Ice Cream Floater

  Ice Cream Floater

  by

  Sara Bourgeois

  Chapter One

  “I thought this was going to be a date,” I groused. “When you said we were going out, I didn’t think you meant hunting.”

  “I would think that him telling you to bring me along would have been a dead giveaway,” Voodoo said.

  “What if I take you out for waffle fries after?” Alex asked. “Would that make up for it not being an official date?”

  “I want cheese sauce too,” I countered. “Cheese sauce or no deal.”

  “Of course,”

  “Fine,” I relented. “Let’s do this thing and go get those waffle fries.”

  We were at a house at the edge of town where a rogue fae had set up shop. It had disguised itself as an old woman and had tried to lure children inside the house with the promise of fresh baked cookies. Alex said that its intention was most likely to eat them. The children, that is, not the cookies. Fortunately, the children of Knox Hills had been savvy enough to pick up on the fact that there was something very wrong with the old woman.

  Alex had overheard a couple of them talking about her at the bookstore, and he’d decided to take up the cause immediately. He’d investigated the house without getting too close and had discovered that there was something very dark living in the old place.

  When he’d called me and said we were going out, I’d assumed it was on a date. I guess in a way, it sort of was. It was a date to destroy evil. Something we did in between dinner and movie nights.

  “Am I getting cheese fries?” Voodoo asked as he followed up the front walk.

  “I mean, you did almost let my cousin kill me because you didn’t realize he was wicked,” I teased.

  “You’re the one who made out with him,” Voodoo immediately countered.

  “Guys,” Alex interrupted. “Rowan is not really Allegra’s cousin, and I don’t want to hear about her making out with him. Like, probably ever again. I’d be fine if I never heard about it again.”

  “You don’t need to hear about it, you saw the whole thing,” Voodoo snarked. He’d become a bit saucier as he’d gotten to know us better.

  I was about to tell Voodoo that was over the line, but I burst out laughing instead. Alex looked stern for a moment, but then he laughed too. It was good that we could maintain a sense of humor about what had gone down.

  We’d put the whole Rowan thing behind us. It had been several months since he was arrested, and the week before, he’d been convicted and sentenced to life in prison. One of the witches in his family coven had put a spell over him that bound his magic, so there was no way for him to use it to escape. He was stuck in prison as a regular human.

  That was the rumor I’d heard anyway. Trixie had taken me to meet several of the witches in town, but I hadn’t exactly been welcomed with open arms. People knew Rowan was guilty, but they still looked at me warily as if I were responsible for the things he done.

  Also, I was on the outside because I’d renounced my magic as a teenager and left them all behind. I should have expected it would be difficult for the witches to move on from that. They were starting to come around, but it was still a very cautious relationship. Plus, I was dating a hunter.

  As soon as our laughter died down, we heard a crash from inside the house. The child-eating fae knew we were coming which wasn’t that surprising given that we were making a ruckus as we walked up the sidewalk. It wasn’t exactly a stealth job.

  “I think it’s ticked,” I said.

  “Let it be,” Alex responded. “It’s about to have a very bad night.”

  “Why do you think it came here? A town half full of witches doesn’t seem like a good place for a child-eating fae to set up shop.”

  “They tend to believe they are far cleverer than they actually are,” Alex said.

  “I guess that will work to our advantage,” I said.

  Another crash.

  “All right, let’s get this thing before it sets the house on fire.”

  Alex began walking up the rickety front steps to the front porch. Each riser groaned and I could swear I heard a snapping like some of the wood had splintered under his weight.

  “Any last-minute tips?” I asked as I followed him up to the front porch.

  “Remember this thing is a master of trickery. Don’t believe what you see. You have to rely on what you know.”

  “I know it’s an evil creature that bakes cookies and wants to eat children,” I said more to myself.

  Alex leaned back and kicked the door right by the knob. Fortunately, the old house didn’t have a deadbolt, so the wood broke easily. The door swung open hard and bounced off the wall. It hit the frame and opened up again.

  I noticed two things right away. One was that the scent of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies hit my senses like a truck. It made my stomach growl and my mouth water. I had to remind myself that it was a trap.

  The second thing was that my stomach wasn’t the only thing growling. A low rumble reached out to us from somewhere in the darkness.

  “Hello,” Alex said cheerfully.

  He was such a quiet and reserved person in everyday life, but it was like a whole different side of his personality came alive when he hunted.

  I heard a board creek in the room to my right, and I expected some sort of gnarled creature to step out. Instead, it was a little old woman with curly white hair. She wore a pink polka dot dress and had a tray of cookies.

  “I wasn’t expecting company,” she said with a smile. “So glad that I baked some cookies.”

  Alex took a step toward her and pulled his black ceremonial knife from its sheath. He bent his elbow and took a position to strike.

  I had to fight the urge to step between them. “Maybe you made a mistake,” I said. “Maybe this really is just an old woman. We can’t hurt her.”

  “Such a lovely young lady,” the old woman said. “Would you like a cookie, dear?”

  “Alex?” I was so worried that we’d made a mistake.

  “Think about it, Allegra. If she was just an old woman, would she really react so calmly to us breaking into her house?”

  No, she wouldn’t have. We’d have scared her half to death, and she’d be trying to get away from us and call the police. The fact that she was being so nice to people who had just kicked her door down should have been a dead giveaway that something was right.

  “You’re right,” I said.

  I closed my eyes and envisioned protective light surrounding Alex. It wasn’t as good as casting a circle, but he had to be able to move. I didn’t want to cast a circle and include the woman inside it.

  A moment later, I heard the growl again and instinctively opened my eyes. The old woman was gone, and in her place was a creature far closer to what I’d been expecting.

  It was short and had gray bark-like skin. Its eyes glowed red as it bared yellow, jagged teeth at us. The thing still had a tray in its hands, but instead of cookies, it was covered in worms and what I suspected were death cap mushrooms.

  “Surrender, and I won’t have to kill you,” Alex said.

  The thing did not surrender, and Alex did have to kill it. I thought that meant that we got to go get waffle fries, but apparently, we couldn’t just leave the dead fae in old house. Even if it was abandoned.

  Instead, we got to drag the body into the woods and bury it. While we were digging the hole, Alex brought up my relationship with the witches of Knox Hills.

  “So, how are things going with the other witches?” he asked as he flung a shovelful of dirt over his shoulder.

  “I think they’re getting better. More of them have started coming into the shop. I’ve been invited to a couple of get-togethers, but nothing serious so far. Most of my contact with them is through Trixie. I guess it’s going to be a while before they let me off the hook for abandoning Knox Hills and my heritage.”

  “Think some of them are still blaming you for what happened with Rowan?”

  “Not directly, but I do think some of them sort of hold me responsible. I don’t get it,” I said.

  “It just goes to show that having magic doesn’t make you enlightened,” Alex said. “Witches have human traits too. They can be petty and irrational just like us normal folks.”

  “You are definitely not normal,” Voodoo interrupted. “Look at what we’re doing.”

  “You know what I mean,” Alex said.

  “I get it,” I said with a shrug. “Why do you bring it up, though?”

  “I just wanted to know if you’ve seen anything strange. Have any of the witches you’ve encountered been acting weird or secretive?”

  “I guess a little, but I assume that’s because they really view me as an outsider. What are you getting at?”

  “I’ll show you as soon as we’re done here,” Alex said.

  We finished burying the fae and I cast a circle around the grave. It was for sure dead, but we didn’t want anyone finding it. Especially not some dark spirit that could find a way to reanimate the corpse. Or on the off chance that the actual fae escaped the underworld and tried to come back to claim its form again. After a couple of days, that would have just been gross.

  After the circle was cast, Voodoo helped me with a protection spell. I had a notebook full of incantations I kept in my purse along with a few herbs. Even though I hadn’t known we were going hunting when Alex picked me up, I was still prepared.

  Once I was done with my spell, Alex blessed the earth around the grave. “I don’t want i
ts evil to poison the soil,” he said as he sprinkled more of the blessed water around.

  “You still haven’t told me what that water is,” I said. “Is it holy water?”

  “It’s blessed water. Exactly what I said.” He tucked the flask back into his bag.

  “But blessed by who? I know I’ve asked this before, but I figured you’d eventually tell me. I keep thinking that maybe it’s the church and you’re some sort of… priest? But that doesn’t make any sense because you take a me hunting with you and you’re, like, dating a witch.”

  He chuckled. “You’re right, Allegra. I’m not a priest, but you’re close. Probably closer than you think. My order used to be comprised of priests. We were originally created by the church, but we broke off long ago.”

  “So, it is holy water?”

  “Nope. It can’t be. A priest or preacher has to bless holy water. It’s not blessed by clergy so that’s why I call it blessed water. The blessing I use is derived from the one we used to use, though.”

  “So, you broke off from the church, but you still use some of the religious stuff?”

  “Or a variation of it that doesn’t require us to be affiliated with the church. We still believe in light versus dark. It’s just that there are other parts that don’t sit well with us. Things that we didn’t want to bring into the modern age.”

  “But you still want to fight evil,” I said.

  “Exactly,” Alex responded.

  We walked back out to the street and to his car. Alex loaded what gear he’d been carrying into his trunk and then walked around to the passenger side to open the door for me. He even opened the back door for Voodoo, and my familiar jumped in.

  “The thing you wanted to show me, are we doing that before waffle fries?” I asked as Alex slid into the driver’s seat.

  “If you don’t mind. It won’t take long.”

  “Ugh,” Voodoo complained.

  “I promise it won’t take long.”

  He pulled away from the curb and we put the abandoned house in the rearview mirror. It had been twilight when we arrived, but the sky was dark and full of stars as we headed for the bookstore. I cracked the window and let some of the cool night air into the car.

  It wasn’t late yet, and we still had plenty of time for fun even after our excursion to Alex’s book shop. Since most of the town shut down around sunset, the parking spots right in front of my shop and the bookstore were open.

  Nuttie’s was still open too. It was one of the few shops open past dinnertime other than the tavern and the diner. Two of the high schoolers that worked for me covered the evening shift. They’d close up and go home at eight. Until then, a few customers wandered in for an after-dinner treat. There weren’t any lines out the door like there were in the summer afternoons, but it was enough business to justify staying open.

  Tarryn was working that night. She saw me through the shop’s door and offered a wave. I returned it before ducking into the bookstore behind Alex.

  She was one of the younger generation of witches in Knox Hills and didn’t care that the older generation was wary of me. Tarryn was probably the friendliest witch to me other than Trixie.

  “So why is it we’re here again?” I asked Alex as he locked the door behind us.

  “Come with me,” he said and waved for us to follow.

  We went past the front counter and into the back room of the store. The walls were lined with shelves of books that looked far older than anything out in the main store. I thought that he was going to show me a rare book or something from those stacks, but I had no idea what was coming.

  There was a desk in the middle of the room, and behind that was a smaller shelf against the wall. It looked like something he’d purchased from a furniture store and stuck there. The others were floor-to-ceiling built-ins.

  Alex leaned over behind his desk. I walked around to see what he was doing and saw that he was putting a code into a little panel on the front of one of the drawers. Four numbers, that I didn’t catch because I wasn’t trying to steal his security code, and the drawer unlocked.

  He pulled it open and ran his hand along the top of the drawer palm side up. There was a loud click behind us, and the out-of-place bookshelf behind us swung out a half inch like it was on hinges.

  I quickly learned that’s because it was. That particular case was concealing a door. Alex closed the drawer and turned to pull the bookcase door open.

  Behind it was a stone staircase leading into a pitch-black basement. Alex reached out and flipped a switch just through the doorway. Suddenly, the stairway was illuminated, and the light spilled out onto the stone floor below.

  “Well, that’s unexpected,” I said. “Wonder if I have a creepy medieval dungeon under my shop.”

  “You don’t,” Alex answered. “My basement runs under both shops, and it’s not a dungeon.”

  “What is it, then?” Voodoo asked.

  “Follow me and find out,” Alex said with a smile.

  When we got to the bottom of the steps, Voodoo was the first to speak. “Books,” he said. “It’s more books.”

  “I mean, what did you think it was going to be?” Alex asked with a laugh. “You didn’t really think it was a dungeon, right?”

  It wasn’t just more books, though. There was practically a library down there. And in the center of the room was a glass chamber. It would have looked like some sort of high-tech prison cell except that there were more shelves of books inside.

  “What’s that?” I asked and pointed at the glass chamber.

  “Glad you asked,” he said and walked over to it. “This is an archive chamber. The books inside are very old and very precious. The chamber helps preserve them by regulating the temperature and humidity.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Voodoo said. “I saw a movie where a dude locked a chick he liked inside one of these.”

  “Voodoo, what have you been watching?” I asked.

  “What? It was on Netflix.” He rolled his eyes at me. “Maybe Alex is a super creeper and he’s going to lock you in here.”

  “You’d probably let him do it too,” I snarked.

  “Not fair,” Voodoo responded.

  “You’re right,” I said and felt horrible. “You nearly died for me. I do appreciate that. I’m sorry.”

  “Ha ha. Gotcha. You’re such a softy. You’re totally going to end up getting kidnapped again,” Voodoo said.

  Alex cleared his throat. “So, I have this book I wanted to show you.”

  “Right, sorry.”

  “You apologize so much, I think you’re secretly Canadian,” Voodoo said.

  “What’s the book?” I asked and ignored Voodoo’s comment.

  He trotted off to look around the basement while Alex went to one of the shelves outside of the chamber and retrieved a black, leather-bound book.

  “So, I was hunting the other day in a barn just outside of town,” Alex began.

  “Where was I? Guess I wasn’t invited to that one,” I said and instantly regretted it. It sounded like I was checking up on him, and I hadn’t meant to come off as petty or jealous. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “It’s okay,” he said and brushed the backs of his fingers gently over my cheek. “I get that you haven’t had the best luck with men in the past.”

  “I don’t want you to pay for that,” I said. “It’s not fair.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that, Allegra. I deal with the most vile and evil things on earth on a regular basis. I am strong enough to handle your worst, and I’ll take it because I get to be with you when you’re at your best too.”

  “I do trust you,” I said.

  “I know you do. As to where you were when I found this book, you were probably sleeping. As you could probably guess, I get a lot of my calls in the middle of the night. When the world is dark and quiet is when the things I hunt tend to show themselves. Except that child-munching, cookie-wielding fae, but that case didn’t come through my order. I found it on my own, so it was easier to include you.”

  “Okay, so you were out hunting in an abandoned barn, and that brings us to your book dungeon,” I said with a smile.

  “And I found this in the barn,” he said and handed me the book.

  I could instantly tell that something was wrong with the book. It felt cold and slimy in my hands though the leather was completely dry. A chill raced down my spine and then settled like a rock in my stomach.