wisteria witches 06 - wolves of wisteria

by Angela Pepper

  Chapter 10

  Zinnia Riddle's hastily cast spell, despite being an unconventional choice for defensive magic, worked exceedingly well.

  Margaret Mills' legs flew up. Over she went, landing on her butt on the carpeted floor of the office supply closet. She wheezed as the wind got knocked out of her lungs. Her shoes floated in the air above her.

  Zinnia was impressed with her own creative spellwork. Margaret was not.

  Margaret's curly gray hair seemed to turn extra frizzy as she spat out, “Shoe removal? You cast a spell for shoe removal on me?” Her arms flailed as she reached for the levitating shoes.

  Zinnia calmly replied, “It appears as though I have.” She leaned forward to inspect Margaret's socks. One sock had a kitten pattern and the other was striped.

  Margaret sputtered and flailed.

  Zinnia said, “I can teach you the shoe removal spell, and also one for sock matching.”

  “How could you?!” Margaret continued to wave her arms and legs ineffectively, not unlike an overturned tortoise.

  “Me? You're the one who grabbed me without warning and yanked me into the supply closet. How did I know you weren't the killer, trying to take your next victim?”

  Margaret stammered, “But-but-but shoe removal?”

  “It worked, didn't it? Any spell that throws your opponent off balance can be useful in a fight. The best defense is, well, any defense you can cast under pressure.”

  Margaret got her torso upright but remained seated. She grabbed for her shoes, her short arms flailing again. The footwear evaded her, floating higher and higher. Zinnia's shoe removal spell was supposed to act as a magical shoehorn, simply decoupling shoe from foot with minimal effort. It wasn't supposed to levitate the shoes as well. She must have been so unnerved that the spell had come out with a little extra—to use the slang of modern witches—”stank” on it.

  Margaret gave up on catching her floating shoes and crossed her arms. “You've got some real bad juju in your magic right now, Zinnia.”

  “Me? You're the source of the bad juju around here. What sort of spell did you cast on Karl, anyway?”

  Margaret's voice got high and thin, defensive. “Nothing too crazy.”

  “I blew a puff of revealing powder on him. Do you know what color it turned?”

  Margaret batted her eyelashes. “Pink?”

  “Bruise, Margaret. Bruise.”

  “Oh.”

  “All I did was cast a basic bluffing spell on Karl so he'd go on his walk, like you wanted, but it mixed with your spell and then it all went sideways and turned bruise!” She heard her volume rising and got control of herself. The last thing they needed was their coworkers barging in to join the party. She could have cast a sound bubble within the cramped closet, but with the way things were going, it was liable to invert and become a sonic boom. When the juju around a witch got really bad, spells had a tendency to do the exact opposite of what you wanted.

  Margaret asked, “What exactly happened on your walk with Karl?”

  “Karl got himself arrested. He literally got down on his knees and begged to be taken away.”

  Margaret gasped in shock and clapped both hands to her cheeks. “Really?”

  “Really,” Zinnia said flatly. Margaret's “shock” seemed a little too theatrical for Zinnia to believe it was genuine.

  Margaret gasped again. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Zinnia didn't want to play along with Margaret's performance, but she did anyway, quickly summarizing all of the details, from the robotic walking to the enthusiastic swing-set swinging, and then the confessing.

  When Zinnia was done, Margaret said, “Good.”

  “No.” Zinnia put her hands on her hips and glowered down at Margaret. “It's the opposite of good. It's very, very bad. And all because of that spell you cast.”

  Margaret stuck her nose in the air. “I'll have you know, my spell was working just fine until you polluted it with your sloppy syntax.”

  Sloppy syntax? Was Margaret critiquing another witch's spellwork? Yes, she was. The nerve! And after everything Zinnia had done for the other witch.

  Without warning, one of Margaret's airborne shoes dropped, clunking her on the top of the head.

  “Ouch,” she said.

  The other one dropped, and she yelped again.

  “Oops,” Zinnia said.

  “You did that on purpose.” Margaret rubbed her head.

  Zinnia held her hands up. “Magic has a mind of its own.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Margaret made finger guns, pointed them below Zinnia's knees, and delivered a double shin kick. Hard.

  Zinnia didn't flinch, even though her shins stung from the double kick. Margaret would pay for that. Zinnia flicked her wrist to whip Margaret's shoes back into the air, and then dropped them on Margaret's head again. She yelped twice, once for each shoe.

  Margaret growled and batted the shoes aside. She rolled her shoulders back, changed her hand gestures, and blasted Zinnia with the butt-biting spell. Full power. Now it was Zinnia's turn to yelp.

  While Zinnia was rubbing her backside, Margaret put her shoes back on her feet and stood up. She cast a steadfast spell so the shoes wouldn't come off again so easily. And then she used her telekinesis to smack Zinnia on the side of the head with a flying pad of Post-It notes, original yellow.

  Zinnia returned fire using a volley of dry-erase markers.

  Margaret repelled most of the markers. She was breathing heavily as she levitated a box of index cards and made them rain around Zinnia. The rain stung. Several of the cards gave Zinnia paper cuts on her hands and cheeks. The cuts would heal almost instantly thanks to her regenerative powers, but they still hurt like the dickens.

  Zinnia charmed a roll of stamps so that it swirled around Margaret, twisting and tightening like a thin white boa constrictor.

  Margaret fought her way free of the stamp snake and made paperclips rain down on her foe. The concentrated storm of metal was shiny, silver, and painful.

  Next came the padded envelopes. Not very scary.

  The pencil-top erasers weren't too bad, either.

  The boxes containing printer toner, however, were just big enough to pack a punch.

  Zinnia, breathing heavily by now, looked around the storage closet for new ammunition. Light bulbs? No. Too breakable. Not the scissors, either. She didn't want to kill Margaret. Not yet. Her gaze landed on the packing tape. Perfect! She worked the same snake spell she'd used on the roll of stamps. This time, the secret witch language rolled off her tongue like hot oil from the mouth of a butter gargoyle. Who had rusty magic with bad juju? Not Zinnia Riddle! Not once she got warmed up.

  Ten seconds later, Margaret Mills was quiet and well behaved. She was also wrapped from head to toe in packing tape, looking not unlike a mummy.

  From a crack in the tape around her mouth, Margaret croaked, “Truce?”

  “What's that?” Zinnia crossed her arms and tapped her toe next to Mummy-Margaret. “I believe the word you're looking for is Uncle.” Just like young children, witches used the word Uncle to tap out of fights when they'd been outmatched.

  Begrudgingly, Margaret said, “Uncle.” She wriggled helplessly on the floor, the triple-thick layer of packing tape crinkling. “You win, Zinnia. You beat me, fair and square. I couldn't cast so much as one of Karl's farts from in here.”

  “That's right. I won. Now tell me what spell you cast on Karl.”

  Margaret-Mummy sighed. “You already know.”

  Zinnia did have a strong suspicion about which spell the other witch had used, but she'd been afraid to have it confirmed. “Was it Trinada's Confession Hex?”

  Margaret-Mummy made a noise partway between humming and groaning. In other words, yes.

  “You've gone mad,” Zinnia said. “Mad!” It was a powerful, dangerous spell.

  The mummy squeaked out, “The end justifies the means.”

  “With any of Trinada's hexes, you need at least a triad of witch
es to get any control at all. And you cast it by yourself? Sloppy spellwork, Margaret. Sloppy and dangerous. But I suppose the rules don't apply to Ms. Margaret Mills, who does as she pleases.”

  “The spell will wear off eventually,” replied the mummy on the floor. “And it worked out, so what's the harm? You should be thanking me for getting a killer out of the office and into jail where he belongs.”

  “Don't you see what you've done? It was a false confession. Before Detective Fung came along, Karl was swinging on a swing set without a care in the world. Karl Kormac. On a swing set. Picture that. Then he saw the detective, and literally begged to be arrested. But he didn't even know what he was saying. He was just desperate to be agreeable, to confess to whatever needed confessing.”

  “Oh,” said the mummy. “Now that I think about it, Karl's not a murder kind of guy. He's all bark, no bite.”

  “Exactly. But now, thanks to you, the police are going to be fixated on the wrong person. Fung is a good cop, but he's still just a cop. If you hand him a confession, he's going to be all too happy to close the case. Don't you want him to catch the real killer?”

  The mummy didn't move. Zinnia kneeled down to make sure the tape was loose enough for Margaret to breathe. Her mouth was clear, but Zinnia couldn't read her facial expression. Her eyes were covered in too much tape. Zinnia didn't dare rip it off—Margaret was probably attached to her eyebrows—so she searched her mental database for a solution.

  Strangely enough, Zinnia did know a way to remove the sticky side from tape. She'd never seen the point in such a specific spell, but she'd learned it anyway, because her mentor had insisted she master all of the fundamentals, even the obscure ones. Zinnia rehearsed the spell in her mind and then cast it. The packing tape slackened around the mummy as it lost its sticky side. Margaret was free from her bonds, by magic. Zinnia noted to herself that it had been a perfectly executed spell with perfect syntax. Not that Margaret would notice and give her a compliment.

  Margaret wriggled free of the non-sticky tape but stayed on the ground. She looked up at Zinnia, and then around the small room. She twisted her lips from side to side. “We've really made a mess this time.”

  Zinnia swiveled her head, taking in the chaos of the ruined office supplies.

  “We sure have,” Zinnia said. “How about you clean up this mess, and I'll go clean up the other one?”

  “Deal,” Margaret said. She started sweeping up paperclips with both hands. “What are you going to do?”

  “I'll tell you what I won't do. I'm not going to cast any of Trinada's hexes by myself.” She took in a deep breath and let go of the remainder of her outrage. Holding onto anger would only give her bad juju. Her coworker had simply been trying to help. What witch doesn't get herself in over her head from time to time?

  “Of course you won't cast any of Trinada's hexes,” Margaret said. “You've always been the practical one.”

  “Thanks.” Zinnia leaned forward and picked a paperclip out of Margaret's ear. In a more gentle tone, Zinnia said, “I won't hex anyone, but I will go straight to the WPD to confess.”

  Margaret pulled a handful of stamps out of her bra. “The Wisteria Permits Department? Right here? I don't get it.”

  “The other WPD, Margaret. The other one.”

  Chapter 11

  Zinnia Riddle's House

  11:00 pm

  Zinnia sat on her couch with her feet up on her favorite ottoman, the one with the thistle pattern that matched her vest. She read the first page of Annette Scholem's manuscript and then paused for contemplation. The content of the book was easy enough to understand, but she couldn't shake the feeling she was violating Annette's privacy.

  She had received the file at ten o'clock by email, courtesy of the Wisteria Police Department. They had gotten permission from Annette's cousin, her nearest next of kin, to release the unpublished manuscript to Annette's coworkers. The computer forensics team sent the novel to everyone in the office, as per Zinnia's request. Dawna had immediately replied to the group email with a dozen animated images conveying excitement. Ten minutes later, Gavin had sent an email to the group apologizing on Dawna's behalf for her being “inappropriately joyous,” considering the circumstances. Then Jesse replied passive-aggressively to say that everyone responded to grief in their own way, and Dawna had done no wrong. Then Margaret replied in all capital letters to say that everyone should STOP EMAILING AND START READING ALREADY!!! That had been the final message. Margaret had a special talent for shutting down jibber-jabber.

  It had taken most of the last hour for Zinnia to get a hard copy made. The printer needed a new toner cartridge, and then she'd had to run next door to borrow more paper from a neighbor. She wondered why she didn't have one of those handy e-readers other people raved about. She could have been several chapters into the book by now. She also wondered why her neighbor had needed her to introduce herself twice. The man had lived next door to Zinnia's house for at least a decade. She wasn't that forgettable, was she? Granted, half the time her house had been boarded up vacant while she'd tried and failed to make a life for herself elsewhere, but she'd been around. Her mind took a turn down a dark hallway. Would anyone miss Zinnia if she died right now?

  Zinnia blinked the blur in her eyes away and tried to focus on Annette's book. A psychic preview distracted her. She sensed that Detective Fung wanted to talk to her. She looked at her phone's blank screen and waited for a full two minutes.

  No messages came in. She put the phone down. Sometimes her psychic previews were false positives, and it had been a long day, after all. She still had some tender spots from her supply closet throw down with Margaret. Zinnia smiled. The paper cuts and bruises had been worth it. Oh, the sight of Margaret trussed up in packing tape like a mummy! Zinnia would treasure the image forever.

  Zinnia returned to the manuscript and read the opening for the third time. It read:

  Once upon a time, there was a sweet child of fifteen who didn't know about the wolves who wore sheep's clothing. The child went about obliviously playing with friends and ignoring parental warnings about all the dangers in the world. The child ignored the adults. They were old and fearful. That child was me. Deep down, I worried that the adults who cared for me knew more about my genetic parents than they admitted. Did the kind people I called Mom and Dad have some template for my destiny? Was that why they tried to control who I spent time with?

  Zinnia yawned. She wanted to be generous toward Annette's deceased spirit, but it was not the greatest opening paragraph. Where was the vitality, the warmth, the humor Annette was known for?

  There did seem to be an inciting incident a few paragraphs down, but Zinnia's mind kept wandering. Her attention was bouncing all over. She rested her hands on top of the manuscript and looked up at her ceiling. How long had it been since she'd tried to read fiction? Too long. Her reading skills were as rusty from disuse as her magic.

  She checked her phone again. Nothing from Fung. How rude. How dare he tickle her mind with intention and not follow through? Plus, he had promised to be in touch tonight with an update on the whole Karl situation.

  Zinnia had left the office at four o'clock and gone straight to the other WPD to clean up Margaret's mess. He'd been skeptical. He didn't believe her about Trinada's Confession Hex and insisted she give him a demonstration of the spell. She told him she couldn't possibly do that, not unless he rounded up two more witches. Fung finally caved and admitted that he'd already concluded that Karl's confession was false, induced by either magic or garden-variety anxiety. Fung promised to set things right and keep her updated.

  She checked the phone again. Still nothing. She pulled inward, searching her mind for the thread of the psychic preview.

  A loud knock at the door startled her from a quiet, meditative state.

  She opened the door to find Detective Ethan Fung standing on her porch.

  “That explains it,” she said, more to herself than to Fung.

  “Sorry I woke you
.” Fung was dressed in the same light gray suit he'd been wearing that afternoon. His dark eyes were twitching left and right, and he was practically vibrating with energy, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I wasn't sleeping, but you could have simply phoned,” she said.

  “I come bearing good news and bad news.”

  Zinnia nodded. “Sounds about right.” Her psychic preview had come with a mix of hope and dread.

  “And I could use a cup of tea.” He licked his lips. “If you would be so kind as to make me a tea with something special to keep me going all night, I'd be your biggest fan. Your number one fan.”

  “How could I refuse an offer of such loyal devotion?” She discreetly cast a moving sound bubble around the two of them while she invited him inside.

  Once they were in the kitchen, Fung took off his suit jacket and slung it over the back of a chair. “New wallpaper,” he said, looking around.

  “Not that new.”

  “I dig it.” He looked up at the ceiling's exposed wood beams. “Where's all your funky plant stuff? The herbs and magical things? You usually have half a greenhouse worth of plants drying along the beams.”

  “Lately I've been trying to, uh, go straight.”

  “That explains your odd choice of employment.”

  “Yes. Well, I've been keeping busy.”

  Fung wiped some dust off an unused pepper grinder that Zinnia kept on the table. “You haven't been busy dusting.”

  “Detective, are you here to tell me things I already know, or do you have actual news?”

  “Depends. Do you have that tea we talked about?”

  She pursed her lips and tapped a cupboard so it opened backward to reveal a secret cabinet. She pulled out a slim metal canister. While she boiled the water and sprinkled a mug with small yellow flower buds, Fung caught her up on the case. Karl had been cooperative back at the station. Too cooperative. They had to keep him isolated from the other people in the holding cells because he kept offering to join people's gangs, and every time someone commented on an article of his clothing, he gave it to them.