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Six Months Ago
The midnight moon hung outside the open window. The sheers wafted as I felt him enter the room. The dark corner was filled with shadows, but then there was more than shadows as he took form.
It was enough to make the blood run cold in even a witch.
His voice rustled like shifting leaves. "You, human, who live in the light. You were wrong to invite a vampire across your threshold." He stepped forward so I could see him running his tongue along his fangs.
The entitlement of some guests.
I made sure to stare him straight in the spot between his eyebrows, to avoid him putting the mind-control whammy on me. "Of course you were invited in. You had a reservation." My hand flew out to steady myself and I grabbed onto the mahogany post of the canopy bed as a wave of surrender washed over me. He was more powerful than I had given him credit. It was like a dark blanket kept wanting to cover my face and disappear me from my own consciousness.
His fangs and fingernails lengthened with each step. He was looking at my full curves like I was a jelly-filled doughnut.
"Now, listen, you. I'm always looking for ways to please my customers, but being a midnight snack is above my pay grade. And I'm the boss."
He sucked in the air, arching back like he had smelled something delicious. Probably my racing blood.
I stumbled, my stylish heels not serving any good purpose right now. I immediately removed my stilettos. "You come a step closer and I swear to the two suns above that I will stake you where you stand."
He began to laugh a laugh that caused goose bumps to run right up my arms. With contempt, he commented, "Silver heels. Those are so two decades ago."
It is a whole new low when the creature looking to kill you feels it is in his rights to insult your fashion choices. Especially when he's looking like he went dumpster diving for the cheap castoffs of a Lawrence Welk impersonator.
"I am a practical girl and prefer multipurpose wardrobe items," I informed him.
"Well, I'm an impractical prince of darkness, and I prefer my meals with blood that runs hot."
Sometimes a girl has to take control. I flicked my long, scarlet hair over my shoulder so he could get a good gander of my flesh. "As proprietress of this establishment, I must insist that you begin behaving yourself, sir. I came up to deliver some towels, just as you requested."
The slimeball tried to act like he had his impulses in hand, but one look at the length of my long, pale neck, and he started wiggling his fingertips like he couldn't decide where to grab me first. "You mistake what I was ordering when I called for room service."
My eyes narrowed. "Oh, the first rule of hospitality is to anticipate your guest's needs before even they are aware."
I reached between my cleavage as he flung himself toward me. I pulled out a small vial and threw the contents in his face. The garlic oil bubbled and burned on his skin. He clawed at himself, trying to wipe it away as he screamed.
I leaped back and pressed the center of one of the flowers in the flocked wallpaper. Silver spikes emerged from the tin ceiling like a bed of nails. Two panels swung down from the ceiling like jaws, impaling my guest in a vampire sandwich between two slices of death.
The shock in his eyes as he was turned into a pincushion was worth every moment of terror.
I smiled as I padded over to him and tweaked his nose. "Don't mistake my hospitality for weakness, sugar."
I grabbed some tissues from the en suite and walked out, wiping the vampire cooties off my fingers. Ajax was standing in the hall, carrying a load of dirty laundry. He looked at me questioningly.
"Some monsters don't know how to behave like gentlemen," I explained, closing the door behind me.
Ajax rolled his eyes. "How big is the mess?"
"Impaled. Had to swing the ceiling down on him."
Ajax gave a long-suffering sigh.
"I'll admit, not the tidiest way to rid ourselves of the unwanted undead, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."
"I have to get out the ladder when you stick them standing up," Ajax complained, throwing the pile of linens at my feet. One of the sheets caught on the button of his lederhosen.
"Well, I'll give you a hand," I reassured him as he fought to untangle himself. He was being so testy. "Do you think I would leave you with that mess and not give you a hand? I just need to change my dress. Don't want to get any blood on my good red gown."
He wiped his face. "What shall we do with the body?"
I shrugged. "Drag it out front and leave it for the sun to settle."
"Reducing clients to a mound of ash tends to have a chilling effect on business," he reminded me.
"It reminds any potential guests that the No Spell is serious about our rules and regulations. People like the reassurance. Creates a sense of order and well-being, if you ask me."
He shook his head and wandered down the hallway. "I'll get a mop and the ladder," he shouted over his shoulder.
"Meet you back here!" I called, giving Ajax a sweet smile before heading off to my room.
Unfortunately, just a few hours later, she showed up.
The grand poobah of our coven.
Our newly elected leader.
The kind of gal who felt the need to go swinging her weight around before anyone figured out she had no idea what she was doing.
Miss Trudy.
She was waiting in my office before the sun even had a chance to rise and do its dirty work. And by dirty work, I mean turn that vampire into a pile of dust so I could sweep him up and deposit him in my rose beds.
Everything about her seemed clamped down and held in place. Her black hat was tall and pointy without a speck of cat fur. I'd bet a lump of gold she wore a little anti-lint spell around her neck to keep herself tidy. No one goes wandering around at 5:00 AM looking that good without a little help behind the scenes. Her blonde hair was slicked back into an unforgiving bun. Her youthful face was going to have permanent wrinkles if she kept her lips pursed and brow furrowed like that. I wasn't sure if it was because of the seriousness of the job or if she just didn't like me.
Probably both, but more likely the latter.
It had gotten around to her that I supported her opponent - a jolly woman aptly named Miss Joy. But politics are politics and it seemed a silly reason to bear a grudge when you're going to have to see someone at every harvest festival for the next decade.
"Good to see you, Miss Trudy." I closed the door behind me and walked across the thick carpet to my desk. I tried to keep my head high and not pay her too much attention. The chair behind my desk pulled itself out for me because even my furniture knows how to behave in the presence of a lady.
"I've received a report," Miss Trudy sniffed, showing me a clipboard covered in her scrawl.
I sighed.
"The coven allows you to operate your hotel as long as you do not drag our kind—"
"I did no dragging," I told her. My wide skirts pooled around the sides of my chair as I sat. "That vampire was getting ready to drag me into the pits of hell. It was self-defense."
"Self-defense," she remarked dryly and then pulled out her quill to take some notes.
"Do you think I would go out and stab a vampire in the back—?"
"We sensed he was stabbed multiple times."
"Merely taking acceptable precautions—"
Miss Trudy cut me off and leaned on my desk. "Miss Spell, you and I may have our differences, but you don't have to do this, you know."
The complete shift in tone threw me. "Do what?" I asked.
"Take this ridiculous stand against my leadership."
The accusation was out of the blue. "I can assure you that is not what is going on." I pointed upstairs. "There was a vampire. In a guestroom. He tried to kill me."
She shook her head like she thought I was making it all up. It was the most bizarre reaction I had ever seen to a vampire attack in all my years. "You have practically disappeared from the coven all because you're trying to avoid me!"
"I would never!" I replied. I mean, I would. But A) I would never 'fess up to that and B) she wasn't the reason I was running the No Spell and killing vampires three stories up.
"Be done with this nonsense." She held out a piece of paper. "Come back to the fold. We have a nice opening for a hedge witch. Nothing too trying. Just growing herbs and delivering babies."
I was insulted. "I will have you know that what I do here is not in the least bit 'nonsense', as you so eloquently put it. This hotel has been in my family for generations."
"I am not the enemy," she emphatically stated.
Let me tell you, when you have to inform someone that you are not their foe, that's usually a sign there's an issue.
She motioned to the ceiling, her already-pinched lips souring. "No one in the group understands why you insist on running this dump instead of participating in the sisterhood."
"You're talking about me behind my back?"
"Merely as members concerned about a fellow member—"
But I could see through her. My life was gossip around the wishing well. "It sounds like my sisters have already made up their mind about my life choices."
"You killed a vampire," she tried to reiterate.
"In self-defense!"
"There are rules, Miss Spell."
"IN SELF-DEFENSE!"
"Where is your proof?"
I turned to the window just as the sun came over the horizon.
I had none.
My evidence was turning into a dust bunny as we spoke.
Miss Trudy stood up, obviously done with this conversation. She dug around her bag. "I am sorry. I tried to make you see the support the sisterhood offers you, but you are beyond our help. You are showing dark tendencies and you must be stopped before you turn on the living." She pulled out a long, gnarly wand and pointed it at me. "By all the powers invested in me, I rebuke you and revoke your powers for one year."
A blue light shot out from the tip of her stick and struck my chest.
"NO!" It felt like ice water poured on my soul. The fire that burned in my heart was gone. I held my hands up before my eyes, aghast by their... normalness.
She gave the fact she had robbed me of everything I held dear no more weight than checking off an item on her to-do list. With nonchalance, she tucked everything back into her sack. "We hope after a little cooling off, you'll see the necessity of my actions."
That witch stole my powers! She didn't even care that I was defending myself! I killed a vampire and that meant a nest of his brethren were going to have a few questions for me, and I wouldn't have the magic to beat them back.
I tried to still the panic rising in my throat. I tried to remind myself that vampires could only come across my threshold if I invited them and those thresholds stood whether a person had powers or they didn’t.
"I am going to need you to hand over your broomstick." Miss Trudy shook her head as she noted my distress. "I'm on your side, Miss Spell."
"You just banned me from using magic," I spat.
"To prevent you from making another horrific mistake," she tutted. She walked over to the mantel. My broom, a beauty with a hand-tied straw brush and carved mahogany shaft, was mounted above. She took it down. "I am repossessing this on behalf of the coven."
"You can't!" I gasped in horror. She was taking my broom!
"It is illicit contraband."
"No!"
"You're lucky I allowed you to keep your form and didn't change you into a frog to serve out your sentence. If you go around killing guests without evidence that it was done in self-defense, you're going to have a lot more worries than me. The coven can't align themselves with a wicked witch."
It was like she had slapped me across my face. "I am not a..." It was such a dirty accusation I had to hiss it under my breath, "wicked witch."
"That is what it looks like to outside eyes," Miss Trudy told me. "Unwilling to take responsibility for your actions? Working outside the bounds of the coven? Doing the goddess knows what with the undead in your upper rooms. It doesn't look good. This will at least inform the community we have taken steps to curtail your decline. It keeps up appearances. In six months everyone will have forgotten it happened."
"Because I will be dead," I stated. "You might as well have transformed me into a human being. I'm as defenseless as one. I should just hang a sign in the window saying 'Free Blood Bag' because that's all I'm good for right now."
"You created all the drama! Don't make me feel bad for doing my job."
I could not believe she was turning all this on me. I had defended myself against a vampire's attack and it was my fault?! I walked over to my office door and opened it. I was not about to assuage her guilt. "Get out."
Her pursed lips pursed even tighter. "You forced me to do this to you!" she insisted as she scuttled into the hall.
But I was having none of it. "Go sit on a broomstick!" I shouted and then slammed the door.
I leaned my forehead against the jamb, unable to comprehend how she had torn my world apart.
What a witch.