Page 32 of Bright Dark Curses

“Yup. Good thing you were with me.”

She began walking toward Guiles. “Just so you know, I’m never going in there again. And you owe me forty bucks.”

“You only paid twenty!”

“Service surcharge.”

I couldn’t complain—it had been worth it. “Doesn’t sound like Turner is our guy.” Unfortunately. It would’ve been nice to catch our saboteur so easily. I sent Key the name to check if he was part of the crew anyway, just in case. “Hey, want to see if Mark is working at the Crawler?”

Dru sent me a sidelong glance. “Why?”

Because they were totally into each other. “Just wondering.”

“Wonder less, work more. What now?”

“We should interview our suspects.”

“Isn’t that Key and Shane’s job?”

“The crew might be too busy while they’re at the set…” I snapped my fingers as a genius idea came to mind. “We should catch them off set. I bet they’ll come here to Guiles and Romary to decompress.”

“More like their hotel rooms.”

“Nobody comes to Olmeda and doesn’t visit the bars at least once.”

Dru conceded the point with a small grunt. “It’s Saturday. They might go visit tonight.”

“And when they do…” I wagged my eyebrows. “We’ll be ready for them.”

TEN

I returned to the shop while Dru went off to finish some more paperwork. I used the back door and left the dogs upstairs with plenty of water and food to sustain them until their evening walk, then I decided to take Bagley out for a bit and moved her into the kitchen.

I got an about time, and you better not leave me at the mercy of the squid, which of course meant I left her at the mercy of Tiny Kraken.

Brimstone was standing stoically behind the counter when I parted the bead curtain and entered the shop. A small family occupied the table by the window and two customers sat at the stools. One had their face buried into a mug of tea while they tapped their foot impatiently against the stool’s lower rung.

“Everything okay?” I asked in a cheery voice. Brimstone didn’t usually look quite so…stonelike.

The closest customer spun on the stool and jumped right off. “Hope!”

Surprise brought me up short. “Natalia?” The older teen was part of Hutton’s pack, and while she had helped with the tours during Halloween, she wasn’t exactly a staple in my shop.

She rushed up to me and whispered harshly, “I need you to cancel the love spell.”

Yes, the last and only time Natalia had darkened my doorstep had been in the pursuit of a love potion.

“Let’s go into the back.” I ushered her through the curtain and into the hallway.

Once the beads fell back into place, she scanned our surroundings, making sure no customers hid in the small bathroom or the stairs. Points for paranormal safety.

“You need to cancel the love spell you made for me,” she repeated, still whispering.

Very impressive. I’d have to make sure Hutton knew to praise her.

“I can’t do that,” I whispered back. Mostly because I had given her a placebo potion—you couldn’t do things that affected other people’s will to that degree without dark magic.

She crossed her arms. “Then make a reverse love spell. A hate potion.”

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