“I am hardly titillating myself, you vexing peasant.” Then he looked around at the white powder mess, before leveling me with a cross expression. “Another night of debauchery! You’ll be heaping more shame and ignominy on your poor, benighted family if you don’t mend your ways.”

  I aimed an accusing finger at him, about to let loose my own diatribe, when something occurred to me. “You! You’re the one who’s responsible for this mess!” The more I considered it, the more sense it made. “You’re the only one who’d be able to get past my wards because my magic is your magic and vice-versa! And those footprints in the talcum powder are so small, they could only be made by something your size!” My heart started thundering at the reality of his deception. “You little, mangy rodent!”

  Hellcat gave me a deadpan expression. “Why would I bother myself with this?”

  “Because… because…” I was searching for a plausible explanation. “Because you’ve been working for Mother all this time and you’re trying to scare me into agreeing to let her buy us that house in Tacoma.”

  “Working for her?” he drawled. “You must have truly frazzled that brain of yours which was already substandard to begin with. And as to the abode in Tacoma, I had given up hope of living there a long time ago.”

  He dipped his eyes down to my feet and dragged them back to my face as he scowled. Then he went back to licking himself.

  “You did this to sabotage me!” I roared.

  He faux-yawned. “And explain to me why and how I would attempt to sabotage you?”

  “You dropped my potion powder all over the place, then trooped your pawprints through the store and scratched up my floors in order to scare me and hopefully drive me out of business!” I continued, even though I wasn’t entirely sure how Hellcat would have accomplished all of that without magic. And had he used his magic, I would have known because our magic was bonded, so I would have felt it.

  “And, how pray tell, do you imagine I carried the jar of white powder to thrust it upon the floor when I lack opposable thumbs?”

  “The jar was knocked over from the shelf, not carried anywhere, you little tyrant!”

  He regarded me with a cat frown.

  “You have truly lost your wits.”

  “You’d like to think I’ve lost my wits!”

  “Tell me this, you twit, why would I threaten the financial health of this establishment when you buy all my tins of Fancy Feast with the proceeds from this store?” He went back to licking himself obscenely. “Those spirits you drink have rotted what small amount of intellect you used to possess.”

  “Your ties to Mother are stronger than your ties to Fancy Feast.”

  He looked up at me and cocked his stupid, little head to the side. “While such is a close tie, I must admit the words you speak are true.”

  “What has Mother upped the ante to now, hmm? A fully paid house and all the money I can spend for the rest of my life? But, in return I have to go back to living under her thumb? Isn’t that the deal she wants me to take?”

  “You really are grasping at straws. I have no need to sabotage your childish popsicle stand. Very soon, your own ineptitude will force you to accept your mother’s generous offer. Then we can both live in peace… far away from this hole in the ground.”

  He shook his foot and stood up. He almost walked away, but I wasn’t going to let him off so soon. “Swear you had nothing to do with this then! Swear on Mother’s name and her honor!”

  “I am a familiar, Wandellmellia,” he droned. “I do not….”

  “Swear it!” I thundered, “or by Hecuba, I’ll hex you out of your remaining seven lives!” (Hellcat had already mistakenly used up two of those lives—one instance when he was at the wrong place at the wrong time during a lightning storm. The other instance involved a trash truck. That one wasn’t pretty). “I have no room in my life for a familiar who works against me. If you really took no part in this destruction, you’ll swear as much right now.”

  He sneezed.

  It sounded funny coming out of his tiny black nose. “If such is the only token that will placate your raving mind, then I shall swear.” He put his nose in the air as he sat very still and tried to raise his paw to his heart but couldn’t quite manage. “I swear on the name and honor of Celestine Depraysie, that most excellent and worthy of witches, that I took no part in and have no extenuating knowledge of the origins or machinations of this scandalous affair.” He dropped down to all fours and glared up at me. “There. Are you satisfied now?”

  He then hopped off the worktable, and stalked down the hall, disappearing somewhere. I didn’t care where as long as he got himself good and gone. But, all the while, my mind was stuck on one subject: if Hellcat hadn’t done this, then who had?

  I went back to staring at the white powder all over the floor. It looked like someone had tried to write in the powder, as well as the scratch marks on the floor. Still, I couldn’t make out anything legible. Whoever this person or creature was, they had tiny feet as evidenced by the small footprints, which actually looked more like pawprints. And they had enough magic to break through my wards.

  Loud knocking suddenly startled me out of my thoughts.

  I turned around to see Poppy banging on the locked front door. She held up a basket full of my weekly potions order. Giving me her brightest dental commercial smile and an excited wave, I started for the front door. As soon as I opened it, she glanced down and her smile went away as soon as she saw the white mess on my floor.

  “Goodness! What the heck is going on, Wanda?” she exclaimed. “It looks like you had a flour explosion in here!”

  “This is the work of my mysterious night visitor.” I pointed to the prints in the powder on a sigh. “They look more like miniature handprints than footprints, though.”

  “Like someone was walking on their hands?” she asked as she kneeled down to inspect them.

  “Yeah, but what could walk on its hands like that?”

  She scowled at the small shapes in the sea of white powder. “They kind of look like raccoon prints.”

  “Hmm,” I said, because she had a point.

  She stood up again. “A raccoon broke into our house in Silver Lake before we moved to Haven Hollow. It left prints exactly like those except these were in blueberry jam.”

  “And you just leave blueberry jam all over your floor?”

  She laughed. “No, silly, the raccoon broke into the fridge and dropped the jar on the floor.”

  “Hmm, that sounds preposterous as well as improbable but moving along… let’s say for the sake of argument that this was a raccoon, how would it get in?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe it was already in—and living in the attic or something?”

  “Doubtful.”

  “Regardless, raccoons are usually harmless although they do carry rabies sometimes.”

  “I really don’t think,” I started but she interrupted.

  “If you’re worried about it, we can get one of Louisa’s werewolf kids to track the thing down.”

  “Poppy, it’s not a raccoon!”

  “How do you know?” she asked as she glanced down at the strange prints again. “It looks like a raccoon.”

  “Because I don’t know of any raccoons who make messes and then try to write messages in the messes.” I pointed toward the confusing letters, if that’s what they were.

  Poppy bit back a grin. “Okay, good point. Then it can’t be a raccoon. So… what do you think it was?”

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you.” I waved toward Henner’s security system which still sat atop my desk. “I don’t know why I paid so much for that thing when it obviously didn’t do a damned bit of good.”

  “What is that?”

  “A video security system ala Henner Tayir.”

  “Oh, neat,” she said as she sidestepped the white powder mess and started for the contraption. “Did you check the footage?”

  “Well, no… I mean… I figured it would… I don’t know… alert me.” I waved my hand in the air. “But, it never alerted me to anything.”

  She frowned up at me. “Um, I’m fairly sure it’s not supposed to alert you, Wanda. Did Henner say it would?”

  “Well, no…”

  She laughed. “I bet the answer to your conundrum is on the footage.”

  I glared first at her and then at the device. I didn’t want to admit she was right and, furthermore, I felt stupid. During the very long time that Henner had explained to me how to use the silly thing, I wasn’t paying much attention.

  She crossed to the thing and pulled out the power knob on the front panel. The soap opera came on even though it wasn’t daytime soap opera time yet. Remembering some of Henner’s instructions, I flipped the toggle the opposite way and started changing channels.

  Each one revealed a different feed of video from different locations around the store. I found the one for the front of the store and clicked to that channel. Then I rewound it as far back as I could and watched for a bit. Fast-forwarded it and… there was nothing.

  Feeling newly vindicated, I crossed my arms against my chest. “You see? It’s useless. The security system didn’t show anyone breaking into the store, much less making this mess.”

  Poppy nodded as she furrowed her eyebrows at the contraption. “Then your thief must possess magic.”

  “Magic?”

  “Well, how else would you explain the fact that it escaped your ward protections and left no trace on the footage? It must have been using an invisibility charm.”

  I frowned and rubbed my chin. “I just figured Henner’s contraption didn’t work.”

  “Henner’s contraptions always work.”

  She had a point there. “Magic huh?”

  “It’s the only answer that makes any sense to me.”

  I nodded. “Even with magic, my wards still should have stopped anyone from getting in.”

  Just then, the bells above the front door jangled again. I turned around and kicked myself for forgetting to relock the door after I let Poppy in. Someone else was now walking into the store and I groaned out loud when I saw that it was Ronda, Bridezilla Gemma’s maid-of-honor.

  Her smile was almost as sickeningly sweet as Poppy’s. And while I could forgive Poppy for her constant happiness, she was the only one.

  “Hi, Wanda! How are you?” Ronda started as I gave her a quick smile. “I just wanted to stop by and give you this…” she started and then nearly stepped into the mess of white potion powder but quickly lifted her foot. “What happened?”

  “A little potion mess,” I answered with a shrug, hoping it appeared casual.

  Ronda nodded and faced me again, extending her hand. “Anyway, we wanted to give you this as a token of our gratitude for all your hard work getting Gemma’s dress done in time for the wedding.”

  She handed me an embossed envelope in a stiff, milk-white card. Fancy italics on the front read, Gemma & Winston in gold leaf.

  “Oh, is it an invitation to the wedding?” Poppy asked.

  I didn’t want to open it, but with Poppy looking like a pagan in front of a Yule log, what choice did I have? I opened the letter, and slipped the invitation to the wedding out of the envelope. It was every bit as smarmy and cringe-worthy as the envelope.

  “I really appreciate the gesture, Ronda,” I lied, “but I don’t even know Gemma and Winston. Furthermore, I was just… doing the job Gemma paid me for.” Part of me wanted to ask her if Gemma was aware Ronda had just invited me. I mean… it seemed incredibly odd that Gemma would want me at her wedding, considering we both could barely stand each other.

  “We are all so grateful to you for your patience,” Ronda chirped, her smile broad. “And my mother insisted that I hand deliver the invitation to you just to show you how much we appreciate everything you did for Gemma.”

  Hmm, I hadn’t said one word to Ronda’s mother, which made her insisting on this invitation all the more odd. Regardless, I needed to find a way to get out of actually having to go, because that was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. “I’m sure Gemma and Winston don’t want strangers at their wedding.”

  “You’re hardly a stranger… and feel free to bring a guest, like it says at the bottom.” She pointed to the invitation’s lower half.

  “Oh, Wanda, you should ask Lorcan!” Poppy piped up, grinning like a schoolgirl. I half wanted to smack her upside the head with the invitation.

  “We can’t wait to see you there and Mother wanted me to tell you just how much she does hope you’ll attend. If anyone deserves to see Gemma in her amazing gown, you do.”

  Without waiting for me to say ‘hell no, I won’t go,’ Ronda turned around and sailed out of the store with another cheery wave.

  “Well, that was so nice, Wanda! You must have really made Gemma a lovely dress,” Poppy said as soon as the bell above the door announced Ronda had left for good.

  I threw the invitation on the counter. “That’s what’s so weird. I basically threatened Gemma not to piss me off and now she’s inviting me to the wedding? Actually, I’m not even sure she knows she’s inviting me to the wedding. The strangest part of all is that the invitation seemed to be at Ronda’s mother’s behest.”

  “Well, clearly everyone thought you did a great job.” Then she gave me a chiding smile. “Don’t look every gift horse in the mouth, Wanda. Sometimes you’ll find that people do nice things because they appreciate the nice things you do for them.”

  “I wouldn’t have described Ronda’s mother as ‘nice’”

  Poppy studied me for a moment. “Aren’t you even remotely curious to see how the wedding goes?”

  “I mean… I guess so?”

  The truth was, I was slightly curious. I was curious to see what Winston was like, whether Gemma threw a fit over something or another and how over the top the wedding would be.

  “I think you should go and I think you should take Lorcan.”

  I gave her a look. “Maybe I should take you instead since you keep forcing the subject.”

  She laughed as I further considered it. “I could pretend you were my lesbian partner—I’m sure that would make the whole lot of them wish they’d never invited me.” I didn’t imagine Gemma and company were very open-minded when it came to that sort of thing.

  “I think you should take Lorcan,” Poppy answered and looked a little nervous, as if she were concerned I was going to force her to play the part of my lesbian lover.

  “Fine. You talked me into going.”

  “And… you plan to take Lorcan?”

  I decided to continue toying with her—if there was one thing I did enjoy, it was making Poppy uncomfortable. She was just such a goody-goody, she needed a little bad influence in her life once and a while. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe… I’ll ask Marty.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Marty?” she asked, as if his was the last name she expected to hear from me. It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Clearly, she had a soft spot for Marty Zach, even if she wasn’t aware of it. And I was fairly convinced Marty was completely in love with her.

  “Don’t poke the bear unless you want to deal with the consequences.”

  “Funny, Wanda,” she said with a mopey expression.

  I shrugged. “Hey, I had you going for a bit.”

  Giving me one final frown, she turned around and headed for the door, saying she had to get back to her shop. “Goodbye, Wanda,” she said as she gave me a wave, and then she was gone. That left me alone to clean up the intruder’s latest handiwork. I swept up the white powder, meanwhile my mind was a million miles away, all my thoughts circling around the idea of Lorcan going as my date to Gemma’s wedding. I could just imagine him all dressed up in a suit, with that twinkle in his eye. And thoughts of Lorcan dressed to the nines then led to memories of the last time we’d attempted Betanya’s spell and how close we’d come to giving into our carnal desires.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t get rid of the image of Lorcan’s naked chest or the memory of the way his skin felt beneath my fingertips. As the thoughts taunted me, my body began to yearn for him, desire and need brewing within me until I had to hold myself back from calling him.

  Good Goddess, what was wrong with me?

  Chapter Nine

  I took Lorcan’s hand and tried to concentrate on something other than the feel of his skin against mine. He didn’t appear to be placing as much emphasis on the whole concentrating part, though. Instead, he cracked his characteristic grin and his eyes sparkled. His fingers started tiptoeing up the inner surface of my arm.

  A quiver went through me and I reacted in a heartbeat by slapping his hand away. “Pay attention! This is serious, Lorcan. Do I have to remind you how our last attempt turned out?”

  I was in a foul mood today, no doubt owing to the fact that I was sick and tired of this spell failing.

  “You don’t have to remind me,” he chortled. “I haven’t been able to think of anything else.”

  I started to color as soon as I realized what he meant—he hadn’t been able to think of anything other than our nearly naked bodies and how close we were—how intimate we were… Truth be told, I’d had a hard time getting the images out of my mind, as well. Not that I was going to admit as much to him.

  “Try to drag your mind out of the gutter for ten seconds,” I fired back, feeling every inch the hypocrite because lately, my mind had relocated to the gutter and it was all I could do to get it back to street level again.

  He gazed up at the ceiling for a protracted amount of time. Then he grinned even broader as he looked over at me again. “There. Ten seconds. Can I go back to dragging my mind through the gutter again?”

  “Come off it, Lorcan!” I snapped, growing more impatient by the moment. “If we don’t figure out how to complete this spell, I have no choice but to become a vampire. Are you too perpetually stuck in your own zipper to concentrate for another few minutes?”

  He bit his lip and struggled to suppress his smile. “My apologies, my dear. I realize the gravity of the situation. Pray continue.”