Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel (26 page)

The zing of power snapped at the soles of my feet as I stepped onto my floor. I rushed to my door, keys already in hand when I reached my apartment. There was no one else in the hall with me, but after all of the unexpected visits I’d had, I couldn’t help but feel the creeping, sneaking fingers of paranoia crawling up my spine, reaching to grab me, pull me back and away from the safety of my apartment.

I slammed my shoulder into the door to open it, spinning around and slamming it shut, throwing the locks into place with shaking fingers. It took me two tries to get the freezing spell to take on the knob. I rested my shoulders against the door, trying to get my breathing and heartbeat under control. Artemis sat a few feet in front of me, his black head tilted to the side as he watched me pull back from the edge of a panic attack.

“I’m fine,” I whispered. Whether I was answering his questioning face or trying to convince myself, I wasn’t really sure. “Everything quiet here?” I asked, happy to hear my voice wasn’t quite as shaky as it had been a moment ago.

“Prrrow,” Artie answered, licking his paw before dragging it over the top of his head.

“Toads,” I cursed under my breath. “I’ll bet that bitch, Theo, did something to the hallway out there to freak me out!” I ripped my bag off and let it fall to the floor with a thud before I started tearing at my boots to get them off. I flung my coat at the couch as I stalked across the room, heading for the bedroom to change my clothing, having to peel my shirt from my back.

“Now I gotta cleanse the hallway!” I snarled, pulling open my drawers, pawing through the folded clothing, turning the organized shirts into a mess as I finally picked a black shirt with the logo of Black Witch White Magic
,
my favorite band, written in sparkly purple script across the front. “As if I didn’t have enough to do already,” I raged, pulling a brush through my tangled hair and grabbing two small clips to pull it out of my face while I worked in the kitchen.

By the time I was cleaned up and back in the kitchen, any chill from the wet night air had been burned out of me by my own temper. I could even feel the heat of my anger in my cheeks and my hands were trembling for a whole different reason.

“I’m gonna stake that bitch one day,” I said to Artie as he waited patiently for me on the counter.

I took a moment to catch my breath, bracing my hands on the counter and letting my head drop, counting in my head to slow my breathing. I felt Artemis’s warm power next to me as he sat on the counter, waiting patiently for once in his nine lives. After a few silent moments, he butted his head against my arm, getting me to look up at him. He was purring softly, picking his way carefully across the edge of the counter until he was standing between my hands, arching his back to rub against my face. The stitch in my chest loosened and I chuckled, pushing away from the counter so I could scratch him. He was a pushy bitch sometimes, but other times he was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind.

“All right, Artie,” I said, running my hand down his furry spine. “Time to get to work.” Artemis mrrowed his consent and bounded across the counter, leaping to the other side of the kitchen before jumping on top of the fridge. He watched from his perch, his yellow eyes looking dark at this angle. His tail fell, forming a perfect black J against the silver fridge.

I grabbed a copper pot and filled it under the tap before setting it on the stovetop. I had to clear away a couple of pans that I’d forgotten to wash, dumping them into the sink. I would kill for two stovetops so I could cook at one and spell at another and never worry about cross-contamination. Picking up my wand from the window sill, I jabbed at the burner under the pot until blue flames burst to life. Artie made a small noise of approval.

I hurried into the living room and dug into my bag until I found the vial of scorched dirt. Clutching it in my hand, I rushed back into the kitchen and set it on the counter. I started rummaging through my cabinets for the necessary ingredients, finally putting my wand between my teeth to free up both hands so I could dig and grab as needed. I heard Artie make a noise of contempt, knowing I shouldn’t be biting down on my wand, but I only had two hands after all.

Half an hour later, the counters were strewn with chopped herbs, spilled water, my mother’s brass scales, and wooden talismans. I tapped out grains of the scorched dirt onto one side of the scales, the other side balanced with the one ounce weight, watching until the two sides shifted back and forth, finally settling on an even keel. I brushed the dirt into the cauldron and was rewarded with the sudden bubbling of the concoction, threatening to bubble over the edge and stain my stovetop. But it stopped just at the edge, settling down to a rolling boil.

I checked the timer on the microwave; I was moving at a good pace. If I did this right, I’d have the witch’s signature in ten more minutes. I blew out a breath, sending a loose strand of hair fluttering out of my face. Artie jumped down from the fridge, landing carefully so that he didn’t knock over any of my bottles or send any piles of herbs to the floor. He picked his way across the counter until he was standing by the cauldron. He stretched until his tiny pink nose was close enough for a sniff. I watched as his whiskers twitched. When he sat back and turned his smushed face toward me, I knew something was wrong.

“What?” I asked, stepping forward to look into the cauldron. The liquid should be on its way through the spectrum to clear and right now it should have been somewhere around lilac, but as I stared, I felt my heart leap into my throat; the liquid was pitch black and congealing.

“Mrrrrr,” Artie said with another twitch of his whiskers.

“I don’t understand!” I wailed, spinning around and grabbing my salt cellar. I dug out a handful and flung it into the concoction just as one large black bubble threatened to explode. The salt sank into the bile, causing it to deflate lamely. The bubbles subsided. I grabbed my wand from the mess on the counter and jabbed at the flames to put them out.

Setting the salt container down, I stepped closer to the cauldron and stared down at the rock sitting inside. “I don’t understand what went wrong,” I said, my voice not much more than a whisper. Artie made another noise, tilting his head to the side. “Unless…” I started as I turned around and ran for my bookshelf by the front door.

My fingers ran over the spines as I searched between my collection, my mother’s, and my grandmother’s. On the top shelf, I found the volume I was looking for. I thumbed through the pages so fast I nearly tore them, but I finally found the spell I had been brewing. Reading through the instructions, written in that strange way people used to speak in the eighteen hundreds, I found the warning I was looking for.

“Sunnovatroll,” I cursed. The spell was specifically for locating a witch’s signature; if the caster was anything other than a witch, the spell would go horribly wrong. “Not a witch? Are you kidding me?” I demanded of the empty apartment.

Artemis was next to me again, sitting and staring up at me. If he hadn’t tested the concoction, it would have exploded in the kitchen. Artemis, my furry little hero.

“Thanks.”

Walking back into the kitchen, I was struck with the putrid stench of rotten eggs. I covered my mouth with the crook of my left arm as I struggled to get the window over the sink open with my right. Cold, wet night air rushed in, ushering out the smoke that was crawling around the ceiling. Pulling my arm away from my face, I hesitated, testing the air. When I didn’t dry heave at the smell, I let my arm drop.

“Frogs, toads, and tadpoles,” I muttered, shaking my head. My beautiful copper pot was tarnished and warped, bulging at the bottom, the rim curving up and down like a relief map of mountains. A pang went through my chest; that was my grandmother’s favorite spelling pot, and I’d just ruined in.

It was still hot to the touch, so I had to grab a dishrag to handle it as I stormed out of the apartment and into the hall. Wrenching the trash shoot open, I shoved the still smoking pot in, listening as it clattered its way to the basement, landing with an anticlimactic thump in the trash bin.

The sight of my kitchen nearly brought me to tears. It was practically shambolic and with nothing to show for the mess. All those herbs wasted, all that time and power just gone. Two steps forward and one step back or whatever the hell that dumbass saying was.

During all the slamming of drawers and cabinets, running water and my cursing, I almost didn’t hear the phone ring as I was cleaning. I dug my cell out of my pocket, smudging the screen with soapsuds as I answered it.

“Matt, you okay?” Ronnie asked on the other end.

“Fucking peachy,” I said, my voice slightly muffled as I held the phone between my cheek and shoulder so I could wipe the chopped rosemary off the counter with both hands.

“What’s wrong?”

“I found where they stole Roane’s token and I grabbed some of the soil to figure out the witch’s signature.”

“Oh that’s fantastic!” Ronnie said, not picking up on my tone.

“No, it’s not fan-fucking-tastic,” I cut in.

“What went wrong?”

“I didn’t test to see if really was a witch before I started and I nearly blew up my kitchen.” I was yelling, releasing some of the pent up energy. Luckily, Ronnie didn’t take it personally.

“Oh no,” she said, and I could see her placing her free hand over her mouth, her pretty eyes going wide in fear.

“It’s fine,” I said, finally coming down from the anger. “Artie saved my butt and I salted the whole thing before it blew.”

“Oh, thank gods.”

“Yeah, just uh…” I glanced at the front door. “Don’t complain about the smell in the trash shoot, okay? I got enough problems without pissing off Frankie.”

“Sure, yeah, no worries. So,” Ronnie paused, “what are you gonna do now?”

“Damned if I know,” I said, finally leaning against the counter and holding the phone with one hand before I gave myself a crick in the neck. “Only witches have signatures, so how the hell I’m supposed to find whoever this was without something of theirs?”

“You still have Roane’s ring,” Ronnie pointed out.

“Sure, I’ll just start in the city center and start circling out, and drive for what?” I paused for dramatic effect. “Three weeks? While I go up and down every single road, by every single house until I find him? We only found Joey as fast as we did because we had a blood tie with Charlie to use. I don’t think the Dunhallows will give me their blood, do you?”

“Maybe?” Ronnie said, trying to lighten the mood, even going so far as to laugh, but I just couldn’t laugh. I’d been looking for Roane for over a week now and had nothing to show for it. I had no idea how much longer the Lord and Lady of Dunhallow were going to let this go on.

“Well, there is another option,” Ronnie said, and by the tone in her voice, I could tell I wouldn’t like it, but I was running out of ideas.

“Hit me. I’m open to any suggestion now.”

“A psychic. You could take what you have left of the soil and see if they can see something.” Ronnie sucked in a breath and waited for me to speak. I didn’t much like psychics; they were a weird bunch. Though, really, anyone would get a little weird if you couldn’t touch another person without having a vision, or visions. With how often those visions weren’t pretty things, it starts to wear on you. Eventually they all ended up in the opium dens. Opium was the one thing that dulled their senses so they could just tune out and be, but like all things, they became immune to the effects and had to use more and more for the same results. After a year or two in the dens, you weren’t exactly a pretty sight anymore.

“I suppose,” I finally said.

“I could go with you,” Ronnie offered, sounding as excited about the idea as I was. She was a good friend.

“You don’t have to,” I said, “but I’d appreciate it. The only one I know of is in the back of Noir, and I’m not sure I’m gonna be welcome in there right now.”

“That’s the only one I know of too,” Ronnie said.

“Any chance you’re up to going tonight?”

“Yeah, things are slow. I could probably leave.”

“Only if you’re sure,” I said, not wanting to be the cause of her losing any money.

“It’s fine. I’ll meet you in an hour; gives me time to get cleaned up and changed.”

“Okay, see you.”

We hung up and I glanced up at Artie, who was back on his perch on top of the fridge. His tail flicked back and forth, agitated.

“I know, I know,” I said, waving a hand above my head. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but I am officially out of options.” Artemis twitched his whiskers at me but remained silent. I turned back to the mess and finished cleaning, leaving myself barely any time to get cleaned up and changed before Ronnie would be knocking on my door.

My hair was frizzy from the steam of the failed potion and my mascara had smudged under my lower lash line, giving me a slovenly Goth look, which actually might’ve worked in a place like an opium den, but I just couldn’t go out looking like that.

I was just swiping on one last coat of fresh mascara when I heard Ronnie’s polite knock at the front door. I hit my hair with a quick spritz of hairspray to tame the flyaways and rushed out to answer the door.

“You ready for this?” Ronnie asked by way of greeting.

“As ready as I’m gonna be,” I answered, picking up my purse and slinging it over my shoulder. I’d decided against the messenger bag because we’d be searched at the door, so I knew they’d take anything of value. Instead, I had a necklace on with a tiny, decorative vial full of my knockout powder. It was only enough for one person, but I hoped I wouldn’t need anything more than that. If I did, then this was a worse idea than I already thought.

Chapter 14

The Noir Bar was run and owned by vampires. It was one of the few places they actually hung out at when outside of the lair. Vampires were a strange creature; they didn’t like crowds, but they didn’t like to be totally alone either. And really, I always got the feeling that they hated humans, but as their main source of food, they put up with the human population. I’d heard they preferred the blood of supernaturals, elves especially; something about the magical quality of our blood made it taste better and gave them a sort of high. Unfortunately for them, most supernaturals chose to steer clear of vamps. But lately I seemed to be spending an inordinate amount of time in their company.