A cat staring at the ceiling means trouble at the café…
An ordinary day at the café, the delicious scent of coffee and pastry permeating the air… All darkened by spooky behavior from Nina’s familiar. While staring at invisible things might be typical for an ordinary cat, Boo staring at invisible things spells trouble. Nina worries the café inherited a ghost, but she ensured no ghosts haunted this building before leasing it.
What’s a witch to do but wait until closing and question her cat.
And discover what dark and sinister entity lurks in the shadows, waiting to return.
A HAUNTING AT THE CAFE is available to read for free until the 15th of October, when another story will be posted.
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***
A Haunting at the Café
A Café Story
Nina watched Boo as he watched one corner of the café’s ceiling. Her Maine Coon familiar looked spookily reminiscent of his namesake with his pale gray fur and even paler blue eyes. And while the joke between them was that he looked a bit like a ghost—Boo!—he was actually very much living. Very much a cat. And very much magical.
But also still very much a cat.
She hadn’t seen him do this particular spooky cat thing before, though. Just staring at a spot on the wall or the ceiling corner, his fur slightly raised. He wasn’t hissing. He wasn’t trying to get her to do anything. But he was staring so intently he was almost vibrating from it. She wanted to poke him and find out what was going on. But it was opening hours and there were people in the café.
The rich, dark roast coffee scent from the espresso machine and the noise when she turned on the steam for the milk didn’t distract her from Boo’s weird behavior, but it was reassuring. This was her place, her business and her comfort. So whatever the hell Boo was staring at, it was not something that was going to endanger her business.
Hopefully.
She gave her head a little shake as she topped off the latte she was making in a to-go cup for the college student standing at the register. Amir was also frowning at Boo, glancing between the cat and the spot Boo was staring at.
When Nina handed them their coffee—the latte was a break from their usual black coffee because they’d just passed a big test—Amir whispered, “What is he staring at?”
Nina shrugged. “Got me. And he’s not talking.”
This made Amir grin, their bright smile making Nina feel a little less nervous. Amir was one of the regulars, who came in to study and pound coffee. They were sweet and a good customer, regularly buying coffee to pay for the table they took up while studying. Nina wouldn’t have minded if they’d sat and studied for hours on only one cup. But she appreciated that Amir made that effort.
They pushed their dark brown hair back on their brow, currently long and pulled into a rough braid because, according to Amir, they didn’t have time for a haircut until after finals. As always, because they were studying as well as celebrating a successful exam, Amir wore comfy black sweats and a pink t-shirt with an elegantly drawn Asian dragon on the front. Their bracelets clinked as they glanced between Boo and the ceiling again.
“I know cats do this kind of thing,” Amir whispered—why they felt the need to whisper, Nina didn’t know, but it actually did seem appropriate not to disturb Boo just then for some reason—“but I’ve never seen Boo do it. And it’s a little scary. Like he’s staring at a spirit or ghost or something.”
“You’re a physicist. Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Not real ones no,” they said firmly. Then Amir winced and admitted, “Maybe a bit. My nani, my grandma, used to tell us kids all kinds of scary stories when we were little. Most of them were obviously just made up, but sometimes…” They glanced at Boo again, gave a little shiver. “I’m just gonna get back to studying.”
Nina let her gaze skim over the café, making sure everything besides Boo’s staring contest with a ceiling corner was okay. Aside from Amir, there were two more of her regulars sitting around the scattered tables in the sitting area. It was mid-morning on a Tuesday, so not particularly crowded. The morning rush had ended about an hour ago, the afternoon rush wouldn’t start for a while. Lunch time wasn’t very busy, but it depended on the day, because she didn’t serve proper lunch food. Just pastries and coffee and tea. But to be fair, the chocolate muffins she got in from a local bakery could absolutely serve as an entire meal and were delicious to boot.
Frank was in his usual spot near the back, currently staring at his laptop screen, cradling his mug of black coffee between his hands, the plate where his croissant had been now empty. No Agnes today, at least not yet, but Agnes didn’t always come in on Tuesdays. Diana sat against the wall near the entrance that opened onto the neighboring bookstore, her legs crossed as she flipped through a hunting magazine, her cappuccino steaming on the side table beside the cushioned chair she’d claimed as her spot since she first started coming to the café. Nina was almost certain Diana was the goddess Diana, the goddess of the hunt. But since Diana would neither confirm nor deny that, Nina couldn’t be entirely sure.
Interestingly, though, while the other half dozen patrons scattered around the cushioned chairs and couches around the edges of the seating area or at the wooden tables and chairs in the center of the room paid no attention to Boo and his staring contest, Diana did keep looking up from her magazine to frown at the cat, followed his gaze to the ceiling corner, frowned deeper, then went back to flipping through her magazine. She went through that sequence several times, but never commented or got up to ask Nina what the cat was doing.
A couple came in from the bookstore and Nina had to put on her professional face while she got them their drinks—tea for the man with the glasses, milky coffee for the man with the scar on his nose. The man with the glasses carried one of the bookstore’s tote bags, black with the store’s logo in gold, and it looked weighted down.
Nina nodded at it and said, “Good haul?”
“Brilliant,” the man said, grinning at his partner. “It’s our anniversary and the shopping spree is my present.”
“Congratulations!” Nina handed them their drinks. “Would you like a pastry on the house to add to your celebration?”
The man with the scar on his nose said, “Those muffins look very good.”
“I highly recommend the chocolate.”
She got them their muffins and waited for them to settle in a one of the central tables before she went back to contemplating Boo. His fur was still raised, and she wasn’t sure he’d blinked in a while.
Her thoughts turned to Rhys, her… Well, she wasn’t sure yet what to call Rhys because they were taking their relationship quite slow because of a lot of reasons that had to do with his brother and rogue Master vampires and the general complexities of two very busy people trying to have a relationship. But at least now that they’d been on official dates she could call it a relationship.
Since it was Tuesday, Rhys was at work—a lawyer whose office was somewhere in the neighborhood though she still wasn’t sure where—and probably wouldn’t be in today, unless he swung by later in the afternoon to get a coffee to go. That was normal for a Tuesday. But as she stared at Boo staring at that spot on the ceiling, she half wished Rhys was here so she could talk to someone about Boo who understood Boo was, in fact, not a normal cat.
Despite her joke earlier, Boo did talk to her aloud—sometimes even when she’d prefer he didn’t—and helped activate and strengthen her magic when she needed it. Rhys, being a wizard and vampire hunter as well as a lawyer—yes, he wore a lot of hats—understood familiars. As well as a wizard could. And she’d be able to be freer with her worry and being a little weirded out by Boo’s behavior than she could be in front of the other customers.
Without Rhys around to quietly discuss the weirdness, she was left to ruminate on her own, and the urge to poke Boo and just ask him what the hell he was doing was strong, even with all the ordinary customers around.
She glanced up at the corner again. Was there something there she just couldn’t see? She murmured a spell and ran her hands over her eyes for clear sight. The hairs on her arms rose when she followed Boo’s gaze this time. She still couldn’t see anything, but now she was certain there was something there. That she couldn’t see anything even with the spell was worrying.
A few of the customers who’d been sitting closest to the counter finally got up and left. The only ones remaining were the couple celebrating their anniversary, Amir, Frank, and Diana. Diana had started to frown and glance up at the spot on the ceiling that had Boo’s full attention more regularly. Amir, despite trying to study, kept glancing between Boo and the spot. And even Frank, who was usually too deep in his writing trance to notice his surroundings, seemed to realize something weird was happening because he was frowning at Boo.
Okay. Enough was enough. She leaned on the counter and brought her face close to Boo. “What’s going on?”
Boo let out a sound that was sort of growl and hiss at the same time. Which meant what he was staring at wasn’t a good thing.
“I can’t see it even after the clear-sight spell,” she murmured. There was soft music playing in the background—she’d learned after about a month in business that soft music that wasn’t too loud to talk over made customers more comfortable. They didn’t even notice the music all that much, but they seemed to hang out longer and refill more often if there was quiet music going—so when she whispered, the only person she thought might hear her was Diana. “What am I missing?”
Another of the growling hisses. And then Boo blinked a few times, sat up on the tall narrow stool he’d made his home, and started to lick his paws. Like nothing had happened or been happening. He even had the temerity to start purring.
She scowled at him and under her breath said, “What the hell? You have some explaining to do after closing.”
Diana raised a brow at them both, then sniffed and went back to reading her magazine. Frank gave his head a little shake and started typing again. Amir turned back to their text books. And the couple celebrating their anniversary continued going through their haul from the bookstore, none the wiser to the weird situation that had just been going on around them.
Nina frowned up at the corner of the ceiling again. Even without Boo’s change in attitude, she was certain that whatever had been there was gone now. No raised arm hairs. No weird feeling she was missing something. Just an ordinary corner at the ceiling with nothing strange at all going on.
Yeah, Boo had a lot of explaining to do after closing.
***
Nina waited until well after she’d turned the sign in the door to close. Waited until the bookstore owner had closed out her register and waved goodnight. Waited until she was certain the bookstore owner was long gone, and the pedestrian and street traffic had hit a lull, before she finally faced Boo, hands on her hips and said, “All right, spill.”
Boo was still resting on his stool next to the register, but he was sitting up and his gaze moved from her to the front door to that spot on the ceiling, as if he was waiting for something or someone to come in.
“You’re not expecting Rhys tonight,” her familiar said.
“You know I’m not. Weird way to start this discussion. Does it have to do with Virgil?”
Rhys’s brother, who was now a vampire himself even though he still hunted vampires, had carried his own wizardly magic into his rise as a vampire. Which made him a complicated and difficult…enemy? Antagonist was maybe a better word.
She and Virgil were not on the best of terms, but they did have a truce at the moment. However, she wouldn’t put it past him to be pulling some sort of trick on her, even just to make her edgy and jumpy, because that would amuse him.
“I don’t think so,” Boo said.
She leaned against the counter next to him, because from the outside it would just look like she was petting her cat, not like they were having a full-blown discussion when she was halfway across the room. The counter era smelled nicely of the beans resting in the top of the espresso machine, ready for grinding, and the lemon-scented cleaner she used to wipe down counters and tables. She wouldn’t have guessed those two smells would work well together, but they did.
“Then what’s going on?” she asked. “What were you staring at?”
“You’re not going to like this.”
“I don’t like not knowing even more. Spill.”
“So…” Boo paused and licked his front foot, his thickly furred tail twitched where it hung off the stool. “So, I think I saw a ghost.”
Okay. That wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. “A ghost?”
“Or a spirit. Or something like that.”
“We don’t have ghost here,” she said. She’d checked. It was a commercial building, though that didn’t always prevent gathered energy or ghosts from manifesting. But this place and the bookstore didn’t have actual ghost residences. “And I should have been able to see it with the clear-sight spell.”
“Yes, that’s the part that concerns me, too.” He blinked his pale blue eyes, licked his side, then stared at her. “I think the ghost was a familiar.”
Ah. Okay. Well. That was…
Actually, she wasn’t sure what that was. A familiar ghost had never occurred to her before. All sorts of energy could manifest as the various types of ghosts or what people though of a ghost. There were layers. But for some reason, she’d never considered a familiar becoming a ghost.
“Cat familiar?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure why. What did it matter?
“Hard to tell,” Boo said, glancing up at the ceiling. “But it needs our help.”
Okay. That was something she could focus on and actually figure out a plan for. A ghost familiar haunting her café for no reason was not something she had the skillset to fix. “What kind of help?”
Boo’s tail twitched again, and he resumed licking his side as he thought. She didn’t rush him. Boo sometimes needed a little room to figure things out.
While he thought, she finished putting chairs up on tables and closing out her register. The weather that evening was lovely and cool as autumn finally made itself known. The seasons turning was one of her favorite experiences, watching the leaves change and drop from the trees, watching the changing light and the way sunny days felt brighter and sharper. The way the air tasted different, that cool tang instead of the heady warmth of summer. If they didn’t have this new problem, she’d have been tempted to go for a walk with Boo after they made their bank deposit.
By the time she leaned next to him at the counter again, he had stopped grooming and was looking at the spot on the ceiling again. “It wouldn’t actually talk to me. I’m not sure it could communicate that easy. But it was in distress and it needed help.” Boo turned to look at her. “I think it needs help with its witch.”
“Is the witch still alive?”
“Possibly. Likely. Or why bother to seek out another familiar.”
“Okay. So…how do we find this witch if the dead familiar can’t communicate with you?” She frowned a little before saying, “Are we sure the familiar is dead and a ghost? And not something like an astral projection?”
Normally, familiars couldn’t do that, but it wasn’t unheard of for psychics and the occasional witch to be able to send their spirit for a walkabout beyond the physical body.
Boo glanced at the ceiling again, his pupils narrowing to slits even though there wasn’t that much light in the room. “You know, I hadn’t thought of that. It hung there for so long and had my hackles up. It took me the rest of the day before I realized it might have needed help in the first place.” Boo licked his paw a few times. “Could have been. Could have been.”
“Which means it might not be dead, but it had to go looking for help for its witch somehow.” That still didn’t solve the problem of where the witch was and what kind of trouble they were in.
“I’m not sure how to find the witch,” Boo admitted. And he so rarely admitted to not knowing something she knew this was serious.
“Maybe the spirit will come back tomorrow and give us more clues.”
“And if its witch can’t survive that long?”
She wasn’t happy about that part either. She’d grown patient over the decades but not when she thought someone might be in danger. Especially another witch.
Most of her closest witch friends were scattered around the world. That happened after decades of life. A few of them were even older than her. When you didn’t appear to age much over long periods of time, that required moving regularly and restarting life in a new place. They all kept in touch. But it was mostly through video chats and texts these days.
If one of them was in danger, she’d drop everything to go help.
Which got her to thinking… “Was the familiar…well, familiar to you? Was it one of the familiars belonging to a witch from my circle?”
Another few licks along his side. He must be thinking very hard to be doing so much grooming while they were talking. “It didn’t look like anyone I’ve met before. But then it didn’t look like a physical being either. The reason I suspect they were a familiar had more to do with a feeling rather than the way the spirit looked. That’s why I can’t say if it was even a cat or not. I was seeing…light. Shadow and light. And when I stopped to analyze it, that light and shadow felt like one of my kind. But I didn’t get the feeling it was someone I have met.” He sneezed and wiggled his whiskers. “I could be wrong about that, though.”
Okay. So probably not one of her friends, though they weren’t positive. Likely a familiar. But again, not positive. Either dead and a ghost or spirit walking outside their body. Not sure which. And they were here to get help for their witch. Probably.
Lots and lots of unknowns. And no way to help without more information.
“I think we’ll have to wait for them to return,” she said reluctantly. “Can’t just go wandering around town looking for a random witch in danger.” And it was always possible the witch wasn’t even in this city. They could be anywhere in the world.
“You’re right,” Boo said after a moment, also sounding reluctant. “We need a direction at least to get started.”
“We can hope it returns tomorrow.” She never thought she’d say something like that about a ghost. She didn’t want a ghost haunting her café. But at this stage, they didn’t have much of a choice.
“And maybe I can find something tonight that will help us communicate with it when it does show up,” she said. At least that would make her feel like she was doing something and not just waiting around. There had to be something in the extensive library in her basement.
“I’ll help with that,” Boo said, jumping off the stool.
Looked like they were doing research tonight instead of going for a walk.
She glanced at the corner of the ceiling on their way out. Research was also a good way to spend the evening.
***
The spirit didn’t show up the next day until late in the afternoon. In some ways, that was good because its appearance happened outside the busy time, so there weren’t many people in the café when Boo started acting strange and staring at the corner of the ceiling again. In other ways, it had made the day excruciatingly long and tense. Which made smiling and chatting with her customers more difficult than usual.
She handed a large mug of cappuccino across the counter to a young woman carrying three books from the bookstore, pretending she didn’t see her cat suddenly sit up and his hackles rise. The customer didn’t seem to notice either and took her books and drink to one of the back tables, keeping her back to the door and front windows of the shop.
The position, while rubbing wrong against Nina’s instincts to keep the entrances in sight when she sat down, meant the young woman wasn’t looking in the direction of the counter or the ceiling corner where Boo was obviously seeing a spirit again.
There were a few other people scattered around the café, but Frank had already left for the day. Agnes and Diana hadn’t come in yet. Amir was taking a test. Jamar had work. And Rhys wasn’t due in again today either. She’d texted with him earlier in the day, about the spirit and that it was possibly a familiar. She was still a little uncomfortable talking to a wizard about witch business, but she was making the effort. He’d offered to drop what he was doing to come help, which made her feel justified in trusting him with witch stuff.
But until they knew what the familiar wanted from them, whether it would even show up again or not, there was no reason for Rhys to drop everything to come to the café.
Until Boo went on alert, she’d actually been a little worried the spirit wouldn’t show up again and they’d be left wondering what had happened and what the whole visitation had been about. It was almost a relief to hear Boo’s low growling hiss as he focused on that particular corner of the ceiling.
Under her breath, while she pretended to wipe down the counter, she said to Boo, “Is it…indicating anything? Giving you any hints we can go on?”
It took a moment but the hair along Boo’s spine settled. And while he continued to stare at the spirit in the corner of the ceiling, he stopped growling at it.
She waited, though it was hard not to push him for answers he might not even be getting. If he was talking to the spirit, it wasn’t on a level she could hear. And she wasn’t able to see the spirit still. She watched Boo close for a moment, waiting, pretending she wasn’t staring at her cat as he stared at the ceiling. When she did glance around the café, no one seemed to be taking any notice of Boo. It helped that the place was full of mundane humans who weren’t regulars that might recognize Boo was acting weird.
Finally, Boo made a sound, not quite a cough but a small hacking sound that got her attention. His tail twitched a few times. A moment later, he relaxed fully and curled up on the stool again, closing his eyes.
Okay. Did that mean he’d learned anything or not?
She wanted to poke him, even leaned over the counter to do just that, when he whispered so quietly it was difficult to hear him over the café music and the traffic outside. “Its witch will be coming into the café tomorrow.” Boo stretched, yawned, curled up onto the too-small stool seat again. “Tell you the rest later.”
She nodded and let it go for now. Even though all their current customers were mundane—maybe even more because they were mundane—she knew she and Boo couldn’t risk talking right then. It was enough to know Boo had gotten some answers. And that the witch who may or may not be in trouble was due tomorrow. At the very least, they’d get some answers.
Hopefully not horrible ones.
***
After closing Boo gave her a brief run down of what the ghost spirit had been able to communicate, but it wasn’t much. It was a cat, was a familiar, and its witch needed help. That was the most it could manage in a way that Boo could understand after Boo had triggered the spell they’d found last night. The spirit familiar apparently couldn’t talk to Boo the way Boo talked to her. But there was some sort of familiar cat language it could access as a ghost once the spell they’d found broke the barrier to communication.
Boo still wasn’t sure if it was dead and this was its ghost or if it was spirit walking. But he was able to get it to send its witch to them and that was the best they could do. The spirit had gotten agitated when Boo asked where the witch was, suggesting he and Nina would go to her.
Which was how they ended up having this meeting at her café the next day.
If Nina hadn’t known better, she’d think some sort of supernatural alert had gone out as well, because all of her more unique, non-mundane regulars were in the café that day. Diana sitting by the entrance to the bookstore, sipping a black coffee instead of her usual cappuccino and reading a fashion magazine. Agnes in the center of the café with her English Breakfast tea and a book of erotic poetry. Rhys had come in with his laptop and was sitting in his usual spot by the front window, pretending to work, the black coffee on the low table in front of him going untouched after his first sip.
Cary Redmond, the woman Nina was positive was a Protector, sat in the back corner with her shapeshifter mate, their heads together as they chatted over her milky latte and his glass of milk. And in the nook near the register sat an older man who Nina could swear she knew, could swear she’d seen here before. But when she’d seen him here was fuzzy. And that fuzzy feeling came with a heavy dose of déjà vu. So she knew he wasn’t a mundane human either.
The regulars who were mundane—like Frank, Amir, and Jamar—were nowhere to be seen. Most of them would have perfectly ordinary reasons for not being in the café in the middle of the day on a Thursday. But given the makeup of the place, Nina did have to wonder if a subtle “don’t come in today” message hadn’t gone out to them, too.
All because a witch was in trouble and coming to the café for help.
Something about all this was very very odd.
It could all be a coincidence. She knew that. Coincidences did happen. Sometimes. But this seemed a little too coincidental to be just a coincidence.
So she was on high alert most of the day, serving the humans who came in and out, none of them sitting for long. None of the regulars budged.
When the time finally arrived, Nina’s anticipation and worry ratcheted up to whole new levels. And she realized everyone in the café kept glancing at the front door. She watched the man near the register pull out his watch and check it—a fancy golden pocket watch hung on a golden chain and fitted into the front pocket of his silver embroidered blue vest under a stylish gray suit.
Okay, when this was all done, she was asking every single person in this café how they knew to be here.
But in the meantime, she had this meeting to deal with. And almost exactly on time, the bell over the door rang and in walked a woman. The woman looked in her thirties, was dressed in jeans and a black peasant blouse embroidered with small red flowers that could have been roses, but Nina would need a closer look to be sure. She had shoulder length curly brown hair, wore very faint makeup on her light tan skin, and had a pentagram necklace—which might have been a bit on the nose but in modern times a lot of people wore pentagrams without being actual witches. The silver charm hung on a string of brown leather. There was nothing about her that screamed witch, of course. And if Nina hadn’t been looking out for her, she might have assumed the woman was an ordinary customer.
Except that from the corner of her eye, Nina saw the man with the pocket watch sit up a little straighter. And Diana set her magazine aside to pick up her coffee. Agnes continued reading and ignored everything. Rhys looked up from his laptop, met Nina’s gaze, then went back to pretending to work. And Cary scooted around so that she could get up from her chair quickly if she needed to.
Boo continued to lounge on his stool, but his ears perked up and forward, the tufts of gray-white fur on the tips vibrating faintly, and he stared at the woman from half-closed eyes.
The woman walked up to the counter, scanning the surroundings, her brow furrowed. Then she leaned over and said, “Are you Nina?”
Here we go, Nina thought. “Yes. And you’re…?”
“Uhm, you can call me Tabitha.”
Didn’t want to give her real name. Fair. Some witches used another witch’s real name to hold power over them. Nina hadn’t used her real name in decades—barely remembered what it was to be honest—so she understood the precaution.
“Nice to meet you, Tabitha. Can I get you anything to drink?”
The woman blinked and then glanced around again. “Oh. Uhm. An Earl Gray tea would be nice if you have it? Otherwise… Uhm. No thank you.”
Nina got her the tea. “Should we sit to talk?” She slid the white porcelain cup across the counter.
Tabitha looked at the cup, blinked hard a few times, then nodded. “Yes. That would be good.”
Nina picked a table that was in the middle of the room—so her audience of worried regulars could see her—but that was far enough away from Agnes that Tabitha would feel like they had privacy.
Before Nina could broach the reason for the meeting, Tabitha leaned over the wooden table and said, “You are a witch, right? I’m… I’m pretty new at this. So I can’t really tell yet.”
Nina nodded. “I am a witch.” She’d been this young once too. And it had been nerve-wracking at first, meeting with other witches. She’d known from her first thoughts what she was, but interacting with other witches had come with risks.
Tabitha’s shoulder relaxed. “Oh good. See, my familiar, Abner, he said you would help me, but…” She glanced down into her mug, lowered her voice further, and whispered, “But the one who’s causing all this trouble is a witch, too, and I just wasn’t sure if I should trust another one.”
Oh. Oh oh. Nina resisted glancing at Rhys, but yeah, things had just gotten interesting. And not in a good way.
“Another witch?”
Tabitha nodded.
“I think you’d better explain what’s happening.” She raised a hand and said, “First, is Abner okay? Has he just been astral projecting?”
Tabitha’s hands tightened on the mug. “No. Not that. The witch… It’s part of the whole story.”
Boo jumped off his stool and strolled over to their table. He hopped up onto the chair beside Nina and started licking his paw.
Tabitha blinked at him, then smiled. “This must be your familiar?” Without waiting for Nina to answer, Tabitha said to Boo, “Thank you for being patient with Abner. He’s having trouble with this kind of communication.”
Boo lifted his head from his grooming and gave Tabitha a little nod. Which, if there’d been any mundane humans around as witnesses, they’d have wondered how an ordinary cat could not only understand but nod to a human like that. Fortunately, there were no mundane humans in the café at that moment to witness any of this.
Tabitha faced Nina again and said, “I guess I should just cut to the chase, huh?”
“That would help,” Nina said. “Then we can figure out how to help you and Abner.”
Tabitha rolled her lips into her mouth, huffed out a breath, then said, “Okay. I know this is going to sound weird. But there’s a witch ghost whose been haunting the house I inherited from my aunt, and she’s apparently an evil entity who tricked me and Abner into trusting her and then took Abner captive. She wants me to…free her.”
“Free her from haunting the house?”
“No. Free her from death. Bring her back to life. And she won’t let Abner return to his body until I do.”
Ah. Nina blinked hard a few times. Bringing people back from the dead was well outside her skillset. In fact, it was one of those really horrible ideas that no one should ever attempt because it always went wrong. Had the dead witch never read The Monkey’s Paw? Or even Pet Cemetery?
Swallowing in an attempt to wet her throat, Nina asked, “Why would she think you can bring her back to life?”
Tabitha winced, her eyes narrow and her face turned a little away from Nina as if she was expecting a particular reaction. “I, uhm… I’m a witch by practice but, uh, my real skill is…necromancy.”
***
Nina sat for a very long moment, which was likely only a few seconds but it definitely felt longer, as she digested that news. The café around her was weirdly quiet. So quiet that the soft music playing in the background sounded loud. So quiet she could hear the crinkling of the espresso machine and the people on the sidewalk outside talking. So quiet, she’d swear she could hear everyone in the café breathing.
Mixing of magics really didn’t happen often. So if you were born a necromancer, you were a necromancer. That was your magic. Period. If you were a witch, you had witch magic. Which was different to necromancer magic. And wizard magic for that matter. A witch, or wizard, might do other things besides practice their magic—she owned a café, Rhys was a lawyer and a vampire hunter—but the magic part was the magic part and the other things didn’t tend to have anything to do with magic.
Witch magic and necromancy were strange bedfellows to have found a home in a single person’s body.
She’d be tempted to think Tabitha was a necromancer and the witch part wasn’t anything to do with magic. There were plenty of witches by practice and even religious belief who didn’t have any actual magic to speak of.
But Tabitha had a familiar. Familiars didn’t show up and attach themselves to someone who wasn’t wielding witch magic. If a cat, or other animal, adopted a witch who didn’t have actual magic, that animal was just a mundane animal. Not a familiar whose whole job was to help balance and amplify magic.
And Abner was definitely a familiar and not just an ordinary pet. Boo was positive of that.
“I realize this is unusual,” Tabitha hurried to say. “My aunt has a huge library and I’ve been reading up on the history. See we have witches on one side of the family, and necromancers on the other, and mostly they stay separate, but about once every hundred years or so, some weird genetic anomaly happens and someone like me is born.”
Nina nodded. “It is a very unusual mixture of skills,” she said as neutrally as she could manage.
“People don’t like the necromancy stuff,” Tabitha murmured. “So I mostly just practice as a witch and kind of…ignore the other magic. Abner is really good at helping me focus. But this witch… Well, I don’t know if she was there when my aunt was alive, to be honest. My aunt never mentioned her, and I don’t remember her from any of the times I visited my aunt. I think she’s not tied to the house.”
“A free ranging ghost.” Nina knew a few of those existed. Usually when the ghost arose from someone powerful, like a witch, who wasn’t bound to any geographical location.
“Yeah. I think she tracked me down on purpose. And she’s basically using Abner to blackmail me. But I know if I bring her back, it’ll be…” Tabitha opened her eyes wide. “It’ll be really bad. Like, I’m not even sure how bad. Just…bad.”
“Because the witch is powerful?”
“Because bringing the dead back is gross and never works out the way people expect.”
Exactly! Nina was glad to know at least someone in this situation realized that. That the ghost witch was willing to risk this was just crazy.
“So,” Nina said slowly, “how do you think we can help you?” She ran a hand over Boo’s fur, where he was sitting in the seat beside her, letting the sensation of the soft texture against her fingertips ground her. She wanted to help Tabitha, wanted to help poor Abner, but she wasn’t entirely sure how.
Tabitha raised her hands, then lowered them. She glanced around. Finally, she looked Nina in the eye and said, “I need to release her spirit while making her think I’m bringing her back, but I can only do that with help. With another witch.”
Nina narrowed her eyes. This wasn’t something she’d dealt with before. Necromancy wasn’t magic she knew well—only vaguely and in an academic sort of way—so partnering with someone using necromancy felt…
Dangerous.
But Tabitha and Abner did need her help. She glanced at Boo. He looked back at her and for a long moment they just stared at each other. She knew what he was thinking, could read it in his expression, though probably only because he was her familiar. She didn’t like it either. But this was something they were going to have to try.
“We’ll do it here,” she said to Tabitha. “Tonight.”
***
Hours after closing, when even the traffic and pedestrian movement outside had slowed down, about a half hour before midnight, Tabitha knocked on the closed café door. Nina let her in then locked the door back up behind her. She didn’t have metal guards that she rolled down in front of her windows because she’d spelled the windows against vandalizing and breaking and entering. She’d done the same for the bookstore, too, though the owner still lowered her metal window coverings. But without that, passers by could still see inside the café.
So Nina took a moment to murmur a spell that would cloud the vision of anyone who looked inside, her hand to the cool glass on the front door but her focus on all the windows as she let the spell move out and infuse the glass. This took a minute, but when she was done, even from the inside, the windows looked fogged and opaque.
With a nod, she faced Tabitha again. The other witch had brought a large plastic cat carrier with her and wore a backpack.
She gave the cat carrier a little lift and said, “Abner. The witch said she’d release his spirit back to his body as soon as I start the spell—I told her I need Abner to complete it.”
Boo wove around Nina’s legs, a move that was both comforting and helped energize her own magic.
“She’ll try to double-cross you,” Nina warned.
“I know. Anyone who’d steal another witch’s familiar’s spirit isn’t trustworthy.”
Nina recognized that Tabitha was having to trust her an awful lot in this situation too, a virtual stranger. But then, Nina was trusting Tabitha, too. Only because her familiar came to Boo. And Boo thought this was the right thing to do. Nina wasn’t sure she’d have trusted the situation enough to follow through if not for Boo’s assurance.
She gestured to the center of the café where she’d cleared away the round wooden tables and chairs, pushing them all back up against the walls, stacking the chairs onto some of the cushioned couches and seats that lined the walls. The lights were off except for the undercabinet lights behind the counter, which gave them enough light to work with but not so much to draw attention from outside.
“We can work here. You brought what you need?”
“I have.” Tabitha gently set the cat carrier down in the middle of the floor, then drew a circle onto the wooden floor around the box in green chalk she pulled from her backpack, a protective circle to keep Abner’s body safe.
The familiar was in a kind of stasis, not really dead but his body would barely be functioning without the spirit. His spirit wouldn’t be able to remain outside his body indefinitely without the body dying, so time had been of the essence. And Nina was glad, for Abner’s sake, that he’d found Boo.
As Nina stood back by the counter, near the familiar coffee bean smells, she glanced toward the dark bookstore. The opening couldn’t be closed. They’d never bothered to get a gate or anything to pull down between the two businesses because they hadn’t needed one before. As she waited for Tabitha to set up her working circle next to Abner’s circle, she wondered if maybe they should get a gate. A gate she could spell to keep any weird happening inside the café from spilling over into the bookstore.
Not an option tonight obviously, but something she should discuss with the owner at some stage.
Tonight, though, the bookstore was wide open and cloaked in deep dark shadows. Darker than usual. Even for nearly midnight.
The ghost had agreed to a meeting at midnight and while midnight wasn’t really that significant a time—daylight savings time moved that moment around which made it really silly that popular culture designated midnight as “the witching hour,” but who was she to argue with pop culture. But the time guaranteed there were few people on the streets or driving by, all the local businesses would be closed, and yet it wasn’t too terribly late at night. Nina was a little tired after a full day of work.
She glanced over her shoulder at the giant analogue clock she had hanging above the open cabinets behind the counter, where she stored mugs and glasses and plates. The clock was a large circle with black hands on a white face, the outer frame a circle of wood that resembled grapevines. She’d bought it because she loved the way it looked and it made the time visible throughout the café without being distracting. But she also really loved the woods and vines motif. The white face behind the black hands made it easy to see the minutes ticking by even with most of the lights off.
Five minutes to midnight.
She pulled in a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves. This wasn’t anything she’d done before, and while she still did have new experiences after more than eight decades—opening the café had been one—she rarely got involved in magic this far outside her comfort zone. Necromancy was relatively rare, even on its own. Hearing of and reading about a topic was not the same thing as watching that magic in action.
And raising the dead was such a bad idea.
She listened to the clock tick behind her as Tabitha laid out a circle of dirt inside her working circle. That was one of the things about doing this here that was not great. She’d have to do some serious cleaning in the morning. This was a restaurant after all. But needs must. And she wanted this done on her territory where she had the advantage of surprise on her side. Whoever this ghost witch was, Nina wasn’t going to allow her the home territory advantage.
Next Tabitha laid out some stones of varying sizes and colors. Those would have witch magic meanings, but Nina wasn’t sure how they applied to the necromancy. Tabitha, without glancing away from her preparation said, “The stones are for grounding, similar to how I’d use them with witch magic. I need them when I don’t have Abner’s help.”
“And how did you know what I was thinking?” Nina asked, curious more than accusing.
“The first time my aunt saw me do this, she had a lot of questions. I’m answering the ones she asked. If you already know the answers, you can tell me I don’t need to explain.”
“I didn’t know what you were setting up so I appreciate the information. But it’s not necessary to tell me if you’d prefer to keep this to yourself.” Some witches were very protective of their spells and processes, as protective as any patent-holding corporation. Nina didn’t like to assume.
“I don’t mind. To be honest, it’s helpful for me to go through it out loud. I don’t do this much.” She laid out a wooden bowl and then poured salt into it from a small glass vial. The salt turned black when it hit the bowl. “Charred salt,” Tabitha murmured. “This is to draw the spirit back into a physical body.”
“We don’t have the witch’s physical body here.” Nina blinked. “Right?”
Tabitha’s shoulders hunched. “She was cremated. I have her ashes. She showed me where to get them.”
So. This was going to be even creepier and weirder than Nina had expected.
Next Tabitha pulled out a wooden box with a pentagram inlaid on the top in darker wood. She set that beside the blackened salt. Finally, she pulled a reusable steel flask out of her bag. Nina was about to ask if it was blessed water or something like that when Tabitha took a swig, let out a gasp, and then sighed.
She glanced at Nina and grinned. “Rum. I need it for the ceremony, but it’s also a nice nerve soother.”
Nina chuckled.
“Want some?” Tabitha held out the flask.
Nina waved away the offer. “Maybe after this is all done.”
Tabitha poured some of the rum on the circle of dirt and then sprinkled some of the charred salt onto the box with the inlaid pentagram. Nina assumed that’s where the witch’s ashes were and wondered what had happened to the witch to get her to this point. There weren’t witch burnings anymore—those mostly affected ordinary people anyway and not so much real witches. Real witches learned quickly how to hide what they were from the witch hunters over the centuries. But even without that threat, a witch willing to blackmail another witch by holding her familiar hostage was either the victim of a very bad crime, or was a criminal herself.
Nina had a feeling they were dealing with the latter or she would have asked for help rather than demanding Tabitha raise her from the dead.
“Okay. I’m ready.” Tabitha looked behind Nina to the big clock.
Nina followed her gaze as they waited for the seconds to tick down. Five, four, three, two…
One.
***
The hairs on Nina’s arm rose. When she looked down at Boo he was staring a spot in the middle of the seating area, in front of Tabitha’s circle, all his hairs raised as he issued that low hissing growl from the back of his throat. Nina followed his gaze.
The apparition started as a simple glowing white light just outside Tabitha’s working circle. The light swirled and spun. Changed shape. Grew.
A form within the light took shape.
A bright flash that made Nina cover her eyes.
When she opened them, the ghost witch floated in the center of the café, between Tabitha and the bookstore. She had long white hair and wore some sort of flowing dress that looked period, though whether really from a historical period or just a modern remake, Nina couldn’t tell. The ghost was pale with a slight red outline around the edges of her translucent body, making her look almost pink in the darkness.
A faint scent of burnt herbs and rotting detritus filtered through the café, the coffee beans in the espresso machine next to Nina doing nothing to mask the smell. Oh she really hoped that didn’t linger. She was going to have to do a thorough cleaning tomorrow morning.
The ghost’s face was thin and angled and when she smiled, her eyes, which were nothing more than glowing white orbs, turned a dark red.
“You think backup will change anything?” the ghost asked Tabitha.
“I think it will make you rethink double-crossing me,” Tabitha said.
The ghost witch chuckled. “A simple exchange. Your familiar’s spirit for my life. Not so bad an exchange.”
“You know…” Tabitha swallowed audibly, and even at a distance, Nina could see the younger witch’s hands trembling where she rested them on her thighs.
She was kneeling inside her circle, and even Nina could see the blue light of her protective spell if she looked from the corner of her eye. Nina didn’t see magic as light most of the time, but protective circles always had a visible presence that just required looking at them right. There was an added bit of green inside the blue. At least Nina thought there was. Which was unusual and Nina assumed had to do with the necromancy.
“You know coming back from the dead like this is a bad idea, right? Tabitha finished. “You won’t be…the same.”
“I’ll have my power. That’s all I need.”
“But…” Tabitha’s shoulders rose and fell. Then she said, mostly to herself, “Okay. I tried.” Then louder. “Abner’s spirit first.”
A smaller glowing ball of light appeared next to the ghost witch. This one didn’t take a shape or swirl into the form of a cat. It was just a little ball of white light.
Boo hissed, but it sounded more distressed than a warning or angry hiss.
“We’ll make the exchange at the same time,” the ghost said. “Once your workings have gone too far for you to force me out of my body again. Then I’ll release Abner.”
Nina watched from her position just behind Tabitha, studying the ghost, the ball of energy that was Abner’s spirit. The dark hole behind the witch that was the opening to the bookstore.
Timing was everything.
Tabitha glanced down briefly, then nodded. She set one hand onto the stones and the other onto the circle of dirt which she’d sprinkled with rum, then started to chant quietly in a language that mixed old Latin and some modern Spanish.
Nina felt the words, felt the magic building. But she kept her attention on the ghost, watching her expression, that moment of triumph when she knew she was getting her way. The light around her started to glow redder. The little light that was Abner shrank. Boo hissed, but the noise was quiet, almost subsonic.
The ghost glanced at him and smiled.
Oh no you don’t. Nina moved in front of Boo as he pressed against her leg and she started her own spell. She murmured the words, watching the ghost as she did. The witch frowned. Obviously couldn’t tell what Nina was doing. If Nina hadn’t needed to concentrate and focus a great deal of power into this spell, she would have smiled.
The dirt circle started to dance, the earth bouncing and moving, as if something was actually coming up from under the ground. The box with the witch’s ashes twitched, jumped. But seemed to be weighted down. The charred salt on the box pushed dents into the wood. The box stopped jumping.
Tabitha’s voice grew stronger, her words blending into a kind of music, flowing so that the individual words blended together. The sound of the music hit Nina’s ears funny, wrong, like the key was off. She finished her own spell and swiped a hand downward.
Around them, a series of lights flickered on, rising out of the wooden floor. Hovering in a circle at the edges of the café. The witch frowned and looked around. The red glow around her brightened but she stopped paying attention to what Tabitha was doing as the lights Nina had summoned started moving toward her.
Her ghostly orb eyes widened. “No! No! What are you doing?”
Nina was a little surprised by the numbers of lights too. “That’s a lot of people you’ve killed,” she murmured.
“No! You’re a witch. You can’t summon spirits.”
Nina didn’t comment because Tabitha’s voice was going hoarse. The little light that was Abner swerved and bounced like it was caught in air currents. Boo edged away from Nina’s leg, moving toward the cat carrying case. Tabitha had opened the door but it was facing away from Nina so she couldn’t really see Abner’s body inside.
Tabitha opened the box of the witch’s ashes suddenly, a move that sent the ashes swirling upward, into a tornado of gray dust with actual chunks of bone inside. The tornado pulled and tugged at the ghost witch’s spirit. She hissed, very cat-like, at the spirits of the people she’d killed that were advancing on her and dove toward the ash tornado.
The swirl of ash surrounded the ghost, forming up around her until the ash encased her completely, taking her shape, making it more solid. Tabitha sagged inside her protective circle, but finalized the process by flicking some of the charred salt at the ash encased spirit.
Waves of movement flowed through the ash, and behind the waves color flowed. Dark brown at first, that faded to a light brown, then moved through red, then pink, then back to red. The colors flowing over the top of each other, faster and faster. The ash growing solid, a hard case. And then skin flowed up the form, over bare legs, across her hips and torso, over her shoulders and finally over her face.
The light that was Abner yowled, the first sound Nina had heard from him.
Boo leapt toward Abner’s spirit.
And then a laugh that sounded as creepy as it did triumphant echoed through the café. “Finally! Finally.”
The witch stretched and smiled. The expression cracked her dry lips and blood seeped down over her chin. She touched the blood. Frowned and looked at her hands. They were a grayish color in the dim light, and her face was more of a rictus, a skeletal ghoulish face, the hair on her head patchy and thin, dark but threaded with strings that looked almost green. She wasn’t wearing clothing and the body that had formed was skeletal, the skin a dry looking gray color stretched over sharp bones.
She looked like a ghoul, though ghouls weren’t raised people. They were a species unto themselves that looked after the biological churn in cemeteries. But the witch now looked like what people thought ghouls were. And she obviously hadn’t counted on that.
Glaring at Tabitha, she pointed a finger at her. “What have you done?”
“What you asked.” Tabitha was breathing heavily now, slumped low, her head hanging and her dark hair covering her face. “Release Abner.”
The witch snarled, revealing blackened teeth. She stretched out a hand and the little ball of light that was Abner bounced away from the cat carrier, moving toward the witch instead of toward its own body.
“You did this on purpose,” the witch said. “You purposefully put me in this…this corpse! And now your familiar will pay.”
From inside the dark bookstore, someone lunged out and got between Abner’s spirt and the witch just before the cat’s spirit reached the witch’s hand.
“Nope,” the woman said. All she did was stand between the witch and Abner, but the familiar’s spirit stopped careening toward the witch and bobbed gently in the air. “No hurting cats on my watch.”
Nina smiled at the Protector. Cary winked at her.
Behind Cary came Henry, looking at his watch. “That was close,” he said. “We almost missed this timeline.”
“I tried to run out too soon,” Cary said, frowning a little. “I’m not sure why it was too soon. But he said if I went too early things would go wrong so…” She shrugged.
Nina had wondered what was taking so long.
Behind Henry, Agnes walked out. She glanced at the spirits that had stopped moving toward the witch when she’d entered her reformed body and tsked. “Poor darlings. So much anger.”
She waved her hand and suddenly the illusions that Nina had created were no longer just illusions of the spirits the witch had killed but were the actual spirits. Nina had no idea how Agnes did that, but it was one of the most powerful things she’d ever witnessed.
“Well then,” Agnes said, straightening her shoulders and waving her hand at the witch. “Have at her.”
The spirits started to advance on the witch again.
“What have you done? What’s going on?” The witch stumbled back into Tabitha’s dirt circle and then stopped moving. The dirt grabbed onto her feet, holding her in place. The witch looked around in a panic. Her gaze landed on Nina. “You. You tricked me!”
“A little, yes.” But really, it was just a double-cross for a witch they knew would double-cross them when she got what she wanted.
The witch never had any intention of returning Abner’s spirit. Because if she had, she would have done it while the dust was spinning around her. That was the point of no return that she’d claimed would be the moment she returned Abner. Abner hadn’t been able to return to his sleeping body. That moment, that block had confirmed what they’d all suspected.
The witch hissed a spell and swept her arm wide toward Nina. Nina prepared to take the magical hit on her shield, not entirely sure her shield would block whatever spell the witch had just cast. Then something very large lunged into her, knocking her to the ground. She blinked and looked into the golden eyes of a large black leopard.
The leopard looked down at her, gave her a little nod. Then leapt away. Boo made a little noise that sounded like a cough before butting his head up against her cheek.
She gave her head a little shake before standing. Scowled at the hole in her counter. “Damn it,” she muttered. How was she going to explain that to her insurance company?
She glanced back to the bookstore as Rhys came through, a ball of energy on his palm that he tossed at the witch just as she started another spell. Her attention was on Nina so she didn’t see it coming.
The energy bolt erupted into green fire that surrounded the witch. She screamed. The stench of burn detritus sharpened in the air. As the witch shouted a spell to quench the wizard flames, Diana stepped out of the bookstore, and fired two arrows into the witch’s chest.
The witch gasped, looking down at the arrows sticking out of her, tipped by golden feathers. “What…?” She didn’t get any more words out before the circling spirits reached her. And despite the still burning wizard fire and the arrows, the spirits descended on her, covering her as she screamed in denial.
Nina used the distraction to reach Tabitha and pull her away from the spirits. She was vulnerable to them after what she’d just done. Letting one of the witch’s victims take over Tabitha’s body was not part of this multi-pronged plan. She half dragged the exhausted Tabitha behind Cary, where Abner was still hovering. Once behind Cary, Nina knew the two were safe.
But that didn’t solve the problem of getting Abner back into his body.
Which the witch wouldn’t be helping with because she was too busy being torn apart by flames and spirits.
The cries and screams died quickly under the assault, but that was as close as Nina paid attention. It wasn’t something she felt the need to watch.
Rhys reached her side, taking her shoulders to study her. “You’re okay?”
“Fine. Kind of glad the leopard dropped me, though.” She gestured at the hole in her counter. “I’m not happy about that.”
“We’ll take care of it.” He glanced at Abner. “But first…”
“First,” she said. She collected the cat carrier and brought it close to Tabitha and Abner’s spirit.
Agnes joined her. “Well now. What have we here.” The Abner spirit floated closer to Agnes and Agnes smiled. “Don’t worry little one. We’ll get you back to where you belong.”
Diana stepped close. She’d nocked another arrow but hadn’t drawn the string back and was pointing the arrow head toward the ground. She gave the cat spirit a look, then Agnes. Raised her brows.
Agnes said, “I can take care of this.” She waved toward the spirits still tearing apart the remains of the witch. “If you wouldn’t mind…”
“Of course,” Diana said. She removed her arrow and put it back into the quiver resting along her back, then dropped the bow over her head so it lay across her back, the string across her chest as she approached the pile of angry spirits.
The black leopard moved up beside Cary. Nina blinked, and Cary’s mate stood there in his human form, his eyes still glowing faintly yellow. He stood just behind her, watching everything going on warily but silently. Cary reached back and patted his hand. Then leaned into him and shivered.
Cary had admitted when they planned all this that she hated ghosts. That she was willing to help despite that, because a cat was in danger, ensured she got the friends and family discount at Nina’s café from now on.
Nina watched the goddess—yeah definitely the goddess of the hunt—and Agnes—still no real idea what she was—as they worked, fascinated because up to this moment, she’d never seen them do much but drink and read. At least nothing blatantly magical. There had been…meetings. And subtle power reveals.
But nothing like this.
Agnes knelt in front of the cat carrier and with a little hand wave, Abner’s spirit bobbed down until it was hovering between Agnes and the opening to the cat carrier. The air around Agnes blurred, so that it was hard for Nina to see exactly what she did. There was a purring sound. A quiet chuckle from Agnes. Some gently murmured words that Nina couldn’t hear but that made her skin tingle. Light flared very brightly, so she had to look away.
When she looked back, Agnes was still kneeling in front of the cat carrier, but a giant orange tabby cat was sitting on her lap as she stroked her fingers through his fur. The tabby purred so loud he sounded like a motor.
Behind them, Tabitha gasped. “Abner!”
The tabby gave Agnes’s hand a lick. Then bound over to his witch, curling up onto her lap now where she’d collapsed to the floor, the two of their faces together. Nina was pretty certain she saw tears dripping down Tabitha’s cheeks.
Nina took a ragged breath, then leaned down and picked up an unresisting Boo and buried her fingers in his fur. He was also purring gently. Even Rhys, after a moment’s hesitation, started to stroke Boo, and the energy release of that moment was cathartic.
Meanwhile, Diana had waded into the middle of all the angry spirits still tearing at the remains of the ghost witch. Her reformed, ghoulish body had once again disintegrated to ash and a few bone pieces. And since the body had been only a shell (and really weren’t all bodies) for the ghost, Nina expected the ghost witch to rise up as a ghost again.
But she saw no sign of her amidst the piles of spirits.
Diana’s voice rumbled out to fill the café, the power impressive and a little overwhelming as she recited Latin words that made the ghosts moan and then, one by one, they released long breaths and sank back into the wooden floor. Diana didn’t stop her litany until the very last spirit sank with a sigh into the wood. When they were all gone, Diana finally let her voice trail off, looking at the area with a satisfied nod.
Nina also looked around. Familiar returned to his witch. Spirits raised to combat the ghost witch settled. No one appeared to be hurt. And the ghost witch was gone.
“Good night,” she murmured.
Rhys wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. They were both still petting Boo.
“Tabitha, you okay?”
Tabitha looked up. There were wet lines on her cheeks, but she was smiling. “Relieved. I’ll heal from the rest with some sleep.”
Sleep sounded good. Nina hadn’t had to use much magic in this little escapade but she was going to have to use some to get the place cleaned up before opening tomorrow. She didn’t want to answer any questions about the hole in her cabinet—that one would probably require an illusion until she could get a proper carpenter in to fix it. And the whole place needed a good scrubbing after the necromancy work.
She gave Boo a kiss on the head then lowered her arms so he could jump out of her hold. She went to the back room and brought out a large garbage bin, a broom, and a dust pan. “Any reason not to throw the dirt out?” she asked Tabitha.
“The ash should be replaced in the box,” Tabitha said. “And the box will need to be buried. There’s a spell for sealing the content.” Tabitha tried to stand up but wobbled and fell abruptly back onto her hip. The tabby had never bothered to get off her lap, so Nina couldn’t tell if Tabitha dropped back down because she was tired or because Abner insisted, but either way…
“I’ll take care of it,” she told Tabitha. This was, after all, her café. And cleaning up was her job.
“The rest of the dirt is grave dirt, but it doesn’t need to go back to where it came from. It’s been…discharged, I guess is the best way to put it. It’s just ordinary soil now.”
“Fair enough.” Nina, being a good witch, considered holding onto the soil for her garden, but in the end decided against it. Given the rum poured over it and the work that had been done, she figured the soil might not be great for her herbs and vegetables anyway.
“I don’t do cleanup,” Diana said with a sniff. “Goodnight.” She walked into the bookshop.
A light flared inside the store, so bright and blinding Nina had to close her eyes. When she opened them, she was sure the goddess had gone.
Agnes rolled her eyes. “You’d think at her age, she’d be less eager to show off.”
***
Everyone who wasn’t a goddess lent a hand with the cleanup even though Nina tried to wave them off. Even Agnes helped, including offering to take the box with the ashes and bury it properly. “I’ve a good spot that will do just the trick. No more ghostly appearances for this one.” She tsked again, her lips pursed. “Just the sort that always gave witches a bad name.”
“Are you sure?” Tabitha asked. She was standing again, Abner weaving carefully around her ankles. “It’s sort of my responsibility. And I can return the box to where I found it.”
“No,” Agnes said. She glanced at Henry, who was running a mop over the spot where the dirt circle had been. “I think for this to end properly, this box needs to be buried in a new location?”
“Quite.” Henry gave Agnes a little smile. Then went back to mopping, humming a tune under his breath that Nina didn’t recognize. He’d tucked his watch back into his vest pocket… Or, wait, no. He was wearing a wrist watch. He didn’t have a pocket watch. What had made her think that? She frowned a little as he checked the time on the watch, then went back to humming as he rinsed the mob in a bucket of cleaning water. It was a nice watch. Black leather strap, thin silver face with the numbers made of green jade.
She gave her head a little shake and returned her attention to the clean up efforts. She hadn’t realized in the moment, but a fine sheen of dust had coated everything, so having the extra hands proved invaluable. And what would have taken her most of the night to do on her own only took a couple of hours. When they were done, the café sparkled again. Someone had even rewashed the glasses, mugs and plates behind the counter, she realized, as well as wiped down the shelves and counters. The espresso machine gleamed. The scent of rotting detritus and decay had disappeared under citrus-scented cleaners.
“Ready for business tomorrow,” Rhys said, glancing around the place as well, hands on his hips.
Nina looked at the still pretty obvious hole in her counter. Yeah, that needed something to cover it up. With Boo winding around her ankles to give her a little extra boost, she wove an illusion spell, her second of the night, though this one significantly less creepy and not tied to someone else’s past. The illusion knitted itself over the top of the hole, blending in seamlessly. By the time she was finished, the dark brown panel that was the bottom of her counter looked completely unblemished.
“Impressive,” Rhys said from beside her, smiling at her with that smile of his that made her heart beat a little harder.
“Thank you.” She blew some hair off her forehead. “Now I just need to make sure no one actually bumps into that spot or throws anything through it until I can get a carpenter in here to fix it.” Her illusions were good, but not solid things. The disguise would break if anyone tossed a ball through it.
Not that that happened much, but people did bring kids into her café and kids were notorious chaos machines.
She put calling a carpenter on her mental To Do list for the morning.
Or maybe the afternoon.
The clock behind the counter ticked toward three fourteen in the morning. The clean up had taken longer than rescuing Abner had. Typical.
“Since we’re all here,” she said, turning to face all her helpers. “And since you all were willing to help Tabitha, anyone want a coffee on the house?”
Cary’s hand shot up first. She glanced around and winced. But didn’t put her hand down. Her mate Deacon gave her shoulders a hug and kissed her cheek, which made her grin and blush. But she also didn’t put her hand down.
Henry and Agnes both agreed to a tea. Tabitha tried to offer to pay for everyone’s drinks, but Nina refused the offer. That everything had ended well, no one but the ghost had gotten hurt, and Abner was back in his sweet, fat tabby body… That was all the payment Nina needed.
As she and Rhys—who came behind the counter to help her—made everyone their drinks, she realized she’d started something very cool here at the café. Something special. Bigger than she’d anticipated when she’d opened her doors. A place that was safe. A place where people could gather. But also a place to make friends. Allies. A place where people could come to find help, even in the most unusual of circumstances.
A magical place.
More than anything, Nina realized that was her favorite part about owning the café. It truly was a magical place.
***
Thanks for reading A HAUNTING AT THE CAFE! I hope you enjoyed it.
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A HAUNTING AT THE CAFECopyright © 2026 Kat Simons
All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.