. Was she crying? Over cookies?

  She'd gone mad. That was the only explanation. Who cried over cookies when she'd just seen a dead teenager?

  "Kat?" Liam asked, putting an arm around her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

  "She hates coconut," Kat sobbed. "Claire hates it and I don't know what to do. I don't have time to master a new recipe." Her voice shook. "I don't even like sweets any longer. They make me want to throw up."

  Liam patted her head, and Dr. Lebensburg gave her a cool, assessing glance.

  "Claire Delacourt will eat the coconut and judge it fairly," Dr. Lebensburg proclaimed, handing Kat a tissue.

  "You know her?" Kat asked, pausing to blow her nose.

  Dr. Lebensburg snorted. "I delivered Claire. Her mom didn't make it to the hospital. I don't normally do OB/GYN, so it was one of the worst nights of my life. It didn't get better after that either. The Delacourt kids were always getting into scrapes." Dr. Lebensburg smiled. "Nice healthy kids with a love-hate relationship with the law of gravity."

  "Sounds familiar," Liam said. "Claire seemed to always get into trouble."

  "What kind of trouble?" Kat asked, feeling her nausea recede.

  "Cutting class," Liam replied. "Vandalism, that kind of thing. She was caught scribbling stuff around the school, arcane symbols and such. I think she got suspended for that."

  Dr. Lebensburg nodded. "She said she was helping protect the school. Very vivid imagination."

  Great, the woman judging her cookies was a teenage delinquent who hated coconut. Fabulous.

  What else could possibly go wrong?

  CHAPTER SIX

  "SURE, I'D love another gingerbread cookie," Liam said, lying through his teeth as he accepted a vaguely man-shaped biscuit. With a disproportionately big head and tentacle arms, this was the Frankenstein of gingerbread man cookies.

  But Kat had gotten up early to bake this monstrosity, so he had to at least try it. She'd spent the evening researching recipes, then settled down for a restless night. After much tossing and turning, she'd gotten up at the crack of dawn to bake cookies before heading to the botánica
.

  The least he could do was contribute to the culinary enterprise.

  He bit into the cookie with trepidation. Kat's experiments, he'd learned, had to be treated with respect.

  "The dough tasted a bit bland," Kat said. "So I added some extra spice."

  Liam's eyes watered as he chewed. "I can taste it."

  "Is it too much?" Kat asked, clutching a dishtowel nervously.

  He grabbed the pitcher of milk on the counter and poured a generous amount into a glass. "Maybe a bit," he croaked, gulping down the milk.

  Kat grimaced. "I don't think gingerbread is my calling."

  Liam coughed. "You just need to adjust the recipe," he wheezed, re-examining the tray. The cookies all appeared humanoid, but their limbs resembled...fins?

  "What are they supposed to be?" he asked. "Christmas elves?"

  "Mermaids," Kat answered, a tad offended. "December is Yemanyá's feast month. I was trying to fit that theme."

  Liam frowned. "Isn't that the goddess that sets your house on fire when she gets angry at you?"

  "No, she's a water deity. She would flood your house."

  Liam shuddered. As a contractor, he knew water damage was no laughing matter. "Maybe you should try something else. A Christmas tree perhaps?"

  She threw the towel on the counter with a frustrated sigh. "I should, but somehow I can't get Yemanyá out of my head. Anyway, I don't think I can do shapes. I'm going to try basic round, or roundish, cookies with a sparkly glaze. I can't believe I can't use the holiday macaroons. Coconut flakes can hide a multitude of sins."

  She took off her apron and straightened the garnet necklace around her neck. In honor of the holiday, she was wearing an emerald green sweater with black pants. With the red highlights on her curly black hair, she looked like a harried Santa's helper.

  "I have to go open the store," she said, putting the leftover cookies in a plastic container. "I'll take these and see if anyone wants them."

  Liam aimed an uncertain glance at the box. "Maybe you should take the milk too, or a fire extinguisher."