Twisted Treats: Cursed Candy Mysteries, #2

By Cate Lawley

It's murder when family come to visit.

Great Aunt Sophia's in town to teach Lina all of her witchy ways.

No great surprise, her eccentric great aunt's teaching methods are just as unorthodox as the lady herself. Certainly not approved by the International Criminal Witch Police.

Which is a problem, since Lina's neck deep in another murder investigation.

Lina has to juggle her great aunt's idea of witch training as she helps the ICWP solve a rather unusual murder…one that's been linked to Lina's magic.

Can she balance her witch training while trying to catch a killer? Oh, and also keep her great aunt out of the clink.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cate Lawley
• Release date: Aug 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393069508

Book preview

1

Bastian Heissman, owner of Magic Beans and local lead detective for the International Criminal Witch Police, had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Or at least from his place of work.

I knew that because I’d adopted Magic Beans as my very own favorite coffee shop, and he never seemed to be there. I stopped by most days, so I would know.

Not that I was trying to creepy stalk him or anything. Really.

I was doing the opposite of stalking. For five days, I’d done my best to avoid my current houseguest. Between work, running errands, and my newly discovered obsession with working my way through Magic Beans’ entire drink menu, I’d done a bang-up job of it.

Since Great-Aunt Sophia was in town to train me, my avoidance of her was posing a teensy tiny hindrance to my witch training.

Miniscule.

And by that, I mean that I’d done almost no training at all.

In my defense, Great-Aunt Sophia had proclaimed all witch training to be done outdoors without clothing. I’m not terribly shy, but I do like my neighbors (most of them), and they like me clothed. Also, October in Boise, Idaho, can be a little chilly.

Three full days passed before I realized she’d been kidding—or so she claimed—but by then, I’d established the comforting habit of avoidance. Also, I was enjoying my journey through Bastian’s excellent variety of caffeinated beverages.

Miles had promised me a Magic Beans T-shirt if I finished the whole menu, teas and decaffeinated drinks included, before Halloween. I did love a challenge, especially one involving delicious drinks.

Imagine my surprise when I received a text message from the mysteriously disappearing man himself after a week without a single sighting.

There’s been an incident. Need your help. Pick you up?

His text made my heart beat faster, and not in the good way. Yes, I was happy to hear from him. Yes, I did have the beginnings of a crush on the handsome German import who’d saved me from incarceration in a witchy prison facility.

But Bastian was perfectly capable of handling an incident on his own. And if he needed a helping hand or two, Miles and Sabrina were his International Criminal Witch Police minions.

If he was reaching out for help with an investigation, it raised the question: had the two cursed candy sticks that I’d failed to account for surfaced?

With any luck at all, the raw cursing magic I’d accidentally created hadn’t been used in another murder.

If only I’d known that making candy while in the foulest of moods would curse it, I would have taken the night off. But back then, an entire two weeks previous, I hadn’t known I was a witch.

I reread Bastian’s text. Perhaps his incident was something innocuous. Some harmless prank or minor offense—not a murder. Only one way to find out.

I’m at Magic Beans.

The office door in the back of Magic Beans opened, and Bastian emerged. I shot the new barista a disgruntled look. Not that Jami would know to warn me of Bastian’s presence, since she’d worked at Magic Beans all of two days. But I wasn’t feeling fair-minded. I was feeling annoyed.

Lina. Bastian gestured to his office.

A man of few words. That hadn’t changed in the week he’d been absent.

Just to poke him, I said, Hey, Bastian. Good to see you, too. Hope your vacation was relaxing.

Vacation? He closed the office door behind him, and then settled himself in the seat behind his desk.

You haven’t been at work, I reminded him. Unless he’d been hiding in his office.

Now that I thought about it, maybe he had been. Maybe he had cameras set up in the coffee shop and parking lot, and he made a mad dash for his office every time he saw me coming.

Nah. Bastian wouldn’t do that. Too cowardly.

I haven’t been at work, he agreed. But I wasn’t on holiday. I was visiting family.

The look on his face as he said visiting family mimicked my cousin Bryson’s expression when I’d taken him in for major dental work back before I moved to Boise.

I told him to get used to it, since at the time he’d had aspirations of being a professional hockey player. And look at him now, a pro hockey player with only one crown. I was so proud. I was also currently ducking his calls and texts, but that was another story altogether.

What are you thinking? Bastian examined me with narrowed eyes.

Just that you don’t seem to have enjoyed your family visit.

He sighed, muttering incomprehensible words under his breath. At my curious expression, he said more clearly, I rarely do.

My eyes probably looked buggy. We’d barely spoken a dozen words to each other, and Bastian was spilling personal information. Color me surprised.

I considered my response and finally landed on, I’m sorry.

I might be avoiding Great Aunt Sophia like she had the plague (or a nude yoga habit), but that didn’t mean I didn’t generally enjoy her company…when she wasn’t trying to convince me of the advantages of naked witchcraft. And I liked the rest of my family, the less eccentric remainder, quite a lot.

It’s fine. He ran a hand through his hair, and it looked like it wasn’t the first time he’d done that today. Actually, it’s not great, but I’m working on it.

I nodded. Even if I did like my family, I understood that relationships with one’s family members could be complicated. So about this incident…

He closed his eyes. It hit me then how weary he looked.

Bastian, when did you get back into town?

He glanced at the chunky watch on his wrist. About an hour and a half ago. I headed to the funeral home directly from the airport.

No wonder he looked exhausted. Germany to New York was a good ten hours and then he’d still had most of the United States to cross.

Wait…funeral home? Funeral homes meant dead bodies, and dead bodies when combined with the witch police… Has there been another murder?

Not exactly. Not like you mean. But maybe yes. Probably.

Bastian didn’t dither. Dithering couldn’t be good. Could be a sign of fatigue, but I thought not.

Sabrina, Bastian’s ICWP minion, his part-time barista, and my recently acquired full-time employee, breezed into the office. It’s my day off, people. This better be good.

Since Bastian hadn’t gotten further than maybe yes, probably a murder had occurred—and this from a man who liked all things well-defined—I waited anxiously for his explanation.

She took one look at Bastian and scrunched up her face. Seriously? A murder? But we just had a murder.

I raised my hand, like a guilty student fessing up to naughtiness. I think that might be my fault. Turning my attention to Bastian and his adorably rumpled clothing and mussed hair, I said, I assume that’s why you texted me? You think my cursed candy has something to do with what’s happened.

There were bigger issues—cursed candy issues—at play, but I couldn’t help noticing that Bastian wore the disheveled traveler look very well. I looked like a nightmare after a two-hour flight. He traveled across multiple countries and looked…tired, yes. Less tidy than usual, naturally. But just as heart-thumpingly appealing as always.

Sabrina planted herself in one of the two armchairs in the corner, and I took my favorite seat on the sofa.

Bastian said, I just came from the funeral home.

And I landed back in reality with a jarring thud. Death did that, especially death that might have my magic mixed up in it.

Our funeral home? Sabrina asked. When Bastian nodded, she turned to me to explain. We have a specific funeral home where we route all of the suspicious deaths, magically speaking.

Isn’t that convenient, I muttered, because…yeah, that was weird.

More necessary than convenient, Bastian replied. It takes a good deal of coordination. That’s why Miles isn’t here. He’s at home for the moment, monitoring the situation virtually.

And the situation is…? Sabrina asked.

Two bodies, both drained of blood.

She blinked. That’s ambitious.

Ambitious? Ambitious! We’d been invaded by vampires, and she thought it was ambitious?

It’s highly suspect, Bastian countered. One body could be a rogue demon. Two implies direction and control.

Demon? You mean vampire?

Sabrina made an exasperated sound. Aren’t you supposed to be in training? Oh, right. You’ve been avoiding your mentor, the same mentor who would tell you that vampires don’t exist.

Demons, however rare, do, and they consume blood. Bastian frowned. Why are you avoiding your mentor?

Did y’all do your witch and wizard training naked in the backyard with all the neighbors’ curtains twitching? I asked.

A faint hint of pink touched his cheeks. No.

Sabrina didn’t even answer, she just snorted.

That’s why. Tell me more about demons. Also, an uncomfortable fluttering in my stomach made me ask, what exactly do demons have to do with my cursed candy?

Oh, Sabrina said, as if a light bulb had gone on. Oh, yeah, that sucks.

What sucks? I didn’t yell, because I wouldn’t let my frustration dictate the volume of my speech.

Okay, truth, I yelled a little.

Which made no sense. I already suspected that my candy was involved in a criminal incident, maybe murder. Why did the fact that my candy might be involved in a criminal incident with demons make any difference?

After a brief pause in which neither of them jumped into the breech, Sabrina sighed. You wanna tell her, and are you going to make me?

Bastian leaned his elbows on his desk. You remember I mentioned unfriendly beings could cross over when the dead are called forth?

Hanna had called her mom from beyond the veil a little over a week ago. My great-aunt had arrived in town since then and a few other things had happened—like life—so I didn’t exactly recall the particulars of that conversation.

Refresh my memory.

That’s really the whole story, Sabrina said. An unfriendly being—a demon—hitched a ride with Rachael when she crossed over. It’s a risk when we call dead people forth, which is one of several reasons that we don’t do that.

And you know it’s a demon because of the two people in the funeral home who’ve had their blood drained. I wanted to be clear. It’s not like I knew about demons and blood draining.

And to be fair to Great-Aunt Sophia, I don’t even think she’d have gotten that far if I hadn’t been avoiding her the past five days. Demons and blood draining seemed like advanced educational material.

"Well, one blood-drained corpse implies an accidental demon infestation." Sabrina kicked her feet up on the ottoman and then rested her head against the back of the armchair. She looked like she was about to take a nap.

Correct. Bastian’s expression told me the news was about to get worse. The blood of one human is more than enough to satisfy a demon for several days. Enough for a few demons. Two drained bodies is evidence that someone is controlling that demon.

I don’t understand. What does an extra-hungry demon have to do with someone else controlling it? In my head, I was conflating vampires and demons. If you sucked blood like a vampire, then my brain said you were a vampire. And didn’t vampires drain victims willy-nilly? That was sort of their MO. In fiction, because it appeared there was no such thing as vampires in real life.

Demons are like most feral creatures, Bastian explained. They hunt to satisfy hunger, but once sated they don’t kill unless threatened. Even then, I doubt they’d drain a kill made in self-defense.

Sabrina lifted her head and gave me a sympathetic look. What the boss has left out is that only the person who opened the door for the demon should be able to control it.

Hanna. I frowned. She’s locked up. Can she do that from jail?

No, she can’t, Bastian replied. And before you ask, I’ve already contacted the facility. She’s still safely confined.

That’s unfortunate. Sabrina rubbed her eyes, highlighting the lack of her usual makeup. Sabrina usually looked like she was ready for a photo shoot.

I don’t understand. We really didn’t want Hanna and her murderous urges loose in the world, so how was her continued confinement unfortunate? Hanna being still locked up is good news. Are you feeling okay?

Better than you will be in a second, she muttered.

She’s hungover, Bastian said.

Hungover didn’t explain why she thought I’d be feeling less than stellar. Then it hit me. "You have got to be kidding me! I’m a suspect, aren’t I? Because it wasn’t just Hanna’s magic that opened that door. It was Hanna’s and mine."

Bastian and Sabrina both stared at me, like they were waiting.

You don’t think I did this. Because they couldn’t.

They knew me. They knew I wasn’t a demon-controlling murderer. Outside of finding murder abhorrent, I also didn’t have the knowledge to control my own magic, let alone to control a demon.

Bastian shook his head as Sabrina murmured a quiet No.

But they both gave me sympathetic—or perhaps pitying—looks, and that’s when I realized the raw magic I’d turned loose in the form of two unaccounted for cursed candy sticks had come back to haunt me.

Really, I should have figured it out much sooner. Shock over the deaths? More likely plain, simple denial.

I sighed. You think someone is using my magic to control the demon.

One head nod, then a second.

To kill people, I added. Because we might as well be clear about the details. My candy was once again in the middle of a murder investigation…with demons.

How was this my life?

2

Ijust want to make candy. Sweets make people happy. Is that so much to ask the universe? To let me make freaking candy?" Silently I added, that doesn’t kill people.

Sabrina and Bastian stared back at me.

I was grappling with a stout dose of denial. Any normal person in my situation would be. Oh, wait, normal people weren’t in my situation ever, because my situation involved magic.

Magic was not my friend. Not my magic, anyway.

Both Sabrina and Bastian had that look, the one that was part worried, part uncomfortable, and part pitying.

The same look I gave Great-Aunt Sophia when she suggested I ditch my clothes to do magic in the great outdoors, aka my backyard.

I’m fine.