Poisons, Potions, and Peril, page 15
He swallowed hard. “N-no. Please don’t.”
“Then let’s start with why you killed those people.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” Lewis was shaking.
“What was supposed to happen?” Edwina drawled. She’d propped her feet on the coffee table, her boots scuffing the ebony wood.
“Money, you know,” Binder said. “I was supposed to get money.”
“All right, why did you bespell the tea?” Emory demanded
“But I didn’t,” he whined. “I don’t even know how to bespell tea. Or anything else, for that matter. My partner did it.”
Partner? She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Start from the beginning.”
He sighed. “I’m a financial planner, okay?”
Noah and Emory exchanged glances. The office they’d seen at the front of his fancy-pants house wasn’t set up like a financial planner’s. It was set up like a doctor’s office, with diagrams of the human body and lists of herbs and their health benefits. “Go on,” she prompted.
“Things weren’t going well. For years I struggled to get clients. Then I met this guy, right? He told me, for a percentage of the profits, he could get people to invest with me. Lots of people.”
Emory snorted. “Let me guess. He told you he could do it with magic, and you bought that?”
“I dated this girl in college. She could do stuff. Real magic stuff, like light candles with her mind. I figured what the heck? Give it a try. So I agreed to a small spell to attract more clients. Easy. Nothing dark or horrible.”
“What spell did he use?” Emory asked.
Binder shook his head. “Don’t know. He told me it was an attraction spell. Nothing interfering with free will.”
Nothing unusual there. She had used the odd attraction spell or two to draw in clients, among other things. Especially in the early days when customers had been few and money tight. “Then what?”
“I got more clients and started making money. Some of these people were loaded. I was making a real living, a life I’d never imagined. I bought this house.” He waved his arms. “Began living like I’d always wanted.” He winced. “But then I gave somebody bad advice, and he lost money—a lot of it. And he wanted it back.”
“He threatened to turn you in to the cops?” Edwina asked.
“Worse.” Binder looked positively green. “He threatened to turn his ‘associates’ loose on me.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Noah said blandly.
“It wasn’t,” Lewis admitted. “I’m pretty sure he’s connected. Like with the mob or something.”
“What did you do?” Emory asked.
“I didn’t know what to do. I needed more money. I asked my partner for a stronger attraction spell to get more clients, but it wasn’t happening fast enough.”
“So you decided to try something else,” she guessed.
“My partner told me he could cast a spell that would make people just hand over their money. You know, like a donation.”
Emory barely refrained from an eye roll. “And you roped in your girlfriend.”
Binder fidgeted. “It seemed harmless. Brooke works at this natural health clinic. I figured people who use those places usually have more than enough to be comfortable. I figured I could have her identify people who didn’t have families or anyone to worry about them or their bank accounts. Send them to me, then I could use the spell on them.”
“That’s what the tea at the clinic was for. To make them susceptible to her suggestion to call you.” That wasn’t how magic was supposed to work.
He nodded. “Once I got them to come in, I posed as a natural healer and gave them tea. Told them it was to reduce stress and enhance their natural ability to attract, well, whatever it was they were looking for. Women, money, inner peace. Once the spell took hold, they were basically in a trance.”
“And then what?”
“I’d have them write me a very generous check as a ‘consultant’s fee’ and send them on their way with orders they were not to question the payment and to forget all about me.”
“Fast, easy money,” Edwina said dryly. “What went wrong?”
“I don’t know!” Binder wailed as if he were somehow the victim. “At first everything went fine, but the suggestion didn’t take with this one woman. I guess the spell wasn’t strong enough, or she didn’t drink enough tea. She returned, demanding her money back, threatening to call the cops. I asked my partner for a new spell, something a lot stronger. Everything went back to normal. I gave people the stronger tea, just in case. Then I saw on the news that one of my clients had gone crazy and attacked a woman in the park.”
Holy cannoli, the guy she’d run into. The one who’d attacked the jogger.
“Then more were in the news, going crazy. Eventually the effects wore off, but it turned them psychotic for a while. I thought everything was fine. I had no idea anyone had died. Honestly.”
“Didn’t you try to get hold of your partner?” Emory asked.
“Of course I did.” He looked like he was about to faint. “But he wouldn’t pick up the phone, and I don’t know where he lives. I don’t even know his real name. He told me to call him Mr. Black.”
How original. “And your clients? You didn’t let a few crazy people stop you, did you?”
“No,” he admitted. “I needed the money. How am I supposed to live?”
“At least you get to,” Noah murmured. A muscle in his jaw flexed.
“And so innocent people died to feed your greed.” Emory shook her head. “But why Zach Polinsky? He wasn’t wealthy or even comfortable. He was barely making it paycheck to paycheck.”
“That was a mistake. He was bragging to Brooke about all this stuff he owned. She thought he was loaded. Stupid woman.” He glanced at Noah’s stony expression. “I didn’t take anything from him, I swear. When I realized how broke he was, I gave him the tea and told him it would help him attract more attention from the ladies. He drank it, and I sent him home, told him to forget about me. I figured everything was fine.”
“But he stole the tea,” Emory guessed, remembering the tin she’d found at his place. “He probably thought if one dose would attract women, several doses would attract even more. Instead it killed him.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” Binder was practically whimpering.
Noah made a nasty sound. “Deep, dark hole, I imagine.”
“After the witch council gets done with you,” Edwina agreed.
“The what?” Binder looked like he might pass out. Good. He deserved the worst they’d do to him.
Edwina pulled out her phone and dialed a number. “We found the killer.”
Chapter 23
Someone from the witch council arrived soon after to take charge of Lewis Binder. Emory had no idea what they planned to do with him, but hopefully they’d dump him where he’d never see sunlight again. Maybe he hadn’t meant to kill anybody but using magic in such an irresponsible way was dangerous beyond belief.
According to Lewis Binder, Brooke had had no idea what he and his partner were doing. “Don’t worry,” Edwina assured Emory. “I’m going to pay her a little visit. Put her on the straight and narrow.”
“Hopefully for the rest of her life.”
But there was still the matter of Lewis’s partner. “How are we going to find him?” Emory wondered aloud.
“Is there some witchy thing you can do?” Noah asked.
She considered that a moment. It was difficult to think with him so near and things still unresolved between them. “I might be able to use the partner’s spell to put a back trace on him. Sort of like putting a trace on a cellphone. I’ll need the whole coven, though. That sort of thing takes a lot of power.”
He nodded. “You should do it. We need to stop this guy.”
“Listen, Noah...”
He turned to look at her, and her heart started thudding so hard, she could hear it in her ears, feel it fluttering in her throat. “Um....” She was unsure what to say.
“Just say it,” Noah said stiffly, his eyes never leaving hers. She couldn’t read his expression at all.
He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. Fair enough.
“Noah, I am really, really sorry about how I reacted. I just...it was such a surprise.” That was an understatement. “And I guess—” She paused. “I was upset you hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me the truth earlier. I know that’s silly, because we don’t know each other, but... it hurt, and I lashed out. For that I’m really sorry.”
He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I get that. It’s a lot to take in.”
“I care about you. I know it hasn’t been very long—”
He grabbed her hands. “I care about you, too, Emory.”
“You do?”
He smiled. “More than you can imagine. Think you can deal with me being a thaumaturge? I’m not like him, you know. The one who hurt your mom.”
“I know you aren’t. And yeah”—she grinned—“pretty sure I can deal.”
When they finally came up for air, she was grinning like an idiot.
“Now,” Noah said at last, “let’s go catch a bad guy.”
EMORY POURED THE BESPELLED tea leaves into a small copper bowl, then placed the bowl on a brazier in the middle of the circle. Around her she heard the chants of her sister witches and Noah’s deeper tones. While Edwina wasn’t witchblood, and Noah was something else entirely, they were still supernatural and powerful, and would be enough to hold the corners while Emory, Lene, and Veri did the heavy lifting.
She poured purified water into the bowl until the leaves were covered. Under it coals glowed like red eyes. Moving her hand slowly over the bowl in a clockwise motion, she murmured the words of the spell that would activate a trace on whoever had ensorcelled the tea. The ancient language of the portal witches tripped off her tongue, and she could see the symbols of her spell fall from her lips to the bowl, mixing with the tea leaves and water.
The water swirled faster and faster, a vortex of power twisting down into the mixture. Then it went flat and still as a pond on a summer’s day. The water shimmered, turned black, then clear as crystal. A face appeared.
“Holy freaking Hades. I know who Binder’s partner is.”
IF LIFE WERE AN EPISODE of Cops, or Deepwood Police Chief Nathan Dekes had been Lt. Joe Kenda, the street would have been crammed with black-and-whites, unmarked police vehicles, and swirling blue and red lights. But it was quiet except for a barking dog.
A black SUV with tinted windows slid to a stop at the curb while Emory and Noah watched from his jeep across the street. Two more SUVs joined the first. The witch council representative—Emory never did get his name and wasn’t sure she wanted to—got out of the first vehicle and strode to the front door of the Craftsman cottage while his men ranged out around the house to prevent escape. She half expected the neighbors to pop up to express curiosity, but the houses remained dark and silent, as if everyone knew something big was going down, and they had no interest in being part of it.
The councilman rapped on the front door once, twice. On the third knock, the porch light flipped on. The front door swung open, and a man stood there in his boxers, beer belly sagging over a stretched-out elastic waistband. It was not a pretty sight.
Emory rolled down her window so she could hear better. The voices were low but carried easily through the darkness.
“Whaddaya want?” the man snarled.
The councilman flashed his badge. “Witch council. Come with me, sir.”
The man crossed his arms. “Screw that.” He didn’t ask what the witch council was or question the credentials. He didn’t even seem surprised to him.
“Sir, you will come with me willingly, or I will make you come with me.”
A sly look spread over the man’s face. “Fine. Make me.”
The councilman stepped back and waved to an agent who was standing just out of sight. The agent stepped up and waved one hand. It wasn’t dramatic or anything, but the results were. The boxer-wearing jerk dropped like a stone. Agents swarmed in, slapped cuffs on his wrists, and hauled him to one of the SUVs.
A woman appeared in the doorway. “My husband! Stop. Where are you taking him? What’s going on?”
She caught sight of the jeep and Emory. Wearing nothing but a thin robe and slippers, the woman stormed across the road. Emory recognized her immediately.
“Holy cannoli,” she muttered.
“What?” Noah asked, but there was no time to explain.
“You did this,” Susan snarled in Emory’s face. “Why? Because I wouldn’t leave him? You had no right. No right!”
“You came to me for help, remember? It was your choice until we found out he was killing people. Then it became our business.”
Susan snorted. No longer the proper church woman, she looked like a wild thing, rage twisting her features into a caricature. “You lying snake. He would never—”
“Ma’am, please step away from the jeep and stop verbally abusing my partner,” Noah said.
“Or what, you big bully?”
“Or I will have to restrain you.”
“Go ahead and try,” Susan screamed, “you devil worshipping heathen. You witch! You—” She reached in and slapped Emory across the face before Emory had time to react.
Noah was out of the jeep in a second, grabbing Susan and wrenching her arms behind her back. One of the agents from the witch council jogged over to take her into custody, handing her off to the man who’d downed Susan’s husband.
“Thanks for your help, guys. I couldn’t have done this without you,” the lead agent said, offering them a tired smile. “We’re stretched pretty thin at the moment.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “We really need to read Chief Dekes in.”
Emory wondered how Nathan Dekes would feel about that. “What’s going to happen to Susan?”
“We’ll interrogate her, see what she knows. If she was in on her husband’s little money-making plot, she’ll pay just like he will. If not, we’ll ‘correct’ her memories and send her home.”
Correct. There was a euphemism if ever she’d heard one. She stared at the SUV that held her former customer. “If she is innocent, give her some nice memories, okay? She’s suffered enough.”
“Will do. You kids go home and get some rest. You look as tired as I feel.” The man from the witch council turned on his heel and strode to his SUV. The three vehicles pulled out and took off, their taillights disappearing around the corner.
“We’re not going to tell them about the people we buried in the bayou?” she asked.
Noah shook his head. “Better they rest in peace. I know Mitch would appreciate it.”
Probably Gary Poe, too. It had been a lovely spot, and she could visit them on Samhain, plant some birdfoot violets. Make sure their spirits rested in peace.
She let out a jaw-cracking yawn. “I could definitely crawl into bed right now.”
Noah gave her a wicked grin. “So could I.”
She had the distinct feeling he didn’t mean to sleep.
“YOU’RE TELLING ME THIS crazy Susan chick’s husband was behind all this?” Veri asked the next day as the three witches gathered around a box of Virgil’s donuts set out on the counter of Healing Herbs.
“Yes,” Emory confirmed as she polished off a coconut crème filled donut dusted with lime sugar. “Susan’s husband, who went around calling himself Mr. Black, is a low-level warlock. He knows enough dark magic he was able to put a spell on the tea he had his partner, Binder, use to bespell unwitting victims. They’d fork over a ton of cash and the two would split it. Simple greed.”
“Simple my ample backside,” Lene said. “People died. That poor Mr. Poe. I’ll never forget. Not to mention Noah’s friend and that poor kid.”
Emory agreed. “At least we were able to stop Binder and Black. They’ll never hurt anyone else.”
“What about Susan?” Lene asked. “Was she involved?”
“Not at first. In fact, she really did want to stop his abuse,” Emory explained. “Then she discovered his secret stash of cash and, once she figured out his game, she wanted in. She figured she could take the money and run. Which was why she was trying to protect him.”
“He was her golden gander,” Veri mused.
“In a manner of speaking,” Emory said. “But thanks to Edwina and Noah, they’re behind bars where they belong and the money that was left has been returned to its owners.”
“And how about our new witch?” Veri asked. “How’s she coming along?”
Emory sighed. “Mia is going to take a little time. But she’ll get there.” At least she hoped so.
“Speaking of Noah...” Lene switched subjects with a smirk.
“Were we?” Emory asked innocently.
“Spill,” Veri ordered. “I know you two are an item.”
“Yes! Spill!” Lene demanded.
Emory felt herself blush as she faced Veri. “You’re not mad?”
“Girl, why would I be mad? I’m beyond thrilled. My favorite cousin and my BFF? I expect to be named witch-mother of your firstborn.”
Emory snorted. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, Veri.”
Veri flicked a lock of hair behind her shoulder. “Nonsense. I’ve seen it in the cards.”
Emory eyed her friend warily. “Seen what exactly?”
Veri’s grin widened. “You’ll see.”
The End
If you enjoyed Emory’s story, Wisteria, Witchery, and Woe, the second book in the Deepwood Witches Mysteries, is available now!
Lene Davenport is unique in the magical community. She can sense when Death approaches and communicate with those who have passed beyond the veil. It’s not fun having ghosts show up in your bedroom, so Lene does her best to avoid her gift.
Unfortunately, Fate has other ideas. A killer is stalking the paranormal community, and she is must either use her powers in order to find and stop them, or risk losing those she loves.
