Witch Boots on the Ground Read online

  Witch Boots on the Ground

  by

  Constance Barker

  Copyright 2019 Constance Barker

  All rights reserved.

  Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Thanks for Reading

  Catalog of Books

  Chapter One

  THE BUZZ OF THE LITTLE beetle-like bugs that only came out during Nikatomia’s hottest months reminded me of just how humid it would be once I left my air-conditioned office. I usually loved the heat, but this was almost unbearable. Walking to work had felt like wading through a pool the air was so hot and sticky.

  “Why are we even here?” Winnie spun around in her desk chair, in aimless circles making me dizzy. I reached my foot as far as it would go to make it stop moving.

  “We have to be,” I replied as though it was obvious. We had no assignment at the moment, and it had been relatively quiet lately. Apparently, there weren’t many paranormal creatures stirring up too much trouble in the normal realm right now.

  “But we’ve got no work.” She seemed to be sweating even in the cool room. I didn’t feel bad for her though. I was wearing sensible shorts and a loose shirt, where Winnie was in long pants, a shirt and jacket. All a shocking bright pink to match her eye patch.

  “No, but vacation isn’t for another few days.” I stared at the calendar on my desk willing it to be the end of the week. We got one break a year, and I was planning on using mine to meet my grandparents in the normal realm. Or rather re-meet them. I had grown up with them as my guardians, but a nasty bully had given me amnesia with a spell. I’d forgotten all about them for the last few years and they hadn’t seen me since I left for Nikatomia the first time.

  There are times when you want nothing more than to work. To throw yourself in head first and never come up for air. Most of my life had consisted of one of those times. This was not one of those times. For the first time in my life I found myself dragging my feet at work. Not that there was much to do.

  “What are you doing for vacation?” I asked Winnie, she had told me a few times, but I’ll admit I hadn’t totally listened.

  “I’m going up to the mirror pools,” she said with a sigh.

  “Ah, right,” I nodded. I remembered now; her family went up to the mirrors every year. They had a house up there. I hadn’t managed to see them yet; I hadn’t really seen many of Nikatomia’s offerings. I came when I was older, went to school and then started work. I think I’ve seen more of the normal realm than I have of my own home.

  The mirror pools were meant to be one of the most beautiful unnatural wonders of our world. They were bright purple pools of liquid that sat at the base of the foothills. They got their name from the perfect reflection you saw of yourself in the pools. And I mean perfect. Another name for them could be the Narcissus pools. The image that was reflected back at you was the best-looking version of yourself possible. I had no desire to see myself that way, I doubt I would ever feel adequate again.

  “Is your eye back when you look into the pools?” Alan squawked at her. The large raven sat on a branch I had hung from the ceiling for him. He swung back and forth on it rhythmically. The same way Winnie had been circling in her chair. Only his movements weren’t making me dizzy. He was teasing her, and Winnie knew it as she responded only by sticking her tongue out at him.

  “My reflection in the pools is the exact one I see in the mirror. One might even say that I’m perfect.” She batted her eye at him. Her missing eye never slowed her down or caused her any self-doubt, though she’d rather die than not have an eyepatch on. I on the other hand, was less confident with my large scar tracing my right cheek bone. It was so noticeable against my dark skin that I always felt it was the first thing anyone saw. I had the same bully who wiped my memory to thank for that too.

  “Can we at least go to the coffee shop?” Winnie groaned.

  “Barry’s not working today,” I teased. She was always flirting with the barista, Barry, at the coffee place around the corner but lately it seemed she wanted to go there more than usual. I was beginning to think she'd actually developed some feelings for the poor guy. He dealt with her flirtations well, and only sputtered for a few minutes before flirting right back. He’d gotten more confident lately. I wondered if that had something to do with the full moon. He was a werewolf after all.

  “Oh, well, never mind,” Winnie huffed. Alan and I both laughed at her; his was a loud squawking and mine a small giggle.

  The rest of the day passed uneventfully. This would have to be one of the most boring weeks of work I’d ever had. Typically our work was exciting even when we were just doing research for a case. Management hadn’t given us anything and considering that vacation was around the corner I was grateful. But it was still dull having to be in the office all day with nothing do to.

  I was honestly a little worried that somehow work was going to interfere with vacation. Winnie told me that I was just being paranoid and maybe she was right.

  “Ready for dinner?” I asked Alan. We were up in the apartment above the office. It was small but did the trick. It was essentially one large square with the kitchen on the left. Opposite was my bed and next to that was a large chair I liked to sit in on the rare occasion I hadn’t piled my clothes on it instead of actually putting them away.

  “I could eat,” he said with his head quirked to one side. I put trail mix on a plate and made a bit of coffee for him. The bird was addicted to the drink, though I couldn’t believe it was a heathy habit. I almost felt bad for encouraging it, but he pitched a fit when he didn’t get his coffee. He pecked at the food with urgency as though he hadn’t eaten in days, which wasn’t true. Greedy bird.

  I ate a few bites of the trail mix and sat down. I had already packed everything up for my trip. I was worried about how my grandparents might take me coming back into their lives. For all I knew they weren’t even alive still, or in the same house. I anxiously gnawed on a peanut until it was gone, and then realized I was chewing on the tip of my finger.

  “Ow,” I said pulling my hand away. “What’s that?” I said, it sounded like the phone was ringing downstairs.

  “Who could it be?” I asked myself as I went downstairs. In all my years at the office, I don’t think it had rung once. The management, whoever they were, sent written messages. They never called. “Hello?” I said tentatively into the receiver.

  “Hi, is Lavanna there?” The voice was male, but I didn’t think I’d ever heard it before.

  “Speaking,” I replied. “Can I ask what this is about?”

  “Yeah, I’m with the Nikatomian Police, and we need your help,” He said. I knew we had a police force, but Nikatomia didn’t have much crime.

&n
bsp; “What happened?” I knew that no matter what happened, this meant vacation was going to be postponed. Still, I held out hope that maybe it was something small.

  “I’m afraid there’s been some kind of attack,” he said sounding uncertain. “We think it was a murder.” I sighed, covering the speaker so he wouldn’t hear me. Vacation was certainly cancelled. Not to mention, someone had been killed and I don’t think I’d ever heard of someone being killed in Nikatomia, ever.

  “We’ll be there as quickly as we can,” I said after the detective explained where the attack happened. It wasn’t too far away, but I’d have to call Winnie and she’d take a while in a good mood, a bad mood would add at least thirty minutes to her routine.

  “Alan!” I called up the stairs. The raven flew gracefully down and landed on my shoulder.

  “Off to work, we go?” He asked having heard the conversation.

  “Yep, off to work,” I nodded. I pulled on my jacket and headed for the door, my cell already in my hands and dialing Winnie.

  Chapter Two

  I ARRIVED ONLY A FEW minutes before Winnie did. It surprised me considering her tendency to take her time to get ready. She seemed to be taking this seriously though. Living in the normal realm most of my life made me a little desensitized to violence and murder. Nikatomia was a veritable utopia for us paranormal folk. There was crime like anywhere, but it wasn’t as prevalent as it was in the normal realm.

  “Detective Henry,” a man said sticking his hand out to me. He was the one I had spoken with over the phone. I shook his hand, but the gesture surprised me. In Nikatomia the standard greeting gesture was either none at all or a quick grip of one another’s forearms. I wondered if the man might have spent time in the normal realm like I had.

  “Vana,” I replied. “Where’s the body?” I asked, but he was already leading me to the scene of the crime. Winnie would meet up with us once she got here.

  “I’m Winnie,” she practically materialized beside me. Embarrassingly, I jumped.

  “Glad you could join us.” Henry nodded his head at her. “It’s just down here.” He pointed down the alley.

  The body was covered by a white sheet, which I never understood. Black or brown would make the gore less noticeable. I was desensitized, but not completely. I shuddered at the sight, and Winnie practically stopped in her tracks. We dealt with this kind of thing more than the Nikatomian force did, but it was still difficult.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Henry said shaking his head. “It’s just terrible.”

  “Do they have an ID on the victim?” I wasn’t about to pull back the cover. I had no desire to see whatever happened to who was underneath.

  “Not yet. There’s no identification on him, looks like his wallet's been stolen and there’s not much left of him to ID.” I grimaced and Winnie made a gagging noise. Involuntarily, I hoped. The last thing I wanted was for them to question our ability as detectives.

  “And any clues in the vicinity?” Winnie asked after pulling herself together.

  “There’s not much, but it’s pretty clear what happened.”

  “What then?” Maybe our vacation wouldn’t be put off too long if they already knew what happened to the man. It would just be a matter of figuring out who had done it. I already knew I was being optimistic though.

  “Only one being could have done this kind of damage,” Henry sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was a young man, but stress made him look older. “I’ve seen it before out in the normal realm. It’s a werewolf attack.”

  “That’s impossible,” Winnie said shaking her head. She almost laughed at the notion. We’d seen the damage a werewolf could do on an assignment a year ago. That was a difficult case, and I didn’t look back on it fondly. An attack in Nikatomia was unheard of, werewolves didn’t even change with the moon here. There was no reason for them to become a wolf.

  “Improbable, but not impossible,” I said with a frown. Detective Henry pulled back the sheet, revealing the victim to us. Winnie balked at the sight and walked away. He hadn’t been lying, the victim couldn’t be identified by his looks. Even so, something seemed familiar about him. I thought I recognized his clothes from somewhere. “You can cover him again.”

  Henry nodded and pulled the cover back over the man. “We were thinking of starting by bringing in any known werewolves in the area?” He said it as a question. “Er, we’re out of our depth here a bit.” He rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously.

  “I can’t say we're not totally out of our depth either,” I said mostly for his benefit. It was partially true. A murder investigation wasn’t typical for us. Most of our assignments were given to us knowing the perpetrator of the crimes in the normal realm and we had to figure out how to bring them back. It was rare when we had to search for the perpetrator.

  “Was anyone in the area? Who found the body?” Winnie asked.

  “We got an anonymous tip,” Henry walked us a bit away from the body as the examiner came to take the body away. They had clearly left him there for us to get a look.

  “Really?” That was frustrating. Until the medical examiner could ID the body, there wasn’t much we could do. “I guess we’ll start with knocking on some doors.”

  “I have a few officers interviewing the neighbors already,” Henry said, he seemed to know more than he gave himself credit for. “I figured until we know who the poor guy is there’s not much else, we can do, is there?” It was a genuine question.

  “Not that I can think of,” Winnie shook her head.

  “What’s that?” I crouched down near to where the body had been. I could see a claw on the ground and attached to it was a small swath of cloth. They hadn’t seen it because the body had covered it.

  “Looks like a claw,” Henry observed.

  “Does this fabric match the clothes of the victim?” I already knew that they didn’t, but I wanted to confirm with Henry first.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” He shook his head. Winnie did as well.

  “So the werewolf scratched himself?” Winnie looked confused at the claw. It was torn out completely, it must have hurt badly. The fabric was plain brown, with a bit of orange embroidery on one corner. Relatively non-descript, but like the victim’s clothes something seemed familiar.

  “I don’t know.” It didn’t make sense. The claw looked like it had been ripped out, while tearing at someone’s clothing. It could have gotten caught on the creature’s own clothing, in a struggle with whoever the victim was.

  “Someone over here with a camera and a bag,” Henry called out to the police standing around the top of the alley way. They didn’t want to crowd it too much and disturb any evidence. Crime shows got it wrong when they showed dozens of cops trampling across the scene of a crime all doing a bunch of jobs at once. Crime scenes were a lot calmer than that.

  It took a moment, but two officers jumped over. One with a camera and the other with an evidence bag. They were quick with their work and I could see that a clean-up crew was getting ready to come in. The scene was clear except for us and the gore left by the body. I respected the job that the cleaners had. It wasn’t an easy one to take on.

  “Maybe that piece of cloth belongs to our anonymous caller,” I suggested.

  “They’d probably have a pretty nasty cut too,” Winnie pointed out as we walked to the top of the alley. The cleaning crew passed us with determination. No one here wanted to alert the general public to this yet. I noticed that they had managed to keep the news away. We didn’t want to create a panic or a witch-hunt. Or rather, werewolf hunt.

  “It’s probable,” Henry nodded. “We’d really love your help on this one. I think we need it, if I’m honest.”

  “We’re happy to give it,” I assured him.

  “Are we?” Winnie asked me with a pointed look.

  “Yes,” I nodded. “We were meant to be going on vacation, but this is clearly more important than that.”

  “I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” Henry sai
d looking contrite. “I wouldn’t have called.”

  “See, he wouldn’t have called!” Winnie said hopefully. Henry looked startled and a bit concerned that maybe we weren’t going to help after all. I gave Winnie a look, she sighed. “I’m kidding, of course we’ll help.”

  “We can always go on vacation after we get the job done,” I reminded her. She nodded dejectedly and walked a few feet away from us, annoyed and not hiding it well. “Sorry about that.”

  “No worries at all,” Henry said, calmer now that he knew we’d stay. “I’m sorry I’ve ruined your break.” I was disappointed that I would have to put off meeting my grandparents, but the job came first.

  “Not ruined, just postponed. I’ll need to see what your officers get when they finish interviewing the neighbors. I also would like a full report from the medical examiner once they're done with the autopsy and I want to see all the evidence collected so far,” I said the list quickly and succinctly.

  “Of course, but I doubt there will be much there. I think you found our most useful piece of evidence already.” He sounded impressed, but I didn’t want to toot my own horn too much. “The question I have is why the witness called in anonymously?”

  Chapter Three

  MORNING CAME FASTER than I wanted. After leaving the crime scene, I went back to my apartment. Winnie reluctantly went back all the way to the other side of town. She was dreading the phone call to her family letting them know that she wasn’t going to make it to the mirror lakes. They’d be devastated. Her family were all very close and looked forward to the trip every single year.

  I was frustrated, but I kept reminding myself that the trip was only postponed. It was just my luck though that one of the first murders in Nikatomia would happen days before vacation though. But then I remembered some poor person had lost their life. Why was I fussing about my vacation time when something devastating had happened to a poor soul?

  “What do you want for breakfast?” I yawned at Alan.