Battle of the hexes, p.1
Battle of the Hexes, page 1
Also by Jane Hinchey
Find them all at www.JaneHinchey.com/books
The Ghost Detective Mysteries
#1 Ghost Mortem
#2 Give up the Ghost
#3 The Ghost is Clear
#4 A Ghost of a Chance
#5 Here Ghost Nothing
#6 Who Ghost There?
#7 Wild Ghost Chase
* * *
Witch Way Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series
#1 Witch Way to Magic & Mayhem
#2 Witch Way to Romance & Ruin
#3 Witch Way Down Under
#4 Witch Way to Beauty & the Beach
#5 Witch Way to Death & Destruction
#6 Witch Way to Secrets & Sorcery
* * *
The Midnight Chronicles
#1 One Minute to Midnight
#2 Two Minutes Past Midnight
#3 Third Strike of Midnight
The Gravestone Mysteries
#1 Fur the Hex of It
#2 Battle of the Hexes
PARANORMAL ROMANCE/URBAN FANTASY
The Awakening Series
#1 First Blade
#2 First Witch
#3 First Blood
Contents
About this book
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
Afterword
Cupcakes & Curses
About Jane
Battle of the Hexes © 2022 Jane Hinchey
* * *
This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Editor: Paula Lester
Cover Designer: Lou Harper, Cover Affairs
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
ISBN: 978-1-922745-09-5
Baywolf Press
PO Box 43
Ingle Farm, SA, 5098
Australia
To my dad, who was my everything. I wish you were still here to hold this book in your hands.
Holly Day, aka Twitch the Witch, has a target on her back.
* * *
When Cody Pendant, a black market occult dealer, is murdered, no-one is surprised. Cody was a fraud and a conman who had ripped off almost everyone he’d ever done business with. When her address is found on his body, Holly is convinced the killer is closing in. On her.
* * *
Deciding life is better if you’re living, she makes plans. Big plans. Plans such as renovating her house. Baking bread. And exploring exactly why her heart skips more than a beat whenever the sexiest lawman she’s ever seen is near.
* * *
But first she needs to figure out if Cody’s killer is the same supernatural assassin out to get her. Easy, right?
Chapter One
It was hot. Hotter than the hinges on the gates of Hades. Hotter than Satan’s butt crack. Sweat pooled in places I’d rather not think about as I limped my way toward Gravestone’s foreshore. Flynn, my rat familiar, perched on my shoulder, one paw clutching my hair for balance at my uneven gait. I’d be glad when my broken foot was healed, and I could give this walking boot the boot. Har har. I chuckled to myself at the pun, and Flynn swiveled to give me a look. Probably a look that said, have you lost your ever-loving mind? Probably.
Hiding out in Gravestone until the hit on me had been neutralized was not my idea of fun. Forbidden from using my magic and given the alias Holly Day was just as grating. As an SIA agent, I wasn’t used to twiddling my thumbs and waiting for someone else to save me. I was a woman of action. An elite soldier fighting bad guys of the paranormal variety. Not the book store clerk playing house I claimed to be.
“Come on,” I grumbled, my small bout of humor evaporating beneath the heat of the morning. “Doris said the market is fun. According to her, everyone and their dog sets up a table on the first Saturday of the month and sells their treasures.”
Streamers and balloons were attached to light poles, and stands lined both sides of the street, residents busily putting out their wares. I spotted Doris across the street at a booth in front of the general store and crossed to where she was unpacking what appeared to be broken and chipped dinner plates.
“Mornin’ Holly.” Doris glanced up with a smile, her eyes landing on my rat. “Flynn.”
He gave her a salute before launching himself off my shoulder and onto the table holding the broken crockery, gingerly picking his way around the display, whiskers twitching as he made it his mission to sniff every single item. Thankfully, his fur was a subdued gray and white today. For some odd reason, Flynn’s fur kept changing color—I figured it was something to do with his shifter magic fighting with the dark magic that had turned him into a rat. The same blast that had broken my foot had turned Flynn into a rat. Flynn had saved us both, but at what cost? Was he destined to be stuck in rat form forever? I felt like a dick for grumbling that I had to sit around and do nothing when he definitely had the short end of the stick. From wolf shifter to rat in one fell swoop.
“What’s all this?” I jerked my thumb at the broken plates.
“People come from miles around to attend the market,” Doris said, pausing to dab at her brow with a red handkerchief. “Sure is a warm one today. Storms brewing.”
I glanced at the gray clouds tinged with purple looming on the horizon, slowly closing in. The humidity had to be sitting at two hundred percent. “What does that have to do with selling broken plates?”
“Mosaics.”
“Mosaics?”
“Yes. You know. Where you take broken tiles of different colors and create a pretty pattern or picture. Only instead of tiles, you use plates.” She swept her arm along her table as if to say ta-da!
I cocked my head. “Much more fragile.” A dinner plate was considerably thinner than a bathroom tile.
She grinned. “Exactly!”
“This is quite the collection.” She had plates of all colors and patterns, some only half a plate, others completely intact except for a small chip or a hairline crack.
“Been collecting them for oodles. I do the rounds at the end of the market and snatch up a bargain. Vendors don’t want to drag home any damaged stock and are happy to sell them to me for a song. Or give ‘em to me for free.”
“Nice.” I nodded. I was impressed. Given the price tags she’d attached, I’d imagine she would reap a tidy profit.
Picking up the milkshake take-out cup balanced precariously on the edge of a shard of porcelain, she placed her lipstick covered lips around the straw and sucked, her cheeks sinking in, leaving her cheekbones in sharp contrast. She released the straw with a pop and a grin. “Want some?”
“Errr, no thanks. What is it anyway?”
Before she had a chance to answer, Flynn came scampering back, keen to inspect the cup. “No, Flynn,” I admonished, scooping him up and ignoring his outraged squeaks. “That’s Doris’s drink. We have no idea what’s in it. Remember those cocktails she made? And how sick you got?” Doris, I’d discovered, usually carted around a bottle of something alcoholic in her purse, and the cocktails she’d made us, while being coffee liquor based, had been lethal.
Flynn stopped chattering, clearly remembering. With a heartfelt sigh, he made his way to my shoulder and sat. “Don’t worry, we’ll go get something to eat and drink shortly,” I assured him. To Doris, I said, “So, where’s the best place to grab a bite around here?”
“River’s, of course.”
“No, I meant here at the market.” River’s café was farther along the foreshore, just after the pier.
“So do I. River sets up a stall selling funnel cakes. They are, of course, out of this world. Come on, I could use a snack. I’ll take you.”
I waved her back. “That’s okay, I’ll find it. You have a booth to man.”
“Pft, Bernadette can keep an eye on it for a few minutes, can’t you Bernadette?” She raised her voice so the woman at the table next to Doris’s could hear.
“What’s that, Doris?” Bernadette Bridge was of the same vintage as Doris. Somewhere in her seventies. Only that’s where the similarities ended. While Doris was slim and vertically challenged, Bernadette was a larger build, both in height and width. On her table was a clash of colorful doilies.
“I said, you don’t mind keeping an eye on my table for ten minutes, do you?” Doris practically shouted.
“Not at all!” Bernadette beamed at us, the lenses on her glasses so thick you could barely make out her eyes.
“Is she blind?” I asked Doris under my breath.
“Color blind, most definitely.” Doris snorted, stepping out from behind her table and linking her arm with mine, urging us forward. “She crochets those doilies by memory without using a pattern, but her yarn choices? Oi!”
“Thanks, Bernadette,” I called as we stepped away. “I won’t keep her long.”
Her reply was lost in the surge of the crowd. The stretch of road had been closed off to traffic, and people young and old meandered from one side of the street to the other, keen to view the dozens of stalls open for business.
“I had no idea there were this many people in Gravestone,” I commented, dodging a young boy with ice-cream dripping from the cone in his hand.
“There aren’t,” Doris said. “Vendors and visitors come from miles around. The market has become quite well known. They’re very popular now.”
Color me surprised, but I liked it. I liked it all, from the streamers and balloons to bunting that ordinarily would be flapping in the breeze—if there was one. But today, the air was still. Dead still. Not a rustle of a leaf in the trees, zero movement to dry the sweat beading on my skin. “Surely, it’s too hot for such activities?” I grumbled, irritation—and perspiration—making my skin itch.
“Nonsense.” Doris waved away my concern. “We’re used to the heat. Heck, if we waited for a cool day, we’d never have the market at all. Look, there’s River. Yoo-hoo!” Doris waved and darted forward. I followed at a more leisurely pace, my walking boot slowing me down. We won’t mention the fact that a seventy-year-old woman was running rings around me. It was embarrassing.
“Hello, ladies.” River greeted us with a smile until she saw my face, then her smile dropped. “Oh, Holly, you look like you need a little pick me up.”
I barked out a snort laugh. Obviously, I looked a wreck. No doubt my face was as red as it felt, my hair plastered to my scalp on account of the sheer amount of sweat I was currently producing. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry. That was rude,” River immediately apologized, and I felt a twinge of remorse for making her feel bad.
With herculean effort, I plastered a smile on my face. “No, it wasn’t. I’m a little overheated, and it probably shows.” No probably about it. I had no doubts I looked as terrible as I felt.
“I’ve got just the thing.” She reached beneath her table, covered with a red and white checkered cloth, and produced a pitcher. “Iced tea?”
“Yes!” I was tempted to snatch the jug from her and down the entire contents in one mouthful. “Please,” I hastily added.
“Wanna think about it for a second?” River laughed and poured me a serving in a dixie cup. “Here you go. And how about a funnel cake? A little sugar and carbs will perk you right up.”
“Sure, why not?” I watched, sipping my drink, while she sprinkled powdered sugar on the fresh cakes she’d just removed from the fryer.
A commotion a few stalls down caught our attention. Doris and I watched as a young couple appeared to be arguing with a booth holder. I didn’t catch everything they were saying, but a few words reached my ears. Words like fake, fraud, rip-off, and money back.
“That’s Cody Pendant,” Doris said, brows drawn. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “He’s not local. He comes into town every month to set up shop at the market.”
“What’s he selling?”
“Antique furniture, occult based bric-à-brac, that type of stuff.”
The young man was up in Cody’s face, poking him in the chest. The woman had hold of the man’s arm and was trying to hold him back. “Who are they?”
“Beau and Claire Whelan, newlyweds. Got married a few months back.”
“You made a big mistake messing with us!” Beau Whelan raged, his anger palpable.
“Babe,” his wife, Claire, placed a hand on his back in a soothing gesture. “Leave it. For now.”
Beau looked down at her, held her gaze for several seconds before his body relaxed, and he took a step back.
Cody watched the pair, a smirk on his face. He was late fifties, early sixties, with a thick head of white-gray hair, a matching, closely trimmed beard, and heavy frown lines deeply embedded in his face. He was big, six foot plus, and broad. He looked like the type of guy who wouldn’t hesitate to punch you in the face and laugh as you lay bleeding.
Doris confirmed my assessment. “Cody Pendant is a douche.”
“So I see.”
“This isn’t over,” Claire Whelan said to Cody, her voice scarily calm. I felt a shift in the air, and the hairs on my arms stood on end. Flynn felt it too, his claws digging into my shoulder.
“Whatever, sweetheart.” Cody sneered, waving his hand in a move along gesture. We watched as Beau and Claire clasped hands and left, both of them casting one last, long glare at Cody before pushing through the crowd that had milled around to watch. With the argument over, the spectators soon drifted away.
“Dad!” A pretty woman with green hair that hung in two braids over her shoulders hurried up to Cody. “Take a break. Go cool off,” she admonished, hands on hips. I didn’t hear his response as River reminded us we were standing at her stall waiting for our funnel cakes.
“Here you go.” River handed me a funnel cake, wrapped in a napkin, and I took a hearty bite.
“Oh, my God, this is incredible!” I said around the mouthful of sweet dough practically melting on my tongue.
“Told you so,” Doris said, accepting her own funnel cake.
“How much do we owe you?” Placing my dixie cup on the table, I reached into my shorts pocket for change.
“First one’s on the house.” River grinned. “Since this is your first Gravestone market and all.”
I inclined my head. “Thank you, that’s very generous.”
With my belly full of iced tea and funnel cake, I realized River had been right. I felt better. Not cooler, but the sugar spike made the heat slightly more tolerable. Doris had been feeding Flynn tiny pieces of funnel cake, thinking I wouldn’t notice, but the woman was as subtle as a sledgehammer. That and the crumbs bouncing off my collar bone and tumbling into my cleavage to stick uncomfortably amongst the sweat were perfect giveaways.
“I gotta get back to Bernadette,” Doris said, dusting off her hands. “There’s a queue forming, and lord knows that woman doesn’t work well under pressure.”
“I’m going to take a look at Cody’s antiques.”
Doris grabbed my arm and looked me dead in the eye. “Don’t you be messing with that man. He’s trouble with a capital T. You’re meant to be keeping a low profile, remember?”
“Oh, I remember all right. Don’t worry, I’m just going to look. Plus, he’s not there. His daughter is manning the booth. Perfect time for a little recon.” I’d seen Cody heed his daughter’s advice and head off while we’d been shoving funnel cake into our mouths.
“Holly.” I heard the warning in Doris’s voice. It was scary that I’d known her a few short days, yet she already knew me so well. Could be because we were both SIA—Doris retired, me in hiding. We were also both witches. And with Gravestone on a ley line that conveniently hid magic, I figured the SIA weren’t the only ones using it to their advantage.
