Chapter 8
EIGHT
“ Are you going to let him into the event?” Ian asked.
I inspected Jim’s card. It had his name on it with “we make your dreams come true” and a phone number printed underneath. Not a bad slogan—respect where it was due.
“ I’m not sure,” I admitted. “ If I don’t, he might never stop bugging me.” Plus , I didn’t want to make an enemy of a local business, paranormal or not. I pocketed the card and started on my Mac and Cheese . “ So , Santa event at the cemetery, huh?”
Ian cut a bite of his pork. “ It wasn’t as popular as Mom hoped.”
I laughed at that. “ I bet.” A spark of hope formed as I remembered my other avenue of investigation about Brimstone and Shane’s issues. “ Did you call her about paranormals having their magic messed with?”
“ I did.”
I waited expectantly, but when he kept eating, I nudged him under the table. “ Ian !”
He grinned, then grew serious. “ She remembers a story about paranormals getting sick a long time ago, but it happened in Montel according to her, not Olmeda .”
Excitement built up inside me. “ Montel is close enough. Maybe it’s related? Was it the same kind of upside-down magic issues?”
“ She didn’t know the exact details.”
I pondered that. “ If the story was common enough that your mom remembers it, there must be a record of it somewhere.” I pointed at him with my fork. “ I bet you they got something in Montel’s Council library.”
“ Probably ,” he agreed.
“ I should go check it out. There might be some details that can help us figure out how they got sick or who did the spell.” Curses might not be real, but magical grudges being passed down the family line was totally a thing in the paranormal world.
We finished our lunch without any further interruptions, and I returned to the shop with Fluffy while Ian went to consult with a future client.
“ Good , you’re here,” Mark said the moment I entered the shop. “ I’m out.”
I felt slightly guilty that he’d been working while I was having lunch, but I reminded myself he wasn’t doing it for free.
“ I gotta go too, boss,” Alex said. “ Have to check on Mr . Preston’s supplies.”
Ian had approved Alex’s plans for Preston’s home renovation, and to my immense relief Preston hadn’t encouraged Alex’s obvious crush on him. The last thing we needed was a love square among Dru , Preston , Mark , and Alex .
Hopefully it’d stay that way.
I set Fluffy free in the backyard, then refilled her water bowl in the kitchen. When it was just her, I usually allowed her free roam of the first floor. Rufus was a bit too scary for some of the customers, so he was usually left to wait upstairs or in the backyard. Ian and I had both agreed that with that setup he’d be happier at the cemetery, so Ian usually only brought Rufus when he was spending the night over.
Taking advantage of a lull between customers, I drank another energy drink and sprayed moon water liberally over the floor of the shop and counter, as well as inside the first-floor kitchen, then carefully checked for any latent magic.
Just because someone long ago had gotten sick in Montel , it didn’t mean this wasn’t a new nasty spell left on my premises.
My magic-detecting spells returned nothing but the familiar feeling of my own magic. No dark magic, no unknown wards.
Thank goodness.
I’m not sure what I’d have done if my shop had been the reason Shane and Brimstone’s magic had gotten messed up.
I had just managed to drag myself onto a stool behind the counter, rather than use the floor to recuperate, when the front door opened and Dru came in.
“ You’re alone. Good .”
She sat at the counter, and I stretched toward the coffee pot. It was right out of reach, so I mumbled unhappily as I forced my noodle legs to support my weight and took a hold of it.
Dru ignored the cup of coffee I set in front of her, which was very rude of her considering the effort it had taken me to produce it, and leaned in, all expectant.
“ Okay , spill. What happened?”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Mark came here, then Alex was here, and you weren’t around to make sure they behaved. Something totally happened. Does it have something to do with Brimstone’s magic being broken?”
“ It’s not broken anymore,” I told her proudly. “ I fixed it.”
“ Go you,” she said in a markedly unimpressed tone. “ What else happened then?”
I leaned in as well. “ Shane shifted and couldn’t shift back.”
She sat back. “ Seriously ?”
“ Yup .” I puffed out my chest. “ I fixed that too.”
“ Look at you, doing your job and everything.”
“ Impressive , right?”
She covered her smile with a sip of her coffee. “ So , what caused it?”
I tapped my fingers on the counter. “ That’s the problem. I don’t know. At first I thought it might be related to me or the shop, but Shane hasn’t had any potion from me, and I just checked the shop and there are no traces of dark magic.” Which , considering the history of the building, was quite something.
“ Maybe it’s something to do with Key ?”
“ Maybe . Ian thought that as well.”
“ I sense a ‘but.’” Her eyes narrowed. “ If you make a butt joke, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
“ Aww . Butt it was right there.”
“ Hope !”
“ Fine , fine. Yes , there is a ‘but.’ Ian called his mom to ask if she remembered anything like this happening in Olmeda before and she said she heard about something similar happening a while back in Montel . Do you remember any story like this?”
“ Not really. I searched the online boards after you left, but didn't find anything.”
I grabbed a cookie from the display and held it out to Dru .
“ What’s this?” She plucked it from my fingers as if it were a poisonous snake.
“ Independent thinking ought to be rewarded. Good job on searching all by yourself.”
“ Oh , shut up.” But she bit into the cookie anyway. Somehow , she produced no crumbles. If it had been me, half the cookie would’ve ended up on the counter.
“ I’m thinking of going to Montel to check with the Council’s archives. If something like this happened before, I bet they’ve got some sort of record.”
“ If it only happened once before, it seems like an isolated incident. Might not be related with Shane and Brimstone at all. And if nobody else got sick, maybe whatever spell got them is done now.”
“ You can’t count on that, though. What if it’s an escalation and it happens again next year? Or next month?”
She conceded the point with a grunt.
“ So …” I leaned my elbows on the counter and sent her a coy look.
Her eyes narrowed again. “ So ?”
“ How are things going with Mark ?”
A smirk of satisfaction curved her mouth. “ None of your business.”
I squealed in delight. “ Oh , that’s great. Have you guys kissed yet? Has he taken you somewhere romantic?”
“ Do I ask you about Ian’s kisses?”
“ No , but I can tell you if you want. They’re ama?—”
Dru held her hands to her ears. “ No details, please.”
“ That’s not very girlfriend-ish of you.”
“ Just because I’m not interested in imagining you with your boyfriend doesn’t mean I’m not interested in the rest of your relationship.”
“ You mean drama, don’t you?”
She let out an evil chuckle. “ Maybe .”
“ I’m sorry to tell you that things are going great with Ian and me. In fact, he took me out for a lunch date and—oh, that’s right. Jim wants in on the Christmas event. What do you think?”
She scrunched her nose. “ It’s your event, not mine.”
“ Is it safe to have a human business in the middle of all the paranormal ones?”
“ I’m sure it’s happened before, otherwise it’d be too obvious, right?”
“ That’s what I was thinking. Stay here.” I went into the back and returned with the Christmas tree designs. Fluffy decided to tag along. “ Which do you like best?”
Dru reached over to pat Fluffy , then picked the designs up one by one and, to her credit, studied each carefully. Dru might like to joke about my events, but when it came down to it, she was a businesswoman through and through.
She tapped the middle one. “ This one.”
“ It’s my favorite too,” I said happily. It had the right shade of green and fell on the perfect edge between too realistic and too cartoony. “ I’ll tell Marisa to go ahead and start working on the sticker designs.”
“ Don’t you need to know how many shops will be part of it before that?”
“ There’s at least nine confirmed, so she can start work on those.”
“ Fair enough.” She glanced toward the windows and stood abruptly. “ Damn , that’s one of my regulars. I gotta go.”
She rushed out of the shop to salute an older woman in the street. They chatted for a moment, then they disappeared out of view toward Sharp Claws .
“ Busy people,” I told Fluffy over the counter. She gave a sharp yip of assent and went to lie on her blanket hidden out of view behind the counter.
I washed Dru’s mug as a new customer entered the shop, then a family of four. Having no extra help at the shop meant I was kept busy until closing time.
At nine on the dot, I flipped the closed sign and drew down the blinds.
Fluffy came over to remind me I hadn’t fed her in forever and ever, and I took her upstairs to have her dinner.
I called Veva while I watched Fluffy sniff her food then take delicate Fluffy -sized bites out of it.
“ Hello , Hope ,” Veva said warmly. “ How are you doing?”
“ Good . I have a question for you. Are you free?”
“ I have a reading in five, but I’m good until then.” Unlike the Tea Cauldron , Veva’s Cards & Destiny did a lot of its business after the sun had gone down.
“ Have you ever heard about paranormals’ magic going haywire?” I asked.
“ Haywire how?”
“ Like coming out wrong. Doing the opposite of what it’s supposed to do.”
She fell silent for a few seconds. “ Can’t say I have, no.”
“ What about in Montel ? Ian’s mom mentioned a similar thing happened a while back over there.”
“ Wait , you’re right. I do remember something like that, but it happened in Olmeda , not Montel .”
“ You’re sure?”
She chuckled. “ As sure as I can be, going from memory. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with the old dark witch coven that used to operate from here.”
Of course it did. That coven had indirectly caused me more grief than my old mentor, Oh -call-me- Tammy . “ Can you remember any more details?”
“ Not really, sorry. Look , I gotta get ready for the reading. Talk later?”
“ For sure.”
We ended the conversation, and I crouched to give Fluffy some pets while I mulled this new information. Olmeda’s dark magic coven had been the source of plenty of scary legends around here and had left such a foul magical mark that evil witches still tried to use their old gathering place to draw power for their spells.
I supposed it wasn’t too strange that the tale had transformed over the years, leaving Ian’s mom and Veva with different versions, but it could also be there had been two separate incidents.
Fortunately , I had someone at hand to ask about Olmeda’s dark magic history.