Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel (3 page)

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.

“Matilda Kavanagh,” he said as he set the rock back into the basket before he turned his steely eyes on me. He didn’t say it like a question, so I didn’t bother answering him. It took a lot of self-control not to take a few steps back from him, but I took courage in the fact that I already had a couple of bundles of iron nails in my basket. I just might have enough time to grab them before he did anything.

“I was sent to enlist your services,” he said. He was perfectly at ease, his lithe hands clasped in front of him, his shoulders relaxed, and his face schooled. He still hadn’t asked me a question, so I bit down on my lip to keep from speaking. I was not about to be tricked into a fairy game of words.

“You are a witch for hire, are you not?” he asked directly, which forced me into answering.

“I have been known to perform certain magics for a fee,” I said carefully.

“You’re already in debt to the Dunhallow Court,” he replied.

“No, I am not,” I said firmly, gripping the handle of my basket tight enough to make it squeak.

“You may not think you are, but you would be incorrect,” he said smoothly, taking a moment to examine the nails of his left hand before he lifted his eyes up to meet mine again. “Wouldn’t you like to know what it is we want from you before you say no?”

“I doubt it would matter,” I said, “but fine, what do you want?”

“My Lord and Lady would like you to help find a missing person,” he said, and a knot loosened in my stomach.

“Oh, well, I don’t do that sort of thing,” I said. “But I could make you a seeking spell to find him.”

“I am afraid that will not do.” He shook his head slowly, making the ends of his black hair swish out from behind his back.

“Look, I’m sorry; I’m not a detective. That’s just not what I do.”

“I am afraid you don’t have a choice. You are in our debt.”

“I am not!” I argued, unable to stop myself from stomping my foot. “Look, I had no idea Jimmy was trying to catch Rae of Dunhallow. Trust me, if I had known, I wouldn’t have made the charm for him. But hey, Rae got him in the end, right? Jimmy is in jail. You should be happy with that.”

“I need not be happy with anything. You are in the debt of the Lord and Lady of Dunhallow, not me,” he said. He lifted a hand to stop me from arguing again. “I warn you to think it over before you refuse again.”

I closed my eyes, rubbed the bridge of my nose between two fingers, and felt the first stings of a coming headache. I took a deep breath to brace myself before I looked up, but when I opened my eyes again, he was gone. There was nothing to indicate he had ever been there, not even a shifting of air.

“Mattie?” Ronnie asked as she poked her head around the corner. “Are you talking to yourself?”

“Might as well have been,” I said, my shoulders slumping.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I waved off the comment. “You were right. I should’ve never made that charm for Jimmy.”

“Why?” she asked quickly and rushed around the corner toward me. “What just happened?”

“Just had a visit with a messenger from Dunhallow,” I said, making Ronnie gasp, a hand flying to her mouth. “They say I am in debt to them and they want me to find a missing person to repay the debt.”

“Well, that’s not so bad,” Ronnie said.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, sarcasm putting an edge on my words. “Until I can’t find whoever it is, or they turn up dead when I do and they hold me responsible!”

“You’re probably right,” Ronnie agreed with a slow bob of her head.

“I told him no. I offered to make a seeking spell, but that was all I would do.”

“And?”

“And he said no.” I moved around Ronnie to look for the thistle silk again.

“Mattie,” Ronnie followed hot on my heels, “you need to be careful with the fae.”

“I know that, Ronnie.” I bent over the baskets of rare herbs, pinched out some thistle silk, and slipped it into a small envelope for safe keeping.

“Do you? You knew better than to make that catching spell for Jimmy and you did it anyway,” she pressed.

“Yes, but when you’re on the verge of sharing cat food with your cat, you have to make some hard choices.” I moved over to the jewelweed, picked out a few branches, and nestled them in my basket by the milkweed and iron nails.

“Mattie, this isn’t going to just go away,” she said, very close to my shoulder. I could smell the rose oil on her neck.

“I know,” I said, finally turning to look my best friend in the eye. “I know, but if I just bend to their will without fighting, then they’ll walk all over me. Or,” I said quickly to stop her arguing, “they’ll trick me into something and I’ll be beholden to them until I’m old and gray.”