Slightly Spellbound (15 page)

I rolled my eyes, but I smiled, too.

We returned to the car, and he directed me. “Turn left. The spell was cast from out of town,” he said, his voice trailing off.

“Bryn?”

Bryn rested his head back against the seat.

“Bryn?” I said, reaching over to tap his thigh.

“Sorry. I’m struggling to stay awake.”

“You can’t fall asleep! You’re the navigator!”

“I know,” he said, giving himself a shake. “But I’ve been up since dawn. I had a fight with your ex and his bone-crushing amulet, I suffered the worst heartbreak of my life, and I worried Jenson might be dying. Half a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey was supposed to cure me of being conscious, but you arrived and had other plans. My bed just keeps getting farther away.” He rolled the window down a crack to blast himself with frigid air. His lids rose.

I stroked his hair. “I know you’re tired. As soon as we spy on these death magic witches and possibly run them out of town, I’ll take you straight home and put you to bed.”

“Will you come to bed with me?” he murmured.

“Yes.”
Eventually.

“Turn right up ahead. Is that a new bracelet?”

“Um, yeah. Vangie gave me a charm bracelet,” I said, giving my wrist a shake to show him. “Gracie Kramer had a charm bracelet when we were little. I always wanted one.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone? I’m sure they would’ve gotten you one.”

“Edie said they were silly. She’s a jewelry snob.”

“She’s also a bitch.”

I sighed. I needed to remember to tell Bryn only good Edie stories. They clashed enough already. “She wanted me to have the good stuff.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven.”

“And you were supposed to hold out for diamonds, huh? I’m sure your mom and Melanie couldn’t afford to deck a seven-year-old out in fine jewelry. And losing a fortune in precious stones in a sandbox or swimming hole would’ve been an incredible waste.”

“They let me wear the locket sometimes. I never lost it,” I said defensively.

“I’m just saying that a charm bracelet would’ve been more practical at that age, and the ghost shouldn’t have criticized your taste, then or now.”

“She can be great, too, you know. She always told me where they hid the sweets. She took me on pretend adventures around town and taught me the Charleston. We danced every day. From the time I was five until I was thirteen, Edie was my favorite person in the world.”

“What happened when you were thirteen?”

“I grew up and things changed.”

“What things?” When I didn’t answer, Bryn said, “Sutton.”

I nodded. “He was my boyfriend forever, long before either of us even knew what boyfriends and girlfriends did together besides kiss. Around thirteen, we started to figure that stuff out and then we wanted to be alone whenever we got the chance. Edie got in the way. On purpose, of course.”

“Maybe she’s not so bad after all,” Bryn said.

I smiled.

“There,” Bryn said, pointing to a light in the distance.

“What is that? There are no houses this far out of town. Isn’t that the wetlands?”

Bryn nodded. “Someone’s out there. That’s a bonfire. Pull off the road and turn off the headlights. We’ll walk.”

“Walk?” I scoffed.

I sidled the car onto the shoulder and turned off the lights but kept the engine and its hot-air-blowing heater on. I had my spare tennis shoes and socks that I kept at Bryn’s, but they wouldn’t do me much good if I ended up walking through freezing swamp water.

“I don’t think we want to walk far in this cold.”

“If you want to find out what’s going on, we can’t drive. They’ll see the headlights and will either leave or get rid of anything they don’t want us to see.”

“I really would like to find out what’s going on, but it’s so cold out there. What good will knowing anything do us if we turn into Popsicles?”

“You can wait here,” he said.

“No.”

“I grew up in Ireland and went to school on the East Coast. I’m dressed for the weather; I’ll be fine.”

“Against the cold maybe,” I said. “But I need to stay with you to help with any trouble other than the weather.”

“You know I can take care of myself, right?” he asked, amused.

“Yeah, against regular odds. Maybe there will just be a couple people roasting marshmallows, making s’mores. Yum, s’mores. I’m hungry again. But if they’re making something else, like say black magic, and they don’t want a witness, I’m going to be there to make them think twice about feeding you to the alligators.”

“Alligators?” he asked.

“Yes, alligators. This is a Cajun witch and wizard. They could throw you in a trunk and take you back to Louisiana to feed to the alligators, of which they have many. Haven’t you ever watched
Swamp People
or eaten French-fried alligator at a Cajun restaurant?” I asked, grabbing my socks and shoes.

“You don’t have shoes on?” Bryn asked. “Why the hell not? You were barefoot in Riverbank Park?”

“I’ll explain about that sometime,” I said.

“Now’s good,” Bryn said.

“Not for me,” I said. “If I’m walking across wetlands, I want to get it over with.”

“Tamara,” he said with a scowl. “I assume this is something I’m not going to like.”

Exactly.
“I’m ready,” I said, getting out of the car. I heard him sigh as he climbed out.

“You know I’ll find out eventually.”

“Maybe,” I agreed. “Or we might die first.”

“That’s what I love about you. You always look on the bright side.”

16

WE WALKED ABOUT twenty-five feet before coming across a black F-250 whose license plate I recognized.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I whispered.

“What? Is that Sutton’s truck?”

“Yep.”

“What the hell would he be doing out here?”

“I guarantee he’s not making s’mores,” I said. “If I had to guess, I’d say he’s out here the same as us, investigating.”

“A bad idea. He has no experience, and no chance against magic this deadly.”

“His bone-crushing amulet maybe feels different.”

Bryn said nothing. We walked on until we came across another car, this one a BMW that I also recognized.

“A veritable parking lot,” Bryn murmured.

“That’s Johnny’s car,” I said. Johnny Nguyen owned the town’s beauty salon that about ninety percent of the women and seventy percent of the men went to. Johnny was multitalented. He also designed costumes and sets for the local theater group and for Halloween parties. And most recently, he’d started an event company called Johnny Time. The group got together to go jogging and do aerobics at the community center; they went on shopping trips to Dallas in a big bus and took tours of the hill country. I’d been saving up to join them, even though Johnny would’ve let me tag along for free because we’re friends. He’s sweet-natured that way.

Johnny also happened to be able to see Edie. Other than Zach, he was the only regular person who could. And Johnny dated a snarky, cross-dressing vampire named Rollie, who was six foot five if he was an inch and who made fun of anything that moved. Rollie and Johnny made as odd a couple as Bryn and I did, but it worked for them.

“I hope Rollie came out here alone. Johnny’s not built for swamp fights.”

“But you are? You weigh what? A hundred pounds?” Bryn said.

“A hundred and seven point five,” I corrected, like that seven and a half pounds moved my fighting class up from lightweight to heavyweight. Bryn was not impressed. “Plus, Rollie shouldn’t drag Johnny into a witch fight on a weeknight. Johnny opens the salon. For a long day of Duvall ladies bent on gossip and highlights, he should get a full night’s sleep or he’ll be tired.”

Bryn’s soft chuckle was drowned out by zydeco music and Rollie’s nearby not-quite-whispered complaint of, “What the hell is this? Bramble? I think it snagged my shirt.”

“It okay. I fix for you tomorrow.”

“You don’t have these iridescent sequins in your sewing box. I’m sure they were dyed in a special lot for Versace.”

“Rollie, I fix for you. Now hush, I think we getting close.”

“Johnny!” I called out in a whisper.

I heard rustling and the swish of fabric.

“Who’s that?” Rollie demanded. “Oh look, it’s our redhead. What are you up to, Miss If-he’s-handsome-he-must-be-mine? We heard something about fisticuffs and a water hose—oh, hello, Bryn.”

“Rollie,” Bryn said.

“Come on over here, Tammy Jo, let’s have a quick sidebar,” Rollie said, grabbing my arm and pulling me aside.

“Hi, Rollie,” I said, smiling up at him. As vampires go, Rollie was medium dangerous. Johnny forbade him from biting people in Duvall, and Rollie complied. Mostly. With Rollie being a fork-tongued gossip and fashion critic, demons bowed down to him, and Johnny had no chance of keeping him under control there. As his friend, I’d been on the receiving end of plenty of critiques, but he’d also been sweet enough to fight monsters with me, so all things considered, I liked him a lot.

“Hi there, cupcake,” he said, then paused to look me over. “Honey, what are you wearing? That coat doesn’t fit. And is that one of the lawyer’s college sweatshirts? It’s hanging off your shoulder. Are we in a
Flashdance
revival, darling? What’s next? Leg warmers?” He shuddered.

“I don’t know what leg warmers are, but you can bet I’d wear ’em if I had ’em. It’s freezing out here.”

Rollie snapped a finger as he jerked his forearm to the side in a “not if I have something to say about it” gesture. “The reason I took you aside is I think you should know that Deputy Tightbuns is out here. Unless you brought a fire hose, maybe you’d better leave this little fact-finding mission to us.”

“What facts are you trying to find? And how come?”

“Edie the ghost got Johnny all worked up. Something about animal cruelty and desperate witches.”

So Edie had talked to Johnny about the trouble, and obviously to Zach, too, since he was out here. “Edie didn’t tell me.” Then I realized that of course she couldn’t have. I’d been at Bryn’s, where she couldn’t appear.

“Oh no?” he said, making a sympathetic face. “Maybe she thought you had your hands full with, I don’t know—your train wreck of a love life.”

“Yep, probably,” I said.

“I’m sorry I missed the bloody dogfight between your cop and your lawyer. A little violence is tasty,” he said. “All those glorious muscles and torn clothes—were clothes torn?” he asked, clearly relishing the thought.

“Rollie! What about Johnny?”

“Right,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I love Johnny. I do love Johnny. I’ve had my share of butch muscle boys and lords of the manor. I’ve had my share of intellectuals and artists, explorers and anarchists, princes and politicians . . . hmm, I’ve pretty much had my share of every kind of man. Immortality has its perks, and in Johnny’s case, it’s perkiness.”

“Rollie, it’s freezing out here!” I said with a dismissive wave before I marched back to Bryn and Johnny. “Let’s go.”

As we got closer, the conversation trailed off. I expected to smell something rotten, but instead the smell of roast meat and wood smoke filled the air.

They looked like a gypsy caravan with cars parked this way and that and multicolored tarps on four poles acting as makeshift tents. Lanterns burned, bottles of local whiskey and ale littered the tables, and a group of dark-haired men played guitars, an accordion, and a fiddle while women in low-cut sweaters danced near the fire. There was also an ash-covered pit, like the kind used to roast a pig. My stomach growled and my feet itched to do a little dancing. I couldn’t help myself. Give me a pig roast, a crawfish boil, or any old backyard barbecue and I’m there with a tray of deviled eggs and a bounce in my two-step.

These were my kind of people. Just out to have some fun and some good food. It wasn’t the usual weather for a cookout, but that’s a can-do country attitude for you.

There were about a dozen people, and I didn’t recognize any of them. What I did recognize were the contents of a narrow wicker basket that might have held umbrellas but instead had a bouquet of shotguns. I frowned.

Bryn tugged on my sleeve, and I realized that this wasn’t the party we’d come to crash.

The four of us crept forward, giving the group a wide circle. My feet squelched in chilled mud. Rollie made small disgusted noises and huffed when I shushed him. Bryn’s grip on my hand tightened as we entered a clearing. The back of my neck tingled and Bryn’s magic sharpened as though he were focusing it for use. The aroma of charred meat and something sour filled the air.

“Blood,” Rollie murmured. “Not my brand. Some kind of animal’s been slaughtered.”

“And gutted, from the smell of it,” Bryn whispered.

I slid my hand free of his so I could be armed and ready. The smell turned rancid. This was the stench that had clung to Oatha at my house.

“Stay close, Tamara. A ritual sacrifice was done to generate power. And they dealt exclusively in the black on this site.”

“Black magic?” I asked.

“The blackest, from the feel of it.”

A light bobbed toward us and voices carried on the wind. A glassy-eyed severed horse head stared at me from the middle of a picnic table. I had to slap a hand over my mouth to cover my gasp.

Jars and bottles of I-don’t-know-what surrounded the head. A tray of bloody entrails and another of bloody bones sat on either end. Bile clogged my throat, and I forced it back down.

I take it back. This is not my kind of party.

I recognized one of the approaching figures.

“Where’s Bobby?” Beau asked.

“Taking a piss, no doubt,” a man to Beau’s left said. He looked like Beau, but a few years younger and a few inches taller.

“Bobby,
je suis prêt
,” Beau called out.

“Ready for what?” Bryn murmured, translating handily for us.

“She got everything she needed?” the man with Beau asked.

“Yeah, stepsissy’s in for it now.”

“Nick of time. And the local witch?”

“The
belle rouge
? She won’t be a problem anymore. We figured we’d have to deal with her if Vangie came to this town for her help. From what we’ve heard that little red-haired bitch never minds her own business, and she’s got a way of bringing down people more powerful than she is.”