Page 14 of Death and Divination
Chapter 7
Ophelia
“Cassie? Why is there…hair? I don’t know what this is, but I’m thinking it’s hair. Why is there a bundle of hair on the table?”
I didn’t always make it to Sunday night dinner at our family home. That was the price I paid for being a first responder. Occasionally I was at the station while everyone else ate pot roast or lasagna or pork tenderloin. This weekend I was lucky. I’d pulled a long, surprisingly boring shift last night and was actually off work for once. Eager for some family time, I’d arrived early with a green bean casserole that needed to go in the oven and found…this.
My eldest sister walked in from the kitchen, munching on a carrot stick, her long auburn hair in a pony tail. “It’s a beard.”
That wasn’t the most enlightening of statements. “Okay, then. Why is there a beard on the table?” I looked closer. “Is it singed? Like from a fire?”
All my sisters were a little odd, but I couldn’t imagine why Cassie would be carrying around a beard. It’s not like any of us did curses. Well, Sylviecoulddo curses. It was the flip side of being a luck witch. Although Sylvie didn’t like anyone to know about that particular skill, and as far as I knew, she’d never actually performed a curse besides that one in the third grade involving Mrs. Ingram’s pencils. I couldn’t imagine that this thing would be for a spell, especially since a curse only required one hair and not an entire beard.
“It’s Clinton Dickskin’s beard.” Cassie munched on the carrot. “I burned it off his face.”
First, ewww. “Cassie, weeaton this table. I’m not eating baked ziti on the same table that once held Clinton Dickskin’s beard. Get it off. And get some bleach so I can sanitize everything.”
She picked up the beard and held it aloft, considering it as if she were eyeing a work of art. “I’m trying to decide what to do with it.”
“How about throw it in the trash?” I wrinkled my nose, wondering if I’d be able to eat anything at all tonight after this gruesome sight. I saw terribly injured bodies every day but coming across Clinton Dickskin’s beard on our family dining room table had completely destroyed my appetite.
“I might frame it,” Cassie mused. “Maybe get one of those shadowbox things.”
Most people would be just as concerned about the fact that my sister burned a beard off some guy’s face as the fact that it was lying on our table. Actually, most people would bemoreconcerned about that.
I wasn’t most people. And I completely understood why my sister would have burned the beard off a guy’s face. Clinton Dickskin wasn’t just any guy; he was a werewolf.Andhe was the werewolf who’d had the brakes cut in my sister Bronwyn’s truck. Luckily, she’d just suffered some cuts and bruises and a broken leg, but she could have died.
She could have died. The remembrance sent a wave of cold through me.
“I’m surprised Clinton’s head isn’t on a pike out front of the house,” I told Cassie.
She looked appalled. “Ophelia! We don’t do capital punishment in Accident. Well, not without a trial, appropriate sentencing, and several opportunities for appeal.”
No, we didn’t do capital punishment, at least not in the last fifty years or so. Wedidevidently burn the beards off werewolves’ faces, though. My eldest sister had a bit of a thing with fire. The story about Marcus’ pants was a legend in town. On fire. In the middle of the courthouse. During closing arguments. I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it, but Cassie’s idea of justice was a little quirky, just like the town of Accident.
“We prosecuted the wolf that tampered with Bronwyn’s truck and the ones who attacked her and Hadur at the cabin, Clinton paid for a new truck, trailer, and the tools that were lost or destroyed, and I burned off his beard a couple of weeks ago in a fit of temper which got me a stern lecture at my anger management meeting.”
My sister had to attend court-mandated anger management meetings because of the prior “incident” involving Marcus’ pants. I had a feeling she’d be attending those for the rest of her life.
“I’ll admit Iwastempted to take his head off.” Cassie glared at the beard in her hand. “That’s what Lucien wanted to do.”
I shivered, remembering when we’d seen Bronwyn’s mangled wreck of a truck, the trailer a twisted heap of metal behind it. The six of us had scrambled down that cliff, our hearts pounding, scared of what we might find when we got to the truck. I’d truly expected to find my sister dead in that cab. It had been the most terrifying experience of my life. I loved my sisters more than anything in the world. They were all I had. They were my everything.
Which was probably why I didn’t date much. I loved my job. I loved my family. They both came first, and prior boyfriends hadn’t been all that happy about playing third fiddle to the two other loves of my life.
Well, that and the whole witch thing. I preferred human guys, and human guys were in short supply in Accident. If I’d wanted to date a merman, or a gnome, or a vampire, or an elf, or a shifter, I would have been set. But human? Human men? Yeah, I had a choice of about five eligible bachelors and two of them were gay.
So, I tended to date outside of Accident, where humans didn’t believe in magic or the supernatural creatures that roamed my town. If they entered town limits and saw the residents, they’d promptly forget about them after they left. That’s what the wards around our town did—they kept us safe from persecution from the outside world. They provided a haven where we could all be ourselves without fear of being burned at the stake or shot with silver bullets or staked in a coffin. So, my dates never even knew what they were playing third fiddle to.
Let’s just say that having to keep a major part of your life a secret from your boyfriend didn’t make for a good relationship.
“WhereisLucien anyway?” I asked.
“I sent him to pick up ice cream. Men in the kitchen are guaranteed to be standing in front of every drawer or cabinet you need to get into. He was driving me crazy.” It was all said with a smile and a besotted tone of voice that let me know what sort of crazy Lucien was causing.
“Can’t cook with a sexy demon trying to get in your pants?” I asked.
She laughed. “Well, yeah. That too. He’s been spending more time in hell doing his job—which I definitely don’t want to know the details of. I actually like it. I’m at work. He’s at work. We see each other in the evenings, and then we screw like we’ve been apart for years.”
