1 Witchy Business (21 page)

Authors: Eve Paludan,Stuart Sharp

BOOK: 1 Witchy Business

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Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose as if she had a terrible headache coming on.

“I can fix that tension headache for you. Unless you don’t trust me.”

“You…you can never just make anything easy, can you, Elle?” She looked at me as though remembering that I was the last person she wanted to offend. “That is…I…”

“It’s fine,” I said, standing and moving carefully back to my original seat. “I want this to be easy, Rebecca. Easy for everyone. You, me, Niall, the coven. Everyone.”

“So, what do you want from the coven?” Rebecca asked. “And from me?”

Funny, Niall had asked me the same question when I refused to leave Edinburgh.

“I just want to get on with my life,” I said to Rebecca with a shrug. “I like it as it is. I want to be able to wake up in the morning without worrying about coven hunters showing up on the doorstep. I’m really not planning to hurt anyone. I want to spend some of my days convincing werewolves that they really should get more comprehensive auto insurance. I want to find stolen artworks, lost fairy children, and magical objects. And if the coven wants me to keep doing odd jobs for them…well, I wouldn’t mind that either. Not if they pay.”

Rebecca sat there, not saying anything, until I almost thought she’d forgotten about me. With everything I could feel around her though, I knew that wasn’t likely.

“It won’t be easy,” she said, after what seemed like an eternity. “I mean, you aren’t the one who has to convince the coven of all this.”

I stood, stretching. “I’m sure you’ll do a good job. We both know that it’s better than the alternative. Just say that I’m protected under the tolerance directive of the coven.”

“What?”

“I’m a supernatural being. I haven’t killed or harmed anyone. So really, I should be accepted into the coven as an associate member, with all of the protections and support that you give any werewolf, fey folk, goblin, and others who swear their allegiance to the coven, and further—”

“You’re not really suggesting that I try to turn the coven’s own words against them, are you?” Rebecca asked.

I shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”

“But we both know that no one takes that directive seriously. It’s just a way to make sure that none of the fey start attacking us.”

“Tell them that you don’t take it seriously,” I suggested with a tight smile. “Then see how long that lasts. Of course, if you’d rather I presented myself as a witch…”

And showed myself to be twice as powerful as any of them. The coven might claim to be about the interests of all witches, but I knew from previously being one of the weakest in it that it was really about power. No one ever learned that truth as well as when they didn’t
have
power.

“I understand what you’re saying,” Rebecca assured me. She looked at one of the paintings. Anywhere but at me. “You know it might not work out, though. They might turn around and say no, Elle. They might send me back to finish what I started. They might send more hunters like Evert.”

“Well, at least you’d enjoy that part,” I said. Like I said, I wasn’t entirely back to being her friend.

“That…that isn’t…”

“Fair?” I turned her back to me with a touch. “An entire life of being lied to isn’t fair, Rebecca. So, I’ll say once more how it is going to be. I’m going to get on with my life. I’m going to investigate insurance cases. If the coven is sensible, it won’t get in my way. It certainly won’t send assassins. We’re
all
just going to get on with our lives. Live and let live.”

Rebecca swallowed. “This isn’t wise, Elle.”

I let a flicker of fear touch her then. Not much. Just a reminder of what I’d done to her before. “It’s possibly wiser than the alternative. And Rebecca?”

She shivered. “What?”

“If they do send assassins after me, don’t be with them.”

Rebecca hung her head. “I won’t.”

It was time to go. “Enjoy the new art exhibition, Rebecca. It’s full of magic, if you only know how to feel it. Emotion, anyway. It’s almost the same thing. Or it would be, if you understood.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock. I left her like that—the spider waiting for a fly—and headed for the museum exit.

I would have preferred to extract a promise from Rebecca that the coven would leave Niall and me alone, but I knew things weren’t that simple. Nothing in my life was likely to ever be simple again, even if it had been before.

I had a warlock-vampire for a boyfriend, and a whole side to my life that I still had to learn about and understand, not to mention the likelihood that no matter how hard I tried, at least some people would want to kill me over it.

I had memories of a mother who loved me very much, yet she had tried to protect me to the point where she put walls around me to stop me from becoming what I had to be.

I had a present life that had me feeling every emotion in the gallery as I walked through it, and a future that could contain just about anything. Up to and including one very beautiful male enchanter.

Niall met me outside the gallery, greeting me with a kiss that curled my toes inside of my shoes. I could put up with any number of meetings if there were kisses like that waiting after them.

“So,” he asked, with a slightly bitter glance at the art center, “Is everything the way you want it now?”

“You’re still annoyed about giving up the Escher woodcut of the letter A?”

“Maybe a little, but it was the right thing to do. But you know that’s not what I was asking you.”

I shrugged. “Everything with the coven and with Rebecca is…complicated.”

“And you? What are you going to do now?”

That was the question I’d answered for Rebecca. For Niall too, more than once. This time, I supposed I owed him something more than vague intentions. He had kept his end of the bargain over the paintings, after all. And the near-priceless Escher.

“I have the hundred thousand from the insurers. I guess I’m going to need to rely on G&P for jobs more often, because I can’t imagine the coven will come back to me with more work referrals…not any time soon.”

Niall nodded. “We can but hope.”

“Anyway, I was thinking that the money might be best used acquiring a proper office.” Rather than just running everything out of my house, the way I normally did. “That might let me acquire a few jobs from the public. The less normal parts of it, at least.”

“That sounds like the kind of thing you might need help with,” Niall said.

I laughed. “Are you offering?”

“Me? Haven’t you heard? I’m far too busy seducing repressed coven witches and masterminding art theft plots for real work.”

Not to mention running the business that kept him in fine art and nice suits.

“You’re right. I probably do need help on my cases. I can think of one place I might get some.”

“Really?” Niall cocked his head.

I smiled. “I know a werewolf lawyer who is looking to move closer to his mother. He sort of owes me a favor, too. I was thinking of giving him a call. Of course, that might make things more than a little interesting around the full moon.”

Niall grinned at that. “Well, that’s all right then. I know you like things complicated.”

Did I? I thought about the stark simplicity of my home, then about my job, Niall, and all of the rest of it…

I kissed him. “Complicated has its moments.”

The End

***

Elle and Niall will return in

Witch and Famous

(The Witch Detectives #2)

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