Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser Series) (28 page)

“You mean the glimmers? I thought it was just trace left by Kandy, but it’s something else.”

“Something else you should have mentioned?”

“Would you have allowed the interruption when there were such important questions to answer and games to play?”

Kett sighed. Such a thing always seemed heavier when he did it. Probably because he didn’t actually need to breathe. “I don’t see any glimmers, dowser,” he said. “But to the east there is … something.”

Well, that was informative. “I’m not a compass.”

Kett pointed in the direction he’d been looking, then turned his gaze on me. “Use the necklace,” he coaxed. He had a real thing for my necklace. But then, so did I.

For years, I had sought out wedding rings that contained residual magic in antique stores or pawnshops. I preferred to collect the rings in pairs, but I occasionally added singles if it felt like the right thing to do. I ran the pad of my thumb across a new solder join where I’d recently repaired the necklace and tried, once again, to quash my immediate thoughts of my dead sister, Sienna. A glimmer of her magic was embedded within this ring. But it would take more than a divorced man’s wedding ring and a hank of hair to find her now. I tried to not believe in absolutes such as heaven and hell, but I was fairly certain she was as deep into the darkness as a soul could go.

Focus, focus …
 

Once again anchored in the magic of the knife and the necklace, I stretched my senses through the dense forest. I couldn’t pick up anything nonmagical, such as animals, as I assumed Kett could. But I also guessed he hadn’t asked me to dowse for owls when he pointed east.

There … just on the very edge of my reach I could sense a … grouping?

“How far is that?” I asked. My eyes were narrowed at the tree a few feet from me, but I wasn’t seeing the grooves in the bark or the dried needles that created a crunchy carpet underneath. I was trying to resolve the feeling of the grouping into a taste I could identify.

“Miles,” Kett answered. His voice was soft and yet focused, deadly focused.

“You think I can dowse for miles?”

“Pay attention, half-witch. What is that? Or who?” The vampire downgraded my title from ‘dowser’ to ‘half-witch’ only when he was chastising me. Though you couldn’t hear any chastisement in his tone, or I couldn’t, anyway. Maybe to other vampires, he’d be dripping with condemnation.

“Well,” I said. “They’d have to be magical for me to pick them up.”

The vampire didn’t sigh or pierce me with an icy glare, but I sensed it was a near thing. The sarcasm was a coping mechanism, as was the chocolate, and the baking, and the trinket making. Just because I recognized the behavior didn’t mean I could stop. I had a lot of coping to do.

“Magical, as in the same magic as these glimmers you failed to mention?”

“Maybe. I’d have to get closer.”

Kett grinned. I could see this smile in my peripheral vision, and even though it wasn’t directed at me, it made me freeze like an over-lit deer. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was a predator baring its teeth. Nice, straight, very white teeth that I was pleased weren’t currently anticipating biting me.

“Let’s get closer,” he whispered. And then he was gone.

For Michael

without you there would be no reason to bake

With thanks to:

My story & line editor

Scott Fitzgerald Gray

My Beta & Proof Readers

Clare Hodge, Dana (Bitchie), ETA:soon, Heather, Ita Margalit, Joanne Schwartz

For their continual encouragement, feedback, & general advice

Gertie from Goodreads, Headshot Heather, & Shana from A Book Vacation

To My Friends & Family

Thanks for all the years of taste testing

For their Art

Irene Langholm & Elizabeth Mackey

Meghan Ciana Doidge
is an award-winning writer based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has a penchant for bloody love stories, superheroes, and the supernatural. She also has a thing for chocolate, potatoes, and sock yarn.

Novels

 
After The Virus

Spirit Binder

Time Walker

Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser #1)

Trinkets, Treasures, and Other Bloody Magic (Dowser #2)

Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (Dowser #3)

Novellas/Shorts

Love Lies Bleeding

The Graveyard Kiss

For giveaways, news, and glimpses of upcoming stories, please connect with Meghan on her:

NEW RELEASE MAILING LIST

Personal blog,
www.madebymeghan.ca

Twitter,
@mcdoidge

And/or Facebook,
Meghan Ciana Doidge

Please also consider leaving an honest review at your point of sale outlet

Dowser Series - Book Four

EXPECTED FALL 2014

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CUPCAKES, TRINKETS, & OTHER DEADLY MAGIC

Copyright © 2013 Meghan Ciana Doidge

Published by Old Man in the CrossWalk Productions 2013

Vancouver, BC, Canada

www.oldmaninthecrosswalk.com

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be produced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, objects, and incidents herein are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual things, events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Library and Archives Canada

Doidge, Meghan Ciana, 1973 —

Cupcakes, Trinkets, & Other Deadly Magic/Meghan Ciana Doidge — KINDLE EDITION

Cover image & design by Elizabeth Mackey

ISBN 978-0-9916977-6-2