Page 10 of Bright Dark Curses

As if of a hive mind, everyone shuffled around the corner and grouped into a tight circle, Fluffy panting between my legs, and Rufus attached to my hip, still eyeing Brett suspiciously. His protectiveness filled me with an unexpected wave of warmth—had he decided to protect me until Ian came back?

“Okay,” I said, trying not to get teary eyed. “What’s going on, and why do you need my help?” The sooner we got the problem fixed, the sooner I could ask Key to spill all the movie filming secrets. If they were following the books closely, they had to be about to film Lucy following her main suspect then investigating his shop after hours. There was even a chase when she almost got caught! Very exciting stuff.

“There’s been some strange things happening with the movie sets and crew,” Key told us. “Things started to go missing.”

“You suspect theft?”

“At first,” Brett said. “But then there were a couple of ‘accidents.’” He air quoted that last word. “One of the cranes began malfunctioning out of the blue, and one of the girls got her hands burned.”

“Sabotage?” If so, no wonder Key had called me. I was kind of an expert in that field.

“I thought that,” Brett said. “Or someone playing pranks. But then yesterday when I was helping test the lights, they went haywire and nobody could figure out why.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I was there when the crane was malfunctioning too and with the girl. I’ve been getting some funny looks, and I caught Harris—that’s the guy in charge of setting up stuff—asking about me yesterday. I was afraid someone would start to think I’m involved and call the police or the bounty hunters on me. Especially if I’m around any more accidents.”

That didn’t sound good. “So you called Key to help?”

“Yeah, Shane told me he and Key could poke around and see what they found. He says Key has some experience doing that.”

I resisted the urge to high-five Key right then and there. Her first bounty-hunter-adjacent case! I was so happy for her, I could burst.

“And you used Fairy Circle’s catering to get inside?” I asked her. If her career contained genius ideas like that, Key was going to be the bounty hunter to beat.

“One of Alex’s friends works for them,” she explained. “He agreed to let us take his shift.”

I grinned. “He’s still getting paid for it, huh?”

Shane snorted. “You bet.”

“Also, well…” Brett swallowed, then lowered his voice. “I’m kind of in a bad spot with Hutton.” He winced, as if remembering some bad scrape. “There were some, uh, problems during Halloween with the whole Garreth the Hound thing and I got in some trouble with the pack.”

“And if he finds out now you’re in trouble at the movie set, you’ll get grounded for life?”

He nodded and hung his head in defeat. The number one rule all paranormals followed, no matter their evil proclivities, was to remain hidden from the normal human world. Hutton wouldn’t like it a bit if one of his shifters came into the spotlight for a crime, especially if said shifter was already in trouble.

“Don’t worry,” I said encouragingly. “I’m sure we’ll figure this out.”

He grew hopeful. “You’ll help?”

“A good witch always helps, no matter the situation. Tell me why you called me today.”

Brett ran a hand through his hair in obvious distress. “I was in charge of unloading some of the equipment for today’s shoot, but when I got to one of the trunks, I noticed a funny smell. A bit like blood.”

Ah, dark magic. My eternal enemy.

“There was something off about the area around the latches too,” he continued. “I thought it might be some kind of potion, so I made an excuse about the trunk being empty and someone misplacing the equipment so nobody would touch it.”

“Smart,” I said with approval. “It might be dangerous stuff.”

“It just didn’t seem natural, you know? The blood and the discoloration. But I don’t think whoever is messing with the crew used potions before. Why go from minor stuff to that?”

“An escalation,” I agreed. “And you’re a possible scapegoat.”

“Exactly!”

“I called you to see if you could check if magic was used on the trunk,” Key said.

Magic traces tended to disappear fast unless the spot had been used for magic repeatedly, but if the potion had been meant to affect someone while the crew set up, it should still be fresh. Seeing if magic was involved would give Key a big hint to whether the saboteur was a paranormal or if she was dealing with your garden variety human culprit.

“Where’s the trunk?” I asked. Goodness, but this was awesome—a magic mystery while experiencing the magic of making movies!

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