Page 14 of Brimstone and Broomsticks
Because he’d seemed so out of place there in that cell. It had seemed wrong somehow. And whether the guy was crazy or an actual demon, he’d still gotten the upper hand on Clinton Dickskin. That had to be worth more than a weekend in jail.
“Television remote is over there.” I pointed to the dresser. “Towels and linens are in the bathroom and that closet.”
“And the food?” He eyed me. “I’m assuming there’s no room service?”
Crap. Double crap. The guy had to eat, and even if I managed to get the charges dropped, he still probably hadn’t had any real food since last night.
“No, but I’ll call for a pizza delivery.” And have to pay for it out of my own pocket as well. This case was bringing a whole new meaning to the term pro bono.
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Will you be joining me for this pizza? Perhaps delivering it yourself?”
“Nope. Stay here. Watch TV. Eat your pizza. I’ll be back tomorrow before you need to check out.”
Hopefully I’d be back before then. Hopefully.
* * *
The pizza endedup costing me nothing. It seems Hollister wasn’t the only one thrilled that Lucien had pummeled our town bully. For assaulting a werewolf, the guy was getting a large hand-tossed with the works and extra cheese. I wondered how many freebies would be delivered to Lucien’s hotel room door once the word of his deeds spread throughout the town. He’d be a bit of a legend.
Maybe I could use that in getting the case dropped.
I took the winding road out of downtown, heading up Heartbreak Mountain and turning down a narrow private lane. Originally the wards had only encircled the town proper, but over the last two centuries, it became clear that as our population grew, the area we warded needed to as well. Any supernatural who lived outside the wards was vulnerable. Inside, their abilities and skills were blunted, but they were safe. Any human encountering them would find their memories altered once they were out of the town limits.
Which meant when Lucien left, the knowledge that Clinton wasn’t human, that the anklet he wore was magical, or that the girl delivering the pizza was a banshee would fade away. Accident would just be a small mountain town where he’d gotten drunk and fought some guy, luckily escaping with only one night in jail and all his beautiful teeth still intact.
If he was human. If he was actually a demon, he’d remember it all. I shivered wondering about the implications of that. We’d never had demons in Accident and until now I’d not questioned that fact. Maybe foundational wards kept demons out, and that portion of the spell had degraded? As much as I hated the thought of dragging those books down from the attic, I might just have to do some research.
Actually, I didn’t hate the thought. Something in me thrilled at the thought of going through those books, of crafting spells as I’d done all through my childhood. I remembered my mother helping me with my first charms, standing beside my grandmother as we reinforced the wards, sabbat in our back yard every week. A part of me missed that.
And a part of me resented that I’d never been given a choice in all of this.
But there was possibly a demon in our town, and that might mean I’d need to get over my sulk-fest and put on my pointed hat—hopefully temporarily.
Was he a demon? The other supernaturals had blunted powers, but his seemed to be far more than blunted. It was as if he’d been nulled by the wards. Did they affect demons more than the others who called Accident their home? Or was he in fact just a human who’d had some sort of psychotic break and thought he was a demon? Perhaps the werewolves had hit him a bit too hard in the head and this was a result of some concussion.
Either way, I hoped the sheriff had at the very least given Clinton a stern lecture. I’ll admit I was more than a bit pissed that he hadn’t hauled the werewolf in along with Lucien. Yes, the Dickskin family lawyer usually got Clinton out of jail so fast that I doubted the werewolf had spent more than five minutes total in a cell the last year, but there really needed to be some sort of consequences for this sort of thing. Clinton Dickskin, all of the Dickskin pack actually, had taken to behaving as if this town was their own. They threatened the locals, squeezing some of them with a protection racket. They fought with visitors and townsfolk alike. They got angry when they didn’t get their way and keyed cars or peed on people’s shrubberies. And let me tell you, nothing kills a shrubbery dead like a healthy dose of werewolf pee.
Something had to be done about these Dickskin werewolves, and I wasn’t sure our sheriff was the one to do it. There were plenty of supernaturals in this town, including other shifter packs, but no one wanted to challenge the Dickskins.
Which meant this was eventually going to fall in my lap. I swallowed hard, thinking of any possible way out of this. Seven prime witches lived in Accident—all of us descendants of our founder. Seven sisters. We were close. We were all of a generation. And the responsibility for the town had fallen to us.
And we’d done nothing. Actually, I’d done nothing.
In our defense, this wasn’t the same town or country it was back when Temperance and her lover set the first wards around a tiny cluster of houses. We had a democratically elected mayor. We had a sheriff. The Perkins witches only needed to make sure the wards held, not go around policing the behavior of the residents.
Or did we? Because if we didn’t, who’s to say one day there wouldn’t be a murder, or something more serious than a drunk-and-disorderly? Who’s to say one of the Dickskin pack might decide they wanted more than just some spare change, free beers, and to always win at poker? We’d been just fine in Accident the last three generations, but there was an unsettled feeling in my gut that our peace might be ending. That it might already have ended. And my intuition told me the first step to reversing this was to put the fear of God into Clinton Dickskin and his family, and get that newbie holed up at Hollister’s out of town. And to do it before nightfall.
