Page 41 of Bewicched

“Well,” Gran began, “he’s always been quite partial to your mother.”

I sat back down on a laugh. “Sorry, Mom. Looks like you’re taking one for the team.”

“Yes, quite amusing.” Mom drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch. “He’s always been interested in divination. We might be able to tempt him with Arwyn.”

The oven dinged and I went for my lunch. “Stellar parenting there, Mom. Pimping out your only child.” I found a plate and an oven mitt. Grabbing the cooking sheet, I slid the French bread pizza onto my plate, put the pan on the stove top to cool, and took a paper towel. When I returned, the women were suspiciously quiet.

I tore the paper towel in half and used part of it to hold the hot bread. Blowing on it, I looked over the top of steaming tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperoni at the women staring back at me. “What? If you wanted some, you should have said something.”

“We think we’ve hit upon an angle,” Mom said, “but we want your input.”

“Okay.” This all seemed very suspicious. Mom and Gran loved telling me things, not consulting with me. This was either great and showed we were equal points on this triangle or they were looking for me to agree to do something that was going to suck for me in order to alleviate their guilt. As much as I hoped for the first, I was bracing for the second.

“Bracken has a child and we know he’s very concerned about him. Desperate to know anything,” Mom said.

“Why doesn’t he know anything?”

“Bracken went through difficult periods in his life,” Gran explained. “During one of those periods, he drank a great deal and was abusive to his young wife. She took the child and left one night. He’s tried to find them ever since. If you gave him that information, we’d have him as a resource as long as he lived.”

I’d already taken a bite, so I shook my head.

“Now, Arwyn, he’d be an incredibly valuable resource,” Mom said. “His gratitude to the family would help us all. This is what we do. As Council members, we need to put the welfare of the family above our own ethics.”

The pizza burned on the way down, so I took a swig of soda. “Sorry. Let me explain my position. Hell and no. You want me to help an abusive drunk find the woman and child who ran in the middle of the night to escape him? No. Good on her for getting away. I’m sure the child’s life is better without him.”

“His son is an adult now. It isn’t as though you’d be endangering a child,” Gran said.

“As the only person in this room who has never met her father, I can tell you I’d much rather live out my life not knowing than be confronted with an abusive drunk. What is his son supposed to do with this crazy old guy on his doorstep?

“And don’t even try to backpedal. I’ve heard the way you’ve been referring to this Bracken guy. He’s rich and nuts. You want the son to deal with some random weirdo he doesn’t know trying to step back into the role of his father—a role he abandoned for a bottle? No. I’m not sacrificing someone else’s peace and safety to make my or anyone else’s life easier.” I shrugged. “You two can be as disappointed as you want. As over a decade of avoiding this job has shown, I can ignore your disapproval just fine.”

“You act like your grandmother and I are heartless, unconcerned about taking advantage of others.” Mom stood, folded her arms across her chest, and moved to the large windows overlooking the ocean. “We’re trying to keep innocents from being killed. We have a sorcerer, one in this family.” She paused, shoulders tense and high. “Sorcerers and their demons create chaos and bloodshed. The more pain and suffering, the better.”

Gran stared into the fire. Like Mom, she appeared defeated before we’d even started. Guilt ate at me. If I’d joined when they’d first asked, we might not have a sorcerer. We might have been able to divert the wicche when they’d first turned to black magic on their journey to sorcery.

“You know what? I know a half-demon. I did a job for him a little while ago. Maybe he can help us.” It was worth a try.

Gran looked positively scandalized. “You did a reading for a demon?” She glanced over her shoulder at Mom. “Did you know about this?”

“Stop. I said a half-demon. He was a decent guy looking for his wife. A full demon had abducted and imprisoned her. I charged him an exorbitant amount of money to find her.”

“And did you?” Gran asked.

I finished my pizza. “I’ll try not to take offense at that. He ended up sending me ten times the agreed-upon fee, so he doesn’t hate me.” I looked at my phone, thinking. “Not sure how to contact him, though.”

“How did he contact you in the first place?” Mom asked.

He’d busted in on a reading and started talking to me in my head, but I wasn’t about to tell them that. They’d freak out. “That won’t work. Let me think.” I swiped open my phone and went into my money transfer app. I found his payment and clicked on it. The app sent me to the screen to send him money. Okay. I sent him one cent and in the message field, I asked him to contact me and gave him my phone number.

I put down the phone and finished the soda. “I’ll let you know if he responds. Now what?”

“There’s nothing we can do about the child until we know who the killer is, which requires your demon,” Mom said. “And the wolves?” She threw her hands up. “How did they become our problem?”

“We haven’t had a connection to them since Bridget.” Gran pointed at me. “Now this one has a wolf driving her around and building her deck. If you want to know why a Corey vision includes wolves, I don’t think we have to look too far for an answer.”

“I don’t think I like your tone,” I said. “The real problem in that part of the vision was the vampire.”

Both women gasped. “Vampire?” Mom repeated. “What vampire?”

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