Chapter 9

It wasn’t until we closed the shop for the day that we had a chance to be alone. By then Dru was all but boiling with curiosity.

Ireally needed to hire another helper. But who? WithKey and the strays busy with the tour, there wasn’t anyone else I trusted enough. This was my and Grandma’s dream, after all. I couldn’t let just anyone handle the clientele.

“Well?” Dru urged. She was sitting on a stool at the counter, an open pizza box between us.

Itold her about the pentagrams and Sonia’s request.

“If we wake up to a bloody pentagram on the door, I’m out of here,” she warned with a glare.

Isquirmed a little. “I checked. No pentagrams.”

Mollified, she bit off a mouthful of pizza. “Any leads?”

Idetailed my visit to all the pentagram sites and my questioning of the owners except for the Cabinet, which had been closed.

Shewiped her hands on a paper kitchen towel and made grabby hands. “Let me see them.”

“Them?”

“The pentagrams, Hope, not your shifter fanfiction. You took photos, right?”

Shakingmy head, I gave her a look of disappointment. “That was unkind. I don’t read shifter fanfiction.” On my phone, anyway. I downloaded the photos to the laptop so we could study them on a bigger screen and placed it on the counter.

Pokingthe screen, I said, “The pentagrams are well made, but the symbols are odd.”

Druleaned in. “They look like gibberish.”

“A lot of witches’ shorthand reads like gibberish to others,” I said, although why I was defending a vandal’s handwriting was anyone’s guess. “Let me try something.”

Icropped some of the symbols and did a reverse image search. The returns were underwhelming.

“Are you sure they’re not gibberish meant to sell the whole scary pentagram thing?” Dru asked.

“I thought of that,” I admitted.

“Now there’s a miracle,” Bagley said, loud and clear from the ceramic pumpkin arrangement on one of the tables.

Druand I froze, our gazes locking.

Ilaughed awkwardly. “Someone must’ve forgotten their speakers.”

Therewas a snort. “As if.”

“I, uh…”

“Oh, give it up, child. I might not have a physical head, but I still got all my brains. I can tell she knows about me.”

“If she didn’t, she sure does now,” I snapped. Bagley was getting more and more cheeky with people around. It was concerning. “Dru, meet Bagley, the mistress of all evil.”

Bagleycackled. “That’sMs.Bagley to you.”

Drupursed her lips, clearly unhappy that now she’d have to deal with the resident ghost.

“Now, about these pentagrams,” Bagley said. “I hate to break it to you, but those symbols mean nothing.”

Hatedto break it to me? Hah. The evil spawn liked nothing more than rubbing my lack of knowledge in my face.

“They could be some sort of shorthand,” I insisted.

“And you could be a successful witch, but wishing for unicorns doesn’t make them real, does it?”

Drusipped on her soda and remained silent.

Ifelt a blush creep up my neck. “Wishing is its own kind of magic, Ms. Bagley, and I am extremely sad you never learned this in your long life.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be stuck with you,” she muttered.

Isummoned my best customer-facing smile and turned toward the laptop. “AsI was saying?—”

“Which was nothing much.”

“—even if the symbols are gibberish, the person used human blood and performed some kind of spell.”

“What kind of spell?” Dru asked, interested again.

“I don’t know.”

“Dark magic?” she guessed.

Weboth turned to look at the ceramic pumpkins.

“It happens a lot more than you imagine, my dears,” Bagley said in her grandmotherly persona.

Thecommon occurrence of dark magic wasn’t something I wanted to think about. “I don’t know if it was dark magic or not. The human blood could’ve been given willingly, or be the perpetrator’s.”

Itwas on the tip of my tongue to ask Bagley if she knew who might’ve drawn the pentagrams, but I held the question in. Asking the evil witch meant giving her power over me, and I refused to end up in that scenario. Bagley might haunt my shop, but I wouldn’t let her haunt me.

“TheCabinet of Curiosities bothers me,” I said. “Why choose it? The other three spots are paranormal-owned, but not the Cabinet. Unless…?” I arched my eyebrows in question.

Drushook her head. “I never heard anything about it being paranormal.”

“I haven’t heard it mentioned in the PBOA meetings, either.” Not that I had attended that many.

“Maybe it’s someone from out of town who assumed the Cabinet is paranormal-owned because of all the creepy stuff inside.” Malevolence gleamed in Dru’s eyes. “Someone like Preston trying to get back at everyone for going against him.”

“He’s already on the list, but Janet was on his side during the PBOA negotiations,” I pointed out. “Besides, he’s still opening in Olmeda. Why mess with his future clientele?”

“Why not?” was Bagley’s useful contribution.

“Because we don’t all exist to make other people’s lives impossible,” I told her very primly.

“I’d like to know your mother’s opinion about that.”

Iunhooked the laptop and pointed at the pumpkin arrangement. “If you’re not going to be nice, you can go haunt someone else.”

Headheld up high, I strode my way into the back, laptop in my arms.

Bagley’screepy laugh followed. “The truth hurts!”

Drujoined me in the kitchen. Luckily, she’d brought the pizza with her.

“So, that’s Bagley,” she said as I set up the laptop on the counter.

“Yes, that’s the evil spawn.”

Aseries of happy gurgling noises came from the faucet, followed by more happy clanking on the pipes.

Ipatted the wall. “Hello, TinyKraken.”

Druclosed her eyes and massaged her temples. “It’s an octopus. Christ.”

Shewas having a bit of a problem coming to terms with my little kraken.

“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” I said soothingly, then returned my attention to the laptop. “Okay, so let’s assume the symbols don’t matter or were part of the spell.”

“That means a witch,” Dru said. “Not many of those in Olmeda.”

Thatperked my interest. “You know of any?”

WhileI was the official council representative, there was no law stating more than one witch couldn’t live in the same town.

“The lying asshole,” she answered immediately.

Thatwould be Lewis, her ex-boss.

“Anyone alive,” I amended wryly.

“None off the top of my head,” she admitted after thinking it over.

“Makes sense.” I brought up Bosko’s shop’s website on the laptop to check their official closing time. Bosko or his daughter would’ve had more than enough time to paint the pentagram on their wall, then go to the other spots before the shifter smelled the blood at four. “Bagley likely made sure to keep any witch out of her territory, in case they tried to encroach into her business.”

“Sonia might know,” Dru said.

“Sonia might be a witch herself.”

Druarched her brows.

“Not that I’m going to ask her.” I had some self-preservation instincts, no matter how much Ian insisted I had lost them in infancy. I added a note on my suspect to-do list. “I’ll call the Council tomorrow and ask for any witch registered in Olmeda.”

“It’d be silly to do this in the city where you’re registered.”

“You never know.” During my adventures as Olmeda’s official witch, I had come across many a bad guy who had failed because of the dumbest details. “They might be like Bagley—cookies on the outside, rotting on the inside.”

“Ew.”

Shewas no doubt thinking about all the Bagley-made cookies she had eaten in her lifetime. Cookies containing unwilling blood, seeing as how I’d found a container full of them in Bagley’s cabinet of dark magic horrors.

Speakingof which…

Ichecked the Cabinet’s closing time. It’d be open for a few hours yet—creepy places did their best business in the late evening and early night.

“I need to go talk to the Cabinet people.” I eyed Dru, who was slurping her soda while trying to ignore the waving tentacle peeking from the end of the faucet. I poked it, and it wrapped around my finger, tugging it this and that way. Ah, the innocence of ghostly pipe pets. “Wanna come with me?”

Drushrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal, but her mouth curved with satisfaction. “Sure, why not?”