by K. J. Emrick
“Thanks, Doyle,” Addie told him. “You really think so?”
“That I do.”
A talking cat might seem strange to some, but it was just another day in the life of the Kilorian sisters, witches and protectors of the small New England town of Shadow Lake. Doyle was one of two cats living with them at Stonecrest, both of them able to speak, both of them more than willing to give their opinion whether it was asked for or not. Doyle was a black and white tomcat, although the black patches in his fur seemed to shift when you weren’t looking. According to him, he was descended from a long line of distinguished cats dating back to the most ancient days of the Emerald Isles, which explained his Irish accent.
He considered himself feline royalty. Usually, Addie just considered him a lovable pain in her neck. Family was like that sometimes. Driving you crazy one minute and saving your behind from a rock troll the next. That was why she considered Doyle part of the Kilorian clan. Domovyk too, although Domovyk was a different kind of cat altogether.
Where was Domovyk, anyway?
No matter. It wasn’t her week to keep track of him, as the saying went. It was already six-thirty and Lucian was supposed to meet her here at seven so they could make it to the reception on time. She bit her lower lip in a smile, wondering if she could make him wait just a bit without spoiling their evening. Sometimes it did a man good to wait on the woman in his life. It helped him appreciate what he had.
Her reflection rolled her eyes back at her. No, she couldn’t do that to him. Tonight was all about him. Lucian Knight, star detective of the Birch Hollow Police Department, was among those being recognized tonight with an award for service to the community. This was his night to shine. After solving the murder of a wealthy tourist just a couple of weeks ago, and three murders in short order before that, Addie thought it was about time.
Of course, she and her sisters had played a major role in solving each of those, but he couldn’t very well put down three witches as his confidential informants on any of the paperwork. She was fine with Lucian getting all the credit. He deserved it. It was better for witches to stay hidden anyway. Exposing themselves for what they were was just going to create fear and jealousy. That was something she could definitely do without.
Tonight, she wasn’t going to think about being a witch. Tonight, she was just Lucian’s loving girlfriend there to support her guy. The Distinguished Community Service Award might have a hokey name, but it was a serious thing to the people who lived in this county. Every year it went to one citizen who had displayed heart, and dedication to the wellbeing of his neighbors, and loyalty, and a host of other things that easily described Lucian. Addie had known it since the first day she met him. She told him as much every chance she got.
“You’re sure I look okay?” she asked Doyle again, twirling for him so that the short skirt flared at her knees. “I want to really shine on Lucian’s arm.”
“Spoken like a true lass in love,” he chuckled.
“That’s because that’s what I am. So there. You didn’t answer my question, though. I look okay? Really?”
“Well, now I wasn’t going to say anything, but that outfit might be just a wee bit tight across your… ahem. Your backside.”
“Doyle!” she blurted out, reflexively putting her hands over her, ahem, backside. “I happen to have a very nice rump, thank you.”
“If you say so, then. You humans all look daft to me without any tails. Sort of takes away from the whole package, if you ask me.”
“Oh, what do you know, Old Man?” she teased him. “When was the last time you had a lady cat sniffing around your tail?”
He closed his copper eyes with a dreamy expression on his furry face. “That would have been Dymphna. Ah, she was a lovely thing. Could chase mice with the best of them, and her fur was the color of storm clouds before the rain. Of course, that was a number of years back, as they say.”
Addie was suddenly intrigued. “How many years back?”
He stuck his little pink tongue out between his teeth as he thought back. “Well, that was… when was Theodore Roosevelt president?”
She blinked at him, surely he must be kidding. “That was the turn of the twentieth century. Right around 1900.”
“Oh. Then I’m thinking of the other Roosevelt.”
“Wait, you mean Franklin Roosevelt? That Roosevelt?”
“Sure’n that’s the one.”
He had to be joking. Doyle had lived a very long time, sure, but if he had been in love with this Dymphna back in the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that would make him… She was twenty-four now, so that made him…
Old. That’s what it made him. Funny she’d never thought of it that way before. Sure, she liked to call him “Old Man,” but she obviously had no idea!
Magic, when it was part of a living being like Doyle, or even Addie and her sisters, tended to give its host a much longer lifespan. Whether human, or cat, or something else, magical beings often lived double their expected norm. Sometimes more.
There were plenty of “something elses” in Shadow Lake. Some of them were here before humans developed a written language to start recording history. A magical talking cat was just the tip of that particular iceberg.
“All right,” she said, deciding to leave that alone for now. Doyle’s past was his own. Her only point had been that what she had with Lucian Knight was real love. Lucian was hers, and she belonged to him, in a way that transcended even the strongest of magics. “Well, whatever you had with Dymphna, you’ll understand why I want everything to be perfect tonight with Lucian.”
“What could go wrong?” Doyle yawned and rolled over onto his back, feet up in the air. “You’re just going to an award ceremony.”
“Yes, well, in case you’ve forgotten we still have an evil witch on the loose who will stop at nothing to get at our family and what we’re protecting. She’s sent demons after us and tangled us up in mysteries and who knows what she’ll try next. I’d say a lot of things could go wrong.”
“Which is why I suggested taking me with you.”
“Ha! A cat at a fancy dinner? I think you’d stand out.”
“Tuck me into your purse, then.”
“My purse is too small for that furry behind.” She leaned in closer to the mirror, touching up her mascara with the tip of one finger. “It’s not like I can say you’re my service animal.”
“True, true, but you could use one of those spells of yours to make me invisible.”
“I could, but I won’t. You just want to crash the party to steal food off the buffet.”
“Not true! I’ve got a skosh more tact than that, I have.” He blinked, and sort of shrugged by patting the air with his two front paws. “I’d wait for the food to fall to the floor, sure’n I would.”
“Cats stay here,” she told him firmly. “Kiera and Alan are staying here as well, so you won’t be alone.”
“No, but I’ll be as bored as a snake charmer in Ireland.”
“Ha, ha. Very funny. No snakes in Ireland so… yeah. I get it.” She shook her head as she left her reflection behind. “Listen, my sister and her son are trying to see if they can find where Belladonna lives. I haven’t heard anything from Lucian on the arrest warrant he was supposed to be getting for that evil witch, so I’m guessing none of the law enforcement agencies have picked her up. We may need to solve this one ourselves, just the Kilorians.”
“Just like always.”
“Exactly.”
“Minus your sister Willow, just as always.”
“Be nice,” Addie told him. “Willow is with her boyfriend. She can help Kiera later.”
She frowned at herself as she picked up her heavy suede jacket, however. Getting Willow to help with anything recently had been a chore and a half. When Addie had asked her to stay with Kiera and Alan tonight Willow’s reply had been something to the effect of, if Addie could have a night off, then so could she. Not exactly the family spirit she was hoping for.
&nbs
p; Well, Willow had just been accused of a murder she didn’t commit. That had been hard on her. Then again, Alan had been not just accused of that murder but actually arrested for it, and he was downstairs throwing himself into the family’s troubles. He’d only shown up on their doorstep a few months ago but he was making himself part of their family.
It was a rough story between him and Kiera. She had adopted him out just after he was born. It had been the hardest decision in her life, and the fact that it had been done for all the right reasons didn’t make it easier on the two of them. After he’d grown up Alan had searched blindly for Kiera for years, and then on his way here to meet her he’d gotten into a bad car accident that left a gap in his memory from the trauma and concussion. Then his father had come back into the picture, too, and his father was a whole other kind of crazy. After all that, nobody would blame Alan for walking away again and washing his hands of anything to do with the Kilorians.
Instead, he was as dedicated to the search for Belladonna Nightshade as if he’d been a part of their family right along.
“I have to go,” she said, partly because what Doyle had said about Willow was true after all and partly because standing here in her bedroom and thinking about all the bad things that were happening to her family was killing her buzz for this special night. She wanted to have a nice, normal evening with Lucian and enjoy herself. No evil witch, no paranormal murders, no spell casting. Nothing but normal. That wasn’t too much to ask of the universe, was it?
She gave Doyle a scratch behind his ears before leaving him there all nice and comfy on her bed. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be up there but tonight she was going to make an exception. Let him sleep until she got back in a few hours.
If she came home at all. Hopefully the night would end with her sleeping over at Lucian’s. Hmm. Now there was a pleasant thought to balance out all the bad ones.
Down the hall, and then down the stairs to the first floor, she kept checking her watch. Plenty of time. Lucian shouldn’t be here for another—
Knock Knock Knock.
That was the front door. Addie smiled as she picked up her steps. He was early. Nice to know she wasn’t the only one who was excited about tonight.
Kiera stepped into the hallway through the entry to the living room. She was about the same height as Addie, although not in these heels, but she had a presence about her gained from years of experience in magic, and in life. Their deceased parents—God rest their souls—had started a family early with Kiera and ended late in life with Addie and then Willow. Kiera was forty-two and gray touched the deep, dark red of her curls. Lines had started to show around her eyes and her mouth. For the longest time Addie had thought of her oldest sister as an old, old soul.
Having her son back in her life had brought her a certain youthfulness, however. She still wore black dresses all the time, for instance, but now they were sleeveless, and the necklines scooped to expose the line of her collarbones. On the other hand, the brooch necklace with the woman’s profile carved in ivory was still part of her outfit every day. It always would be.
An old soul, with a young heart.
“Greetings, Sister Addie,” she said, tipping her head toward the door. “I was about to answer it, but I see you’re here already.”
“I’ve got it,” Addie smiled. “It will be Lucian to take me out. You go back to what you were doing. I’ll see you later.”
“Should I wait up?”
Addie felt her cheeks heating. Kiera’s implication was pretty clear. “No,” she said. “I’m a big girl now, remember?”
She turned away before that conversation could get any more uncomfortable and went down to the far end of the hall to answer the door just as the knock repeated itself.
“Here I am…” she started to tell Lucian. Only, when she opened the door, it wasn’t Lucian standing there.
Herman Bledsoe looked her up and down, like a dog spotting its next meal. “Well, well, well. You certainly are here. This for me?”
Addie put on her coat, and held it closed at the front. It was the beginning of December out there, and the cold was coming in along with a few stray snowflakes caught on the wind of the coming storm, but that wasn’t why she wanted to cover up. The exterior house lights clearly showed her the spark of interest in his eyes. An interest she did not share.
It hadn’t occurred to her to reach out with her witchy senses to see who was knocking before she answered. This was Stonecrest. The magical spells laid over this place kept out anything of evil intent. Nobody but friends and the innocent could get to their front door. If Herman had meant to harm her, for instance, he wouldn’t even be standing here. Still, she should have checked. In his case, a little warning would have been nice.
He leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, probably thinking that lopsided grin made him look like a younger Harrison Ford. In truth, he was more like a younger Freddy Krueger. Scrawny, and awkward, and giving off a really bad vibe. Why he’d started trying to seduce her was well beyond Addie’s ability to understand.
She did not like the way he was acting. So forward. So inappropriate. Wherever she went in Shadow Lake, there he was. Maybe if she wasn’t with Lucian, and maybe if Herman was any other guy in the world, she would have felt flattered. All she felt with Herman and his bad behavior was nausea. If he continued acting like this, then she was going to have to go to the board of selectmen—the elected officials who took care of the daily business of Shadow Lake—and have them remove Herman from his position as constable.
Not that she really wanted to go to that step. She’d always thought of him as a nice guy. At least, she had until recently. He was goofy looking, sure, with that scrawny frame and prominent Adam’s apple and overlarge eyes. He was a scarecrow of a man with shaggy hair and the way his uniform shirt hung off his shoulders didn’t help. He was hired to enforce the laws of Shadow Lake, but the reality of it was that he was only there to make the tourists feel better. The real protectors of this town and its people had always been Addie and her sisters.
But now he was bothering Addie day and night, calling out of the blue, showing up at her doorstep just like this. He was obviously smitten with her. Addie did not feel the same way about him.
“Herman,” she said to him, “are you here for a reason? Is there trouble in town?”
His eyes stayed well below the line of her shoulders even with her coat on. “Hmm? Oh. No, there’s no trouble. For a change. Shadow Lake’s turning into a hotbed of villainy, if you ask me.”
That was a bizarre way of putting it, but she supposed she couldn’t argue. “Then why are you here?”
“I’m here because I heard you’re going to that fancy dinner party at the museum up in Birch Hollow. The awards thing. I wasn’t invited, of course. Nope, no award for the Shadow Lake constable. Me, I mean. No award for me. That’s all right. I don’t mind. So anyway, I thought you might like a date. Or a bodyguard. I am the constable, you know.”
“I know who… Herman, you have to stop this. I have a boyfriend. He’s the one taking me to this dinner tonight, as a matter of fact. How did you even know I was going?”
A shadow passed over his face, as if the outside lights had dimmed momentarily. “I get paid to know what’s going on in this town. It’s my job.”
With Addie’s extra senses she felt her sister walking up behind her in the hallway, a calm but severe presence. “Actually, Herman,” Kiera told him plainly. “Your job is to keep tourists in line, and to issue citations for parking tickets and dogs off their leashes, and whatever other laws the town selectmen pass for the day-to-day operation of Shadow Lake. It is not, nor has it ever been, to interfere in the lives of my sisters.”
His gaze narrowed, and he pushed away from the open door. He stood there with his feet apart, and his thumbs hooked into a duty belt that held a revolver and a pair of handcuffs and maybe a couple of other things. Addie had never paid much attention. Guns weren’t that scary when you were a witch.
Neither, she reflected, was Herman Bledsoe.
“I’m not interfering with anything,” he said to Kiera, all puffed out and confrontational. “This is a private conversation, by the way. I’m just here to offer my services to Addie.”
“My sister won’t be needing your services, thank you,” Kiera insisted. “You may go now.”
Addie appreciated her sister stepping in, but she could speak for herself. “Goodnight, Herman,” she said to him, hand already on the door to close it.
“What about the tunnels?” he asked her, never moving out of the way. Obviously, he’d expected that question to stop Addie from closing him out.
He was right.
“What tunnels?” Addie asked, at the same time as her sister. Their voices carried the same note of concern with each word.
The tunnels were just one of many secrets the Kilorian sisters kept. No one should know about them. Not even the town constable.
Herman smiled triumphantly. “Oh, you didn’t realize I knew about the tunnels, did you? Thought you could just keep me in the dark and have me run around like a fool doing whatever you tell me to. Nope. Not Herman Bledsoe. Not anymore. See, the tunnels under the town are still part of Shadow Lake, and that makes them my jurisdiction. I know they connect from under your nice home here to the caves down by the lake. There’s tourists going to be in those tunnels for New Year’s. Happens every year like clockwork and this time next month it’s gonna happen again.”
Addie’s mind raced. Curse her Irish eyes! There was no way that Herman should know about that secret. Then again, he shouldn’t have known that she was going to a dinner tonight in Birch Hollow, either.
“Now,” he said, “I know there’s no problem with people wandering around in those caves on a guided tour or whatever, so long as they stay on the marked path and don’t go wandering around. But, what happens if they find a certain tunnel that brings them out this way, hmm? A tunnel that leads to things maybe the Kilorian sisters don’t want found, hmm? Know what I think? I think the constable needs to be there, don’t you? That way I can keep all those curious tourists from accidentally finding something they shouldn’t. Hmm?”