ALL HOLLOW’S EVE

by

J.R. RAIN &

H.P. MALLORY

HAVEN HOLLOW #10

(Remarkable Remedies)

The Haven Hollow Series

Gypsy Magic

Cashmere Curses

Faerie Enchantment

Spandex Sorcery

Love’s Goddess

Demon in Denim

Taffeta Trickery

The Black Cat Cocktail Club

French Country Frights

All Hollow’s Eve

Mystic Veil (coming soon)

Other Books by J.R. Rain

VAMPIRE FOR HIRE

Moon Dance

Vampire Moon

American Vampire

Moon Child

Christmas Moon (novella)

Vampire Dawn

Vampire Games

Moon Island

Moon River

Vampire Sun

Moon Dragon

Moon Shadow

Vampire Fire

Midnight Moon

Moon Angel

Vampire Sire

Moon Master

Dead Moon

Lost Moon

Vampire Destiny

Infinite Moon

Vampire Empress

Moon Elder

Wicked Moon

Winter Moon (coming soon)

SAMANTHA MOON ADVENTURES

Banshee Moon

Moon Monster

Moon Ripper

Witch Moon

Moon Goddess

Moon Blaze

Golem Moon

Moon Maidens

SAMANTHA MOON CASE FILES

Moon Bayou

Blood Moon

Parallel Moon

SAMANTHA MOON ORIGINS

New Moon Rising

Moon Mourning

Haunted Moon

Other Series by H.P. Mallory

Paranormal Women’s Fiction Series:

Haven Hollow

Midlife Mermaid

Midlife Spirits

Paranormal Shifter Series:

Wolves of Valhalla

Arctic Wolves

Paranormal Romance Series:

Underworld

Lily Harper

Dulcie O’Neil

Lucy Westenra

Paranormal Adventure Series:

Dungeon Raider

Chasing Demons

SciFi Romance Series:

Virtual Escapes

Academy Romance Series:
Academy of Necromancy

Reverse Harem Series: (Writing as Plum Pascal)

Happily Never After

Sacred Oath

All Hollow’s Eve

Published by Rain Press

Copyright © 2021 by J.R. Rain & H.P. Mallory

All rights reserved.

Ebook Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All Hollow’s Eve

Chapter One

Candy littered the ground like confectionary shrapnel.

Main Street unfolded on either side of me, disgustingly picturesque, with a dusting of red and gold leaves on the roof of each eclectic shop. More mottled orange and brown leaves gathered on the curbs, clogging the paths of the storm drains. The grove of maple trees that dominated the median looked pathetic without their layers, hunched over as the wind stripped more leaves away with every gust.

No projecting here. Not at all.

Haven Hollow Elementary had rolled through town earlier in the day, spouting sweets from their cartoonish floats like lava from a papier-mâché volcano. The little ones had scavenged the best stuff, leaving only Smarties, Sweet Tarts, and Peeps on the street—the rejects left to melt into sugary piles under the next torrent of rain. 

I kicked a packet of Smarties out of my path with a frown as I continued to march down Main Street. If I’d been in a better mood, I might have ducked into Sweeter Haunts, the Halloween-themed candy store for some home-made candy corns, or Stomper’s Creamery, owned by Haven Hollow’s resident centaur, Stanley Stomper, for my favorite: chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, topped with hot fudge.

But I wasn’t in a good mood. Why? I guess you could say I was feeling sorry for myself—at least that’s what Wanda would have called it.

Regardless, I was living in one of the few safe havens for the monstrous or supernaturally inclined, but in many ways, I was still alone. With only two days until All Hallow’s Eve (Or Samhain as the coven called it), I should’ve been at home in Portland with my mother, Tabitha, and my Aunt Celestine, as well as the other witches of the Crescent Circle Coven, preparing for the most important night of the year.

I wasn’t feeling melancholy because I missed my mother, either. She’d made her choice when she’d allowed my Aunt Celestine to kick me out, simply because I’d stood up for Wanda, after she’d been kicked out of the coven. As far as I was concerned, I had no mother or aunt anymore. In fact, I’d started referring to my mother as ‘Tabitha’ just to further push her away, at least in my own mind.

So, no, I wasn’t feeling sad about Tabitha or Celestine. I was feeling nostalgic for the celebration of Samhain, itself, and the way in which we celebrated it. Every witch on the estate would harvest apples from the orchard or gourds we’d planted earlier in the year. My brother, Charmin (who now insisted on being called Maverick, probably after watching ‘Top Gun’ one too many times), and I would take a share of what we’d harvested to the edge of the property as an offering to the Autumn Fae, essentially bartering to keep them off the property for another season.

Once our offerings were done, Wanda and I would spend a few hours making lavish masks (usually to commemorate our dead), and elegant costumes from all the centuries that witches have flown the skies. And later, we’d wear our creations to the bonfire as we danced around the flames, drinking our mead, while the flames would dance along with us.

And now? Now all of that festivity was gone. Instead, I’d be celebrating ‘Halloween’ the way humans celebrated it and to say I was less than excited was an understatement.

My eyes burned, and I dabbed at my face with the emerald green scarf Wanda had fashioned for me as an early Samhain present. For as long as I could remember, she’d been crafting magical clothing, and now sold those pieces at a premium in her store, Wanda’s Witchery. No doubt, she’d have a fit if she saw me crying on the fabric now—cashmere was delicate and difficult to work with and the fibers took forever to dry. But, at the moment, I didn’t have a tissue, and the silky fabric of my blouse would react to moisture even more poorly than the cashmere.

And, no, I wasn’t crying about having to trade in Samhain for Halloween. I was crying over… a boy. And it also didn’t help that I still hadn’t come up with a gift to give Wanda for Samhain. Samhain was sort of like Christmas to the witching community, in that it was the one night of the year when we were meant to show those closest to us just how much we cared by presenting them with some over-the-top, usually expensive gift.

Seeing as how I had no money (hey, I’m still a high school student!) I wanted to make something for Wanda. But, I just didn’t know what. I’d been getting decently good at knitting sweaters and then enchanting them, but an enchanted sweater that might ward off your allergies, or knitted mittens that would constantly keep your hands warm just seemed… blah. Yet, I couldn’t think of anything else worthy of becoming Wanda’s Samhain gift.

In the back of my mind, I kept thinking there must be something I could do with a potion mixed with a spell—not only to present as a gift, but also to show off my skills. I’d been training with Poppy a few days a week in the art of crafting potions and Wanda had been teaching me my witchcraft, so it seemed only logical to put the two together.

Regarding the other reason I was having an emotional meltdown—his name was Ethan Watkins. He was in a few of my classes and we’d spent the majority of the year making eyes at each other. Given all the eye motion, it seemed only logical that he’d come up with some excuse to spend some time with me. That excuse had been in the form of needing help with his science homework (I was the best student in the class when it came to science—go figure).

Earlier in the day, I’d happily gone to Ethan’s house to ‘tutor’ him, but instead, we’d found ourselves locked in his room and busily engaging in numerous heavy lip-locks. Those lip-locks progressed to Ethan’s hands shifting southward to experience the topography of my chest. I’d been sort of okay with that, I guessed, but when he tried to venture further south like some exuberant adventurer discovering unchartered territory, that’s where I drew the line. And when I drew the line, I’d gotten a mouthful about what a tease I was and how everyone at school knew I was having sex with quarterback, Johnny Smith.

Well, of course that got my tail in a big ruffle because it wasn’t true! As a young witch, who hadn’t yet experienced her eighteenth birthday, I was still a virgin. And even if I hadn’t still been a virgin, there’s no way I would have allowed Johnny Smith (who happened to look more like a bloated pig with mini volcanoes erupting all over his face than an actual human boy) to worship my body.

Needless to say, I went off on Ethan and called him every disparaging word I could think of before I stormed out of his house and started walking back to Wanda’s, taking a short cut through town.

And now here I was.

I briefly considered confiding to Wanda about my disastrous after-school study date, but knowing Wanda, she’d probably curse the pants off Ethan Watkins. Literally. Wanda wasn’t so much a good listener—she was more the action type, but her temper usually got the best of her and in this case, I didn’t want Ethan turned into a rodent or locked in some parallel dimension, so, no, probably best not to tell Wanda.

And even if Wanda didn’t hex Ethan into a hellscape, she still didn’t understand me. Wanda was around one hundred and forty years old, which meant she was totally out of touch with what it meant to be young. She’d grown up in the 1880s when people legitimately smoked cigarettes in an attempt to cure their asthma.

No matter how hard she might try, Wanda just couldn’t understand my life or what I was going through.

So who did that leave? Well, I could go to Poppy, our resident gypsy, who was teaching me the art of potion-making. Sure, Poppy was nice and all, but we didn’t have the sort of relationship where I could cry about boy troubles with her—we just talked about potions. Besides, Poppy was pretty much occupied with her shop 24/7 and raising her kid—I doubted she even had time to listen to me moaning about boys.

Poppy’s son Finn had his own sort of magic, but he was basically human. He also had a puppyish crush on me that, while flattering, was sometimes creepy.

I briefly contemplated visiting Libby and Darla, who lived next door to us, but zapped that idea as soon as it surfaced. Libby was a zombie who’d lived in the 1950s, so she had that old-school way of thinking. Talking to Libby about Ethan would be like telling a nun how I’d been felt up by a boy. In her absolute horror, she’d probably smack me over the head with something heavy and then call in the priest for an exorcism.

And Darla… she was more man-crazy than I was. Darla had once been a ghost, killed in the 1920s, by her then lover, Frank. Apparently, he’d murdered her in a jealous rage, even if I sometimes wondered if he’d just killed her to get her to shut the f up. Darla just had a way of going on and on and on (and on) about… everything. Anyway, Wanda’s out-of-control power had turned Darla into a real person again—now she lived with Libby in the other half of our duplex.

Darla reminded me of Daisy from The Great Gatsby if Daisy had been a brunette with a slightly nasally, high-pitched voice. Of all Wanda’s friends and strange creations, Darla was the least likely to lecture me about boys, true, but she’d probably yap nonstop and I wasn’t sure I was in the mood for that. Plus, every time she used the word ‘dingus’ to describe a man’s penis, I cringed and wanted to jam something sharp into both ears.

Lastly, there was the new witch to Haven Hollow, Olga Fischer.

Olga hailed from the High Coven of Germany, and like Wanda and me, she’d fallen out of favor with Celestine and the coven. Why? Because Olga had the unfortunate tendency of falling in love with mortal men, something which was a big no-no in the witch community. To the coven, men were viewed as useful in as much as they could impregnate us with more witches. Otherwise, they were deemed useless.

Since Olga kept falling in love with all the men she bedded, Celestine banished her. Well, banished her until Celestine decided Olga could play a monumental role in destroying Wanda’s life in Haven Hollow (Celestine hated the idea of Wanda being independent. All Celestine wanted was to have Wanda forever under her thumb).

But, once we’d discovered Celestine’s plan, the whole thing had backfired on her when Wanda and Lorcan (and the rest of the gang) had rescued Olga and her raccoon familiar, Franz, from a cabin in the Blue Shadow hills where she was being kept prisoner by Celestine.

Now, Olga was living in one of Lorcan’s rental properties while Wanda tried to figure out what to do with her. Because Wanda had claimed sanctum in Haven Hollow, Olga wouldn’t be able to remain in the Hollow unless Wanda formed a coven and inducted Olga into that coven.

Of course, that was exactly my hope—I’d always wanted Wanda to form a coven in Haven Hollow, but she was less enthusiastic. In general, Wanda didn’t do well with lots of responsibility. She’d already been forced to take a seat on the town’s council once she claimed sanctum and she was having a hard enough time dealing with that—remembering council meetings and being on time to those meetings. Not to mention… I was fairly sure Wanda had an advanced case of ADHD because she couldn’t sit still longer than twenty minutes and she had a hard time paying attention to anything she found less than interesting.

Hmm, maybe an ADHD potion disguised as perfume would make a good Samhain gift for her? I thought about it for maybe another two seconds before I rejected the thought. It just wasn’t… extravagant enough.

As to my relationship with Olga Fischer? I didn’t really know her. Definitely not well enough to stop by to commiserate about boys.

So… that left… no one.

Literally no one.

Right—so I basically didn’t have anyone I could talk to, and I needed a social life like yesterday. At this point, I’d probably settle for a ghost my age, just someone, anyone, I could talk to. As pathetic as it might have sounded, I’d seriously considered the ghost angle a couple of times. I figured with Wanda’s Blood Witch powers, there was a chance that ghostie could someday become a real boy or girl. I mean, Wanda had already dragged Darla back to the land of the living, so why couldn’t she do the same for some hapless seventeen-year-old ghost (once I located said hapless seventeen-year-old ghost)?

I sighed. That was probably just wishful thinking—actually, it was definitely wishful thinking. Not to mention, it was also downright tragic that I was trying to come up with ways for Wanda to make me a friend.

As if the goddess herself heard my thought and rebuked me for it, my phone chimed. I jerked in surprise and then scrambled to fish the darn thing out of my backpack before the call went to voicemail. I caught it on the last ring and swiped to answer without checking the caller ID.

“Hello?” I asked, breathless.

A familiar baritone answered, amusement thick in his voice. “Is this a bad time, sister mine?”

My heart did an odd sort of flip, and I thanked the goddess for her generosity. The person on the other end wasn’t exactly what I’d been pining for, but by Hecuba, it was something.

Chapter Two

“Charmin!”

“Maverick,” he corrected me, sounding indignant.

“Ugh, do you really expect me to call you that? It’s just so… dumb.”

“Regardless, it’s a legal name change and thus, yes, I do expect you to call me that. I’ve been ‘Maverick’ for a while now.”

My brother was always touchy about the name Charmin, and I guess I couldn’t blame him. When Tabitha had birthed him, ‘Charmin’ was considered an uncommon, yet still dignified, forename. Now it just brought to mind toilet paper. So, no, I couldn’t blame him for changing it, even if I thought ‘Maverick’ sounded ridiculous. No doubt, he’d probably thought his new moniker would impress Wanda.

My brother had been obsessed with Wanda for years. And while that might sound gross, because they were technically cousins, cousin relations were legal by our laws but... blech. Regardless, Maverick and Wanda hadn’t worked out, anyway. She hated his guts.

“Oh, Goddess, you have no idea how happy I am to hear from you!”

I smiled to myself. That probably wasn’t a sentiment my brother heard often. My nuclear family was a little... odd, even by supernatural standards. Witch lines were matriarchal, composed of a witch and her daughters. Something about the Y chromosome tended to be incompatible with magic of any kind, so male children born to witches were raised to the age of maturity and then quietly released into the human world to interbreed with the mundanes and be forgotten. They didn’t live as long as the rest of us, usually only as long as a human did—eighty or so years, though one would occasionally manifest a modest talent.

Maverick, a warlock, was the first male child in seven hundred years to manifest enough magical talent to rival that of a witch. Even so, warlocks tended to go nuts at some point, so they weren’t highly regarded. And Maverick’s prickly personality just made him less likable.

He was older than I was, by sixty-six years, to be exact, and after the birth of Maverick, Tabitha had delayed having more children for fear of what she might have next. Apparently, she was right to think that way because she’d ended up with me, a redheaded upstart. No one knew why, but witches were almost always brunettes, so my fiery red hair was rare. And not rare in a good way: red-haired witches were usually regarded as bad omens because they were always trouble. After me, Tabitha swore off having more children, ignoring the long tradition of witches having at least a half-dozen offspring.

“I was just thinking about you, actually,” I continued.

“Oh? Good things I hope?”

That edge of teasing was back in his voice, and my chest ached. Charmin... ah... Maverick hadn’t always been the best brother. He was hex-happy, self-centered and could be cruel when it suited him, but I still couldn’t bring myself to dislike him. He’d probably always be an asshole, but he was my asshole and, somehow, that meant something.

There were also those rare moments when Maverick could actually be sweet—usually when we weren’t surrounded by people who hated him. If I’d been dogpiled with that kind of prejudice my whole life, I’d probably be a jerk too. Hmm, maybe if we’d grown up with mundanes, we might have turned out better.

“I was thinking about the apple orchards, actually,” I continued, suddenly having to speak up over the wind. I looked up at the sky and though there were dark gray clouds obscuring the sun, they didn’t appear to be rain clouds.

“Apple orchards?”

“Yeah, our Samhain celebrations at Celestine’s manor.”

“Oh.” I didn’t imagine my brother missed the festivities—he wasn’t much for nostalgia.

“This is going to be my first Samhain away from home,” I finished. My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears. And all of a sudden, the sadness descended on me all over again.

Maverick’s voice was gentle when he spoke. “It’s all a load of goblin dung, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The fact that we’ve been kicked out of the coven,” he responded. “We pariahs can’t exactly help what we are, can we?”

Maverick was right—it was so unfair! My being cast out, Maverick’s being cast out, Wanda’s being cast out… it was all wrong, and it was all unfair. As to Wanda’s stroke of bad luck—that had been really unfair. If she hadn’t been involved in a car wreck that nearly ended her life, a certain vampire dentist would never have given her his blood. As it was now, she was trapped in a half-state, neither witch nor vampire, but a dangerous combination of the two. And none of that was Wanda’s fault, yet our coven, ahem our ex-coven, shunned her for surviving because they didn’t approve of what she was, a Blood Witch.

And the same thing went for me—how was it in any way fair that I’d been punished for pointing out that the whole Wanda situation was as rancid as a year-old toenail potion?

“No, we can’t help what we are,” I answered on a sigh, stopping to lean against the two-story colonial-style thrift store, Oddballs and End Tables.

“Are you happy in Haven Hollow, sister?”

I breathed in deeply as I thought about it. “Usually, yes. I like living with Wanda. Her new powers are weird, but I’m getting used to them. But right now I’m just so...”

“Lonely?” he guessed.

My eyes pricked with sudden tears, and I tried to repress a sniffle. “Yeah.”

“I think we can fix that.”

“We can?”

“Why don’t you meet me in Riverport? We’ll have an early Samhain celebration.”

While I loved the idea of celebrating Samhain with my brother, I didn’t love the idea of having to travel to Riverport to do it. Not that the town was that far away—it was maybe ten minutes or so outside Haven Hollow city limits, but it was an Uber ride for sure. “Why Riverport?” I asked. “Couldn’t you just come... oh,” I interrupted myself as I remembered.

Right. I’d been too caught up in the moment to recall that Wanda and Maverick had had quite the disagreement when she’d first moved to Haven Hollow. That disagreement had resulted in a duel and Wanda had won that duel against my brother, which meant Maverick wasn’t allowed back in the Hollow.

“Yes, oh,” he said and his tone was wry. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come to me, sister mine.”

“Okay. And if I do… you’ll celebrate with me… the way we used to?”

“We can find a nice apple orchard and bribe the Autumn fae just like old times. We can even visit one of those hackneyed Halloween shops and perhaps find some ridiculous costumes, and then we’ll commit an act of minor arson with our bonfire, and…”

“No arson!” I interrupted, but couldn’t help a giggle, suddenly cringing at how hopeful I sounded. I was beyond pitiful if a day in an orchard with my brother sounded like a fantastic idea.

“Where has your sense of adventure gone, dearest?” he asked.

“I’m not going to meet you if you’re planning on setting fires, Maverick,” I said, wanting him to understand that in no uncertain terms.

“Very well,” he said on a sigh. “Meet me at the Riverport Bed and Breakfast and we shall start our Samhain festivities.”

I felt my lips break into a huge grin. “See you there.”

###

“Why are there so many people everywhere?” Maverick sniffed, skirting a group of giggling eight-year-olds.

The smallest of them, a little brunette with pigtails, was doubling over under the weight of an enormous pumpkin clutched in her arms. I started to help her, but when I looked up, Maverick was already three yards ahead of me, and the distance was growing. If I stopped to assist the little girl, he’d reach the property line, hop the fence, and keep going without me. Besides, charity wasn’t exactly witch-like.

When I’d been in the coven, my general concern for others had been something of a sore spot between my family and me. Now I was wondering if what made me so different from the others was just my overall respect for the well-being of other people. Even Wanda still had a somewhat stunted sense of empathy, though I had to admit it was improving.

Maverick planted his cane in the soft earth and faced me for the first time since we’d stepped foot on Scraggly Scarecrow’s Orchard and Pumpkin Patch. As to the orchard’s namesake, Scraggly Scarecrow, he was attached to the top of a wooden stake at the mouth of the corn maze, where he could oversee the comings and goings of all his Halloween revelers from ten feet above.

And, no, Maverick didn’t need the cane to walk—in fact, I wasn’t sure what he was doing with it.

“There are people everywhere because this orchard is open to the public, and it’s two days until Halloween,” I ventured, not entirely able to keep the sarcasm from my voice.

Two days until Samhain and you still haven’t gotten a gift for Wanda! I reminded myself as a flurry of panic settled in my stomach.

“And what’s with that cane?” I asked, hiking our apple basket up on one arm.

“It’s a sword cane.”

“Well, you look pretentious as hell… not to mention, ridiculous.”

“Let’s see if you’d say the same if we’re suddenly attacked by a ravenous werewolf or the like.”

“A ravenous werewolf?” I asked on a laugh as I turned around and took in the numerous children and the parents who were overseeing them.

“I must admit, it makes my skin crawl to be surrounded by so many mundanes,” Maverick said, frowning as his furry eyebrows drew together in obvious disgust.

As far as looks went, we didn’t really favor each other. Maverick was a head taller than Celestine, who was about the tallest witch I knew. Even after my last growth spurt, I wasn’t as tall as Wanda. But, back to Maverick, he also wasn’t redheaded. No, his hair was so dark, it absorbed light like a crow’s feather. He kept his shoulder-length hair restrained into a ponytail at the nape of his neck and it all but blended with his black wool overcoat.

According to Tabitha, Maverick had grown his hair out when he was a child (and worn dresses) so he wouldn’t appear out of place with all the little witches running around. Basically, he’d tried to pass as a girl, afraid of being turned out of the coven and offered to the foster system of the mundanes. His little sham might have worked for a little while, but then he hit puberty and after that, there was no mistaking him for a girl. His shoulders were too broad, and he was way too tall. Not to mention, Maverick had the most prominent and obvious adam’s apple I’d ever seen. Maverick took after his father, who had been overly tall and lean—I always thought with Maverick’s dark hair and his long, skinny body, he resembled a shadow more than he did the person attached to it. All in all, Maverick was good-looking—at least according to the women of our coven, before he’d been kicked out for being a warlock, that is.

Only our eyes were identical. Gray, with a ring of black around the iris.

I glanced back at the eight-year-olds. The brunette with the pigtails threw herself into the arms of a short, dark-haired man. He had the soft plumpness around his middle that seemed to develop during the first decade of a happy marriage. A blonde woman smiled indulgently as the girl tried to heave the pumpkin up for their inspection.

“Anyway, take some advice from me and lose the cane—with your hair pulled back like that and your long black coat, you look like some weirdo, goth, emo dude.”

Maverick’s eyes narrowed further, and I was fairly sure he had no idea what I was talking about. Maverick wasn’t really up on the times, especially the mundane times. But, he also wouldn’t ask because he didn’t like appearing uninformed.

“I can drive you back to the boundary line, you know.” By ‘boundary line’, he meant the exact point where Haven Hollow began and Riverport ended. “It’s a little cold to hitchhike to Wanda’s house, but I’m sure you could manage.”

“Oh, stop being so dramatic,” I frowned at him. “And since when did you develop such thin skin?”

His frown deepened. “I’m only engaging in these Hallow’s Eve festivities because you sounded so pathetic on the phone.”

“You’re such a bastard,” I answered as I shook my head and laughed. “Some things never change.” Still, I picked up the pace, trudging up the hill toward the apple orchard.

The scent of honeycrisp apples perfumed the air, and a pang of homesickness twisted my stomach. I’d never admit it out loud, but I missed home so much, it hurt sometimes. And, again, it wasn’t Tabitha or Celestine I missed. It was being part of a bigger whole—belonging to something.

Being out with Maverick was enjoyable, despite his bad attitude, but I’d have traded just about anything to be home with the coven for Samhain. Right about this time, the apples would be turning a deep, delicious red and my fingers itched to inspect them for any imperfections before twisting the ripe fruits off their branches. Autumn faeries liked their apples free of blemishes.

Maverick chose not to comment, either because he knew I was right or because reciprocal name-calling was beneath his dignity as a warlock. I was betting on the former. Instead he looked over at me and asked, “So, how are things in the Hollow?”

“Strange,” I answered with a shrug. “Though that’s not really a surprise, is it? It’s a Hollow.”

“And Wanda?”

I smirked. Finally, the real reason for his visit. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my brother’s crush on Wanda was still in full swing. Honestly, he hadn’t had a chance to win her love before Wanda became a Blood Witch, and now his chances with her were dead and gone, owing to the fact that she hated him. But, even if Wanda hadn’t hated Maverick, I still didn’t think he would’ve had a chance with her, because there was another man, er vampire, in the picture...

Chapter Three

While Wanda might have been vocal about her dislike of Lorcan Rowe, the vampire who’d blooded her, no one but the pair of them bought it.

And, at this point, I wasn’t even sure they bought it anymore. I mean, the air between them vibrated with this crazy tension every time they were within fifty feet of each other—it was like watching some sappy romance movie playing out right before your eyes. Currently, we were at the part in the movie when the witch pretended she wasn’t into the vampire but deep down, she was and then some. Poppy and I agreed that the two of them should’ve just given up whatever game they were playing and make it official.

As to Lorcan, I hadn’t been sure how to feel about him at first, because he was a vampire and also the reason Wanda was a Blood Witch. Of course, it could have been argued that he’d also saved her life, but the witches from the coven had conveniently decided to ignore that part. As one of them, I’d been taught to hate vampires for being exactly that—undead abominations. And, when I’d first come to Haven Hollow, I hadn’t liked Lorcan. Not at all.

Of course, I’d always thought he was hot. Like really hot—movie-star hot (he kind of reminded me of the Witcher, lookswise) and his Irish accent didn’t hurt in the sexy department. But, regardless, he was still a vampire and that was a big deal. Being a vampire was a serious downside, and probably the only reason Wanda hadn’t jumped his bones already. Still, Lorcan’s insistence that he wouldn’t turn her into a fully blooded vampire (and take back his ‘Kiss’) without her permission was something—a definite tick in his ‘pros’ column.

Ultimately, for a vampire, Lorcan wasn’t that bad. And, coming from a witch, that was saying something. Furthermore, if the two of them weren’t able to reverse the curse and Wanda decided to become a fully-fledged vampire, I could live with that. When it came down to it, I’d rather have Wanda around than have her six feet under, even if she grew fangs and wanted to drink blood, as nasty as that sounded.

“Wanda’s fine,” I said, watching as Maverick’s jaw clenched.

“Is her business doing well?” he asked, but there was something in his expression that hinted to the fact that he was uncomfortable with this conversation. Clearly, he was still harboring feelings for Wanda and by the looks of it, those feelings were a cross between love and hate.

I raised an eyebrow at him, frowning. “Why do you care? You tried to sabotage her.”

“Right and I have lived to regret that decision.”

I looked at him and frowned. Maverick and ‘regret’ had no business being in the same sentence. “Really?”

He nodded. “In having numerous hours left to my own thoughts, I’ve come to see the error in my ways.”

“You have?”

“I tried to force Wanda into loving me and such is an impossibility. I should have come to her with my proverbial tail between my legs and appealed to her from a much more… subordinate stance. Then she would not have viewed me as a threat and perhaps I could have won her love.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but decided not to say anything. Maverick could continue to think whatever he wanted to because it didn’t really matter to Wanda or her life in Haven Hollow, because she’d never have to see him again.

“Anyway,” he continued. “Yes, I have faced the error in my decision and I have repented that error.”

I felt surprise ricochet through me as my eyebrows reached for the sky. “Well, I’m proud of you, Maverick,” I said and gave him a tap on the arm, to which he stepped away. Witches and warlocks weren’t exactly the emotional type and, as a rule, we didn’t like public displays of affection. “As to Wanda and Haven Hollow,” I continued. “She’s doing fine and her business is doing fine.”

“And that odious familiar of hers?”

I laughed—there wasn’t one person, outside of Celestine maybe, who actually liked Hellcat. “He’s fine too, although sometimes I’d rather jam a spoon into my eye than have to listen to him mewl about whoever’s most recently offended him.”

“Yes, that familiar was quite vexing, as I recall.”

“Anyway…”

“And you? How is… your witch training coming along?”

I sighed as an image of Ethan came to mind and I immediately snuffed it out again. No, I couldn’t talk to my brother about boys. That would just be… way too embarrassing. “Mundane high school is as boring as watching toadstools grow.”

“Mundane high school?” he repeated, frowning, as if he were confused. “Don’t tell me Wanda isn’t seeing to your witch tutelage?”

“No, she is. She’s teaching me magic and Poppy’s teaching me potions, but unfortunately, mundane law says I have to go to high school, so that’s where I’m going.”

“Poppy?” Maverick repeated, looking at me in surprise. “You mean the gypsy?”

I nodded as his expression changed to someone appalled. “You, a witch, are being trained in potions by a… a gypsy?”

Maverick prescribed to the old way of thinking, in that gypsies were the enemies of witches. “Poppy is just as good, if not better, at brewing potions than any witch at our coven.”

“Ex-coven.”

“Ex-coven.”

“That I would have to witness with my own eyes in order to believe,” he answered, shaking his head. “I never thought I’d see the day that Wanda befriended a gypsy.”

“Well, Wanda isn’t exactly a friend to anyone,” I said, even as I realized there was no truth to my words. Maybe once upon a time Wanda hadn’t had any friends, but now… now she was different. Now Wanda and Poppy were friends. In fact, Poppy might have been Wanda’s closest friend, even if I was sure Wanda would never admit it. Not that Maverick needed to know that. I looked at him, curious as to why he cared enough to ask these questions. “Why do you want to know?”

He pretended to be taken aback by my question, almost offended by it. “I just want to ensure my little sister is being taken care of,” he said, ducking a branch as the ground leveled out and we stepped into the orchard.

Liar, I thought. He just wants to know what Wanda’s up to and if he still has a chance with her.

But I wouldn’t call him out on his lie. Having even one member of my estranged coven family with me during the holiday was better than nothing. In fact, the idea of going back to Haven Hollow left me cold, especially at the idea of facing the Halloween festivities, which were so unfamiliar to me.

At the thought, I decided to pay attention to my surroundings and walked down one of the aisles of apple trees, inhaling the crisp autumn air as I closed my eyes and thanked the Goddess that I was able to experience this moment.

When I opened my eyes again, I examined the low-hanging fruit on the nearest tree. Most of the apples there had small pits or bruises, but two were ripe and smooth. Into the basket they went! I stood on tiptoe to reach the next branch as Maverick came up behind me and deposited a few of his own finds into our basket.

We were quiet for a while, Maverick reaching up to pluck the apples on the higher branches when I couldn’t reach them. The giggles and shrieks of children were a constant background refrain, so when he spoke again, the loudness of his voice actually startled me.

“Wanda and Poppy don’t have to be your only teachers, you know,” he started as I looked up at him in confusion. “I’m as well-trained in witchcraft and potions as Mother or our aunt.”

“Can you please refer to them as Tabitha and Celestine?” I nearly interrupted.

He gave me a strange expression. “I suppose you must deal with things the way you choose to deal with them.” He took a breath and continued. “Anyway, I’m at least on par with the gypsy when it comes to brewing potions.”

I didn’t like the emphasis he put on the word ‘gypsy’. He made the word sound dirty somehow, like being a gypsy was something disgraceful. Humans considered the word to be a slur, and when spoken like Maverick just had, it was hard not to agree. Poppy was used to the title, so she didn’t correct Wanda or me when we said it. But after hearing the way in which Maverick said the word, I made a note to ask Poppy if the term offended her. I didn’t imagine it would because it seemed like Poppy didn’t get offended easily. She was one of those constantly happy people, which made it all the more bizarre that Wanda was close to her. Wanda was anything but constantly happy. Constantly moody, maybe.

“While that may be,” I started, even though I didn’t believe him. As far as I was concerned, there was no one who was as good at brewing potions as Poppy was—and that was the exact reason why Wanda had considered inviting Poppy to become part of our coven, if we ever formed one. “How would you even teach me? Or were you planning on guiding me through potions class on the phone?”

He frowned down at me as he plucked an apple off a branch, about to deposit it into our basket when I pointed out a bruise on one side. Noting the bruise, he lobbed the apple over one shoulder and it plunked against a nearby tree, only to settle in the earth to forever hang its head in shame.

“There is such a thing as a video call, you know?”

“I know,” I answered, frowning up at him. “But potions are sort of a hands-on process.”

He lifted his nose into the air and made the face he did whenever he was offended. “If you don’t want my help, fine. I was just attempting to be… nice.”

He tried to make the remark sound offhand, but there was an undertone of something a little... sad under his words. Had I really hurt his feelings? Instantly I felt guilty, and that guilt became even heavier when I remembered the soft, understanding tone in his voice when we’d spoken on the phone earlier.

In some ways, Maverick was even more alone than I was. I mean, I might not have had a best friend to commiserate with, but I did have Wanda and Poppy looking after me and I adored Poppy’s son, Finn. I was sort of friends with Lorcan, I guess you could say and Libby and Darla drove me nuts, but I figured I could count on them if I needed to. And Fifi and Roy would be there if I called on them.

Who did Maverick have? Wanda? Hell no. The coven? No—a warlock was as welcome in a witch’s circle as a fungal hex. Tabitha had cut off communication with Maverick a long time ago, and Celestine wouldn’t have anything to do with him.

The truth of the matter was that Maverick had me, and that was it. Hmm, so maybe this visit was about something more than just Wanda. I was probably the only person in the state that Maverick could actually talk to. Furthermore, I was probably the only person in the state who wanted to talk to him.

Maverick glanced down, startled, when I flung an arm around his waist. The hug was a bit lopsided, thanks to the basket and the difference in our heights, but the thought was still there and I squeezed as hard as I could.

“What… What are you doing?”

“Hugging you, silly.”

He tried to pull away from me. “Well, stop it, this instant!”

I laughed but held on. “I know it’s sort of a foreign concept for you, since it’s been a while since anyone probably wanted to get anywhere near you.” He frowned more deeply at that. “But, I do care about you, you enormous, ill-tempered lug.”

“I believe your red hair has finally seeped into your brain and you’ve lost your mind!”

“If you want to video call to talk potions, we can video call, Maverick,” I said, deciding to ignore his comment. “But we can’t chat every night. I have homework to do, you know?”

One corner of his full mouth curled up, even as he pried himself away from me. “That’s enough of that,” he said as I pretended to hug him again. This time, he jumped as far away from me as he could, making a face as he jerked his hands away so they wouldn’t accidentally graze me. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Now tell me what you’ve learned thus far, so I can at least get a measure of how far behind you are,” he continued, being careful to keep the distance between us.

Laughing, I told him the charms, spells, cantrips, hexes, and bewitchments Wanda had taught me, and all the potions I’d covered with Poppy. The list was longer than I would have guessed, and our basket was full with unblemished apples by the time I finished. Maverick hummed to himself, deep in thought, as we descended the hill and headed back to the one-story wood-paneled shop near the front gates. Maverick was all for casting a befuddlement charm on the owner and stealing the apples, but I vetoed the idea. I had a twenty in my purse, courtesy of Wanda, and I was going to use it.

Chapter Four

As we waited in line, I told Maverick about the school’s ridiculous Halloween play.

Every student was forced to take part in the play, which was a retelling of the founding of Haven Hollow and its spooky reputation in the intervening years.

According to the official mundane story, an eccentric ex-prospector living in the California desert, named Jeremy Genton Haven, had gone completely nuts and left his wife and family to travel north. As he traveled into the Oregon territory, he detailed his journey, not only into the land, but also into the occult.

In reality, Jeremy Genton Haven had been a gargoyle and upon arriving in Haven Hollow, he entered into an open relationship with a half-breed witch named Hazel. Hazel, with the help of local faeries, hags, and other mystical types, had created a sort of grid over the town. The grid confused the few mundane settlers who lived within the borders of Haven Hollow and offered shelter to any monster who settled there.

Following Jeremy and Hazel’s example, three more Hollows were later established in the north, south, and east United States.

“And what part do you play in this fascinating Halloween play?” Maverick asked.

“Oh, I play two parts,” I answered. “In the first act, I play a tree in Haven Park and then in act three, I play a tombstone in Hollow Cemetery.”

“Fascinating,” Maverick answered on a yawn as I faux elbowed him in the arm. “And what have you decided to present Wanda with this year for Samhain?” he continued.

I breathed in deeply and then exhaled just as deeply. “I, uh, I don’t know.”

He looked at me, and his eyes widened. “You don’t know? You have scarce two days left!”

“I’m aware,” I answered and then shook my head. “But I have no idea where to even start. At first I thought I could knit her something.”

It was his turn to shake his head. “No, not for Samhain.”

“I was thinking the same thing.” I cocked my head to the side and then shook it. “I was thinking something with a potion and a spell, but nothing comes to mind.”

He nodded. “It would need to be something… big.”

“Right,” I answered as I kicked an apple that had freed itself from the basket. I watched as the mottled red and green fruit rolled round and round before slamming into Scraggly Scarecrow’s pole and splitting.

Maverick looked at me, and when he smiled, the expression reminded me of the Cheshire Cat. “I have just put the final touches on a difficult potion, myself.”

“What potion?”

His smile grew until he resembled an entertained crocodile. “Have you ever heard of Past Lives Oil?”

I frowned as I tried to place the name of the oil. It reminded me of one of those words like ‘perfunctory’ where you think you know what the word means, but when asked to define it, you can’t. “Sort of. I’ve seen it on Poppy’s shelves before, but I’ve never brewed it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Okay.”

“How is Past Lives Oil going to help me? I thought it just allowed you to see your past lives, if you’ve ever even had any? I don’t see how that’s Samhain worthy.”

“Perhaps if you’d let me finish, twerp,” he said, mussing my hair. I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed. “I’ll teach you how to splice Past Lives Oil with Double XX potion to create a new potion I call Regression Oil. It’s sort of... a live show, if you will.”

“A live show?”

He nodded. “Regression Oil allows the person who drinks it to see a phantom version of the past—as if they were witnessing a movie—of their own lives.”

Hmm, I didn’t imagine Wanda had ever before witnessed her own past lives and if she had, I couldn’t imagine it had been to this degree. Yet, there was one part of this whole thing that wasn’t sitting well with me. “Isn’t Double XX potion… meant to confuse your enemies or turn a situation to your favor?”

“Well, yes, but that’s only if the Double XX is unblended. When combined with Past Lives Oil to become Regression Oil, it does exactly what I just told you it would.”

I looked up at him. “And you brewed this potion yourself so you know it works?”

“I did, and it does work.”

“So, who were you in a past life?”

He cocked one brow and smiled. “I have enjoyed numerous past lives.”

“Tell me about one.”

“Very well, I shall tell you about my most recent past life. I was an Irish woman and an immigrant to the United States in the late eighteen hundreds. I was employed as a cook to a prominent and wealthy New York banker in Long Island. During my summer with the Warren family, I managed to contaminate six of the eleven persons in the house with typhoid fever.”

“Wait a second,” I nearly interrupted him as he smiled down at me in a knowing sort of way and I looked back up at him, shocked. “Are you trying to tell me you were… Typhoid Mary?”

“Very good—it appears your history lessons at the hands of the mundanes are proving fruitful, after all.”

“Wow,” I answered, mind still blown. I wondered if maybe Mary had somehow rubbed off on Maverick, because their personalities seemed… similar. “Then Typhoid Mary died in… 1938?”

“Yes, the same year I was born,” he answered.

“So, going back to this Regression Oil, do you think you could… teach me how to brew it?”

His Cheshire Cat smile was back in full effect. “Why, of course, sister mine.”

“We’ll have to hurry since Samhain is in two days,” I started, worrying my lower lip.

Maverick waved me away with an unconcerned hand. “We can hunt down the ingredients and brew the potion today.”

“And what about the spell that goes along with the potion?”

“Simple. We anoint a glass and a knob candle, repeat the incantation, and the bespelled potion shall be complete. Easy as pie!”

“I don’t know…” I pursed my lips. It didn’t sound easy and there was the whole subject of whether or not I could or should trust my brother. He wasn’t exactly known for being above-the-board. Not to mention this potion was meant for Wanda and she and Maverick had definitely had a fairly enormous falling out. But, then there was that whole part of our conversation where Maverick had revealed his repentance. He really had seemed… sad and ashamed of the whole situation.

“Don’t you trust me?” he asked, and even gave me a faux pout as we walked up to the counter and unloaded the basket of apples as the cashier rung us up.

I laughed. “Trust and Maverick don’t exactly belong in the same sentence,” I started, as he frowned down at me. The cashier put our apples in a brown paper bag and we were on our way. “Do I need to remind you about all the pranks you’ve pulled on me?” I continued once we were out of earshot of any mundanes. “How about that toad spell that went wrong? I couldn’t get rid of those boils for a week.”

Maverick chuckled. “Now that was funny.”

“Maybe to you!”

He grinned. “What if… what if I took the potion myself to prove to you it wasn’t poisonous or boil-inducing and that it was perfectly safe? Then we could witness another of my past lives together?”

He just… he seemed so excited about this new potion he’d created and it wasn’t like I had anything else in mind for Wanda’s Samhain gift. Maybe this was just the thing? And if Maverick was willing to test it out on himself first, then what was the harm in it? “Fine. But you’re buying the ingredients because I just spent all the money I had. And I want to first make our offering to the Autumn Fae.”

“Of course,” he answered, grin widening. “Costumes and arson ahoy.”

“No arson!”

“Killjoy.”

“Psycho.”

But I couldn’t help a laugh when he stole an apple, tossed it into the air, and made it disappear in front of a group of flabbergasted children who were making their way into Scraggly Scarecrow’s orchard.

“Neat trick,” the father said. “How’d you do that?”

Maverick gave him a sly smile. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

###

It’s amazing what mundanes are willing to overlook regarding common courtesy around Halloween.

I’d already witnessed a group of preteens on their bikes wearing slasher movie masks and yelling obscenities as two elderly women nearby just laughed. A few sets of college-aged women, dressed in their skimpy best, walked by and Maverick about gave himself whiplash in his hurry to watch them go. Not to mention, the numerous Halloween house displays that could have been considered in bad taste—one in particular boasted plastic bloody body parts strewn across the lawn. A stray dog jogged up to the house, captured a femur and trotted away, looking very happy with his treasure.

Some of the houses had transformed their front lawns into graveyards, and I spied more than one autumn faerie picking candy corns off the ground with no fear of being caught.

A man dressed like Beetlejuice and his sister dressed like Lydia, both brewing a potion in a public park, would probably be the least suspect thing going on today. And, good thing too, because the last thing we needed were suspicious mundanes.

“Do I have to wear this awful wig?” Maverick griped as he reached up and scratched his head. “It itches terribly.”

“Yes, you do—otherwise, how are you supposed to look like Beetlejuice? Besides, you said you’d be a good sport about this.”

We’d already completed our Samhain tradition of offering the apples to the Autumn Fae, so now it was time to work on the Regression Oil.

“No arson, no theft, and now a dime-store wig. You’re cruel, sister mine.”

“You’ll survive,” I answered with a wry smile. “Now what do I add next?”

 I’d already added a third of a cup of Sweet Almond Oil as the carrier base of the potion. To that, I’d added three drops of clove oil, three drops of sandalwood oil, and three drops of orange oil. We’d bought the outrageously overpriced ingredients ($30 a pop) at a homeopathic shop nearby. The markup was insane for the lackluster ingredients, and if the potion went wrong, it was more likely due to the shoddy materials than anything else. Maybe I’d just gotten used to the quality and prices at Poppy’s Potions because this just seemed like highway robbery.

 We’d set up Maverick’s camp stove near the tree line, far away from the frolicking kiddies on the plastic playsets. Occasionally a mom or dad gave our impromptu cauldron the side-eye, but no one said anything. A few of them gathered around to watch us until Maverick gave them a flick of his wrist and, with a quick chant beneath his breath, sent them on their merry way. At least no one thought we were cooking meth.

A pair of pixies walked by, happily trading apples, and not bothering to hide their flapping wings. And I was fairly sure the pair of goblins I’d spotted earlier weren’t wearing masks. Ah, blessed Hallow’s Eve, when no one batted an eyelash at the supernatural.

“Next we add the ingredients for the Double XX potion,” Maverick responded. “Lemon Oil, and the remainders from all the other potions I’ve created this year.” He handed me a cardboard box full of odds and ends from spent bottles of blended formulas. “We bring that to a boil for thirty seconds.”

“And then?”

“Then we allow the ingredients to simmer for a few more minutes, and after, we’ll extinguish the flame. The potion should take thirty minutes to cool and then we can bottle it.”

“And you’re sure this is… safe to drink?”

Maverick gave me a hard look. “Who’s the master potion brewer?”

“Poppy,” I answered with a smile, dodging the swipe he took at me with a giggle.

“Who’s the qualified warlock here?” he tried again.

“Fine. You are. But that’s only because you’re the only warlock in one hundred miles of here, so it’s not really a fair question.”

Maverick’s teeth ground together audibly. “You’re quite the lippy witch, aren’t you? It must be that hair of yours.”

“So I’ve heard,” I grumbled, pushing the red locks back into my Lydia wig.

“Someone ought to hex you and put you in your place!”

I smiled over at him. “If only there was another qualified warlock here to put me in my place.”

This time his swipe landed on my arm, and I yelped. Stupid brother with his stupidly huge hands.

“But, seriously, how do I know all these ingredients are safe to drink?” I insisted. “Usually you anoint yourself with potions—you don’t drink them.”

“That is the gypsy way of creating potions,” Maverick answered as he frowned down at me. “When we repeat the spell, it ensures all the ingredients are safe to swallow.”

“Well, you’re still going to test it out first so, for your sake, I hope that’s true.”

I added the lemon oil and watched the potion take on the color of mercury as I waved a hand over it and together, Maverick and I repeated the spell, “Through the planes we sail, allow our words to part the veil. A new perspective shall we see, such is what we desire, so mote it be.”

The tip of my nose tingled, and I had the almost irresistible urge to sneeze. Every witch had a sort of tic when casting. Wanda crooked her fingers. Maverick’s fingers almost appeared to be performing on an invisible piano. Tabitha had the most violent casting pose I’d ever seen—she almost appeared to be wrestling an invisible familiar. My method was the most unobtrusive—much like Samantha Stephens from Bewitched, I had a cute little nose wiggle.

The sun was setting when the moment of truth finally came—the Regression Oil was finished and now we were ready to ladle it into a vial. But, first, Maverick still had to perform the taste test. As such, I spooned a huge serving into a glass and then handed it to him.

“Down the hatch!” I said with a big smile.

In response, he snatched the glass from my hand and the thick liquid within, which was now a light lavender color, slopped from side to side like an upset ocean.

I kept a close eye on the glass as the liquid within began to steam. Maverick responded by lifting it to his lips, and then he threw it all back in one go, grimacing at the taste.

I waited with bated breath and... nothing happened. Maverick immediately grabbed a bottle of Arrowhead water he’d brought with us and swigged it, only to spit the mouthful out, in order to get the taste out of his mouth.

“Why isn’t anything happening?” I asked.

“Give it a moment.”

As soon as the words were free from his lips, something definitely happened.

A swirl of mist started circling Maverick’s body, building in intensity as it swallowed him whole. Soon the mist began to turn into a heavy fog, before expanding out and encompassing Maverick in the center of its opaque white walls. Then images began to appear against the white backdrop of the fog, looking like a projected movie.

Inside the images I could make out a cobbled street, and on that street was a carriage pulled by a horse—I could hear the sounds of the horse’s hooves clomping against the stone below as if the horse were trotting along, right next to me.

Soon the image of the cobbled street lifted, giving way to a row of houses that stood together, looking like jagged teeth. The houses were in the English Tudor style with steeply pitched gable roofs, elaborate masonry chimneys, embellished doorways, groupings of windows, and decorative exposed wood framework.

The carriage stalled in front of one of the houses and the driver quickly jumped down from his perch, alighting around the contraption to open the door for the riders. As soon as he did so, a man stepped out. I could only make out his broad-shouldered silhouette, which also revealed he was short and stout.

He stepped down to the ground, and his characteristics were suddenly clearer and easier to delineate. He wore a white silk shirt, frilled at the neck and wrists. Over that, he wore what looked like a tight-fitted jacket, and close-fitting striped… ‘tights’ was the best way I could think to describe them. He reminded me of paintings of Henry VIII, both in stature and in clothing. He wasn’t attractive at all and I guessed him to be in his early forties.

The man held out his hand to his companion, a woman. She stepped out of the carriage, wearing a low-waisted red velvet gown with a square neckline and ermine-lined long and tight sleeves. Bands of gold velvet trimmed her neck. On top of her head, she wore a strange, pointed headdress. It was made of black velvet and wired to form a peak over her forehead with long velvet lappets at either side that draped in thick folds over her shoulders.

“What year is it?” I asked, transfixed by the sight before me.

“1532,” Maverick answered. As I looked at him, I noticed his eyes were shut tight, but beneath the lids, his eyeballs were moving around as if he were caught in the throes of REM sleep.

“Which one are you? The man or the woman?”

“The man.”

“Who are you?” I continued.

“My name is Matthew Stewart,” he answered in an English accent. “And I’m the Earl of Lennox and a member of the House of Tudor. My wife is Margaret Douglas.”

“Wow,” I managed.

It was another few minutes before Maverick snapped out of it and the ghostly fog began to dissipate, leaving nothing but the trees and grass of Haven Park in its wake. I was still completely shocked by everything I’d just witnessed and how… real it all looked.

Maverick, finally returned to himself, quirked a brow at me. “Satisfied?”

“Um, yes?” I was not only satisfied, I was thoroughly amazed and impressed.

“And you doubted me,” he chuckled.

In response, I threw my arms around him—I just… I was just happy to be spending this time with him—moments that meant so much to me. He grudgingly hugged me back, muttering to himself about the indignity of it all.

“Thank you, Maverick.” I really couldn’t thank him enough—this… this was beyond impressive for Wanda’s Samhain gift. In fact, I wasn’t sure how I was ever supposed to top it. But, that was a problem for another day.

“Just remember to draw the circle of graveyard dirt, then anoint the candle and light it a few seconds before midnight and then repeat the spell,” he said. “At the stroke of midnight, heralding the first second of Samhain, the spell will be the most effective.”

I almost wanted to respond with a hearty ‘duh’. Everyone from witches to werewolves knew the veil was thinnest around All Hallow’s Eve and, more specifically, the moments right before the dawning of October 30th to October 31st.

“This was nice, Maverick,” I said as I offered him a smile as my eyes filled with unshed tears. “We should meet up more often.”

“Don’t get maudlin on me, Astrid,” he sniffed. “Blubber like a silly girl and I’ll leave you to find your own way home.”

I immediately beamed at him. “You are such a bastard, but I still love you.”

He frowned down at me and one of his eyebrows arched into the air. I couldn’t imagine the last time he’d heard the words ‘I love you’ and he looked just as shocked as he, no doubt, felt. “Ahem,” he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“You know, it won’t kill you to say the words also?”

My brother had never told me he loved me before, so maybe I was asking too much. In fact, his kind moments had been few and far between.

He cleared his throat again. “I suppose… ahem… I suppose I… love you too.” He said the last three words as quickly as he could, making them come out garbled and unclear. But, they were enough for me. “Thanks, Mav.”

He nodded. “Now enough of this overemotional tripe.”

I sniffled and dabbed at my eyes as I grinned up at him and Maverick hexed me with dry eyes all the way home.

Chapter Five

It was the evening of October 30th and Wanda was hosting an official meeting of the Black Cat Cocktail club.

The club was named for Hellcat, after the little jerk had sipped a disastrous mix of alcohol and one of Poppy’s potions and then blipped out of existence for a whole night.

Even after that fiasco, it was still a full-time job trying to keep him out of the liquor cabinet during cocktail nights. If Hellcat weren’t magical, his penchant for sneaking booze would probably have killed him already. As it was, Hellcat was literally acting out the part of ‘cat burglar’ as he attempted to smuggle a bottle of amaretto back to the little bachelor pad Wanda constructed for him in the backyard.

I spotted the slim, black feline skulking in my periphery as he approached the liquor cabinet and cast a casual glance at the floor, drawing in my power, and wiggling the tip of my nose. Static leaped from one of Wanda’s kitchen rugs and gave Hellcat a tiny zap to his kitty derriere. He yowled in shock (there was no way the zap had actually hurt him), bounding onto a counter as he faced me with a hiss and his usual immaculate coat now resembled an ebony pom-pom.

“You foul, flame-haired guttersnipe!” He howled. “You daughter of a milkless goat!”

“Here we go,” Wanda muttered from the living room, where she was furiously sewing the remaining pieces for her Halloween sale. The girls had yet to arrive and Wanda was trying to get the last touches finished before they did. She’d asked me to order a few pizzas for the night, and those were set to arrive in another twenty minutes or so.

“That’s what you get for trying to steal booze!” I answered.

“You wretched, bilious shrew!!” Hellcat continued.

I’d invented the static spell when I was ten, and annoyed at Aunt Celestine, no doubt for all her ridiculous rules. I’d cast the spell so that each time Celestine set foot on the carpet, her hair would leap to cartoonish attention. After an ear-blistering scolding, she’d admitted it was an effective prank for a ten-year-old. In return, I hadn’t gotten hexed—that had been my first real win when it came to magic. I’d been proud of myself then, and I was proud of myself now.

Even though I hadn’t done anything more than surprise Hellcat, from the sounds he made, you would’ve thought I’d stuck a pin in his backside. I smirked. “Consider it a little Samhain payback!”

“Payback in return for what?”

“For waking me up every weekend at eight am on the dot!” After each rude wake up call, Hellcat would insist I should be following the example of Benjamin Franklin, who said something about getting up early and being rich.

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a young witch, healthy, wealthy and wise!” Hellcat quoted for only the fifteen hundredth time.

“If I never hear that blasted quote again, it will be too soon!” I yelled back at him.

“It is no wonder your mother cast you adrift, forcing you into this pestilent burg!” Hellcat continued. Half the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. No one did.

I turned away from the vicious little pest, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of watching me flinch. Instead, I lifted a bottle of vodka from one of the shelves, elbow knocking painfully into the door as I did. The padlock clanked noisily against the wood as I uttered a choice curse word under my breath. Wanda kept this thing locked up tighter than Fort Knox during the weekdays, so Hellcat, the lush, wouldn’t help himself to her array of liquor when she wasn’t looking. He hadn’t broken the padlock yet, but the claw marks on the wood said he’d definitely tried.

“Curse me all you want, Hellcat, but you’re getting a virgin cocktail, same as me. I don’t get to have a sip of liquor until Yule, so neither do you.”

“That’s Mr. Abaddon Pompington to you, you ungrateful jackanape,” he sniffed. Abaddon Pompington was Hellcat’s real name—and, yes, just as ridiculous as the cat himself.

“I’m sleeping in Wanda’s guest room, not yours. Therefore, I don’t see what I have to be grateful to you for.”

“Because I leave your room unmolested.”

“Unmolested? Is that what you’d call waking me up early every weekend?” I demanded as the cat narrowed his eyes and bowed low, looking like he was ready to pounce on me. “Don’t even think about it!” I yelled at him, shaking my head. “In fact, you better get lost before I break out an ammonia spell. None of your little lady friends will want to visit you if you smell like troll piss.”

“Language, Astrid,” Wanda mumbled, which was ridiculous because she’d strewn every profanity under the sun at her awful cat in the time I’d been living here.

“Piss isn’t a bad word.”

“Well, it’s not a good word.”

I faced her as I folded my arms across my chest. “And since when are you worried about good words?”

“Hmm,” she answered, cocking her head to the side as she considered it. “Good point. Carry on.”

Hellcat hissed and made a great show of leaving the room, even bothering to hit me with his overly fluffy tail on the way out. After he’d gone, the kitchen was silent, except for the occasional sound of the cocktail shaker. Wanda was a truly terrible potion maker and only had marginally more success with cocktails, so I’d decided to take over for the night. Plus, she was busy working on finishing up her sewing, so it appeared she needed all the help she could get. Not to mention, this was the perfect opportunity to surprise her with my Samhain gift.

Yes, I’d taken it upon myself to create the themed cocktails for this month’s meeting, but that was unbeknownst to Wanda. Ordinarily, the task of bartending fell to Fifi, Bailey, or Darla (because Poppy wasn’t much better at mixing drinks than Wanda was). However, Fifi was pretty depressed because she’d had another bad date (as was becoming pretty standard where Fifi was concerned), Bailey wasn’t able to make the party, and Darla was notorious for making the drinks so strong, no one could stomach them. That just left Libby who was… well, Libby didn’t drink, so it followed that she wouldn’t want to make drinks either. So, I’d taken the responsibility of becoming bartender for the evening.

I couldn’t wait to spike Wanda’s drink with the Regression Oil and watch (from a crack in my bedroom door because I wasn’t allowed to attend these shindigs, which was lame but anyway) as Wanda and all the other women were transfixed by the sight of whatever past life decided to reveal itself. I could just imagine everyone’s shock and wonder as the spell came to life. It truly would be the greatest Samhain gift ever.

My hands shook a little with unrestrained excitement as I mixed the vodka, lime juice and raspberry liqueur for Wanda’s themed drink—a Witch’s Brew cocktail. Then, pulling the vial of Regression Oil out of my pocket, I tipped two teaspoons into her Witch’s Brew and stirred it a few times as I smiled to myself. I wanted this spell to work more than anything. Wanda had been beyond good to me in her own flippant sort of way. Not many witches would have taken me in after I’d gotten kicked out of the coven. Goddess knew where I’d be without Wanda…

I made Wanda’s and the rest of the drinks in short order. There was a Liquid Ghost cocktail for Darla (coconut rum, white cream, simple vanilla syrup, and half-and-half.) A Zombie mocktail for Libby, (pineapple juice, lemon juice, lime juice, passion fruit syrup, bitters, and garnish). A She-Devil cocktail for Fifi (vodka, pineapple juice, peach juice, cranberry juice, and ice cubes.) I’d even infused that one with a little luck potion, hoping Fifi would find a nice man soon. A Gypsy Eyes for Poppy (dry gin, aperol, grapefruit juice, lime, and simple syrup.) I’d also created a little folded name card that listed the title of each drink, as well as its recipient.

And of course, there was the signature Black Cat Cocktail (cold cola, cranberry juice, brandy, vodka, and cherry syrup). I was making two virgin Black Cat Cocktails for Hellcat and me, so it was really just a fruity cola at the end of the day.

Wanda staggered into the kitchen at half-past eleven and glanced at the cocktails and the name cards lined up on the counter, and then shifted her surprised gaze to me. Maybe I looked a little guilty because her eyes narrowed to slits.

“What are you doing up so late?” she asked, throwing her hands on her hips. “And what are you doing surrounded by all this alcohol?”

“First off, it’s Friday, and with Samhain, er Halloween, tomorrow, I knew you were busy trying to finish up all your items for the sale. So I thought I’d save you the trouble of mixing the drinks yourself. Consider it an early Samhain present.”

I could tell she was relieved not to have to bother with the drinks herself, but she made a soft, skeptical noise in the back of her throat, anyway. It was so mom-like that I smiled. Wanda would make a good mother, but with a vampire as her quasi-boyfriend, kids probably weren’t in the cards for them. That and Wanda still had to admit her vampire quasi-boyfriend should really become her vampire fully fledged boyfriend.

“Hmm, well… my bartending skills are notoriously disappointing, aren’t they?” she asked on a sigh.

I nodded. “They’re pretty legendarily bad.”

She didn’t argue because she couldn’t, really. “No alcohol for you until Yule,” she reminded me as I nodded to say I hadn’t forgotten. “How much have you already had?”

“None!” I started, frowning at her suspicious glance.

“What about Hellcat?”

“I banished him from the kitchen before he could steal anything.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Hellcat hasn’t had anything?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Alright, well, you’ve taken care of the drinks and I appreciate it.”

“Can I stay up with you guys?”

“No,” she said and immediately shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Because you know these get-togethers are for adults only.” She took a breath. “Besides, I don’t want you hearing whatever sordid story Darla’s going to bless us with tonight.” On that subject, she didn’t even try to contain her eye roll. “That ghost always finds new and interesting ways to describe men’s, you know, thingies.”

“You don’t have to refer to it as a ‘thingy’. I mean, I’m seventeen, not ten, Wanda. I know what men’s bodies look like.”

“Very good,” she finished, the tension flooding out of her shoulders as she relaxed back into her Jimmy Choos. Wanda was fashion forward, and ‘absurdly stylish’ was usually her default setting, but tonight she’d dressed down, probably because she was busy behind the sewing machine.

‘Dressed down’ for Wanda, though, would be considered ‘dressed up’ by anyone else’s standards. Currently, she was wearing slacks paired with one of the angora sweaters I’d knitted, but hadn’t bothered enchanting (in general, Wanda didn’t like wearing enchanted clothing). Regardless, I’d never be as good at enchanting clothing as Wanda was—my magic just wasn’t that versatile—but without fail, I could make a comfy feel-good or lucky sweater. Homework cut down on my knitting time, but I was trying to make at least one item for each one of Wanda’s friends in time for Yule. Though, at this rate, I’d probably have to downsize and settle for scarves. It was tragic, really. Another reason to hate public school.

“Pizza’s here,” I said at the sound of the doorbell and watched as Wanda walked over to answer it. When she came back into the kitchen, she put the boxes on the counter and I opened the first couple, in search of the Hawaiian. Finding it, I unloaded two pieces onto a plate as Wanda jabbed a finger at me.

“Once you’re finished eating, it’s bedtime.”

I frowned at her but dove into the pizza all the same, sipping my virgin cocktail, which was surprisingly good. I mean, I was fairly sure alcohol would make it better, but there it was. Finishing up my pizza, I rinsed my plate, put it in the dishwasher and then started for the hallway.

I was halfway across the living room when Wanda called, “Astrid?”

I half-turned to look at her. “What?”

“Thank you for the drinks.”

Chapter Six

My bedroom door was open just a crack, so I heard Haven Hollow’s middle-aged magic users tromping through the front door and into the living room.

Fifi was the first through the door, already complaining about her recent terrible date. Poppy was offering her words of encouragement and Darla was snickering at something Fifi said, and Libby drowned some of the complaints with a scathing tirade about ‘loose morals’.

It was usually a bad idea to put the repressed 1950s housewife in the same room with a literal sex demon, but by this point, they were all bound into this tight little group. Because Wanda was technically Libby’s master, Libby felt an instinctive need to be near her and Wanda and Fifi had become friends, so in Fifi’s orbit Libby would remain.

“Oh, stuff a stocking in it, June Cleaver,” Wanda snapped at Libby.

“I have to admit I’m not in the mood to sit through another lecture about courtship and chaperones,” Fifi continued on a sigh.

“Perhaps you’d have nabbed a husband by now if you’d employed a chaperone,” Libby sniffed.

“Let’s talk about the important parts,” Wanda nearly interrupted Libby. “Bad date it might have been, but did you at least get a look at the gentleman’s—”

“Power tool?” Poppy interrupted, a note of amusement in her voice. It had to be a relief to Poppy that her ex-sex life with Roy wasn’t the subject of tonight’s evening—usually it was. And that conversation went something along the lines of Poppy being a prude and refusing to give up any of her secrets.

“Why are we discussing tools now?” Libby asked.

“We aren’t, dollface,—we’re talkin’ fella tools,” Darla corrected.

“Oh, goodness!” Libby said, even referencing a penis in the abstract seemed to leave her flustered. “Respectable women do not discuss the contents of a man’s… toolbox.”

“I’m not sure how to get this through your thick skull, but Fifi is a sex demon,” Wanda said.

“Please don’t call me that,” Fifi answered in a small voice, shaking her head and looking like she was on the verge of tears.

“And if Fifi doesn’t get a little nookie now and then, she’ll starve,” Darla continued.

I could just picture Libby mouthing in impotent fury, but Poppy spoke before Libby could summon up her next tirade.

“Just leave it alone, Libby,” she said in her softest Mom voice before she turned to the rest of the women and clapping her hands together as if to change the subject, she smiled at each person in turn. “Maybe it’s best we all sit down and start our party? Marty is doing me a favor and watching Finn tonight, so I don’t want to be home too late.”

“Sounds good to me,” Fifi answered as she glanced down at the coffee table, where Wanda had moved the drinks and the name cards. “Speaking of the drinks,” Fifi continued. “They’re beautiful! Well done, Wanda.”

“Actually, I’ve been working my fingers off to prepare for tomorrow’s sale, so Astrid made them.”

“Allowing a seventeen-year-old to mix your alcoholic drinks is just wrong,” Libby started as she crossed her arms against her chest and everyone groaned.

“Here we go,” they all said in unison.

“You’re just encouraging her to imbibe the liquid of the devil!” Libby continued as there were more rounds of groaning.

“Witches view alcohol and drinking differently than mortals do,” Wanda answered in a slightly bored tone. “Astrid has been drinking mead from the time she could walk. It’s all part and parcel of our traditions.”

“Well, those are terrible traditions to instill in today’s youth!” Libby spouted.

“Oh, stop bein’ such a square!” Darla yelled at Libby, who continued to stand there, frowning.

“How are you doing during your first Halloween away from the coven, Wanda?” Poppy asked as she took a seat on the sofa and Wanda handed her a drink, not before double-checking her name plate.

“First of all, we call it ‘Samhain’,” Wanda corrected. “And… I guess I’m okay.” There was a note of sadness to her voice that surprised me—and all of a sudden, it dawned on me that I wasn’t the only one having a tough time being away from the coven during Samhain. I’d been so busy feeling sorry for myself, I hadn’t even considered that Wanda might have been feeling lonely too. She was gone so much during the day, forced to earn a living to support us both, that we didn’t talk and laugh the way we had when we both lived at the coven. Life was different in Haven Hollow—it wasn’t as carefree, at least where money was concerned. Where other things were concerned… the coven was much more regimented, each of us subject to Celestine’s rules. I had to admit, I much preferred being able to (somewhat) make up my own mind about my life. In the coven, you just didn’t do that—you couldn’t.

I suddenly felt deeply ashamed of myself that I hadn’t even spared a thought for how Wanda was dealing with being ousted from the coven during holiday time. Those feelings only hardened my resolve to get this spell right. Wanda had spent numerous evenings trying to educate me in the art of witchcraft when she could have been producing more product to sell. I wanted to show her that all those hours hadn’t been wasted.

I tapped my phone screen to life, checking and double checking the time. Three minutes to midnight.

“This giggle water’s damn good… and strong!” Darla said. “Astrid’s gonna put me out on the roof!” That meant drunk, at least, that’s what I thought it meant.

The slight surprise in Darla’s voice was a bit insulting. I wasn’t good at a lot of things, true, but creating cultured alcoholic drinks was something I’d practiced: Tabitha and Celestine were fond of a nightcap now and then.

“What’s this called?” Darla continued.

“A Liquid Ghost,” Wanda answered as she glanced down at the tent card. “Mine is called a Witch’s Brew, Poppy has something called Gypsy Eyes, Libby has a Zombie…”

“And mine is virgin, correct?” Libby interrupted, still sounding miffed.

“Correct,” Wanda affirmed as she then continued, lifting up her own drink. “Fifi’s drink is called a She-Devil and I believe… it’s spiked with a luck potion.” Wanda waved her hand over the glass as she studied it and then nodded. “Yep, Astrid added a lucky-in-love potion to the rim.”

“Well, that was very sweet of her,” Fifi started, worrying her lower lip. “But, I wish mine weren’t called a She-Devil.”

“Ain’t that what you are?” Darla asked.

Fifi nodded, but her lips were tight. “Even though we might be born a certain way, that doesn’t mean we have to choose to live that way.” Then she took a deep breath and faced Wanda again. “I have to admit I’m curious about the lucky-in-love potion?”

“It’s supposed to help encourage the right man to seek you out,” Wanda went on with an understanding smile. It was strange that she and Fifi were friends, I thought. Fifi was just so… different. But, then Poppy was pretty much night and day to Wanda also. “Astrid left the recipes on the counter if we want refills.”

“What a sweet kitten,” Darla cooed.

But, I couldn’t really say my thoughts were focused on the conversation. Instead, I couldn’t get past the fact that Wanda had recognized the luck potion I’d added to Fifi’s drink. Not that I should have been surprised, really, given that Wanda was a learned witch. And, I guess I wasn’t surprised, but it did make me wonder if she’d be able to sense the Regression Oil in her own glass before I’d be able to perform the spell that would activate it? I wanted Wanda’s past life re-enactment to be a big surprise—proof to her that I was advancing in my witchcraft. I wanted to make her proud.

I checked my phone again. It was a minute until midnight. Hmm, so far it didn’t seem Wanda had noticed the potion because she hadn’t said anything about it. If she did notice it, I wondered if she’d even drink it. Instead, if she suspected I was casting something this ambitious, she might get angry with me.

Well, it was too late to turn back now. Instead, I grabbed the Bic lighter I’d taken from one of the kitchen drawers and faced the circle of graveyard dirt (it could be handy living next to Hollow Cemetery) I’d already drawn on the floor. My fingers shook as I first anointed the candle with Ancient Shrines Oil, which would help promote my telepathic abilities and add extra juju to the spell, and then the remainder of the Regression Oil so the spell would know what I wanted to activate.

Then I lit the candle.

Opening my window, I drew in the power from the evening air outside, wiggled my nose, and whispered, “Through the planes we sail, allow my words to part the veil. A new perspective shall I see, this is my desire, so mote it be.”

I waited for the flame of the candle to leap to attention, and the familiar tingle to seize my nose. Instead, a shudder ran from the crown of my head down to my toes, goosebumps popping up along my arms in spite of the heavy sweatshirt I was wearing. My stomach did a flip, and I thought I might be suddenly sick all over the hardwood floors. Then the flame grew as if powered from within, the yellow turning to blue which turned to black and then the flame simply… went out.

It was as if some invisible person had simply blown the flame out. And that was bad. Very bad.

“Oh, no,” I whispered. I felt like saying more, but wasn’t sure whether I was going to scream or sob. Every witch worth her pointy hat knew her superstitions and what had just happened—the candle going from roaring flame to smoking wick… it didn’t bode well.

At all.

When a candle extinguished itself during a ritual, it was a bad omen and then some—a sign evil was afoot. And added to the fact that it was now All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain, the night when the veil between the dead and the living was lifted, this was… very very bad.

A successful spell should have left me tingling with satisfaction, bull all I felt now was a cold, sinking feeling in my gut. And that could only mean one thing.

I’d thrown a hex at Wanda without meaning to.

I was on my feet, before I could consciously think about it, lunging for the light switch, desperately holding the remainder of the Regression Oil up to the light. Maybe Maverick had swapped the vial out at the last second before handing it to me? Maybe he’d somehow gotten it confused with something else? I just didn’t want to face the fact that maybe I’d done something wrong. Had I drawn the circle incorrectly? When I glanced down at it, I found the lines still bold and strong—there was no way anything unwanted would have been able to breach the sacred space. Had I used the wrong potions to anoint the candle? But, no, the Regression Oil was the same one Maverick had handed to me and the Ancient Shrines Oil was in the same purple fluted bottle it always was. Had I repeated the spell wrong? I was sure I hadn’t.

Then… it had to be the potion. Yet…

A sob won out over a scream as I realized the vial in my hand was exactly the same as the one Maverick and I had brewed, down to the tell-tale lavender shimmer. Whatever this hex was, it was something I’d brewed.

Goddess, what had I done?

I threw open my door as panicked voices chorused Wanda’s name, overlapping into a terrified swell of sound. I sprinted for the living room, arriving breathless only moments later. I couldn’t see much of Wanda at first. Poppy, Darla, and Libby were clustered around Wanda’s prone form. Only the pair of Jimmy Choos poking out from behind the couch convinced me it was Wanda on the ground. Fifi hovered nearby, holding a phone halfway to her ear, seeming confused in her fear. I could follow her thoughts—this was a Hollow and that meant she was asking herself: was this a medical emergency or was it magic?

I wished I could tell her what to do or who to call. I wished I could tell her why the spell had gone awry. But, there was no telling what I’d done or... Goddess I hated thinking it, let alone admitting it, what Maverick had tricked me into doing.

“Wanda?” I called out and when it seemed Poppy and Fifi were going to try to keep me from her, I pushed past them. “I need to see her!”

I had to know if Wanda was hurt or... or... Would Maverick have tricked me into killing her? He wouldn’t have gone that far, right? He wanted Wanda too much to kill her, right? Besides, I didn’t have the strength to carry out that kind of black magic... right?

Goddess, I could only hope I hadn’t… killed her.

Chapter Seven

Poppy moved out of my way, more from shock than anything else, I thought.

As I approached Wanda’s still form, I noticed Libby’s hands were curled around Wanda’s head. Darla stood behind Libby, looking down at Wanda with wide eyes that were quickly filling with tears.

But, it wasn’t so much Libby or Darla’s actions that struck me, it was the fact that they were still animate. That was a very good sign because I was fairly sure it meant Wanda wasn’t dead. Because Wanda’s life force powered Libby (and Darla), if something were to happen to Wanda—something that took her life, it would also end their lives. So, yes, Wanda had to still be alive. But alive and well weren’t the same thing.

Libby was pale, eyes wide, and she kept slapping Wanda’s cheek gently, trying to wake her up. Wanda’s face was paler, if possible. If not for the subtle rise and fall of her chest, she could have looked like a beautiful corpse, but not something you’d ever mistake for human.

Scalding tears ran down my cheeks as I took Wanda’s hand. She was cold to the touch, strengthening the impression that she was more vampire than witch.

“Astrid, what was in Wanda’s drink?” Poppy demanded as she clutched my shoulder and I looked up at her. “As soon as she sipped it, she dropped like a bag of potatoes.”

“It was only Libby who kept her from crashing through the coffee table,” Fifi added.

“Astrid?” Poppy repeated my name when I didn’t respond.

“I… it was a potion, meant to be her Samhain gift,” I said, my voice breaking.

“Okay, what was in the potion?”

“It was Past Lives Oil,” I started as Poppy frowned, no doubt she knew Past Lives Oil wouldn’t have this effect.

“And?”

“And Double XX Oil,” I answered on a breath.

Poppy instantly froze and her eyes widened even more than they already had been. “That’s a… a hexing potion,” she said, shock in her tone.

“Maverick swore it was safe!” I said, my voice quaking as the tears came. “He said if we mixed it with the Past Lives Oil, it would create something called Regression Oil, which would allow Wanda to witness her past lives like a movie!”

“Maverick?” Poppy questioned as I realized I’d have to explain everything leading up to this moment. So that was exactly what I did. After telling the story, something else occurred to me and I looked up at Poppy, completely confused. “But… but I made Maverick drink it himself, to prove it was safe and that it wouldn’t hurt Wanda. And he did drink it! I saw his past lives emerge—I witnessed it for myself and, afterwards, Maverick was fine.”

“Maybe because his make-up was different to Wanda’s or maybe he somehow slipped something into the vial for Wanda when you weren’t looking,” Poppy said, drumming her fingertips against her mouth.

“Yes, he could have done that,” I answered, nodding.

“I wonder if Wanda’s being a Blood Witch has anything to do with… this reaction she’s having?”

I glanced down at Wanda again and noticed her pallor was deathly white. She looked like a corpse. But, what reason would Maverick have had to…

And then it suddenly started to make sense—an ugly, horrible sense.

If Wanda was no longer a witch, Maverick would be able to challenge her claim to Haven Hollow. If she was forced into becoming a vampire fully, that meant Maverick would be able to claim sanctum for himself in Haven Hollow and open his own coven, something that had been his goal for a long time. A feeling of sick realization claimed me the more I thought about it.

Had the potion somehow forced the vampiric change on Wanda? Was it sapping the life and magic from her, leaving only the vampire half?

“I’m sorry,” I whispered through the stream of tears that poured from my eyes. “Goddess, I’m so, so sorry, Wanda. I... I’m going to fix this.”

I had to fix it, but how? I was just a baby witch, compared to Wanda, and the only person in the room who might have the first clue about how to undo this damage was lying, unmoving on the floor. Poppy knew about potions, sure, but she didn’t know about witchcraft.

“Astrid,” Poppy began in a tone I’d heard her use with Finn. It made me cringe, and the tears rolled down my cheeks even faster. “Was it just the potions you used?”

I shook my head. “I repeated an incantation, a spell.”

“A hex,” Poppy finished, nodding.

I looked up at her and swallowed hard. “A hex.”

And that was the horrible truth.

My knees ached, but I couldn’t force myself to move from my crouched position on the floor by the couch. I just… I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know who to call!

And then it hit me. I did know who to call.

“Olga!” I yelled, as everyone’s attention centered on me again. “We have to call Olga Fischer! She’ll know what to do!”

###

Thirty minutes later, Olga Fischer, her familiar Franz the raccoon, and Lorcan all stood in the living room, listening to me explain, in precise detail, everything that had happened from the moment Maverick had met me in Riverport.

During my explanation of events, Libby dumped everyone’s drinks down the drain, even after I told her only Wanda had been dosed with the potion. Of course, Libby had had several things to say about my behavior, none of them nice. If I’d been in a better mood, I might have pointed out that by her own reasoning, proper ladies didn’t use those kinds of words. I didn’t defend myself though, because I deserved every insult she flung at me.

I’d been careless. I’d been stupid and way too gullible. I should never have trusted my brother. Yes, I’d been so incredibly stupid to trust Maverick. If I had the inborn skepticism most witches possessed, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I wouldn’t still be crouching near Wanda’s head, praying she’d open her eyes.

After Olga and Lorcan arrived, we tried everything we could think of. First, we tried to deduce what other potions or additives Maverick with which Maverick could have contaminated the Regression Oil. As far as we could tell, the potion was pure—containing just the ingredients we’d brewed together.

Then, using the remainder of the Regression Oil (which wasn’t much), Poppy and Olga attempted creating a few uncrossing potions and anointing Wanda with them, which did a whole lot of nothing. Then Olga attempted at least ten different purifying, cleansing and banishing spells, which had zero effect on the comatose Wanda. Libby tried jolting Wanda awake with ice water, which was useless. Then Fifi gave her a bolt of good old-fashioned lust (a bolt which hadn’t been very strong, considering it had been a while since Fifi last fed).

But, nothing.

If this potion was designed (by Maverick) to suck away Wanda’s life force and leave her a vampire, Lorcan was the only one who’d be able to help her. And now it was pretty much looking like that was exactly what we were facing. Somehow, the Double XX and the Past Lives Oil had affected Wanda in such a way, that we were all afraid her witch half was fading.

“And it didn’t affect Maverick the same way because he doesn’t possess vampire blood,” I said as the awful truth dawned on me.

“Right,” Poppy said with a firm nod.

As I looked down at Wanda again, it hit me that the final change might have been inadvertently thrust on her. At least she had Lorcan here to guide her. He and Wanda were bound together, each able to sense the other on a level the rest of us couldn’t understand. Not only that, but Lorcan was madly in love with Wanda and if anyone would go to the ends of the earth for her, it was him.

If nothing else, Lorcan could guide Wanda’s transformation into a fully-fledged vampire if it looked like she was headed for a one-way ticket to the great beyond. It seemed unfair for her to end up this way, after how much she’d fought the change. But, vampirism was better than the nothingness that awaited Wanda in death. Tainted by vampire blood, Wanda was no longer a true witch, which meant she couldn’t move onto her next life. This time, death really was the end of the line.

“If zee doesn’t wake before zunrize, zee vill die,” Olga said in her German accent, facing each of us with a dour expression. “Vatever ist claimin’ her, it’s strong.”

“And it’s your fault!” Libby yelled at me as I cried even harder into Poppy’s shoulder.

Lorcan raised a fine golden brow at her. “Lay off the poor girl.”

He was stupidly handsome, even when his face was pinched with worry. If he hadn’t been a vampire and Wanda’s quasi-boyfriend, I might have had a crush on him.

“Yelling at Astrid isn’t going to fix this situation,” Poppy continued.

“Elizabeth, find something useful to do,” Lorcan continued. “Such as tracking down the fecking warlock behind this.”

“I will do exactly that,” Libby said as her mouth pressed into a tight line, and her pale eyes blazed with barely suppressed fury. “Where should I start?”

“Maverick isn’t allowed in Haven Hollow,” Poppy said as she looked at me. I nodded.

“We were in Riverport, but I have no idea if he’s still there.”

“I want you to walk to the town limits and see if he’s skulking somewhere just outside Haven Hollow,” Lorcan said to Libby, before Darla nearly interrupted him.

“Lorcan, if Wanda does turn fully into… a fangsy (that was her word for a vampire), what’s gonna happen to Libby and me?”

Lorcan nodded, as if he understood her concern. “Wanda completing her evolution into a vampire is not the same as permanent death, but it will wipe out her magic… and I believe you both with it.”

“Oh, no,” Darla said as Libby inhaled deeply.

“I don’t want to go back into the ground and become food for worms again,” Libby said.

“Don’t worry about that, Libby,” Poppy answered as she reached out and patted the zombie on the shoulder. “We will figure this out.”

Lorcan faced Libby and frowned. “Now bugger off for a bit.” Then he looked at Darla. “Both of you.”

Libby shifted her glare on me. It was only a half-second, but I felt her gaze on the side of my face like a hot brand. My fingers tightened around Wanda’s limp hand and a traitorous tear rolled down my cheek. My face was warm and swollen from all the crying I’d done, and that crying didn’t seem like it had an end in sight.

“Don’t let Wanda die,” Libby said before turning on one heel. A few seconds later, she was out the door in a whirl of skirts.

“She’s right,” I whispered. “This is all my fault.”

“It’s not,” Poppy started, but I shook my head as I looked up at her.

“Maverick is a warlock. And I should have known better than to trust him.”

“He ist also your brozer,” Olga said as she placed her hand on my shoulder, smiling down at me until she reminded me of some sweet grandmother… well, sweet witchly grandmother.

“It’s difficult to look objectively at the people we love,” Lorcan added.

His gaze roved over Wanda’s face as he said the words, his expression tender. Wanda would never believe it, but beneath the façade of the handsome, smarmy dentist was an absolute romantic. I couldn’t help but think Wanda would have hexed that look right off his face if she’d been awake. Or would she have? I’d noticed she’d been softening towards Lorcan lately, and softening in general. She said it was Poppy’s influence that was making her go ‘soft’ but I suspected it was more than that—it was Poppy, yes, but it was also Lorcan and Haven Hollow and me and Darla and Libby… it was all of us.

###

An hour or so later, a thick silence fell over the house as we held our vigil.

Darla and Libby had left a while ago to try to hunt Maverick down. Poppy had phoned Marty to tell him what was going on and he’d said he was happy to remain with Finn while Poppy stayed here with me. She and Olga, in an attempt to try to calm me down, had made brownies and hot chocolate.

I hadn’t touched the hot chocolate, and I’d only eaten a brownie out of obligation. It tasted like paper and congealed like glue on the way down.

“Do you think Wanda’s going to die?” I had to ask, but I was terrified of the answer.

Lorcan’s eyes shifted out of focus for a second, fixed on a point just above the mantle. His teeth worried his lower lip, and I was afraid the points of his fangs would slice through his lip, sending blood pouring down his chin. I wasn’t sure if I could deal with the sight of blood at the moment. It just… it was too reminiscent of what Wanda was going to become. I was okay with Wanda completing her vampire metamorphosis in the abstract, and I even liked Lorcan a lot, but blood… I just couldn’t handle it yet.

Thankfully, Lorcan’s fangs didn’t split his lip, and his eyes came back into focus a moment later.

“First of all, I will not allow her a true death,” he started.

“You know what I mean,” I interrupted. “Is she becoming an undead?”

He was quiet as he considered the question. “The... feel of her, for lack of a better word, is stable. She’s alive, and I believe she shall remain that way. Her conscious mind has drawn away from her body, though.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means it’s az if zee’s in a vaking dream,” Olga answered.

“But, you don’t think she’s turning… into a vampire?” I asked them both.

Lorcan shook his head. “If she were turning, her consciousness would no longer be there. She would die, just like a human dies, and her consciousness would return once she’d transitioned into the vampire.”

“So she’d die a normal death before she was reborn a vampire?” I asked.

He nodded. “Such is probably nature’s way of saving us eternal trauma.”

“Huh?”

“If you could feel your body going through the change, you would probably require decades of psychotherapy.”

“Oh.”

He nodded as he looked down at Wanda once again. “The fact that our witch is still in there is quite promising.”

“So, if she’s not going through the full change, what do you think the Regression Oil is doing to her?”

“A nightmare,” Olga answered, nodding. “I can zee the nightmare shadow upon her back.”

I couldn’t see any shadows on Wanda’s back, but I took Olga’s word for it.

Lorcan nodded as he looked up at me then. “The prick who masquerades as your brother must have merely cursed Wanda to a nightmare hellscape in order to salve his wounded pride. She did best him quite handily.”

He sounded cheerful about that fact. Any other day I might have laughed and asked Lorcan to tell me the full story about the time Wanda and Maverick had dueled, because it had happened before I’d arrived in Haven Hollow. Yet, right now, I couldn’t even summon a smile, let alone a laugh.

As to my brother, I didn’t usually possess the temperament to curse someone, but if my brother had been standing here, right in front of me, I’d have slammed him into the ground so hard, he’d feel the ache into his next life.

“You’ll stay with us, right?” I whispered to Lorcan as Poppy and Olga both looked at me with concern in their eyes.

“As long as I am able… until sunrise,” Lorcan promised.

“And zee dawn of a new day should veaken zee effectiveness of zee nightmare spell,” Olga added.

“But what if it’s not a nightmare?” I asked her, shaking my head. “What if... what if Wanda doesn’t wake up after dawn?”

Lorcan was silent, and that was answer enough.

If Wanda didn’t wake up after the dawn, she wasn’t going to wake up. Period.

Chapter Eight

I nuzzled into my pillow, groaning when a weak shaft of sunlight fell across my face.

Daylight.

I wanted to roll over, pull the drapes shut, and sleep for another six or seven hours. I was just so tired.

And then I remembered the reason why I was exhausted, and terror jolted me awake. I opened my eyes and realized I’d passed out on the couch. As I looked out the window, I found the sun in full control of the sky and my heart started to pound.

It was morning and that meant…

No! Goddess! No!

I jumped off the couch and immediately searched the living room, looking for any sign of Wanda, but she wasn’t here. Last night, we’d placed her on the couch and I’d taken the opposite side, where I’d eventually fallen asleep. And now? Now, where was she?

Because of the fact that she wasn’t here, could that mean?

No.

Could it mean? My thoughts insisted. That she’s dead?

If I were the reason for Wanda’s death…

No, it was too much to think about, too much to consider. Just… too much.

If Wanda was dead because of me, I would never forgive myself or Maverick. But, myself most of all.

I bruised my shin on the coffee table, but I didn’t care. I was on autopilot, sprinting for the hallway, heart lodged firmly in my throat. Maybe Lorcan had moved Wanda to her bedroom after I’d passed out?

Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead, oh please, please, please don’t be dead.

Lorcan was nowhere to be seen, though I suspected he’d holed up in one of the steamer trunks in the basement, so he’d be nearby if we needed him. Moving around in daylight was difficult for vampires, but not impossible.

I reached Wanda’s bedroom and my heart, already squeezed tight in my throat, tried to climb out my mouth and run screaming for the door. She wasn’t there.

Had she died during the night and Poppy had made sure to remove her body so I wouldn’t see it? Or, goddess forbid, did Wanda’s half-vampire status spontaneously turn her into one of the undead at the moment when her heart stopped beating? Had she staggered downstairs to find another steamer trunk to take shelter in?

I was half-turned toward the hallway and the door leading to the basement when I heard a soft humming from the kitchen. It was definitely a woman’s voice, and she was humming the theme to I Dream of Jeanie. She almost sounded... cheerful.

And that meant it couldn’t be Wanda.

I mean, after what I’d done, if Wanda had survived, I expected to wake up upside down and unable to unglue my toes from the ceiling. Of course, I’d never seen anyone manage that particular hex in real life, but if anyone could manage it, it would have been a pissed off Blood Witch.

Maybe it was just Libby or Darla? I could only hope it was one or the other or both of them because if Libby was still undead and Darla was still corporeal, both puttering around the house, that meant Wanda couldn’t be dead.

Libby would probably fling whatever she was cooking at me if I showed my face, but an eye full of egg yolk was worth finding out I hadn’t somehow killed Wanda, so I tiptoed to the kitchen and peered inside.

A woman with long, waist-length black hair was leaning over the microwave, squinting at the readout.

Wanda.

I breathed out a huge sigh of relief and just watched her for a few seconds, as if to be sure it really was her standing in front of me and not some hallucination caused by wishful thinking.

 There was a ‘TI-82’ readout where the numbers and defrost options should have been on the microwave. It’d come as a bit of a surprise to learn that most of Wanda’s thrift-store appliances had been repaired by the Hollow’s resident technomage, Henner Tayir, the grandson of Witch Tayir.

Magic mostly manifested in women, so Henner would never be a major magical talent. Still, he had a knack for creating and repairing technology... in new and interesting ways. Everything he made worked, after a fashion, but you never really got used to how strange those things looked.

After the night she’d had, I couldn’t blame Wanda for staring, bleary-eyed, at the readout. It was hard enough to parse when you weren’t suffering a magic hangover. Not that any of that mattered. I was just so completely relieved and happy to see her, and from the looks of it, she was okay. I figured Wanda being okay was also the reason no one else was in the house this morning—when Wanda woke up, Poppy, Olga and the others had probably returned home.

“Just type the time in seconds, remember?” I said in a mouse voice. “Probably thirty seconds to reheat a piece of pizza.”

I gestured helplessly at the cold pepperoni pizza she’d slapped onto a paper plate. The stack of pizzas that had arrived just prior to Wanda’s incident had remained untouched by the rest of the Black Cat Cocktail Club, and for good reason.

As it now stood, we’d have cold pizza for days... that is, if Wanda allowed me to stay. After what I’d done, I couldn’t blame her if she wanted to toss me out on my useless, gullible ass.

Where would I go if she kicked me out? Would I be able to stay at Poppy’s, or would all the club ladies turn their backs on me in disgust? I knew I couldn’t beg Maverick for a place to live. Aside from the fact that he was a total troll scrotum, he’d also tricked me and I’d never forgive him for that. No, I’d sooner sleep under an overpass before I asked him for help ever again.

Wanda’s head whipped up at the sound of my voice, and a scowl creased her face. I cringed away from her accusing stare. There was just… something in her eyes. Hatred maybe?

I swallowed hard as I realized she had every right to hate me. Maybe I should have crawled out the front door and hitched a ride with the first person who’d take me to Portland. That was probably a good way to get myself killed (at least according to urban legend), but staying here might accomplish the same thing. Wanda could get damn creative when someone pissed her off, and with her Blood Witch powers fouling things up... well, who knew what would happen to me?

“What,” she began, voice clipped. “Did you think you were doing, spiking my drink like that?”

I took a sudden and fierce interest in the kitchen cabinets, unable to meet her eyes. “I... I’m so sorry, Wanda,” I whispered, tears plaguing me all over again. “I wasn’t... I didn’t mean... it was supposed to be a surprise.”

“A surprise?” She shook her head and glared at me. “Well, you surprised me all right.”

“I wanted to show you how much I’ve learned and I wanted to give you the best Samhain gift I could think of… I wanted you to be proud of me.”

She planted a fist firmly on one hip and frowned at me. She was wearing a skimpy black nightie, totally inappropriate for the weather, but it looked stunning nonetheless. It was one of her newer pieces and it was slightly odd that she was wearing it now—in general, Wanda didn’t wear skimpy stuff at home. Especially when it was just the two of us.

“Poppy came over this morning and explained everything that happened, since I was clearly… out of my mind last night.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Listening to Maverick, Astrid? How could you be so… naïve?”

“I wasn’t naïve, I was stupid.”

Tears burned in the corners of my eyes and I blinked fast, trying not to let them fall. Wanda had been nothing but kind to me: she’d taken me in, and given me a roof over my head and food on my plate. She’d clothed me, sent me to school, acted the part of my mother. And this is how I’d repaid her? The fact I hadn’t meant to hex her wasn’t a good excuse. The damage was done and no amount of apologies would make it better.

“Do I... should I go?” I whispered, throat tight. “I can pack tonight. I have a little money saved up, enough that I could find a place to stay… at least for a little while.”

She continued to glare at me. “Where would you go?”

“I don’t know, but I could figure that out.”

“You should… you should return to the coven,” she said as my heart dropped down to my toes. Didn’t she know I couldn’t go back to the coven?

“The coven?”

“If you beg, I imagine Mother and Tabitha would allow you to return.” Before I could open my mouth to say anything more, she walked past me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a blinding headache and only an hour to treat it before my shop opens.”

Wanda swept past me in a swirl of something that smelled like jasmine, musk and rose, her hair slapping the side of my face as she passed. The rose overwhelmed the jasmine and musk and perfumed the air long after she’d left the room. It was a scent I hadn’t smelled in a long time. In fact, I hadn’t actually smelled it since childhood. Wanda had stopped wearing it after learning Maverick was obsessed with her—in his obsession, he’d written lurid love poems about her that listed, among other things, the rose scent of her hair.

Hmm, that was odd that she’d wear it now.

Not that it mattered. All that did matter at the moment was that I was being kicked out and… what if I was forced to return to the coven? I mean, where else would I go? There was nowhere else I could go.

Maybe to Lorcan?

My eyes burned, and I had to bite down on my bottom lip to contain a sob. Wanda was right to hate me, as she obviously now did. The potion had been Maverick’s fault, true, but trusting him for even an instant had been mine. I’d find a way to live on my own... somehow. Maybe, if I begged, I could get some of Poppy’s recipes and sell potions to passersby when I arrived in Portland?

Or maybe I could bargain for safety in faerie. I’d heard the Autumn Prince, Reynard, was a decent guy. Faerie wasn’t ideal since mortals, even long-lived ones like witches, were treated as second-class citizens. Still, it had to beat homeless shelters or, Goddess forbid, living on the street. Even considering any of this made me nauseous. I felt a little numb. Wanda was kicking me out. It didn’t seem real.

A few minutes later, Wanda re-emerged from her room and she was dressed in a slim-fitted, black pencil skirt and an emerald angora sweater. The keys to the Escalade jangled in her hand as she strode for the door, and I finally found my voice. I had to do something, say something, promise anything to make her understand how sorry I was. I couldn’t lose my newest not-quite-coven. Any punishment had to be better than losing the only family who’d have me, the only family who truly cared about me.

“Wanda, please,” I gasped, urging my wobbling legs to move faster. I felt a little zombie-like as I staggered toward her.

Her lower lip curled as she watched me hobble forward. The tears finally brimmed over, and I couldn’t see straight. I tried to launch myself at her waist, cage her in a hug, and try to convince her just how apologetic and regretful I was. I wanted to tell her how lonely these last few months had been without having any friends my age, without the coven to protect me, with my own mother turning her back on me. I wanted Wanda to understand how hard it was for me, even now, to realize that Maverick only valued me for how much I could further his plans.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything, though. With an almost contemptuous flick of her wrist, Wanda sent me sprawling. I hit the ground on my side, and the hex carried me across the floorboards at such speed, I could feel the wind against my face. The momentum carried me into the hall, where I collided painfully with the wall.

Wanda had hexed me!

It wasn’t so much the pain that brought the tears hard and fast (though colliding with the wall did hurt.) Wanda had hurt me. On purpose.

“Don’t act like you didn’t deserve this, Astrid,” she said coolly. “Pack your things and get out. I want you out of the Hollow by the end of Samhain.”

“I understand,” I whispered, ducking my head so the tears dripped onto my shirt. I couldn’t help a sob when Wanda banged out of the house, leaving the door shuddering in its frame.

I tugged my knees up to my chest and hugged them. I wasn’t sure how long it took me to cry myself out, but the sun had shifted a little by the time I found the energy to splash a little water on my face and peer out the bathroom window.

Mid-morning, at least. Maybe nine or ten?

A rap at the door made me yelp. Then my heart started beating double-time. Was Wanda back? And if so, was she here to accept my apology, or was she going to hex me again? I tiptoed to the door, hesitating before I unlocked it and reached for the knob.

But when I flung the door open, it wasn’t Wanda at all.

“Maverick!” I shrieked.

Then I went for his eyes.

Chapter Nine

Maverick caught me by the hands before I could rake his eyes out with my nails.

His superior reach put an effective kibosh on my attack, and I even ended up half-dangling from his grasp, flailing and cursing. I tried to kick him, but he twisted out of the way. Not that my bare foot would probably have made much of an impression on his abs, but it would have been something.

“Will you stop it?” he snapped after a half-minute of futile struggle.

My willpower was flagging by this point. Hanging from Maverick’s arms made my shoulders burn, and thrashing around, trying to kick his sorry butt, only made it worse.

At his words, though, I found enough energy to aim a solid kick to his family jewels.

The air went out of Maverick’s lungs in a surprised whoosh, and he collapsed onto the front lawn. The fall was somewhat cushioned by the layer of curling brown leaves that dominated the yard. Maverick clutched himself, an odd look on his face. The expression seemed torn between surprise and nausea.

“Oh, goddess,” he gasped, which was odd because he’d never once appealed to the goddess, or, at least, I didn’t think he had. “That does… hurt as much… as they say it does.”

“You have a lot of nerve coming here!” I roared at him.

Maverick raised his face and squinted at me through pained eyes. The frown on his lips looked wrong on his face, but at the same time strangely... familiar.

“Let me… explain.”

“No! No more explanations from you! I can’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth!”

“Astrid…”

“I was stupid to trust you, but I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll never trust you again! Not after what you did to Wanda!  Not after what you did to me! You’re the worst sort of… of tosser!”

I’m not sure where the word came from, other than the fact that it was one of Lorcan’s favorites. Regardless, I just went with it.

Maverick snorted a laugh and one of his eyebrows arched, even as he continued to cradle his offended member. Hmm, clearly I had good aim. Maybe I should have tried out for the soccer team.

“Tosser? Now I know you’ve been spending too much time with Lorcan.”

It was my turn to stare at him quizzically. I racked my brains, trying to remember if I’d mentioned Lorcan to Maverick at any point. I was fairly sure I hadn’t. Of course, it was technically possible that Maverick had never stopped stalking Wanda—maybe he was doing it by proxy these days, since he wasn’t allowed in the Hollow.

And that brought up another interesting point…

“Wait a second...” I started, taking a step back. “How are you even here in the first place? You aren’t allowed in Haven Hollow.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you before you kneed me in the balls,” Maverick said through clenched teeth, struggling to his feet. He still looked nauseous, and I backpedaled to the edge of the porch in case he decided to barf. “I never thought those words would come out of my mouth.”

“Answer my question!”

He stood upright and then took a deep breath, as if testing to see if his nether region was feeling normal again. I hoped it wasn’t. “I’m not who you think I am,” he started, and there was definitely a testy note in his voice now.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m not Maverick… I’m Wanda.”

I frowned at him. “Really nice try, brother asshole, but that’s not going to work.”

He shook his head and glared at me. “I’m telling you the truth, and I don’t care to get into a long argument about it because my testicles are still incredibly tender.”

“Good, I hope they shrivel up and fall off!”

“Astrid, I’m telling you the truth.” He paused and took a breath. “How else do you think I’m able to be standing here, talking to you, when you’re right, I’m not allowed to step foot into Haven Hollow.”

Hmm. He had a point there. Regardless, my head was beginning to hurt, and the hearty sobbing I’d done was only half the problem.

“I don’t understand.”

He pursed his lips, cocking one hip out in a very feminine and very familiar gesture. One hand flew to cup his hip, while the other gestured at his long, lean body with an impatient air. “That miserable excuse of a brother of yours is currently in control of my body, and I’ve been forced into his.”

Even though I wanted to hope he was telling me the truth, because then it would explain Wanda’s coldness towards me earlier, I was pretty much done blindly trusting my brother. And, as far as I was concerned, this was still my brother. “How is that possible?”

He took a deep breath. “He muddled the signals. The magic can’t detect who’s who, and it’ll probably reject us both by the end of Samhain, if we don’t sort things out before the stroke of midnight.”

I frowned. “You’re in Maverick’s body, and he’s in yours?”

“Really, Astrid, you have to follow along faster. I don’t have time to go through all of this again. Yes, I’m in the troll scrotum’s body!”

Hmm, ‘troll scrotum’ was a word shared only between Wanda and me. Then it occurred to me that this could have been just another trick.

If this is a trick, how is Maverick standing here, talking to you right now? I asked myself, but pushed the thought away when I didn’t come up with an immediate answer. “Tell me something only Wanda and I would know.”

He looked over at me. “We don’t have time for this.”

“It’s the only way I’m going to believe you.”

He looked at me and appeared put out—in a way I’d never seen Maverick appear before. It was decidedly more… Wanda. “Fine. Astrid has been feeling sad lately because some boy upset her and I’ve been going out of my mind trying to figure out if I should hex him into the Paleolithic era or if I should hex him into returning her crush.”

I felt my heart drop. I hadn’t mentioned Ethan to anyone. “How did you… know that?”

“Because for all intents and purposes, Astrid, I’m your mother now.”

The words sounded beyond strange coming from Maverick’s mouth, but I believed them all the same. In response, I ran over to her, er him, and threw my arms around her, er, him.

“Okay, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Wanda said as she divorced herself from me but then tapped me on the back the way she did whenever someone tried to hug her. Wanda and displays of affection didn’t exactly go together. “If Maverick and I don’t swap bodies before the end of Samhain, he’s got dibs on my body for an entire year!”

“Oh my Goddess.” I took a deep breath. “Then his plan was never to force the vampire change on you or to trap you in a nightmare. It was… to switch bodies with you so he could… do whatever he plans on doing.”

She nodded. “Now, first things first, where did that conniving, no-good, miserable piece of goblin shit go?”

There was only one answer, and I was sure it wasn’t the one she wanted to hear.

“I don’t know.”

###

“Wanda’s” behavior was starting to make more sense in hindsight. If I’d stopped feeling sorry for myself long enough to really watch ‘her’, I probably would have started to notice the change in ‘her’ demeanor.

Getting rid of me would have been the fastest way to pull off Maverick’s little scheme, and I’d almost fallen for it. Well, I had fallen for it, until I’d come across the real Wanda, and kneed her in the balls.

“I’m so so sorry I kicked you in your penis, Wanda,” I said, frowning because the words just sounded so… weird.

She looked over at me and frowned. “Don’t ever mention my ‘penis’ again.” Then she shook her head and mumbled to herself. “This is going to land me in therapy, I just know it.”

It was Hellcat who further convinced me that it was Wanda hiding behind my brother’s face. As her familiar, he was able to immediately detect her magic. And once he figured out it was Wanda within Maverick’s body, Hellcat had promptly burst into hysterical laughter, and hadn’t quit, much to Wanda’s chagrin. Every time we thought he’d subsided, he’d start up again.

“Oh, this is too fortuitous,” the awful cat said. “This stroke of pure jest is the work of Fate at her best.”

“Put a paw in it,” Wanda/ Maverick said, sending the cat a scathing glare.

“Going back to my previous thought about Maverick wanting to kick me out,” I started. “That’s exactly what he was trying to do.”

“Kick you out of the house?” she asked.

I nodded. “He had to know that eventually I’d see through his disguise and I’d figure out he wasn’t the real you.”

“Okay.”

“So, I think his whole plan was to get rid of me so he could lay low and escape notice all day until the clock struck midnight and Samhain was over, which would mean it would be too late to reverse the magic. And then he’d have your body for a whole year and who knows what he planned to do with it?”

She faced me and her expression hardened even further. Fury smoldered in the gray of her new eyes. “The second Maverick’s returned to his body, I’m going to kick him in the nuts! Now that I know the terrible pain, I’ll do it three times before I’m through with him!”

“How… how are we supposed to reverse the magic if we do find him?”

“There are a few spells we can try. I’m not so much worried about that part as I am the part about us finding him.”

I glanced down at the ground. “This was my fault, Wanda. I’m responsible for what happened to you.”

“Yes, you were gullible,” she started. “But, gullibility isn’t the same as evil intent. And Maverick is the one with the evil intent.”

“Bahhaha!” Hellcat started up again, looking at Wanda. “You have facial hair!”

I walked over to him, picked him up, and booted him out the front door. Then I turned back to face her. “I’m sorry I was gullible, and that I trusted him. I was… I was stupid.”

Wanda walked over and cupped my cheeks, tilting my face upward so I’d have to meet her eyes. Her hands were too big, and her eyes were the wrong color, but that look was pure Wanda.

“I forgive you, Astrid.”

Tears started to spill down my cheeks. “How come you aren’t angry with me?”

“Well, I am,” she started, in her deep voice. “On the one hand, you were incredibly naïve to trust Maverick. But, on the other... well, I made some truly boneheaded decisions when I was your age, as Mother would gleefully point out. And the magic it took to do this... well, it’s actually pretty impressive.”

“I thought the magic was mostly Maverick’s doing. He told me how to brew the potion.”

“Potions are just liquids without magic. You bespelled it, right?” I nodded as she continued. “He didn’t do the spell casting, and you didn’t even have a familiar to aid you. I don’t know any teenage witches who could manage to successfully transfer the consciousness of one person into another’s body this thoroughly. It’s difficult for seasoned witches, and most witches wouldn’t even attempt it. I think you may have a gift for mental magic.”

“So how did it go so terribly wrong?” I asked.

She nodded, as if she’d had plenty of time to figure that out. “There’s a certain level of memory still sitting in Maverick’s body,” she answered. “And I’ve been able to ascertain that when you performed the spell together on the Regression Oil, Maverick added a spell of his own—one of body usurping.”

I nodded as I remembered the specifics. “When we said the spell over the potion, we said it together.”

“Right, and Maverick added his own spell in thought, which is why you never heard it.”

“He tricked me,” I said, shaking my head. It’s not like it was so much of a surprise but now understanding just how Maverick had tricked me—the truth stung. A lot.

Wanda’s lips twisted into a gentle and almost maternal smile, which looked odd on my brother’s face. “Regardless, the magic couldn’t have completed without your power, Astrid,” she said and her expression was one of pride, strangely enough. “Red-haired witches are always precocious talents,” she continued. “Maybe it’s for the best you got away from the coven, so Tabitha and Mother stopped trying to squash your gifts.”

I sniffed and swiped at my eyes, trying to stem the fresh tears I could feel building. “Why are you complimenting me about this? This was a disaster of epic proportions. I mean, what if you get stuck in my brother’s body? You won’t be able to stay in the Hollow, Wanda. No more Wanda’s Witchery. No more town council. No more Lorcan and no more...” I trailed off as something occurred to me. “No more… vampire... You wouldn’t be a Blood Witch any longer. I mean, you’d be a warlock, and you’d look like my brother and you’d uh, you’d be a man, which I guess would make you gay since you aren’t into women—”

“Astrid.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Regardless of no longer being a Blood Witch, I can’t stay in Maverick’s body.”
She made a face. “His body feels all wrong and I don’t think I’d ever get used to this bit of flesh hanging between my legs,” she continued as she glanced down at her crotch. “It keeps getting stuck to my thigh and then it gets hot and it’s just annoying. Not to mention when these balls get sweaty—”

“Okay, okay, Wanda, I get it!” I said, shaking my head as I attempted to go to my happy place. “Please stop!”

She laughed. “Anyway, I’m not letting Maverick win. Tainted or not, that’s my body he’s stolen and I won’t let him get away with it.” She took a breath. “Not to mention what he’s probably doing with it.” Then she shuddered, and I followed suit.

“Ugh, why did you have to say that?” Wanting to change the subject pronto, I turned to another thought. “Why would he even want your body, anyway?”

“Indeed,” Hellcat said, alighting on the back of the couch after having found his way back inside. He paced forward with the measured steps of a teacher about to impart a lesson to very slow schoolchildren.

“Oh, what do you want now?” Wanda asked.

But, Hellcat’s attention was on me. “Your brother may be many things, but he is not a fool. A plan like this opens a world of opportunity to a man like Charmin Depraysie.”

“A world of opportunity? Like what?” I asked.

“I’m aware that you’re a rather dull-witted child, but do try to employ a little deductive reasoning.” When I remained quiet, he continued, seemingly more irritated. “Can you not see the benefit to possessing the form of a witch?”

My eyes flew open wide. “Oh. Oh goddess! If he’s got Wanda’s body he could...”

“Do any number of things,” Hellcat concluded. “Doors that remain closed to a warlock will swing open readily for a witch, even one with tainted blood. If Charmin can conceal the fact that he’s taken residence in a stolen body, he could even run a coven with enough time and application. Something your bone-idle cousin hasn’t the ambition to accomplish.”

“Don’t call me lazy,” Wanda snapped, reaching up to flick Hellcat on the top of the head. He hissed and tried to dig his claws into her palm.

“‘Unindustrious’, then, how is that?” he sneered. “Or ‘unenterprising’. Perhaps ‘indolent’ is preferable? ‘Otiose’? ‘Slothful’? ‘Apathetic’?”

“I’m going to hex you if you keep it up,” she responded, her Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Remember this body isn’t tainted, so I don’t have to hold back.”

Hellcat flicked his tail disdainfully. “Has it occurred to you that a support network of mature witches could have prevented this? The child is pining for community, and another seasoned witch could have spotted the effects of the hex for what they were. Honestly, if I’d been able to sample any of the drinks, I could have provided advance warning.”

I sighed, and scuffed my feet on the hardwood, not wanting to admit what I was about to. “Hellcat is right about one thing.” Wanda looked at me. “Maybe if I had other witches around, Maverick wouldn’t have had as much… appeal. I just… I missed home, and I missed… everything… I’ve grown up with. I thought seeing Maverick might bring some of those feelings back.”

“I understand,” Wanda said sadly. “I also know the feeling.”

“As touching as this saccharine exchange is, you have larger problems, my odious owner,” Hellcat interrupted.

“Larger problems?” Wanda repeated.

“I’ve come to inform you that, according to your online banking system, your account has dropped to a meager eight dollars, and the rest has been withdrawn in cash. And your website is inundated with complaints that your store has not opened for its highly anticipated Halloween sale. I’d say there’s only one conclusion we can draw.”

“Maverick’s running,” Wanda said grimly. “And he has a huge head start.”

“I would say so,” Hellcat answered.

I nodded. “He could be anywhere, by now.”

“How do we find him?” Wanda asked out loud, but she was more talking to herself, I had a feeling.

“I have an idea,” I said slowly. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“I’ll listen to anything at this point.”

So, I told her.

She did not, in fact, like it one bit.

Chapter Ten

“You never told me your cousin was such a sheik,” Darla crooned, sliding a hand along ‘Maverick’s’ jawline as she giggled and Wanda’s stubble rasped against her palm. A ‘sheik’ was an attractive man in Darla-speak. Wanda scowled and pried Darla’s hand loose.

“Darla, if you touch me one more time, I will hex you six feet into the ground.”

Wanda was wedged uncomfortably, with Hellcat on her lap, between Libby and Darla in the back of Marty’s hearse. Sitting beside Darla was Olga. Lorcan had removed his coffin, otherwise they wouldn’t have all fit.

Because Maverick had made off with Wanda’s Escalade (which had been gifted to her from Lorcan) and Lorcan’s Porsche was too small to fit all of us, we’d had no choice but to take the hearse. Marty had stayed behind with Poppy and Finn. Because we couldn’t all fit into the hearse, only those who were absolutely required to be on the trip had been included. 

We were hoping, at least theoretically, that Wanda, Hellcat and Lorcan would be able to sense where Wanda’s body (with Maverick inside it) was heading, if only to give us a starting point. And, so far so good, because we knew Maverick was bound for Riverport, having taken some of Wanda’s most expensive store items. No doubt, Maverick was looking to sell those items and then get the hell out of dodge. And all of that seemed a bit much if he was just planning on waiting out the day of Samhain, until the clock struck twelve at midnight.

No, Maverick had something… more in mind. When Wanda’s bank records indicated Maverick had purchased a plane ticket before draining most of her savings, and that plane ticket revealed he was headed for the Hollow in Texas, the true breadth of his plans came to light.

My brother had no interest in taking up a life in Haven Hollow. He wanted to go to the Hollow in Texas in order to start up a coven there, where no one knew him or Wanda.

But, back to the situation at hand. It was beyond strange to see Darla pawing at my brother’s body. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like for poor Wanda. I knew Darla had a weakness for attractive men, but my brother? My stuck-up, arrogant, deceitful brother? If she’d known him at all, she would have been turned off. Or at least, I hoped she would. I mean, I knew Darla was man-crazy, but I would hope she had better taste than that.

“Oh, temper! Temper!” Darla said and giggled again. “Look at those peepers—they’re enough ta get stuck on.” I thought she was talking about Wanda’s eyes. At least, I hoped so.

Wanda shifted uncomfortably, sinking even lower into the floor of the hearse, long legs splayed out as far as they could go.

“You do realize, you silly ectoplasmic dolt, that the so-called ‘man’ before you is none other than your useless mistress?” Hellcat demanded. Darla didn’t spare him so much as a look. Instead, she continued to make doe eyes at Wanda, who continued to glare back at her.

“I can’t say I care,” Darla responded and reached out to touch Wanda again, but Wanda slapped her hand away midair.

“Darla, I mean it. Stop touching me. It’s bad enough you and Libby won’t leave me a moment’s peace, but I seriously can’t handle you groping me.”

Darla’s full lower lip curled into a pout, but she didn’t try to stroke Wanda’s stubble again. Thank the Goddess for small mercies. 

“Besides, pawing at Wanda is my job,” Lorcan said from the passenger’s seat.

Wanda snorted. “You have yet to paw me once since my new internment.”

Lorcan’s smile evaporated and was replaced with an expression that revealed he was troubled. “I must admit, I’m not partial to your new internment, my dear. Alas, I am not and have never been inclined towards men.” Then he sighed, shaking his head. “Yet, I must admit, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I still feel a draw to you, even in your man form, and that is causing me some chagrin.”

From her reflection in the rearview mirror, I could see Wanda grinning—clearly she liked the fact that she was causing Lorcan a degree of confusion regarding his sexuality. Another second though, and Wanda was fighting Darla off again. Dear Goddess, but the once ghost was relentless.

“How much farther?” Wanda grumbled.

“We’re getting close,” Lorcan answered as he faced me and frowned. “Now, if Astrid could master the fine art of driving in a straight line, we would undoubtedly make better time.” Then he frowned at me. “I’m still wondering why we’re relying on the only student driver among us to steer this ship?”

Irritated, I flattened the brake pedal to the floor of the hearse, bringing the thing to a screeching halt on the empty highway. I hadn’t come across any other drivers on this stretch of road (we were traveling between Haven Hollow and Riverport) for a while. Most of the traffic was clustered around the towns as parents escorted their kids from house to house, trick-or-treating.

Lorcan flew forward, turning his head just in time to take the impact of the windshield on the side of his face, instead of his nose. He made an inarticulate sound of pain, and scowled at the snickers coming from the back of the hearse. Then he rubbed his smarting cheek and shot me a poisonous glare.

“Clearly, the penchant for cruel and unusual punishment is a genetic trait among all Depraysie women,” he muttered.

“Hey, take that as a lesson not to insult the driver,” I answered sweetly, accelerating slowly. “And it’s also a reminder to buckle up. I mean, I’ve only told you that like three times already.”

As to my driving skills, Lorcan wasn’t exactly wrong. I’d spent the majority of my life being ferried around by limos and luxury cars operated by professional drivers. This whole ‘driving myself’ thing was new. “And to answer your question about why I’m the one behind the wheel,” I continued. “I’m all you’ve got since Wanda needs to focus on locating Maverick and Olga doesn’t know how to drive.”

“And what of Darla or Elizabeth?” Lorcan asked.

“They’re worse drivers than I am.”

“That’s a bunch of baloney!” Darla argued as Libby just nodded, muttering, “a woman’s place is not behind the wheel of an automobile.”

Lorcan muttered darkly as I accelerated and took a turn too fast. A few more cars were on the road now as the lights of Riverport loomed in the distance. My chest felt tight at the prospect of driving in a medium-sized city. It was true that I only had my learner’s permit and so far, I’d clocked about five hours of practice. Wanda wasn’t great about teaching me how to drive.

I kept a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, narrowly avoiding the cars that pulled on and off the two-lane road, depositing costumed kids in front of every house.

“Here,” Lorcan, Darla, and Libby said at the same time, startling me so much, I slammed on the brakes again. Car horns blared behind me and my heart was pounding in my chest. “Can you all not yell at me at the same time, please?!”

We were in the middle of a crowded street, a pawn shop to our left, and what looked like a night club on the other side. Lorcan jabbed a finger at the street corner. There, Wanda aka Maverick, stood, clearly illuminated by the street lamp above.

“That slimy bastard,” Wanda muttered when she caught sight of him.

A few college-aged women stood around him, holding various pieces of clothing, each clearly examining the enchanted costumes with interest. Behind him was Wanda’s Escalade.

“He’s selling my items on the street?” Wanda asked, her mouth dropping open. “Like some common street vendor? This won’t be good for PR.”

“I believe PR should be the least of your concerns, my dear,” Lorcan started, and then furrowed his brows when he turned around to face her. “I cannot wait until you are inhabiting your true body again.”

“That makes two of us,” she answered.

My heart beat a little faster. Maverick was almost finished making the sale. If we could catch him now, there was a chance we could reverse all the damage he’d done and we could do so before midnight. The only problem? The one parking space on the street was the size of a postage stamp, and I’d wreck someone’s car if I tried to parallel park this monstrosity.

I turned to face Lorcan. “What do we do now? There’s no way I can park this boat.”

“Go,” Wanda shouted from the back of the hearse, as she transferred Hellcat to Libby, who started petting him while crooning ‘nice kitty kitty’ as he growled at her. “I can park this thing. You guys go after Maverick and once you have him secure, Olga and I can break the hex.”

“Zee child must break zee spell,” Olga said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Olga shrugged. “Just as you were zee one to cast zee spell, you must be zee one to break it.”

“What?” I nearly choked on my own concern.

“Vanda and I vill be nein help to you.”

“What she said, I guess,” Wanda said with a sigh as I wondered why we’d bothered to bring Olga in the first place if she wasn’t going to be any help. Oh, well, question to answer another time.

Lorcan nodded and looked over at Wanda. “I shall take expert care of her, you have my word.”

Wanda nodded. “The rest of us will circle back to join you. We can hem him in.”

Lorcan and I clambered out of the hearse, ignoring the chorus of car horns behind us. As soon as we were free of the vehicle, Lorcan wrapped an arm around my waist and simply vaulted over an oncoming Buick, landing nimbly on the sidewalk on the other side. He didn’t seem concerned about any humans spotting us, but then I remembered vampires could move so quickly, they couldn’t be spotted by the human eye. So, we were probably okay. Regardless, he set off at a brisk jog while I tried to extract my heart from my throat.

One of the college-aged girls standing around Maverick glanced up as we approached, her eyes fixing on Lorcan, and I swore her tongue almost lolled out of her mouth, cartoon-style. I wanted to press her mouth closed and tell her to have a little dignity. Lorcan was hot, yes, I got it, but the naked lust on her face was sort of embarrassing to witness.

Maverick glanced up from the wad of bills he was busily counting and followed the girl’s gaze, freezing when his sight landed first on Lorcan, and then on me. Lorcan gave him a sharp smile and a come-hither beckoning motion.

Maverick took one look at the approaching vampire, dropped the merchandise, and ran. He didn’t run very well, considering he was in heels and clearly not used to them. Regardless, he made a very unmanly yelp as he ducked into traffic, narrowly avoiding a Volvo making its way down the lane. I couldn’t help my slight laugh because Maverick looked like an ostrich wearing four inch heels and running at top speed.

The driver of the Volvo slammed on the brakes and rolled down his window, aiming a few choice curses and a middle finger at Maverick’s retreating back. Maverick paid him no mind, kicking off his heels in the middle of the street so he could move faster. More screeching tires and angry yells ensued as he sprinted across the other lane.

Lorcan hoisted me off the ground, wedging me like an overgrown football under one arm as he followed Maverick, who reached the other side of the street and then hobbled across the sidewalk toward the nightclub. A smear of blood stained the concrete. I was betting Maverick had stepped on a piece of glass, or worse, while he was sprinting across the street, barefoot. Poor Wanda would need a tetanus shot by the time this whole fiasco was over.

“I have a plan,” Lorcan said, shouting to be heard over the commotion the three of us had caused. “If Maverick enters the building, can you hamper him with a hex long enough to keep him from reaching the rear exit?”

“Yes,” I nodded quickly.

Even though hexes definitely weren’t my specialty, they were drawn from a deep-seated ill-will toward the target. After what Maverick had done, I could hex him into eternity without a shred of guilt.

Lorcan set me on my feet outside the nightclub and flashed me a wicked grin. The violet light of the neon sign glinted off his fangs, and for just a moment, I understood the human fascination with vampires. I had a visceral, un-witchlike desire to know what those fangs would feel like fastened on my neck. Then I was horrified to have had the thought. What in the name of Tituba was wrong with me?

“Now let’s make like the Puritans and hunt down a witch,” Lorcan said with a deep chuckle.

Chapter Eleven

The bouncer outside the nightclub was busily wiping red liquid off his cheeks with a look of genuine puzzlement.

It appeared as if someone had tossed a cherry slushy into his face and, in the process, completely thrown him off guard. Which was almost the truth. Though I’d never been a victim of it, I’d seen Maverick’s forgetfulness draught before. Usually, the potion had to be swallowed to get the most effect, but anointing the skin could have muted effects on a victim, as well.

Anointed or thrown, I figured the end result was basically the same.

Even though I felt slightly bad for the bouncer, I was glad Maverick had hexed him with the draught. I doubted the burly bald man would have let me past without checking my ID otherwise. And no bouncer was going to let a high school student into an adult-only nightclub. Sensing our opportunity, Lorcan grabbed my hand and yanked me past the line and into the nightclub.

The air inside was warm, almost sticky, and the black lights overhead gave the place an almost claustrophobic feel. Bodies were packed so tightly on the dance floor, it seemed like a miracle they could find the space to bump and grind to the whiny pop song blaring over the speakers. The noise bombarded me from every direction, and I felt the beat of the subwoofer in the bones of my face.

We made it down the shallow steps to the dance floor just in time to see Maverick squirming into the crowd of dancers, disappearing into the jostling throng within seconds.

“I am quite sure Wanda’s body is being groped mercilessly,” Lorcan muttered and didn’t seem happy about that fact at all.

“Focus on the task, Romeo.”

He turned around and gave me an arched brow in response. Then he held out a hand to me, giving me another of his toothy grins.

“Would you care to dance?”

“We don’t have time,” I started as Lorcan gripped my hand, then circled me through the crowd, twirling me until I felt dizzy. I could only curse myself for the nervous flutter of my heart.

I do not have a crush on Lorcan. I do not have a crush on Lorcan.

I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON LORCAN!

I needed to find a nice boy my age pronto, especially if vampires were starting to look so appealing. Lorcan tugged me into his chest, wrapping his arms around my waist as if he were attempting to shield me from the crowd, in case they started groping me like he was fairly sure they were doing to Wanda… er, to Wanda’s body.

The press of warm bodies was distracting. So much life and lust surrounded us that it was like breathing in thick, summer air. Wanda could have drawn in that charged energy and used it to craft potent spells. Wanda’s magical style had always skewed towards the passionate. I couldn’t do much with passion or desire. My magic resonated with the element of air. I thrived on meditation, communing with nature, and calm atmospheres. And this nightclub? Yeah, it was anything but calm. That meant I’d have to rely on my reserves.

I stepped a little closer to Lorcan, pressing one ear to his chest in an effort to muffle some of the sound pounding around me, seemingly seeping into my bones. If he’d been human, I could have used the thud of his heart as a metronome of sorts in order to ground myself.

The silence under my ear was a stark reminder of what Lorcan was—a dead man walking. His heart had stopped a long time ago, and all that lay beneath now was silence. A silence I could use, I realized with a spurt of excitement.

I focused all my attention on that void of sound, tried to imagine filling it with intention. That was truly the core of magic: intent. I tried to picture Wanda’s stolen face, her long legs, and the bloody smears her feet must have been leaving on the dance floor. And then something occurred to me, something I could use… a tripping spell that worked best on bare feet.

“Fates ensure his feet fumble, and I bid my enemy stumble,” I whispered, and thrust every ounce of hurt and frustration behind my words as I summoned up an image of Maverick and tied that image to one of Wanda. My nose tingled, and I felt like I might sneeze. Then I let the power flood out of me, sending a quick prayer to the Goddess to give me strength.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then there was a girlish shriek and a handful of people ahead of us staggered back with cries of their own. Through the gap in the crowd, I spied Wanda sprawled on the dance floor, dress hiked up to her thighs and a bloody stain on the bottom of one foot.

It was just the opening Lorcan needed. He dove through the gap, and by the time I’d wriggled through behind him, he was helping Maverick to his feet. Okay, maybe ‘helping’ was the wrong word. Instead, Lorcan had a vice grip on Maverick’s upper arm, Lorcan’s knuckles blanching white while his expression spoke of barely restrained anger.

But that wasn’t what the crowd witnessed. All the bystanders noticed was Lorcan’s gracious, sharp-toothed smile, and his genial, “That was quite a tumble you took, sweetling. Why don’t we find a table and sober up before we try something like that again?”

“Let go of me, you parasite,” Maverick hissed in Wanda’s voice, low enough that only Lorcan and I could hear him. “Or I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Lorcan interrupted, lowering his voice as the crowd resumed their less than PG dancing. “Scream?” Lorcan chuckled as he shook his head. “Good plan. Then you can explain to the lovely guard at the door what you threw in his face. That is, if Astrid doesn’t gag you with one of her socks, which I imagine sounds appealing right about now, you sodding bastard.”

“Actually, I’d rather gag you with your own intestines!” I yelled at my awful brother.

Lorcan smiled at me before returning his gaze to Maverick. “Now, you’re going to march your sexy, little borrowed arse right back out the door like a good little warlock, and then you’re going to return this body to its rightful owner.”

Maverick’s gaze flicked to me, and he swallowed convulsively. I could have sworn he looked a little guilty. But, as soon as the thought entered my mind, I rejected it. Maverick ddin’t feel guilty because he wasn’t capable of feeling guilty.

Maverick’s jaw flexed, and he turned a glare on Lorcan as the vampire led us off the dance floor.

“Wanda doesn’t deserve this body.”

“Oh?” Lorcan asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes!” Maverick hissed. “She wastes her time in that miserable little Hollow selling pretty dresses to mortal women who will never appreciate her true talent. Wanda has enough power to be High Witch, and yet, she pisses it away on you, an undead, and that damned shop, not to mention she’s befriended a gypsy! She’s a disgrace.”

“You’re the disgrace!” I yelled up at him, surprised by my own anger.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Astrid,” Maverick responded between tight lips.

“You didn’t give two shits what happened to me,” I nearly interrupted him. “All you cared about and all you care about is yourself!”

Maverick couldn’t argue that, so he didn’t even try.

Lorcan steered Maverick to a stop in one of the shadowy alcoves near the back of the club. The booth was a little sticky when I sat down, but Lorcan didn’t bother sitting. Instead, he backed Maverick against the table with another sharp smile. Maverick braced himself against the wood, straining away from Lorcan. One step forward, and they’d be chest to chest.

“By the time you drag me back to Haven Hollow and brew the anti-potion, it will be too late,” Maverick laughed right in Lorcan’s face. “This body and the power that comes with it will belong to me for another year, at least.”

Lorcan’s smile grew, fangs flashing in the shifting lights, and his expression was terrifying when the neon red washed across his face. He ran a gentle finger over Maverick’s cheek, down his throat, pausing above the throbbing pulse in his neck.

“Oh, you may be in possession of Wanda’s body now, but you won’t have her powers.”

Maverick frowned up at him as if to say he wasn’t following. Neither was I, for that matter.

“You see,” Lorcan continued. “If you don’t return Wanda’s body posthaste, I am going to finish what I started months ago.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Maverick demanded.

“It means I will rip into that pretty throat of yours and drink my fill of you, just as I’ve wanted to do at least a thousand times. Once I drink my fill of you, you’ll simply... fall asleep and in three days, you’ll awake with fangs.” Then Lorcan sighed. “No magic, though, I’m afraid. Magic, most unfortunately, doesn’t survive the transformation from witch to vampire.”

Maverick’s eyes were huge, and his borrowed face went pale. He looked like he might be sick.

“You wouldn’t do that to her. She’d hate you for it.”

Lorcan cocked his head to the side, as though he were pondering Maverick’s statement. But, I knew better—Lorcan wasn’t pondering anything. He was merely playing with Maverick—like a cat plays with a mouse before the final deadly blow. “Perhaps you’re right—perhaps turning Wanda’s body would mean the end for us, I don’t know. Of one thing I am quite certain though… Wanda would rather see her body undead than under your control.”

Lorcan stroked a hand over the sleek fall of Wanda’s hair, brushing it away from one side of her neck. Maverick whimpered a ‘no’ and I almost felt bad for him when Lorcan placed a chaste kiss on the pale column of Wanda’s throat.

“This won’t hurt... much.”

Then Lorcan bared his fangs, which grew as we watched them. When he went in for the bite, Maverick shrieked as he jerked away, just as Lorcan planned.

“No!” Maverick yelled, pushing at Lorcan’s chest as the vampire allowed him a foot or so of personal space. “I’ll give Wanda’s body back!” Maverick continued. “Just… just don’t bite me. I can’t… I can’t become a vampire. I won’t. ”

Lorcan lingered above Wanda’s jugular vein a second longer than he had to, taunting Maverick, who continued to shake his head and writhe underneath Lorcan’s iron hold. A second or so later, Lorcan drew back and smiled angelically at the pair of us.

“Excellent. Now it’s time for a little, old-fashioned body swap.” He smiled at me before returning his attention to Maverick. “What say you?”

###

“Next time you’re feeling homesick, do me a favor,” Wanda started, adjusting the cold compress on her forehead. “Just ask me to drive past the Crescent Circle Manor so you can see for yourself just how truly miserable those witches are.” She sighed as she shook her head. “But, no more potions or surprises.”

I knelt at the foot of the couch, mid-way through knitting a row of angora wool. After what I’d put her through, I owed Wanda another sweater—maybe four. And that might be exactly the thing that happened, since I was on house arrest for the foreseeable future. Not that I minded at all—just the fact that I still had a house—that meant everything to me.

“I promise I won’t ever do anything like this again, Wanda,” I insisted. “I’m so… sorry.”

“Ugh, will you stop apologizing? You’ve said ‘sorry’ so many times, the word has completely lost its meaning,” she answered, tugging her sleep mask down to cover her eyes.

The lapse into unconsciousness hadn’t lasted long the second time around, but it had still left her with a wicked magic hangover. She’d be spending the rest of Samhain on the couch, trying not to throw up. No apple picking, costumes, or campfires for Wanda this year. Meanwhile, Poppy, Libby and Darla ‘checked’ Finn’s Halloween candy, picking out a few choice morsels for themselves, before handing the pail back to the little guy.

“She’s right, you know,” Lorcan said, weaving around a lounging Hellcat who was literally right in the middle of everyone and, as such, completely in the way. Not that I was surprised.

“She’s right about what?” I asked.

“You have to stop apologizing,” he answered with a quick nod. “We are well aware you didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

I nodded but didn’t say anything because I was still overcome with regret and guilt. I didn’t imagine either feeling would subside anytime soon.

“Wanda, we really should let you rest,” Poppy said, looking at Wanda with a mixture of care and concern.

“Nonsense,” Wanda waved her away with an unconcerned hand. “Samhain is a time for festivity and family. And you all are providing both.” Then she waved her hand in the air again. “Continue with your festivities.” Then she lowered one side of her sleep mask and eyed the youngest one of us. “Finn, be sure to bring your aunty at least six Butterfingers.”

Aunty? I didn’t know what to say about that, so I didn’t say anything at all. Finn, for his part, dutifully obeyed Wanda and carried his Halloween candy over to her, divorcing himself from his Butterfingers.

At the sound of a high-pitched hissing, Lorcan disappeared into the kitchen and when he returned, he was carrying a steaming mug. He faced Wanda where she was happily munching on her Halloween score.

“Here’s your ginger tea, my pet.”

Wanda sat up with a groan and groped blindly for the tea, sighing in satisfaction when she took the saucer and tipped the steaming contents into her mouth.

“I think I love you,” she grumbled.

Lorcan’s grin could have lit the room and I suddenly hoped one day she’d say the same words to him, only in a more… meaningful sort of way. “Hmm, she’s worse off than I thought.”

“Worse off?” I asked, looking up at him.

He chuckled as he answered. “When is she ever this saccharine?”

Wanda made a noncommittal sound and downed her tea, flopping back to the couch when she’d finished. Lorcan pried the saucer gingerly from her hand. I couldn’t say she was acting especially saccharine, but opted not to point that out.

“Would you have actually done it?” I asked instead, facing Lorcan with interest.

“Done it?”

“Would you have turned Wanda fully if Maverick remained inside her body?” I took a breath. “You were kind of terrifying back in that club.”

“What is she talking about?” Wanda demanded.

“Astrid is referring to the fact that I am a most noble thespian,” Lorcan responded with a conspiratorial wink.

“So you were… just acting?” I asked, somewhat amazed and also somewhat suspicious.

His smile was sly. “The world may never know.”

I shivered, deciding to think twice before ever pissing off my vampire uncle figure. At least the scene in the club had done one thing for me—it had killed whatever burgeoning crush I might have had on the vampire, flattened by a heavy dose of reality. And that dose of reality looked something like the fact that Lorcan was a vampire, and one day soon, he might fully blood Wanda, by accident or design.

Lorcan pretended not to notice my apprehension and leaned over my shoulder. “What are you making?”

“It’ll be a sweater, eventually.”

“I was not aware you could knit.”

I shrugged. “Sweaters are sort of my specialty. I’m not as good at enchanting clothes as Wanda is, but I try.”

Lorcan studied the yarn in my lap with what looked like genuine curiosity—sort of like the way a cat spies a moving piece of string. “And what’s this one enchanted to do?”

“If I followed Poppy’s instructions correctly, it should protect Wanda from anyone intending her harm.” It was going to be my substitute Samhain gift for Wanda since the first one had exploded in my face. I took a deep breath, realizing I needed to further explain. “I never want a repeat of this Maverick fiasco.”

“Amen,” Lorcan said.

When I dared a glance at Wanda, she was peeking from beneath her eye mask, a smile playing on her lips.

“We still have one issue we haven’t discussed.”

“What’s that?” I asked, concerned.

“That jerk who upset you,” she answered.

“Some jerk upset you?” Finn asked as he faced me.

I smiled at him and shook my head. “I’m not upset, Finn,” I answered. Poppy, meanwhile, grabbed his attention as she pretended to steal something out of his bag of goodies and he immediately set to protecting it.

I hadn’t even realized, until that exact moment, that I was over the whole Ethan situation. With everything that had happened, Ethan was the last thing on my mind.

“I was thinking we have a few options open to us,” Wanda continued with a shrug. “We could hex him into becoming some awful creature—perhaps a tadpole. Or we could ensnare him in one of those crypts in the graveyard. Or, and this is my personal favorite, we could lock him up with Darla and Libby for the next, oh, week and allow them to drive him to complete insanity.”

I laughed as I faced her and then took a deep breath. “Actually, we don’t have to do anything about him.”

“We don’t?” she asked and seemed surprised as well as disappointed.

“I’m kind of… I’m pretty much over Ethan, actually.”

“Oh,” she said, and this time she definitely sounded disappointed. “Are you sure? He could provide us with a great opportunity to practice your witchcraft.”

“I’m sure,” I answered on a laugh.

“Listen to you… speaking about hexing the humans,” Lorcan said, laughing at Wanda. “How you managed to elect yourself a seat on the council, I’ll never know,” he continued. “But I can only imagine Roy’s reaction were he to hear you now.”

“Well, good thing for him, he isn’t here,” she responded.

The two of them just smiled at each other for another few seconds before it got uncomfortable and I cleared my throat.

Lorcan seemed to remember himself and cleared his throat, before he faced Wanda again and this time, he was all business. “I believe… we are forgetting something, Wanda dear?” Lorcan said as he motioned to the hallway.

“That’s right,” Wanda said while she sat up and smiled at me. “The Great Pumpkin dropped something off for you, Astrid. I believe it’s in the hallway.”

I looked at her and frowned. “The Great Pumpkin? Isn’t that from a Charlie Brown cartoon?”

Lorcan chuckled. “In attempting to invest herself in the Halloween traditions of the mundanes, I believe our highly esteemed Blood Witch has quite confused Charlie Brown with Santa Claus.”

“Oh, put a stake in it,” Wanda grumbled. “I’m not confused.” Then she faced me. “Regardless, your Samhain gift is waiting for you in the hall.”

I immediately ran over to it and noticing the orange and black shiny paper and the glittery black organza bow, I tore into it with excitement.

“No way!” Finn called from across the room as soon as I had the box out of its wrapping. “A PS4?”

Surprised, I looked over at Wanda, who shrugged. “Since you’re grounded until you’re twenty-one, I figured I should give you something to do.”

While I hoped I wasn’t really grounded for the next four years, I had to admit I was really excited about the PS4. “Thank you, Wanda,” I started.

She put her face mask back over her eyes. “Thank Lorcan too—it was from both of us.”

“Happy Samhain, my dear,” Lorcan said as I walked over and gave him a hug. I followed suit with Wanda, who simply tapped me on the back.

“Astrid!” Finn called out as he appeared beside me, his Halloween candy forgotten for the moment. “There’s this game called ‘Red Dead Redemption’ and it’s this shooter, western game that all the kids are talking about at school. Can we play it?”

“Sure, we can play it.”

“And there’s also Jurassic World and my friend, Jonah, says it’s really good.”

“Okay, we can play that one too,” I answered as Finn beamed.

“Finn, leave poor Astrid alone,” Poppy said on a laugh as she gripped her son by the hand, no doubt trying to give me some breathing space. “We need to think about heading home anyway, because you’ve got school tomorrow.”

“Mom,” he argued, just like I knew he would. “It’s Halloween.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a science test tomorrow.”

“Can I at least have a piece of pizza?” Finn continued, finding whatever excuse he could so he wouldn’t have to go home and get to bed. I’d spent enough time babysitting him to know all his tricks.

“Pizza and then bed!” Poppy responded, her voice sounding further away as she escorted Finn into the kitchen.

Wanda looked over at me then. “I’m proud of you, you know?”

“You are?” I asked, clearly surprised.

She nodded. “That wasn’t elementary magic, Astrid. You’re definitely advancing in your potions and your witchcraft, though your driving…”

“Clearly you have not spent enough time with her on the road,” Lorcan admonished, shaking his head. “Her driving is really quite atrocious.”

“Atrocious?” I repeated, glaring at him as I plopped my hands on my hips like I’d seen Wanda do a million times. “Come on, that’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

They both turned to look at me and answered ‘no’ in unison.

“If you think I’ve done such a bad job, why don’t you teach her?” Wanda fired the words right back at him.

Lorcan looked at me. “I would be honored.”

“Thank Hecuba,” Wanda muttered as she faced me again. “Anyway, aside from everything going to hell in a Prada handbag, I’m still proud of you, Astrid.”

Heat crept into my cheeks, and I had to look down so she wouldn’t see how shiny my eyes were. Witches weren’t supposed to cry this much, dang it.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “And thank you for not kicking me out.”

Wanda’s smile grew and she let the mask fall back into place. “It wouldn’t be home without you,” she answered as she faced Lorcan, who wore a hopeful expression. “And you too, you big undead penis-head.”

The End

Poppy returns in:

Mystic Veil

Haven Hollow #11

by J.R. Rain and H.P. Mallory

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Also available:

Mother, wife, private instigator...vampire!

The first book in Amazon’s #1 bestselling vampire series:

Moon Dance

Vampire for Hire #1

by J.R. Rain

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The Mermaid Next Door

Midlife Mermaid #1

by J.R. Rain

and H.P. Mallory

Being a mermaid isn’t all it’s cracked up to be...

In the underwater kingdom of Corsica, mermaids are the property of mermen. We’re considered valuable as breeders until we reach our mid-thirties, at which time we’re deemed no longer useful.

Good thing for me I’m forty, never had any children and I’m a widow. So, I can basically live my life as I see fit.

Until my husband’s younger brother, Cullen, decides to make me his wife… one of seven.

Cullen has a mean streak a mile wide and he’s always been obsessed with me—ever since we were young. Now that his older brother is out of the way, he recognizes his chance to finally possess me.

Only I’m the type of woman who won’t accept my fate so easily. No, I’m a fighter by nature so when it’s decreed that I should marry Cullen, I do the only thing I can do.

I escape. To the land.

Once I reach the shore, I’m facing a whole new and terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Luckily I’ve got the Siren’s Song which encourages humans to do whatever I want them to.

Except my song doesn’t work on one human male in particular, Sawyer Ray.

And Sawyer just happens to be the one man I need, because I’m fairly certain someone has come after me…

The Mermaid Next Door

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Also Available in Paranormal Women’s Fiction:

Afraid of the Dark

Midlife Spirits #1

by H.P. Mallory

Do you believe in love after death? I didn’t, until now…

Looking for a fresh start, I just became the proud owner of a piece of New Orleans history: an Antebellum-era two-story house in the Garden District.

It’s going to take time and a fat wallet to restore the fixer-upper to its former glory, but after my recent divorce, I could use the distraction. And a stiff drink, but that’s another story…

It’s not long before I discover I’ve moved into the haunted house of the flirtatious and very much dead Drake Montague. Now I’m receiving kisses from unseen lips and caresses from ghostly hands. Soon I even begin to have vivid dreams, bringing me face-to-face with the incomparably handsome ghost of a 20th-century French policeman.

Meanwhile, I’m also growing closer to my general contractor, Ryan Kelly—who is as charming as he is alive.

The chill in the air could only suggest Drake’s jealousy from beyond the grave... men, right?

Even though I’m definitely attracted to and interested in Ryan, I also can’t get Drake out of my dreams or my heart as I begin to uncover the frightening truth behind his death a century ago.

*Previously published as the Peyton Clark Series

Afraid of the Dark

is available at:

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Also Available in Epic Fantasy Romance:

Better Off Dead

Lily Harper Series #1

by H.P. Mallory

If there’s such a thing as luck, I definitely don’t have it.

Killed in a car accident before it’s my time to go. I just learned that the hereafter isn’t exactly what I hoped it might be.

First, there’s AfterLife Enterprises…

Learning my death was indirectly their fault, Afterlife Enterprises offers me the chance to live again, but beware of the fine print. Fine print = becoming a soul retriever. And, no, that’s not a new dog breed.

I’ll now be venturing into the bowels of the Underground City (think hell) to retrieve souls that were mistakenly sent there during a Y2K glitch. Seriously.

Second, there’s angel Bill…

As if risking my second life in the Underground City wasn’t enough, my guide is none other than my incompetent, alcoholic, womanizing guardian angel, Bill.

My future isn’t looking bright.

Finally, there’s the legendary bladesmith, Tallis Black...

As Scottish as his kilts and heavy brogue, Tallis Black is a centuries-old Celt who, for reasons only known to him, offers to train me and act as my escort into the depths of the Underground City. Dark, brooding and definitely dangerous, I know I shouldn’t trust Tallis, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Between soul retrieving in hell, dealing with Bill, and trying to figure out what’s in it for Tallis, I’m wondering if maybe I would’ve just been better off dead.

Better off Dead

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Also Available in SciFi Romance:

The Viking King

Virtual Escapes #1

by H.P. Mallory

In the world of Valhalla, anything goes; raping, pillaging, killing—you name it. I can feel pain here as easily as I can in the real world, but I can also feel pleasure. And no one offers the promise of pleasure more than the Viking King, Boden.

As the top detective in my small Alaskan town, I’ve seen my fair share of cases.

But when a distraught widow insists a gaming company killed her husband, I find myself in new territory—virtual reality Viking territory.

It’s here I meet the Viking King, Boden. King Boden is every woman’s dream with his immense height and build, long black hair, and piercing blue gaze. King Boden promises days and nights filled with passion and carnal desire.

But, I’m not here for fun—I’m here to find a killer.

Yet, there’s something about the Viking King that’s getting under my skin—maybe because he’s the spitting image of my boss, whom I’ve had a crush on for years? Or perhaps it’s because the king is as intrigued with me as I am with him?

Whatever the reason, I’m now caught in a web of secrets and lies in a world I never knew existed. A world I could swear is real.

Braving treacherous quests and dangerous computer-generated characters is only half the battle as I try to figure out whodunnit. The more significant battle, though, is proving to be King Boden.

He’s the ultimate temptation, and though I’ve promised myself I won’t drop my walls, I can already feel them starting to fall.

*Previously published as the NuLife Series

The Viking King

is available at:

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About J.R. Rain:

J.R. Rain is the international bestselling author of over seventy novels, including his popular Samantha Moon and Jim Knighthorse series. His books are published in five languages in twelve countries, and he has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.

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About H.P. Mallory:

H.P. Mallory is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She writes paranormal fiction, heavy on the romance! H.P. lives in Southern California with her son and a cranky cat.

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THE END

We hope you enjoyed Hallow’s Eve novella!

Did you know that all the Remarkable Remedies stories are based on superstitions, some of which still exist today?

If you’d like to learn more about the superstitions regarding candles burning themselves out during rituals, then read on!

Remarkable Remedies: The Superstitions Behind The Stories

Lighted Candles and Evil Spirits

Candles have long been associated with spiritualism.

A candle going out during a ceremony was said to indicate the presence of a malign spirit, especially on All Hallow’s Eve, when evil spirits were thought to roam freely.

Candles for All Hallow’s Eve were traditionally lit by villagers just before midnight and carried through fields and common lands. If the flames guttered and the candles died out, evil was afoot. If the candle kept burning, it was believed the villagers had escaped a haunting.

Later, a candle was customarily placed at the bedside of the sick to keep demons at bay and if it burned blue, it was taken to mean that a ghost had entered the room, perhaps to escort the soul of the dying person to the beyond. If the candle went out for no reason, it was considered a sign that the patient would soon pass away.

In the United States, it is considered unlucky to leave a burning candle unattended in a room, some saying doing so invites the death of a friend or relative.

(All Remarkable Remedy Superstitions can be found in the book, Black Cats & Evil Eyes, A Book of Old Fashioned Superstitions by Chloe Rhodes)