by Zoe Arden
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.
"Thanks for meeting me," Colt said, wrapping my hand in his. It was warm and soft and when he brought my hand to his lips and kissed it, my heart melted just a little bit. I was pretty sure my cheeks were red. You'd have thought that I'd have gotten used to his kisses by now but no such luck. Every time he touched me was like the first time.
"Sure," I said. "I haven't I seen you in a few days, you've been so busy. I was glad when you called." I kissed his lips before taking a seat at the table. Just a quick peck, nothing too indecent. It was just a lunch date, after all, and we were in the middle of a crowded restaurant. I didn't want to cause a scene. Later, though, if we had a chance to be alone... I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to contain myself.
A waiter came by and set down two glasses of water on a checkered tablecloth. We ordered an appetizer and asked for a few more minutes to decide on the rest. "I'm starving," I told him. My stomach rumbled.
"Me, too," he said but when I looked up he was hardly glancing at the menu. He was staring off into the distance, a slight frown on his lips.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, sure." He jumped a little in his seat like I'd startled him. Then he looked at me and smiled. I figured he was probably just stressed. Murder cases always made him a little crazy, and his boss was a nightmare to work with. I didn't know how Colt put up with him. Dean Lampton was one of the last people on Earth that I'd ever want to work for. If I'd been Colt, I'd probably have strangled him long ago.
"So, how's work?" I asked, resuming my look over the menu. "Dean still driving you nuts?"
"Always." He smiled. "Actually, that was one of the reasons I asked you to meet me."
"So I can drive you nuts, too?" I giggled.
"No," he said with a small smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I need to talk to you about something."
My phone rang just then. I glanced down at the number. "It's Eleanor," I told him.
"Go on and take it. This can wait."
I picked up. "Hello?"
"Ava!" Eleanor shrieked into the phone. "Get to the bakery! Now!"
"What's wrong?" I asked, my heart jumping.
Colt looked at me, his detective's eyes questioning, wanting to know what was happening.
"Just hurry." She hung up.
I stood up, pushing my chair back. "I'm sorry," I told him. "I have to go. Can I have a raincheck?"
"Of course. Is everything okay?"
"I have no idea. Eleanor sounded like she was panicking about something, and Eleanor never panics."
"Want me to go with you?"
"No, I'll call you if it's anything serious. Besides, I think those are our appetizers coming now. Someone ought to enjoy them." I kissed him and hurried off.
When I got to the bakery, I expected to find it on fire or the roof caved in or something to justify Eleanor's phone call but everything looked fine. I wondered if it was possible Eleanor had new information about Sadie. She'd taken her some soup the other day and, after spending an hour with her, had declared that Sadie was not harboring any dark spirits. I stepped inside and found Eleanor and Trixie standing behind the counter. My father was straightening up a display of cookie tins.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
Eleanor and Trixie looked at each other.
"Wrong?" my father asked.
"Yeah," I said, joining Eleanor behind the counter. I looked at her. "When you called, you sounded like you were in full-on panic mode."
"Me?" Eleanor laughed. "Panicked? No, no, I simply wanted to... to let you know we were out of Fluffernutter root."
"No, we're not, there's tons of Fluffer—" Eleanor kicked me hard in the shin. I stopped talking and looked at Trixie, whose smile was much too bright.
Suddenly, Natalie Vargas came out of the customer restroom. "That's better, I suppose," she said, drying her hands with a paper towel. It looked as if she'd just climbed out of a swimming pool.
"What happened to you?" I asked.
"It was the darndest thing. I was coming out of Knobs and Broomsticks when this rain cloud suddenly appeared overhead. It caught me completely by surprise."
"A raincloud?" I asked, my throat going dry. "Did you smell anything strange? Like cabbage or—"
"Matches," she said. "I smelled burnt matches." She was so busy dabbing at herself with her paper towel she missed the look I exchanged with Eleanor. "Some kid must have been playing with them before the rain started."
"Eli, I'm sure we can do better than a few paper towels," Eleanor said. "Why don't you take Natalie in the back and find her a real towel? I might even have a clean shirt back there she can borrow."
"Oh, that's not necessary," Natalie said. "I only stopped in because I promised my kids some strudel."
"I'll get it ready for you. You go on in back with Eli and finish cleaning up."
"Come on," my dad said, holding open the back door for her. "You can sample a new recipe I've been working on. White chocolate raspberry fudge."
"That does sound good," she said, and they disappeared behind the door.
"What's going on?" I demanded when they were gone.
"I'm afraid Lucy was right yesterday when she said Sadie conjured a dark spirit. Rain clouds have been appearing all over town this morning. People think someone miscast a rain spell but no one's made the connection to dark spirits yet. I probably wouldn't either if I hadn't been there when it happened. The more I've thought about it, the more I think that Sadie mixed up her words when she sneezed."
"That's right," said Trixie. "Instead of ini-um she said ini-achoo."
"We need to get to the spirit and send it back before anyone realizes what's happened, or Sadie could get into a lot of trouble."
"Even if it was an accident?" I asked.
"Especially if it was an accident," Eleanor said. "They'll say she's incompetent as a witch. Dark spirits are serious things, Ava. We can't mess with them. It might already be in someone."
"In someone?"
"Dark spirits prefer to use host bodies to do their dirty work. It's a long story and we don't have time for it all. We need to get rid of Natalie and your dad and get to Knobs and Broomsticks before the rain stops, while we know it's still there."
"Why can't we just tell my dad the truth? Sadie's his girlfriend. He'd want to help."
"Precisely. She's the first woman he's shown any interest in since your mother died. This could ruin it. No, we say nothing to anyone. I won't even tell Zane. Pinky swear." She held up her hand and stuck out her pinky.
I sighed but stuck out my pinky, too. Trixie jumped in with us.
"Good, now let's hurry before we lose track of it."
We convinced my dad to drive Natalie home using Eleanor's car, so she wouldn't catch a cold like Sadie, then closed up the shop and hurried across town. Knobs and Broomsticks was just a six or seven-minute walk from Mystic Cupcake. We reached it quickly and found the rain cloud still hovering over it.
"Thank goodness," Eleanor said.
"What do we do?" I asked her.
"We can't let anyone see what we're doing," Trixie said, "or they'll figure it out."
Eleanor scrunched her face up. "If we just stand in front of the store like we're looking in the window at the brooms on display, we can cast the spell, and no one will be any wiser."
"But it's raining in front of the window."
"Then we'll just have to get wet," she said and dragged me by the sleeve. The rain doused us all at once. One moment we were in dry territory, the next we were soaked like Natalie had been.
"Now what?" I said as we stared at the brooms. It felt silly just standing here. The three of us were lined up in front of the window, Eleanor in the middle.
"Tap my fingers three times with yours," Eleanor said. I did as she instructed. Trixie did the same. I waited as she muttered some incantation I wasn't familiar with. When she finished, she let out a "Whoo yump!"
Trixie called out, "Whoo yump!"
There was a flash of lightning and the lights in the windows went out for a moment, then the rain cloud dispersed.
"Did we do it?" I asked. "Is the dark spirit gone?"
"I'd say so." Eleanor smiled triumphantly. But her smile was broken by a loud scream that sliced through the air.
"Help!" Someone cried from inside the shop. "He's dead!"
* * *
CHAPTER
SIX
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We ran into the store and found a tourist lying on the floor with a broom sticking out of his chest. It had been used to stab him the way someone less creative might have used a knife. He was obviously human. I could tell that just from the clothes he was wearing. Wizards never wore Hawaiian shirts, as a general rule. A spilled cup of coffee lay near his body. I could still smell it—as a Coffee Cove regular, I'd recognize their signature vanilla lattes anywhere.
"Maybe it was an accident," Trixie said. Eleanor and I looked at her. She bit her lip and started pacing, her bright pink tights standing out amidst all the khaki shirts and tank tops most of the customers were wearing. A man with a straw hat was crying loudly in the corner. A burnt, ashy smell lingered in the air.
"Call the sheriff!" shouted one customer, who looked petrified. Their hands were shaking and the broom they'd been looking at dropped to the ground. The picked it up and dropped it again.
"Let me get that for you," Trixie said, trying to be nice. She picked up the broom and set it in its place. The woman who'd been holding it stepped away from her as if she thought Trixie was the killer.
"I'm getting out of here," the woman said.
"You're not going anywhere," said the owner of Knobs and Broomsticks, Gill Fields. He stood holding a wand in one hand, his other hand open and pointed in our direction. "Someone killed that man, and no one's leaving until Sheriff Knoxx gets here and can look things over."
There were several other customers milling about. I didn't know all their names; a lot of them were tourists. They were staring at Gill's wand with wide eyes that said they weren't sure what to make of this situation. Eleanor went over to him and whispered something in his ear. He quickly put his wand away.
I'd always found it strange that Knobs and Broomsticks appealed to humans so much but I guess it wasn't every day you saw a doorknob that could laugh when you poked it or a broom that almost seemed to sweep up by itself. These things were on the very cusp of what were and weren't considered legal to sell to humans but it was something that many businesses in Sweetland Cove thrived on, even our own.
At Mystic Cupcake, we had our magical cupcakes and our non-magical cupcakes. Of course, most things wouldn't hurt humans even if they were ingested but there were a few things, like Posie extract, that could make a witch or wizard go insane if not used carefully. In humans, it would provide a slow and excruciating death. We avoided that particular herb altogether, even though it wasn't illegal to sell, strictly speaking. But that didn't mean we never sold any magical cupcakes to humans. They all loved peppy powder. If anyone asked, I just told them it was caffeine.
Gill called the sheriff, and he showed up within ten minutes. Colt was with him. Neither of them looked very happy when they saw us.
"Eleanor," Sheriff Knoxx said.
"Hello, Zane," she said, smiling at her husband.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was looking for a new broom."
Sheriff Knoxx looked from one to the other of us. "It took all three of you to look at a broom?"
Trixie put her hands on her hips. "Eleanor wanted our opinion. She couldn't decide between last year's model or this year's."
"I can get you a steep discount on last year's model if you're interested," Gill piped in.
The sheriff shot him an irritated look and instructed his deputy, Elwin Muster, to begin taping off the area around the body. He turned to his other deputies and told them to start taking statements.
Colt looked at me. "This is what you ditched me for? You left me at lunch to handle the big emergency of which broom to buy?" He shook his head. "No, no. I'm sorry, which broom Eleanor should by?"
I wanted to tell him the truth about the dark spirit but I had pinky sworn not to. "I was thinking of getting one, too," I finally said with a shrug.
He rolled his eyes and looked more irritated than ever.
"Did you see it happen?"
"No, we were outside."
"Somebody just tell us what happened," Sheriff Knoxx cut in. I looked at Eleanor and Trixie. Without skipping a beat, the three of us shrugged. Colt and the sheriff exchanged a glance. The sheriff whispered something to Colt and he nodded.
"Ava, why don't you come with me for a minute?" Colt said, gently taking me by the elbow and steering me away from my aunts. I threw them a look over my shoulder and Eleanor seemed to be trying to tell me something with her eyes. They were wide and dark, and she looked—though I would never tell her this, or anyone else for that matter—a bit like she was trying to lay an egg.
"Ava, honey..." Colt said.
"Uh oh."
"Uh oh?"
"Honey? Since when do you call me honey?"
He blinked, and his face grew pink. "Well, er, since now, I guess. Why? Don't you like it? Lots of people have nicknames for their girlfriends or boyfriends."
"Sure, but we never have."
"Well, maybe it's time we should."
"All right... baby cakes."
"Baby cakes?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow at me.
I giggled. "It's just as good as honey."
"All right then... honey. Why don't you tell me what you and your aunts were really doing here?"
I blinked and shot a glance toward Eleanor. Colt stepped into my line of sight, blocking her from my path. I had to crane my neck to look around him.
"You need to look at Eleanor to answer my question?" he asked.
"No. Of course not. I was just... stretching."
"Uh huh." He folded his arms across his chest. "I'm waiting."
"Waiting for what."
"Are you doing this on purpose?" he asked. "You're not always this obstinate. Or are you? Have I been blinded by love?"
I blinked. "Do you love me?" I guess we'd said it before but not so much that I didn't take notice when he said it now.
He blushed. "Of course, I love you, but that isn't the point right now. What were you doing down here with Eleanor?"
"Looking at a broom."
"And you left your dad alone at the bakery?"
"No, he went home. We closed up the bakery."
Now he looked really worried. "You closed the bakery? To come down here?"
"It was just for a little while, not the whole day."
"But you never close up the shop like that."
He stepped closer to me. I could smell his aftershave. I wanted to kiss him but I knew now would be the absolute worst time for something like that.
"Ava, just tell me, okay? Whatever it is. A man is dead. We need to know what you know."
I bit my bottom lip, wondering if maybe he was right. After all, Sadie wasn't really going to get into trouble for something that was an accident, was she? Were we even really sure that she'd conjured a dark spirit? What if this tourist had been killed by a random murderer? A broom murderer?
I bit my lip harder, realizing how ridiculous that sounded. But was that any more ridiculous than an ax murderer? And those guys existed. Maybe this murderer was trying to start a new trend.
"There are other people here," I said. "Why are you picking on me?"
"Because I know you too well. I know that you know something. I can tell by the way you're biting your lip and squinting your eyes."
"I'm not squinting!" I yelled, then realized he was right. I immediately forced my eyes to open wider.
"Ava..." he said, using that
tone that made my heart beat fast. He put his hand on my arm and lightly brushed it with his fingertips. I felt myself caving.
"Okay, look," I whispered.
"Colt!" the sheriff shouted. "Come here a minute."
Colt shot me a look then hurried over to join the sheriff. "What is it?"
Sheriff Knoxx picked up the dead tourist's arm.
"I don't see anything."
"Precisely. See the white band of skin around his finger? He was wearing a wedding ring."
"Maybe he's recently divorced," Colt said. "Could've taken it off anytime."
"Or maybe the killer took it with him, a souvenir. You smell that?" He sniffed the air.
"Rotten eggs?" Colt asked.
"Could be. Or could be dark magic. If there's someone messing with that stuff, they'd want a souvenir to help them conjure whatever they're after. We need to nail them fast before they turn something loose. We don't want another draugr on our hands."
Colt shuddered at the memory of a zombie-like creature that had terrorized Sweetland Cove for a short while.
"You don't think you're jumping the gun a bit?"
"I say better to jump the gun with it cocked and loaded than to wait until you're out of bullets. We find whoever is responsible for this and we shoot them with a wand or a gun or anything we have to."
"Hey," said the man with the straw hat. He stepped forward. His eyes were bleary. "What is all this nonsense about dark magic and wands and whatever? Are you making a joke out of this man's death? Because he was my friend!"
"He was?" Sheriff Knoxx asked, straightening up. "Was he married?"
"Recently divorced."
"Did you see what happened? What can you tell us?"
"I didn't see anything," the man said. "I was looking at some brooms on the other side of the room. There was one in particular I was interested in. It h-h-had the n-n-nicest broom handle I've ever seen. The lights went out a-a-and when they came back on..." He let out a loud wail, drawing everyone's attention.
Colt and Sheriff Knoxx quickly ushered him to the side, trying to calm him down so they could get whatever information he might have to offer. Elwin Muster began filing everyone else outside.