Hex at a House Party

by Gretchen Galway

  “They did get dangerous for Warren,” Darius said. “He fell off a cliff.”

  “Rough trail along here,” I said.

  “Did you see how he fell?”

  I was weak and tired, but I felt his truth spell waft over me. “I don’t remember much when I turn into a cat,” I said. “Once the shift takes over, I’m all animal for at least an hour.”

  “His neck was badly scratched,” Darius said, clearly suspicious.

  “Didn’t he fall off the cliff? That would leave a mark.”

  “Scratched by a cat,” he said.

  I released his arm. He sounded seriously unhappy. “I wasn’t the one to send him over the cliff,” I said. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Of course not.”

  I couldn’t explain without implicating Zoe. “I don’t feel good. I need to lie down.” We hiked in silence until we reached the cypress tree nearest the house, the site where the rites had been planned to take place. Would there be two funerals now? Three? None? The farmhouse and barn down the hill were lit up with activity, the driveway filled with cars, SUVs, motorcycles.

  “Raynor is here,” Darius said.

  “Along with everyone else,” I said, rubbing my nose. “What are the odds they’re going to let me rest alone in my room? I need to take a pound of antihistamines and sleep for a week.”

  “The odds aren’t great,” he said, “but if you give me your full statement, under oath, I’ll see that you get your rest.”

  “You don’t have the power to do that,” I said. “Raynor will insist on interrogating me. Warren Hawk meets a violent death? I’m surprised he’s not here instead of you.”

  “He’s with Zoe.”

  I stopped walking a moment. She was alive. Again I thought of the mist, her smile, the gentle glide to the beach. I resumed walking. “And?”

  “She claims to have killed Warren,” he said.

  I sighed. Why had she done that? She had all the money in the world. Why not run?

  “Claims?” I asked.

  “There’s not a mark on her. No hint of magic, of Warren, of injury. Not a scratch.” Darius said the last word with extra emphasis. “Warren was pretty old, but he was bigger and stronger. His body bore evidence of a fierce struggle—prior to the fall—and he was wearing an old gold watch that was powerful enough to have its own book in the archives.”

  “Maybe she has power you can’t comprehend,” I said. My eyelids were itching, but rubbing them would only make it worse. I’d never found magic that counteracted my allergic response; the only relief came from little pink pills in a plastic bottle from the drugstore.

  “We confiscated all her metal and stone when we detained her,” he said. “She may have acquired some after her escape, but if so, she’s not wearing it now.”

  “Not that kind of power.”

  He put an arm out to stop me. We’d reached the concrete path leading to the carriage house. “They haven’t seen us yet.” He took my hand and pulled me off the path, leading me through the short grass behind the north side of the building.

  I sneezed again.

  Warm energy touched my eyes and sinuses, easing the burning sensation. Apparently Darius Ironford had a knack for healing.

  “Thanks,” I said, sliding him a surprised glance.

  “Hush. I’ve put up a camo spell to shield us. Watch your step.” He led me past the barn, the driveway, the grassy slope to the cottage.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Helen took over the cottage,” he said. “She’s waiting for you. You can rest there, and she won’t let anyone get to you.”

  Relief flooded me. Only Helen could hold off Raynor. Not forever but for at least a few hours, just so I could sleep before I had to talk to him.

  But as we approached the little building under the trees, I noticed it was dark. My power was weak, but I cast out my senses to feel for a difficult and stubborn witch under its roof.

  I stopped walking and dug in my heels. “What are you doing?”

  Darius kept going, tugging on my hand. “I told you. There’s no time to hang out here,” he said, “they’ll see us.”

  “Why aren’t the lights on?”

  “Because she thinks we don’t know she’s there,” he said. “She’s hiding, just like we are.”

  “How do I know this isn’t all a trick?” I slid my hand out of his grip. “Maybe it was you who killed Phil. I thought Warren did it, but I hadn’t worked out how he—”

  “If I’d killed Phil, I’d get a promotion. I’m not lying about that. Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Then why are you being nice to me all of a sudden?” I asked. “I didn’t tell you anything you wanted to know. You’re helping me anyway. Why?” I put my hand on my necklace—the only beads I still had after the shift—and began erecting a defensive barrier from my heart outward.

  But then I sneezed, my concentration broke, and my vision swam with stars.

  The shift was catching up to me. Even without the allergic reaction, I needed to get into bed very soon. Attempting magic in this state was a mistake.

  “Help me with her,” Darius said.

  “Is she hurt?” a female voice asked.

  “Just help me get her into the cottage,” he replied. Then to me, “Alma, don’t freak out. This is Rochelle. She’s not going to hurt you. Don’t hex her or something.”

  I forced my eyes open to look at Rochelle Ironford. She stared back.

  Up ahead, the door to the cottage opened. “What’s the matter with you?” Helen whispered. “Why not invite the whole creepy Protectorate army in with you? Come on, get her inside.”

  I peered into the darkness. Still no light inside the cottage. “Helen?”

  “I got you into this mess,” Helen said. “I suppose I should get you out.”

  Darius was looking at me. “Told you. Since when did you get so paranoid?”

  I pulled free of both Ironfords and marched unsteadily up the steps into the cottage. It wasn’t as dark inside as it had seemed from the lawn, and it smelled like chicken soup and ginger tea.

  “Since she grew a brain,” Helen said, slamming the door.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I woke to the sound of fairies and mourning doves welcoming the dawn. My bed was directly below the open window, and I squinted out at the lightening sky and the glimmer of flying wood sprites in the branches over the cottage.

  Vague memories of eating a bitter stew came to me. Somebody had gotten my antihistamines. I’d taken a shower—with help, I realized uneasily.

  I closed my eyes again. Let whoever was watching me think I was still asleep. I had to think. Now that it was calm, I had time to analyze the past few days with a clear head.

  Although I hadn’t seen it with my eyes, I’d felt the sculpture Warren had made of me. That meant others. He’d been using them to play God—deciding who lived, who loved, who slept, who died.

  Who knew how many objects with manipulated biomatter would be in Warren’s home and studio? If he hadn’t destroyed them already, there had to be one of Crystal. And one of Phil too. Even though he’d been a demon, his body had been human and theoretically vulnerable. Somehow it had given Warren an alibi. And because I suspected he’d been hexing Tierra for some time, there was probably one of her as well.

  I fisted my hands under the covers. The thought of my own hexed likeness strapped to a pottery wheel with all these witches around was making me too anxious to stay in bed. I needed to get my hands on it as soon as possible.

  Rotating my head on the pillow, I opened my eyes and found, to my surprise, Rochelle Ironford drowsing in a chair next to the bed.

  She jerked upright and tapped the underside of her wrist. “She’s awake,” she said.

  “Who are you talking to?” I asked.

  She stood. “Raynor. He’s on his way.”

  “No time for coffee?” I asked, then remembered I’d lost the taste for it. “Tea?”

  She moved to the door. “
You’ll have to ask him.” She touched her bracelet again and knocked on the door.

  It swung open, revealing a yawning Helen in a green bathrobe. Her hair was hidden under a multicolored scarf. “She woke up on her own?” Helen demanded.

  “I don’t answer to you,” Rochelle said.

  Helen beamed. She loved young witches who stood up to her. “Too bad,” she said, holding out something wrapped in cloth. “You’ll want this.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Rochelle didn’t move. “What is it?”

  “It’s breakfast. I had to do something all night.” Helen wedged the bundle in the crook of Rochelle’s arm. “I made cinnamon rolls. And I don’t share with just anybody, so eat it.”

  Rochelle lifted the bundle and sniffed it. Her tone softened. “Seriously?”

  “What else are you going to do with it—set it on fire? Throw it in a well?”

  Rochelle glanced back at me.

  I shrugged. “It’s probably OK,” I said.

  “It’s better than OK,” Helen said. “I ground the cinnamon myself.”

  Rochelle nodded, walked out of sight, and a moment later I heard the front door close.

  “What was in it?” I asked.

  “The oldest magic of all,” Helen said. “Butter.”

  I sat up and climbed out of bed, noting I wore a really soft T-shirt over an unfamiliar but extremely comfortable pair of sweatpants. The fabric felt like a blend of exotic organic fibers hand knitted by angels.

  Speaking of angels…

  “Did Zoe lend me these clothes?” I asked.

  “She’ll be glad you’re wearing them, I’m sure, but I never left my exhausting vigil at your side to ask her,” Helen said. “The Protectorate underlings returned them to the cottage last night with the other things they didn’t want anymore. But Zoe won’t want them now, not after they’d been screened and Brightness knows what else. And you wouldn’t believe what this cottage smelled like when I got here. The cinnamon rolls helped, but I had to cast—”

  I grabbed her arm. She should know about Zoe and the bodiless one in the mist. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. Yesterday at the cliff, when Warren went over the edge—”

  Helen put two fingers over my lips. “He’s here.”

  “Wh—”

  “Raynor.” She stepped aside, and Raynor, so tall he’d bump the doorframe if he walked under it, came up behind her.

  “Nice nap?” he asked, not sounding as if my well-being was at the top of his bullet list of today’s priorities. “We’re going outside. As delightful as Dr. Mendoza’s company surely might be under other circumstances, we are not able to enjoy it at this time.”

  “She’s too weak for another cursed hike,” Helen said.

  He held up my sandals, dangling from one big finger. “We’re just going down to the nice little garden there.”

  I leaned against the wall and put on my sandals, glad to see my toes were soft and stubby again, with no extra hair. Sometimes I had to shave my feet for a month.

  Helen followed us to the door. “You might not think it was a nice little garden if you knew what’s inside it.”

  He shot her a heavy, unwavering look. “Enough. I’ve waited long enough.”

  She met my gaze and shook her head. “Don’t worry about this one. Turns out he’s as stupid as the other guy.”

  Raynor opened the door, pushed me on ahead, and turned to her. “The gnome, a female named Barkfoot who lives alone, won’t trouble us,” he said. “Unlike you.”

  Helen snorted out a laugh and, nodding, closed the door.

  “Not another word until we’re beyond the arbor,” Raynor said.

  I nodded, agreeing with the need for privacy. The weather was foggy and cold again, and I wondered if my borrowed designer tracksuit had a matching hoodie.

  To my surprise, Darius was already there, squatting under the rhododendron with a bowl of blackberries. The gnome wasn’t visible.

  Raynor stood next to Darius, who got to his feet.

  “All right,” Raynor said to me. “Speak.”

  I was too tired to point out I deserved more courtesy and I didn’t work for him, but the distinctions had become muddy. “Did you find a likeness of me in Warren’s studio?” I asked.

  Raynor nodded imperceptibly.

  I gestured toward the garden gate. “Let’s go. Show me where. I can’t have it lying around unprotected with all these witches and agents and Brightness knows what else.”

  Darius looked at Raynor. “You should give it to her. Warren is dead, but it still holds power over her.”

  Raynor took out his herbs and brought a pinch to his nose. “I already put it in her room. It’s well protected now.”

  “You got through my boundary spells?” I asked.

  Raynor sniffed, obviously insulted. “Please.”

  It should be safe enough for now. “He said it was on a pottery wheel. Was that true?”

  “Yeah, in his studio,” Darius said. “Just a rough figure made out of newspaper with a face painted on it. It had hands, too.”

  “Papier-mâché,” I said softly. He could’ve taken a strand of my hair or even a swipe of saliva from a glass at almost any time during the week.

  “It was tied loosely and would’ve been rolling as it spun around,” Darius said. “Is that what it felt like?”

  The memory turned my stomach. I made a face and nodded.

  “Did you find a sculpture of Crystal?” I asked. “How about Tierra? And I think there was one of Phil Thornton, even though he was a demon. He had to do something to slow the decay of the body, so he had an alibi. Did you find any magical fingerprints of Warren on the silver stake that killed Phil?”

  “Alma, you’re supposed to be the one answering questions,” Darius said. “Not asking them.”

  “It’s a collaborative effort.” And I wasn’t going to collaborate until they filled me in. Otherwise they might never tell me.

  Raynor helped himself to a blackberry. “We think we found the residue of a burned Shadowed object that had once held Crystal’s biomatter.”

  I tapped my beads and had a sharp vision of the scorch mark in the carriage house kitchen counter. Hadn’t that been the exact spot where the ugly papier-mâché sculpture of her had been?

  Residue. Of course. “Was the burned biomatter in her kitchen next to the stove?” I asked.

  Darius made an incredulous noise. “Now how in Shadow did you know that?”

  I pointed at him. “You thought I was thinking about stealing that spoon, but really I was noticing the ugly papier-mâché sculpture of Crystal,” I said. “I thought it looked old and yellowed, and I wondered why she let it be in such a prominent place.”

  Raynor regarded me seriously. “And now what do you think?”

  “I think Crystal didn’t display the unflattering statue in her kitchen,” I said. “Warren put it there the night he killed her.”

  Darius and Raynor looked at each other. “The oven,” Darius said, shaking his head. “The sculpture did look burned. I thought it was some art thing I didn’t understand.”

  “He could’ve timed the oven to start burning her when she was on the beach,” I said slowly, figuring it out as I spoke. “She couldn’t stop herself from getting in the water. It was her only way to cool down. I think that as the oven began to heat, she assumed the hex was coming through her jewelry, so she took it all off. But then she began to burn all over. She took off her clothes and ran into the water.” I wrapped my arms around myself, annoyed I hadn’t figured it out earlier. I’d known there was something strange about that sculpture, but I’d ignored my instincts. “What I don’t know is how he made sure she was on the beach at the right time. She left suddenly, saying she had a migraine. I think he must’ve sent a note, maybe pretending to be—”

  “To be me,” Darius said. “Zoe told us Crystal was planning to meet me on the beach. They left the farmhouse together when Crystal said she had a headache.”
<
br />   “And Crystal confided in Zoe about her blackmailing?”

  Darius shook his head. “Because Crystal was distracted, Zoe said she was able to get it out of her with a probing spell,” he said. “Not the whole story, just her anxiety about seeing me on the beach.”

  “If Zoe could probe Crystal’s mind, how didn’t she know her husband was a demon?” I asked.

  Raynor met my gaze. “They both thought he was part demon. Zoe was a Protectorate genealogist,” he said. “She came across unwanted ancestors in family trees—and rumors about them—all the time. It never occurred to her that the man she loved could actually be an active demon presence.”

  “Have you looked for the note Warren sent Crystal, pretending to be Darius?” I asked.

  “We’re still looking, but he had plenty of time to destroy it,” Raynor said.

  “What I don’t understand is why,” Darius said. “Why kill her when the guesthouses were filled with witches? When I was here—me, a Protectorate agent, investigating a crime? If he wanted her dead, he could’ve done it when they were alone. Nobody would’ve suspected Warren Hawk, and if they did, they wouldn’t dare say so. He could’ve gotten away with it.”

  Raynor turned to me, eyebrow raised. “What’s your theory on that, Agent Bellrose?”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “Don’t call me that,” I said. “If just for Darius’s sake. It gives him nightmares.”

  “She’s avoiding the question,” Darius said, “because she doesn’t have a good answer.”

  “I have a great answer,” I said. “He did it because he saw what happened to Crystal’s face when you got out of a Protectorate SUV in your silver jacket, primed for interrogation and arrest.”

  “She’d been blackmailing people for years. Decades,” Darius said. “As flaky as he was, he had to have known.”

  “But I bet this was the first time she’d tried to blackmail a director of the Protectorate.” I looked at Raynor. If he hadn’t wanted me to spill his secret, he wouldn’t have invited Darius. “She shook your hand once, didn’t she? And then she sent you a letter like she sent to me.”