A hand grasped my shoulder. I jerked awake.
Darkness shrouded the bedroom. Brayden lay on his side. He breathed softly, his skin brushing my own, his dark curls fading into the shadows of the rumpled pillow.
Quieting my breath, I stared at my skylight, coated with frost. Logic said I must have imagined someone shaking me awake; it had been a dream.
But logic didn’t spend a lot of time in Doyle, California.
I pushed my aura outward, feeling for magic. Past the walls of my bedroom, I touched something alien, and I froze.
Careful not to wake Brayden, I slid from the bed and slipped into my silky kimono robe. I tied the belt into a rough knot and padded from the room.
In the dark, my apartment was all unfamiliar gray shapes and angles. A goblin squatted on the couch and resolved to a mass of pillows. A spider plant became Medusa.
I banged my toe on something and smothered a yelp. Feeling my way, I trailed one hand along the wall and found the bathroom.
I sent another experimental push of awareness through the door. Something not right pinged in my brain, and I backed against the wall.
My jaw set. This was my apartment. It was surrounded by magical wards, keeping dark magic out. I knew they hadn’t failed. Which meant whatever was in the bathroom wouldn’t hurt me.
I opened the door. Reaching around the corner, I flipped on the light. The bathroom was small and simple. A bathtub/shower with a green curtain. A white sink and vanity. A mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink.
Something shifted in the mirror.
Heart leaping, I spun to look behind me.
The hallway was empty.
I blew out a breath. Great. I’d freaking scared myself with my own reflection. One hand pressed to my chest, I walked inside the bathroom.
The shower curtain rippled, as if stirred by a breeze.
I stared, gathering courage. Reaching out, I ripped back the curtain.
The bathtub was empty.
And needed cleaning.
I checked between the toilet and the bathtub, the toilet and vanity. I opened the cupboard beneath the sink. A collection of cleaning products and rolls of toilet paper stared back at me.
Had I accidentally left a crystal somewhere in here, and it was calling to me?
I opened the medicine cabinet. Mouthwash. First aid kit. Aspirin.
Shutting its mirrored door, I checked out my reflection. There was some serious bed head going on, and I raked my fingers through my loose, brown curls. I grimaced at my post-holiday Christmas-tree eyes – bloodshot with green irises. Yawning, I rubbed my face, stretching the skin.
My image kaleidoscoped, shattering into pieces and swirling in a cascade of color. Dizzied, I braced my hands on the sink. The cool porcelain grounded me into reality. I shook my head and looked up.
Mrs. Raven, her hair in black waves from another era, stared at me through the mirror.
“Whoa!” I leapt backwards and banged against a towel rack.
In the mirror, the woman flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the shoulder of her green suit. “Miss Bonheim. We need to talk.” The reflection wavered, as if I was looking through a pool of water.
I licked my lips. Hallucination. Right. I was hallucinating. No, I was dreaming. I pinched myself and was still in the bathroom. “How...?” I choked out.
She shrugged. “A simple astral projection using mirrors. Your sister Lenore could do it if she tried.”
Hey, I was pretty good at magic too. I straightened, indignant. If Lenore could do it, I could—
“Stop worrying about how you measure up to your sisters. If it makes you feel any better, your sister Karin has more magic than the both of you.”
“Why would that make me feel better? What are you doing in my mirror?” I’d known she wasn’t the tourist she’d been pretending to be all winter. But I hadn’t picked up witch vibes from her either.
She tugged down the sleeves of her vintage jacket. “I work for an organization that... protects.”
I edged farther from the mirror. “What organization?”
“The name is unimportant, suffice—”
“Is Mrs. Steinberg in it too?” Mrs. Steinberg was an elderly and possibly magical Doyle resident. She always seemed to turn up with a cryptic 411 when things were going south. Plus, I’d seen her talking to Mrs. Raven and her partner, Mr. O’Hare, on more than one occasion.
Mrs. Raven stared coldly. “Suffice it to say, that your charming mountain town’s qualities have not gone unnoticed.”
In other words, she wasn’t going to talk about Mrs. Steinberg. Why couldn’t anyone tell me what I needed to know? “So why are you in my mirror? Do you have any idea what time it is?” Whoa. Did I just say that? I sounded like Karin.
“I’ve come to warn you. You and your sisters are up against a Black Lodge.”
I had no idea what that was, but cold, unreasoning fear spiked up my spine. No! No more warnings. No more danger. No more threats to the people I loved. “A what?”
She rolled her eyes. “For heaven’s sake, girl, if you want to do magic, get educated.”
I bridled. “I’ve been managing my magic pretty darn well if you ask me. And you still haven’t explained why you’re here. In my bathroom!”
“A Black Lodge is a society of dark magicians. In the past, they tended to avoid this place.” She glanced about the bathroom.
“Er, you do mean Doyle and not my apartment, right?” Because the way she was looking at my shower curtain…
“Of course, I mean Doyle. But something changed.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. Doyle was a liminal place, a door between the worlds. And the door wasn’t as closed as we’d like. Things kept slipping through. And some of those things were deadly.
“You changed Doyle.” She smoothed the wide lapels of her emerald blazer. “Naturally, we looked into closing the gate permanently.”
“Can you?” I asked, torn between hope and fear. My sisters and I suspected a lot of our magic came from that partially open door. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else getting hurt, but losing my magic would be like losing a part of myself.
My jaw tightened. Still, I’d give the magic away in a heartbeat if it meant keeping my sisters and Brayden safe. We’d come too close to the Grim Reaper too often. I couldn’t handle losing someone I loved again.
“We can’t close the door,” she said. “At least, not yet. And they’ve already made one attempt to steal the book from the sheriff’s station. They failed, but… Mr. O’Hare is still researching the matter,” she said rapidly. “Until then, you’ll have to hold them off.”
“Hold them off?” I glanced toward the peeling bathroom door. Brayden hadn’t woken up, and I wasn’t sure I wanted him to hear this. A flush of guilt swamped me. We’d just promised we’d be honest with each other, especially about magic. Whether I wanted it or not, he had to hear. “Hold off who?”
“Whom.”
I ignored the grammar lesson. “Who are they?”
“A Black Lodge. Haven’t you been listening?” Her gaze flicked to the ceiling tiles. “Of course, you haven’t. Lenore tangled with them on New Year’s. That damned book. She was a fool to let the sheriff take it. Evidence.” Her voice dripped with disdain. “Of course, we attempted to retrieve it from the police station. Unfortunately, it’s powerfully warded—”
I blinked. “The police station has magical wards?” What the hell? What. The. Hell. “Are you kidding me?”
She sniffed. “The point is, they’ve taken an interest.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, shrill. “What book?”
“Didn’t Lenore explain? The Black Lodge believes that Necronomicon she found at New Year’s is powerful. So powerful, it will allow them to take control of the door.”
I shifted my weight. Lenore might have mentioned something about finding a dangerous spell book. “The door to Fairy? You mean there’s a spell in the book to control it?” Why hadn’t I paid more attention to Lenore? Oh, right. Because the book had been connected to a New Year’s murder, and thanks to Lenore, the killer had been caught. The weird spell book had seemed anticlimactic. Besides, it was the holidays, and Brayden and I had been prepping for a ski trip to Colorado.
“I haven’t read the book myself,” she said. “Do you think I’d have let something that dangerous go if I had?”
“But if there’s a spell to open the door wider, then maybe there’s a spell to close it for good.”
“Ask your sister. She read the book.”
“She didn’t— I mean, she did mention looking at it, I think.” Lenore could get a little boring when she talked about her magic. As an earth witch, I was more interested in the here and now than in Lenore’s worlds of the spirits.
“There’s power flowing from that door,” she said waspishly, “and the Lodge wants it. Heaven help us all if they obtain it.”
“But—”
“Oh, don’t you worry. We’ll get that spell book back from the sheriff, one way or another.”
I shifted, not liking the sound of that. “If you’ve got it under control, why are you telling me any of this?”
She lowered her chin and stared at me over her old-fashioned spectacles. “Because they’re coming, Ms. Bonheim. And we’ll be too busy to protect you.”
I tried to swallow. “Protect—?”
The mirror rippled, and then it was just a mirror. The reflection of my pale face gaped. Shaken, I smoothed my bed head.
A lodge full of dark magicians. Mrs. Raven in my bathroom mirror. I’d seen a lot of weird stuff in Doyle, but this took the cake.
I returned to my warm bed and Brayden. He mumbled something and pulled me close.
I tugged the soft bedsheets over my nose, then over my head.