Chapter 13

Chapter

Thirteen

F ifteen minutes later, I parked beneath an overgrown palm tree in the deserted lot of La Paloma Federal Credit Union and cut the Mini's engine.

"You sure you're good with this?"

Cecil chittered excitedly. He was more than good. He was ecstatic.

"Excellent. Fennel, you sure you're okay? We can do it another way."

" Me-ow ." He lifted his chin, obviously insulted.

"Hey, don't get mad. I just want to be sure, is all. I'm not doubting your talents."

I tugged a tiny black beanie over Cecil's purple hat and handed him the burlap-wrapped package. "Stay out of sight. If anything happens to one of you, the other comes straight back to me and I'll charge the place like a credit card on Black Friday."

" Meow ."

Chitter .

I opened the driver's side door, and they spilled out onto the blacktop. Cecil climbed atop Fennel's back, and they shot across the lot and disappeared down the alley.

I didn't dare run down the Mini's battery, so I kept the radio off and, instead queued up the oldies playlist I kept on my cell. Linda Ronstadt belted out "You're No Good," and I sang along.

Forty excruciatingly slow minutes later, I opened the door and let them in again. Fennel was covered in dust and Cecil's black cap was askew, but they appeared unharmed and unhurried.

"Find anything?"

Cecil huffed a dark laugh.

" Mee-ow ," Fennel said, showing all his teeth in a spooky little Cheshire grin.

"You're both devious and amazing, and I never doubted you for an instant," I said. "Let's go home."

We drove through McDonald's on the way back and got a chocolate sundae and a large order of French fries to share. Cecil ate all the chocolate topping, half the ice cream, and a human fistful of fries, and Fennel had to carry him to the garden room to sleep off the effects.

I let myself into my trailer and fell into bed. My dreams were, for once, blessedly benign.

Four hours later, I awoke a little refreshed and a lot more optimistic about life. The radio played three great songs in a row and the tiny Crassula rupestris —miniature succulent—I'd repotted last month had new growth. Life was good.

I was halfway through mint-tea preparations when my cell rang. I'd overdone it on coffee last night and was cutting back on caffeine today. Mint tea was all I could handle.

A wicked smile curved my lips as I picked up my cell and tapped the screen. "Hello, it's the filthy, low class, trailer-park grunge witch."

"W-W-What—" The person on the other end of the line sneezed six times in rapid succession. "—the devil did you do to my office?"

It worked . Cecil and Fennel would be thrilled.

"Who's speaking?" I asked, barely hiding my glee.

"You know who it is, evil witch."

I clicked my tongue at him. "Now, now. Use kind words, Alpha Floyd."

"That's Alpha Pallás to y-y-you." He sneezed again. "Did you put wolfsbane in my office?"

"That would be unconscionable, Alpha Floyd. I would only do that to someone I wished horrible things on. Someone who'd tried to trick me into purchasing a cursed book. Someone who?—"

"Show some respect and stop calling me Alpha Floyd, witch. Godsdamn it, how do I—" Another sneeze. "—get rid of this stuff?"

"Tell me why you want Weret-hekau Maleficium , and I might be persuaded to give you my own personal antidote for fae wolfsb—er, early spring allergies."

Fae wolfsbane was poisonous to wolf shifters in large doses, and it was like having a wad of horseradish injected directly into your sinuses in smaller ones. Especially when those smaller doses were combined with a time-release spell, crammed into a hex bag, and hidden in the room a wolf spent most of his time in.

He let out another series of sneezes.

"Go into your bathroom and close the door, Alpha Floyd. Wash your face with soap and water."

On the other end of the line, a door slammed shut and water ran. Rasping growls and muttered curses echoed tinnily, telling me he was in a small room. The bathroom at the back of his office, presumably.

" That's your antidote? I have to stay holed up in the can?"

"For now. Tell me more about the book."

"Fuck off."

I ended the call, set the phone on the table, and resumed making my tea.

When it rang again, I let it go to voicemail and took a shower.

Five minutes, twenty calls, and twenty-four angry texts later, I let Ida into my trailer. We drank tea, and I drew on her eyebrows. She'd wanted to look saucy today, so I gave her a sharper arch.

When the twenty-first call came in, I decided to answer it. The alpha would just drive over and accost me if I didn't.

"Hello, it's Betty."

" What the hell did you do to Alpha ?"

Or send his son.

I held out the phone to show Ida. I'd assumed it was Floyd calling, but Ronan's name was on the screen. That'd teach me to answer without looking.

"Just a little payback for trying to get me cursed. No worries. Call him back and tell him you convinced me to talk to him. But warn him, if he cusses at me again, I'll hang up, and he can sneeze himself into oblivion."

Ronan muttered something that sounded like, "Why me?" Aloud, he said, "Fine. I still plan to go to L.A. with you to meet that bookseller."

"Unnecessary."

"Necessary," he countered with a growl.

"It's unnecessary because I'm not going to Los Angeles. I'm going to bring the bookseller here. Floyd will have to pay extra for the trip, but if he wants the book, he'll do it."

One of Ida's saucy brows shot up. She mouthed the word, Really ?

I smiled. Winked.

"Exactly what have you got planned?" Ronan asked.

"You'll see."

"Try not to cause too much trouble." He dropped the anger and laced some grumbly wolf into his tone.

Damn. The man had a phone voice that stroked down my chest and tried to unzip my jeans. Maybe the next time he asked me out, I'd say yes.

The proverbial angel on my shoulder clicked her tongue. No, you will not, Betty Lennox. You have plans.

The devil on my shoulder spoke up. No reason we can't have a little fun on our way out of town…

The angel won this round, but narrowly.

"No promises," I said, and hung up.

Ten minutes later, Ida had gone home, and I was setting my trailer to rights while listening to Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon."

The phone rang again, and I answered and put Floyd on speaker. In the background, a door slammed, water splashed, and someone growled. Finally, he said, "It's for a barter, okay? And no, I'm not telling you the other party."

"What do you get out of the deal?"

"None of your godsdamn business."

I ended the call.

He called back. "Keep doing that shit, and I'll send my new second over there to remind you who you're dealing with."

New second? I'd thought Ronan was his second-in-command. What was going on in the Pallás pack?

"You want me to stop? How about you stop hemming and hawing. You don't have to give me a name, but I want to know the deal. I need to know what I'm getting into here."

"You need to know nothing except that if you succeed you'll get a lot of money and a new senior citizen in your park."

I went silent.

"Don't hang up," he said.

"Start talking. What do you get out of this?"

"Fine." He let out an "I'm too old for this shit" sort of sigh. "I get a favor."

Now that I understood. "Must be a powerful favor."

"It is. So don't screw it up, or I'll come for you, witch."

He growled, reminding me that yes, he was an asshole, but he was also a violent, morally bankrupt asshole who would do almost anything to stay in power. It wouldn't be smart to push him too far. The alpha commanded a large population of wolf shifters and had an alliance with several shifter groups in Smokethorn County.

Instead of clapping back at him, I hooked a sharp left, conversationally speaking, and played a hunch. "What do you know about Mictlantecuhtli, Alpha?"

The hesitation in his response told me everything. Should've known he was involved. Floyd Pallás had his dirty paws in all kinds of bad stuff. "He's an … Aztec god."

"No kidding." My patience was wearing thin.

"It's not my business, but there's a group in town who worship him." His voice got louder and more distorted, as if he were cupping his hand around the phone. "I know a guy who knows someone who's high up in the group—cult, whatever."

"Is this related to your deal?"

"The book deal? Nah."

"Are you working with the cult?"

"I stopped going to church years ago."

A non-answer. He was neck deep into whatever was going on. "I'll get your book for you. Just tell me what you know about this group."

"You're real bossy for a wolf killer ."

Asshole. "You sure you want to go down that path, Alpha Pallás? Because of the two of us, we both know who's killed more wolves."

"I'm the alpha leader ." He said it with his whole chest, infusing power into the statement and creeping onto my last nerve.

I wanted to throw it in his face, remind him that if he'd been doing his job as alpha leader , I wouldn't have had to step in at all with that wolf. But that wouldn't get me what I wanted—information about this Mictlantecuhtli cult. So, I sidestepped the subject. "Do you know where?—"

" And you blackmailed me," he interrupted, his tone less alpha and more sullen teen. "I would've been a good mayor, and you know it."

"If you'd been a good person , I wouldn't have had the ammunition. I only told the truth." And took photos that I used to blackmail him into bowing out of the mayoral race two and a half years ago. He wasn't lying about that. "Anyway, you're powerful enough. You don't need to get into politics, too."

"What do you care? I hear you're leaving town as soon as you can unload that trailer park of yours."

I took a deep breath and did my best to wrestle my blood pressure back into the safe zone. "Alpha Pallás, I have more photos than the ones I showed you. They're on a hair trigger. If anything happens to me, they go straight to the local paper, the sheriff, and every shifter group in a two-hundred-mile radius."

"Go here." He rattled off an address I didn't recognize. I jotted it on a pad of paper next to my fridge. "Take a weapon strong enough to bring down a demon, because these people don't mess around, and I need you alive to get that book. Now tell me how to get rid of the wolfsbane."

"No worries. I'll drop by later today and do it for you."

" By the gods, come now, you bi ?—"

I turned off my phone, plugged it into the charger, and headed for my garden room.

Halfway there, I stopped, closed my eyes. Listened. Absorbed. Used magic to feel for the protection spell.

The spell was up, the air smelled fresh, and dead grass crunched under my feet. Everything was normal, but something felt … off.

That was when I snapped back into myself and discovered that I was standing just below the porch step of Mom's house, right foot raised.

I backed up, stumbled on a loose stone, and fell on my butt.

What was going on?

The earth beneath me rumbled weakly. I patted the soil, tearing up at the rejection I felt from it. Another rumble, this one stronger, shook the ground beneath me. Smokethorn wasn't far from a major fault line, so it wasn't as if earthquakes were unusual, but this wasn't an earthquake. Not in the normal sense of the word.

I sank my fingers into the soil and reached for the power I knew was there—the power I'd felt during the spell last night. The power that I used to feel on the soles of my feet as I walked from Mom's house to the garden room.

Nothing.

I picked myself off the ground and went to work in the garden room.

Three hours later, I emerged feeling better about life overall. There was pollen on my clothes, good soil beneath my nails, and the scent of lavender in my hair. Cecil had awakened from his chocolate-induced coma and helped me recharge the awaken charms. Fennel had snored peacefully beneath his namesake, bringing his special brand of feline chill to the room.

After a sandwich and another shower, I threw on a steel gray cropped sweater, a pair of jeans, and black, spike-heeled ankle boots. I grabbed my purse and headed out to the Mini.

Fennel was perched atop the hood looking pleased with himself. Evidently, he'd decided to accompany me. Contrary to popular belief, not all witches had familiars, and the ones who did were rarely lucky enough to align their magic with black cats. Fennel's presence lent me an extra witchiness with those in the know, which was one more reason to bring him along.

The cat really would make one heck of a familiar, but he was an even better partner—and friend.

I made a special delivery to the Desert Rose Café. The fae cousins had been thrilled with the culinary lavender and put in a request for some chamomile for their tea recipe. I'd added a couple samples of our other charms, including happiness and awaken , to their order. Beau sold them fairly well from his shop, so I figured they might sell there, too.

Plus, if I could get a decent herb and charm business rolling, Fennel and I might not have to take dangerous jobs to make ends meet—at least for as long as I was here.

At the café, I scored another lavender scone and a cappuccino made just the way I liked it. Kiv had added a slice of the turkey they were using for sandwiches to my bag when they found out Fennel was in the car.

We drove into La Paloma after that, stopping in at Wicked to check on a shipment of herb seeds I'd ordered from an earth witch in Texas.

Bronwyn perched primly on a wooden stool behind a glass-topped display case containing wands, scepters, and incense holders. She held a pair of tweezers and a spool of fine thread over a pile of what appeared to be desiccated insect parts.

"Hello, Betty," she said, without looking up from her task. "Audrey II is gone."

"That's good." I glanced down at Fennel and shrugged. "This is Fennel."

"Nice to meet you, Fennel. I'm Bronwyn," she said. "By the way, Betty, your friend Sarai was very nice. The plant seemed happy to go with her."

A business contact, not a friend, but I supposed that was irrelevant.

"What're you, uh, doing there?" I asked.

Fennel's tail whipped unhappily.

"Don't worry. These bugs died naturally. I'm not dipping into dark magic." She looked up, and her smile held the faintest annoyance. "They were family pets. We cared for them their whole lives and they died of natural causes. They've been dead for over a decade. It's fine." She ducked her head again.

Fennel's tail calmed.

"Hey, did I get an order of seeds?" I asked. "I forgot to ask when I was here on Valentine's Day. I was a little distracted, if you recall."

"You and me both. You said it was a seed order?" She moved to another counter and flopped open a large book. Ran her finger down the page. "Yes, it's here. Sorry I didn't contact you right away. It came in late yesterday afternoon, but I didn't have time to call before leaving for the coven meeting, and this morning's been busy. This is the first lull of the day."

"I'm sure the meeting was a banger," I muttered.

Bronwyn gave me a kindly chiding look. "It was a coven meeting, not a rave, Betty. You're welcome to come with next time. We love entertaining potential new members."

I gagged. "Sorry. I threw up a little in my mouth."

She rolled her eyes. "Let me put this away, and I'll get your package."

Fennel and I watched her carefully transfer the pile of bug carcasses to a velvet-lined wooden box. She slipped it under the counter before going into the back room.

There were a few white magic spells that used bug parts. There were a whole lot more dark spells that used them, but those witches wouldn't buy them here. They'd kill their own.

"Thanks," I said, when she walked back into the room with what appeared to be a cigar box sealed with clear tape.

Fennel meowed at me from the floor. I moved aside to let him jump on the display case and sniff around.

Bronwyn set the package of seeds on the counter and passed them to me. "I hear you're trying to sell your trailer park to a magical."

"With an earth magic affinity," I said.

"I'd wish you luck, but I won't, because I'd hate to see you go. What will I do if someone drops off another giant carnivorous plant?"

"Call Sarai. For anything like that. If she can't help you, she'll know who can."

"Feel like you're purposely missing the point." She wiggled her fingers, asking Fennel permission to pet him. That she'd asked him and not me made me like her more.

He gave it to her. Weird, considering he normally didn't like anyone besides Ida, Cecil, and me to touch him. He was either checking Bronwyn out without being obvious, or he genuinely liked her. Given the slow, soothing movement of his tail, I was leaning toward the latter.

"Hey, I have a question for you."

"What is it?" She smiled as Fennel batted a receipt off the counter.

"I know you can't tell me the coven's business, and I wouldn't expect you to, but do you personally know anything about a local cult praying to Mictlantecuhtli?"

Her hand stilled on Fennel's back. "No. Why? What's going on?"

I gave her a considering look then shook my head. "Sorry. You have to report things like this to the coven."

"You don't trust me?"

No, but don't take it personally. I don't trust anyone except Ida and Fennel. Sometimes Cecil.

"I don't want to put you in a position to have to cover for me," I said. "Besides, at this point, it's little more than a hunch. If I find anything worrisome, I'll bring the information to you, because the coven should know what's happening in their town."

"You'd do that?" Fennel head-bumped her, and she absently stroked his back.

"I won't let innocents suffer because I've got a vendetta against the coven." I handed her my credit card, ready to pay and get out of here.

She handed it back. "No charge. I still owe you for what you did for me. Your plant friend came fast . She even tried to pay me for him."

"Figured she might."

"And get this. She's able to supply your ethically harvested saguaro spines at a less expensive price, not to mention a host of other supplies I hadn't been able to find elsewhere." She smiled, pure joy radiating from her. "She's an absolute gem."

"Glad it worked out." The seeds weren't expensive, so I didn't fight her about paying for them. I returned my card to my wallet and dropped it and the package into my oversized shoulder bag. "Thanks. But we're square after this, okay?"

"Okay."

Fennel gave her one last head bump then leapt off the counter and onto the floor beside me.

"It was very nice to meet you, Fennel." She gazed down at him with the smile Snow White wore when singing to the birds.

" Meow ."

"Betty, listen. Please." She lowered the volume of her voice and raised the intensity. "I'm serious about the invitation. The coven would be lucky to have a witch like you in our midst."

"I know. But I was serious, too." I matched her intensity, if not her volume. "As far as I'm concerned, the La Paloma coven mother bears responsibility for my mom's death. If I ever show up at one of your meetings, it would be a good idea for you to walk out the back door. Because the night's definitely going to end in blood."