by Nova Nelson
“Wouldn’t you? Or do you foolishly imagine a scenario where you could have both men?”
Only when I’m alone at night.
“No, I know that’s not an option. Just like I know your scenario is impossible.” Without realizing it, I stood, my wooden chair scratching against the dusty floor. “Why would you even bring that up? It’s… I’ve spent three months trying to forget what happened, trying to move on, and you’re just going to throw this question at me and open old wounds?”
“Yes,” he said plainly. “I love open wounds. Also, I find it strangely coincidental that your circle enters into the Deadwoods together and the two people who don’t make it back out are the same two people standing in the way of you and Donovan being together. How convenient for him.”
I hadn’t thought about it like that, and I didn’t want to start thinking of it like that.
He went on. “The whole thing got me thinking: what if he said something to Eva that made her go through? And what if he knew your hero boyfriend would chase after her?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Or maybe you don’t.”
I clenched my fists and allowed myself a moment of indulgence, imagining one of said fists flying straight into his nose. It would never land, though. I’d seen how quick his reflexes were in the battle at the Emporium. His speed and violence were truly terrifying, which was likely the only thing keeping me from giving his face a whack. “You love colloquialisms from my home world so much, here’s a little treat for you: you can go—”
If I’d ever been worried that I’d forget my native tongue when it came to cursing, I needn’t have been concerned. It all came back to me in a rush, and every word felt better than the next until I simply ran out of new ones to use and found myself repeating a few.
For the rest of the pub, which had fallen oddly silent, I probably sounded like I was speaking in tongues. But Malavic knew. Somehow, he was familiar with the meanings behind the words, and he actually looked a little stunned. Good.
Even though I’d caused a bit of a scene, I wasn’t too concerned about it. This was a pub in a paranormal town—there was some sort of scene here every night. And as far as things went, a woman cursing out Sebastian Malavic was pretty low-grade gossip. It might even earn me some respect.
Grim was nowhere to be found when I stomped out of Sheehan’s. I’d expected as much, since there was no reason for him to actually stay outside and wait for me when he could be back at Ruby’s, snuggling Monster by the fire. Sure, he could have stuck around to make sure I got home safe, but I’d already asked enough of him for one day. I was a realist about our relationship.
The biting cold felt appropriate for my mood. I was running hot, and needed to cool my engine.
I jumped as a spirit appeared right ahead of me. “Sweet baby jackalope!” My shock turned to a bitter annoyance when I realized it was the same female spirit who had tried to crash my date with Donovan.
“You said you’d help me later,” she said. “It’s later.”
I gritted my teeth and marched straight through her despite the unpleasant chill of passing through a ghost. “You couldn’t have picked a worse time.”
She floated after me. “Oh, I’m sorry my death is inconvenient for you.”
“Apology accepted. Now, come back later if you must, but please don’t bother me right now.”
She humphed. “I guess I’ll just have to find someone else to help me.”
“Be my guest.”
The presence behind me disappeared, and I let out a sigh of relief. I had enough to deal with without playing psychic psychologist. Yes, it was sort of my responsibility to help spirits move on, and most of the time a conversation would do it. But wasn’t there something to be said for personal boundaries? Especially when the ghost in question was just plain obnoxious.
With her gone, the night was silent, and I was left with nothing but my swirling thoughts to keep me occupied.
Despite having gotten the last word in with Malavic, I didn’t feel victorious. All I felt was lousy. Not for the way I treated him (obviously), but because I’d finally said something I’d been denying for months: I would pick Tanner over Donovan if I had the chance. In a heartbeat. Goddess, how I missed that foolish man, the way he made everything seem effortless, how his warm calmness seemed to wrap around me every time he smiled, the simplicity of his motivations…
And now there was something else nagging at me.
What had Donovan and Eva talked about before she sprinted toward the portal in the woods. The count often knew things he shouldn’t. Could what he’d insinuated be true?
Had Donovan orchestrated this whole thing?
Chapter Thirteen
Ruby looked up from her book as I entered through the front door. Monster was snuggled firmly between Grim and Clifford by the fireplace—the two hellhounds never would have slept in such close proximity if it weren’t for the benefit of that spoiled little munchkin cat.
Ruby did a quick double take. “You look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
I hung up my coat on the hanger and slipped off my boots, not bothering to set them neatly next to each other but rather tossing them in the general direction of where I would usually set them.
“Man trouble?” she asked, marking her page and hurrying over to the kitchen. She started a kettle of hot water right away.
“I suppose so.”
“Which one?” she asked.
“I hate that you have to ask.”
“Oh please, it’s no reflection on you. Every man in this town is capable of ruining the day of any woman.”
“Sebastian Malavic,” I said.
“Ah, well, that explains—”
“And Leonardo Stringfellow.”
“Did you mean to say Donovan Stringfellow?”
“Yeah, him too.”
She made a little grunting noise as I plopped into a chair at the parlor table.
I braced my chin in my hands and tried to keep my head from spinning until she brought over the tea. “I put a little something extra in there just for you.”
“Thanks.” The steam wafted the scent of alcohol right up my nostrils upon the first sip. The walk home had sobered me up just fine, and the sting from the tea felt like just the right bit of punishment.
“I know it’s not my place to offer you romantic advice,” Ruby began, taking a seat across from me, “but don’t listen to a word that comes out of that vampire’s mouth. He takes great pleasure in disturbing the calmness of others. Whatever he said that’s eating at you, just ignore it. Don’t pay it any mind.”
“How do you know he was doing that?”
“Because he always does! You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” She paused and looked over to Clifford. “Oh, you know it’s just a figure of speech.” She shook her head and looked back at me. “Now, if I remember correctly, Leonardo Stringfellow is the older brother of the man you’re sweet on. It’s really not my place to judge, but I would strongly advise you against entering into any sort of entanglement with brothers. It was tricky enough when the two men were best friends—”
My brain finally caught up. “No! No. Noooo. It’s not like that. Not with Leonardo. He’s just come back in town and… well, there’s been a murder.”
I got her up to speed, about running into Leonardo and Serena at Ezra’s shop, about the murder, about the disappearing body, and about how Leonardo had paid his uncle a visit earlier in the day.
By the end, her brows were pinched together in an uncharacteristic show of concern. “Go back to the part where the body disappeared.”
“I don’t know much about it, really. We were inside and it was there. We went outside, Stu told Ted to go take some more pictures, and a few minutes later, we found out the body was gone.”
“Giovanni was not a small man, if I remember correctly. Not fat, exactly, but tall. Broad shoulders.”
“You remember correctly.”
�
�I suppose someone could have been hiding inside the home and levitated that scoundrel out of there. Size wouldn’t matter quite so much if there were magic involved. And that does limit the suspect pool.”
“Are you assuming that whoever took the body was also the one who killed him?”
“I am.”
“So that narrows it down to a witch or a genie.”
She shook her head. “Or any number of other magical beings who might’ve snuck into town.”
A hard knock on the front door interrupted the conversation. Three knocks.
We froze.
Then, quickly, a fourth. “Ms. True? You in there?”
We relaxed. I would have recognized Stu Manchester’s authoritative cop voice anywhere. “I’ll get it,” I said.
When I opened the door, his face looked grim. “Oh good. You’re here, too. Can I come in?”
I said of course and stepped to the side, wondering if there’d been another murder. He certainly looked like he brought grave tidings.
“Tea, Stu?” said Ruby.
He hesitated, then nodded and pulled out a chair for himself. “Might as well.”
I wondered if she was going to tell him it was spiked.
She did not. But it looked like he could use a little something to take the edge off, and it wasn’t strong enough to get him into trouble on the job. Not that Bloom was out of her office long enough to smell his breath.
“What can we help you with tonight?” Ruby said, leaning back in her seat.
“Well, I don’t really know where to start.”
“The beginning,” she suggested.
He nodded and addressed her. “Are you aware that there was a murder yesterday?”
“If you’re talking about Giovanni Stringfellow, then yes. Nora has just informed me.”
“Good. And I assume she mentioned that the body disappeared?”
Ruby nodded, and Stu sighed and brought the teacup toward his mustache. He paused only momentarily once he got a whiff, then he took a long sip anyway.
“The high priestess insisted on taking a look at the scene since it was a Coven member. I guess Bloom is trying to play nice, because she allowed it. Springsong also brought along Mayor Esperia who, as you know, used to be the magical examiner in Eastwind.”
I wasn’t sure precisely where Stu was going with this yet, but I did know that it wasn’t great to have both Springsong and Esperia in the same place after a crime. It meant something was up or, at the very least, they believed something was up. While I’d officially buried the hatchet with those two witches, by no means did I trust them.
“And what did dear Cordelia Esperia find on scene?” Ruby asked in a tone as sweet as antifreeze.
Stu ran his hand down his face and over his mustache. “See, that’s why I’ve come. Since there was no body to speak of for her to examine, she went to the scene of the crime and ran a few tests. All of them came back positive for necromancy.”
Ruby didn’t speak, only arched a brow slowly and looked at me. I couldn’t tell if that look was a question or simply a request for solidarity in how ridiculous this was. I played it safe and assumed the former.
“If you’re thinking I made the body get up and walk away,” I told Stu, “I have bad news for you. I have no idea how to do that.”
He nodded. “I figured as much, but that leaves you, Ms. True, who I presume does know how to perform that level of magic.”
“Certainly,” said Ruby. “And that sticks me with means. And because I spend my day alone with my familiar, goddess willing, I have no alibi. So I suppose there’s an opportunity, as well. But look at me, Stu. Do you think I have a single fiber inside me that cares enough to murder someone I only know of in name who lives on the other side of town? I neither dislike nor like him. I have no motive and, generally speaking, no motivation for anything that might take me away from my reading.”
“Oh, trust me, Ms. True, I understand. I don’t personally believe either of you had anything to do with it, but I’m not sure the rest of Eastwind will be so gracious once word gets out that there was a murder involving Fifth Wind magic. I hope I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know when I say there’s always a little mistrust for your kind of witch, no matter how much good you do.”
“Not news at all,” Ruby said. “I appreciate you stopping by to give us the heads up. It can be extremely useful to know when one’s about to be subjected to a good old-fashioned witch hunt. But for the sake of proper law enforcement in this town, I’d like to raise a few other points.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“If there are signs of necromancy and it’s not Nora or me behind it…”
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s crossed my mind. But I hate to think another Fifth Wind has entered undetected.”
“Could it be someone dabbling in necromancy?” I asked. “There was that one time where those dumb East Wind teens decided to try their hand in necromancy.”
“And if I remember, they were very bad at it,” Ruby said. “Sure, they invited a demon into the realm, but they didn’t have much control over her once she was here, did they? Not to show my cards too much, but the amount of control and training it would take to make a dead body stand up and walk or run off is immense. Not something a dabbler could manage.”
I paused. I hated to even go here, but we had to explore all the possibilities. “If someone powerful simply used necromantic techniques, would it leave signs of necromancy? Say, if a genie decided to perform that kind of magic, which I assume one could.”
“Yes,” Stu said, “a genie could definitely do something like that. Or possibly another incredibly powerful being. But I’m not sure if it would leave the same trace the mayor found. She specifically said, ‘Fifth Wind.’”
Ruby blew a raspberry. “Poo-poo on that. Of course her first assumption was Fifth Wind, even if there was no way to tell the difference between who might have sourced the magic.”
“Could a vampire do it?” I asked.
It was a passage I’d read recently in my studies with Oliver Bridgewater that planted the seed of this idea. When a vampire turned someone, they sucked them dry until the person was dead. Only after a few hours did the victim rise up again and become vampire. “Could the body have been discovered during its transformation while it was technically dead? Maybe it returned to life and walked off while we weren’t looking. Isn’t vampire magic technically necromancy?”
I was already deep into my new theory about Leonardo and Malavic and blackmail and a price to be paid when Ruby said, “While it’s technically necromancy, I’m not sure it shows the same signs on the scene. And besides, the timing would be too perfect for that. Vampires can’t control when their progeny rise up again. There are many factors that determine that. And this seems much more likely to be a case of someone waiting for the right opportunity and then magicking the body to walk off.”
Damnation. How sweet would it have been to nail Count Malavic for murder after the way he’d behaved in Sheehan’s? Seeing him finally get put behind bars would be quite a gift.
Stu finished off his spiked tea and we agreed that none of us really knew what was going on for sure. What I could sense we were all thinking, though, was clear and unsettling: there was another Fifth Wind witch in Eastwind, and we had no idea where.
Chapter Fourteen
“So,” Donovan said as we strolled through the bright sunshine of Fulcrum Park the next day.
I nibbled on a ham sandwich from a stand at the Emporium as we walked. “So what?”
“So… are we going to talk about the murder?”
I took another quick bite, shoving my mouth full to allow myself some time to think. While it made sense that he would be interested and assume I’d been busy with my side hustle, there was so much that I couldn’t tell him. I’d promised discretion with Leonardo, telling him about the necromancy would undoubtedly make him suspect either Ruby or me and I’d decided since I’d woken up that morning tha
t the count’s words were definitely more full of unicorn swirls than truth. Any morsel I could toss Donovan’s way, would likely just pique his interest further rather than quench it.
“What about it?” I finally said. This was not how I wanted to spend my day off. Casual lunch date, yes. But talking murder on that casual lunch date before attending a full spa day with Serena and Jasmine? Not exactly. Although I supposed there were many ways it could be worse.
“Hmm, I dunno,” he said sardonically, “how about the bit where my brother was seen fleeing the scene of the crime? I assume you followed up on that.”
I nodded slowly. “I did.”
“And?”
“And it wasn’t your brother.”
He stopped walking, and I had a strange impulse to keep going. But I didn’t. I paused and turned to face him. “What?”
“How do you know it wasn’t him?”
“Because I talked to him.”
“And you believed what he said?”
“Well, not right away. He had an alibi, so I went and checked on it, and it seems pretty solid. I think the fact that Stu hasn’t arrested him yet also works to his credit.”
Donovan shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”
I laughed before I could catch myself. “Buy what? You don’t even know his alibi.”
“Fine then. What was it?”
I paused, remembering my promise. I ran a few hypothetical tests on the promise to see if I could ethically bend it so that I could tell Donovan just enough without breaking my word. No dice. “I think you’d better ask him yourself.”
His eyebrows shot up, and if I hadn’t known him better, I would have thought he was amused. But I did know him. And that was a look of betrayal. (Unfortunately, I’d seen it enough to recognize it.) “So you’re in tight with my family now, huh? All this time I told myself they were just a bunch of judgmental snobs and that’s why I can’t do anything right by them. But here they are warming up immediately to a Fifth Wind.”
My mouth fell open and a piece of cheese fell out. I tried to catch it and missed. “Hey now! What’s that got to do with anything?”