Murder by magic, p.1
Murder by Magic, page 1
part #5 of Sonoma Witches Series
Murder by Magic
Sonoma Witches #5
Gretchen Galway
Eton Field
From the Back Cover
I should’ve known the birthday party for a 113-year-old witch wasn’t going to be all cake and games. Especially with so many other witches around—and that scary magic wand.
I’d been desperate for a vacation from the rain on the California coast. But instead of snow and cocoa in a cozy mountain cabin, I got… a dead body. And the murder weapon wasn’t a candlestick in the billiard room.
Looks like it’s up to me again. My one friend is a Bright witch but not much of a fighter. I used to think I, too, was harmless, but the enchanted marks on my skin tell a different story. My moral code prevents me from killing anyone, but somehow my enemies tend to end up dead.
Trapped in the spellbound mountain retreat, I have to find the killer before anyone else gets killed. Or worse.
I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again.
Probably.
MURDER BY MAGIC (A Sonoma Witches Novel)
An enchanted lake house, a magic wand, and a murdered witch...
Life is never boring for ex-demon hunter Alma Bellrose, even if she’d like it to be. Can she use her developing powers to unravel a century of family secrets and save her friend’s life—or will an old curse claim another victim?
Copyright © 2021 by Gretchen Galway
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Gretchen Galway
Cover illustrations from Depositphotos
eBook ISBN: 9781939872296
Print ISBN: 9781939872302
v.20210908
For my friends.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Afterword
Books by Gretchen Galway
About the Author
1
I met my former schoolmate near a cluster of fairies riding a baggage carousel at the San Francisco Airport.
“That one’s mine,” Marcella said, pointing at a purple suitcase as it rounded the curve. She didn’t see the little green fairy sitting on it, but I did. I hesitated to pick up the bag until the creature had flown off. They were already annoyed at the rattle and bustle of the carousel where they lived. My ability to see them didn’t mean I could understand why they’d chosen to live somewhere as overrun with humans and their ruckus as an airport baggage claim, but fae were not of our world. I didn’t expect to understand them.
“I’ll get it,” I said, reaching for the suitcase. I gave a push of magic to gently nudge the fairy off the faux-leather handle, then grabbed it and hauled it to the tile floor.
“You didn’t have to do that, Alma.” Smiling, Marcella rushed forward to take it from me. “I asked for your company, not manual labor.”
She’d asked for more than my company, but I didn’t argue. She’d called me up a few days ago and asked if I’d be willing to provide extra security for her short trip from the airport to the city. I’d explained I wasn’t a professional demon hunter anymore, but she’d insisted I was the witch she wanted.
It had been almost a decade since I’d seen her. We’d been students at a boarding school just south of the Oregon border, one popular among older witch families. After a series of other places, I’d ended up there for a couple of years before joining the Protectorate, the international witch governing body. Unlike me, Marcella hadn’t been invited to apply for that great honor though her family name, Gardner, was even older and more prestigious than mine of Bellrose.
“I was closer,” I said, swatting away the fairy who wanted to get back on Marcella’s suitcase. He had a plastic cutlery knife in one hand and was aiming for the zipper. I looked up and saw Marcella staring intently at me, at my hand gesture at—to her—empty air. The fairy was able to hide himself and his knife from ordinary witches.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
I kept my ability to see the fae a secret, even from people I considered friends. Witches didn’t trust abilities they didn’t understand, suspicious it might be Shadow magic. In my case, the distrust would be correct. I’d learned recently my biological mother had been possessed by a demon when she’d given birth to me. That was an even bigger secret I had to keep to myself.
“I’ve heard the fae can be pests here,” I said. “I’m hoping to discourage them from following us.”
“The fae? Oh right,” she said, visibly relaxing. “I thought you’d seen demon sign. Or worse.”
We began walking toward the BART train to downtown. “Worse than demon sign?” I asked. Most witches defined demons as the apex predator in our world.
“The real thing,” she said. “Have you… have you ever actually… seen one?”
I had, even without the biological-mother connection. My job at the Protectorate had required me to hunt and kill them—and when I’d failed, they’d marked me with an Incurable Inability and fired me.
“I sense a lot of fae here,” I said, pretending my awareness was dependent upon magical amulets and effort on my part. “Which is good for other threats. They wouldn’t be here if there were any demons.”
She stopped to adjust her grip on the suitcase. “Really? I didn’t know that. I-I— So you mean, right now, right here, you don’t think there are any Shadow beings because you sense there are lots of fae?” Her eyes darted around, squinting at the witches, nonmagical humans, service dogs, utility carts, light fixtures. In the five minutes we’d been together, she’d been as vigilant as a Protectorate agent on a stakeout.
“Yes. I don’t think you have to worry about demons right now,” I said. “Is that why you asked for my company today? You’re afraid of possession?”
Marcella stared at me, nervously combing her fingers through her blond hair. She was pretty and had a tall, athletic build that others might envy, but she’d never seemed comfortable in her own skin. In school she’d been a loner, teased and excluded. I’d been a fellow weirdo, switching schools often, my dad an infamous thief. It was our family pedigrees, however, that brought us together. Both of us walked around with old witch family names that opened doors—but just as often prevented friendships. At the outskirts of school society or just lonely at lunch, we’d found each other and shared a few stories.
But we’d been kids then. In the years since, I’d grown up and had a few adventures (too many of them recently), but Marcella had moved to the opposite coast and lived alone in New York. She hadn’t mentioned a career; I assumed she lived off her family’s wealth.
“Yes,” she whispered, visibly trembling. “I’m afraid of… of… possession. But who knows, maybe…” A full-body shudder ran through her.
I put my hand on my redwood-bead necklace, a magical object that amplified my power, and drew a bubble of defensive magic around us.
Feeling my enchantment, she let out a sigh. A flush of pink was returning to her cheeks. “Thank you. I do feel better.”
I began walking again, focusing now on keeping extra defensive magic around her as well as myself. “Travel can be harder on witches than nonmags. It’s easy to get worn out, isn’t it? We pick up so many sensations they don’t.”
She gave me a fleeting smile. “I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me. But this”—she gestured at my bubble enchantment—“really does feel better. Do you ever get that creepy feeling between your shoulder blades? Like a blow is about to land? I can’t feel that anymore. Thanks.”
“I could teach the spell to you,” I said. We turned to follow the signs to the BART train. I’d insisted on public transit because it was safer than driving, not just because of nonmagical collisions but because of the need to concentrate fully on casting spells. Behind the wheel, a witch was limited and impaired. Distracted. In my Jeep, I wouldn’t have been able to protect her properly.
“Thanks, but it’s no use,” Marcella said, hurrying just ahead of me. Her legs were longer, and she seemed to fear pursuit of some kind. She ke pt looking over her shoulder.
“Why not?”
“I’m hopeless,” she said. “I’ve tried doing them myself. Had tutors, amulets, herbs. Doesn’t seem to make a difference.”
“But my defensive spells help you,” I said. “Let me teach—”
“It’s because you’re doing them. It’s the same with other witches I’ve… I’ve… asked to help me. It doesn’t work if I do it myself.” She glanced nervously at the woman passing in a wheelchair.
“Then I’m glad you called me for help.” Curious and alarmed, I began scanning the people around us more carefully even though it pulled energy away from the magic I was using on the defensive spell.
“I didn’t know who else to ask,” she said. “I didn’t feel safe making this trip by myself.” We’d reached the BART station now, and after getting tickets and waiting at the platform, we got on a car headed north to San Francisco.
Standing near the doors, we found ourselves talking about old times—the teacher with the enchanted lead weights on his desk to impose discipline, the girl in our dorm who’d burned rosemary incense all night to keep away nightmares, the guy who suddenly got gorgeous after his fifteenth birthday because his grandmother had paid for beauty charms.
When our car was rolling into San Francisco, I brought our conversation back to the purpose of her trip. “You said something about visiting family?”
She flinched. “Yes. It’s Granddad’s birthday.”
I thought back, remembering her telling me about her powerful grandfather. “You’re good to come when it’s so hard for you.”
“It might be his last. My mother said I had to be there.” Suddenly she straightened, looking around. “Did you feel that?”
I cast a quick scan over the train car, but I didn’t detect anything particularly malicious. We were just coming into the Glen Park station. “No. What did you—”
“Let’s get off,” she said. “This one. Here. Now. Let’s go.”
Before I could stop her, she jerked her suitcase off the train and onto the platform. I had to weave around the bodies blocking my way, barely making it through the doors before they slid shut behind me. Then the train continued without us, leaving us standing on the underground platform.
“What did you sense?” I asked.
Her skin was pale, and the sweat had returned to her upper lip. She lifted her shoulders in a shrug, then fumbled with a sachet of herbs—dill seed and borage flowers, I detected—tied to her belt. I felt a spell of calming magic wash through the air. It was her own fear she was trying to stop, not anything around us.
“Nothing,” she said. “I think I just panicked. I’m like that. Jumpy. I can’t help myself.”
“No problem,” I said. “Another train will come along. Your hotel is downtown, right?”
She ran a hand through her hair, digging her fingernails into her scalp. Her face was pinched, her breath shallow. “I need to get out of here.”
I touched the wood beads around my neck and cast another scanning spell for danger, but I didn’t find anything. Those who’d come off the train with us were already walking away, heading up to the street, none looking back at us.
“Now. Please.” Marcella began jogging toward the escalator. Her suitcase twisted to one side, its wheels losing contact with the ground, but she didn’t slow down, just dragged it harder behind her.
2
I had to run to catch up, casting defensive spells ahead of me to include Marcella’s departing form. If this was what bodyguards had to put up with, I was glad it wasn’t my regular job. “Marcella! Please—wait!”
But she didn’t pause, just kept going, pushing past a man on the escalator and disappearing above me into the station. I had to maneuver past the same man and hurry after her, my heart pounding with the exertion and shared fear. What had she sensed that I hadn’t?
I got up to the street and realized she was already halfway down the block. Glen Park wasn’t a neighborhood tourists would visit, and most of the people around me were commuters heading home. Over the steep hill to the north was Noe Valley, where the Protectorate office employed the local assortment of professional witches trained or hired to hunt and kill demons, research other supernatural threats, negotiate the biggest career ladder in witch society, and gossip.
My former workplace.
If we were in danger, we could go there, although the hike over the hill would be tiring with countless shadowy corners for an assailant to hide. The sun was setting, the fog thickening, the light fading.
At the corner ahead, Marcella suddenly stopped and looked back at me, her chest heaving. When I caught up to her, she managed to say between breaths, “I’m so sorry. I had— I had to run. I— I’m sorry.”
I cast another defensive spell around us. “Did you have a plan for how we’ll get downtown?”
She shook her head, flinching. “Sorry. No.”
“How do you feel about the J Church? The streetcar?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just need to see where we’re going.”
“Do you think whatever is threatening you is afraid of daylight?”
“No,” she said. “It’s not that. It’s being underground.”
“The J is aboveground here. We’ll get off before it goes under.”
“Great. Maybe that will work,” she said.
I knew the area from my time at the Protectorate, so I led us down the street and across the footbridge to another station platform, this one located between lanes of busy traffic. I continued to cast spells, searching for danger, but the only thing I sensed was my own hunger, triggered by all the great restaurants sending their delicious aromas into the evening air. As I detected Chinese food, my stomach rumbled.
The train finally arrived, and we got on. Afraid Marcella might run off again, I didn’t take an open seat but stayed on my feet. She did the same, although she didn’t look nervous anymore. Her coloring returned to normal, and she began sneaking bites of a chocolate bar from her bag.
The ride was slow and bumpy, taking us into the edge of the Mission and along city streets north of the city center. My feet started to hurt from standing so long, but I didn’t want to risk dropping my guard. As promised, I made sure we got off before the train went underground, then walked us to a bus stop. Marcella dropped the handle of her suitcase twice when the wheels hit a bumpy patch of concrete.
“Let me help,” I said, turning to carry it for her.
She waved me away. “I’m fine,” she said. “My fingers are just sweaty. Nerves.”
The sun was disappearing behind the bank of fog to the west, streaking the sky with pink and purple. The city lights twinkled like fairies in the mist.
It had been a few years, but I still remembered how to get around on Muni. It would take us an hour longer—at least—than if we’d stayed on the original BART train, but I respected any witch’s instincts about danger. Whatever she’d felt back there on the train had been serious.
“Thanks so much for all this,” Marcella said, hauling her suitcase up onto the 22 Fillmore bus. It was crowded—the 22 was a popular line—but a few minor spells of mine opened up a little breathing room around us near the back doors. As the bus rumbled on, I cast jealous glances out the window at a Japanese restaurant I’d loved when I’d lived in San Francisco. My town in the boonies just couldn’t provide the cuisine a big city could, even with magic.
