The Big Day Brew-HaHa Read online

  Hence Sal. Right place, right time. At least for Kieran. He’d managed to avoid Amelia before she could fuse to him, and she’d been searching for him ever since. Luckily, Sal hadn’t stumbled upon her earlier, but still… Poor guy. Poor Sage. I hoped this wasn’t the end for them.

  “Can I take a few strands of your hair?” Violet asked Amelia.

  “Of course,” Kieran responded.

  “I wasn’t asking you.”

  Violet knelt beside her and waited for Amelia’s permission. She finally nodded, slowly. I wondered if she’d been crying this entire time since she’d recovered, wasting entire days seeking Kieran. First stone, then anguish. How heartbreaking.

  Violet brushed out several pieces then plucked a bar of soap off the display. It wasn’t the fancy octagon-shaped, rose-scented soap that was once used as an amulet to locate a gold thief, but a fancy hexagon-shaped, rose-scented bar of soap.

  She wrapped the hair around it. “This will help lead us to her most valuable personal possession. It will give off a stronger and stronger scent the closer we get.”

  “Won’t it lead us to whoever has the personal possession instead?” I asked, thinking again about when the McGuinness family gold was stolen a few months back.

  “Nope, the possession itself. You’re thinking about the eight-sided bar.”

  Hmm. I guess shape mattered. Thankfully, one of us knew what she was doing. The only thing that came to mind when I looked at the soap was taking a shower.

  Violet pulled me aside. “Here, take this.” She shook out a couple of dried leaves into my palm from a jar of something I couldn’t even pronounce.

  “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Just keep it with you.”

  “Keep it where, exactly?” This dress didn’t have any pockets, and I wasn’t carrying a purse.

  “I don’t know… tuck it up in your hair or stick it in your shoe or something.” I was about to do so when she snatched my hand and whispered over the herbs.

  “What’d you say?”

  “A protection blessing.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I didn’t want to consider that I might need it. I ended up securing one leaf in my updo and the other in my shoe for head-to-toe protection. I didn’t know what the stuff was, but I didn’t have to. I believed in her. “Will this also work for… kappas?” I whispered.

  What I needed to do was also stuff a pumpkin into my dress, something I could easily access if I had to chuck it at one of the evil creatures. When I’d asked Kieran about them earlier, he could neither confirm nor deny if that statue had awakened. And who knows? Maybe they’d all been destroyed with the dolls or were somewhere long gone. I’d been told they didn’t mess with a full-blown witch, but I was still deflated and couldn’t take any chances.

  “I’m crossing my fingers that it works for everything,” is all she said.

  I certainly would’ve noticed one at the reception. All the others… I knew they’d looked familiar. The sea serpent, the unicorn hybrid, the dragon, cyclops, to name several I’d recognized. Although, I hadn’t remembered ever seeing a stone satyr. I wondered if they’d been unfrozen for a while or just right before the party. Even though I didn’t like it, I could understand them showing up. They had over thirty years of boredom to make up for.

  “So, here’s the deal,” I said to Kieran. “We get Amelia’s pelt back”—since he was certain it had to be in the vicinity—“and then you help us with Aquillon, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  I wasn’t going to mention that Violet and I had already decided to hand Amelia her pelt directly instead of going through the middlekelpie, just in case he’d been lying about that.

  “And you’ll keep Aquillon out of the way while we get Trixie’s attention?” Apparently, Aquillon was a fiercely loyal soldier guarding the queen.

  “No, that is not correct. If you remember, I said I would advise you how to handle him. I’m not going anywhere near that guard. Despite my proclivity for death, I do not wish for my own.”

  “And you think we do?” I was this close to asking Violet to douse me in honey and hurl the entire contents of the herb jar at me. How could two measly leaves be enough?

  “You two are witches, are you not? You’re much better suited than me for the task.”

  Great. So now one of us had to distract this fiercely loyal soldier long enough for the other to break into Trixie’s room and get her to hear our plea? I didn’t care for that plan.

  “I assure you, I will not be sending you in blind. Right after the skin is recovered, I intend to tell you everything I know in order to restrain Aquillon’s tail.”

  “Um, tail?”

  “That’s the primary threat. Once his tail is controlled, the venom will be contained.”

  “Excuse me? Tail? Venom? Exactly what kind of guard are we dealing with here?”

  “I never mentioned? Aquillon is half man, half scorpion.”

  The blood drained from my face.

  “Now you tell me?”

  Chapter Six

  “It’ll be fine.”

  I glared at my sister. Easy for her to say. She wasn’t going to be the one facing down a six-foot stinger.

  “You have your protective herbs with a blessing thrown in, remember?”

  “Yes, I remember, but I don’t think my pounding heart does. Or my sweaty palms. Or my—”

  “Samm.” She grasped hold of my arms, stopping me. “Do you want to swap places?”

  Yes. No. I didn’t want either of us to do this. I shook my head. “We already decided. Let’s just stick to the plan.”

  In case there were any issues restraining Scorpion Man, or our witchy sense told us it’d be unsafe to do so, it made more sense for me to divert his attention somehow while Violet found a way to get through to Trixie. She had a greater rapport with the woman. We would listen to any advice Kieran had to give, but in the end, it was up to our own intuition to see us through, since he was too wimpy to tag along.

  And who knows? I might be freaking out for nothing. I didn’t know for sure that this thing had a gigantic stinger; it could be stunted.

  “Anything yet?” Kieran asked.

  “No.”

  We were headed in the direction of Trixie’s pink house. Despite my considerable reservations about traipsing around her neighborhood at night, it seemed the most logical place to start. Kieran recalled placing the pelt somewhere in the area, right before Clarisse’s hellish snake eyes did him in, but unfortunately, that was about all he did remember. A fat lot of help that was. Hopefully, Peter hadn’t eaten it, mistaking it for a rebellious rug.

  “Anything yet?”

  “No.”

  Violet held the hairy soap in front of her like a homing device, letting it navigate us wherever it wanted to go while we followed blindly behind.

  “How about now?”

  “No. Stop asking.”

  Geez. He was worse than a child in the back seat. If we weren’t doing this for Amelia’s sake, I would’ve just left him stuck to his banshee suction cup for all eternity. It would’ve served him right.

  “Are you sure you can’t call to mind anything about a half man, half scorpion from your witch studies?”

  “I already told you no. Don’t start acting like the kelpie.”

  That was the last thing I wanted—well, maybe not the last—but I was only hoping for as much information as possible. I didn’t remember seeing anything in Mr. Jones’s journal about the creature either.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll be—” She stopped abruptly, and I slammed into her. “We need to go that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction of Trixie’s house.

  “No, that can’t be right,” Kieran said.

  “Well, it is. Are you doubting my charms?”

  “That way will lead us downtown. Since I had always avoided that area, I could not have misplaced it there.”

  “Too bad. That’s the way we’re going,” Violet said. �
��And who misplaces a seal pelt? I still don’t get it. It’s not like losing your keys.”

  And Violet would know. She hid spare keys all over the place, so she must lose them a lot.

  “We must go back.”

  “No, we must not.” She picked up the pace. “If you didn’t trust our abilities, you shouldn’t have asked for our help.”

  “We must—”

  “That’s enough,” I said. “No more back talk. We’re following the soap, and that’s that.”

  “Shhh. Can you smell it? The scent is getting stronger.”

  “No, and since when do I have to be quiet for you to smell something?”

  “We’re on the right track.”

  “We’re making a mistake,” I heard him grumble behind me.

  It wasn’t much longer after that when I saw where we were headed—the well-being facility, right off the main drag. But it was probably just a coincidence. Surely, the soap wasn’t leading us right to Trixie?

  “Hey, Violet… do you think—”

  “Shhh.” She waved me off. I wasn’t ready to face Aquillon yet, not when Kieran hadn’t even shared any of his helpful tips yet.

  “Only bad can come from continuing,” he said, making Amelia cry harder. She’d been doing surprisingly well until then, simmering her hysterics down to a whimper.

  Violet swung around. “Shut it. Oh… not you, Amelia. But if you could use your inside voice, that’d be much appreciated.”

  I spotted the doll hospital right up ahead, illuminated under the street light. My throat tightened. The chances of a coincidence were getting slimmer.

  “I can barely tolerate it anymore. I feel like I’m being smothered in a rose garden.”

  I didn’t know what she was sniffing, but I couldn’t smell a thing. Except for my own fear.

  We came up to the street light and stopped. “Are we turning back?” Kieran asked, hopefully. Wow, did he look pale.

  “No. We are—hey, where’d it go?”

  “Where’d what… Oh, the soap.”

  “It just disappeared from my hand.”

  “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to do?” That was what the octagon-shaped bar did when it located the thief.

  “No, this one is supposed to work on scent alone. Maybe I made a mistake? I have been a little rusty, you know. I told you about that whole blue earring catastrophe.”

  Mistake? “Not what I want to hear right now, Violet.”

  “I told you before we were making a mistake,” he said with a shaky voice. “But did you—”

  “Oh wait. Silly me. I made this charm eons ago. Everything’s good.”

  “Yes, but could you have picked out the wrong one today?”

  We were suddenly plunged into darkness. “Um, by any chance, does your charm also affect street lights?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  As we stood stock-still, acclimating to our newfound inky surroundings, the gnawing sense of unease kept clawing its way through me.

  “Now what?” I said, once my eyes had adjusted somewhat.

  “Now what?” Kieran said. “I’ll tell you what. We’re no closer to restoring Amelia to her former self, and even further away from getting your goals accomplished. You will never make it back for your celebration in time now.”

  “We could if you tell us what we need to know about Aquillon. We’re already so close…” I swallowed down a huge lump. We had to do it sometime; that time might as well be now.

  “That was not the deal.”

  “Plans can change,” Violet said.

  “How can I be sure you didn’t deceive me? You could’ve deliberately led me here for the sole purpose of changing plans.”

  “Like how you deceived Amelia, making her fall in love with you and—”

  “Stop.” I was jittery enough as it was; I didn’t need the two of them locking horns on a dark street corner and attracting an audience. I leaned in close to Violet and whispered, “You didn’t do this on purpose, did you?”

  “Samm!”

  “Just asking.”

  “I would never put you in any unnecessary danger. But obviously, this unscrupulous water horse here couldn’t care less. He can’t even be flexible enough to…”

  I tuned out the rest of her words, figuring that was easier than getting her to stop. Clare came to mind, and I vowed to do whatever it took to give her a perfect wedding. It’d actually been a blessing that she and Niall had squirreled themselves away during the reception-gone-haywire. She could remain blissfully ignorant all the way up to her big moment. But only if we resolved this now.

  My legs started moving toward the doll hospital. I knew the facility was directly behind it. I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do once I arrived. I was great at making plans. Not so great at carrying them out in the heat of the moment. At least I had my blessed protective herbs.

  “Samm, where are you going?”

  I looked back. “We have to do something. We can’t just stand on the corner and bicker.”

  “That is not wise,” Kieran said.

  I almost laughed at that. No, of course, it wasn’t, but what else were we supposed to do? The soap had vanished, leaving us at a dead end, and I was not about to return to the shop and start all over again.

  Despite Violet urging me back, I kept going forward, passing the doll hospital and all the soulless eyes that followed me. Why would anyone put those creepy things against the window, and why in the Kraken would they keep a lamp shining on them? Maybe that was their version of a security system.

  In the next several steps, I was close enough to Trixie’s new home, and my eyes had adjusted sufficiently for me to see that there wasn’t anything guarding the door. I cautiously went around the side to the back, and then around again, but still nothing. It wasn’t as if a human-sized arachnid could hide behind a mailbox or—

  My head dropped, my nerves firing up again as I scanned the ground. Kieran had never actually told me the size of this venomous soldier; I’d just assumed he was large. What if the scorpion wasn’t man-sized, but the man was scorpion-sized? That’d make it a whole lot easier for the thing to—“Ahhhh!”

  “Samm, it’s just me.”

  I shook my sister’s hand loose from my arm. “Do not ever do that to me again.”

  “Sorry. Do you think this is a good idea, though?”

  “You’re the one who kept saying it’ll be fine. You said I’m protected.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Is Kieran around?” I couldn’t hear Amelia, but maybe she’d cried herself to sleep.

  “No, he stayed back. He refused to go any farther than the burnt-out street light. There’s something about this Aquillon guy that majorly freaks him out.”

  “Can you blame him? But fortunately, I don’t think anyone’s out here. I walked around the whole building, and nothing. Unless he’s really small. Or maybe he’s standing guard inside her room. Or off on an insect break.”

  “You forgot the most obvious—Kieran lied to us. There’s probably not even a scorpion soldier. He could’ve completely made up that name too.” She peered up at the windows. “I wonder which room is hers?”

  “Yeah, but if he made it all up, what’s freaking him out so much, then?”

  “I don’t know.” She picked a handful of pebbles off the ground. “What if we start throwing these against the windows to find out which one is hers?”

  “Do you think that’s a good—”

  “Who goes there? Identify yourself.”

  We both froze. That huge lump I’d managed to swallow down earlier had risen back up, bringing friends. I didn’t want to turn around and look behind me, didn’t know if I could, being rooted to the spot and all. Okay, Samm. If I considered this rationally, it was probably just a night watchman for the property. No big—

  THWACK!

  Deal.

  “Violet!”

  In the space of a breath, Violet was lying on the ground, and I was staring into the most
grotesque face I’d ever encountered. I had to blink hard several times to make sure what I was seeing was real. It was like the thing had taken a spin in the microwave then spent the night in a freezer.

  I leaped back, stumbling over my own heels, and smacked painfully down onto a patch of rocky soil. My shoe flew off. The wrong one. There went an herb leaf. At least I still had the one in my hair.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “Um, hello. Aquillon, I presume?”

  He tilted his head as if wondering how I knew his name, and I took that opportunity to size up the monster who’d knocked out my sister. Not small, and definitely not stunted.

  “Did… did you sting her?” I asked, teeth chattering.

  This was the stuff of nightmares right here, folks. If there was not a horror movie starring Scorpion Man, Hollywood was leaving a boatload of money on the table.

  I scooted over to Violet, figuring if she was dead then I’d pretty much want to be too.

  “No,” he said.

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  “Yes.”

  I placed my hand on her chest. Okay, just taking a little catnap, is all. It was going to be all right. As long as Aquillon crawled back under his rock, and we forgot this ever happened.

  “I demand to know what business you have here.”

  And since he wasn’t cooperating… “Beatrix Zweifler,” I squeaked out. “I need to speak to her.”

  “She does not wish to speak to you.”

  I focused on the blessed herb Violet had given me, and I knew I was protected. I’d assumed she’d taken some for herself, but would she have been knocked out if she had? Although, he hadn’t stung her, so if that didn’t scream mojo to me…

  I pushed myself up. “How do you know that?” If my voice sounded as shaky as I felt, I wouldn’t get too far. Could scorpions smell fear, like snakes?

  “Leave.”

  “Please. My name is Sammara Hain. Can you at least tell her I’m here and see what she says?”

  “No. Leave.”

  I forced myself to make eye contact even though it turned me inside out. He could mutilate with a single glance. That scarred skin… Was it even skin? It could’ve been armor fused to his body. I could see why he’d make an efficient soldier.