Half Past the Witching Hour (Paranormal Personnel Saga #3) (16 page)

‘That wasn’t the reason, Grandma,’ I stated, through the gritted teeth. ‘And if you don’t mind, I don’t want to talk about it.’

She smoothed her stylish bun, not taking her eyes off me. No one was looking at us and I was glad, because I didn’t want to deal with questions from the rest of the family.

‘Julia, we both know that elves should get involved with elves or possibly with fairies. The genes of this family have to be preserved. Your father was an exception, and he still pays for the consequences of his actions. Love exists in fairy tales my dear, family is the key to happiness.’ Grandma continued talking. I sat there playing with my starter. When I didn’t respond, I was glad that she didn’t dwell on the conversation, because I was so close to losing my temper. Her old fashioned views made me angry and I was ready to tell her about Quentin, but I restrained myself.

The main course was delicious, and I was stuffing my face because I couldn’t stop thinking how much I enjoyed my quick reunion with my half vampire. Dinner was going as planned and I was even ready to ask Grandma about her relationship with Tron. My secret about the blackouts and outbursts of magic was safe with him, although I was curious to know why he asked to keep our private lessons a secret.

‘So, Julia, are you going to tell us all about your new man?’ Aunt Dorothy asked suddenly.

And everything was going so well up to that point!

This is a bad idea, Julia. You know that you’re terrible liar.

Grandma started choking while my heart kicked in my chest. I shot Claudia an angry look, knowing that I should have kept my mouth shut. Mum beamed and started explaining to Aunt Dorothy how handsome Quentin was, whereas Dad looked like he wanted to tell me that I made my bed, so I had to lie in it. Grandpa Fred whispered a spell to help Grandma with her choking incident. The rest of the family was staring at me, waiting for my response, partly listening to Mum’s monologue about my new boyfriend.

‘A new man and I’m the last one to know?’ Grandma asked, pinning me down with her angry stare. She waved her hand and Mum was frozen in an instant. The suspension charm hit her and I had some kind of deja vu, remembering the family dinner with Nathaniel that went terribly wrong.

‘It’s not a big deal. We’re still taking things slow,’ I explained firmly, looking at Dad. He wasn’t very happy that his mother had charmed his wife yet again. I was expecting him to say something, but I guessed he wanted to know how my grandmother was going to react. Everyone in the family was used to Grandma’s unconventional conversations at the dinner table.

‘I presume that your new ‘boyfriend’ is an elf?’ she asked with her usual high-pitched voice. ‘After all this drama with vampires, I’m glad to know that you’ve chosen the—’

‘Quentin is a giant and we only just started seeing each other. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to go out with an elf just because you can’t accept anyone else,’ I said calmly, throwing away the lies and pretense.

Grandpa Fred nodded towards me, giving me an encouraging smile. The atmosphere around the table became frosty. All my cousins stopped staring at me. I was kind of pissed off with Dad. He’d married a human and I couldn’t even date a giant without a family drama.

‘You don’t understand, Julia,’ Grandma said. ‘It’s very important for all of us to keep this family together. Magical genes have to stay with us; you cannot get involved with vampires, giants or, for goodness sake, trolls. We live in the twenty-first century, but certain norms have to be in place in order to preserve our bloodlines.’

‘I’m sorry, Grandma, but I don’t understand what are you talking about. Dad married Mum, and she is a human. I can’t even use a simple magic—’

‘Mum, I think that’s enough,” Dad growled, looking tired of this whole discussion. “This is not the time and a place. Julia is an adult and it’s her life. Can you at least respect her wishes?’

‘Jerry, don’t defend her. You know exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to family history and what we promised to each other. Problems will arise if the elves in this family start running after other unstable paranormals,’ Grandma fumed, frowning.

I was confused, looking back and forth from Dad to Grandma, wondering what the hell she was talking about. I thought that at least she was planning to explain what she meant, but she only waved her hand and de-freezed Mum out of her charm. Paulina and Paula looked at me, twisting their mouths with distaste, but I ignored them, getting back to my food. Next time I knew that I had to keep my business to myself.

I didn’t shake off those odd stares toward me for the rest of the evening. Grandma didn’t say anything else to me, behaving as if this whole conversation never took place.

‘What did she mean when she said stuff about the family and genes?’ I asked Grandpa later, cornering him away from everyone.

‘You know her. She is trying to keep her untainted reputation,’ he replied, laughing. ‘Now tell me again what happened to this other handsome young man who I met in your parents’ house? He seemed pleasant enough?’

Yeah, I know, and I’m still sleeping with him!

‘
We broke up; it’s complicated,’ I replied.

Grandpa Fred didn’t push the conversation about Nathaniel, but it left a sour feeling in my heart. I felt guilty, even though the sex was mind-blowing.

When I asked Dad later on about his mother’s ideas around keeping genes in the family, he said that he had no idea, but I knew that he was hiding something. For the rest of the evening I tried to keep away from my grandmother. Claudia kept apologising. She said the news about Quentin just slipped out while she talked with her mother. I promised to introduce her to him.

I was glad when my parents called it a day and decided to go back home. Claudia was in the middle of her academic year. She seemed much better but still cringed when I mentioned vampires. Most of the people that were involved with her kidnapping were behind bars now. I was grateful for that; Claudia was young and had her whole life ahead of her.

When she dropped me home I couldn’t stop thinking about my grandmother’s statement. She was keeping her family secrets sealed, but sooner or later she would slip and I would find out what she was hiding.

Next day I arrived at my job in a gloomy mood because of Nathaniel. He’d been calling me on my way to work. Actually, I wasn’t sure if it was really him, but it was a private number. I’d changed my phone number a couple of months ago, but I knew if he wanted to get ahold of me he would find a way, so I chose not to answer.

The morning as usual was hectic in the office, and even though my phone finally stopped buzzing, I grew anxious to know who so desperately wanted to get ahold of me. Later on, two middle-aged hags came in giving me hell about their work uniforms. I had issues with wages and problems with production staff.

During my lunch break, Quentin called inviting me to dinner tonight, but I lied yet again, saying that I had to work late. Kate didn’t hear my conversation, thank god.

In the afternoon we were all worn out. ‘I have an idea,’ Kate said, unexpectedly after Sara left to grab some food.

‘Hmm, what’s your idea?’ I asked, drawing circles on my notepad.

‘We should snoop around, find out what our sweet Jennifer was up to. See if we can get to the bottom of those visions that you’re having. ’

I sighed. ‘I’m training my magic, trying to prevent the visions from happening, but I don’t know if it will work.’

‘Okay, but don’t you want to know who killed her? I don’t believe that you could have done it.’

‘All the evidence is pointing to me. Besides I don’t remember what happened during that night. I lost hours and hours,’ I said, pushing away bloody images of the crime scene.

I glanced at Kate who looked excited about finding the real killer. She was right, I should be running around London looking for answers. I was glad that she believed that there was still that good part of me, that I wasn’t capable of harming others, but I was convinced that I’d murdered Jennifer.

‘Yes, but what if we start our own little investigation into that other agency?’ she suggested.

‘No way. Fiorillo will recognise us. Besides, there is nothing to investigate. I’ve murdered someone and I’m going to burn down my parents home if I don’t get my shit together.’

‘What if we can get some answers? What if Jennifer was involved with more than one scumbag?’

I was looking at Kate a little baffled. I had no idea why Jennifer broke to my apartment, but during that petrifying fire in the agency she admitted that she was helping McGregor because he was paying her more than anyone else ever had. On the other hand, I was worried about my blackouts and those visions.

‘I would love to, but I have no idea where to start or what to do,’ I said. ‘And Dad will get pissed if I get into more trouble.’

‘I have some ideas, but we would have to get Kelsie involved. She is a distraction and a pretty damn good shifter. We need her.’

Kate surprised me again. She was supposed to be that responsible voice that kept me away from dangerous situations. Tron hadn’t figured out if I was seeing the real future or if it was just a trick of my mind, but I couldn’t just wait around for disaster to happen.

‘Okay, but I don’t like that look on your face. Normally you’re the one that has to pull me away from all these crazy ideas. Why all of the sudden do you want to get involved with my shitty life?’

‘Because I know that you wouldn’t take another life. It’s black magic, someone’s messing up in your life,’ she explained. ‘And I hate seeing you anxious and worried. Today you haven’t been yourself at all—which means that I have to do all the work.’

Kate didn’t want to listen to my arguments and apologies about my lack of concentration. For a moment I wanted to tell her about my huge mistake with Nathaniel, but I chickened out.

The day rolled up until six in the evening. My magic was under control, but my mood wasn’t getting better. Waves of heat and desire kept haunting me and I couldn’t stop thinking of that mind-blowing reunion sex from the weekend.

Kelsie showed up in the office just after six along with Michael Longbridge. It was clear that those two were taking their relationship to the next level, if that was what Kelsie called a relationship. They were all over each other until I cleared my throat, letting them know that they were still in a professional environment. Michael nodded to me and vanished before I had a chance to talk to him.

‘I see that it’s going good, you and Michael?’ I asked. Kel flopped on the chair, beaming.

‘It’s great. We’re spending every spare moment together.’

We were shortly interrupted by our vampire co-workers, so Kate agreed to relocate this conversation to the interview room. I wasn’t sure about what Kate was planning to do, but for the first time in a long time I was hesitant.

Kelsie kept talking about Michael, giving us all intimidate details from their ‘runs’ together.

Kate interrupted her. ‘All right, great, we do get it that you’re having great sex, but we have more important things to worry about.’

‘Oh, come on, he is my soul mate. I can’t believe that Julia didn’t introduce us sooner.’

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. One day Kelsie was sleeping around, the next she was in a committed relationship. Who knew what she was going to do in a week? Maybe I was too cynical. In some ways I could see these two getting along just fine. They were both crazy and unpredictable, but Kelsie wasn’t looking to settle down. On top of everything else, her ex-boyfriend was terrorising the streets of London. This wasn’t the best time for a romance.

We decided on hanging around the rival agency to see if we could talk to someone. Our plan had many holes, and we had to be careful, as Fiorillo, a troll who was involved in a dodgy business with one of Nathaniel’s past enemies, was still the branch manager at StaffSpell. We had a little history together, but I didn’t think he had anything to do with my drama.

It took ages to get there through London traffic. By the time we arrived it was rush hour. Dad had interrogated most of the StaffSpell employees already, but he didn’t get far with their statements.

I doubted that troll Fiorillo remembered anything from our previous conversation when three of us used an illegal spell in order to find out if he knew anything about Rufus’s disappearance. Indeed we were right, and now we had to try and do it all again. However, I was reluctant to get close to Fiorillo again.

Kelsie parked her car a few meters away from the office and we decided to wait until we saw anyone that we could talk to. Overall it was a silly idea, but at this point I couldn’t come up with anything else. Tron was still doing research about my visions. The training was sort of helping, but I couldn’t just sit around and wonder if my mother was going to be alive tomorrow or not.

For about twenty minutes, no one left or came in to the office. We saw a couple of vampires hanging close by, but they walked away after a few minutes talking loudly between themselves. Kelsie suggested that we should at least try to use a dark magic, rather than sitting here in the same place while nothing was going on. This went on for another half hour, after which I was ready to tell Kelsie that she could drop me and Kate home, because she was getting irritating.

‘Hey, hey, you both shut up and look, someone is going out,’ Kate hissed, pointing at the office. A tall and very beautiful woman walked out through the door, talking on her mobile. She was most certainly paranormal, and I guessed that she was a mermaid, although I wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

‘She must be working for that arshole Fiorillo. You know how much he loves sexy women, plus she looks like she just finished work,’ Kel stated.

‘We don’t know if she is even employed there. What if she is a client?’ Kate said.

‘Let’s just follow her and see what happens. If we have to come back tomorrow, then that’s fine.’ I got out of the car. The girls were right behind me.

The street was busy, but we didn’t want to attract any attention so we made sure that we kept our distance.

Kate kept whispering that this wasn’t such a good idea, but I kept telling her to be quiet. Something in me was determined to know if the woman in front of us knew Jennifer. She turned the corner and walked for about ten minutes through the main road, looking at the shops she passed on the way. I tried to ignore the excess magic that all of the sudden came alive. A few minutes later our possible contact vanished into the doors of a shabby-looking club.

‘All right, what do we do now?’ Kate asked, looking around. My heart was racing, and instead of stopping to take a deep breath, I grabbed Kelsie’s and Kate’s hands and dragged them inside.

‘I have a plan.’

‘Wait, what plan? Julia—’

‘Let’s pretend that I’m Lexi. You two make up your own names and just follow me. I’m going to improvise,’ I said, as we were walking through this obscure bar filled with humans.

This is a bad idea, Julia. You know that you’re a terrible liar.

Our mermaid stood by the bar as we approached. The barman was a human and gave us a wide smile as we asked for our drinks. I glanced back and saw that a group of men noticed our mermaid. If we wanted to talk to her we had to act fast, otherwise she would have company pretty fast.

‘This place looks cheap, plenty of humans and no paranormals,’ I complained loudly enough for her to hear me. Kate clicked almost straight away, but Kelsie continued to stare at me, confused. She still wasn’t getting what I was doing.