Practically Angels Read online

  The neatly labeled rows were a big help when it came to finding the herbs we needed. I wished we would have found Eve somewhere in the garden to at least thank her for her generosity. The cheery fragrant gardens weren’t completely welcoming. A pair of human sized, leather-jacketed scarecrows stood guard, giving the gardens just enough of a creepiness factor to make me uneasy.

  After picking what we needed, we strolled the property in hopes of finding Eve. A pentagram and a crescent moon were painted on the barn doors, which were chained shut and padlocked. Upon closer inspection, we decided Eve’s farm was definitely creepy—at least to me and Chloe.

  We were heading back to our bikes when we heard voices coming from inside the house. Ducking under an open window, we caught part of a conversation. I recognized Eve’s voice but not the deep timbre of the man speaking.

  “You couldn’t pick up anything? Not the slightest scent?” she asked.

  “Nothing. But two days from now is the full moon and our senses will be at peak strength. We’ll try again.”

  “You know I demand results. If you and your buddies value your freedom, you’ll bring the whole colony to the barn for the full moon ritual.”

  “You can count on us, Eve. What should we do about you know who? He’s been asking a lot of questions.”

  Eve mumbled something we couldn’t quite hear.

  Chloe attempted a clumsy pull-up on the windowsill, hoping to hear better. Which, in theory, would have been a great idea. Sadly, it ended with her slipping back to the ground.

  A single snap of a twig nearly gave us away. I heard the man mumble something about squirrels before slamming the window shut, ending our impromptu eavesdropping session.

  “I think we should make a run for it,” I whispered, leading the race back to our bikes. Leaving a cloud of dust in our wake, we sped home.

  Sweating and panting, we ran through our back door.

  “Safe!” Jade said.

  “We really need to get ahold of Mrs. Portobello or Natasha. There are things we need to tell them.”

  “Yeah. Like the fact that Angel Bay is infested with a witch and a pack of werewolves,” Chloe replied.

  “Hold on,” Jade said, waving her arms. “The witch is enough of a stretch, but I figured I’d play along. Seriously though, werewolves? Are you on drugs?”

  “You heard the man.” Chloe’s voice rose. “In two days, there is a full moon. He literally told a witch their senses will be at peak strength. Senses! A witch! Him and his buddies sure as hell aren’t in the Benevolent Order of Moose or Fraternal Order of Water Buffalo. They are werewolves. And they are controlled by a witch. It’s exactly like Dark Beasts, Book Seven, Wolves in Wool.”

  “Wolves in wool?” Jade asked, trying to keep up with the conspiracy theory. “Girl, you are on drugs.”

  “I think she’s right, Jade.” I couldn’t believe I was in agreement. “The plot is eerily familiar. According to the myths I’ve read, werewolves tend to live in packs. In this case, their cover is that of a bike gang. The witch must have some power over them, some way to demand they find what she is looking for.”

  “Then doesn’t this mean your new plaything, Zane, is a werewolf also?” Jade scoffed in disbelief.

  “Um…maybe, but not necessarily. Maybe he’s just hanging out with them sometimes. I mean, both times I was with him, he was alone. That alone is very un-werewolf-like behavior.” I paused, wondering if I’d just coined a new term which could be used by cryptozoologists and authors alike.

  Jade huffed. “Fine. I suppose you guys could be right. After all, we’re half-assed angels on Earth. Why couldn’t there be a witch and werewolf bike gang here also?”

  “Thank you! Now you believe!” Chloe paced a circle around our worktable. “We just have to assume this wolf theory is true and that Eve is their witchy master. The question remains as to what or who she’s trying to find out about?”

  “Don’t expect help from Heaven.” I tossed my useless cell phone onto the table. “Now I have zero signal.”

  Jade grabbed my phone from the table, her finger futilely pecking at the screen. “This thing is trash. We’ve been hung out to dry, guys. I am starting to think this whole Guardian Angel program was nothing more than a nice way of deporting us from Heaven—right into a town full of other supernatural misfits.”

  “What are you talking about? You think they kicked us out? Why?” I was shocked and a bit scared by Jade’s accusation.

  We were already knee-deep in multiple conspiracies and now this?

  Awesome!

  But Jade had a way of making her conspiracies seem totally logical—so I awaited her convoluted explanation.

  “Think about it. They gathered Heaven’s three misfits—the only ones who are undetectable to angels, mortals, and who knows what other types of supernatural creatures. Which means they can’t control us. They can’t risk having rogue beings in Heaven, even if we are angels,” Jade surmised.

  Chloe waved her hand. “Ooh. And misfits with unknown powers.”

  “It’s not necessary to raise your hand, Chloe,” Jade pointed out. “But you’re right. They wanted us out of there. What better way than to exile us into some cozy little mortal town which is infested with the supernatural. They’ve even given us some way to tinker with our powers—just enough to satisfy our curiosity. We do some good. We wrangle with an evil witch and her werewolf army, thereby providing some balance between good and evil. We’re out of their hair, yet, in a way, they still control us by keeping us occupied. We’re happy. They’re happy.”

  “I don’t know, Jade. That plan seems a little too underhanded,” I said, surprised by her theory. “We’re talking about the Angelic Authority, after all. Don’t you think we should trust that they’re being straight with us?”

  “It doesn’t matter, if we can’t even reach Heaven,” she replied. “Whatever the reason, this falls on us. Our very survival could be at stake.”

  My phone vibrated, displaying a notification of one new message.

  “Read it!” Jade commanded.

  “Ladies, you’ve barely settled in and already asked Heaven for help. Your lives in the mortal world are not a test. It is an opportunity to earn a higher status. The mortal world is filled with sadness and injustice, and Angel Bay has fallen into darkness. You have special abilities that can return balance and light to this town. Your success is your salvation, your failure is your damnation to the mortal world.”

  “What kind of bull crap is that?” Jade barked. “They’re really going to leave us high and dry?”

  “Wow.” I was pretty amazed by the text and not in a good way.

  I tried to collect my thoughts and add a bit of objectivity to the whole situation. “Let’s think about this for a minute. At least now we know where we stand. They’ve made it perfectly clear that our destiny is up to us. We can be the angels we aspire to be. Or we can screw it all up. But at least we know our purpose.”

  “Great. Are we supposed to be like some sort of cosmic justice league? Seriously? I can barely feed myself some days,” Jade moaned.

  “I am not going to let us fail. We need to go on offense. Justice requires truth. And truth requires detective work. I’ve read enough mysteries to know how to solve them. What are those mysteries?” Chloe grabbed a dry erase marker and drew a stick figure witch on the whiteboard—complete with a little pointy hat. She labeled it as Eve and followed up with a group of stick figure animals she labeled werewolves. She added another question mark above the stick figure wolves.

  “We can’t be certain they’re wolves. They could be something else,” she said.

  Next, she scribbled a box with a question mark inside of it.

  “This is what they are looking for. Whatever Eve wants, it requires the supernatural senses of a werewolf.”

  “Don’t forget Midge. We need to know what happened to her. It could all be related,” I suggested.

  “Okay.” Chloe drew another stick figure with X marks
for eyes and a question mark above. She labeled it Midge. “I might as well add the lovesick and dearly departed Mr. Nelson as well.” She added yet another stick figure with X marks for eyes and a question mark.

  Jade took the marker from Chloe and drew another stick figure with a question mark. “This is Zane. I think he needs to be up here because we don’t know where he fits in. He rides with the Hellions and could be a werewolf, but we just don’t know.”

  “Did he have any hybrid characteristics? Larger than normal eyes? Big teeth?” Chloe asked.

  “Hopefully an exceptionally long agile tongue,” Jade snarked.

  “What? Why?” I asked. It seemed like a bizarre thing to bring up.

  That was… until she whispered in my ear what the purpose would be for said tongue.

  “Oh my god!” I blushed instantly.

  “I hate to say this, Emmy. But you may just have to get a good look at Zane naked, for investigative purposes,” Chloe teased. “Maybe he has a jumbo sized—”

  “Okay, enough.” And I’d meant it. “Let’s concentrate on something other than Zane and his hypothetical body parts. We need to figure this mess out. Jade, you said that we’re on our own. So, how do we use our gifts to help get the answers we need?”

  Jade flipped through an old recipe book. “We need people to open up and give us honest answers. And I have just the thing.”

  Chloe was immediately confused by the terminology. “What does ‘Mass Cognitive Subversion via Thaumaturgic Infusion of the Well’ mean anyway?”

  “It means multiple felony counts.” I rubbed my forehead. I found that I didn’t even need to roll my eyes…they did it of their own volition.

  “What do you mean?” Chloe asked, cocking her head like a confused beagle.

  “It means tampering with the town’s water supply!” I shouted, shocked by what Jade had suggested. “Are you kidding me, Jade? You want to put a truth serum in every glass of water?”

  “It’s just temporary. How easy would we solve this case if everyone blabbed away all their secrets along with a nice cold glass of tap water? Sleep on it. We’ll vote on it another day.”

  And I thought about it.

  I thought about all of it.

  Zane had some sort of weird spell over me. I couldn’t seem to keep my mind off of him. It was like I’d had an uncontrollable urge to kiss him like I did on the porch, coupled by a crippling need to feel his arms around me. There were also the naughty thoughts that seemed to run rampant in my mind. Was all of this caused by some sort of crazy supernatural manifestation? Was Chloe right? Was Zane a werewolf?

  It would be in my best interest to figure it out.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Stepping out on the front porch with my cup of tea, I closed my eyes and savored the cool morning air, and the fragrance of the flowers blooming in our yard. Angel Bay seemed almost better than Heaven at that very moment.

  My peaceful morning was soon interrupted by a strange noise I couldn’t seem to figure out. It sounded like a clop, clop, clop, like someone keeping rhythm by slapping flip-flops against the sidewalk.

  I opened my eyes, curious to see what was responsible for the peculiar sound.

  Across the street, Jade’s favorite athlete was jogging past the park, toward the pier for his morning swim but his sneakers rendered him nearly silent. The noise couldn’t have come from him.

  Hot tea sprayed from my mouth when my gaze shot past him and saw Jade jogging—if you can call it that—behind him with all the grace of an escaped giraffe. To top off the already bizarre situation, she was decked out in a pair of tiny boy shorts, a tank top and, of course, flip-flops.

  Just when things couldn’t get any more whacky, Chloe appeared out of nowhere and was on an intentional collision course with Jade’s sexy runner. Her hands were filled with a bouquet of freshly cut flowers—a ridiculously oversized bouquet which made her look like some sort of freakish swamp-monster.

  What on earth are they doing?

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around the stranger than fiction scenario. Suddenly, a little light bulb in my mind turned on, and it became crystal clear my friends had set up an ambush for the unsuspecting runner.

  As if on cue, Chloe pretended to stumble and dropped the flowers. Her faux clumsiness caused Mr. Runner to swerve and slow down.

  I think the original idea was for Chloe to slow the runner down just enough for Jade to catch up to him, creating an awkward crash dummy meeting between the two.

  I could see the obvious disappointment in Jade’s face, and I could practically hear her thoughts when her sexy runner suddenly sprinted diagonally across the park and onto the pier. “Drats! Clever move, my friend. Foiled again! But I’ll get you next time.”

  The runner peeled off his shirt like we’d seen him do every single day as he readied to jump into the bay.

  A bit of quick thinking had Chloe improvising a backup plan. She belted out a blood curdling scream.

  If I hadn’t witnessed the whole sordid affair, I’d have thought she’d been attacked by a three headed dog, just like I’d read about in one of the Dark Beasts books.

  The runner finally paused to see if she was okay.

  Chloe waved cheerfully. “I’m okay. It was just a thorn!”

  I slapped my forehead and shook my head in disbelief.

  Talk about the girl who cried wolf. She couldn’t have come up with something better?

  The distraction and subsequent pause were just enough for Jade to catch up to her prey. Careening down the pier like an out-of-control locomotive, she sped past him but not before slapping a sticky substance on his back. Unable to stop her momentum, she flew off the pier, frantically grasping at the air as if she could pull herself up and away from her fate. All that remained were her flip-flops bobbing aimlessly in the waves.

  “Oh my god!” Chloe shouted as we watched Jade splash into the frigid bay and sink like a stone.

  The runner dove in without hesitation and pulled Jade to the pier’s swimming ladder. It happened so fast, neither Chloe nor I were able to even run to her before she was rescued by the heroic runner.

  Jade spent an apology-filled minute with her rescuer before returning to the store soaked, barefoot, and shamed. Chloe cowered along beside her.

  “Chloe, would you get her some hot tea?” I asked, wrapping Jade in a blanket from the wicker couch. “Okay, Jade, it’s time to fess up. What did you do to him?”

  She had to know I saw her stick something to the man’s back, and I wasn’t about to let that go.

  “It was just a mild get-to-know-you poultice. A dash of magic for him to be interested in me enough to just stop and want to talk to me.” She shrugged.

  Chloe returned, handing Jade a steaming cup of tea. “Well, that was an epic failure. I think the poultice washed off right after he dove into the water. I doubt it would’ve had time to have an effect on him. That, and the fact you nearly drowned.”

  Jade’s shoulders slumped even lower than they already were. Her gaze drifted to the floor and she let out the saddest little sigh I’d ever heard.

  I knew I had to cheer her up. I sat down beside her and pulled her into a hug. “You are a beautiful and outgoing person. You don’t need magic to meet a guy.”

  She sighed again. “I know, but I want that guy. And he’s always so focused on running and swimming. I swear, he never looks up at the world around him. He has this darn laser focus. I can’t seem to break through.” She held the tea to her face like it was her own personal heater.

  “Come on, Jade. We need to open the shop soon and if you stay here looking like this, our customers will think you’re a cheap mermaid statue,” Chloe said, pulling Jade up from the wicker couch and through the front door.

  My ears perked up at the familiar rumble of Zane’s motorcycle. Rounding the corner of the street, he pulled up in front of our store and came to a stop.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to look normal and friendly—but not like a puppy meeting another
puppy kind of friendly.

  Watching him stroll casually up the stairs, I took the opportunity to appreciate his slow, sexy gait.

  Hell, just about anything Zane did was sexy.

  “Hey,” he said, not stopping until he was invading my personal space.

  “What brings you by?” I stood my ground, not wanting to back away from the sudden onslaught of all things Zane.

  “You.” He twisted his fingers around mine.

  The heat from his touch sent waves of awareness through my body.

  “I just wanted to let you know I’ll be picking you up at seven tonight.”

  I tried not to smirk. I really did.

  “Oh really? It’s awful presumptuous of you to assume my evening is free, and I’ll just hop on the back of your bike and go along with whatever you have planned.”

  “I know you will.” He pulled me close.

  “Oh really?” The waves of awareness turned into a full-blown riptide ready to drag me under.

  I had to play hard to get, right? Afterall, the women in my romance books always played hard to get. Did they find it this hard?

  “Yes.” His voice nothing more than a whisper as his lips inched closer to mine.

  Sweet Jesus, this playing hard to get thing was more difficult than I’d imagined—especially when he kept cranking up the heat.

  “And just what is it you have in mind that’ll make me just drop whatever I’m doing?” My strong yet cool voice had vanished, my voice turning into nothing more than a breathy whisper.

  Without saying a word, Zane’s lips slanted over mine and lingered long enough for my heart to hop around like a cricket on a hot rock.

  “When you put it that way, how can I refuse?” My legs suddenly felt like they were made of silly putty.

  “Dress for greasy barbeque and loud music.” He kissed me again and sauntered—I thought even more sexily—back to his motorcycle.

  I began the argument with myself almost immediately.

  I should have said no.