Fey: A Doyle Witch Cozy Mystery (The Witches of Doyle Book 5) Read online

  FEY

  by Kirsten Weiss

  Books by Kirsten Weiss

  Want more Doyle?

  Try Spirit on Fire, a romantic Doyle Witch In-Between

  The Witches of Doyle Series

  Bound (Book 1) | Ground (Book 2) | Down (Book 3) | Spirit on Fire | Shaman’s Bane | Lone Wolf | Witch | Tales of the Rose Rabbit

  Doyle Cozy Mystery Novels

  At Wits’ End | Planet of the Grapes

  Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum Series

  The Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum | Pressed to Death | Deja Moo

  The Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery Novels

  The Metaphysical Detective | The Alchemical Detective | The Shamanic Detective | The Infernal Detective | The Elemental Detective | The Hoodoo Detective | The Hermetic Detective

  The Mannequin Offensive

  The Pie Town Cozy Mystery Series

  The Quiche and the Dead | Bleeding Tarts

  Sensibility Grey Steampunk Suspense

  Steam and Sensibility | Of Mice and Mechanicals | A Midsummer Night’s Mechanical

  CHAPTER ONE

  Fairies bite.

  And not only do I say that in both the literal and the figurative senses, but I also refer to all denizens of Fairyland. Or at least the ones that made it across the veil.

  The little jerks.

  I hunched, adjusting my racket.

  A hush fell across the clearing. The pines rippled in uncanny, shimmering light, as if the forest itself pulsed with life.

  I swung the racket and connected.

  Thwack! The gnome went airborne.

  Twisting in the air, it bared shark-like teeth, its face streaked with blood.

  FYI, the blood wasn’t my fault. When it came to fairy-pest removal, my sisters and I took the humane approach. The crimson faces were just how virikas – the flesh-and-blood version of garden gnomes – looked.

  I suspected my face was nearly as red. The January night was freaking cold.

  My sister Lenore lurched right. The beachball-sized orb of light hovering between her raised arms shifted. The globe was white, but its edges shone violet and did cool things to my metallic, wine-colored down vest.

  Zooming harmlessly above the ball of light, the creature made a rude gesture.

  My face pinched, and I exhaled a puff of mist. Seriously? I’d missed that shot? Irritated, I tugged down the hem of my brown, V-neck sweater beneath my vest.

  “Oh, come on,” Lenore muttered, her raised arms trembling. Her white parka and leggings glowed in the light from the orb.

  “Watch the circle.” Karin, the third in our trio of triplets, pointed with her tennis racket to the ring of salt around Lenore. The salt reflected, iridescent, in the orb’s weird light, a light only we could see.

  The orb flickered. Its rays shimmered off the sad patches of snow melting beside the pines.

  The trees’ long shadows stretched toward the senior care home, a cheerless, single-story rectangle. Shadows of tiny figures raced beneath the pines, and I squinted. Though the virikas’ skin was flaming red, the creatures were tough to spot in the nighttime. And even though they were only about eighteen-inches high, they were super creepy.

  I twisted the racket handle in my hands. What the hell had happened to me? Friday nights used to be fun. Now I was battling angry gnomes behind a senior facility. But my boyfriend Brayden had had to work, and—

  A silhouette streaked toward me.

  Automatically, I swiveled away and backhanded the gnome.

  It sailed past the orb – a doorway we'd conjured to the virikas' natural home – and into the dark forest beyond.

  “Dammit.” I knew I shouldn’t have given up those tennis lessons when I was nine.

  Blond hair stuck to the rivulets of sweat streaming down Lenore's face. “This isn't working.”

  “It has to work.” Karin panted, swung. A virika flew into the orb and vanished. She pumped her fist, and her navy parka rustled. “Yes,” she said in a low voice. Karin scraped back her auburn hair and glanced toward the senior home.

  “Congratulations.” I gripped the racket and crouched in a tennis-y stance. “That's one out of… how many?”

  Karin groaned. “I haven't been able to get a count. They all look alike, and they keep— whoa!” She spun awkwardly and swung the racket low. There was a thwack, a high-pitched cry, and a rustling of bushes. “…moving,” she finished.

  The shadows of the virikas vanished.

  Silence fell, save for the faint hum of the giant orb.

  My scalp prickled. The air thickened with magic, a strange, bestial scent coiling around us, raising the bile in my throat.

  Uneasy, I scanned the spaces between the tree trunks. Where had the virikas gone? “Did they give up?” I whispered.

  “Maybe Mr. Renard got better,” Karin said. Virikas were attracted to coming death, and our local senior home was an all-you-can-eat death buffet. The gnomes’ excited keening had terrified staff and residents alike for the past week. Of course, my witchy sisters and I were the only ones who knew the real cause of the sound.

  “You're the shamanic witch,” I whispered to Lenore. “What do you sense?” My sisters and I each had different powers. Karin was a seer. She could see and manipulate the magical connections between people and things. I was an earth witch. Lenore had the death and spirits beat.

  Lenore closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. “Even with this gateway over my head, I can sense the coming death from that place.” She twitched her head toward the senior care home. “Um, can someone switch places with me?”

  Karin grabbed my arm. “Do you hear that?”

  A bush rustled to my left.

  Breath quickening, I extended my senses, sending my awareness into the ground and feeling for the forest’s root system. Where are they? I asked the pines.

  I sensed a family of possums, burrowed beneath a rotting tree stump. I sensed a murder of crows roosting, unseen, in the treetops. I sensed the virikas, and my eyes flashed open. “They're surrounding us.”

  “Get in the circle, get in the circle,” Lenore urged.

  “Screw that.” I raised my racket. I'd had it up to eyeballs getting pushed around by short-stack fairies. Fairies! These might have razor-sharp teeth, but they were only knee high.

  Karin grabbed my arm and tugged me toward Lenore’s salt circle. “It's a counter attack. This isn't right. They're not supposed to be organized.”

  A wave of virikas flooded from the shadows. They raced across the barren ground, an ocean of red and snapping teeth.

  Karin swore, her grip on the arm of my sweater tightening.

  Heart banging against my ribs, I let her pull me backward. I swung my racket threateningly, stumbled.

  Virikas dropped from the eaves of the senior home. Sprang from bushes. Raced over low granite boulders.

  My shoulders tightened. There were too many of them. What had we been thinking?

  “Don't break the circle,” Lenore shouted.

  I glanced behind me in time to see my heel an inch outside the thick line of salt. Cursing, I stepped into the circle. A ripple of the circle's protective power flashed through me, raising the hair on my arms.

  Karin hopped inside.

  The virikas pressed against the circle's invisible barrier. Their tiny faces mashed into shapes that would have been funny if their teeth weren’t so sharp.

  I shuddered and bent, wheezing, pressing my hands on the thighs of my jeans. My loose, mahogany hair fell forward, and I brush
ed it back. “Now what?”

  “My arms are getting really tired,” Lenore said. “Can I release this thing?”

  “Can’t you hold it for a little longer?” Karin asked. “We might still need the gateway.”

  Lenore clenched her jaw. “Fine.”

  “Okay.” Karin’s chest heaved. “Worst case scenario, we wait until sunup. The virikas will vanish then.”

  “I can’t hold this much longer,” Lenore said.

  “Sunrise is eight hours away,” I said. Waiting for daylight was an easy suggestion for Karin to make. She was bundled in matching navy hat, parka and woolen slacks. I was only wearing a down vest over my sweater.

  “Do you want to fight your way through that?” Karin whispered, pointing with her racket.

  The clearing was a mass of writhing scarlet. But it wasn't a very big clearing, only fifteen-feet deep to the nearest wall of the senior center. And the virikas were clustered between our salt circle and the low building. If we could scatter them— “I have an idea.”

  Glass shattered, and we twitched. The bulb over the senior home’s back door went out. Now our only light was from the orb.

  “What are they planning?” Karin said.

  This was so not good. “Lenore, throw the orb at them,” I said. If she could clear a path… “Throw it toward the building.”

  “What?”

  “Just throw the orb,” I hissed.

  Lenore grimaced, arching backward, and threw the glowing circle. It arced upward and blinked out, bathing us in darkness.

  Whoops. I made a face. The gateway had vanished as soon as it left Lenore's control. I hadn’t figured on that, but I should have.

  “So… was that the plan?” Karin asked.

  I fumbled in my pockets for a lighter. I don't smoke, but having the ability to make fire comes in handy when you're a witch. I sighed. Lately all I'd been using the lighter on had been candles. And not the fun, magical kind.

  I flicked on the lighter. Way too many tiny eyes glittered back at me. Gulping, I extinguished the flame. “Or, we could wait until daylight.”

  “We'll be safe inside the circle.” Tension edged Karin’s voice.

  “This was such a bad idea,” Lenore said.

  No one said anything else for a long time. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, our only illumination was from the Alpine stars and waning moon. I could just make out the figures of my sisters. Lenore was easiest to spot in her ivory parka, ski hat, and jeans.

  “So, how are things with Brayden?” Karin asked conversationally.

  My heart squeezed, and I was glad they couldn't really see my face. “Good.”

  But I guess they could still hear the lie in my voice, because Lenore's tone was sympathetic. “He went through a lot,” she said gently. “I can't imagine what it must have been like for him.”

  Two months ago, Brayden, the love of my life, my soul mate, had been under the control of a powerful witch.

  And I hadn't known until it was too late.

  But Brayden had known. He'd known what was happening the whole time and hadn't been able to stop himself from obeying the witch’s commands.

  Brayden had been open to my magic before that awful spell. But until that moment, he'd never really understood what my magic had meant.

  I wouldn't say he was anti-magic now, but… I didn't perform spells around him. The muscles jumped beneath my skin. I didn't like the look in his eyes when I spell cast.

  “Give him time,” Karin said. “I went through something similar with Nick—”

  “Oh, there's no problem,” I said quickly, because thinking positive is core to successful witchery. “Brayden's fine. I mean, yeah, what happened was awful, and we're working through it. But ultimately, we're solid, really.”

  There was a whisper of sound, like a distant waterfall, or the breeze in the pines. I stiffened.

  “What was—?” Lenore began.

  I flicked on the lighter.

  The clearing was empty.

  I whirled in time to see a streak of red vanish into the pines.

  “Did they get bored?” Karin asked.

  They were running. They were running! If they were on the move, then something had changed. That meant we had the upper hand, even if we didn't know why. We could finally end this, and I could get my life back. “Come on!” I raced from the circle.

  “Jayce, wait!”

  The forest was my place, and I hadn't cut my earlier connection to the trees. They called to me now, warning of the invaders. I couldn't see the little monsters, but I didn't have to. The trees told me where they were. The virikas were moving fast, toward a well-traveled hiking trail.

  Gripping my racket more tightly, I leapt over fallen branches, swerved around pines. An owl hooted above me, and I suddenly shivered, remembering that the call of an owl was a harbinger of death.

  But so were the virikas.

  My teeth clenched. Loud, annoying, harbingers who didn't belong in our world.

  “Jayce!” My sisters' voices called faintly behind me. I ran on, trusting they'd catch up. They were magic too, and we always had each others’ backs.

  I pushed past a low pine branch and onto the trail, where I could really run. I thought I caught a glimpse of low movement through the trees ahead of me but couldn't be sure. Tonight though, I didn't need my eyes to see. The trees did that for me.

  And then I heard the virikas.

  Their gibbering rose to the sound of a thousand shrieks.

  I clapped my hands over my ears and stumbled to a halt.

  Their cries were knives, lacerating my eardrums. Dark, screeching figures leapt between the trees.

  My knees buckled at the aural assault. I think I might have been screaming too.

  And then silence fell.

  Gasping, I let my hands fall away from my ears.

  The virikas had vanished.

  But to where? And what had brought them here in the first place?

  Blood. I drew a shuddering breath, sensing but not seeing the warm liquid seeping into the earth.

  I struggled to my feet.

  “Jayce?” Karin called.

  “Over here,” I shouted. Unwillingly, my legs moved, dragging me forward on the path. Unwillingly, I rounded the bend. Unwillingly, I stared at the slim figure curled on her side.

  A woman.

  A woman who worked at my café. Blood darkened her brow. Her eyes glittered in the light of the moon.

  “Mathilda,” I whispered.

  Mathilda was dead.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The forest was dark and alive with whispering leaves and crackling branches. I shivered with my sisters and waited. Snow dropped from a pine branch and whuffed to the barren ground, and we started.

  My gaze darted up and down the broad path. Teeth chattering, I rubbed the arms of my sweater.

  “Are you sure it's Mathilda?” Karin asked, because my sisters hadn't seen what I'd seen. Once I'd confirmed there were no traces of magic on the body, we'd agreed we’d would keep back. We didn’t want to contaminate the scene, just in case….

  My stomach twisted, acid burning in my throat. There was no “in case” about it. Mathilda had died by violence. This was murder.

  A siren sounded in the distance.

  Lenore jammed her hands in the pockets of her puffy ivory parka. The waning quarter moon had risen higher. She seemed to gleam in its light, her blond hair cascading from beneath her cable-knit cap. “Tell us about Mathilda.”

  I blew out an uneven breath. “She's in her twenties. Mathilda lives — lived, with her stepmother. Her father's passed on.”

  “And her mother?” Karin’s voice twisted with sympathy.

  “Out of the picture. Mathilda never talked about her. They have money, I think. She's always wearing amazing clothing, and she has the sort of perfect hair and skin that only money can buy.” But not anymore. Now her skin sagged, waxen, and I sh
uddered at the memory. “She's got a degree from Yale. I never could figure out what she was doing serving coffee in Doyle.”

  “That is weird,” Karin agreed. “And I suppose her money could be a motive for murder.”

  Red and blue lights cascaded eerily between the pines, and I pulled my shoulders in, surprised. We must be closer to a road than I'd imagined.

  “I'll lead them in.” Without waiting for our response, Karin marched into the forest and toward the source of the lights.

  “Are you all right?” Lenore asked in a low voice.

  “First the virikas and now this. Poor Mathilda.” She’d done her job grudgingly, and that hadn’t made her the easiest barista to like. Now, that dislike weighed on me too. I should have tried harder to be her friend. I should have been more patient. Not that her murder was about me. Not by a long shot.

  “I don't suppose the virikas could resist coming to a murder,” Lenore said. “Especially a violent one. It was violent, wasn't it?”

  “Her face…” I ran my fingers from my temple to my jaw. Yes, it had been violent.

  “And you're certain it wasn't an accident?”

  “I'm not sure of anything. But I don't think a simple fall could have caused that kind of damage to the side of her head.”

  Voices drifted through the trees.

  “Jayce!” Brayden and his partner, Sam, emerged from the pines in their thick EMT's jackets. Karin trailed behind the two men.

  Brayden's green eyes crinkled with concern. He dropped his large, plastic medical case and pulled me into a crushing hug. “Are you okay?”

  Sam hurried past to the fallen woman and knelt.

  In spite of everything, my heart lightened. I leaned against Brayden’s muscular chest and inhaled. Memories flooded in alongside his cedar and soap smell. Our first kiss. Nights at Antoine's. Brayden in my bed.

  My tension released. Brayden was solid and here, and we would be okay.

  If I could have run my fingers through his unruly black hair, caressed his rugged face, I would have. But… wrong time, wrong place. I stepped away from his warmth. “I'm fine.” My voice cracked. “It's Mathilda.”