The Unlucky Mister Locke (Shadowvale #8)

Chapter 1

Upon rising, Gideon Locke did the bare minimum necessary to get himself out of the house. Got up, made his bed, went for a run, did some pushups, showered, shaved, dressed. Anything more than that was inviting trouble.

Even so, he stubbed his toe, broke a shoelace, and caused a light bulb to pop simply by turning on the light.

Home was, sadly, where he often ran into the most problems. What was that statistic about how most accidents happened at home?

He was living proof of how true that was. Or at least living proof that his family curse of being a jinx was alive and well. His curse thrived at home. It shouldn’t be that way. His home should be his sanctuary. His safe place. It wasn’t. At best, he resided in a state of perpetual caution.

Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t cautious everywhere. He was. Accidents happened to him wherever he went. Which was why he rarely went out other than to go to his place of business. There was just no point in tempting fate.

He headed for the door, stopping in the foyer to carefully take his keys from a bowl on the table there. The edge of a key caught the rim of the bowl, tugging and tipping it toward the edge of the table.

The bowl fell, clattering to the floor.

With a sigh, he picked it up, replaced it, then slipped the keys into his pocket. The bowl looked ceramic but was actually melamine and relatively unbreakable. As were most of the things in his house. He survived via paper, plastic, and metal.

Not the nicest way to live but needs must.

He checked the time on the stately grandfather clock that had stood guard since the day he’d moved in.

It was the clock he’d grown up with. The only real thing of value he owned.

He touched one of the watchful eyes carved into the wood.

For some reason, fate had spared it from the Locke curse.

Tomorrow was winding day. After which, he’d polish the wood and clean the glass. Carefully.

He glanced at his image in the mirror above the table and removed a tiny piece of tissue covering the spot where he’d cut himself shaving. Only once today. He took that as a good omen. As much as good omens existed in the life of a jinx.

He locked the door behind him and walked to his shop on Fiddler Street. The Clockwork Owl was much more like his sanctuary. His curse seemed to give him a pass when he was at his shop. Or at least something of a respite.

He liked to think it was because the work he did there—fixing watches, clocks, music boxes, windup toys, pretty much any small mechanical item—was understood by the universe to be his attempt to balance out his curse.

Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe nothing too awful happened to him at the shop because he spent most of his time sitting at his worktable concentrating on the job at hand. Hard for things to go too wrong when you didn’t move.

Nearly 8 a.m. and Fiddler Street was quiet in the soft gloom of the early morning light. Shadowvale was never sunny. That was the town’s own curse, although it had a purpose. To protect the vampires who lived here. He didn’t mind it. The gloom suited his mood more often than not.

The scent of coffee wafted toward him. He inhaled, stopping for a moment to breathe it in.

He’d start a pot of coffee as soon as he got into the shop.

He would much rather have had his first cup at home, but he’d learned the hard way how many ways that could go wrong, and drinking coffee from a plastic mug offered no enjoyment.

He knew stainless steel was also an option, but that would do nothing to safeguard the process of making coffee.

He started walking again. Past experiences had not gone well. The glass pot had shattered twice. The water reservoir had leaked. And overflowed. The handle had come off the pot. And on the last attempt, the machine had simply failed to work.

He’d never had an issue at the shop. He knocked on the tree he was passing. He was not an overly superstitious man, but there was no point in wasting an opportunity to possibly prevent a mishap.

The shop was just up ahead. He inspected the storefront as he grew closer. The glass could stand to be cleaned. Not something he’d dare attempt himself, but he had a service that took care of it when he called.

He tipped his head back to look at the sign.

Against a rich brown background, the letters were picked out in gold.

In the right-hand window was a selection of things displayed as a visual presentation of the things he was capable of fixing: a cuckoo clock, a travel alarm clock, a man’s and woman’s wristwatch, a pocket watch, a windup tin solder, a music box, an antique camera, and an old-fashioned typewriter.

In the left-hand window was the shop’s namesake, the clockwork owl, a beautiful, delicate little thing that gave him great joy.

He’d discovered it for sale online in an odd lot of watches and clocks, something he’d only intended to buy for the parts.

But once he’d realized what else was in the lot of goods, he’d bid. And bid high enough to win.

The owl was an antique, a relic of a bygone era when such animatronics were considered high technology and utterly fascinating by even the most common individual.

He still found them utterly fascinating.

The owl had taken him nearly two years to repair and rebuild. He’d even had to make a few parts, something that had been a tribulation at the time but had taught him new skills. He kept it in the front window so everyone might enjoy it, and he knew they did.

People came to watch it at ten in the morning and ten at night.

Those were the twelve-hour intervals at which the owl performed its movements.

The metal bird would blink its large, blue glass eyes twice, turning its head back and forth as it spread its wings and gave three, slow flaps before pulling them close to its body again.

Its head would rotate one complete turn, then it would close its eyes, open its beak as if laughing, and finally return to its resting position.

For all the destruction that surrounded him, he’d found a way to add value to his world. He’d saved something meant for the scrap heap. Sometimes, that owl was enough to keep him going.

He glanced at the shop next to his. It didn’t open until 10 a.m., which he found to be rather late, but then the shop stayed open later than his.

The sign read, “BITS a stopwatch for Rico Martinez, alpha of the Shadowvale werewolf pack and rugby player; and an antique music box for Gracie Evermore, bookkeeper and all-around lovely woman.

Which was merely an observation. As lovely as Gracie was, he wasn’t interested in her. He wasn’t interested in anyone.