Hex at a House Party

by Gretchen Galway

  “I’ll let you know if I see them,” I said.

  He gave me a doubtful look but nodded. “Given the unknown reading we’re both picking up, let’s go for a walk before you tell me whatever it is you want to tell me.” His voice dropped. “We’ve said too much here already.”

  “We can go down to the beach.” I pulled the zipper of my fleece sweater to my chin and began walking across the grass to the cliff path. The wind was sharp, blowing hard off the shore.

  My hair whipped into my face, so I tied it back with one of my elasticized bracelets, using it as a ponytail holder. But it was only partially effective; loose strands continued to whip around my eyes. Maybe it was time to get it cut short. At the moment, I had stereotypical witch-lady hair—frizzy and wild. Could I pull off a pixie cut?

  That would be ironic. The demon-witch who saw fairies—with a pixie cut.

  I reached the gap in the rocks and began climbing down the path to the cove, pulling my attention away from my stupid hair to the treacherous ground under my feet. Boulder, gravel, grass, soil, heather, rock… Nooks and crannies, insects and rodents, so much habitat, so much food, so much spirit. Fairies must have lived here for countless eons, as old as the land, clinging to the changing shore, their existence interwoven with sun, wind, earth, sea, starlight.

  The demon must’ve walked on the beach recently. Otherwise I would be seeing fae.

  For Darius’s sake, I took the three stones out of my pocket and held them out as I maneuvered down the last stretch of the rocky slope. When we got to the beach, I paused and looked around carefully. The roaring wind made listening too difficult, so I was limited to my vision.

  There, just ahead—a likely habitat. It was a large, hollow log, pale with age, sheltered from the wind. I went over and squatted down to look inside, squinting into the shadows.

  Yes. There were the telltale accessories of a fairy group—seashell chairs, yarrow bedding, and little shirts and dresses made out of…

  Kelp. The beach was littered with the thick, slimy strands; the spirit people found a use for anything.

  But they weren’t here now. The flowers and kelp wouldn’t have lasted very long, however, so they must’ve been there fairly recently, maybe a week ago.

  “Find anything?” Darius asked me.

  How much should I say? I didn’t know how well ordinary witches could see fairy houses.

  Straightening, I tucked the rocks back into my pocket and decided to be noncommittal. “They should be here, but they’re not.”

  He frowned, nodding. “Where did you get the sight stones?”

  I stared. They were from an empty lot near Cypress Hardware in Silverpool. They held enough granite to be powerful for strengthening my own senses, but nothing more. If he held them, he might discover the truth.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I suppose you have lots of charms and amulets you’re not supposed to have.”

  I smiled sheepishly. The wind blasted the hair out of my loose ponytail, and I busied myself pulling it back again. “Show me where you found her shoes and jewelry,” I said, “and everything else.”

  He pointed directly beneath our feet. “The shoes were here. I thought that’s what you were investigating.”

  The log would be a logical seat, but could it be something else? Something to do with the fae?

  I moved to one side and got down on my hands and knees, casting out my senses for the imprint memory of the opal ring. It nagged at me, which had to be important. “Didn’t the police tape off this area yesterday?”

  “I removed their litter this morning. It was impossible to unearth any hexes with so much nonmagical residue all over the place.”

  “Then they’re convinced it was suicide?”

  “They’ve seen it before.” He squatted down and raked the sand with his fingers. “People have a drink or two, then swim out until they’re too weak to make it back. The ocean does the job for them. There’s no mess, and the family can call it a tragic accident.”

  I bent forward until my nose was almost in the sand. There. Opal. I could almost taste it. Above the surface, inside something—like a shoe.

  My forehead bumped his knee.

  He held out his hand. “Are you looking for this?”

  Demon’s balls. It was in his hand.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I pointed at the ring. “Why didn’t you tell me you had it?”

  “I haven’t been able to find anything odd about it.” He rolled it between his fingers, studying it. “But you seemed to think it was important, so I took it before the police got here.”

  “You let them have the rest of the jewelry?”

  “They have their own kind of magic when they’re looking for evidence. I couldn’t risk taking anything else.” He slipped the ring on his pinky finger; it only fit halfway. “The police said there were fishing boats offshore and more than one potential witness. I had no idea what condition her body was in or if it would look suspicious when they found it. I used a retrieve spell to get the ring and then went directly up to the house.”

  The ring dominated my attention. It emitted an unpleasant buzzing sensation, like a mosquito in a quiet bedroom. “You don’t notice anything strange about it?”

  He unscrewed the ring and held it out to me. The buzzing intensified, making me flinch, but I reached out to take it—deliberately lowering my strongest barriers. I couldn’t investigate the nature of an object without making myself vulnerable.

  As soon as my hand touched his, a jolt of energy shot up my arm and made me see stars. He sprung back, apparently shocked as well.

  “What in Shadow was that?” He shook his hand in the air.

  Blinking to restore my sight, I held my throbbing fingers to my beaded necklace for healing. “What did it feel like to you?”

  He stared at me and lowered his hand. His gaze dropped to the ring, then to me again. “Demon sign.”

  Well, that supported the note from Crystal. I continued to hold my necklace, rolling my fingers over the largest redwood bead, wondering if online DNA testing would ever have a category for demon, like a percent for Neanderthal ancestry.

  “She tried to blackmail me,” I said.

  It was disappointing to think she hadn’t known anything about my mother after all, just that this object had suggested something Shadowed in my lineage. Having met my father, she was able to excuse my paternal line.

  Darius’s jaw tightened, and I could see he was angrier than I’d ever seen him. “And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think that would be relevant—”

  “I told you I had something to tell you.” I got to my feet, swaying slightly, inhaling the sea air deep into my lungs. The proximity of the ring was making me queasy. “She left a note. I only got it this morning.”

  It took a few long seconds before he seemed to accept what I’d said. Still kneeling in the sand, he bowed his head and studied the ring.

  I turned and walked toward the waves, trying to remember where the photo had shown her clothes to be. The tide had washed away most of the footsteps, leaving a clean, smooth slate, life continuing as it always did, another frail, mortal life forgotten.

  “Does Raynor know?” He was behind me, shouting over the wind to be heard.

  I spun around. “Does he know what?”

  “Does he know what you are.”

  I threw up my hands. “I don’t know what I am.”

  He pursed his lips. “Right.”

  “Maybe Raynor didn’t tell you everything. Did you wonder why he was so vague with you? Maybe—”

  Maybe Crystal had tried to blackmail him too for having demon sign. Demons hunted fairies, and the ability to see them would be a given.

  Darius held the ringed hand toward me. “Maybe what?”

  Nobody I know has ever admitted to it. Telling anyone would probably get you fired.

  I turned away, regretting I’d said anything about Raynor. I wouldn’t expose him—or anyone—for having fairy sight, ev
en to save my own reputation.

  “Look, Darius. I’m not a demon.” And so far as I knew, neither was Raynor. “I don’t know what that thing measures, but I’m not hiding anything from you.”

  “Your dismissal from the Protectorate is taking on a whole new meaning.” He held both hands out in front of him in a defensive posture.

  Relieved it was defensive, and not offensive, I turned around and walked past him to return to the path. “If you’d stop being stupid, I’d tell you what you should do with that ring.”

  “I bet you would.”

  Catching him off guard, I turned and pointed at the ring. “You should use it on everyone else at the house.” Although my guts didn’t want me to touch it, I added, “In fact, you should let me wear it and test you.”

  Eyes narrowing, he nodded. “Take off your old magic first.”

  “My old— You mean my beads?”

  “And any other hearth magic you’re wearing.” His gaze dropped to my feet. “You used to keep a peregrine feather in your left boot. You still do that?”

  “A trained Protectorate agent like you couldn’t possibly think a bird’s wing has any leverage over your silver.”

  “Take off all of it,” he said, “and you can wear the ring for nine seconds.”

  Nine seconds was generous. A powerful number like five or three, but longer. Nodding, I released his arm, bent over, and took off my boot. The feather dropped out into my palm, and I showed it to him. “Do you need to hold it, or can I put everything into the boot?”

  He nodded. “Put everything in the boot.”

  And so, like Crystal, I removed all my jewelry, my tokens and amulets, a jade coin, the oak leaf from my bra, the sachet, everything—and set them inside my sandy, well-worn footwear. Unlike Crystal, I kept my clothes on.

  “That’s everything.” I held out my hand.

  He ran a magic scan over me before dropping the ring into my palm. Honestly, I didn’t mind the delay; I was dreading direct contact with the opal.

  Ouch. Even worse than before, the buzzing drilled into my bones, my nerves, as if I was getting my teeth cleaned by an incompetent dental hygienist. Without the protection of my magic, the ring felt hot to the touch, and I almost didn’t have the willpower to slip it on my finger, which I feared would hurt even more.

  But to my relief, the pain lessened as soon as it passed the first knuckle and then dropped to a faint itchiness after the second.

  Taking a deep breath, I turned to Darius and held out my hand like a politician running for office.

  He raised an eyebrow, looking wary, but clasped my hand.

  And nothing. I closed my eyes, reached out.

  “Three seconds,” he said.

  I wiggled my hand in his, rubbing the ring against his finger, but felt no increase in the buzzing, no heat.

  “Six seconds. Three more,” he said.

  I put my other hand over his and squeezed. I conjured up the red demon from my nightmare, anything to prime the pump of my trained hunting senses.

  “Nine,” he said. “Let go and give me the ring.”

  I made a face at the opal, disappointed it had let me down, and returned it to him.

  “Well?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Either you’re clean as she called it, or I’m not able to use it.”

  When he’d worn the ring, it had given him a shock to touch me. But when I’d gotten used to wearing it and then touched him, I hadn’t felt a shock.

  Somehow, for some reason, the ring treated us differently.

  “I’m clean,” he said. “She didn’t give me a blackmail note, and she shook my hand when I arrived.”

  “I didn’t find mine right away,” I muttered, but I figured he was right.

  Eager to block some of the sensation, I bent over and put the bead, other magic items, and boots back where they belonged while Darius took out a black velvet bag, loosened the jute drawstring, and dropped the ring inside.

  “Tierra told me Crystal had been blackmailing her for two years,” he said casually.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I straightened to my full height. “You didn’t tell me!” But there was no point expecting him to admit how unfair that was. “Did she report Crystal to the Protectorate?” That didn’t surprise me if she had. Her loyalty was clearly to Warren, not his wife.

  “No,” he said. “She didn’t.”

  “Then how did you—” I thought back. “When you went walking. How did you get her to tell you?”

  He rolled his eyes. “You have such a high opinion of my diplomatic skills, don’t you?”

  “I think you probably threatened to bring her into Diamond Street for questioning,” I said.

  “She had a duty to assist in a formal investigation into crimes that might jeopardize the secrecy and safety of the witch world.”

  “What did she say was the reason for the blackmail?” I put my hand on my necklace and strengthened my protection spells to block out the continuing, draining pressure from the ring. “Did she admit to demon stain?”

  “She did not. She claimed Crystal accused her of using Shadow magic to steal from the audience of her show.” He shrugged. “And denied it, of course.”

  “Crystal made fun of her show. Called her Bubbles the Clown.” I wrapped my arms over my chest, wishing I’d worn a thicker sweater. “Belittled her.”

  “Tierra admitted she doesn’t get rich from her show,” he said. “So she’d have financial pressures to steal. Then again, maybe Tierra only said that to hide the same thing you’re hiding.”

  Whatever that was. “And so now I bet you’re going to find a reason to go shake her hand again.”

  He flashed a quick grin and began climbing up the path. “Everyone’s going to wonder why I’ve gotten so friendly all of a sudden.”

  I climbed up after him. The wind blasted my hair into my face, but I didn’t want to remove any of my bracelets this time to tie it back.

  When we reached the paved path, I saw Birdie walking with Phil and Zoe up to the carriage house’s front door. Zoe held a tray heavy with food and drink, Phil carried a stack of plastic food containers, and Birdie held a pot of tea that, even from twenty feet away, I sensed held a healing spell.

  When we reached them, Phil held up the containers to Darius. “Zoe felt the need to do something for Warren,” he said. “Did you want to look at them first?”

  Darius paused. “No, go ahead.” He cleared his throat. “My apologies for being… insensitive this morning, Witch Zoe.”

  Her eyes widened at the old-fashioned but polite address. “Apology accepted,” she said. “Here, you can help. This tray is heavy.”

  Darius took the tray, Zoe knocked on the door, and a few minutes later we were all inside the kitchen, putting the food away. Warren sat at one end of the table, looking pale and dazed; Tierra was ironing a shirt on a vintage, wall-mount ironing board behind him.

  Zoe and Phil sat at the table with Warren, but Birdie and I moved to stand behind the kitchen island. Darius stood at the end of the table, facing Warren, making no effort to look comfortable.

  My fingers itched to take the ring from him and shake everyone’s hand. Had he managed to get a read on Zoe when he’d taken the tray?

  Powerless, I leaned on the kitchen island. The papier-mâché sculpture of Crystal I’d seen earlier stood next to a jar of kitchen utensils—wooden spoons, steel tongs, rubber spatulas. One of the spoons, carved from black walnut, was too pretty—and powerful—to be used for stirring a common soup. It gave off a thrumming song that made me want to touch it, smell it, use it…

  Steal it.

  Sighing internally—I was my father’s daughter at the most inconvenient moments—I dragged my attention back to the sculpture. I needed to distract myself from temptation. Idly I wondered why they’d set an unflattering, beat-up representation of Crystal in such a prominent place. It looked as if it had been scorched by the nearby stove once or twice. Maybe Crystal, dislikin
g the ugly thing, had tried to “accidentally” break it. If they’d had children, I would’ve assumed it had been a product of a summer camp art class, adorably imperfect. Perhaps that was it: one of Warren’s early efforts from back when their love affair was new, it reminded them of that fresh passion.

  I wondered if my father had kept the key chain I’d made for him in kindergarten. Would he keep an object that held no monetary value? Perhaps he was holding on to it as an investment in case I became a famously powerful witch and the strip of painted plywood accrued actual market value.

  The spoon sang another delicious, tempting song to my magical taste buds, and I found myself staring at it again. Apparently it was time to explore black walnut for my next woodworking project. The wood from the Californian trees was called something different than the eastern or English walnut. Claro, I remembered. As soon as I got home, I would have to look into getting some.

  “Just like old times,” Tierra said, holding up the iron. Steam hissed out. “He’s always appreciated a freshly ironed shirt.”

  “My mother insisted,” Warren said. “She was very strict. I’ve tried to forget how she would punish us if we didn’t meet her standards, but some lessons are unforgettable.”

  “Is there anything we can do for you, Mr. Hawk?” Birdie asked. “I’m not very good at ironing, but we could do your laundry, vacuum, mow the lawn, pick up groceries, drive you around?”

  Warren frowned at her as if he wasn’t sure who she was. “Thank you, my dear, but I’m quite all right.” His blinking gaze drifted over the room. “In fact, I don’t mean to be rude, but all of you should go home. It was Crystal who was the hostess. I’m afraid you’ll be quite disappointed with me, especially at the moment.”

  Nobody looked at Darius. The iron hissed into the silence.

  “The Protectorate has instructed me to keep everyone here for now,” Darius said finally.

  Warren put his palms on the kitchen table and pushed himself up to his feet. “But why? Since when is a tragedy an official matter?”

  “There are questions regarding her death,” Darius said quietly.