Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) (2 page)

Racing down the wide hall, I didn’t even take the time to admire the smooth, creamy-colored walls or the pictures of scenic cottages Win had personally picked out.

Skidding around the corner, I fell into my bedroom where my familiar, Belfry, napped on the furry back of our rescue dog, Whiskey.

Setting my blob of cheese on the nightstand, I did take the time to appreciate my bedroom.

Gosh, I loved this room. It was every dream I’d ever had as a teenager. Especially my bed, literally built against the tall windows facing the Puget Sound. Framed with wainscoting in pale lemon and a bookcase built into the headboard, and blue and white chintz bedding with tons of fluffy French country pillows. It was, in a word, magnificent.

A hanging chandelier cast a warm glow over the room, the sparkly multi-shaped jewels making shadows on the walls. A white brick fireplace—which I wasn’t able to take for a test drive right now at the end of May—sat on the far wall, and would keep me toasty come December. A matching wingback blue chintz chair with a warm cashmere pale lemon throw draped over its back sat by yet another set of windows overlooking the front lawn. To top it off, a big braided rug lay in the center of it all.

It was heaven.

And I really wanted to crawl back into that heaven and forget this whole party thing.

But I’d promised Win I’d get involved with my fellow Ebenezer Fall-ers, and he told me this was the best way to do it. Good food, expensive wine, and ridiculous ice fountains were the way to reintroduce myself to the people I’d grown up with and forge new adult friendships.

He’d said this was how to welcome everyone into my life again after having left when I was just out of high school to move to Paris, Texas, for training as a paranormal 9-1-1 operator for my coven of witches. Who were no longer my coven, by the by.

This party was a friendly way to say “howdy neighbor.” For some reason, probably because not so long ago I’d lost everyone in my life, Win felt it important to thrust me into the face of anyone who crossed my path because he never wanted me to be alone.

Which I mostly never was. Not with him in my ear, our new dog Whiskey and my bat familiar Belfry. This particular worry of his made
me
worry about Win’s future on what we laughingly called the place he was spending his afterlife—Plane Limbo.

Where spirits who aren’t yet sure they’re ready to cross hang out and linger. Or in Win’s case, turn their afterlife into one big party, conga line included. I wondered if all this getting-me-involved meant he was considering crossing over for the first time since I’d met him.

Win had refused to cross over from the start, but I wasn’t pushing him to, either. He was one of the reasons I’d been able to keep my head above water after I lost my witch powers. But I worried someday he might not have a choice, and as selfish as it seems, he was my tether these days. My glue. I needed him, and I’d mourn his loss for a very long time if he left.

Whiskey, our St. Bernard, stretched on the bed, his mahogany and white fur rippling as he groaned his pleasure, rolling over for tummy scratches.

“Duuude!” Belfry chirped his discontent. “A little warning before you do that, huh, buddy? You could crush me and then what? Who would you have to pretend-throw the ball to you when these lugs are too busy solving murders?”

I giggled. Belfy is a cotton ball bat. Two inches of snarky, snarly, snow-white, loveable, forever-napping bat, and I’d have never made it this far without him after being kicked out of my coven and losing my powers. He remained steadfast in his loyalty to me as my familiar, the coven be damned.

Plucking him from the bed before Whiskey crushed him, I held him up and looked him in the eye, his yellow snout and ears twitching as he asked, “You ready for tonight, Cinderella?”

“I’m afraid of tonight,” I replied, eyeing my glittering red designer dress. A
brand-new
designer dress Win insisted I purchase, rather than dig into my stash of secondhand vintage clothing.

I love the coup of finding a designer label in a secondhand store. There’s nothing more fulfilling when it comes to shopping for clothes. Win insisted I could more than afford all new designer clothing, but he missed the point entirely. If I can just buy whatever I want, it takes the fun out of the hunt. Also, there was a time when I
couldn’t
just buy what I wanted—before Win gave me all his worldly possessions.

“You’re not nervous, are you, Stevie?” Bel asked. “You know all these people, for cripes sake. What’s the big hullabaloo?”

“They’ve never met me this way, Bel. I used to be just Stevie Cartwright, brooding, pouty, Goth-black-makeup lover. And when we moved back here, I was thrown into the position of Madam Zoltar, medium to the heavens, before anyone really had a chance to see all this. But no one knows
this
Stevie. The one with all the money for a champagne fountain and Italian marble countertops. It feels kinda showy, don’t you think?”

Belfry twittered his wings. “If I were you, I’d worry less about that and more about the fact that I have something to tell you. So get dressed. It’ll keep your hands busy so you can’t grab something and throw it at me.”

My eyes narrowed. If Win had put him up to something—like, say, I dunno…elephants arriving at any second—I’d kill him. He and Win were always in cahoots these days.

“Bel…” I said with clear warning.

But he flapped his wings. “Go! Shoo. Put that snazzy dress on and I’ll talk.”

I set him back on Whiskey’s fur and grabbed my amazing dress. Even if it
had
cost the earth, and I hadn’t hunted it down myself, it was gorgeous. A long-sleeved turtle neck of glittering red, it cinched at the waist and had a flared skirt that just grazed the middle of my thighs. Paired with silver-strapped heels and shiny silver hoop earrings, I fell in love with it the minute Win pointed it out in an expensive boutique in Seattle.

I made my way into my equally fabulous bathroom with a real cast-iron claw-foot tub and said, “Okay, Bel. What’s on your mind?”

“Are you near the soap dish?”

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to throw it at me.”

I couldn’t hold back my laughter. “Just spit it out.”

“My parents are coming.”

Sweet Pete on a carousel.

I pulled my dress over my head and let it fall to my waist, brushing it past my hips without saying a word.

“Boss? You still upright?”

Grabbing the brush, I ran it through my hair, happy with the caramel highlights I’d had added just yesterday. My chestnut hair was rather drab, in my opinion, and now that it was growing out, I needed a change.

“Boss?” Bel repeated with a tentative tone.

“I’m still upright. When?”

“Well, that’s the thing…”

“
When
, Bel?”

“Tonight. Oh, crud, I might as well just spit it all out. They’re bringing—”

“Not Com and Wom. Please say the twins are off in familiar boot camp or something.” I almost moaned, biting the inside of my cheek.
Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

Bel snorted
. “
You’re joking, right? What witch in even her half-right mind would want one of those two hooligans for a familiar? They couldn’t guide a pet rock, let alone a fully grown witch with fully grown powers.”

I loved Belfry. He was my family, always—but
his
family?

The Bats (yes. That’s really their last name. Bat) were a firestorm of crashing, sticky fruit drippings and mayhem.

His twin brothers Com and Wom were like toddlers on a continual sugar rush, always into something. And Mom Bat? Mostly as adorable as Bel but not exactly on top of things, if you know what I mean. She turned a blind eye to her sons’ shenanigans more often than not.

And Dad Bat, well, he was of the mind that boys will be boys. The translation of that? Win’s house and all the beautiful things he’d filled it with were going to crumble around our ears by the time they left.

But wait…

I gripped the white porcelain sink and closed my eyes as a shiver of dread slithered up my spine.

“Belfry? Is Uncle Ding coming, too?” Then I winced and said a silent prayer.

“Yes…?” he replied in a hesitant squeak.

My head fell to my chest and I took deep breaths. Uncle Ding Bat (again, yes. That’s his real name) was a feisty senior—all wings and snout in all the wrong places. Mostly
my
wrong places.

But okay. I could do this. If I could handle a houseful of two hundred guests or so, people spinning from sheets in the living room, and a testy French chef in the kitchen, I could handle the Bats coming for a visit. They deserved to see their son as much as the next parents.

“Are we still speaking?” he asked, flying into the bathroom as I quickly applied some lipstick and mascara.

“Don’t be silly. Of course we are. Just remember to keep them away from Dita. You know how much she loathes the twins.”

He settled on my loofah on the sink. “I’m on it, Boss. By the way, have I told ya how proud I am of you for inviting Momster?”

Nodding, I jabbed my earrings into the holes in my ears and slipped on my sandals. “You have. She’d have found out about the party anyway, because she and Bart are traveling through Seattle to Ebenezer Falls to pick up some things she has in storage. So it was an easy decision.”

In truth, it wasn’t an easy decision. Sharing my life and all the new things in it with my mother wasn’t something I was doing lightly. I’d thought a lot about this. But over the last couple of months, I’d seen people torn apart who’d never be able to make things right. Not until they met somewhere else again—if they met somewhere else at all.

I didn’t want to leave this plane motivated by disharmony and anger.

“You’re a good egg, Stevie. I know Dita’s not exactly Donna Reed, but maybe you can make lemonade. Or at least martinis. Booze has helped less get through far worse.”

The moment my mother Dita heard I’d been booted from my coven—after a powerful warlock accused me of meddling with his family and slapped the witch out of me from the great beyond (yep. He literally slapped the witch right out of me)—she’d shut down all communication. Probably for fear our leader, Baba Yaga, would punish her for consorting with the shunned.

It didn’t matter that when it came to your child, nothing should prevent you from supporting her—short of murder, that is. And even then, you can hate the crime and still love the criminal.

But my mother wasn’t that sort of mother. She was shallow, vain, and went through boyfriends and husbands like I went through Pop-Tarts. Nurturing wasn’t part of the plan with my mother. Sometimes I wondered how I’d survived my childhood, as distant as she’d been…as caught up in her own life as she’d been.

But over the past couple of months, with the changes in my life being what they were, I’d realized I’d be in my grave long before her immortality would run out.

I’d seen a lot of death these past couple of months, and even if we didn’t get along, I didn’t want to leave this world angry with her. Mildly irritated might be the only way, but harboring all this leftover childhood anger with her was not. I was going to accept her for who she was and not hope she’d miraculously turn into Carol Brady.

Because that would never happen. Plus,
The Brady Bunch
had way more kids than my mother would ever be able to handle.

Taking one last look at my reflection, I smoothed my hands over my dress and blew out a breath of pent-up air. Everything would be okay. It was going to be a great night.

“You look beautiful, Stevie,” Belfry said on a whistle. “Never prettier.”

I curtsied and smiled, stroking his head with my fingertip. “Why thank you, kind bat.”

As I headed back into my bedroom, my stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t had the chance to eat all day. Scooping up the blob of cheese and brown stuff, I shoveled it into my mouth.

I regretted that the moment it hit my tongue. “Oh my goddess!” I spit it out, wiping my tongue with my finger as I gagged. “What is that?”

“I’ll have you know, it’s goat cheese from the finest stock. A herd raised by monks, thank you. And fig, grown and shipped straight from the trees in California,” Win chided.

“It tastes like sweat and airplane fuel,” I said, gagging again.

“You’ve eaten sweat and airplane fuel, I gather?”

“No. I’m only guessing, but if you’d like, I’ll go drain Sea-Tac before I’ll eat any more of that.”

“You have the taste buds of a five-year-old, Stevie Cartwright. If it’s not a Pop-Tart or a box of Cheez-its, you can’t process it on that undeveloped palate of yours.”

I held my hand out to Whiskey and offered him the snack. “Here, buddy. You have airplane fuel and sweat. It’s on me.”

But Whiskey took one sniff and whined, turning his nose up at it and making me laugh. “See? Not even our dog will eat it. Now, I need to move it because the alarm on my phone is bound to go off any second, telling me something else is arriving. I just can’t remember what. Clowns?”

“Perish the thought. Mimes, Stevie. We’ve hired mimes. They’re the silent,
refined
entertainers.”

I did my best impression of a mime stuck in a box.

“Thank goodness we hired professionals,” Win drawled in his uppity British accent. But then he paused just as I started toward the door to join the chaos downstairs.

“Stevie?”

“Uh-huh?”

His aura wrapped me in a warm bubble. “You look stunning tonight. Positively, beautifully glowing,” Win said, his voice husky and silken in my ear.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, unsure why his compliment made me choke up. “Thanks, Win,” I whispered before I scurried back down the hall and toward the stairs.

As I zoomed down the steps as fast as I could in heels, I inhaled at the sight of that man again, still at the front door. He was smiling his movie-star smile. Chatting amicably with some of the quartet and signing a napkin.

Curious indeed, but I had no time for investigating.

Still, I couldn’t get over how good looking he was, and from this distance, maybe even a little familiar? Nah. Where would I know a guy like him from?