Page 72 of An Amateur Witch's Guide to Murder
“Can’t we just burn down the house?” Mateo asks weakly, because he should, his brain already broiling with a thought he can’t quite bring himself to say.
“We can’t start a fire,” Topher says in a small cry-voice from his mother’s arms. “It’s too dry here. We might take out the whole neighborhood, the hills behind it, the whole forest.”
“Also, a fire will make investigators come here,” Ophelia points out.
“Is she really dead?” Mateo asks. Because he should ask that—should care about that.
“I’m not sure she was alive in the first place.” Ophelia walks to the body, using a bare foot to shove her arm. Yoga Wife is mad dead. “Somethingwas in there when I first possessed her, but it definitely wasn’t after Ethan dispelled it.”
“Sentient magic. An old god’s will made flesh,” Linnéa says in a startlingly thick Swedish accent. Topher sounds like he’s from California and Ulla has the accent-less and over-annunciated tone of someone aggrieved at having to talk to buffoons.
There’s not a good way to say it—such a bad first impression—so Mateo doesn’t say it in a good way. “I could eat her.”
Ophelia turns back to him, lips parted, a rare moment of visible surprise on her face. Nothing comes out of her for a moment, and then a soft, “Teo.” It’s all she can counter with.
He can’t relish the one time he manages to shut her up because this is too big of a deal, and he needs her not to get upset. “If there’s no bodies, there’s no crime.” Like it’s logical. Factual. No other choice.
They stare at one another.
“Let’s just put her in the trunk. Figure it out not here,” Ophelia tries. But an hour-from-now-them isn’t going to be any better than now-them at body disposal. She knows it. He knows it. Topher’s face knows it too. He’s doing a fantastic job looking solidly pathetic and exactly like a guy punched square in the face by someone way stronger than him and then told his dad is dead, clinging to his mommy. He’s watching Mateo with the same face he’d walked into the print shop with. Desperate, with no ability to help. That first time, Mateo had been excited to see such naked need. Now he hates it. Wants to do anything he can to make it go away. And maybe that’s the demon making him feel that way, but maybe he doesn’t care if it is.
“What if you get stuck again?” Ophelia tries, keen eyes watching for any sign of doubt.
So, he doesn’t show any. “I won’t.”
“If he does, we’ll bring him back,” Topher surprises them both by saying. There’s a confidence in his voice despite his ragged look or his watery eyes. Like it’s nothing. Easy. They’d just done it. They can do it again.
“Teo,” she says again. Almost has her. She’s scared. Doesn’t want to leave him to do something so awful.
“Phee,” Mateo pleads, soft enough so only she can hear. “Get Topher upstairs. I can do this. I’ll be fine. Please.”
She puts her hands on Mateo’s cheeks, leans down, and kisses him. It’s soft and warm, and in direct contrast to the violence he’s just promised to do. He closes his eyes briefly, relishing it and missing it even though it’s still happening.
When she pulls away, they stare at each other and he knows without hesitation or fear, that he’ll be anything he has to be if it’ll keep her safe. He absolutely doesn’t give a single shit. Her unnerving blue eyes are wet. Because she knows it too. And because she knows, she leaves Mateo there and urges Topher and Linnéa up the stairs.
Alone in the basement, Mateo’s gaze tracks slowly back to the Yoga Wife, teeth already sharp.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
It’s surprisingly easy to get away with murder when there’s no body or reasonable expectation that you had anything to do with the missing people. Helps if there’s no public record of you existing. Double helps if there’s been a streak of broker- and finance-related weirdness in San Francisco as of late. Thanks for that, Ethan’s shitty coven.
Not that Mateo has anything to do with their clean getaway—aside from body disposal.
He spends an unclear number of days sleeping, roused from time to time and made to move here or there, but mostly everyone lets him be. Which is great because he feels like shit—psychologically but also extremely physically—and being awake means thinking about things.
His dreams are blessedly absent, so when he closes his eyes, it’s to darkness.
Bits and pieces get to him via Ophelia, who keeps trying to feed him. He hasn’t been hungry in days.
Fun fact he learns on something like the second day: the little lady statue he’d found under Topher’s bed was of Linnéa.A good luck charm she’d left near her son. Really sweet except for the part where Mateo removed it, ensuring that all of this was a little worse than necessary.
Quincy’s the one who was at the hospital. He’d been in rough shape at first but ended up with only his arm in a sling and some whiplash. A miracle, considering Christopher Nystrom died at the scene of the crash.
Mateo sees Topher briefly three days later—after Topher gets some much-needed medical attention. His eye looks even worse. A deep, baseball-sized black bruise has settled around the cavity and the eyeball’s still red. Mildly concussed but alright. Or as alright as you can be when your dad just died from an evil wizard–induced car accident because that same wizard wanted to sacrifice you and your mom to a demon and said mom—who is a magical luck spirit—finally came back from her unannounced Cancun hideaway to learn you have magical powers.
Speaking of Linnéa, Topher explains that the blood on the couch of her house had been to throw off her pursuer. She’d wanted to make them think someone else had gotten to her first. She’d had a whole plan to wait them out in another country. Not knowing that Topher had powers made her think he’d be safest if she was as far away from him as possible.
Literally anyone knowing that would have been fantastic and saved a lot of people a lot of trouble, but Mateo can’t fault her when he’s made ten thousand bad decisions in the past week.
