A Drop of Witch (A Cozy Mystery Book): Sweetland Witch

by Zoe Arden

  “I don’t think you’re a monster,” he said, reaching for me. Our noses were touching. “If I’ve ever given you that impression, I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” I said as he took me in his arms.

  There was one other question that had been on my mind since lunch with his mom.

  “Damon, have you ever thought of...”

  “Thought of what?”

  “...proposing?”

  His eyes bulged slightly. “My mom should never have said that to you.”

  “So, it’s true?” I gulped.

  “I... may have thought about it. Once.”

  My heart hammered in my chest. I didn’t know what to think. One minute we were perfect for each other, the next it was like we were mortal enemies. Damon felt it, too. Only right now, we were in the “perfect for each other” phase. He leaned down and kissed me. His lips were warm and moist and made my head go dizzy. When Damon pulled away, his eyes were glowing. I knew how he felt. In that one kiss, we’d repaired all the damage from the last week.

  My phone buzzed, breaking the moment. I groaned, hoping it wasn’t Colt. It wasn’t. It was Melbourne. He’d sent me a text. Just one word.

  HELP.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

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  I ran outside, taking two steps at a time as I went down the flight of stairs. I was on the phone with Colt trying to explain what was happening, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

  “Melbourne’s in trouble. We gotta go. Help. Help him. Trouble.” I was huffing into the phone, already out of breath. If I ever got through today, I was going to start jogging.

  “Calm down,” Colt said through the receiver. “You’re not making any sense.”

  He had answered on the first ring. I could tell he was still miffy with me for running out on him like that, but he didn’t let that stop him from listening to what I had to say. That was one thing that I both admired and hated about Colt—his job was the most important thing in his life.

  I stopped running for a second so I could catch my breath. “Melbourne’s in trouble.”

  “How do you know?” Colt asked.

  “He texted me like a minute ago. Damon and I are on the way to his house. Can you meet us there?” Damon was standing next to me, looking annoyed that the first thing I’d done when there was trouble was to call Colt. But what was I supposed to do? He was a COMHA agent and a darned good one.

  There was a loud honk from down the street. I looked over to see Colt’s car sitting at the curb. Colt was behind the steering wheel. He waved and started the car up.

  I laughed in spite of how irritating it was to find him out here, waiting. He’d followed me, after all. Why would I have suspected any less? That man was as irritating as a skin rash, but he was fantastic at his job. Maybe I’d write to COMHA and tell them just that.

  Colt honked again, and I pulled Damon toward the car. He reluctantly followed. I could tell he wasn’t nearly as happy to see Colt as I was.

  “What is he doing here?” Damon asked.

  “Following me. What else?”

  Damon scowled.

  “Don’t be too mad. It’s—”

  “His job. I know.” Damon rolled his eyes but slid into the back seat next to me.

  “Where’s the COMHA agent who’s watching your house?” Colt asked Damon. He was scanning the road for the guy in the bad suit who’d been playing with his phone earlier.

  “There he is,” I said, pointing to a black Corolla. The agent drove right past us. He didn’t even notice us.

  “Where’s he going?” Colt asked.

  “Maybe he’s going to Melbourne’s?” I ventured uncertainly.

  “Nope,” Damon replied. “You’re both wrong. He’s on his way to Coffee Cove.”

  “How do you know that?” Colt asked.

  Damon shrugged. “He goes there every hour or two. I think he’s got a crush on Lucy. He started bringing me a latte every other hour until I asked him to stop. The caffeine was making me bounce off the walls. One of the receipts was stuck to the bottom of a cup he gave it to me. He’d doodled a little picture of Lucy with a heart over it.”

  I laughed, wondering if Lucy was aware she had an admirer, but Colt frowned. “Fraternizing on the job is prohibited.” I shot him a look. “Unless you’re also capable of maintaining your duties. Some people, like me, are.”

  Damon looked from me to Colt. I couldn’t remember ever feeling more awkward than I did right now, sitting between the two of them.

  “We should go,” I said, and Colt started the car.

  When we got to Melbourne’s house, Margaret was outside, peeking in through a window. Her car was in the driveway.

  “Thank the witches you’re here,” she said when she saw me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised to see her.

  “I got a text from Melbourne asking for help.” She held her phone up to show us. “I was already on my way to Sweetland when he sent it, so I just veered my car over here instead of to your house, Ava.”

  “Did you see anything suspicious when you arrived?” Colt asked.

  “No. I rang the bell but no one answered,” she said. “I was just trying to see in through this window. I thought I saw a shadow moving inside, but it might have been my imagination.”

  “We should call Sheriff Knoxx,” I said. “He was released from the hospital this morning. I’m sure he’d want to know.”

  “I already called him,” Margaret said. “I was about to call you, too, when you pulled up.”

  “Good thinking,” I told Margaret.

  “Let’s go around back,” Colt said, taking charge. Damon was following silently along, looking alternately angry and depressed. I wished there’d been a way to keep him out of all this. More importantly, I wished I understood my own feelings about him and Colt better.

  The back door was unlocked when Colt tried it.

  “Does anyone know if Melbourne normally keeps his back door open like this?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” I told him. Neither did the others.

  “Melbourne?” Colt called out before stepping inside. “It’s Detective Hudson from the Council on Magic and Human Affairs. We’re coming in.”

  I followed behind Colt. My foot crunched on broken glass as I stepped inside and I jumped, bumping Damon. He caught me and held me close. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, warming me. When he let go, part of me was sorry.

  Melbourne’s house was in shambles.

  “Either a violent event has taken place here,” Margaret said, “or a tornado swept through his house during the night.”

  “Agreed,” Colt said.

  “Melbourne?” I called out.

  The only answer we received was silence.

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

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  M elbourne’s house, so immaculate the last time I’d been here, was a complete mess. We walked slowly through the kitchen toward the living room. There was broken glass on the floor. The furniture had been toppled over. Something that I hoped was just tomato juice dripped down the walls.

  “Here’s his phone!” I yelled, grabbing it from off the counter. I quickly scanned his texts, looking for anything that might help to tell us what was going on. All his texts had been deleted except for the most recent one asking for help.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  “Let’s split up,” Damon said, finally chiming in with something. “Ava and I can take the second floor. You two take the first.”

  I looked at Colt and could tell he didn’t like that idea.

  “I think that makes sense. Let’s go,” I said, taking Damon’s hand.

  “Wait a second, w
ait a second,” Colt said, scratching his chin. His face looked strained. “All right, here. Ava, take this.” He reached down, lifted his pant leg, and handed me the supercharged wand. I was happy to have it back in my hands.

  “Is that a Conrad Ten Thousand?” Margaret asked in awe.

  “A 10,001,” Colt corrected, looking pleased that she’d recognized it.

  “Whatever it is, just don’t point it at me,” Damon said.

  Footsteps sounded from behind us. We all turned. I gripped the wand tightly in my hand.

  A voice called out from the kitchen. “H-hello? Miss Margaret? It’s me, Otis. Otis Winken.”

  We let out a collective sigh as Otis stepped into frame.

  “Otis, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Oh, hi, Ava.” He smiled congenially at me and looked around the room. “Miss Margaret called the station a little bit ago and talked to Sheriff Knoxx. He’s still feeling a little under the weather and asked me to come check things out and report back to him.”

  Otis was carrying his brown satchel, which I suspected was a new permanent fixture. I wondered how Sheriff Knoxx was dealing with it. Tadpole poked his head up and looked around, then scrunched his face together and looked at Otis.

  “Tadpole smells danger,” he said.

  I had to admit that Tadpole was cute, even if he was a skunk. One day, Otis would have to tell me just how the two of them found each other. I was pretty sure that Otis didn’t get him at a pet shop. I supposed it was probably the same way that Snowball had found me. She’d been sort of drawn to me and seemed to know precisely where to find me.

  “Otis, we’re going to split up and search the house,” I told him.

  “Okay. I’ll check the basement,” Otis volunteered. “Give a holler if you find anything.” He went downstairs and the rest of us went our separate directions.

  Upstairs, Damon and I found three doors off the hallway. We walked toward what I assumed was Melbourne’s bedroom. The door was closed. Was it possible he was inside?

  “Melbourne?” I called. There was no answer.

  I opened the door to an enormous room that was at least four times larger than I would have pictured. Melbourne must have used an enlargement charm on it. A giant four-poster bed with a lace canopy sat against the wall. It was the type of thing you’d see in a Dickens’ novel. Richly colored tapestries covered the walls and museum quality furniture was spaced throughout.

  “Wow,” Damon muttered beside me. “Melbourne’s house is sort of amazing.”

  I nodded my agreement.

  This room, unlike the others, remained impeccable. It was clean and orderly. Clearly, whatever struggle had taken place had not happened in this room.

  There was a door on the opposite wall that I assumed was a closet, but when I opened it, it led into another hallway. This one darker and smaller than the one we’d just come through.

  “Maybe you and I should split up,” I told Damon.

  “Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you alone in here.”

  “I’m not alone. I have this, remember?” I held up Colt’s supercharged wand and Damon rolled his eyes.

  “That’s not going to help if someone sneaks up behind you and knocks it out of your hand. You may be a witch, but you’re not all powerful.”

  “I never said I was.”

  Damon and I glared at each other.

  “Fine,” Damon finally said. “Do what you want.”

  He turned and walked back out of the room to explore the rest of the rooms off the first hallway. I crept along, fuming at Damon’s idiocy. Why did every man I know insist on treating me like a child? And what had he meant by that crack about thinking I was all powerful? I’ve never, ever said anything like that to him. That sounded like Renee talking. She was a bad influence.

  I ran through a mental list of all the people who might be working with Polly. It hadn’t escaped my attention that the murders had begun around the time of Renee’s arrival. I didn’t dare say that out loud to Damon, but it was true. But why would Renee be helping Polly? That didn’t make sense.

  There was only one door off this new hall. I opened it and found a room engulfed in total darkness. I felt along the wall for a light switch and found it. When the light came on, it almost hurt my eyes. There was a coffin lying in the middle of the room. It was mahogany and large enough to hold two men.

  “M-Melbourne?” I choked. My throat had run dry. What if he was sleeping in here and I disturbed him? Did that violate some type of vampire code? Would I be insulting him? Angering him? I had to know whether he was in there.

  He texted me, I reminded myself.

  I took a breath and opened the lid. My eyes bugged out of my head, and I gasped loudly.

  “Oh, my roses!” Inside was nothing but a pile of ashes. A wooden stake lay beside it.

  “Damon!” I screamed. “Colt!”

  Colt was the first one to find me.

  “Ava, what’s the—” He saw the ashes in the coffin. “Vampire hunters.”

  “You mean that’s Melbourne?” I yelled, pointing to the ashes.

  Colt nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

  I reached out to touch them, then pulled my hand back. Did I really want to touch vampire ashes? How was I going to tell Trixie?

  “Where’s Margaret?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. We split up to search different rooms.”

  “Damon and I did the same thing. Let’s find them and get out of here.”

  Colt nodded. “I’ll have to call this in. Vampire hunting was outlawed in the Treaty of 1910.”

  I didn’t know what treaty Colt was talking about, but I knew that Melbourne had never hurt anyone. At least, not since I’d known him. He didn’t deserve to die like that. Alone and frightened.

  “Otis?” I called as we went down the stairs.

  “I’m over here,” Otis called to us from the kitchen. He was drinking a glass of milk. Tadpole was sitting on the table eating a cracker. “Tadpole got upset,” he explained. “He says he smells danger very strongly in this house. He needed a snack to calm him down.”

  “Where’s Margaret?” Colt asked.

  Otis shrugged.

  “Damon?” I called. I was starting to get worried. Where could Damon and Margaret have run off to? The house was only so big. “Margaret?”

  Colt and I searched the house from top to bottom. They were nowhere to be found.

  “They’re gone,” I said. “You don’t think something happened to them, do you?”

  It was one of the few times Colt looked genuinely confused. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m calling Sheriff Knoxx.”

  “Already called him,” Otis said. “He’s on his way.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

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  “DAMON!!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs until my voice was hoarse. If I screamed any louder, I was pretty sure my throat would start bleeding. I hadn’t gotten a response. I wished Colt would let me have his wand back. I felt better just carrying it around.

  “Let me try.” Colt waved his hand in the air and a moment later his voice sounded like a bullhorn. He spoke softly yet I could hear him everywhere. “Damon? Margaret? If you can hear us, call out or make a noise. We’ll find you.”

  I’d have to remember that trick. Growing up in the human world, I was used to screaming and it still didn’t occur to me to simply use magic to make myself heard.

  Sheriff Knoxx pulled up in his car. Instead of screeching to a halt like it normally did, it slowed gently and came to a full and complete stop before he exited from the passenger side. I took a closer look and realized Aunt Eleanor was driving. Trixie and my father were in the back seat.

  “You let Eleanor drive?” I couldn’t help but exclaim as the sheriff came toward us.

  He stumbled a teensy bit over his feet but didn’t
fall. “She insisted.” His voice was low and irritated but his eyes were shining brightly. I thought I knew how he felt. It might annoy him to have Eleanor making demands on him, but it also warmed his heart because he knew it just meant that she loved him.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” Otis said. Tadpole looked out from his satchel, and I could have sworn the skunk winked at him.

  “Otis,” Sheriff Knoxx said, shaking his head, “are you going to bring that creature everywhere with you now?”

  “Tadpole’s no creature, sir. He’s my familiar. And he’s crazy clever.” He looked down at his satchel. “Show them, Tadpole.”

  Tadpole jumped out of his satchel, stood on his hind legs, and began doing a funny little dance. It almost reminded me of the jigs Trixie was prone to doing when she was nervous or excited.

  “Oh, yes, very clever,” Sheriff Knoxx said sarcastically.

  Tadpole stuck out his tongue at the sheriff and jumped back into his satchel. He squeaked a little and Otis leaned down to listen.

  “Tadpole says he doesn’t smell anything weird anymore. The danger is gone for now,” Otis declared, beaming as if Tadpole had just given him the meaning of life.

  “That’s just great, Otis.” Sheriff Knoxx looked at me and Colt. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” I said.

  “You were the only two here besides Margaret and Damon.”

  “Excuse me, Sheriff Knoxx, but me and Tadpole were here, too.”

  “Of course, sorry, Otis. I forgot for a minute.” Eleanor rubbed his back a little as he drew in a deep breath. “Sorry if I’m a little short tempered. My head still hurts after everything that happened.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him. My head was starting to hurt, too, and I hadn’t been stuck overnight in a hospital.

  “Is there any chance the two of them took off together?” Sheriff Knoxx asked.