Hex at a House Party

by Gretchen Galway

  “Just last month,” Raynor said, never breaking his gaze with me. “She was at a party at Diamond Street welcoming me to my new position.”

  I resisted the urge to gloat at having guessed he’d been a blackmail victim too. “When Darius arrived, Warren knew the party was over. He’d lose everything. His studio, his birds, his routine. Everything he loved in life.”

  “He’d known all along about Crystal blackmailing Phil,” Raynor said. “Zoe said Warren came over to talk privately with Phil after Crystal’s death, and she didn’t know why since they’d never been close. We think Warren was demanding more money. Presumably, Phil refused.”

  “And so Warren killed him,” Darius said. “We just don’t know how he preserved the body long enough to give him an alibi.”

  I thought back over the way Phil’s body had disintegrated. The way the fog had lifted from the lifeless body like warm breath meeting cold air. Or maybe… cold body meeting warm air.

  “He could’ve put a sculpture of Phil in the freezer,” I said. “Is there one in the barn? That would slow its decay and give Warren an alibi.”

  “But his car never left here,” Darius said. “I checked.”

  “He could’ve gone with Phil to Fort Bragg early that morning, stabbed him at the brewery, and then caught a ride in the bakery van. Hiding with magic because Gail didn’t allow passengers, but he was a powerful mage. He would’ve gotten back here just in time for breakfast.”

  Raynor gave Darius an inquisitive glance. “Did anyone search the freezers?”

  Darius rolled his eyes. “I’ll go look.” He began to walk away.

  “Phil’s sculpture won’t be inside it anymore,” I called after him. “Warren wanted it to decay, so he would’ve taken it out when he got back and put it somewhere warmish. Not the kiln, that’s too hot. Maybe a windowsill.”

  Darius waved impatiently without turning around. We watched him leave the garden, check in with an agent at the door of the barn, then go inside.

  “How about Tierra?” I asked Raynor, worried they might consider her an accomplice.

  Raynor picked up another blackberry. “Late last night, she started freaking out, telling all the agents something was wrong, insisting Warren was still alive.” He shook his head. “Knowing what you’d told Darius about sculptures, we went looking for one that looked like her. We found it in the carriage house.”

  I let out my breath. “Warren used magic to drive her boyfriend away,” I said. “So he could have Tierra for himself. They argued more and more until Nathan finally just left.”

  “A puppet of Tierra was in the Hawks’ bedroom. She claimed it was stolen.” He rolled the berry between his fingers. “I don’t think she was in on it. I interrogated her myself.”

  I grimaced. Poor Ty. “Was it in the Hawks’ bed?”

  “With her little painted head on the pillow where Crystal presumably slept,” Raynor said.

  I shuddered. “I’m going to vomit.”

  Raynor looked unbothered. “Could’ve been worse. The doll was wearing clothes.” He brought a pinch of herbs to his nose and sniffed. “I don’t think his interest in her was carnal. The sculpture of her in the barn didn’t even have a body. Just her head. Some of her shoulders.”

  “So it’s all right because he only wanted to make her be his submissive domestic servant for the rest of his life?” I asked.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Raynor said. “I’m not the one who made Shadow sculptures of people.”

  “You’re not sufficiently disgusted.”

  Apparently caught up in a fantasy, he looked off into space. “Although it would be extremely useful,” he said. “As a director, I could get a lot more done if I could override the free will of my stubborn, and sometimes stupid, agents and mages.”

  “You deserve a prize for overcoming the temptation,” I said. “Where can I nominate you?”

  He turned to frown at me. “You know, demons tend to be very sarcastic,” he said. “Between the two of us, given your personality, it’s likely your demon ancestry was much more recent.”

  Out of habit, I looked around to make sure we were alone.

  “Nobody can hear us,” he said. “The garden is shielded. And Barkfoot knew what we were the moment we stepped in her garden.”

  “I owe her a debt,” I said. “Have you seen her?”

  He shook his head. “Not since last night. I asked Darius to bring the berries to draw her out.”

  “You said she knew what we are,” I said. “I’m not sure I know what we are.”

  He pulled a tiny black bag out of his leather jacket and held it up by the drawstring. “The opal ring. I knew Crystal had something to sense our demonprint, but I didn’t know what.” He returned it to his pocket. “Good job figuring it out. Too bad you exposed me in the process, but I’ll make sure Darius keeps it to himself.”

  Demonprint. So there was a name for it. Much better than stain. “Do you know when your ancestors… Any family story…”

  He crossed his massive arms over his chest. “No idea. Let’s move on.”

  “But—”

  “Darius is here,” Raynor said. “Looks like he found something.”

  Darius obviously didn’t see us until he’d stepped under the arbor, but then he nodded at Raynor and hurried over. He carried a narrow cardboard shipping box about a foot long. “There was a fridge in the studio. This was on top of it. I didn’t think I should touch it.”

  Raynor looked inside the box and gestured for me to join him.

  Inside was a skeletal figure with a large papier-mâché head and sooty wire limbs sitting in a pile of ash. The face was painted realistically, undeniably representing Philip Thornton; even the black yarn hair was cut in the same style. With care and deconstruction, the researchers at the Protectorate would take it apart and find the biomaterial that had sealed Phil’s fate.

  “Why hasn’t the head decayed?” I asked. “The body rotted away, but look at the eyes.” They were disconcertingly vivid.

  “I’m not sure,” Raynor said, “but perhaps because a demon’s spirit is immortal.”

  In uneasy silence, we all stared at the figure. It might have been my confused cat brain, but I believed it was he—or it, she, they, or xe—who had saved Zoe’s life. And a demon as defined by the Protectorate wouldn’t have done that.

  I turned away from the box, which was making my heart ache. “What are you going to do with Zoe?” I asked.

  “Do?” Raynor asked. “What do you mean?”

  I studied him to see if he was offended I’d presumed to question executive Protectorate decision-making. “She escaped your custody and then…” I trailed off. They weren’t going to hear me say she’d killed him.

  “The New York office has accepted my explanation that the entire matter was a misunderstanding,” Raynor said. “Given her grief, it’s understandable she was confused about the smaller details of her release. Her memory of pushing Warren off the cliff was a tragic hallucination from the stress of losing both her best friend and her husband.”

  I shared a glance with Darius, who frowned, then wiped his expression clean.

  Maybe Raynor wasn’t so bad. Taking a deep, satisfied breath, I let my gaze drift around the garden, smelling the late roses, admiring the sunlight reflecting off the morning dew.

  Barkfoot sat in the birdbath wearing my four-leaf clover as a shawl. She offered a slow nod, and I smiled at her.

  “I’d like to go home now,” I told Raynor.

  Chapter Fifty

  It was possible the only reason Raynor let Birdie and me pack up and leave before lunch was because he didn’t want the Emerald witch arriving from New York to see us at the scene and ask questions. With the deaths of Warren and Crystal Hawk as well as Philip Thornton, Protectorate reinforcements were coming to handle the nonmag authorities and media. And provide security for a few quiet funerals.

  I was glad to get out of there.

  The official cause of Warren
’s death was going to be suicide triggered by guilt and grief from his wife’s recent demise. Also, he’d suffered a degenerative brain disease that impaired his judgment; herniated discs in his fifth, sixth, and seventh lumbar vertebrae that had put him in constant, unbearable pain; and the Porsche was about to be repossessed. According to Rochelle, who had told Helen, three Granite witches in San Francisco had stayed up all night coming up with that.

  Helen’s butter had done its magic: she’d won over another Flint at the Protectorate.

  Nathan’s charms were proving less effective. He’d returned late last night, telling everyone Warren had hexed him to destroy his relationship with Tierra so he could have her for himself. When Warren had died, he’d been freed from the distorting enchantment.

  I’d informed Tierra, however, that Nathan had been using charms of his own to seduce her in the first place. I’d felt them for myself in the kitchen. And then, later, I’d realized that it was that unstable combination of spells—Warren’s driving them apart, Nathan’s pulling them together—that had blown up that day in the living room, causing Birdie to be impaled with a crust of toast.

  As Birdie and I drove away in the Jeep, Nathan and Tierra were walking together to the garden.

  “Do you think she’ll take him back?” Birdie asked, glaring at Nathan out the window. If her power had been strong enough to push him off a cliff like a book off a shelf, he’d probably be swimming with the sharks right now.

  “It would take a miracle,” I said. But having seen one of those just yesterday, I wouldn’t place any bets either way.

  The drive home would’ve been more relaxing without the motorcycle escort. Darius, wearing his silver-studded leather jacket, kept close to us as we journeyed down the coast, over the mountains, and south through the valleys to Silverpool.

  What would he do if he saw Seth?

  When we turned onto the narrow lane that led up to our hidden corner of town, Birdie slapped her forehead. “I just remembered I live at your house now,” she said. “This whole time I was picturing me going back to my old house.”

  In the middle of climbing the steep road, I lightened my foot on the gas. Darius, behind us, wobbled on his motorcycle.

  “You just gave me a great idea,” I said. “Could you pretend it is still your house? I don’t want Darius knowing Seth is there. You can go in and make sure he stays out of sight while Darius does a security sweep. He’s probably going to probe the whole block.”

  “Sure, I love Seth. Not love love, although if it was like an arranged marriage thing and we had no choice but to be together and pretend it was love, and he was really hot in bed and gradually, as the days and weeks and months go by, all those delicious nights, we both realize our feelings are—”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll park in your driveway.”

  “My driveway,” she said, grinning. “Have you told Seth?”

  “You’ll have to do that. Tell him to disappear. He’s got skills in that area.”

  “Like his skills in bed,” she said. “The pressure to love him was just too great. I’m sorry, Alma. I know you—”

  “Hurry,” I said, pulling in and killing the engine. “Try not to let Darius see you knock on the door. I’ll get Random. That’ll distract him for a minute.”

  Darius pulled up next to me and dismounted, his helmeted head swiveling back and forth between my house and Birdie’s.

  I walked over to him and pointed at my driveway. “Park at my place. I’ll meet you there,” I said loudly. “I’m helping her inside.”

  He pulled off his helmet. “Tell her to wait. I should check it first.”

  To buy her time, I turned away to fuss with the gear in the back of my Jeep. “I’m sure it’s fine. Warren’s dead.”

  “The demon is out there,” he said. “The Phil body is dead. He’ll want another one. We’re watching Zoe very carefully.”

  “Warren was the killer,” I said. “Carry this to my place? It’s kind of heavy.”

  “You’re stalling.” Ignoring the bag I held out, he set the helmet on the tank case of his bike and strode to Seth’s front door.

  Birdie had gotten inside, but there was no sign of her, Random, or Seth.

  I bit my lip and looked away. What was the worst thing that could happen? Darius knew I was part demon (apparently); Raynor, also part demon (apparently), knew Seth was in Silverpool. What power would Darius have over the situation?

  A lot, I decided. Much too much.

  Realizing I was chewing on my sore tongue, I touched my necklace and used a long hit of magic to chill the Shadow out. Smooth, cool waves washed over me. Eyes drooping, I yawned.

  Great, now I was exhausted and nervous.

  I couldn’t bribe him. Darius was painfully honest and upright. Maybe if Rochelle was dying and needed an expensive nonmagical operation, then he’d take some illicit funds to save her life, but even then I wasn’t sure.

  I couldn’t seduce him. Although I didn’t think he hated me as much as he had last week, my sensual charms were unlikely to succeed any more than Nathan’s had on me.

  Was overwhelming magical force an option? I was close to my house, and my power was heightened. It was possible for me to pick Darius up, stick the helmet on his head, and, with a struggle, turn on the motorcycle. But I could hardly wipe his memory. Even if I had the skills to do it without giving him the intellectual capacity of a mushroom sprite (not much), I would never forgive myself. And Brightness knows Rochelle never would—she’d know he’d been hexed as soon as she asked him about taking me home and he drooled on his silver jacket.

  There was nothing I could do to stop Darius from sending up a Protectorate-wide alarm about a so-called demon living in Silverpool. The best I could hope for was he wouldn’t kill Seth himself but wait for another agent to arrive, which might give Seth time to run away and die in peace.

  Lost in my nightmare thoughts, I didn’t notice Random trotting toward me until I heard his welcoming bark. I squatted down to embrace him, flinching from the attack tongue.

  “You should ask your neighbor to walk him over on a leash next time,” Darius said, striding past me toward my house. “He just opened the door and let him run. You live in a remote backwater, but dogs get hit and killed by motorized vehicles every day.”

  I looked past Random and saw Chuck Sauter, one of our neighbors from down the street, standing in his front yard with a rake, waving at me.

  Chuck, an elderly nonmagical man, husband of Madge—not Seth.

  I sighed with relief and buried my face in Random’s fur. “Such a good boy,” I murmured. Then I looked over at the house for Birdie and saw her standing in the doorway.

  “See you later,” she called. Seeing Darius had gone around the back of my house, she winked at me before closing the door.

  Weak in the knees, I got back in my Jeep—with Random riding shotgun—and drove the twenty yards to my driveway. I got out, nodding at Willy under his tree, and let Darius inside my domestic fortress to do a security check, something I never would’ve let him do if I could’ve thought of an excuse. The torc was in my filing cabinet, along with several other things I’d rather he didn’t see.

  I waited in the backyard, making four-leaf clovers out of my redwood sorrel, dropping them in circles as a luck charm to stop him from seeing the contraband magic.

  Just as I dropped the last one, he came out onto the patio and declared my house safe and clear.

  “You might want to get some decorating tips from Birdie,” he said. “Just an idea. Her place smells really nice.”

  If he hadn’t said that, I might’ve offered him a canned coffee. Or a case of it. But it was time to have my home to myself again.

  I walked him out to his bike. “Maybe you’ll get that promotion now,” I said. “They’ll probably give you credit—”

  “Credit for botching an investigation so badly a demon is on the loose, two murdered witches have drawn the attention of local nonmagical authorities, and a f
amous billionaire’s widow is writing a book about angels?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “They’ll blame me.”

  His face melted into a hopeful smile. “Do you think so?”

  I reached out to hit him with a nonmagical fist, but he dodged, laughing, and strode away with a tendril of green smoke spiraling up from his waving fingers. Then he got on the bike and roared down the street.

  Chuck Sauter, raking in his yard, shook a fist at him as he sped past, then set the rake against his green compost bin and came slowly down the street toward me.

  Surprised he seemed to want to talk—it was his wife who was sociable—I waited at the end of my driveway, stroking Random’s fur and silently thanking him and it for helping me fight off Warren’s spell.

  “That fella a friend of yours?” Chuck demanded. His flannel shirt was buttoned unevenly, and the left side hung lower than the right.

  “No,” I said. “Hopefully we won’t be seeing him again.”

  The lopsided flannel became a black T-shirt, and the man wearing it became much younger.

  “Glad to hear it,” Seth said.

  Epilogue

  Alone in my house two weeks later, I sat at the kitchen table in my pajamas and looked down at the torc. I’d taken it out of its black velvet bag and set it next to a cup of hot Darjeeling, my recent beverage of choice, wondering if I should get rid of it.

  It was dangerous to have around. Demons, witches, and fae would want to steal it, might kill for it, if they knew it was here. Since I myself didn’t respond strongly to wellspring water, I didn’t benefit from its powers. Seth would’ve stockpiled a large amount for himself before he gave it to me.

  But what if I wanted to help other people? What if Birdie needed it? She was with Helen in San Francisco, exchanging a vial of the water for a weekend of teaching. But later, when she was an active, curious witch, vulnerable to injury—

  A knock sounded on the door. Normal visitors wouldn’t come to the back, certainly not at seven in the morning. I shoved the torc in its bag, put the bag in another bag, put that bag in a box, and got to my feet. I grabbed a jacket from the hook near the door to cover my seminudity. The camisole covered my chest, but the black tattoo on my left arm had grown a new ring around my forearm, and it was red, swollen, and suspicious. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it, especially not—