Witch out of Luck Read online

  Witch Out Of Luck

  A Blair Wilkes Mystery

  Elle Adams

  Contents

  Witch Out Of Luck

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Thank you for reading!

  About the Author

  This book was written, produced and edited in the UK, where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.

  Copyright © 2018 Elle Adams

  All rights reserved.

  To be notified when Elle Adams’s next book is released, sign up to her author newsletter.

  Witch Out Of Luck

  Blair Wilkes faces her toughest challenge yet: meeting her boyfriend Nathan's family. That means being on her best 'normal' behaviour -- no weirdness, no magic, and definitely no unexpected appearances from her unpredictable cat, Sky.

  Blair's life is never that simple.

  A student's mysterious death by drowning casts a shadow over the town's annual summer broom flight contest. Now she's having to defend a group of elves from a murder accusation, fend off werewolves, and pass her next witch exam.

  With people dropping off their brooms like flies, it's not a great time for Blair to try mastering flight. But without it, she'll fail her test and be doomed to spend her life being laughed at by witches half her age.

  Can Blair keep it together, learn to fly, and catch a killer while she's at it? Or has her luck run out?

  1

  The frisbee hovered in the air, and I waved my wand, directing it at Nathan with a levitation spell. He caught it and threw it back, faster than I’d expected. The frisbee sailed past my head, and I raised my wand and gave it another wave. I was a bit too vigorous with my movement because the frisbee flew wildly off course and plunged into the lake.

  “Oops. Might have been a bit too enthusiastic there.” I walked to the shore and flicked my wand, levitating the frisbee out of the lake onto the grassy bank.

  “You’re getting good at that spell,” Nathan commented.

  Heat rose to my cheeks. “I had to master a levitation spell first, to compensate for being the clumsiest witch on the planet.”

  Another flick of my wand brought the frisbee into my hand and I threw it at Nathan again. He didn’t have a wand, not being paranormal, but he didn’t need one. As he caught the frisbee in one hand, he received several admiring glances from the academy students further down the lakeshore.

  He jerked his head at them. “At this rate, you’ll be joining their Sky Hopper game in no time at all.”

  “Please, no. Helen’s already tried to recruit me to supervise the academy’s big game at the end of the month. I have to sneak in and out the back door of the witches’ HQ to avoid her.”

  The only activity I hated more than playing team sports was watching team sports, especially if there was still a risk of being hit in the face by a projectile. Sky Hopper was a complicated game involving two teams, in which the aim was for each team to pass a series of hoops along a row of players without the opposing team taking the hoops away first. There’d already been at least one argument among the students by the lake about who got to be the Vultures—some of the most important members of the team whose goal was to steal the hoops from the opposing players.

  Nathan chuckled. “You never know unless you try.”

  The frisbee soared above my head. I hopped, missed, and snapped the fingers of my right hand, transforming into fairy mode. My wings came out, beating, and I flew high enough to catch it.

  “That’s cheating,” he said teasingly. “Not all of us can fly.”

  “I’d rather fly this way than mount a broomstick.” I landed on the shore again and tossed the frisbee back. He caught it by his fingertips, and a cheer rose from the students.

  Further down the lakeshore, a new group of broomstick-riding witches and wizards approached in a cloud of bright colour. The High Fliers had shown up for their latest practise session. While the academy only held its broomstick contests when there was warm weather, the High Fliers operated in all seasons, including raging storms. Health and safety warnings weren’t really their thing. They also wore vividly bright hats and cloaks despite the weather and were currently engaged in some kind of exercise involving people hopping from one broom to the next in mid-air above the lake. The lake might be pretty, but it was also filled with sirens, biting water imps, and who knew what else. The High Fliers took living dangerously to a whole new level.

  Shaking my head, I returned my attention to Nathan. Our schedules were both so crowded that this was the first time we’d had the time for a date by the lake all summer. Nathan’s job as the town’s head of security kept him busy, while I had summer classes almost every day. Even today, I was supposed to be practising for my upcoming exam, but Madame Grey had suggested I might get to skip a grade if I kept going at my current rate. It was a welcome change from my rocky start to witchcraft, even if I was still the only adult witch in the entire town who didn’t have an academy diploma. Madame Grey, leader of the Meadowsweet Coven and the witch who owned the entire town of Fairy Falls, had done so much to make me feel welcome since my arrival here a few months ago. I didn’t want to let her down by failing my next exam.

  There was a splash and a yelp from further along the shore. It looked like one of the academy students had tried to imitate the High Fliers’ broom-hopping stunt and knocked both himself and the person on the other broom into the lake instead. It was bolstering to see that accidents still happened to the most accomplished wizards and witches in Fairy Falls, not just newbies like me.

  A cluster of broomsticks descended behind Nathan and me as we continued to throw the frisbee to one another. The academy students had given in to the inevitable invasion of their airspace by the High Fliers and had instead decided to watch the show. Loud music blasted from further up the bank, where someone had brought out the magical equivalent to a set of speakers. Someone else passed around cups of wine. Soon, the riotous sounds of a party surrounded our once-quiet spot. Heads bobbed above the water as half the merpeople in the lake arrived to enjoy the fun, and one of them ducked when my frisbee nearly hit him on the head. Oops.

  I flicked my wand and levitated the frisbee over to Nathan, who caught it in his hand. “I think that’s enough for one day.”

  “Agreed.” I walked over to him at the lake’s shore, and he handed me the frisbee. “Today was nice. We should do this more often.”

  Dating someone with as busy a schedule as the town’s leading security guard had its downsides as well as its perks, but I had to admit, life was good. I was improving my skill in magic with each passing day, my workload was manageable, and—oh, I was dating the hottest, most considerate guy in town. How had I got this lucky?

  There was just one slight thing bothering me: I hadn’t heard from my father in weeks.

  That my father might be a fairy held captive in the most notorious paranormal prison in the north of England hadn’t exactly been my first assumption when I’d wondered about my birth family growing up. My dad had omitted to tell me why he was in jail, or why it’d taken him twenty-five years to get in touch with me. But despite the distance separating us, we’d begun to connect. Sort of. And then he’d dropped a bombshell on me in the form of the following message: If Inquisitor Hare has targeted you, Blair, leave Fairy Falls. Your life depends on it.

  Nearly a month had passed since
Inquisitor Hare, leader of the paranormal hunters and owner of the prison where my dad had been locked away for the last few years, had been in town. There had been no sightings of a single hunter since then. But when I’d written back to my dad to ask why I had to flee, he’d repeated the same message. And then he’d stopped replying at all.

  Since the only way to contact my father was by sending notes via pixie, it wasn’t like I could stride into the prison and ask him. The only reason I knew he was there at all was due to the elf king, who’d admitted to sheltering my dad in the woods a few years ago. My father had claimed to be on the run from someone dangerous but had got caught and arrested shortly after without ever mentioning who was chasing him. He claimed he couldn’t tell me anything important in a letter, but that left me at a loose end. I’d almost got to meet him in person on the summer solstice, the single day when the hunters allowed fairies to leave the prison under supervision, but then a man-eating monster had got loose in the woods. Perhaps my dad had a point about the town not being entirely safe, considering the level of trouble I ran into on a daily basis. But I wouldn’t trade this new life for the world.

  Nathan and I walked up the lakeshore and found a new quiet spot to watch the sun sink lower over the lake, turning the water’s surface into gold. I could never get tired of the view. Or the man next to me, come to that. His hand intertwined with mine, and I turned from the lake to find him smiling at me. “Blair? You were a mile away.”

  “I guess you’d rather I was paying attention to you than the view?”

  He laughed. “The view is nice, so I won’t be too offended.” Then he leaned over and kissed me.

  Cheering came from the students and my face flamed. “Maybe we should have gone somewhere more private.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said. “I actually had something I wanted to talk to you about, Blair.”

  “Oh?” It couldn’t be serious, or he’d have told me right away.

  “Yes,” he said. “My family’s coming to town. They’re very keen to meet you.”

  “Ah.” My heart jumped in my chest. “Uh… are you sure?”

  “Positive,” he said. “It’s not an inspection, don’t worry. Just a family visit.”

  Nathan’s family owned one of the local branches of the paranormal hunters, the one closest to town. After his dad had retired, his brother had taken over, and Nathan was the only member of his immediate family who didn’t work for them. “Uh, which family exactly?”

  “My dad, brothers, and sister,” he said. “My sister’s excited to get to know you.”

  “This is the sister who loves bubble wrap, right?” That was about the only thing I might have in common with a family of paranormal hunters—unless they also turned out to be Harry Potter fans. I’d got the impression Nathan was the odd one out in his family since he’d decided he’d rather work as a security guard for Fairy Falls instead of hunting criminals. The hunters policed wayward paranormals, from catching serial killers to putting down rabid werewolves. And arresting fairies who broke the law. Even if they were off-duty, I’d have to be on my best behaviour. Let’s just say the hunters and their leader hadn’t had pleasant things to say about the state of things in Fairy Falls.

  “Yes,” he said. “I hope it’s not too much to ask for you to try not to do anything that might alarm them.”

  “You mean, magic.” I had fewer accidents than I used to, but I still hadn’t quite broken the habit of casting the wrong spell when I was stressed or panicking. “Okay. No accidentally turning people transparent or creating disco balls.”

  “You haven’t done that for a while.”

  “Nope, but it sometimes happens when I’m nervous. I guess lately I haven’t had reason to be.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad. I was worried for a while that your time in this town would be fraught with chaos for the long-term.”

  I shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m a fairy witch with weird powers and a weirder cat. I’d be worried if things did settle.”

  Though I wasn’t complaining about the calm, the chance to hang out at Nathan by the peaceful lake…

  …the peaceful lake, where someone was screaming.

  Oh, no.

  I turned towards the noise. “What’s going on over there?”

  “Someone probably fell in the lake.” But he let go of my hand and got to his feet.

  “That doesn’t sound like the scream of someone having fun.” I peered through the scattered crowd of students to pinpoint the direction of the noise. “Did someone fall off a broomstick again?”

  “They put the brooms away a while ago.” Nathan walked up the path, and I moved to join him.

  A number of students had gathered at the edge of the route leading to the falls, where the forest bordered the path on the left.

  Nathan’s long-legged stride reached them first. “What’s going on?”

  “Terrence is missing,” said a blond girl. “Did you see anyone wander into the woods?”

  “No,” I said. “But we weren’t looking that way.”

  “Are you sure he went into the woods?” Nathan asked.

  “That’s the last time I saw him,” said the girl. My lie-sensing power told me she was telling the truth.

  “He couldn’t have gone far,” Nathan said. “Everyone knows not to go past the falls, don’t they?”

  Not drunken teenagers, though. Or… well, me. I’d visited the elven king deep in the forest a few times. Not that I’d be admitting it now.

  “I saw him go up there,” said a pale brunette girl who wore an upside-down witch’s hat, pointing uphill. “He and Casey were arguing.”

  “That was ages ago,” protested a pale young man with a shock of dark brown hair. He’d cut up his long navy-blue cloak that formed the academy’s uniform to make it look like a superhero cape.

  “We’ll look,” I said hastily, a little worried that if they tried to follow in their inebriated state, they might trip right over the edge of the path into the lake. There was no fence on the right-hand side and the path became more unsteady the closer you got to the falls. “It’s easy to get lost if you wander too far into the woods.”

  Nathan took the lead uphill. “If not, maybe he’s swimming in the lake.”

  “Or at the falls?” I suggested. “Let’s have a look around.”

  We walked up the path alongside the lake, trees bordering us on our left. The hill steepened until the path forked in two. On the left, it wound away deeper into the woods. On the right, the path turned rocky and steepened, leading down to the falls. I had good memories from here—my first kiss with Nathan came to mind—but bad ones, too. Like the narrow escape I’d had from Mrs Dailey and the small group of hunters who’d been prowling around the woods on her behalf. They’d been reprimanded by their bosses and removed from duty, but I remembered the fear of hiding behind a tree and hoping they wouldn’t spot me.

  There’s nothing here that shouldn’t be, Blair. We’re safe.

  Nathan stopped as we reached the fork in the path. “Maybe we should split up here. Do you want to search the falls?”

  “Sure, but I hope he didn’t go that way,” I answered. “It’s hard not to trip on that path even when you’re sober.” Or when you had two left feet like I did.

  “Or you can take the woodland path instead,” he said. “But I wouldn’t want you to get lost. It’ll be dark soon.”

  “No, I’ll check the falls. Don’t forget I have wings.” I snapped my fingers and my wings came out once again. “See you in five, okay?”

  “Sure.” He waved me off, making his way down the forest path. An uneasy flutter went through me. I understood why he didn’t want me going into the forest alone. Elves, shifters and other paranormals wandered the paths and it was easy to get lost. A drunken teenage wizard would probably get more sympathy for wandering onto shifter territory than the average person, but you never really knew. As for the elves, they were fiercely protective of their territory, and trespassing would get you chas
ed off by a group of terrifying spear-wielding four-foot-tall soldiers. Admittedly, expecting drunken teenagers to follow the rules was pretty much a non-starter. Still, I’d have thought they’d have a little more caution, given that the falls had been under close watch this summer after a monster had been set loose to terrorise the elves a few months ago.

  I climbed down the path leading to the falls, halting when I spotted two people coming the opposite way. Both were under five feet tall, wore bark-coloured clothes, and had pointed ears jutting from their dark hair. Weird. The elves never came this close to the lake. I’d thought they preferred to pretend nobody else lived near the woods at all.

  “Blair Wilkes,” growled one of them, spotting me. He was called Bramble, and the two of us weren’t exactly friends. More reluctant acquaintances. I didn’t recognise his companion, a taller elf with wispy brown hair.

  “Hi,” I said to Bramble. “What’re you doing so close to the falls?”

  He scowled and continued to climb the slope. “Is it of any concern to you?”

  “There’s a human missing in the woods,” I told him. “Seen anyone? He’s a teenage wizard, probably drunk.”

  “It’s not our job to police your fellow humans, Blair Wilkes.” He beckoned to his partner, and the two of them vanished into the forest.

  That’s friendly. Shaking my head, I continued to walk down the steepening path. The part of the forest closest to the falls technically belonged to the witches, but anyone was allowed to use certain paths in and out of the woods.

  I climbed down some more, using my wings to fly down the steepest parts, and spotted another small figure sitting on a ledge above the lake. He swayed as he sat, singing to himself in a low, melancholy voice. A bottle dangled from his fingertips and his hair and clothes looked unkempt. At first, I thought it was that notorious drunken elf who Alissa sometimes dealt with at the hospital when he’d got into escapades. He did look familiar, but it was difficult to tell from this angle. The only way to the falls was to walk past him and I didn’t want to startle him into falling off the ledge, so I cleared my throat to announce my presence.