Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel Read online

  “Ronnie, he gave me a whole pouch full, please.” I reached out, grabbed her hand, and put the stone into her palm, closing her fingers over it. “Besides, it matches your eyes.” She laughed at that, opening her palm and looking at the emerald. I could tell she wanted to argue about it some more, but she kept her mouth closed, finally clutching it to her chest.

  “Thanks,” she said before tucking it away into a charm box. She tapped the box with her finger, locking it up tight.

  “Thank you,” I said, swinging my purse strap back on my shoulder. “No one else would’ve let me keep a tab open as long as you did.”

  “Eh.” She shrugged, pulling her purse out of its hiding place behind the counter. “I knew you were good for it.” Maybe she knew that, but I didn’t. It had been a lean couple of months. The only thing that kept me going was knowing Samhain was around the corner, and business was always much better around the holidays.

  We walked to the front of the store. Ronnie locked the door with keys and a similar freezing spell before I helped her pull the metal grate down. She locked it to the ground, spelling it closed too.

  “Wanna grab a bite?” she asked as she straightened up, tugging at the edge of her jean skirt, straightening it over her black tights.

  “Yeah, actually,” I said, thinking about the lack of groceries in my apartment. It would be nice to have a hot meal before I tried to buy food. The gods only knew what I would end up bringing home if I went shopping that hungry.

  Ronnie dropped her keys into her purse and slung it over her head so the strap went across her body, and we headed down the street. It was nearing one o’clock, but the street was still busy with people, mostly supernaturals, going about their nightly routines. It had been over seventy years since our races came out of hiding and started living openly with humans. World War II might have had an entirely different outcome if the Gremlins hadn’t started the Wave of Revelation with their uncanny metal working, developing new ammunition, planes, and helmets for the Allied Forces.

  Sadly, despite our efforts to make the transition from myth to reality as painless as possible for the humans, trying to adopt their habits and traditions, we were all still living in a tenuous community. Many humans still didn’t trust us, and we were often scapegoats for crimes and tragedies. There were factions of human-run hate groups that targeted us on a regular basis until we started living in separate neighborhoods, like the one Ronnie and I lived and worked in. Our neighborhood, Havencrest, was an area we had carved out of West Hollywood, but most of West Hollywood was dominated by supernaturals now, even spilling over to the rest of Los Angeles. The fairies especially loved Southern California for the year-round sunshine.

  There were plenty of humans excited and eager for us to assimilate into the human community, hoping our magical powers and the beauty of some of our races would bring about a whole new race. So far, only some of the supernatural races could breed easily with humans, like witches and Weres – the races that share some of the same genetic code as humans. Jimmy was one of the rarer breeding occurrences. Unfortunately for Jimmy, their genetic gamble hadn’t worked out. He was short and narrow, whereas most trolls were very tall and broad. He kept the batwing ears and receding hair line, his face was mostly human, and his skin was a greenish gray. All in all, an unfortunate mix.

  Witches had the easiest time blending in. Other than our propensity to sleep during the day and wake at night, we had no obvious traits that made us look anything other than human. My grandmother told me the natural inclination to sleep during the day was a left over habit from the Dark Ages and having to do all our spell work at night. It was just natural, unless you needed to perform Sun magic, which I rarely did. As a woman, I liked to work with Moon magic. I couldn’t imagine being forced to hide my true nature and work magic in secret. I mean, it was as a part of me as my liver or kidney. I just couldn’t live without it.

  Ronnie and I made it to The Brownie’s Bite, the corner diner on our block, in a matter of minutes. The warm air rushed over us, scented with bacon and chocolate and making my mouth water. I waved to Fin, the Brownie woman behind the counter, as we seated ourselves in a booth by the window. Fin brought us a couple of menus and two Hobgoblin ales without being asked. She slipped away, giving us a chance to look over the choices.

  Personally, I didn’t really need time; I was so excited to have a meal out of the house I had already decided what I wanted before we even made it inside. I tried not to bounce in my seat with impatience as Ronnie pursed her lips, trying to decide what she wanted.

  “So, who was the troll? Someone we know?” Ronnie’s eyes went up and down the menu. I stared at her for a moment, not wanting to answer, because if we got caught up in a conversation, it would take her that much longer to choose her meal.

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, pausing to take a sip of my beer. “It was Jimmy.”

  “Oh, the half-troll,” she said, glancing up at me, and I nodded.

  “Dude,” I said, my rumbling stomach finally getting the best of me, “you know you’re just going to order the same thing you always do. Can we just get on with it?”

  “Impatient much?” Ronnie shot back, one red brow arching.

  “No, starving much.” I signaled Fin with two fingers.

  “What’ll it be, ladies?” Fin asked, her dirt brown hands holding a ticket pad and pen. I looked at Ronnie, giving her a chance to order first.

  “Grilled cheese with tomatoes and tomato soup, please.” Ronnie ordered her usual with a little eye roll for me.

  “Double bacon cheese burger with a fried egg on top,” I ordered quickly.

  “Fries?” Fin asked, her thin eyebrows arching.

  “Oh yeah,” I said excitedly.

  “That’s a lot of meat,” Ronnie said after Fin took our menus and headed for the kitchen.

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed, reaching for my beer and picking at the label. I refused to join in the staring contest I felt Ronnie trying to start and stared resolutely at my bottle.

  “Anyway,” she finally said, reaching for her own bottle and taking a sip, “what did Jimmy want that was so expensive?”

  “A charm to catch a fairy.” I took another sip of the spicy ale, enjoying the feel of the bubbles bursting in my mouth.

  “What?” Ronnie nearly spit out the sip she’d taken, making her cough violently. She pounded the table and blinked back the tears the carbonation caused.

  “Yeah,” I said with a laugh. “That’s about how I felt about it.”

  “Mattie, you didn’t.”

  “What?” I shrugged. “It’s just a little charm. Even if he does find a token, you know whatever he asks for, the fairy will find a way to punish him with it.”

  “Aren’t you worried it’ll come back to you?”

  “Not really,” I said, pushing my bottle away. I didn’t want to drink too much on an empty stomach. “I mean, how could it? I didn’t do anything wrong. Jimmy’s the one wanting to catch one; he’ll be the one to pay the price.”

  “I don’t know,” Ronnie said slowly. Before she could argue about it further, Fin was back with our plates, sliding them in front of us. I was aware of an excess of saliva in my mouth when the scent of bacon and red meat wafted up.

  Ronnie picked up her spoon and dipped it into her soup, but she stopped short of her mouth when she saw me lift my burger with two hands, ketchup dripping between my fingers, and take a huge, unladylike bite. The yolk of the egg burst, adding a whole new creamy texture. I groaned in satisfaction.

  “You know,” she said, one eyebrow arching again as she watched me, “over nine billion animals are killed every year for food.”

  “Wow,” I said as I swallowed, earning another sneer from my best friend. “That is a lot.”

  “The Hindus revere cows.”

  “Me, too,” I said, taking another bite.

  “They remind people to think about how many people a cow can feed with its milk instead of how few people it can feed with its meat
,” she said before finally sipping her soup from the dripping spoon.

  “That’s deep,” I said, wiping away the drip of ketchup and yolk from my chin. Ronnie rolled her eyes again and shook her head, but fortunately, she let the subject drop so I could enjoy my spot at the top of the food chain.

  ***

  When we got to our apartment building, Ronnie broke away from me as I continued on to the corner food market. She lived one floor above me, but unlike me, she owned her apartment and didn’t have to worry about encountering Frankie. The corner market wasn’t a big store like the ones humans had in their neighborhoods, but it was brightly lit and warm inside. I had a field day buying whatever food my little heart desired, even treating myself to some imported Irish cheese and Dutch chocolates.

  Standing in front of the pastry display, I felt the prickling sensation on the back of my neck that told me someone was watching me. When I picked my head up and looked around, I didn’t see anyone nearby, let alone looking at me. I tried to shake off the creeping feeling of invisible fingers on my neck, rolling my shoulders and turning back to the sweet smelling confections.

  I picked out a few sugar cakes, spun the plastic bag, and tied it off before I pushed my cart to the front of the store. The lines weren’t long, but people were feeling chatty and taking forever. I found myself checking over my shoulder every few seconds like I had a nervous tic. I grabbed a magazine off the rack and held it up in front of my face so I could look around over the top of it, very covert like. A dwarf man wrinkled his brow at me when he caught me staring. I felt my cheeks flush as I turned away, shoving the magazine back onto the rack carelessly, creasing a couple of pages.

  Rushing through the pleasantries with the clerks, I was desperate to get out of the store and away from the invisible eyes still on me. Practically running out of the store, clutching my bags as they made my fingers red and white with strain, I saw the figure of a slim man, half hidden by the end of an aisle. When I took a second look, I stumbled into the same dwarf who had caught me staring, spilling my groceries. I apologized, scrambling to pick up my items, not hearing his tirade about careless witches.

  When I stood back up and turned to look for the man I’d finally caught staring at me, he was gone. I bit down on my lower lip, staring at the empty space where he had been standing, trying to push away his familiarity. I may have just seen Owen, my ex-boyfriend.

  Chapter 2

  I shoved a box of cereal into the cabinet and slammed the door shut, making Artemis jump and hiss at the noise. He spilled some of the fresh cream I’d poured for him.

  “Sorry, Artie,” I said as I reached out a hand to soothe him, but he turned his back on me, flicked his tail in the air, and pranced out of the kitchen. “Whatever. Furry little ingrate.”

  I picked up my bowl of cold cereal and the saucer of cream and took them into the living room. I set Artie’s cream on the coffee table before I settled into my overstuffed armchair, pulled Grandmother’s afghan over my lap, and began to eat my breakfast. It had been about two weeks of skipping breakfast, so that was the most amazing bowl of processed sugar and milk I had ever tasted. But when I clicked on the morning news I nearly spit out my mouthful when I saw Jimmy’s face on the screen.

  “Casino security at Fairshore Resort and Casino arrested Jimmy Laighin last night after he attempted to rig a game of roulette with a computerized chip,” the newscaster said. The picture of Jimmy was very obviously a mug shot of him after he was arrested with the serial number and his name on a plaque under his chin. His usually fluffy tuff of orange-red hair was deflated with sweat and there was a bruise blossoming on his cheek. Around his neck was a silver collar, made special to control supernaturals. Years ago, to help with the assimilation into the human world, a coven of witches had developed these collars for human police that would negate any magical abilities of the prisoner. If you were a Were, you couldn’t shift or use your strength. If you were a vamp, you couldn’t use your powers of persuasion or strength, and if you were a witch, you couldn’t use your powers and magic.

  “Laighin can be seen here on casino security cameras, when he was apprehended.” The newscaster’s plastic face was replaced by high quality security footage and right there, in the middle of the melee, was Jimmy being converged upon by three security guards. What looked like the pit boss came into the frame as he reached for a black and white chip on the roulette table. The camera zoomed in on his hands as he removed the backing of the chip, exposing the digital guts hidden inside.

  “Oh, Jimmy,” I said, shaking my head, “you idiot. A casino? Really? Well, no one could accuse you of wasting any time.” He’d managed to find the token, the money, and get arrested all in twenty four hours.

  The newscaster was going on about how much money Jimmy had been winning before he was apprehended and that it had all happened in a matter of minutes. He had been placing increasingly larger bets with higher payouts, but I hardly heard anything he said. In the corner of the screen, slightly blurred, I could see the tall, lithe form of Rae of Dunhallow.

  My spoon rattled against the edge of my bowl and I quickly set it on the table before I was covered in soggy sugar flakes and milk. Somehow Jimmy had managed to catch, not just a fairy, but a fairy princess. I could hear Ronnie’s warning echoing in my head about this coming back to me. If it had been just any fairy, they probably would have been satisfied with their vengeance on Jimmy, seeing him arrested, but a fairy princess? A royal? Oh, no, they were going to want to know who had given Jimmy the means to his good luck.

  I ran to my door and threw the rest of the locks, thanking every deity that was listening that Frankie’s dad had put in iron hasp locks. Iron would hold up against a fairy; much good it would do me if they hired someone of a different race to come find me though. I turned my back to the door and slid down to the floor, clutching my knees to my chest.

  “Mrrrow?” Artemis padded up to me. After one long stretch and a moment to knead the rug, he tried to jump up onto my knees. I shifted so I could pull him into my lap. His purr rumbled through both of us as I buried my face in his fur and pulled his scent into me. I heard my phone ring in the kitchen. I knew it was probably Ronnie, but it still took a lot for me to push Artie out of my lap and get up to go get it.

  “Heya, Ronnie,” I said with a sigh.

  “So you saw it?” she asked, her voice clipped.

  “Yes, I saw it,” I said, bracing my forehead against the wall. “I had no idea he would be that stupid.”

  “Are you serious?” Ronnie demanded, her voice became shrill and forced me to cringe away from the phone. “Did you see her? Did you see who he caught? Rae, Mattie. The dirty bridge dweller caught Rae of Dunhallow!”

  “Yes, thank you, Ronnie, I saw.” I twisted around and slid down the wall to sit on the floor again. If I could have, I would have curled up into a ball small enough that the world wouldn’t be able to see me ever again.

  “If you saw, then why aren’t you working on some wards or something?” She hesitated before she said, “You know they’re coming.” Her voice was softer, and I could hear the fear in her voice.

  “I know. I’m going to work on warding,” I said, “but I’m out of a lot of stuff.”

  “Then get your witchy butt downstairs and start shopping!” She hung up before I could say anything to that. Ronnie was right; I had to prepare for whatever was coming. I didn’t even know how much time I had. For all I knew, they were in the building already. My only hope was that Rae hadn’t gotten the charm I’d given Jimmy. If she didn’t, she would have to go back to the field where her token had been hidden and she’d have to perform a spell to find my signature. That would take some time, but if she had managed to get the charm I’d made for Jimmy, she already knew who I was and where to find me.

  I pushed away from the floor and set the phone back on the cradle. I made one last sweep of my kitchen, taking note of what I was missing. I was painfully low on my love potion ingredients, pain relief talismans,
and healing potions, my top sellers. I also needed some of the more rare items too, especially if I was going to work magic to keep myself safe. I still had a good portion of the cash I’d gotten from Jimmy in my purse, so I left the jewels hidden where they were.

  “Easy come, easy go,” I said in a whisper as I touched the bills in my purse before leaving my apartment.

  ***

  “Ronnie,” I called, my voice a muffled echo as I was doubled over inside a nearly empty wooden barrel.

  “Oh, gods,” Ronnie laughed when she saw my feet dangling in the air.

  “Shut up,” I said as I literally scraped the bottom of the barrel, trying to gather up as many blue vervain blossoms as I could. “What the hell!” I angled my head and shoulders out of the barrel and fell back to my feet.

  “What?” Ronnie asked, peeking over the edge of the barrel.

  “How are you out of blue vervain?” I tucked the ends of my hair behind my ears to get it out of my face.

  “Because it’s one of the most popular breeds, hence the giant barrel,” she said.

  I lifted my basket and tucked away the few precious blossoms I’d managed to rescue from the depths of the barrel. “I need some cherry and apple brandy. Can you measure some out for me?”

  “Sure, how much?”

  “Depends on how much they cost,” I said a little sadly.

  “I can give you the apple at cost,” she offered, and I smiled at her. The apple brandy was for potions of pain relief and healing, but the cherry went into love potions, of which Ronnie did not approve.

  She disappeared around the bend of shelves, and I went in search of thistle silk, trying to slip around the tall form of a man who was examining river rocks a little too intently. When I passed him, I could smell jasmine and wet earth, making my stomach clench. When I looked back at him, I noted the high, arcing point of his pale ears and the long, silky mane of black hair that hung down his back, catching blue in the light. He wore a thousand dollar suit that fit his form perfectly, right down to the high polish shoes. The lapels of his jacket looked sharp enough to cut to the bone. He was definitely part of the Dunhallow Court.