AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I need herbs. Mandrake, wormwood, and a few others. I’m also looking for several oils—and they must be essential. No fragrance oils. Rose, and jasmine.” The differences between synthetic oils and essential were myriad—sometimes the scent was what I needed when it came to spell work and a fragrance oil was fine. But in this case, I definitely needed the essence of the plant.
She snorted. “Pure jasmine oil? You prepared to pay a hundred bucks for a tiny bottle? Then I have it for you.” She nodded me into the back room. I glanced at Delilah, who was sitting at one of the small tables in the corner of the shop, flipping through a magazine. She waved for me to go ahead.
The room into which Beth led me was small, with a desk and two chairs on the other side. She motioned for me to sit down. While I waited, she unlocked a drawer on an apothecary chest behind her desk and pulled out a small bottle.
“Here we go. Jasmine oil. One-eighth of an ounce for forty-five dollars. And the rose absolute is forty.”
I picked up the bottle. One-eighth of an ounce was a very small amount, but for what I was making, I didn’t need a great deal. “Two bottles of each, please.”
“Good. And what herbs did you need? I can start Kerri on getting them packaged for you.”
“I need some cut mandrake root—two ounces—an ounce of sacred tobacco, as well as an ounce each of wormwood, damiana, and kava kava; a big chunk of amber resin; and three ounces of galangal.”
She set out my oils, locked the drawer again, and then quickly jotted down what I wanted. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. Bone chips. Silver dust. A sweetgrass braid. Two smudge sticks—sage and cedar.” I usually made my own, but we’d gone through my entire stash and my herbs weren’t mature enough to plunder in order to make more. So, until later in the season, I was working off store-bought ingredients.
As we headed back to the front of the shop, Beth stopped to give Kerri—her older daughter from her first marriage—my list. The girl began to pull herbs and measure them out for me. I wandered over to Delilah.
“Almost done. Anything interesting?”
She was reading an issue of Supe-R-Natural Weekly, a small newspaper on a shoestring budget at a regional press started by two Weres and one of the ES Fae. We had a subscription, though there usually wasn’t much in it. But we liked supporting our brothers-in-arms.
“Actually, something did catch my eye. Look.” She pushed the paper across the table. I picked it up and looked where she pointed. An advertisement that took up about one-eighth of the page, for a meeting coming up in two days. Run by none other than the Aleksais Psychic Network.
“Fuck…you have to be kidding.”
The Aleksais Psychic Network was the group we suspected of colluding with Gulakah to bring in the bhouts. They’d been accused of luring away Fae and magic-using FBHs, a lot like the Moonies had indoctrinated their cult members. We’d been trying to find some leads on them, and all we would have had to do was check the local magical rags.
“Why didn’t we see this in our issue? Did we even get this issue?” I glanced at the front of the paper. It had been out for several days.
“We might have accidentally let it lapse.”
“This would be the perfect way to check them out.” I looked up at my sister, who gave me a slow nod.
“But they’d know who we were. We are pretty visible, you have to agree with me on that.” She frowned, thinking.
I leaned back, glancing over my shoulder. Beth had my packages almost ready to go. “You’re right. But there are ways around that. I have some ideas. I’ll need help implementing them, though.”
“Camille—your purchases.” Beth called from the counter, and I pushed to my feet and headed over, handing my credit card to Kerri as she rang up the herbs and oils.
I glanced at the woman who’d first caught my attention—the one with shamanic energy. Her energy was stronger than I’d thought, and I found myself staring openly at her. She glanced at me, her dark gaze lingering on my face. It took everything I had to pull my attention away.
As Kerri handed me my package, I turned to Beth. “Who’s that?”
Beth glanced over at the woman, who had gone back to hunting through the shelves, then back at me. “Her name is Zinnia. She is one tough cookie, and nobody messes with her. Not nasty, but if you fuck with her, she’ll sure as hell fuck with you. And when she means business, heads roll in the magical world.”
“Zinnia, huh?” I made a note to remember her name and check her out later, when we had time. It paid to know the stronger witches in the FBH world.
I signed the credit card slip, picked up my package, and—with one last look at Zinnia, who was studiously ignoring me—headed toward the door. Delilah fell in beside me. I’d added the newspaper to my purchases so we’d have the information in the advertisement. Back in the car, I eased into traffic and we were headed to the FH-CSI.
Chase was sitting at his desk, his leg in a splint propped up on a footstool. When we walked in, he jerked his head up. “About time. Where were you?”
I waved off his question. “Chill, Johnson. We do have other things to do besides hold your hand all the time. We’re here now, so let’s get on with this.” But I flashed him a smile to let him know I was just teasing.
“How’s your foot?” Delilah gave him a quick hug, and Chase kissed her on the cheek right about the moment Sharah walked in. I glanced at the elfin medic. Queen Asteria’s niece, Sharah was also Chase’s current girlfriend, and she was pregnant with his baby.
Her gaze darted from Chase to Delilah, then back to Chase again, and I knew what that look meant. But both Chase and Delilah were busy chatting and I wanted to smack them upside the head. Clueless, with a capital C.
