Bright Dark Curses (Good Bad Magic #5)

Chapter 1

ONE

It had been four days and twenty hours since my bounty hunter shifter boyfriend had left for the bounty hunters’ guild with Hannah in the back seat of his SUV .

So much for “a day or two.”

Ian had decided to stick around at the guild to make sure Hannah didn’t try to broker a deal using Bagley and the shop’s dark magic past for a more lenient sentence on her murdering ways. Very considerate of him, but I was eager to finish what we had started on Halloween .

Memories of our last moments together while we kissed on top of some poor soul’s burial ground flitted through my mind.

I sighed, full of yearning, and surveyed my domain from the bead curtain. We had taken down the Halloween decorations, but the shop retained a wonderful cozy fall atmosphere, especially around this time in the evening. The two tables were occupied by women chatting animatedly as they wrapped their hands around their mugs of tea and coffee, two older women sat at the stools sharing a muffin, and Brimstone and Destruction stood behind the counter, making sure our customers were satisfied.

I know—shocking!

Dru was currently too busy using Bagley’s money to buy the seasonal restaurant next door and turn it into a vintage clothing and accessories store to work at the Tea Cauldron . Unlike me, she had no qualms about using money earned through the practice of dark magic. “ Cleansing through laundering.” Her words, not mine, although they had a nice ring to them. Perhaps I’d add them to my affirmations.

So , now I had Brimstone . I wasn’t completely sure of how that’d come about except that I’d been desperate and he’d walked into the shop a couple of days back and stated he needed a job. Key thought he wanted to go “straight,” as in, stop his life of paranormal fire-starting crime, and how could one say no to that?

I had to admit he looked good standing tall and ramrod-straight behind the counter. He had divested himself of the vampire three-piece suit and was wearing a crisp white shirt under one of our newly delivered black aprons with the shop’s logo embroidered on the front. His sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms, and he wore his blond hair slicked back. Even his permanent scowl seemed somehow inviting.

I wondered if magic was involved.

The door opened, filling the shop with soft tinkling, and a middle-aged woman entered.

“ How may I serve you?” Brimstone intoned in his deep, ominous voice.

The woman blushed and let out a giggle.

Oh , Good Mother Earth , not again. I rushed behind the counter. “ What can I get you! What . Can . I . Get . You ?”

Brimstone grunted.

The woman giggled again, then batted her eyelashes. “ The day’s special, please,” she said, almost shyly.

“ Right away,” I said before Brimstone could utter another word. I gave him an eloquent look, and he turned abruptly toward the row of teas and the water urn. The woman watched him with a dreamy expression in her eyes. “ Want a muffin to go with it? Cookies ?”

After the success of her Halloween muffins, Veva’s friend was expanding her operation into cookies. The Tea Cauldron and cookies didn’t have the best history, if you minded eating baked goods made with unwilling human blood, but I couldn’t find it in myself to refuse. After all, I knew firsthand how hard it was to start a new business.

The woman blinked and looked down at the glass display. “ Oh ! I’ll have a chocolate chip cookie. Thank you.”

“ Coming right up. Want to sit at the counter?”

As if in a trance, the woman shuffled to one of the stools. As I put a plate with her cookie in front of her, another customer entered the shop. A younger woman this time, dressed in an elegant coat and smart pants. Her gaze roved the shop, then all but lit up when it found Brimstone .

“ What can I get you?” I asked once she divested herself of her coat and came up to the counter.

Her eyes never leaving Brimstone , she said, “ Coffee , please.”

“ Muffin ? Cookie ?”

“ Is that really him?” she asked in a whisper.

I followed her gaze to Brimstone . “ Jeremy works here, yes.”

“ Oh , my lord,” she all but squealed. “ I’ve been a fan of his vlog forever.”

I choked on my own saliva. “ His what ?”

“ You know, Decadent Temptations ?” She leaned in. “ Do you know if he’s going to take it up again? Could you ask him?”

“ Take it up again?” I repeated like the Cabinet of Curiosities ’ automaton.

The woman made an impatient noise. “ You know, cover more food places. It’s been four months since his last video.”

“ I will, uh, ask him.”

Appeased , the woman smiled and moved to the last free stool while I stared into the abyss.

Brimstone and Destruction , aka Jeremy the fire mage, aka Key’s uncle, aka long-time member of the dangerous dark side of the paranormal community, ran a food video log?

Hmm .

Would he be willing to make a video about the Tea Cauldron ? I studied the women at the counter, all suffering from a grave case of stars sprouting out of their eyes. He clearly had fans. He needed a job; I needed free promotion. A match made in heaven?

“ Here you go,” Brimstone said, placing a mug in front of the first woman.

Thunder reverberated in the distance. The women sighed. I made my escape into the back.

“ Ms . Bagley ,” I whispered as I stepped inside the kitchen, “did you know about Brimstone’s food vlog?”

Bagley , currently stuck in a lovely old locket I’d left on the windowsill, snorted. “ Who doesn’t?”

Why hadn’t anyone mentioned this before? Key and I were going to have to have a long talk later. If I’d known this side of Brimstone , I’d have included a video about the shop in the price for his fake dark magic potions!

“ Is the vlog popular?”

“ Don’t you have a phone to check?”

I fought a blush. “ Be nice.”

“ Be smarter.”

Oh , it was like that, was it? “ Fine .” In the blink of an eye, I’d transferred the locket into a plastic container and was making my way into the backyard.

“ Youth these days,” Bagley complained loudly through the plastic, “no sense of self-awareness.”

“ Have a good night, Ms . Bagley ,” I said very politely before putting the box inside the locker in the backyard and closing it firmly.

Thankfully , the added layer of metal saved me from having to listen to Bagley’s replies.

Some might say it was a mistake to allow Bagley out of the locker at all—she was a murderous, evil dark witch who had tried to hike out of the shop with the help of an equally murderous, evil dark witch—but I was a big believer in rehabilitation. As Grandma used to say, everyone had a nugget of goodness in them, even if they happened to be the devil’s spawn.

Paraphrasing .

I returned inside and went up to the first floor, where Fluffy and Rufus were resting after a very busy afternoon of rolling all over the backyard. Ian might be only a phone call away, but as far as my and the dogs’ hearts were concerned, he might as well be on the other side of the globe. We needed plenty of daily group hugs.

Shane had dropped a spare set of keys at the shop the morning after Ian had left so I could take the dogs at will, and I had never felt more valued in my life. No longer would I need to scale over fences to get a handful of cemetery dirt or ring the bell for five minutes and make funny faces at the intercom camera to gain entrance into the land of Cavalier Repairs & Renovations .

And speaking of cameras… I brought up my phone and searched for Decadent Temptations .

Oh , boy.

I hurried to add video log and food to the search.

Nope .

“ Images can’t hurt you, Hope ,” I repeated to myself as I went back down into the shop. Nothing appeared amiss. No customers were set on fire. They were all still looking at him with their hearts in their eyes.

I was trying to figure out the best way to ask about this vlog without possibly infuriating Brimstone and getting set on fire when Dru entered the shop.

“ Bestie !” I exclaimed with delight.

She was scowling with displeasure, an expression I knew well by now. It meant some poor soul had had the misfortune of crossing her and now they were going to suffer hell on earth.

Here was hoping that wasn’t me.

“ Good , you’re here,” she said very seriously. “ Come with me.”

Alarms went off in my head. “ Where to?” Was there a magic emergency? Had someone attempted to make their own potion and poisoned themselves accidentally? Should I keep a magical emergency bag like doctors did? How much did those cost? Maybe there was a knock-off version. Maybe something like a diaper bag?

Dru walked up to me and snapped her fingers in front of my face. “ Hope . Focus .”

Right . Emergencies . I ushered her into the back of the shop. “ What’s wrong?” I leaned closer and added, perhaps a little too eagerly, “ Is someone magically ill?”

Dru’s scowl deepened. “ No , why?”

“ Never mind. What do you need?”

“ I need your…” She stopped, breathed in deeply, looking for all the world like she’d rather be gulping hard liquor, then continued. “ Help . I need your help.”

I clapped my hands with delight. “ Of course. What can I do?”

“ I need to secure the votes for the shop.”

As a member of the paranormal community, Dru needed permission from the PBOA , the Paranormal Business Owners Association , to open her new shop next door, whether she sold magic or not. If part of the membership didn’t give their consent, things could get dicey.

For a newcomer, convincing a bunch of surly paranormals who didn’t trust new people would be a problem, but Dru had been in Olmeda for years.

“ Nobody’s going to vote against you,” I said soothingly.

“ Really ? Have you gone and asked everyone?” she asked sarcastically.

I frowned. “ No …”

She pointed at me, close to stabbing my chest with her manicured nail. “ Exactly .”

“ Dru ,” I began in a reasonable tone.

“ You’re coming with me and making sure to let everyone know if they don’t vote for me, you won’t be making any potions for them.”

“ I don’t think we need to resort to blackmail just yet,” I say wryly.

Her eyes narrowed. “ Preston might be working against me. He’s been asking about my purchase of the shop.”

Preston , Dru’s ex-boyfriend and general pain in the butt. “ I seriously think he has better things to?—”

“ I saved you from Vicky’s murder van.”

Ouch . Dru meant business. I lifted my hands in surrender. “ Okay , okay. I’ll go with you.”

“ Good .” She turned and pushed the bead curtain aside.

“ Oh , right now?”

Her imperious look answered better than any words. I hurried to retrieve the dogs and joined her outside, trying not to laugh at the fact that Brimstone all but jumped on top of the counter at the sight of Fluffy and Rufus prancing through the shop.

“ Where are we going first?” I asked, zipping up my winter jacket.

“ Bosko’s .”

We set out on foot at a good pace, and I had the inkling she meant for us to visit every paranormal shop in Olmeda within the next three hours. It being Friday evening, the streets were getting crowded, adding a lovely festive atmosphere to the town.

I breathed it all in—the signs and lights contrasting against the darkness of the early night, the snatches of music pouring out of open restaurants, the honks of cars as they got stuck in the evening traffic. Some of the narrower streets had already hung Christmas lights across, and I made myself a mental note to order decorations and lights for the shop.

Back home, I would wait until witchgiving was over, but I was a shop owner now. I had responsibilities toward my clientele.

On top of that, the thought of decorating for Christmas with Ian made my insides all warm and fuzzy.

If he ever came back, that was.

But surely he had to at some point, right? His life was here now. Not even the bounty hunters could keep him away forever—he had strays to alpha and a business to run.

“ Why are we bringing the dogs?” Dru asked.

“ Because they bring joy wherever they go.”

“ I will maim you.”

I laughed. “ Brimstone isn’t comfortable being alone with Fluffy and Rufus .”

“ But you’re comfortable leaving him alone in the shop?”

“ Give people the benefit of the doubt and they’ll surprise you.”

“ By robbing you blind and setting your shop on fire,” she muttered.

“ How’s Sharp Claws ?” Last I heard, the seller had been a bit of a pain.

Dru grunted. “ Almost ready for signing. Just need the PBOA approval before the guy changes his mind. Again .”

“ I’m so happy we’re going to be shop-mates,” I said dreamily.

“ I’m only doing it because of the free breakfast.”

I patted her arm. “ Of course.” But we both knew better. No amount of free morning coffee and muffins would force Dru to do something she didn’t want to do. She wouldn’t admit it, but I knew she was more than happy to set up shop right next to me. After all, there were other spots in Olmeda she could’ve taken over, spots that didn’t involve tearing out a small industrial kitchen to transform a restaurant into a shop. “ I can’t wait to see Sharp Claws . It’s going to be amazing.”

She smiled smugly. “ It sure is.”

I tugged at her elbow and took us across into a forking street.

“ Hope , what are you doing?”

“ Just a small detour. Five minutes tops.”

Dru grumbled but allowed herself to be led off path. I’d hoped to visit after the shop closed, but this worked just as well.

Turned out, something was happening this weekend.

Something spectacular, amazing, and out of this world lucky.

One of my favorite romantic suspense books was being turned into a movie right here in Old Olmeda !