A Spell to Die For Read online

  A Spell to Die For

  (Sonoma Witches Book 3)

  Gretchen Galway

  Eton Field

  From the Back Cover

  She’s much stronger now. But so are her enemies.

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  Alma Bellrose has exorcised demons and unmasked killers. But now she has a far more terrifying challenge ahead — a witch wedding.

  * * *

  If she manages to survive the ceremony, she’ll have to track down a mysterious enemy who might not have a body of its own—before it leads to the destruction of her supernatural town, her friends, and herself.

  A Spell to Die For

  * * *

  Copyright © 2020 by Gretchen Galway

  * * *

  Eton Field, Publisher

  www.gretchengalway.com

  * * *

  Cover design by Gretchen Galway

  Illustrations: Shutterstock & Deposit Photos

  * * *

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the Author.

  * * *

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-939872-25-8

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-939872-26-5

  * * *

  v.20200615

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Epilogue

  Also by Gretchen Galway

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  I hadn’t expected to find a demon in a hardware store on a Friday morning. It was mid-November, and I was just setting up a plastic display near the register to sell some of my handcrafted jewelry on consignment. Cypress Hardware was the biggest store in our remote forest town north of San Francisco and my best bet to make some rent money, but it was hardly the place I expected to sense the chilly prickle of demonic possession.

  Looking up from my beaded necklaces, I scanned the store and saw two or three employees, all nonmagical humans, preparing for the day. I cast out a probing spell and recoiled as the rancid taste of Shadow magic filled my mouth.

  The demon must’ve been drawn by the Silverpool Wellspring just down the river. On the winter solstice a month from now, the seasonal pool of magic would return, attracting vast numbers of mostly harmless fae, which demons loved to consume.

  But why hadn’t the witches at the Protectorate stopped this demon from getting into town? That’s what they were paid for.

  Unlike me, which was why I was having a cash flow problem. Until a couple of years ago, I’d been a Protectorate agent, tracking and battling supernatural threats, and making jewelry had only been a fun hobby, not a financial lifeline. But I’d been cast out of that high-status life before my twenty-fifth birthday. Since then, every witch in the Protectorate had learned to sneer at the name Alma Bellrose: the first demon hunter to be fired for having an Incurable Inability to kill.

  That’s when I’d moved to Silverpool, seeking a fresh start.

  Since then, however, one thing I’d been surprised to learn was that my infamous inability was limited to that one—albeit useful—skill. In other ways, I’d discovered I was quite… capable. More than most witches. For instance, the demon I’d just noticed was probably well disguised, sending out blinding magic to confuse me, but I’d sensed its presence immediately.

  That still didn’t mean I was eager to deal with the threat. Killing was as unappealing to me as ever, but who else could even try to stop it from hurting people and fae?

  I looked around again and saw only Samantha, the teenager with too much makeup who used to work at the gas station, now wearing a Cypress apron and pushing a train of shopping carts back into the store.

  But there, just behind her…

  Icy, magical awareness pricked at my skin. An old man lumbered in wearing a khaki jacket, his sour expression scowling at Samantha, the ceiling lights, the customer service counter, the Christmas tree display, and anyone who’d have the misfortune of catching his eye.

  The sense of Shadow intensified.

  I shuddered and touched the strand of wood beads hanging around my neck. Unlike the jewelry I was putting on public display, the necklace I wore was a focus string, an object infused with magic too powerful to hang on a plastic rack near jugs of windshield fluid and beef jerky.

  I took a step back, shaken by the waves of power. A year ago, I hadn’t thought a demon would ever dare to come within ten miles of Silverpool, which was supposed to be heavily guarded by the Protectorate. Dealing with supernatural threats to humanity worldwide was their job. But since a violent attack over the summer, new threats had come to town, and many of my assumptions had been shaken. I wasn’t even sure what a demon was anymore, having learned not all possessing spirits were the same. Or possibly even evil.

  But this one was—it reeked of Shadow, thick and nasty magic, making me use my beads to draw a bubble of protection around myself. Leaving my jewelry display and storage case at the counter, I turned and followed the man past the circular information desk, beyond the racks of paint swatches and aisles of wrenches and air compressors and roofing tiles, into the shadows behind a display of replacement doors and windows. Samantha was also with us, now pushing a cart of half-dead clearance shrubbery toward the garden center in the back of the store.

  I loved my town and wasn’t going to let the creature hurt anything or anyone here. Although my demon-killing career was over, I wasn’t powerless.

  I had to try to stop him.

  He suddenly turned down the plumbing aisle. A dozen steps behind, I followed. But when he slowed ahead of me and turned to scowl at the display of toilet seats, I realized the blast of evil energy was weakening, not getting stronger, as I approached him.

  I paused, put my hand on my necklace, and cast out my senses.

  Demon’s balls. He wasn’t the source of the feeling. It was…

  I backed up slowly into the main aisle and peered out at the teenager walking away with the cart of half-dead plants. Samantha? She was about ten feet away and her back was to me, but now that I focused my attention on her, I could see her posture was too rigid, her walk too wooden, her head tilted to one side as if she’d forgotten how to hold it up.

  She released the cart and slowly turned around. Her eyes, unblinking, took in the sight of me and the aura of magic I’d woven around my head, chest, and limbs. Samantha must’ve been in charge of herself when she got ready that mor
ning, because her makeup was as thick and flawless as always. The demon was moving the body clumsily now, suggesting the eyeliner had been applied before the possession with the real Samantha’s excellent hand-eye coordination.

  “Witch,” the demon said, drawing out the ch sound in a long, low hiss.

  Fear made me freeze. I didn’t have a silver stake, but we were near the garden tools. Would any of the metal have the power to—?

  No, no, no. I couldn’t kill the demon—even if I were able—without killing Samantha. I didn’t even know if she’d graduated from high school yet. But that’s what the Protectorate would do if I called them in. It’s what they always did.

  Well… not always. Just last month I’d helped exorcise a demon from a child. But I’d only helped a stronger witch; I hadn’t done it by myself. And that had been experimental, fully contained in a magic building, surrounded by other powerful witches.

  I looked around, my heart pounding, afraid nonmagical humans might get hurt if the demon struck out. My protective spells were shimmering around me, buckling under the Shadow energy. I could protect myself, but how many others?

  The demon lifted Samantha’s arm and pointed at me with a fingernail painted a glittery bright blue. When it curled a finger, a surge of power lifted my feet and yanked them out from under me.

  Pain shot up my spine as I landed on my back. I cursed, angry at myself for being careless. Feet were always a dangerously vulnerable spot. My wards had encompassed the rest of my body, but I must’ve left a spot on the sole of my boot open to attack.

  I tried to roll over onto my hands and knees, but invisible force was dragging me along the floor on my back, toward the demon’s outstretched hand. Legs paralyzed, I floundered on the floor, twisting and thrashing, clutching at my necklace for more power while the demon pulled me behind her into the garden-tool aisle.

  For the first time, fear for my own safety struck me. What had I been thinking to go up against a demon without backup? Without a silver stake? Terror surged through me.

  I flung a hand out to grab a shovel, but the demon jerked me forward, twisting my arm painfully beneath me. The space between us shrank another foot. Soon it would be able to touch me, and I had no idea what would happen then. For all my training, I’d never been alone with a demon on the offensive; I’d always been the predator, not the prey.

  With that reminder of my place on the magical food chain, I tapped into my magic well of power and this time was able to break the demon’s hold on me for a full second, just long enough to flip over and knock a shovel off the hook. When it fell to the floor beside me, I grabbed it.

  It was stainless steel with a hickory handle. I bared my teeth in a wolfish smile. Perfect. Metal and wood. Before I took my next breath, I tapped into the innate power of the materials and used the surge of energy to lift myself off the ground and land on my feet. I braced my legs in a fighting stance.

  “Leave her alone,” I told the demon, brandishing the shovel in both hands.

  The demon twisted Samantha’s face with its matte ruby-red lipstick and winged eyeliner into a sneer. “We’re happy together,” the lips said. “Leave us alone.” The voice was that of a young Northern California girl’s mixed with ice and nightmares, and it crawled down my spine like a centipede.

  I moved my right hand down over the hickory, drawing from the magic in the old roots, while my left hand, trembling, stroked the cold steel. I was in way over my head. Way, way over. I’d been kicked out of the Protectorate because of my Incurable Inability to kill demons—how could I stop this one?

  But what else could I do? Let the monster take over an innocent young human who didn’t even know magic existed?

  “Leave her alone,” I said again. This time, before it could speak, I tapped into the power of the shovel, my beaded focus string, my body, my very life, and channeled it into a well of magic as Bright—and human—as I could make it. It pooled in my hands like tap water in a latex balloon, and then—

  I shot it at the figure before me.

  And it laughed. Pale light swirled around Samantha’s head, exaggerating the lavender tones of her highlighted hair. The magic shooting from my fingers didn’t seem to hurt the demon at all, only improve the lighting, illuminating how perfectly Samantha had applied her eyeliner that morning.

  For a split second I reflected on how it would take more magic than I possessed to make my own eyes look like that. I’d been quietly critical of Samantha’s obsession with her makeup, but who was I to judge? She had real talent. A passionate skill for an art form she’d chosen.

  And the demon was taking it all away.

  Renewed anger sparked in me. “Leave her alone.” This time I spoke in a whisper instilled with all the magic I had.

  At first the demon’s smile, those twisted ruby-red lips, didn’t waver. But as my breath floated across the distance between us and was inhaled into her lungs—Samantha’s lungs, still a human body with a human soul—the mouth went slack. The young eyes widened. And then the lids fluttered, and Samantha’s body lurched forward.

  Fearing a trick, I didn’t rush forward. She crumpled to the floor like a puppet without a hand.

  My own eyes were hard to keep open. I realized I was swaying on my feet, and the shovel, suddenly too heavy for my weak fingers to hold, clattered to the floor. My vision went black at the edges and blurry in the center and then, with each rapid thump of my exhausted heart, faded completely.

  The effort of attacking the demon had drained me.

  I fell to the floor next to the shovel, next to Samantha. As my senses washed in and out, I noticed how cold the tile was against my cheek. I didn’t have the strength to lift my head and see if by some miracle Samantha had survived; I couldn’t even open my eyes.

  What a disaster. Now the Protectorate was going to come to town, find the problematic Alma Bellrose unconscious next to a dead demon, and haul me in for questioning. Again. Over the past several months, I’d either been under arrest or forced to work for them. Sometimes both at the same time.

  I wish I’d made it home in time to feed the dog first, I thought. Then I lost consciousness.

  Chapter Two

  I woke in my own bed with Random, my dog, curled against my hip. He was fussing at his paws, bumping me as he licked and gnawed, an annoying habit the vet suggested might be allergies. For all my witchy powers, I hadn’t yet found a spell to make him stop.

  “Leave it,” I said with a yawn, pulling his snout away from his feet.

  Random was a medium-sized mixed-breed, maybe part Lab, and I’d rescued him from my father, who had kept him enchanted as either a golden retriever or a dragon. Life with me was a lot easier, though lately I’d been making him wait until midmorning for his food to teach him to stop waking me up at dawn. “Wouldn’t you rather have breakfast? Let’s get—”

  Only then did it all rush back to me. My sleepy good mood exploded, and I sat up with a start. My dark, wavy hair fell into my eyes, and I slapped it away, looking around the room to figure out what was going on. Random, taking my sudden move for enthusiasm to pour kibble into his bowl, leapt off the bed and galloped toward the kitchen in a clatter of claws on the old hardwood floors.

  Pulse racing, I cast my magic around and tugged at the covers to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. How had I made it home? Had I found the strength—?

  No. Something was wrong. I looked at my arms, my hands; slapped my hands over my neck in a panic.

  My jewelry was gone. What had happened?

  Random reappeared in the doorway, head tilted, scrutinizing me for signs of breakfast delivery. Sun poured through the windows, looking more like afternoon than our usual foggy coastal mornings. How long had I been asleep? I looked at the clock: 12:34. Over four hours had passed since I’d been at Cypress, when the store manager had allowed me to set up my jewelry before the morning rush.

  “All right, all right,” I said, sucking in a calming breath. At least I was alive. Wiping the sweat off my forehea
d, I put my feet on the floor and stood up. My knees buckled before I straightened completely, and I had to fling a hand out to the nightstand for balance. Stars sparkled in my vision for a moment, then passed. I walked slowly to the kitchen, touching the wall for support, and served the kibble.

  Blinking away stars in my vision, I pulled healing power from the hearth magic of my kitchen and tried to remember what had happened. Steady thinking was the only way to control the anxiety that still gripped me. My weakness and Random’s hunger showed I hadn’t dreamt about being at the store that morning. I’d fought the demon; I’d collapsed. Now I was home.

  But how?

  A knock on the door wasn’t enough to distract Random from his delayed breakfast. He continued inhaling it even as the door opened and my friend Birdie’s face appeared.

  “Hi, Alma,” she said. “Can I come in?”

  Until recently, Elizabeth Crow, nicknamed Birdie, had been living in my second bedroom and taking magic lessons from me. A few months ago, she’d discovered she was a witch at the same time she’d inherited a fortune that included the Silverpool Winery. Now she was using some of that wealth to pursue her dream of owning a bookstore.