“I trust him,” Fifi said.

  I snorted. “Why? Ultimately, I’m pretty sure he wants to turn her, no matter what his conscious mind says.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe, but somehow, I don’t think he’ll let it get to that point. He’s a good man in his heart.”

  I laughed at that. “Don’t tell me he’s got you snowed just like the rest of them?”

  She smiled up at me. “I believe Lorcan is a good man who tries very hard not to appear that way.” I started to snicker and, she shook her head, reaching out to take my hand. “Did you know he refused me when I approached him about turning me?”

  I felt my eyebrows furrowing as I studied her face. “You asked him to turn you?”

  She shrugged. “This was before Poppy helped me out with my potion—it was when everything was going to hell with my brother and my parents. I figured if vampirism could negate witch magic, it might be able to eliminate my succubus magic, too. But Lorcan wouldn’t hear of it, and he turned me down. He said it was wrong to commit to his sort of life just because I was scared of my own beast.” She nodded sadly and then exhaled. “And he was right.”

  “Maybe for once in his long undead life.”

  I stared at her profile, surprise still ricocheting through me. No, I hadn’t heard this story before—from either of them. And I couldn’t say I liked it either. In fact, the thought of Fifi under Lorcan’s hands, with his mouth on her throat, turning her into one of the undead made me want to seize her around the waist and lock her away in some remote tower somewhere, Rapunzel style. I couldn’t handle the thought of her cold and confined to darkness—it was worse than seeing Lorcan naked.

  Not wanting to think such morose thoughts any longer, I decided I’d had enough of Lorcan, geese, ghosts and emus. I’d had enough of the day and wanted nothing more than to relax at home and leave all of this behind me.

  “What do you think about getting the hell out of here and doing something nice and normal for the rest of the evening?” I asked Fifi.

  She smiled up at me. “Such as?”

  “Netflix and chill at my house?”

  “Aha, right.” She laughed. “Unlike Lorcan and the emo-emu mix-up, I know what Netflix and Chill means, Roy.”

  I held up my hands in faux surrender. “Hey, hey, I didn’t mean sex!” I answered and then smiled because I’d also much rather be doing that than watching Lorcan. I cleared my throat. “Although that’s its own kind of entertainment. But… really, I just meant we could watch something together, maybe have a couple drinks and I could make us something to eat?” I cleared my throat again and wasn’t sure why I felt uncomfortable trying to explain. “I’d just… like to spend the evening with you.”

  “What kind of movie or show?” she asked, her lips turning up in a smile.

  “A rom-com?” I knew she loved those best.

  Fifi looked over at Lorcan, who seemed to be purring against Wanda, who appeared to be getting highly irritated with that fact, and shook her head as she gazed up at me again.

  “I think I’ve had enough of sappy stuff for the time-being,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m down for something with some action. Or horror, maybe. I haven’t watched anything scary in a while. How about Bigfoot vs. Zombies?”

  “Bigfoot vs. Zombies?” I asked, frowning down at her as she giggled.

  “Then later we can act it out and I can play the part of the zombie.”

  I breathed in deeply as our eyes caught and I couldn’t understand how I’d never thought of Fifi the way I did now. Better late than never, I supposed.

  “It’s a date,” I answered.

  The End

  ~~~~~

  Return to Haven Hollow in:

  Herringbone Hexes

  ~~~~~

  Return to the Table of Contents

  HERRINGBONE HEXES

  Haven Hollow #16

  (Wanda’s Witchery)

  by

  J.R. RAIN

  &

  H.P. MALLORY

  Herringbone Hexes

  Published by Rain Press

  Copyright © 2022 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.

  Herringbone Hexes

  Chapter One

  Sitting around in one’s bra and panties, in the middle of a freezing graveyard, while a handful of people fuss around you isn’t exactly my idea of fun.

  Yet, it was required if Lorcan and I were going to break this witch of a blood bond.

  The moon was full and high in the sky above us, brightening the landscape of our ministrations with its milky rays of light.

  “Something just bit me in the arse,” Lorcan said, as I opened my eyes and glared at him.

  Like me, he was dressed only in his silk boxer shorts, but unlike me, he couldn’t feel the cold. But apparently, he could feel the sting of whatever the spell had just bitten him.

  “I’m not talking to you again until that Porsche you gifted to Astrid has been returned to the dealer,” I reprimanded him, giving him an arched brow, so he knew in no uncertain terms how much I was unnerved by said vehicle. “Such gifts are not only ridiculous, they’re… offensive.”

  “Offensive, dearest?” he repeated.

  Meanwhile, Olga, Betanya and Astrid fretted around us like upset bees. Olga busily marked a witch’s circle by pouring out a bag of ash, nine feet in diameter. Two outer circles, each six inches apart, were the responsibility of Astrid and Betanya.

  “I wasn’t offended,” Astrid called over her shoulder as she weaved in between Olga and Betanya, looking like the three of them were attempting to do the Virginia Reel.

  “I was offended for you,” I answered.

  “Because you were jealous that my car is better than yours,” Astrid said.

  I couldn’t argue.

  “Pay attention to your circle, Astrid,” Betanya scolded her lightly. “A witch’s circle is important for proper magic.”

  Olga started chanting as she continued building her circle, and then held up a bottle of what appeared to be water. Because Olga practiced old-fashioned magic, I wasn’t accustomed to all her ways.

  “O creature of vater,” she started, “zat zou cast out from zese all zee impurities und uncleannesses of zee Spirits of zee Vorld of Phantasm, so zey may harm us nein, in zee names of Aradia und Cernunnos.”

  “Hopefully she manages to call forth Google Translate so the rest of us can understand what the bloody hell she’s going on about,” Lorcan whispered.

  I tried not to smile but failed and then gave him a look that told him to quit it. This was important business.

  “So, the outermost circle needs to be eleven feet in diameter,” Astrid said, but it was more of a question.

  “Ya, eleven feet ist correct,” Olga answered as Franz, her raccoon familiar (who was dressed in lederhosen and a silly hat) batted at Hellcat’s tail and called out something in German as he laughed a high-pitched, awful sound.

  “Will someone tell that unfashionable rodent I am uninterested in his antics!” Hellcat spewed as he looked back at Franz and hissed.

  Betanya’s new familiar was... a skunk. A very large, cantankerous skunk dressed in a flannel vest. He hadn’t come with the vest either, he’d asked me to make it for him. The connection Betanya had had with her last familiar, a parakeet named George, had been severed when she’d been forced to flee into another dimension to escape Roscoe, the vampire who’d blooded her. As a result, she’d been forced to put out a call for new familiar candidates. There hadn’t been many applicants, given her former status as a Blood Witch. The result was... Charlie Ray, who’d traveled all the way from Alabama. His drawl was so thick, his English was barely more intelligible than Franz’s. Every time Charlie Ray opened his mouth, I kept expecting to hear a chorus of, “Yeehaw!”

  “Ouch! Blimey!” Lorcan called out as he jumped slightly. “The bloody thing’s bitten me right in the bollocks this time!” I heard Astrid snickering in the background as Lorcan lifted his butt off the ground and began running his hand under the gap of his boxers, as if to massage the wounded area.

  “Zee circles are complete,” Olga announced as she finished doing something with a bowl of salt, then reached into her bag of tricks and produced her ‘vand’ which was a rod of wild hazel, nineteen inches long, and placed it in the center of the circle, just between Lorcan (who was still rubbing his sore ass or his gonads, I wasn’t sure which) and me.

  Meanwhile, Astrid busily began placing candles around us, following the line of ash of the circle, and lit each one.

  “I exorcise thee, O creature of Fire, that every kind of Phantasm may retire from thee, and be unable to harm or deceive in any way, in the names of Arabia and Cerberus,” Astrid said.

  “It’s Aradia and Cernunnos,” Betanya corrected her and Astrid dropped her head slightly as Lorcan’s laugh lit the air.

  “Bloody hell! You’ve just called on the three-headed dog who guards the gates of hell!”

  “Summa bitch,” Charlie Ray said, shaking his head. “That ain’t gonna be purty.”

  “Fie, fie,” Hellcat sighed as he shook his head. “Woe to me that I am surrounded by complete idiots.”

  “It’s okay, Astrid, just repeat the verse correctly,” I said and gave her an encouraging smile.

  “And let us pray we aren’t visited by any hellhounds,” Lorcan added under his breath.

  “Summa bitch,” Charlie Ray answered.

  Hellcat just glared at everyone present.

  After Astrid repeated the verse correctly, Betanya then produced a five-foot length of sisal rope and looped it, placing it over Olga’s wand. Meanwhile, Astrid, using a tree branch, wrote my name and Lorcan’s name in each circle.

  Then we were ready for the magic to begin, and everyone held hands as they took their places around us. Lorcan and I reached forward and took each other by the forearm.

  “Here goes nothing,” I whispered.

  ***

  And nothing was exactly what happened.

  I threw my hands into the air as I tried to understand where we’d gone wrong. With this many witches, we should have had enough magic to power the damned spell and yet, it was as useless as it had ever been.

  “I don’t understand what we’re doing wrong,” I said, feeling the sting of tears choking my throat.

  I felt a hand on my back and looked over to see Betanya smiling at me.

  “We should have had enough power,” I continued.

  “We do have enough power,” she answered in her soft voice, which somehow made me feel a bit better. “But our magic isn’t joined.”

  “Vee aren’t a coven, Vanda,” Olga added.

  Betanya nodded. “Forming a coven would be the only way we could join our magic and make it that much more powerful.”

  I knew she was right, but it was a subject I didn’t want to think about at the moment.

  ***

  A lifetime of living with witches had instilled within me a pathological mistrust of happy people.

  Why? Because happy people always want to sell you something.

  Trust no one wasn’t just a motto, it was baked into the very fabric of every young witch. I’d been trying to unlearn that particular lesson since coming to live in Haven Hollow, but it sometimes reared its ugly head, especially around a certain annoyingly happy and upbeat gypsy.

  Poppy Morton was one of the women you just loved to hate.

  Of course, I couldn’t say I hated her any longer. While that had been the case when I’d first moved here, now I just… dare I say it… loved her.

  A bright, bubbly blonde who didn’t look her age—maybe it was the utter lack of pessimism that left fewer lines on her face, even as she approached her mid-forties. I had lines she didn’t, as a result of scowling so damn much.

  Poppy’s constant sunny demeanor would have been irksome if it was simply a ploy to sell more elixirs at her shop, Poppy’s Potions. But her happiness wasn’t a ploy and somehow knowing her happiness was entirely genuine made it all the worse. Really, it had to be exhausting to be so upbeat all the time.

  As she held a potion up to the light, her lips pursed as she examined the bottle’s swirling blue contents. She quirked her lips up and frowned at the bottle, and she looked sort of adorable. Sort of. Her sort-of adorableness caused me to scowl even more so than I already was. I just wasn’t sure how I felt about this bizarre friendship the two of us shared—some days it bothered me more than others. The truth was, she’d proved more of a friend and ally than my old coven. I just wished she’d get that smiling habit of hers under control.

  “Do you think it needs more palmarosa?” she asked.

  I’d been leaning against her counter, inspecting my most recent manicure as she worked. Now I glanced up at her, one brow arched.

  “Do you honestly think I’m the person to ask? If I could brew worth a damn, I wouldn’t have to buy potions from you.”

  “True.”

  I sighed. “If you take my advice, you’ll probably end up singing your eyebrows off. Which would be entertaining, but not especially helpful.”

  My advice might do worse than blow up in her face. My life had been flipped upside down when, a year and a half ago, a hex had taken my car off the road and wrapped it around the wall of a dental practice in Portland. Unbeknownst to me, the dentist who owned the place, Lorcan Rowe, was an undead, blood-sucking fiend, and he’d attempted to save my life by giving me his blood.

  He’d also damned me with it.

  Vampire blood transformed a witch’s natural magic into something wild, dark, and unpredictable. I’d already raised a zombie, brought a ghost back to the corporeal plane, blighted an entire building with mold, and defeated a ward placed by one of the strongest witches in the world. Namely, Mother. And yet I still couldn’t brew a damned potion.

  See? Unpredictable

  Poppy set the bottle on her work table and finally scowled. The smile was gone at last. Sweet success.

  “This entire line of potions was your idea, Wanda,” she started. “Don’t you think it would be good… you know, if you put a little effort in?”

  “I did put in effort.”

  “Oh?”

  I nodded as I pulled out my nail buffing block from my purse and went to work on my index finger nail. “I just made a suggestion,” I sniffed.

  Poppy giggled. “You call that effort?”

  I put the block down so I could give her my full glare. “You’re the one who took my idea and ran with it, Poppy. So, if you think about it, it’s actually your fault it’s not coming together.”

  Poppy rolled her eyes, but the smile reappeared. I was half-convinced her face had a magnetic pull and smiles were automatically attracted to it. I studied her for a moment as I tried to figure out if there was a way to test that theory.

  “You’re getting better, Wanda,” she said and nodded at me.

  “I’m getting better at what?”

  “Life,” she answered on a shrug.

  “Life? What in the spell are you going on about,” I responded, imagining this was a compliment, and I certainly enjoyed receiving those so I figured I should look into it a bit more deeply.

  She laughed again. “I’m really proud of you for stepping up and coming to potion lessons with Astrid. She looks up to you, and I think it’s helped her to see that even mature witches have places they can… improve.”

  “I don’t like that word.”

  “Places they can… expand?”

  “Yes, that’s better.” I started buffing again.

  “One of the biggest things in potion magic is to really believe in what you’re doing, and if Astrid doubts herself, it’ll be that much harder for her when she gets into advanced potions.”

  “You mean it’s a confidence boost to know that even one hundred and forty-one years later, I’m still lousy, and she’s outstripped me by a mile?”

  Poppy’s eyes were shiny with suppressed laughter, but she had the good sense not to voice it. “Something like that.”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she might have a point. Lack of confidence was a real killer in the cutthroat world of witches, and Astrid would need every ounce she could get. My teenage cousin, and now quasi-daughter, had been living with me for the better part of a year, and I’d been struggling to keep up with her magical education. It wasn’t that I was bad at magic, the Blood Witch situation notwithstanding, it was just too much work for me to handle at the moment.

  Young witches were taught by their coven, which usually consisted of several hundred women, most of them relatives. But, within the Hollow, there were only three fully-trained witches. That was two more than Astrid had started out with, but it still wouldn’t be enough. To get a well-rounded education she’d need to be shipped off to a proper coven or sent to a supernatural boarding school. I was more than sure she’d leap at the chance to attend the latter, mainly because she despised mundane high school and had tired quickly of human boys. The only problem was finding such an academy that I trusted and that would accept Astrid—it was no secret that the two of us had been banished from our covens.

  Poppy leaned over her potion again, ignoring me. It took a few minutes before she was satisfied enough to pass it to me.

  “What’s this one supposed to go with, again?” I asked.

  “Asclepius Oil is a general healing oil, so it could be applied to just about anything, but I’d say it’d be most effective on open wounds—like Neosporin.”

  “Oh.”

  “I have potions that are more specific to chronic pain, indigestion, headaches, etcetera, but I thought for this bandage product line, we should go with something a little more general.”

  “So, how are we going to know if it works?” I asked.

  She sighed. “We can test it out the next time Finn gets a scrape, which, as you know, is a matter of when, not if.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure you want to test new healing bandages on your kid?”