Witch I May, Witch I Might

by K. J. Emrick

  “Polite people knock,” she told him. “Polite people don’t just pop into places whenever they choose.”

  He smiled at her. “I’m not ‘people,’ polite or otherwise. I’m an angel.”

  That was true, and it reminded Addie that the man she saw sitting here wasn’t a man at all, but a being of immense power who could sweep her away with a thought.

  “Oh, stop worrying,” he said as he saw the look on her face. Annoyance colored his words. “Every time you see me you act like I’m going to squish you like an ant. Haven’t we had enough time to start trusting each other?”

  She didn’t directly answer his question. “After you leave, I’m going to set a protection spell on my café that will keep you from popping in here like this.”

  He shrugged and took a sip of the coffee. “You can try.”

  “Why are you here, Philly?”

  “For the pie,” he answered. “You make really good desserts. You should think about opening a restaurant or something.”

  “I’m serious. Why are you here?”

  Using a paper towel as a napkin, he wiped his lips and set his fork aside. “Honestly? I’m here to thank you for getting Alan off the hook. You really came through for me, Addie Kilorian.”

  “I didn’t do it for you.”

  In his hand, the coffee paused halfway between his lips and the counter. “You know, if you keep insulting me like that I’m going to think you don’t like me.”

  “Let’s just say I’m undecided.”

  “All right. You stay undecided, even though I’ve done everything I can to help my son and help you and your sisters as well. The same son of mine, incidentally, who was taken away from me at birth. The son I was kept from seeing for years. Time may not mean the same thing to an angel as it does to a human, but Alan is twenty-two, and I missed all that time with him. Let me tell you, that hurts. I would have every right to hold a grudge about that. I could have come in here with the fires of Heaven and Hell at my back and just taken Alan away, but I didn’t. Just remember that the next time you’re getting your hate on for me.”

  The oven beeped again, insistently reminding her that there was food that needed to be removed before it burnt to a crisp. She went over and shut it off, putting on an oven mitt to take the trays out. She’d learned her lesson a long time ago about hot metal baking trays. There were some things that were just too hot to handle.

  Like, for instance, the angel sitting at her kitchen island.

  Setting the snack food on the top of the stove to cool, she shut the oven door again and turned back to Philly. “You were wrong.”

  “Oh? And just what was I wrong about?”

  “You said Belladonna Nightshade was controlling Alan to commit this murder. It wasn’t her. In fact, he didn’t even kill Autumn Lynch.”

  “Hmm. Yes, I was wrong about that. I’m glad I was, don’t get me wrong, but let’s not forget that you thought Alan was the killer, too. So I guess we were both wrong.”

  “Yes, but you were wrong about something else.”

  “Heh,” he scoffed. “You know, angels in general don’t like to be told when they’re wrong. My kind of angel likes it even less. Read your Bible sometime. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “I’ve read it, thank you. That doesn’t change the fact that you were wrong about Alan having magic of his own. There’s no magic inside of him. No magic from Belladonna, no magic from himself. He didn’t inherit any powers from Kiera or from you either. He’s not a witch.”

  Philly thought about that for a moment, lines of deep concentration creasing his forehead. “Okay,” he said at last. “You got me. I was wrong about Alan. Only… wait, no, I don’t think I was. Not entirely. Her magic is in him, Addie. It’s dark, and it’s deep, but it’s there. She might not have puppeteered him into committing murder, but she put something in him. I felt it when I shook his hand, remember?”

  “I’m not sure I believe that,” she told him, although come to think of it, this wouldn’t be the first attempt by Belladonna to sneak bad magic into Stonecrest wrapped inside of a good person. Wicked witches didn’t much care who they used to get to their goals.

  “Believe it or not,” he said, “it’s true. There’s bad magic flowing through him now. How else do you explain the amnesia he had? He lost nearly an entire day, drove up to Birch Hollow for no real reason at all, met up with Willow just by chance, and doesn’t remember any of it? I don’t think so. That’s the evil witch’s doing.”

  “Or, it’s a delayed effect from the car accident he was in. Head trauma can make you do funny things.”

  “So can being a stubborn witch.”

  Addie smiled at the left-handed compliment. She took a plate from an overhead cupboard and put three mozza sticks and half a dozen wings on it. Then she brought it over to the island counter and set it down in front of him.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “A peace offering,” she said. “You were right before. You’re Alan’s father. I’m his aunt. We have to find some way to get along, for his sake. Besides… you weren’t completely wrong about Belladonna.”

  “You mean because of the amnesia thing, and the red spark I felt.”

  “Well, maybe, but there’s something else. Willow did have Gary’s car locked up. I sort of lied to August when I said she never does that. She always does it. She’s not exactly the trusting type.”

  “So I gathered.” He picked up one of the breaded cheese sticks, not worrying about how hot it was, and bit off the end. Gooey cheese strung out between his lips. Steam curled up from the oven baked treat. “Mmm. This is very good.”

  “Thank you,” Addie said. “The Irish aren’t all about potatoes and corned beef, you know. The thing of it is, if Willow’s doors were locked there was no way for August to put the body in Willow’s car. Plus, the chances of him just randomly picking Willow’s car out of the hundreds of cars up there in Birch Hollow? I don’t buy it. This was all carefully planned out to drag us down. Someone brought August to Willow’s car. Someone made sure the doors would be unlocked for him. That required magic, and that someone was Belladonna Nightshade.”

  “Oooh, that’s kind of scary. You should tell the police.”

  “I did,” she said. “Lucian is going to have an arrest warrant issued for Belladonna. Let’s see how she likes being harassed for a change.”

  He looked impressed, as he popped the rest of the mozza stick into his mouth and then talked around it. “I agree. She was involved, just not in the way I thought. Fine. I can admit when I’m wrong. I’m not all knowing, after all. I think I’ve told you that before.”

  Addie took one of the cheese sticks from his plate and blew on the end of it to cool it down. “You have. Belladonna intentionally messed with my family. Our family, I should say. She tried to tear us apart. God alone knows what else she might have done if we hadn’t figured out this mystery when we did. Next time, we might not be so lucky.”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “I agree. I guess the question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Me? Oh, that’s simple. I’m going to war. That’s what I’m going to do about it.” She tore the stick in half, and ate one half, chewing and swallowing it before saying the rest of what she was thinking. “I was hoping that you’ll help us fight her. I’m hoping that all this talk about you being family hasn’t just been so much hot air. Belladonna is crafty, and she’s powerful. That’s a bad combination. We’re going to need all the help we can get. An angel on our side could come in handy. Can we count on you?”

  He was already standing up when she was only half finished with her question. He finished his coffee, taking his time with it, and then he set the cup aside. “No, I won’t.”

  Addie’s heart sank. “What do you mean, no? This involves your son and I thought you’d jump at the chance to stop an evil witch threatening his life!”

  His expression was unreadable. “I’m not here to fight your battles for you, Addie. As for prote
cting my son, well, I’ll always be up for that. I think he might surprise you, though. I’ve got a feeling that he’s better able to defend himself than either of us realizes. So, I’ll see you Friday at Stonecrest. Tell Alan I’m bringing Chinese. Have the beer chilled.”

  Then he turned sideways and disappeared. He left a haze of smoke in his place, smelling faintly of salt and brimstone.

  Not a second later he popped back in with a whisper of sound like a rushing wind. With a boyish grin he reached over and picked up the plate of chicken wings and the one remaining mozza stick. “Almost forgot these,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be around. I’ll bring the plate back to you on Friday when I come to visit Alan.”

  Then he was gone again, more smoke drifting through her kitchen.

  Epilogue

  Lucian sat at his desk in his office, staring at the mountain of paperwork that had been generated by the Autumn Lynch murder case. Over the length of his career he had come to realize that the absolute worst part of this job was the paperwork. Today wasn’t doing anything at all to change his mind.

  He sighed and started on another form. This one was a request to the local court to have an arrest warrant issued.

  In the cells at the back, August Lynch was securely tucked away, under twenty-four-hour watch per the department’s policy. They’d gotten him some of his own clothes from his motel room to change into, and the man had nothing to do at this point except sit there and be quiet, but he wasn’t being any good at either.

  The computer on the corner of his desk had the internal cameras for the department displayed for him. Every computer in the place could pull up the camera feeds and maybe if they’d done this earlier when Alan had been in custody, Addie wouldn’t have snuck in, right past his officers. Although somehow, he knew it wouldn’t have mattered. Not with her. Plus, Alan wasn’t being charged with anything now, so it really didn’t even matter anymore. Water under the bridge.

  The camera back there had malfunctioned during her visit. He knew he could thank her for that one, too. They’d gotten it replaced with a spare, and now he watched August in his cell, pacing back and forth, his hands constantly swinging around as he talked to himself nonstop. He’d confessed already, and in great detail, but he was still going on and on about how he’d killed his sister and he was very sorry about it and if he could take it back he would, but he just couldn’t so all he could do was be sorry, and so on.

  And so on.

  And so on…

  If Lucian didn’t know any better, he’d think Addie had put a spell on the man to encourage him to confess.

  That brought out another sigh from him as he turned away from the monitor and back to his seemingly endless paperwork pile. He’d much rather be with Addie and her sisters right now, celebrating Alan’s release down at The Hot Cauldron. He’d rather be going home with her afterward, and holding her, and maybe letting the night take them wherever it was going to take them. He had a feeling it was going to be a few days, at least, before he could get together with her again. This case was already generating media interest, and the next few days were going to be a madhouse around the Birch Hollow Police Department.

  Funny, he thought, how things in both his personal and his professional life had gotten more complicated once he met Addie Kilorian.

  An Irish witch who loved him and challenged him and expected him to be amazing. A man could do far worse. Moving back to Birch Hollow had turned out to be the best decision he could have ever made.

  The empty blocks on the form filled up with his strong, neat handwriting. There was a different form on the computer that went with this one, where he was going to have to explain all the reasons why he wanted the arrest warrant, but he’d get to that one next. He could only write so fast. Usually, he’d pass off some of this work to the junior officers to fill out the forms for him. It would be good practice for them, not to mention it would ease his workload. For this case, he was going to do all of it himself.

  It wasn’t every day you asked a judge to give you an arrest warrant for an evil, manipulative, conniving witch.

  That was how Addie had described Belladonna Nightshade. This was the woman who, if Addie was right, had manipulated events in this case to make Alan look guilty. She was the one who unlocked Willow’s car and allowed August Lynch to place the body there. She’d been doing a whole lot of nasty things to the Kilorian sisters, apparently, and they wanted to harass her back. If they could get every law enforcement agency in the country looking for her, then it would be harder for her to work her mischief.

  Lucian picked up the form, and carefully read through it while the crease in his forehead furrowed in deeper. He was way out on a limb here. The law had no control over magic. It wasn’t a crime to cast a love spell, or put a curse on someone’s house, or use a voodoo doll to make someone sick. There just wasn’t any law against any of that. So, Lucian had gotten creative.

  Based on a statement from Addie, they were going to issue an arrest warrant for trespass. Belladonna hadn’t physically stepped foot inside of Stonecrest, but she’d been there just the same. Addie had tried without a lot of success to explain to Lucian the whole idea of a scrying circle, or Family Circle, or whatever it was called. Belladonna had apparently used the Kilorian’s Family Circle about a month ago to spy on them. So, writing up the statement, Addie said she had seen Belladonna in Stonecrest, and she had refused to leave when they asked her to. It was the truth, or at least a version of the truth.

  Now that, the law could enforce.

  This was going to be interesting either way, he thought to himself.

  So he was going to have to finish up the paperwork to charge August Lynch with the murder of his sister, and get these forms to request the arrest warrant of Belladonna Nightshade done, and then find a judge who wouldn’t mind coming out this late at night. It was already nine o’clock. Paperwork like this couldn’t get done in just a few hours. He needed a break. Some dinner, too. Had he really skipped dinner? Well. He was going to have to remedy that.

  A knock on his door made his pen skip.

  Lucian rolled his eyes. If he kept getting interrupted, he was never going to get this done.

  “Come in,” he snapped.

  The door opened, and a beautiful woman came waltzing in.

  She was tall and graceful, wearing a flowing red dress that clung to her curves and seemed to ripple about her even when she was standing still. Her almond eyes were bright and alluring. Her upturned nose made her seem aloof. Long midnight-black hair curled around her shoulders.

  “Hi,” she said. “You must be Lucian Knight.”

  He’d been expecting one of the other officers. This woman was definitely not a police officer.

  “Officer MacCargar?” he called out into the hallway. “Sam? Hey, Sam! Get in here!”

  The woman clucked her tongue. “I’m afraid Sam is taking a nap. In fact,” she chuckled, “they’re all taking a nap out there. Poor, hardworking civil servants. So overworked. So underappreciated. So easy to encourage a little nappy-nap. Oh, don’t give me that look. Your people will be fine. They’ll wake up rested and ready to go back to work. All except for that chief of yours. He’s a bit of a bear, isn’t he? I think he might wake up cranky. Sorry.”

  She took a step closer, setting off warning bells in Lucian’s mind. It had taken him a second to realize who this was. The description of Belladonna Nightshade that Addie and Willow had given him was pretty specific. This was her, in the flesh. In the police station. In his office.

  His hand twitched for the gun in his holster.

  “Uh, uh, uh,” she cooed, waving one finger. “None of that. You don’t want me to turn that gun around and make you eat it, do you?”

  His hand froze. The rest of him followed. He couldn’t move.

  “There,” she said behind a ruthless smile. “That’s better.”

  As hard as he tried, as much as he struggled, Lucian could not make his hand do what he wanted it to. Or his b
ody, either. Or his eyes. He had no choice but to watch as the evil witch in his office came closer, and closer.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” she said to him in a slow and casual sort of way. “See, witches have all of these powers at our fingertips. We can do things that normal people can’t even dream about. Sorry, darling, but it’s true. You Typics are so dull. Anyway, the problem with other witches is that they don’t have any imagination. It’s all straightforward spell casting and all this double, double, toil and trouble nonsense. So annoying. If they had an ounce of creativity they would think of creating spells that would alert them if anyone, anywhere in the world, wrote their name down on a piece of paper. Or in any electronic format. That’s very important nowadays, because let’s face it. Everyone is online. So anyway, that’s what I’ve done. I have a little spell, and it tells me when people are talking about me.”

  She picked up the arrest warrant sheet from his desk and dangled it in front of his eyes. “It told me you were writing this. You were going to sick the law on me. Well. The rest of the law, I guess, since you’re a police officer yourself. That wasn’t very nice of you.”

  Lucian put all of his energy into speaking, straining to put his panicky thoughts into words. He had questions. He wanted to scream for help. He wanted to explain himself.

  All he managed to get out was a buzzing sort of hum at the back of his throat.

  Belladonna leaned over his desk with a comically exaggerated look of concern. “Hmm? What’s that? You’re wondering what I’m going to do with you? Oh, my dear Lucian. You’ve heard all those nasty stories about me and now you’re expecting the worst. I understand. I’ve been the subject of rumors and bad press my whole entire life. Don’t worry. My Machiavellian plans to destroy the Kilorian sisters might have failed, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take it out on you.”

  His eyes twitched. Her plans? It was just like Addie had told him. This woman had set all this up. The murder of Autumn Lynch, the body in Willow’s trunk, Alan’s arrest, all of it. What sort of hate must she have in her heart for the Kilorian family?