Page 14 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

“Janet, please. I need you to think. Did he have any enemies?”

“Everyone loved him. If Jeffery had enemies, they certainly weren’t known to me.”

“Right.” I sighed a second time because it was that or cry. “Thanks for your time.”

Before I got the chance to disconnect, she called, “Simone?”

“Yeah?”

“Please don’t do something stupid like call that number.”

Call the number? Why hadn’t I thought of that? I stayed silent until she whispered, “Be careful,” before hanging up because we both knew in that moment, I was about to do something stupid.

Chapter

Five

Ityped the number for Beetle from Jeffrey’s phone into mine. My magic twitched beneath my skin, exactly as it would have if we were close to the full moon.

How? It never happened before, not in the twelve and a half years that my magic had been manifesting. It should’ve gone back to zero. A reset. At this point in the lunar month, the magic hibernated.

A deep voice answered. “I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“This isn’t Jeffery,” I said.

“I know,” he replied, causing me to suck in a sharp breath. “You want to meet.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Meet me at Monnie’s in fifteen minutes. It’s a pool hall off of Porter Street.”

I ask you, what other choice did I have? “Okay. I’ll be there.”

He only gave me fifteen minutes, but my outfit didn’t feel safe enough for a pool hall. Too easy access to my girly parts. Quickly, I slid on a pair of jeans and pulled on a white T-shirt. A man’s shirt. Haines. V-neck. I’d always found them comfortable and made of a lighter-weight cotton, which helped keep me cooler in the summer. Then, I tied on my Converse.

I could run, jump, lunge, or any necessary movements to help me get away should the need arise. After shoving Jeffery’s phone in one pocket and mine in the other, I grabbed my purse and keys and took off for Monnie’s.

Finding Monnie’s Pool Hall on my map app, I backed out of my driveway and drove like my life depended on it. I actually arrived only a minute late.Go me!Though it would’ve been preferable to have someone at my back, seeing as I’d never want to pull any of my friends in on this mess, I went in alone.

A dark air surrounded Monnie’s. It felt thick, tense. Goosebumps prickled my skin. It gave me the heebie-jeebies. When I walked inside the smoky, dimly lit place, heads turned to take me in. The way the room was situated, the bar sat to the front and right. To the left and back, there were several pool tables. The rubber on the soles of my Converse stuck to the wood flooring covered in years’ worth of old, dried alcohol and—crap, I hoped it was only alcohol. A green hue covered my skin from the trapezoid-shaped green-glass light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.

Oh, and I knewimmediatelywhen I locked eyes with Beetle. A large man. Swarthy with a thick scar that cut across his cheek from his nose to his ear. His eyes looked at me with curiosity and disgust, black like Connor’s, but dead. Sonotlike Connor’s.

He looked like a beetle.

Before I lost my nerve, I walked across the bar to stand in front of the man himself.

Show no fear.

“Something to drink?” he asked me. Voice even gruffer than over the phone.

“I’ll get it.” I didn’t trust this guy as far as I could throw him and I knew from the size of him that I couldn’t even pick him up. I didn’t need him slipping something into my drink.

I ordered a cola because impairment of any kind equaled death or defilement.

“Do you play?” Beetle asked, gesturing to an empty pool table.

“I do.”

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