Herringbones and Hexes, page 8
She blew out her breath through closed lips so she sounded like a motorcycle backfiring. “Easy as.”
I wasn’t one to put off until tomorrow what would get me out of researching hexes in my grimoire tonight, so I said, “Could we do it now?”
“Don’t see why not.”
I fetched my laptop and handed it to Hester. She got busy while Theodore and I discussed how we might trap Robin Goodfellow and then convince him to lift the curse.
At one point, Hester glanced over and said, “I could do it. Give me five minutes with him.” Her white teeth gleamed when she smiled.
“Hester, you know we’ve moved on from the old ways,” Theodore reminded her gently.
“Yeah, but Robin Goodfellow doesn’t know it.”
I felt vaguely alarmed, but Theodore shook his head and gave her an indulgent look. He did seem like he managed her well. And if she grew too annoying, Rafe could always get her to behave.
“Do you need any details?” I asked Hester to bring her attention back to my dark web dating profile. She shook her head. “I took a look at some of the other profiles on the site. It shouldn’t be difficult to fake something passable. I won’t put anything that identifies you.”
“But remember, I only want a date with one witch. We need to target the profile exactly to whatever he says he’s looking for.”
She pushed a couple of buttons and showed me his page. I recognized him from his picture. The same bleach-blond hair, that same thin face, but he was wearing some kind of black robe and had displayed his pentagram necklace on the outside of it.
“Yep, that’s him.”
She turned the screen back to herself and read aloud. “Robin Goodfellow. I’m from a long line of Gloucestershire witches, with a branch of the family in Cornwall. One of my ancestors was a healer at Tintagel Castle. Women without magic bore me. I’m looking for my kindred sprite, a woman who wants to stand barefoot under a full moon with me. To blend our two gifts into the purest magic.
“I also enjoy a good game of darts, cozy evenings around the fire, and a good footy match. If you think we might be fated, wave your magic wand in my direction.”
I nearly choked. “He’s got to be joking.”
She glanced up, and I could see she was in complete sympathy with me. “You should read some of the other ones. They’re even worse.”
“And I’m supposed to write a profile as lame as that?”
“Yes.”
“What about a picture? I can’t put a picture on there. He’ll recognize me. He came and picked up Violet from Cardinal Woolsey’s.” I turned to Hester. She looked a lot more like a witch than I did, with that long, black hair and the black clothes. “Can’t we use your picture?” They both stared at me balefully, and I mumbled, “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about the photo,” Hester said. “I’ll amalgamate several photographs. He’ll never know it’s not a real person.”
She was so impressive, it was scaring me.
“Good,” Theodore said. He wasn’t particularly excitable, but he did enjoy the thrill of the chase. “Now we must write Lucy’s profile.”
“I could pull up the old one I used in Boston. On eHarmony.”
They both stared at me.
“What? It got me a few dates.”
I was beginning to feel like Violet. My luck in the romance department hadn’t been all that exciting until I’d arrived in Oxford.
“First, we must come up with a name for Lucy.”
This could be fun. My very own witch name. I said, “Well, he keeps on about the moon. Though, now that I think about it, Violet was Mistress Moon. We’ll have to have something else.”
“Goddess of the Moon?”
Hester made that motorcycle backfiring noise again. “There must be a hundred of those on this site. Don’t witches have any imagination?”
“Spellbinder.” Even as I said it, I was worried Robin Goodfellow might think I had something kinky in mind.
“Luna?” Theodore suggested.
“From which derives the word lunatic,” Hester said with relish.
Who knows how long we’d have continued trying to come up with the right name if someone hadn’t rung the bell? I answered the intercom, and Rafe’s deep voice answered me.
“I’m glad you’re home. Can I come up?”
“The more the merrier.” Before he could ask what I meant by that, I pressed the button that would open the downstairs door. He arrived upstairs and blinked when he saw my companions.
“We’re writing a dating profile for Lucy on Witch Date,” Hester informed him. She might have been around for hundreds of years, but sometimes she sure acted like a teenager. How had her common sense not evolved in the time she’d spent on earth?
I quickly glanced at Rafe and was in time to see a look of tragedy instantly stifled. I’d never seen someone go from hopeful to hopeless so quickly before. And it pulled at something deep inside me.
“It’s not for real,” I said quickly. “We’re trying to catch whoever put that hex on Violet.”
He’d regained control of his features by now anyway. And as smooth and urbane as always, he stepped forward. Nyx immediately abandoned me and flirted with him outrageously until he picked her up. Then he sat down beside me on the couch.
“I think you need to fill me in. Why is Lucy going on a witches’ dating site?”
I left Theodore to explain all the details to him. He listened in silence and then said, “Empress of the night.”
A shiver of recognition went down my spine. Hester nodded. “Not bad.”
Theodore nodded. “It’s not got the word moonlight in it but something so much more.”
“It’s from a poem,” I said. I felt rather smug. I might not be as well-read as the man who dealt in antiquarian books and had been reading and studying them since Shakespeare’s time, but I’d taken introduction to poetry in college.
He nodded. “Longfellow. One of your poets, Lucy.” And then he quoted, in his rich, deep voice, “She walks the terraces of cloud, Supreme as Empress of the Night.”
I looked at him. “I thought you’d argue that it was a terrible idea for me to do this.”
“Do I believe it’s a poorly conceived plan for you to confront someone who is capable of putting a powerful hex on you? Why would I think that?”
Oh man, I hated it when he did that cold, superior sarcasm thing.
“I have to do something to help Violet. Anyway, she says he’s not a real witch at all.”
“He sounds like a right twit,” Hester said.
“How will you get him to remove the hex? Assuming he chooses you out of all the witches on the dark net to date. And that he’s the one responsible for the hex.”
And thank you for that. I hadn’t really thought it through, but rapidly I did. “Maybe I could slip a truth potion into his drink and then challenge him.”
“And if he admits to being spiteful and revengeful, wanting to hurt Violet, then what will you do?”
“I’ll get him to take the hex off. Or at least tell me where he bought it. Because I really don’t think he has the power to do it himself. I’ll make him remove the curse.”
I pictured the scene. There could be some uncomfortable moments. But I wasn’t without power. “And then I’ll do my forgetting spell on him. I’ve had plenty of practice, especially at the beginning when I first came here and Gran kept forgetting that she was dead and appearing in the middle of my shop. Can you imagine how many nervous breakdowns there would have been among the knitters of Oxford if I hadn’t learned how to do that spell that made them completely forget the last few minutes?”
Nyx was purring so loudly that she was embarrassing herself.
“I have a couple of conditions before I’ll agree to being part of this.”
Since nobody had asked him to be a part of it, it was a bit presumptuous, and maybe I would have acted huffy if I hadn’t seen that moment when he’d thought I was off on a dating site without even giving him an answer to his marriage proposal. What kind of witch would do that?
Theodore asked what his conditions were, and Rafe said, “This date will happen in a public place, and Lucy will not go alone.”
“Naturally, she won’t go alone. I fully intend to be in the vicinity in case she needs help.”
Theodore was becoming as bad as Rafe, always thinking he had to protect me. “The worst the guy could do is attempt to put a hex on me. And he won’t be able to. So I don’t really know how you could stop him. You’re vampires, not witches.”
“Lucy,” Rafe said in a long-suffering manner. “Somehow, wherever you go, you wind up in trouble.”
Hester snickered, but I flared up. “That is so unfair. I don’t ask to get in these horrible situations.”
“Nevertheless, you do.”
It was hard to argue against reality. I could blame Sylvia for sending me into harm’s way, or bad luck, or a hundred other excuses, but the truth was I did seem to draw danger the way Rafe’s black trousers were currently attracting Nyx’s fur. It wasn’t a bad idea to have backup in case Robin Goodfellow had more power than I was giving him credit for.
“Fine,” I said, sounding uncomfortably like Hester. “Agreed.”
“Now we have to build me a profile that’s going to appeal to somebody who calls himself Robin Goodfellow and thinks the height of excitement is to stand under a full moon with his beloved witch.”
“What an amateur,” Rafe said.
My thoughts exactly. “I’ll put everything cheesy that people think is true of witches.”
“Read me the profile,” Rafe said.
Hester obligingly read it again. Rafe said, “He craves acceptance. He’s looking for someone magical who will make him feel magical as well. I suspect you’re right, Lucy. He doesn’t have any powers of his own. He wants to be powerful by association. It’s the only chance he has. We must feed into that. Tintagel, of course, is associated with King Arthur.”
Now that he was with the program, Rafe was an excellent ally. He was brilliant and had a vast knowledge of human behavior, having been around so long.
He said, “Start with your lineage, the way he has. Pedigree seems to be important to him.”
“I can’t tell him about my family. He’s the kind of fool that might try to show up to coven meetings.”
Hester sneered. “Not your real lineage, stupid. Make it up.”
The ghost of a smile flickered across Rafe’s lips. “That was what I had in mind, yes.”
“What about saying she’s descended from Morgan le Fay, the enchantress in the King Arthur legend?” Theodore suggested.
“That’s good. Yes,” Rafe agreed. “But is it too obvious?”
“You could tell him that your people come from Glastonbury,” Hester offered.
I shook my head. “That’s too close to the truth.” Oh, but Glastonbury gave me an idea. “Glastonbury is where King Arthur is supposedly buried. What if we let him think I know secrets no one else does?”
There was general enthusiasm for this idea, so I dictated and Hester typed. “I can trace my magic line back to Merlin. They say King Arthur is buried at Glastonbury. But I know that isn’t true. I know where he is. On our second date, I’ll take you to King Arthur’s final resting place. But first I need to know I can trust you. Our first date should be in a coffee shop.”
“No,” Theodore said. “A pub. He mentioned liking pubs and darts.”
“Right. That’s better.” I glanced at Hester. “In fact, maybe you should mention darts. Or football.”
Rafe shook his head. “It’s too obvious. I think what Lucy has there is perfect.”
Hester had typed what we’d suggested, and then she turned the computer so I could see it. The photo she claimed to have created definitely looked like a real person.
“Are you sure that isn’t a stock image from some photography site?” I asked.
“No, it is not. I took Violet’s face, since we know he liked her enough to go out with her, and I crossed it with… Well, I’m not telling you all my secrets. Trust me. He’ll go for it.”
The woman had long black hair, eyes that slanted slightly upwards in the corners, a full, sensual mouth, and somewhat of a challenging gaze. As Robin Goodfellow had been, so was she wearing all black. She didn’t have anything as obvious as a pentagram around her neck but what looked to me like an ammonite fossil. Nice touch.
We all agreed that my listing was perfect, and then she uploaded it to the site.
“We’ll give it till tomorrow night, and then you can ping him, Lucy,” Hester said. “If you send him a message now, even he might smell a trap.”
I agreed to be guided by her, and then obviously realizing that Rafe had come to see me, not them, Theodore very tactfully got up and said that they should be going. Before they’d got two steps, there was a ping on my computer. Hester’s eyes lit up, and she ran back to the laptop.
“Ha. You’ve got your first one.”
“My first what?”
“Your first interested witch. He sent you a black rose.”
“How flattering.”
“It’s like sending a wink on this nutty site.”
“Is it Robin Goodfellow?”
“No. It’s Master of the Wands.”
Oh man. It was going to be a long evening, I could tell. Five minutes later, there was another ping. “Midnight Jester.”
“Are these guys for real?”
“Lucy, they’re on a dark net site called Witch Date, and you have to ask that question?” Hester looked at me like I was a few petals short of a black rose.
Good point.
“I don’t know about this,” Rafe said. “They sound like escapees from a lunatic asylum.”
There was another ping. “No, really, I can’t take any more of this,” I said. “I am shutting that thing off.”
But Hester looked as delighted as I’d ever seen her when Carlos wasn’t around. She turned the computer my way and said, “Robin Goodfellow just sent you a black rose.”
Chapter 12
“I got a black rose,” I said, tickled.
“If only I’d known you were partial to them,” Rafe said in a dry tone.
“Ooh, he sent you a message, too.” Hester was extremely proud of herself. As she should be.
“Read it aloud,” Theodore said. He was leaning forward, trying to see the screen, and then he gave up and sat back down beside her.
“Greetings, Empress. Your profile called to me, like a beautiful owl sitting high in a yew tree.”
Rafe made a sound of disgust. “Foolish puppy. Doesn’t he know that the lonely hoot of an owl is the harbinger of death?”
And I thought if this was an earlier age and these vampires weren’t well-fed, foolish Robin Goodfellow could be announcing his own imminent death. At least these days, all they punished foolish humans with was scorn.
“Read on,” I said.
“I always knew King Arthur wasn’t in that grave. I’ve stood there in that very spot and felt the emptiness underneath my feet. I hope I can intrigue you enough to get to a second date. Shall we meet for a first one tomorrow night at The Flag and Bear in Oxford? It’s probably the most central place for us to meet.”
I felt slightly alarmed. “How does he know I live in Oxford?” I glared at Hester. I should have paid more attention to what she was doing.
“Relax. I said you live ten miles outside of Oxford, but I didn’t name a town.”
Okay. In England, ten miles was like three states’ worth of distance in the US.
Hester said, “Should you play coy? And wait until tomorrow to reply?”
The other three of us all shook our heads in unison. “He’s hooked now,” Theodore said. “Saying you know where the real King Arthur is buried was brilliant. He’s so excited at the thought of gaining some inside knowledge, it hasn’t even occurred to him you could be stringing him along.”
“I agree,” I said. “Also, I don’t know how long Violet’s got. That hex is nasty. The quicker we remove it, the quicker she’ll get her looks back. Tell him I’ll meet him tomorrow night. And he should bring a black rose.”
Hester snickered at that, then quickly typed up my reply and sent it before I could change my mind.
It wasn’t five minutes later that he responded he’d be delighted. How was 7 p.m.?
“Perfect,” I had Hester reply on my behalf. “Blessed be.”
He echoed my reply, and then I said, “And shut that thing down before any more crazy witches get hold of me.” I was worried that one of the men from our coven might write to me. How embarrassing would that be? At least I wasn’t using my real picture, but if Hester could track down somebody from their IP address, who knew who else could do it?
I arrived at The Flag and Bear half an hour early for my witch date. I’d done this deliberately, as I wanted to be in the position where I could control both where we sat and how the whole date went down. With three vampires hovering around, I wanted to make sure that I was the one with my back to the wall so that Forest Sprite, aka Robin Goodfellow, had to look at me and wouldn’t notice he was under surveillance. Just on the off chance that he really did have magic powers, how would he not notice three vampires pretending not to stare at him? Even a non-magic person might figure that out. Theodore and Rafe, I was pretty sure could be cool, but Hester was hard to miss and not the most subtle of vampires.
I walked in alone at six-thirty feeling oddly jumpy. The thing was, the minute he saw me, he was going to know who I was and that I’d posted a fake profile. Well, obviously it was going to be very clear to him very quickly that this wasn’t a real date and my whole purpose in meeting with him was to stop that hex.
I glanced around and, as expected at six-thirty on a Wednesday evening, The Flag and Bear was busy with students, tourists, and locals who’d come out for a pub dinner. If this were a normal date, it would be nice to stay for dinner, but I was pretty certain we wouldn’t be extending this date for the rest of the evening. Not a chance.
I began walking around looking for the table that would give me all the advantages I wanted. Fortunately, the pub wasn’t full. As I was scanning around looking for my perfect spot, my gaze fell upon a table where two women were chatting and giggling.
_preview.jpg)
