Sara Bourgeois
Donuts and demons, oh my!
When Brighton Skeenbaur comes out of retirement, she comes out swinging. One minute she’s minding her own business, attending her monthly book club, and the next… bam, she’s staring at a dead body.
It’s been a long time since Brighton got involved in a murder mystery, but this time, she feels compelled. While her sleuthing puts her at odds with her son-in-law, and his entire department, Brighton can’t back down.
But Kinsley is glad for the help. She’s up to her neck in Coven issues and did not want to get involved in another murder mystery. Still, she’ll lend a helping hand whenever she can. And as always, Meri is more than willing to lend a helping paw.
After all these years, can Brighton still solve a crime one spell at a time?
With Kinsley busy with her new donut shop and the Coven, Brighton and Remi often babysit their grandchildren. Mostly Hekate since Lainey is in preschool. One of the things she’s missed since Kinsley’s return to town is Meri. Although he still visits he most often is with Kinsley or Hekate.
While Remi is more of a homebody, enjoying the children or researching on the web. Brighton likes to get out more. On this occasion she has errands to run and her first stop is the grocery store. She has a confrontation with someone who looks familiar, but she can’t place. He gets thrown out of the store but it’s still unsettling. Her next stop is the hardware store and then she realizes he followed her as she’s talking to her cousin Aria. Aria’s quick thinking gets him tossed out of there as well.
That night is her book club and the book was boring and the discussion not much better. After a couple of sneaked drinks and some of the sweets provided Brighton steps out for some air. The property has a large pond and she wandered down and walked out onto the deck. Suellen, another of the book club members joins her and she spots something in the water. With a touch of magic, Brighton brings it toward them, it looks like a log, but it isn’t.
Not only was the person dead but his ghost is hanging around as well. It’s the man who had harassed and followed her earlier.
When Jeremy and Thorn get there, the investigation begins, and Meri shows up. Of course you know Brighton isn’t going to stay out of it, she’s been itching to do something new. So when Jeremy and Thorn start down the path that goes from the property to town, she follows with Meri.
This is a favorite scene.
The woods were dark, but it wasn’t so bad. The moon was bright and at least some of the light cut through the trees. Still, a little magic never hurt anyone.
I could see Thorn’s and Jeremy’s flashlights sweeping over the trail ahead, but I didn’t have a flashlight. I tried the one on my phone, but it was just above useless.
“We could use a little magic,” Meri suggested. “For you. I can see just fine.”
I mulled it over. A light would attract attention. “You’ve given me an idea.”
“You going to turn yourself into a cat?” Meri snarked.
“Close,” I said. “That would take a lot of magic to maintain, but what if I just turn my eyes?”
“You’re going to turn yourself into a goat.”
“I am not. I’ve been doing this for a very long time now. I think I can manage some cat eyes.”
“Or you could just do a light spell.”
“I’m doing the cat eyes,” I said. “It’s less obvious.”
Meri sighed. “Fine, I’ll help.”
“Just a little boost,” I said. “And maybe some protection.”
“You want to cast a circle out here too, lady?”
“I’d forgotten how delightful you can be,” I said with a chuckle.
“Whatever.”
“Whatever indeed.”
But that was the end of the conversation. I closed my eyes and covered my lids with my palms. The magic started in my heart. It was warm and turquoise blue like a Caribbean sea. I focused harder, and the color became water. The water became sparkling sunlight as it traveled down to my fingertips.
I supposed I could have just radiated the magic up through my chest and throat to my eyes. But I didn’t want to take the chance of a misfire and end up meowing instead of seeing in the dark. Meri would have never let me live that down.
When I moved my hands away and opened my eyes, the entire forest had taken on a silvery glow. It was almost like night-vision goggles, but pretty and sparkly. I looked down at Meri.
“Do my eyes look weird?”
“Oh, now that’s freaking strange,” he said obviously unnerved. “Can we just get on with this?”
“One second,” I said and took out my phone.
I turned on the camera and put it on front facing. I had to know what I looked like with cat eyes, and it was freaking strange.
My irises were still green, but my pupils were humongous. In fact, it was hard to tell that my irises were still green because my pupils had swallowed them up. Suddenly, the light on my phone came on, and my pupils narrowed to tiny snake-like slits.
“Did you just hiss?” Meri asked.
“No,” I said, but I really wasn’t sure.
An owl hooted overhead. I wasn’t sure if it was a sign or if the crafty old bird was just annoyed with our presence. It was time to move on.
But not before I got a selfie. Hey, how could you blame me? I had wicked cool cat eyes. I needed to show Remy later. If anybody would get a kick out of my shenanigans, it was him.
“Can you just get on with it?” Meri asked as I snapped a few photos.
“Sorry, jut want to make sure I get a good one,” I said.
“I thought we were investigating a murder,” he groused. “You’re acting like a dumb teenager.”
“I’m having fun,” I scowled at him.
He hissed and ran a few feet ahead of me.
“That’s right. Remember who is the witch and who is the familiar in this scenario,” I said.
“You’re so much more… witchy than Kinsley,” he said as I pocketed my phone.
“Hey, bud, that’s my daughter. Don’t talk smack about her.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying. You embrace all this in a way I’m not sure she ever will.”
I shrugged. “I thought being a witch was cool when I found out. She never really wanted it,” I said as we tiptoed down the path.
My eyes swept the trees on either side of the path. For the most part, all my silvery vision revealed was a bunch of confused animals staring back at us.
They could sense that my presence wasn’t entirely natural and kept their distance. Meri would have helped with that too. Cats are formidable hunters, but a magic cat was terrifying to anything smaller than a bear. And I was sure even a bear would think twice before tangling with him.
Another reason why Thorn and Jeremy should have let me come along. Not that there were any bears in the woods around Coventry. But there might have been a mountain lion. People said we didn’t have them in Illinois, but I knew better. Too many people had reported sightings, and I could feel something bigger and meaner way off in the distance.
I turned my eyes back to the path, and a bright flash of light momentarily blinded me. At the same time, Meri trotted ahead again.
My eyes adjusted quickly, and I saw what had overwhelmed my vision. Something metallic lay a few feet off the path. The moonlight had caught it and turned it into a spotlight.
“What is it?” I asked Meri. He’d already reached the object.
“Looks like a big locket,” he said and sniffed it. “Oh, it’s a pocket watch.”
I leaned down, as I’d reached the spot where he stood over the watch, and picked it up. It was cold. So cold that I almost dropped it.
A shiver went down my spine, but it wasn’t cold outside. The only explanation for the icy metal was magic.
“You all right?” Meri asked.
“Feel this,” I said and thrust my hand out to him.
He stuck his nose to the pocket watch. “It’s kinda cold, I guess.”
By that time, most of the magic had drained from the watch. But he got the point.
“It was freezing when I picked it up,” I said. “My magic diffused most of the enchantment on the watch.”
I turned it over in my hand. There was only one broken chain link at the top.
“It broke off its chain,” Meri observed at the same time.
“I guess we should take this to Thorn,” I said. “They’ll need to see if the chain is attached to Murray.”
“It could have fallen off in the water,” Meri said.
“It’s right here in my hand,” I said.
“I mean the chain, you boob.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ll mention that.”
We hurried ahead on the path to catch up with Thorn and Jeremy. When we were almost on them, Meri reminded me. “Your eyes. You’ll freak them out.”
I stopped short, and as I was about to slip the watch into my pocket, I had an idea. I pulled out my phone and took a few pictures of it.
“You going to post those on the Gram?” Meri snarked.
“No, you boob,” I said, returning his previous insult. “Thorn and Jeremy will take this into evidence, and I want to be able to look at it later.”
“You don’t have to call me names,” Meri grumbled.
“Whatever.”
I put my phone in one pocket and slipped the watch into the other. We could hear Thorn and Jeremy talking up ahead, and I was certain they’d probably heard our entire exchange.
That notion was confirmed when we closed the remaining few feet between us. Both men stood there watching us with their hands on their hips. Thorn tapped his foot impatiently, but Jeremy had a slight smile tugging at his lips.
“You should have left evidence for the crime scene team,” Thorn chastised.
“Oh,” I said sheepishly.
“Stop,” Jeremy said and backhanded Thorn in the stomach. “You know they cut the budget for the tech team. They weren’t coming out here. They probably aren’t even going to the actual body. Just the coroner pronouncing death and they take the body away.”
“Oh,” I said. “The county cut the budget that far?”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said and stuck out his hand. “But you’ve still got to hand it over, Brighton.”
“Don’t you need an evidence bag?” I asked as I took it out of my pocket.
“That would have been an amazing thing to think of before you picked it up,” Thorn said.
“Oh,” I said again. But before I handed it over to them, I closed my eyes and whispered a gentle erasure incantation. “Get a bag,” I said. “I’ve erased all traces of me. You can still dust it for prints or send it to forensics.”
“You’re lucky I have one,” Thorn pulled a bag out of his pocket. “I always keep one just in case.”
Thorn held the bag open for me, and I dropped the pocket watch in. I stood there quietly as he sealed it and then tucked the baggie into his inside jacket pocket.
“You’re going to have to turn around and go back now,” Jeremy said gently. “Thank you for your help, but you really can’t be out here with us.”
I humphed and got ready to protest, but my phone rang. It was Remy, so I walked a couple of feet away from the guys and answered.
Bourgeois, Sara. Hope Springs Infernal (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 14). Kindle Locations (684-762). Kindle Edition.
Kinsley is still handling the aftermath of the aborted attempt to take the Coven. She still has to find Ellie who led the charge, and she has to deal with the others as well.
There’s Fae and possible demons in this one. A new character in the form of Brax, and Lilith is part of this one as well. Brighton’s mother shows up, we meet a dragon shifter and well this one has plenty of twists and turns to go with the mysteries involved.
I’m already reading the next book I can’t seem to stop reading these.
5 Contented Purrs for Sara!
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Sara Bourgeois
Sara Bourgeois is a Midwesterner through and through. She spends her time writing, reading, herding cats, and standing in her driveway during tornado warnings. (You can’t see them from the basement.)
Carol Kittie Reviews 