Bright Young Witches & the Restless Dead

by Beth Byers

  Bright Young Witches

  & the Restless Dead

  Beth Byers

  Contents

  Summary

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Also By Beth Byers

  Preview of Philanderer Gone

  Summary

  April 1922

  When the Ku Klux Klan appears at the door of the Wode sisters, they decide it’s time to visit the ancestral home in England.

  With squabbling between the sisters, it takes them too long to realize that their new friend is being haunted. Now they’ll have to set aside their fight, discover just why their friend is being haunted, and what they’re going to do about it. Will they rid their friend of the ghost and out themselves as witches? Or will they look away?

  Join the Wodes as they rise up and embrace just who and what they are in this newest historical mystery adventure.

  For my Belle-Belle

  I love you to heaven and back.

  Chapter 1

  APRIL 1922. WASHINGTON D.C.

  ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE

  “Give me some of the good stuff,” the man said, nudging a waiting girl aside. He was wearing a pinstriped evening suit with his hair pomaded back. Given the large ring on his pinky and the gold on his watch chain, Ariadne assumed he was quite wealthy or quite powerful or both. The large cigar hanging from his mouth suggested both.

  Ariadne had been just behind him when he went shoving people about and she caught the girl he’d sent stumbling off her bar stool. The height of the girl’s heels didn’t help, but the man hadn’t even noticed he’d knocked the woman down. The girl shot him a nasty, unnoticed look and then turned to Ariadne with a glance that said, Can you believe this dirty bloke?

  “We’re out,” the barman said. “Want a Coke?”

  The shelves behind him were nearly empty of bottles, unlike the bar itself, which was full. Ariadne sighed. The speakeasy never ordered enough, always ran low, and then the boss took it out on her. He needed either more suppliers, to quit under-ordering, or to open a little less often. Some of the fellows in the bar were reeling drunk and could have been cut off before they’d reached that state. Sloppy drunks put everyone at risk of getting pinched.

  “Give me what the management is drinking,” the man growled. “I know you got the good stuff, and I don’t want any of this second-rate swill that’ll leave me blind or dead.”

  “Our delivery of the good stuff is late,” the barman said flatly. Whoever this shove-y man was, the barman was unimpressed. “No one’s drinking much until that comes along. Not even the boss man.”

  Ariadne met the barman’s gaze, and he jerked his head to the back. There was a triggerman guarding the door, and the man didn’t move when Ariadne approached. His dark eyes fixed on hers, and there was threat in his stony expression.

  Here we go again, Ariadne thought, ignoring his look and sliding past him without a flicker of a lash. Posturing was such a gent’s move. She had too much to do for this nonsense. When she felt someone watching her, she glanced back and caught the gaze of a bloke with dark, sharp eyes and slicked back hair, with a hefty drink in front of him. He was, she thought, almost certainly a copper. Hopefully he was dirty. Otherwise, they’d all be hauled away with time in the slammer. The goons anyway. The shadows liked Ariadne.

  Either way, she wished she was a little less memorable in the drop-waisted, shimmery dress that showed off far more of her chest than she’d prefer. She dressed with the intent to blend in with the other dames. Better to be seen as an easy moll than what she was—a lady-legger. Or, more accurately, a booze-making witch.

  “It’s about time,” Blind Bobby growled as Ariadne appeared. “Do you have it? I don’t pay full price for late goods. You’re costing me a pile of lettuce, girl.”

  “They had checkpoints on the way in. I had to think quick and step even more quickly. You’re lucky I’m here at all, and you’ll be paying me the full amount or I’ll take a walk down to the next juice joint. Easy peasy.” She snapped her fingers. It was always better not to be too challenging, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself.

  Blind Bobby put his gun on the table and leaned back. “Maybe I’ll just take the booze and pay you nothing, little girl.”

  “Did you find someone else who makes gin that won’t blind you and can age wine and whisky with magic—because I don’t think you have found anyone like me.”

  “I’ll pay you eighty percent.” He sniffed and growled, “From here on.”

  His dark, beady eyes fixed on her, and he leaned in, strong jaw gritted. He intended to scare her, but Ariadne was only irritated. She felt as though every time she interacted with this grunting beast, he thought he could just tower over her face and she’d crumple. Ariadne laughed, a trilling thing that didn’t sound amused but conveyed her message.

  Blind Billy nudged his gun once again, and Ariadne scowled at him, dropping all pretense of amusement. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted a challenging brow instead. “Do you really want to put a bean shooter up against magic?”

  “Do you really want to put you and your little sister against my boys? There’s even smaller witch brats in that town of yours. What’s it called? Nighton? Bring her in.” The last was said to one of the apes standing about grasping their guns trying to look intimidating.

  There was a sound at the tunnel door and several men poured through with Ariadne’s sister, Echo. She struggled in the grasp of…Ariadne’s head cocked and gaze narrowed.

  Lindsey Noel. She scowled at him. He was the shining son of Nighton and the fellow intent on finding his way into Ariadne’s sister Circe’s knickers.

  “Well, if it isn’t Lindsey Noel. Are you joining in on threatening my sisters? All of my sisters?”

  Lindsey blushed, but his voice was mean. “I know where you live.” His fingers dug into Echo’s bicep.

  “And I know where you live.” Ariadne glanced at Echo, who seemed fine despite the white circles under Lindsey’s pressing fingers. “Why’d you let them take you?”

  “I wanted to see what Lindsey was up to. Sooner or later, Circe will see he’s milquetoast playing at being a leading man. She believes that front he puts up, but the mannered handsome puppy will fade into what he really is—another arrogant rube with a rich daddy. It’ll go easier if it’s me telling her what he did, and after all—he put his hands on me.”

  Easier, Ariadne translated, than if Ari were the one who told Circe her lover put them all at risk with his playing at being a bad boy.

  The idiot Lindsey let go of Echo, but it was too late. The smirk she shot him was enough to have him wondering, would he lose Circe over this? The unfortunate answer was that Ariadne could only wish.

  The other men glanced at each other, smirking, when Blind Billy grunted, “No one cares about your hick problems.” He gestured and the goons lining the wall leveled their guns at Ariadne.

  She sighed. “Until I get paid, you won’t be able to open the bottles at the delivery point. Try as you might.”

  Blind Bobby laughed meanly and Ariadne yawned. He shoved the table back, grabbing his gun as he did, and shoved it into Ariadne’s face, pressing it hard agains
t her forehead.

  “Careful,” she said quietly, “guns do malfunction so easily.”

  “Open the whiskey, Petey,” Blind Billy ordered.

  Ariadne rolled her eyes and telepathically told her sister, Draw your magic. Ariadne opened her mind and senses to her own magic. She’d originally approached Blind Billy once prohibition went into effect because the church basement where the speakeasy was housed was a place of power. Her magic, always strong, thrummed through her with a vengeance here. Echo’s must be a tsunami of power given the dead that even Ariadne could sense.

  The ghosts are restless, Echo sent.

  Of course they are, it’s a desecrated church. How did Noel know about us?

  Echo’s mental snort seemed to ricochet about Ariadne’s head and they both knew the answer: Circe. Soft, trusting, blind-with-love Circe. Lindsey Noel wasn’t surprised in the least by their magic. Their sister hated keeping what they were from her ‘sweet’ Lindsey. She must have talked, and he’d gathered a full confession, given his presence.

  Foolish girl.

  The grunting of his man trying to open the bottle caught her attention. The goon was yanking at the stopper in the whiskey bottle, desperate to open it. He finally brought out a large knife, but it bounded off of the glass as though it were stone instead of a little bit of cork and glass. Finally he looked up at Blind Billy and shook his head.

  Blind Billy pulled the gun back enough just to shove it back against her head again. “That’s gonna leave a bruise.” His laugh was ugly and he glanced at his men until they were snorting with unbelievable laughter as well.

  “Balm of Gilead is an easy enough potion to make for someone like me,” Ariadne told him, drawing her magic so deeply that her bobbed hair was slowly starting to rise around her face. “The bruise will be gone in minutes. I carry it in my handbag.”

  “What about the hole my bullet leaves?” He cocked his gun and then, to her horror, swung his arm wide, aiming at Echo. “Will it cure that?”

  “Fool,” Ariadne said, finished with this nonsense. She dropped to her knees, covering her head when the gun misfired, and magic rushed into Ariadne as the place of power energized her and she sent the rest of the guns into either misfiring or not firing at all.

  With Echo there, ghosts were caught in the energy in the church and within the sisters. The ghosts went mad, merging into a tornado of shadows that sent Blind Billy’s goons into shrieking like little girls. Point of fact, Ariadne thought as she started to crawl away from Blind Billy, her little sisters wouldn’t have whined like these boys.

  A moment later, the copper from earlier rushed the door. Ariadne dropped her magic immediately so it seemed that the screaming goons had gone crazy. On her knees, with forced tears, she looked like a victim as she reached for the copper. She screamed to draw his attention to her from Echo. “Help! Help me, please!”

  Police swarmed the room, and Ariadne was yanked to her feet by the first copper to reach her. He glanced her over, muttered, “Fool doll,” and shoved her behind him.

  She shivered and whimpered and thanked the whole of the group repetitively with big crocodile tears, backing towards the wall. Her dress, her mussed makeup, and her tears were enough for the blokes to not realize she was one of the criminals. Just another doll caught up with the wrong man. She waited until they were all looking the other way, wrestling the goons down, and she slid into the shadows, pulling them around her.

  The coppers didn’t know about the escape tunnel where Echo had already disappeared, followed by Lindsey Noel. Echo had sealed it against any but Ariadne, so the fuzz were gathering up the men who couldn’t use their tunnel while she slipped through, cloaked in darkness and magic.

  Using the athamé in her handbag, Ariadne carved a rune of the door to keep it locked. She ignored the skittering of rats and the cool touch of the dead as she hurried down the tunnel.

  “Go back to sleep,” she murmured to the dead, hoping they’d comply. Otherwise the boys who worked for Blind Billy would find themselves chilled in body and spirit.

  The old church had a crypt underneath, so it was better not to look into the dark entrances of side rooms if you wanted to avoid looking at the remnants of the living. The tunnels went from the crypt to beyond the graveyard behind the church, following beneath the road. Blind Billy’s men had extended the tunnels even farther. With that kind of work ethic, what might those goons have been capable of if they bothered working for good?

  Ariadne mocked herself—knowing she was a criminal too—and moved quickly through the tunnels. There were exits for a good mile down the tunnel road if you knew where to look and what to look for.

  The vast majority of Ariadne’s booze delivery was still in the auto garage where one of the exits from the tunnels led. The bottles were loaded on the back of her truck. Echo already had their truck running and was just loading the last of the whiskey bottles that had been previously unloaded. Any speakeasy could make gin in their bathtub. Magically aged liqueurs, wines, and whiskey required a witch, a different country, or a very expensive operation that risked prison time. Ariadne sealed the tunnel behind her with the same rune she’d used before. Someone would have to find the runes she’d used and destroy them before the exit would open. Otherwise it would take hours for the spell to fade.

  She looked away from her spell and eyed her sister. Echo looked a little mussed but none the worse for wear. “Anyone left here?”

  “Just Timmy,” Echo grunted as she grabbed the bag of their clothes from behind the truck’s seat. “Poor boy. My spell got him hard in the gut when he tried to dodge. He’ll have sore ribs if Blind Billy doesn’t kill him for losing us and the booze.”

  “Did Lindsey get out?” Ariadne asked as she shimmied out of her evening gown. Echo tossed Ariadne a wool skirt and blouse, and they stripped down in the auto garage, changing from party clothes to one step away from an initiate for a nunnery.

  “He got out when I did, but he was bright enough not to follow me here. We need to consider a change of employment. If things had gone differently, Circe would be raising Medea and Cassiopeia. I love Circe, but…”

  Ariadne winced. It was true. If there had been more coppers or if the fellows were a little more trigger happy, they’d have been in trouble. With enough guns blazing, even witches wouldn’t have survived.

  Ariadne told Echo, “Aunt Beatrix said she was interested in taking over. She has more people. That…that…flimflam that just happened to us wouldn’t have happened to her. Not with her sons. Jasper and Gerard with those broad shoulders and thick jaws? Let alone their magic? They won’t get the same garbage we’re getting.”

  “We’ll still get our cut too,” Echo reminded Ariadne with a telling glance. “Beatrix promised it when she wanted to take on the work. You engineered the spells for aging the booze like we do, and Beatrix knows it. We have to be careful, Ariadne—at least until Medea and Cassiopeia are older. They’re too little to lose you too.”

  It wasn’t Echo’s words that convinced Ariadne. It was the memory of the gun being swung her sister’s way. If Echo hadn’t been prepared for someone to turn their gun on her, if her magic hadn’t been inclined towards the dead, if they’d been firing guns haphazardly, if the sisters had been a little less lucky, Ariadne might have lost her sister. No amount of dough was worth that.

  Chapter 2

  APRIL 1922. WASHINGTON D.C.

  ARIADNE EUDORA WISTERIA WODE

  “Wake up, Ariadne! Wake up now!”

  Ariadne sat up to the flurry of steps darting through her room. She was only vaguely aware of her sister, Echo, slamming into the wall near the window and then peeking through the curtains. The shriek of Ariadne’s cat, Banshee, shocked Ariadne to full awareness. That screech followed by the call of the wards.

  Echo stood at the window and a flickering light shone on her sister’s face.

  “What’s going on?” Ariadne demanded, far too alert. Her senses were screaming. Not just her hearing or her eye
sight, but her witch senses. The outer wards had been crossed. The ill-intent of the intruders was firing wards that hadn’t been needed in decades.

  Her two youngest sisters came pelting into the room and dove onto the bed. Both of them were silent with wide, terrified eyes and nary a peep from their mouths. Medea curled into Cassiopeia’s lap and pulled the covers all the way up to her eyes.

  “It’s a cross.” Echo sounded as if she were going to be sick. “It’s a burning cross and the KKK, Ariadne. White robes, cone hats. They know we’re witches. They know what we are.”

  A moment later a brick crashed through the window. The wards on the house would help some, but with a mob and torches? There was a reason witches had been drowned and burned at the stake. The sight of their faces in the windows seemed to send the KKK into a frenzy. No matter that unmarried, orphaned sisters lived in the house, no matter that those sisters included children.

  Ariadne opened the window just a smidgeon and listened to the rot they were shouting. Nonsense about decency and honor. Were they aware of the definition of irony? Somehow she doubted it. Terrorizing with torches and bullets? Each crack of a shotgun had Cassiopeia squeaking and Banshee yowling. Medea, on the other hand, was horrifically silent. Was terrorizing children decent or honorable?

  Ariadne’s will focused and one of the shooters cursed as his gun backfired on him.

  “Don’t they know it’s 1922? We’re a modern country, and we don’t put up with this nonsense.” Echo’s voice was as filled with fury as Ariadne herself. “This isn’t Salem!”