Samhain (Matilda Kavanagh Book 2) (7 page)

Chapter 5

When I woke the next day, the sun was still up. I couldn’t open my eyes, and for a moment I panicked, having forgotten about the healing poultice I’d put on before falling asleep. I sat on the edge of my bed, my bare toes just brushing against the floor, as I scraped the dry mask from my face. When my nails ran over my skin, it didn’t hurt or burn.

With a mixture of trepidation and excitement, I plodded into the bathroom to examine my face in the mirror. I dropped the ball of gunk in the trash can before I stood in front of the mirror. There were still smears of blackish-green gunk on my face, but beyond that, my skin was back to its usual fair complexion and my eyes were no longer swollen.

“Ugh,” I said, leaning against the sink to get closer to the mirror, turning my face back and forth. “Thank the gods.”

After a scalding shower, I was wrapped in a towel and standing barefoot in front of my kitchen, staring at my warped and melted coffee pot. It had lived on the counter closest to the kitchen table, too close to where Jane Doe had tossed her homemade bomb. The carafe was cracked, just waiting to shatter into a million pieces.

“Frogs,” I swore. “This is gonna be a shit day.”

“Mrrrow,” Artemis agreed, sitting at the edge of the tiny dining area and the kitchen, as if he didn’t want to step on the blackened linoleum.

I realized as I looked for his bowls that they were missing. Whether they’d been blown to bits and swept up with the debris last night or if they had melted like the coffee pot and Ronnie had tossed them out, I couldn’t be sure. But they were gone nonetheless. I dug out two cereal bowls and spilled some cream and dry food into them. Artie stared at the unfamiliar bowls, whiskers twitching suspiciously, before glancing at me.

“I’ll buy you some more bowls tonight, Your Highness, but for now, that’s all I got,” I said, tucking my towel tighter around myself. “Take it or leave it.”

After another twitch of his whiskers, Artie bent forward for his breakfast.

“Spoiled.” I went back into the bedroom, picked up my phone, and punched in Edwin’s number.

“Ms. Kavanagh,” Edwin said by way of greeting.

“Wow,” I said, “you’re a quick one.”

“I had your number programmed into my phone. I take it the potions are ready as promised?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said and cringed at his silence. “I was attacked in my home last night. I had just finished both potions, but before I could get them bottled, the attack happened and ruined them. So basically, I need a little more time to brew them again.”

“You were attacked in your home,” Edwin repeated, but he didn’t sound as though he believed me.

“Yes,” I said a little too forcefully. “Some little piece of P.E.A.C.E. trash sprayed me with pepper spray and set off a bomb in my kitchen.”

“It was P.E.A.C.E.?” That time Edwin sounded as though he believed me.

“I think so.” I fell back to sit on my bed, gripping my towel closed with my other hand.

“All right, Ms. Kavanagh, but we really do need the potions before Saturday.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I can have them brewed tonight and ready by the morning.”

“To be fair, you said part of the reason you were charging so much was for a rush order.”

I held the phone away from my face to glare at it for a moment. “It’s still a rush.”

“And yet late.”

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Two thousand.”

“Wonderful. I can come by at seven to pick up the order.”

I tried not to groan at the idea of still being awake at seven in the morning. “Seven is perfect.” I hoped I sounded sincere enough.

Edwin clicked off, and I tossed my phone on the bed. There was no point in lamenting the lost five hundred bucks. After all, two thousand was still ten times my normal rate for two difficult potions.

I pushed my wet hair out of my face as I rolled off the bed and headed into the bathroom to finish getting ready. I was applying a final coat of mascara when I heard the knock at the door. I’d managed to dry my hair and get almost fully dressed. I’d gone with dark skinny jeans and a lightweight black sweater, but I was still in my fuzzy purple house slippers. Good enough to answer the door.

I hurried to the door after the second knock, slipping and sliding on the hard wood, but I caught myself on the doorknob before I ate it. On my toes to check the peephole, I saw four burly Weres waiting in the hall. When Jameson had said he’d send guys over the next day, I hadn’t really thought he meant the next actual day. Didn’t construction workers promise the moon only to deliver stale cheese?

“Ms. Kavanagh?” The first Were tipped his head toward me when I opened the door.

He was well over six feet tall with shaggy blond hair. He wore construction-worker chic: plaster-splattered jeans, brown work boots, and a simple white T-shirt. Over his heart was a black paw print with the initials J.M.C. superimposed over it. His three compatriots were all dressed similarly.

“Jameson’s boys, I take it?” I asked, and the first nodded.

“Spence.” He held out one large hand for me to shake.

I welcomed them inside, and like magnets drawn to the destruction, they moved into the kitchen immediately. Spence whistled long and low at the sight of the mess.

“Yeah,” I said, padding up behind them. “I haven’t had a chance to clean out the cabinets because I didn’t think you guys would be here so soon.” I started forward, as if I would empty them all out right then, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me.

“Don’t worry about it, miss,” the Were with auburn hair said with a friendly smile. “We’ll take care of it. We’ll just put everything on the table over there.”

“Uh, okay, but listen.” I stepped out from under his heavy hand. “This is a witch’s kitchen, okay? Don’t open any jars or canisters. Don’t eat anything with a handwritten label on it. Don’t smell anything, don’t… just don’t, okay?”

Spence chuckled lightly and nodded. “Got it. Don’t wanna wake up as a spotted frog, right?”

“Actually…” I shrugged, earning four surprised looks. “Hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you. All right, I gotta go finish getting dressed. You fellas all right in here alone?”

“Of course.” Spence nodded. “Let’s move, guys.”

“Listen, Spence?” I stopped him with a touch of a hand. “I can’t stay. I’ve got work I need to do.”

“It’s all right, Ms. Kavanagh,” Spence said with an easy smile. “You can trust us. You don’t stay on McKendrick’s crew if you’ve got light fingers, you know what I mean?” He winked at me and turned to join the others. The back of his shirt proclaimed Jameson McKendrick Construction with a contact number and another black paw print.

“Oh, and please don’t tease the cat,” I called as I walked through the living room. “He’ll scratch your eyes out.” I heard the answering chuckle before I shut my bedroom door.

***

Tollis’s camp was well into the state park. I had no idea how he managed to stay there without getting kicked out, but it almost felt as if they’d already been there for generations. I saw cars and caravans and old-fashioned wood-and-canvas wagons everywhere. Children were chasing each other through the maze of vehicles and fires, high-pitched laughter echoing after them. There were cats and dogs and goats and even, gods be good, chickens just wandering around.

I tiptoed around two chickens, hurrying away before they could peck at my shoes. Once I’d put a wagon between me and the demon birds, I tugged at my jacket, straightening it and readjusting the strap of my messenger bag. Inside were my trusty knockout powder and a vial of truth serum, just in case.

All around me were conversations mixed with the yells of harried mothers admonishing their kids, and the lyrical notes of music drifting through the pop and crackle of fires set up between circles of encampments. People eyed me as I walked through; they were a mix of plain, mundane eyes and the glowing power of Weres. I didn’t bother to ask them where Tollis was—I knew none of them would tell an outsider. It was going to be on me to find him myself. The farther into the camp I wandered, the thicker the groups of people and vehicles and tents became, until almost everything was touching everything else. I kept a tight grip on my bag, one hand on the front flap, the other on the strap.

“Girl,” a woman called, her voice striking me between my shoulder blades.

I turned, knowing instinctively that the woman was talking to me.

“Yes, you, girl.” A round, bent woman ambled up to me. Her long black hair was held back in two thin braids that hung to her waist. They swung with her rolling gait as she moved through the swarm of pups and children.

She stopped within an inch of me and squinted. Thousands of tiny lines decorated her full face, and between her eyes, a red jewel was stuck to her forehead. She clutched a long, curving pipe in one hand and a gnarled staff in the other. She leaned her heavy weight against the staff as she stared up at me. It was a rare occurrence that I was taller than someone, but if the woman was over five feet tall, then I was a two-tailed salamander.

“Come with me, girl.” The woman stuck the pipe in her mouth, pinched the sleeve of my jacket, and turned me around, dragging me with her.

I tripped and stumbled as she dragged me to a tiny canvas-topped wagon. The three-step ladder squeaked as she waddled up to the tiny door that I didn’t believe she would actually fit through. I followed her in, not quite sure why. She seemed so insistent that I couldn’t refuse her.

The inside of the wagon was like being in the overcrowded closet of someone who refused to give up even one precious item from their life. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, and I had to duck to keep from banging my head. Shelves built into both sides of the wagon were overflowing with crystals, tiny boxes, books, and trinkets. Candles dripped wax onto the creaking floorboards, their flickering yellow light mixed with the muted orange light of the lanterns.

The center was taken up with a low, round table covered in blue silk. She had a stack of worn tarot cards and even a crystal ball resting on a tarnished metal stand. I tried to hide my sour expression when I looked at the smoky quartz crystal ball. The woman waddled around the table before collapsing in a low chair that I was certain would break under her. She moved as easily around her cramped quarters as Ronnie did through her overstocked shop. She took two more puffs from her pipe, blowing out the blue-gray smoke to fill the wagon and make me cough, before she set it on one of the over-crowded shelves.

“Sit, sit, sit,” she said, waving impatiently at the large pillow on the floor in front of me. The red jewel between her eyes flashed in the light as she shifted into a more comfortable position.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” I grabbed my bag to hold in my lap as I sat cross-legged on the pillow. I gripped my bag to my chest and stared across the table at the old woman, waiting to find out what the hell I was doing there when I should have been looking for Tollis.

“M,” she said, tilting her head and squinting at me again. Her brow contracted into a bumpy relief map, and I worried that little red jewel was going to pop off and hit me square in the face.

“M?” I said, feeling my brows contract as I stared back at her.

“Your name. It begins with an M. I can see it.” She made a vague motion in front of her face.

“Yeah,” I said with a nod.

She waited, still squinting at me. She squinted so much, I still hadn’t figured out the color of her eyes and I doubted I ever would. I realized, when she didn’t try to discern the rest of my name, that was as much as she was gonna try for.

With a sigh, I said, “Matilda.”

“Mmmm, yes,” she said, closing her eyes and nodding. “Matilda,” as if that was the very name she was just about to say before I’d interrupted her.

I rolled my eyes before she opened hers. “What am I doing in here?” I glanced around again, not worrying about the bite in my tone. I’d come to see Tollis, not to talk to a pseudo-psychic hack.

“Tollis can wait. I have things you need to hear, girl.”

I blinked at her, and a slow, satisfied smile curled over her thin lips. Maybe she wasn’t a complete hack.

“All right,” I said cautiously. “Go ahead.”

“Ahem.” She tapped a shallow gilded bowl on the table between us, her pointy nails making a
tinging
noise. A faded piece of paper folded into a triangle in front of it said
Donations appreciated
!

“Gods.” I sighed, shaking my head as I dug into the front pocket of my bag and pulled out a few gold coins. I dropped them into the bowl with a clatter. “All right? Yes? Let’s hear it.”

The gypsy woman snatched up the coins like a magpie, examining them, sniffing them—I almost expected her to bite them. When she was satisfied with their worth, she pulled a small leather pouch from her cleavage and dropped the coins inside before hiding the pouch again.

She pushed the crystal ball out of the way and grabbed the tarot cards. After a quick shuffle, she laid out a complicated pattern on the small table and leaned over them. “Mmmm, yes,” she hissed before squinting at me. “I see you’ve had much heart break.”

I kept my face schooled, reminding myself that pretend psychics got away with their con-jobs simply by reading body language. Besides, how many people had never suffered through heart break? She might as well have told me she saw a great love affair in my future.

She
hmphed
at me and bent over the cards again. “I see two men and one woman.”

She glanced at me for a clue, but I didn’t give her one. But I had to admit, seeing a woman in my love life was a little strange since I didn’t swing that way.

“Yes, the woman is twined around one of the men, holding him back though his hands are outstretched to you.”

Now that rang a very big bell for me. I tried not to show any outward signs of distress, but inside, my heart was thudding away as I imagined Theodora, Vampire Mistress of all of Los Angeles County, wrapped around my ex-boyfriend Owen. I had loved Owen fiercely, only to have my heart ripped out twice when Theo called him back to her. I was trying to get over him. Again.