Beguiled Read online

  She wiped it off with a sleeve and continued, unfazed. “And we have our first séance tomorrow night. Kind of like a kickoff, you know?”

  I shot to my feet. “Annette!”

  “What? We talked about this.”

  “You talked about this.”

  “There are at least two sides to every conversation.”

  She clearly had no idea how often I talked to myself. “As a possible draw for business in the future.”

  “No time like the present.”

  I realized I was freaking out over nothing and relaxed. “There’s no way. How could you possibly set something like that up so fast?”

  “That’s just how I roll, I guess.” She did a gang sign of some kind, probably inviting groups of bangers to shank us in the showers, then added, “Bam, bitch. I got this shit covered.”

  I sank into my seat and crossed my arms over my chest so I could glare at her. Due to my giving nature, I decided not to remind her that no forty-five-year-old white chick should be throwing gang signs, and asked instead, “Is this payback for the bird thing?”

  “No. I set this up before the bird thing. Like three days ago.” She pushed her coffee-stained notebook over to me. “I have some basic designs for our business cards you need to approve—”

  “Oh, now you need my approval?”

  “—and a couple for a promotional poster. We need a slogan.” She looked up in thought. “Something like, Breadcrumbs, Inc. Your loss is our gain.” When I just stared, she added, “Get it? Because you find lost things?”

  “Annette, how much coffee have you had?”

  “How much coffee have you had?” she asked, deflecting.

  “Annette Cheri Osmund.”

  She wilted in defeat. “Fine. If you must know, that box is the second one I bought this morning.”

  “You drank a whole takeout box?” I practically screeched the words, and Minerva stirred. Not much. Just enough to let out a moan of protest before falling back into oblivion. Sadly, she fell asleep on a waffle-patterned kitchen towel. She was going to have a wicked design on her face when she woke up.

  “Yes,” Annette said.

  “And you’re still alive?”

  “’Parently.” She leaned over and sketched a few lines on one of her designs. It was either a penguin holding a hockey stick or an angel holding a scythe. I couldn’t see how either would represent us accurately.

  “For the record,” I said, watching her work, “twelve minutes of sleep between cups of java does not count.” My only hope lay in the fact that she couldn’t possibly have gotten the word out for a séance so quickly. Surely no one would show up. We weren’t established, and there were plenty of other spiritual gurus offering their services in town. We were in Salem, after all. “Nette, I don’t want you to get your hopes up about the séance. These events need to be planned months in advance. And promoted. If no one shows up—”

  “Are you kidding?” She snorted. “It sold out in minutes.”

  “Minutes?” Disbelief hit me first, then panic. It rushed over me in pulsating, nauseating waves. I sat in stunned silence a long moment before replying. “You do realize I don’t know to perform a séance?”

  “Pfft,” she pffted. “Sure you do. We see it in movies all the time.”

  “Right, because that’s exactly the same thing.”

  “And Percy can help. Right, Percy?”

  Vines flourished around us, like a garden blooming in a fast-motion video, and I glared at him. “Traitor.” I redoubled my efforts and marched onward. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll agree to do the séance”—Goddess help us all—“if you’ll try to shift.”

  “What?” She was appalled. I’d appalled her. I did that. “I will never try to shift. What if I get stuck? What then? I’ll tell you what, since you’re asking.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “I’ll have to live my whole life as an ugly feathered crow.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” I leaned over and took her hand. “You’re an adorable crow.”

  She melted. “Really?”

  “Or you would be if not for the beady eyes.”

  “I knew it.” She pulled her hand out of my reach.

  “Kidding. You were the most adorable crow I’ve ever seen. And practice makes perfect.”

  She almost gave in. I could see it in her eyes, but she changed her mind at the last minute and picked up her phone with a sassy “no.”

  “Please.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I’ll do the séance.”

  “You’ll do the séance either way.”

  “Yes, but I can either give the evening my all, really throw myself into the role, or I can confess to everyone that I have no idea what I’m doing and give them their money back.”

  She inhaled a sharp breath, the act so drawn out, I couldn’t help but be impressed with her lung capacity. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said with a hiss I found almost as funny as the curl bouncing in front of her left eye.

  “Would, too.”

  She set her jaw, too stubborn for her own good, and started tapping on her phone, ignoring me.

  I bit my lower lip and waited. When I could stand it no longer, I asked, “Are you trying?”

  “No.”

  “Are you trying now?”

  “No.”

  “What about now?” Gawd, she was fun to pester.

  “No. And I won’t. Don’t ask me again.”

  “Annette.” I draped my body over the table, mimicking Minerva. “How are we going to know if you can do it at will, if you can control it, if you don’t try?”

  She sniffed, scrolling through her friends list. Probably to unfriend me. “It’s… it’s very personal.”

  “Wait a minute.” I straightened and looked past her turquoise lenses and into her stormy gray eyes. The ones she was purposely averting. “You’ve already tried, haven’t you?” When she didn’t answer, my jaw fell open. “No way. You did it!”

  Minerva groaned.

  “You shifted,” I added, only quieter.

  She brushed a feather off her sleeve. A feather I should have seen the minute she sat down.

  “Oh my God.” I pressed my fists over my mouth in excitement. And I may have squeaked. “Please, show me.”

  “No.” She put down her phone. “I already told you, it’s very personal.”

  “This is the coolest thing ever. First Roane and now you. I just want to see it, you know? What I created. How it works. Like, do your feathers sprout from your skin? Do your bones crack? Does it hurt?”

  “You’re like an addict jonesing for a fix.”

  “Your point is?” When she didn’t answer, I changed tactics. “I’ll tell you a scary story.”

  She paused but didn’t look at me. “I don’t like scary stories.”

  “You love scary stories. And if it scares you, truly scares you, you have to show me.”

  “Is it a true story?”

  So easy. “Yes.”

  She put down her phone with a huff. “Fine.”

  “Okay. I woke up in the attic this morning.”

  “That’s weird. Not scary.”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “Okay, but for real? You woke up in the attic?”

  I nodded. “Upright. I was standing up in my sleep.”

  “That’s not creepy at all,” she lied.

  “Staring at one of the doors.”

  “The door?”

  “And something on the other side was knocking.”

  She stilled. “Crap. That thing in the room with the claws?”

  “Yes. The entity.”

  “With claws, right?”

  “It was slow at first. The knocking. Not the entity.”

  “Have we figured out what kind of entity it is?”

  “The knock was steady.”

  “Can we go back to the entity?”

  “Knock… knock… knock.” I added dimension and realism by knocking on the tabl
e.

  She grabbed my hand. “I get it.”

  “Then it got all fast and loud and aggressive.” I knocked faster with my other hand.

  She grabbed it too, just as someone, in a moment that was both serendipitous and inspired, knocked on the front door. Annette almost jumped out of her skin. I did too, and if not for the fact that I almost toppled over my chair, no one would have known.

  Ice queen.

  “What are the odds the entity is at the front door?” she asked.

  Five

  You know you drink too much coffee if:

  You haven’t blinked since the last lunar eclipse.

  —Meme

  Minerva slept through it all, and I considered checking for a pulse the moment I got mine under control.

  Annette pressed a hand to her chest to calm herself, then checked her watch just as Gigi came up from her hidey-hole in the basement. The chief followed her, his massive body dwarfing hers, his uniform starched and badge polished. Since he hadn’t been wearing a uniform when he showed up last night, I could only assume he kept an extra here. Handy and scandalous. I’d have to rib Gigi about it later. Do my due diligence.

  “You know you don’t have to sleep in the basement,” I said to her, guilt assaulting me again as I repositioned my chair.

  She’d given up her room for me, but it wasn’t like we didn’t have others. I would sleep in the pantry if it meant she would be more comfortable.

  “And risk someone seeing me through the windows?” It was true. The bedroom windows, all thirteen of them, were massive floor-to-ceiling things, but that was what blinds were for. “And you know I love it down there,” she added, referring to her room of herbs and dried flowers and all manner of magical concoctions.

  She walked over to inspect the damage from the night before, and I couldn’t help but be dazzled by her once again. Her elegance. Her grace. Gigi defined shabby chic. With her bob freshly coiffed, the blonde radiated youth and vitality. She wore a gauze dress, a cream bohemian with gold threads weaved into the tattered handkerchief hem. A gilded vagabond. Of course, the fact that she could make a potato sack look chic did nothing to boost my self-esteem. I clearly got my assets from my father’s side of the family, whoever that might be.

  The chief joined her, wrapping a hand around her slender waist as someone knocked again.

  “It’s a little early for visitors,” Annette said.

  I eyed her with wary suspicion. “I swear, if my office hours start this early, you’re fired.”

  Gigi shook her head. “Could you get that, dear? That’ll be Serinda.”

  I hesitated a moment longer, hoping Roane would come up, too. We had a lot to talk about. When he didn’t, I started the long journey to the front door, which was neither long nor much of a journey, when Annette shouted, “Would you really fire me?”

  Sure enough, Serinda McClain, a member of Gigi’s coven and one of her oldest friends, stood on the other side, her fiery red hair glistening in the early light.

  “Defiance,” she said, her breath fogging on the air. She seemed surprised I’d answered, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve sworn she bowed her head to me.

  I decided to ignore it. “Hey, Serinda. Gigi’s expecting you.” I held the door wider for her to come in.

  “Wonderful. Oh, hello, Houston.”

  The chief walked up behind me. “Hey, Serinda.” He offered her a warm smile before looking at me. “I’m off to work, Daffodil. Don’t hesitate to call if anything seems… off.”

  “I won’t. Thanks, Chief.”

  He hurried past Serinda, tipping an invisible hat as he gestured her inside.

  “Gigi’s in the kitchen,” I said.

  “Actually, I’m here to see you.”

  “Me?” We’d only met a couple of days earlier when Gigi had set up a meet-n-greet with the upper echelon of the coven. “Well, come on back. It’s a bit of a mess, but we have coffee and breakfast sandwiches.”

  “From Red’s?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m in.”

  To Serinda’s credit, she barely blinked an eye at the damage. The oven door hung off its hinges, and that part of the kitchen was still covered in black soot, but the tile was coming along nicely. Clearly, Gigi had told her what happened.

  Serinda rushed over to her and pulled her into a warm embrace. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, sweetheart. I was downstairs.”

  She set her at arm’s length. “Trapped?”

  “No, there’s an escape route I could’ve used had I needed it.”

  Appeased, Serinda poured herself a cup of coffee and chose a cheese croissant out of the box of sandwiches. We sat at the small table and worked around Minerva’s prone body to doctor our respective elixirs. Minerva never moved. Ah, to be twenty again. Carefree. Resilient. Flexible. If I slept like that, my head would be stuck in the same position for a week.

  Serinda swallowed a bite, took a sip of coffee, then focused her attention on me. “I wanted to thank you, Defiance. I don’t know what you did, but my granddaughter is a different person.”

  Her granddaughter, Belinda, was the ultimate skeptic. So much so, she and her brother were seconds away from trying to have Serinda, one of the most lucid people I’d ever met, declared incompetent and put in a home. I’d shown Belinda what we witches were capable of, especially since her grandmother swore Belinda was one herself. Apparently, it worked.

  “I don’t even know how to describe it,” Serinda continued. “Something about a crystal elephant?”

  I nodded from behind my cup and took a quick sip before answering. “Yes. It was very special to her. Had been missing for decades. I simply told her where to find it.”

  Serinda pressed a hand to her chest. Her expression of awe would’ve been more appropriate had I parted the Red Sea. Finding a crystal elephant just didn’t seem worthy of such reverence. “I can’t thank you enough, Sarru. It’s as if she’s enjoying life again. Like all of the doubt and worry and skepticism drained out of her in one fell swoop. And”—she grinned at Gigi—“she’s no longer denying her sensitivity to the spiritual realm. To the energies around us.”

  I decided not to ask about the word sarru and why she would call me that, though it sounded oddly familiar. I’d heard it before.

  Gigi’s joy shined through her lovely face. “Serinda, I’m so happy for you. You know how much I love that girl.”

  “And she you, darling.” She turned to me. “I don’t know what you did, Sar—Defiance, but I am forever grateful.”

  “I’m just glad I could help.”

  “Ruthie,” she said, her eyes glistening, “she wants to join the coven.”

  That must have been a big deal because Gigi stilled and placed a look of delight on her friend. “Oh, Serinda. Congratulations.”

  “I know we’ll need the approval of the rest of the cove—the inner circle—and that she’ll be in a probationary period for a year and a day while she studies, but I was hoping I’d have the doyenne’s vote.”

  Gigi shook her head softly, her smile warm and genuine. “I’m so happy for you, Serinda. Of course you have my vote, but—”

  “The doyenne?” I asked, unfamiliar with that word as well.

  Annette straightened her shoulders like that student in class who always had the answer. She pointed at Gigi. “Ruthie. Your grandmother.”

  I fought a grin. “Yes, I know who Ruthie is.”

  “She’s the doyenne. The senior member of our coven.”

  “Your coven?” I knew she’d gotten to know the members of Gigi’s coven. I wasn’t aware she’d become a full-fledged member.

  “Well, you know, hopefully. Right now, I’m a novice. A neophyte. I’m a member, but I have to complete a year and a day of study, of which I’ve completed five months, but maybe someday I’ll be invited into the cove.” Her expression went from prudent apprentice to aspiration-filled dreamer as she imagined that day.

  She’d been swearing sh
e was psychic since we were kids. I’d always had my doubts, even when she accurately predicted the rise and fall of Nathan Blomquist’s popularity in the seventh grade. Once the other kids found out he wasn’t the real Prince of Genovia—he really liked The Princess Diaries—the attraction waned.

  “So, you studied while I was in that whole state of suspended animation. You are way ahead of me, then.”

  “As usual.” One corner of her mouth twitched.

  “And the cove?” I asked, ignoring her.

  Serinda nodded. “Our upper echelon, so to speak. The inner circle and senior members of the coven.”

  “So, like the board members?”

  The woman’s glistening smile bordered on starstruck when she answered me. “Something like that, Sarru.”

  “Serinda,” Gigi said, her tone softly admonishing.

  As though realizing what she’d said, she blushed prettily beneath the white powder on her face and dropped her gaze as though embarrassed. “I apologize.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Gigi patted her hand. “I apologize for not bringing it up sooner.”

  “Sarru?” I asked. “It’s oddly familiar. What does it mean?” I looked at Annette, since she seemed to have all the answers, but she lifted a shoulder and fixed her inquisitive gaze on the two elder women.

  “Familiar?” Gigi asked, seeming impressed. “The literal translation is king. It’s Mesopotamian.”

  “Mesopotamian?” A charge ran along my spine. “That’s the time period the charmlings were first created.” I’d had a vision of that creation when I first came into my powers. Of the witches who’d banded together to create three powerful sisters to protect their fellow witches, though they weren’t called that back then. They were sorceresses. Shamans with magical powers. But kings and paupers alike would abuse their powers. Use them for personal gain. So, they created the charmlings to protect both witches and humans alike.

  Sadly, the practice didn’t stop there. Unscrupulous witches and warlocks had learned centuries ago how to harness the powers of a charmling. Warlocks, no matter how powerful, can never absorb the power themselves, but they can control a witch who’d killed a blood heir and stolen her powers.