Chapter 12
TWELVE
My heart dropped. “ Sick ?”
“ Get here now.”
Ian pushed aside the bead curtain. “ We need to talk.” A ball of lead formed in my stomach at the gravity in his gaze.
“ I’ll be right over,” I told Dorsey , then cut the call and followed Ian into the back. “ What’s wrong?”
I knew it in my bones that this was bad, bad news.
“ Shane is stuck again.”
I gasped in shock. “ As a wolf?”
“ Alex found him transformed in his room this morning. He can’t shift back.”
“ Dorsey called. She says the witch— Lilian Valenti is sick.”
I was going to be sick too. Either my potion had barely lasted two days or whoever had spelled Shane had managed to do it again, and Lilian at the same time.
And there was only one thing they had in common—me.
Ian took my shoulders and squeezed gently. “ Everything is going to be all right. Focus on the present.”
I nodded slowly, trying hard not to go down the rabbit hole of doom. “ We fixed Shane before, we can do it again. Never succumb to despair because the best is as likely to happen as the worst.”
“ That’s the spirit.”
“ I need to get to the bed and breakfast.”
“ I’ll drive you on my way to Shane’s .”
“ But your job! I’ll get the van and drive to Shane’s .”
He shook his head. “ This is more important.”
“ Okay .”
I went back into the front, and something in my expression must’ve told Dru and Natalia that something bad was going on because they didn’t pepper me with questions. Natalia was happy to do her first solo shift while I “checked on something real fast,” and Dru agreed to open her shop late and stick around to supervise, knowing I’d update her later.
Best friend ever.
As promised, Ian dropped me at Dorsey’s bed and breakfast before speeding away toward Shane and Alex’s shared apartment.
I hurried up the steps to the narrow front porch, then slammed the front door open. An older man sitting in an armchair in the lobby looked up from his phone, one eyebrow arched in question.
“ Dorsey ?” I asked.
He pointed toward the stairs.
I took them two at a time, the memory of sneaking up and down with Key momentarily flashing through my head. We had ended up investigating murder that time, so I crossed my fingers and tapped the wooden banister that the current situation wouldn’t get to that.
Dorsey stood in the hallway talking to someone inside one of the middle rooms. She scowled at my appearance, her mouth firming.
“ About time,” she snapped, flapping her arm for me to come closer.
“ Where is she?” I asked, full of worry.
“ I’m here,” Lilian Valenti said wryly, half stepping out of the room.
A wave of relief crashed over me. She was still standing. Good .
Dorsey poked my chest with one of her gnarled fingers. “ This better not have anything to do with my B ’n’ B , Avery .”
Unfortunately , that was something I could safely admit to. “ It doesn’t.”
“ Good .”
She made no move to walk away, so Lilian stepped back in a welcoming gesture. The moment I was inside, she closed the door in Dorsey’s face. I smiled in spite of myself and studied the witch closely. Her makeup was perfect, her eyes weren’t bloodshot, her hair was coiffed into a back bun, and she didn’t appear out of breath or about to keel over.
But then, neither had Brimstone .
Brimstone ! I needed to check up on him as soon as I was done here.
“ You’re sick?” I whispered, knowing Dorsey’s ear was probably glued to the door.
“ You tell me,” Lilian said. She touched her right hand to one of the bracelets on her left wrist and tiny sparks flew out.
“ What …?”
“ This is what happens any time I try doing a spell.” She grabbed a small bottle from the coffee table in the small sitting area of the room—which thankfully wasn’t the same as Lydia Lee , murdered actress a month ago—and held it up. Her mouth pursed as she concentrated on her magic.
More tiny sparks flew from where her skin touched the glass.
After they stopped, she tossed the bottle my way. “ You try.”
I inspected the bottle, but it appeared normal enough. A pinkish liquid sloshed inside, and I assumed it was some sort of personal potion. Concentrating on my magic, I drew a tiny protection ward on the glass.
No sparks, and the magic held.
“ When did this start?” I asked, rubbing my forehead. Oh , but this was bad. Sparks instead of spells? Awful .
Lilian sat on the small sofa, patting the cushion next to her. I sat by her side and put the bottle back down on the table.
“ It started this morning. I tried to do one of my daily spells and boom !” She extended her hands in a small explosion impression. “ Sparks everywhere.”
“ And you don’t feel ill otherwise?”
“ As healthy as usual.” She shuffled to watch me more directly. “ Does this have anything to do with the crashes in your shop yesterday and the way you kicked me out?”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. In your shop. There was no denying it now. Shane and Brimstone had me and Key in common.
Shane , Brimstone , and Lilian had the shop in common.
It hurt to even think about it, but the sooner I admitted it, the sooner I would find how to help my friends.
I stood up abruptly. “ Yes . I think it’s the shop. There have been two other paranormals who got sick as well. I thought I fixed whatever spell got to them, but it’s back. I need to go now, but I’ll come back, I swear.”
Not waiting for a response, I ran out of the room, nearly barreling over Dorsey outside, then flew down the corridor and the stairs.
“ No running, Avery !” Dorsey yelled after me.
“ Sorry ,” I yelled back, wrenching open the front door.
“ No yelling either!”
I was on my phone, calling Natalia , before I hit the street running. Morning rush hour in Olmeda lasted until lunch, and waiting for a ride might take forever.
“ Yes , boss?” she answered in an upbeat tone.
“ Close the shop,” I said.
“ What ?”
“ Kick everyone out, put the dogs in the backyard, and close the shop, then go home. I’ll pay you for the full shift.”
“ Uh , sure. Everything okay?”
“ Everything’s fine .” I winced at that. Even the most oblivious person would know everything was most definitely not fine. “ Something came up, and I need to use the shop for a big spell, that’s all,” I added as soothingly as being out of breath would allow.
“ Oh , okay,” she said in a brighter voice. “ Thought for a moment we had gotten hit by that sickness thing.”
“ Nope . Not at all,” I lied through my teeth. “ Have a good day, okay?”
“ Thanks !”
I ended the call and called Dru .
“ We have a problem.”
“ Brimstone ?” she ventured.
“ And Shane and Lilian .” I had already updated her about the witch’s surprise visit.
“ That’s not— That’s interesting,” she corrected herself, thankfully.
“ I told Natalia I need to do a big spell and to close the shop and go home. Can you help her and wait at Sharp Claws ?”
“ Sure .”
“ And can you make sure your demon-y things are still demon-ing?”
“ They were this morning.”
“ Awesome . See you in a few.”
I pocketed my phone and focused on not dying before reaching the Tea Cauldron . Oh , how I missed Bee - Bee ! My Vespa would’ve been a universe-given gift right about now.
By the time I got to the shop, I was a sweaty, out-of-breath mess, but I didn’t have time to rest. Natalia had done as I’d asked, and the closed sign and the drawn blinds hit me like a punch to the gut.
I’d promised myself and Grandma that I’d make this work.
But here was my shop, closed down for customers, paranormal and human alike, because it was making them sick.
I slapped my cheeks lightly, stopping my brain from going down that particular free-fall. Sadness later, action now.
Forcing the panic away with a good dose of determination, I went into the shop and locked the door behind me. Rufus and Fluffy barked in happy greetings from the backyard, but I didn’t allow myself to be distracted. Grabbing the moon water spray bottle, I used it on every available surface, traveling methodically from the back rooms to the front of the shop, using the most power on the floor in front of the counter—the best place to spell anyone who came through.
Nothing .
No traces of dark magic or any other magic that wasn’t mine.
Exhausted from the run over and the expenditure of magic, I lay down on the floor, staring at the ceiling and trying to feel the shop around me.
It didn’t feel any different. It hadn’t suddenly grown a bad aura or begun oozing menacing vibes. It was still my lovely shop, with my lovely furniture, with the warm hardwood floors and the old, sturdy counter.
Was my magic not strong enough to detect the spell?
But that was one of the downsides of magic—it could be detected as long as the spell or ward were active or had been used recently. Even dark magic couldn’t wipe that side effect of it—all power must have a downside.
Maybe it was some kind of magical allergy to something benign? I had introduced some new tea blends in the menu during the last couple of weeks, so maybe that was it?
But then everyone would be sick to some extent, or at least it’d be centered on one type of paranormal, not witches, mages, and shifters.
No . It was something about my shop. Maybe its past as a murder house had finally caught up to it. Maybe something about the building was inherently wrong, and that was why so much calamity had happened here.
Why was my shop, which was supposed to be a haven for the paranormal community, making paranormals sick?
The question sat like an unendurable weight on my chest.
This shop, and me by extension, was making people sick.
The antithesis of everything I stood for.
“ Grandma ,” I whispered toward the whereabouts of my bedroom above, “why am I making people sick?”
There was no answer. The shop remained silent, the noises from the outside filtering in and giving it a normal, mundane atmosphere. Somewhere in the backyard, Rufus and Fluffy were waiting for me to go pet them, as they always did.
I yearned to go to them, to call Ian and have him make everything okay.
But I couldn’t.
Brimstone , Shane , and Lilian had gotten sick because of me and my shop. It was my responsibility to fix things. And if I couldn’t, then maybe I didn’t deserve the Tea Cauldron after all.