by Nova Nelson
Hallow’s Faire in Love and War
Eastwind Witches 9
Nova Nelson
FFS Media
Copyright © 2018 by Nova Nelson
All rights reserved. FFS Media and Nova Nelson reserve all rights to Hallow’s Faire in Love and War. This work may not be shared or reproduced in any fashion without permission of the publisher and/or author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover Design © FFS Media LLC
Illustration elements by Kerry McQuaide
Hallow’s Faire in Love and War / Nova Nelson -- 1st ed.
www.novanelson.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
You’re Invited …
Author’s Note
About the Author
Chapter One
Donovan was agitated, but that wasn’t anything new. Neither was his desire for those around him to realize he was agitated without him having to say “This agitates me.”
Although, to be fair, that would be a strange thing to say.
I could tell he wasn’t happy mostly by the way he set down the tea tray on the low, round table in his living room. Or rather, how he went to set it down, and when it was still an inch from the surface, he let go, allowing it to drop the rest of the way and create a metallic clatter as the top of the copper tea kettle and the six cups rattled around.
Prior to that, Tanner and Eva had been engaged in a lively conversation about her old childhood friend who was now a cop in New Orleans. Tanner hung onto her every word. But the tea tray clamor had cut Tanner off in the middle of a question about how New Orleans PD dealt with vampires if they didn’t carry wooden stakes on their belts.
Eva glared at her boyfriend. “Something bothering you?”
Donovan frowned and shrugged. “No. Not really. Just, you know, the fact that Eastwind hasn’t seen tensions between witches and werewolves like this since before my great-great-great grandparents were alive, and yet we’re okay with bringing her out and about, let alone to my home.” He nodded at Grace. “Nothing personal.”
Eva glared at him even harder. I suspected the argument they’d gotten in at Franco’s Pizza the day before, the one that had concluded with Eva storming out and Donovan following after her, hadn’t fully blown over.
Landon’s cheeks were redder than usual. “No one saw her. She was disguised.”
Donovan lowered himself to the floor and scooted into his place at the table, picking at the last of his french fries. “I’d hardly call a holocaust cloak and a fake mustache a disguise.”
Landon’s blush deepened, but before he could muster the words to defend his lady, she did it herself. “It’s been raining so hard and for so long everyone in this town is too depressed to check on who might be under a cloak. Besides, I’m still in the first trimester. It’s not like I’m going to go into labor on this nice rug I’m sure you paid too much money for. You can relax a little.”
I snickered into my burger.
As much as I would have liked to pile on to Donovan about his ridiculously posh living room decor, I had other things holding my attention.
It was the day before Halloween, and since the moment I’d woken up, I hadn’t gotten two seconds to myself without ghosts breathing down my neck, reciting a litany of every wrong ever done to them. I felt like an unpaid supernatural therapist, and I was doing everything in my power to ignore them as they popped in and out, with, “Oh, and another thing I just remembered…”
In short, the veil was so thin, it might call a cobweb fat. I could only imagine what the next day would bring when the veil was drawn back completely and everyone in Eastwind was subjected to the whims of restless spirits.
And while admitting this doesn’t paint me in the best light, yes, I was very excited to share this burden with others for a single day. Try as I might to convince even myself that I “wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” after the days leading up to this and now the nonstop neediness floating around me, making my hair stand on end without end, I did wish this on my worst enemy. And even some of my best friends. Just for a little bit.
At the moment, I especially wished it on Donovan, who clearly didn’t know how good he had it.
“Give her a break,” I said too loudly, forgetting that they couldn’t hear the three spirits presently gabbing my ears off. I shot daggers at the spirit hovering over my right shoulder, inserting herself between me and Tanner as she rambled about her sister who had borrowed her dresses without asking and even ruined a few. “Do you mind?” I asked. “I can’t even hear myself think!”
Tanner tried to follow my eye line into the empty air. “There’s one right here?”
“Oh yeah,” I said.
“I knew it! I swore I could feel a presence.” He shook his head, looking at the others. “Halloween, here we come.” He sounded like a child about to get on the world’s tallest rollercoaster.
I grumbled under my breath to the spirits that if they didn’t shut up for just a few minutes, I was going to banish them before they could resolve their issues and truly rest in peace. It worked, but I didn’t expect it to last long. Ghosts have very little self-control.
“I don’t understand why you like Halloween,” Donovan said. “It’s literally the worst day of the year.”
“It’s not so bad,” Tanner said. “It only lasts a day. And there hasn’t been a death from it in twelve months.” He grinned at his joke. No one else did, though.
“Someone died last year?” Eva asked.
“Yeah,” said Tanner, “but it was more natural causes than from Halloween.”
Donovan rolled his eyes. “I’d hardly call being scared to death ‘natural causes.’”
“Bruckheimer was old,” Tanner said dismissively. “He had a bad heart. Something was bound to scare him to death sooner or later.”
Okay, maybe I wouldn’t enjoy seeing everyone hounded by ghosts as much as I thought. At least not if it meant everyone over the age of sixty or with a preexisting heart condition was at risk of kicking the bucket.
I paused before taking the last bite of my burger, one of the half-dozen I’d cooked up in Medium Rare’s kitchen that was getting no use while the place remained shut down, pending inspection. I was still hungry, but I knew what would happen if I didn’t save a little for Grim.
When I looked over at the corner where he was curled up, though, he didn’t seem too concerned about food. He was snoozing away with Monster, Tanner’s munchkin cat familiar, curled up in his shaggy fur. His back rose and fell slowly, and I decided against waking him. Let sleeping hellhounds lie, and all that.
By the rain-soaked window on the other side of the living
room, Zola and Hera, Eva and Landon’s familiars respectively, laid at attention. Zola’s mountain lion eyes were focused on the table while Hera’s lynx ears twitched nonstop while she stared through the curtain of water on the window, keeping an eye out. Meanwhile, snuggled up in an overstuffed navy and powder blue chair, Gustav, Donovan’s familiar, purred daintily in his sleep. And while Donovan didn’t love the fact that Grace had joined us, Gustav didn’t seem particularly upset about the presence of Grace’s familiar, Snowball, who she’d smuggled in under her cloak to give the poor feline a change of scenery. Snowball had squeezed onto the chair alongside Gustav, and they were pressed together so closely that his gray fur mingled with her fluffy white puffs.
“You’ll love the Hallow’s Faire, Nora,” Landon said, dragging me back into the conversation. “As a Fifth Wind witch, you’ll practically be the guest of honor. Everyone will be looking to you for guidance.”
“What makes you think I would love that?” I asked, reflecting of all the guidance ghosts had grilled me for in the six hours since waking up. When Landon’s eager expression drooped, I berated myself internally for speaking harshly, and backtracked. “No, I get what you’re saying, though. It’ll be nice to not feel like an outcast for once.” I patted him on the back and that seemed to cheer him.
“You think it’ll still be raining?” Eva asked. “All this rain is dampening my powers, and I could really use them at maximum strength if I’m going to be facing down the kind of terror you boys describe.”
Eva, being a South Wind witch, possessed special powers of pyromancy, or the ability to use fire to her magical advantage. I hadn’t even considered that rain might literally damper her abilities, but it made sense.
“Don’t worry,” said Donovan, “I’ll keep you safe. I’ve never felt stronger.”
“Please,” Tanner said, “You’re an East Wind witch in a town founded by East Wind witches who harnessed the power of the spring to take over. You’ve never exactly been hard up for power.”
“Easy there,” said Donovan, “you’re letting your jealousy show, Deputy.”
Tanner waved him off with a flick of his hand.
“They’ll have cleared up the rain by tomorrow,” Landon said, addressing Eva’s previous question that had almost been lost amid the machismo. “I overheard a couple of Coven witches in the break room at work talking about the measures being taken by some of the North Winds to clear up the sky. Of course, nobody asked me for assistance, but it figures. I’m not exactly on the Coven’s list of favorite witches.”
“None of us are,” Tanner said. “Not since Lot Flufferbum went public about us with that piece in the Eastwind Watch.” He yawned (and took the opportunity to toss a few more of the truffle fries into his mouth). As he began to chew, he added, “I’d better get some sleep. Last night was nuts.”
“I can’t imagine tonight will be any better,” said Eva in her usual sympathetic tone.
She did it so well.
I made a mental note to ask her how she pulled it off so flawlessly. Every time I tried to sound sympathetic, it just came out as condescending or sarcastic.
“Actually,” said Tanner, “Tonight shouldn’t be bad. I only have to work till midnight. Longstanding tradition that law enforcement takes all of Halloween off.”
“Really?” we all said at once.
Tanner jerked back, blinking. “Yeah, you didn’t know that?”
Donovan was the first to spat, “No! I didn’t know that.”
Then Landon said, “Well, that makes sense. I always see Bloom and Manchester around and out of uniform at the faire. But it never occurred to me that they weren’t still on duty or that they hadn’t set up some other system.”
Tanner rubbed his belly through his uniform as he began zoning out, gazing at the spring water bubbling at the center of Donovan’s table. “Yep. No point. Too many emergencies. Bloom says she got tired of trying to prioritize whose life was more valuable than whose, which was what it came down to with the amount of emergency owls she got swooping down on her. Decided to call it off, let everyone deal with their own problems, and we’d start on the clean up the next day.”
“That makes a terrifying kind of sense,” I said. “Also, good to know that there’s no one to call if I need help tomorrow.”
“You kidding?” said Tanner. “You call me. I might not be on duty, but I’m still your boyfriend.”
“Such a hero,” Donovan grumbled, stabbing at a bit of hamburger bun with a fry.
“Nothing wrong with that,” said Eva coldly.
Yeah, they were definitely still fighting.
“Until he gets himself killed doing it,” Donovan snapped back.
Eva’s mouth fell open. “How can you say that in front of Nora?” she hissed.
“WELP.” Tanner stood, and I hopped up with him. “Like I said, I’d better get some sleep.”
“And I’d better go with him,” I said, “to, um, help him sleep.”
Landon jumped up and pulled Grace up with him. “I’d better get back to work. The Parchment Catacombs aren’t going to forge signatures on their own.”
As each of us roused our familiars in a hurry to leave, so that Eva and Donovan could duke it out about whatever bitterness was lingering between them, I grabbed the umbrella by the door and opened it, only to discover that the rain was hardly more than a mist. We said rushed goodbyes and split.
Only a block down, Landon and Grace broke off as he walked her home on his way back to work, and by the time Tanner and I had reached the Eastwind Emporium, Monster riding on Grim’s back beside me, the rain had completely stopped. Eastwinders quickly seized the opportunity to hurry out for their long-delayed errands, and the empty streets began to fill.
I didn’t mention it to Tanner, for fear of sounding a little paranoid, but the break in the rain seemed ominous. I couldn’t explain it. Perhaps the Coven’s North Winds had gotten a jumpstart on handling the weather, but something inside me that I thought I ought to listen to told me the shift was a calm before the storm, and I’m not talking thunderstorms here.
Because the streets around town had been so deserted during the unfavorable, wet conditions, and when people were out in it they had mostly kept their heads down, I’d had the luxury of forgetting that everyone in town hated me.
Okay, maybe that was a tad dramatic.
But they definitely mistrusted me, even before the Eastwind Watch had published a headline about the first complete witch circle this town had seen since the last war… and named each of us involved. At least prior to that, most people had the shame to hide some of their mistrust for me. They’d been socially conditioned enough to know you should generally pretend to like people, and fearing someone just because they’re an outsider or, you know, they can speak to ghosts, travel through past lives, and goddess knows what else, you shouldn’t mistreat them to their face. That widely held belief had saved me big time on unnecessary day-to-day confrontations.
But that had all changed in a matter of a single day. Flufferbum had snapped a picture of the five of us together outside the Bouquets’ house in Erin Park following the close call with doppelgängers, and the previously unknown North Wind in our circle was confirmed.
And just like that, the power shifted.
That was the most important part of it all, the power. Or rather, the perceived power, because that was the crux of every problem, wasn’t it? It’s socially acceptable to go after people or groups more powerful than yourself. You never have to feel ashamed of that. In fact, we usually applaud it. But going after those with less power is just wrong, and polite society doesn’t take kindly to it.
But who’s to say who or what is more powerful than anything else?
Everyone, apparently. And the consensus around town seemed to be that regular Nora Ashcroft was a little scary but not generally powerful. But once our circle was confirmed, Nora Ashcroft—the pivotal Fifth Wind—was suddenly a powerful menace to society.
Obviously
that was false, since none of us were up for claiming any of that power, and, to be totally real about it, we had no idea what we were doing. We’d fumbled our way through defeating the archetype, but we couldn’t have done it without Liberty Freeman finishing her off.
And yet, no one cared about that. We’d become this potentially oppressive force in town, and that meant we were fair game for animosity.
For the most part, that manifested in random witches, weres, elves, leprechauns, fauns, and the like giving us unabashedly dirty looks as we passed. They didn’t need to hide their mistrust, because mistrust of authority is seen as a virtue.
At least I saw it that way. I just wished we weren’t considered “authority.” Seemed a little ridiculous.
As we cut through the large lot of the Emporium, vacant of its usual booths and carts, two tall figures engaged in heated discussion neared from the other direction, and when the first looked up and saw us, he did something very pleasant. He grinned.
“Tanner! Nora!” said Liberty Freeman, waving. He placed a hand on the back of Count Sebastian Malavic, who accompanied him, and the two made their way toward us.
When the count greeted us with his usual mild disinterest, I was actually relieved. Never thought I’d see the day when Malavic was one of the more pleasant people to encounter around town.
Liberty jumped right into it. “You two staying safe?”
Tanner nodded. “As safe as we can be.”
“I imagine playing it safe isn’t in your blood,” said Malavic, eyeing Tanner with something not unlike approval.
Liberty leaned forward, and in low tones said, “The Safe Haven laws are on their way out. We’re moving as quickly as we can.”