Magic and Mayhem: Witchin' Impossible 4: Mr. & Mrs. Shift (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Witchin' Impossible Mysteries) Read online

  Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Robyn Peterman. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Magic and Mayhem remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Robyn Peterman, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  Witchin’ Impossible 4: Mr. & Mrs. Shift

  Witchin’ Impossible Mysteries

  A Magic & Mayhem Kindle World Novella

  By Renee George

  Dedication

  For my Tizzy and Lily.

  You both know who you are. <3

  Acknowledgments

  A special THANK YOU to the fabulous Robyn Peterman, an awesomely funny writer and my favorite cookie, for allowing me the privilege to write in her world. I love your guts, woman!! You make me want to live in Magic & Mayhem!

  Also, I must thank the usual suspects, my BFF sister and most fabulous beta reader Robbin. Thank you for all the brainstorming and staying up with me late at night.

  To my Rebels, you all RAWK!

  To my fans, I would not be anything without you. Seriously. If you keep reading, I’ll keep writing! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If I were reviewing you all, you would get five-gazillion stars and a million-gazillion smooches.

  Oh! And, as always, black coffee. Without you, I couldn’t get out of bed in the afternoon, let alone write a single word.

  A witchy bride. An itchy groom. A flower girl squirrel. And a dead wedding planner. Why is nothing ever easy in Paradise Falls.

  Witch Hazel Kinsey is finally marrying the love of her life, werebear Ford Baylor, in a ceremony that will bind their souls for life.

  Unfortunately, party crashers have other plans for the anxious bride. Like killing her before the ceremony. Haze and Ford, with the help of Tizzy the squirrel, and Lily Mason are determined to track down the killer and make the midnight deadline, but if they can’t stop the person behind the bounty on Haze’s head, the wedding may be off. Permanently.

  What’s a Witchzilla to do when everything on her special day goes wrong? Everything she can to make sure she doesn’t lose her one shot at true happiness.

  For Hazel and the gang, it’s just another day in Paradise Falls.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  About the Author

  Join Renee’s Newsletter

  Amazing Magic & Mayhem Authors

  Chapter One

  “Well, that’s it. The wedding is off,” chirped Tizzy, my familiar, a red flying squirrel with a flair for the dramatic. Although, in this case, to be fair, there was a reason for the drama.

  “The wedding is not off,” I whispered harshly.

  “Hazel, you no longer have a wedding planner!”

  “I don’t need a wedding planner,” I countered. “Especially one who just tried to kill me, for goddess’ sake. Now, help me hide the body.”

  I manufactured a calm demeanor. Which was difficult. My wedding planner, Vivi Lashay, a perky and enthusiastic witch, who had been my confidant and closest ally in my war on flowers and cake, had just tried to shoot me with a silenced Walther PK380. That was the weapon of an assassin, not a person who specialized in making brides feel special.

  “Goddess, Haze,” said my BFF-since-kindergarten Lily Mason. She leaned over, holding her long, auburn hair back with one hand so the silky strands wouldn’t fall into the corpse. “Smells remarkably like barbeque mixed with ozone.

  “Ewww.” Tizzy skittered up to my shoulder. “You cooked her.”

  I gagged but managed to get it under control before dry heaves started. Witches had a very active gag reflex, a fact that could make some things in the bedroom more difficult, but I’d learned how to control it somewhat during my fifteen years at the FBI working serial killings and murders—and let’s not forget Peter the Prick, the only flasher to ever make the FBI’s most wanted list. Trust me. He deserved prison time for waggling that diseased-pocked penis at unsuspecting women. However, Lily was right. Vivi smelled decidedly charbroiled. Well, that was that. I’d never eat barbecue again. Gak! I gagged again.

  “Are you gonna puke?” asked Tizzy.

  “No. And don’t say puke.” I swallowed my gorge. “Okay. The sendoff party is in a couple of hours.” I tugged the hem of my slip up over my knees, side-stepped Vivi’s lifeless body, and used my toe to nudge the gun out of her lifeless hand.

  Lily shook her head. “Maybe we should cancel the bonding ceremony. Tonight, anyhow.”

  “No!” I said a little too emphatically. “I am not cancelling. I am not cancelling anything.” In Paradise Falls, the town is half witches, half Shifters. Shifters mated for life, while witches were more like humans, in that marriages didn’t always last. The founders, in their wisdom, put a halt to fly-by-night nuptials by creating a bonding spell that prevented witches from breaking their vows. Breaking the bonds required some dark and deadly magic. I knew that for a fact. After all, my father had obliterated my mom when he’d separated his life force from hers.

  Don’t worry. She had it coming. Even so, Dad spent seventeen years in witch jail for the crime. Since Dad and Mom’s break-up via blow-up, the bonding ceremony had become optional. But since Ford didn’t have a choice in loving me for the rest of his life, I wasn’t going to be any less committed. I would happily join my soul to his over and over again but that meant we needed witnesses. The binding fed off physical energy, so the more witnesses the stronger the binding, and I’d opened the invitation to my witchy wedded bliss to everyone I could think of.

  I shook my head, hardening my resolve. “We have twenty-eight RSVPs arriving for dinner and close to two hundred more for the sendoff party, including some family from out of town, and I’m not going to turn them all away because of one little problem.” I’m pretty sure I sounded hysterical, but I didn’t care. I’d been planning for this week since November, and I could see my whole wedding going the way of Vivi Lashay.

  Tiz, from my shoulder, looked down at the cooked wedding planner and whistled. “Baba Yaga’s tits, Haze. You burned a hole clean through her.”

  A tunnel the width of a softball had replaced the area where Vivi’s heart used to be located. It had burned clean through her, cauterizing her flesh, arteries, and veins as it traveled through. I frowned. “I didn’t mean to.” My witch powers had been getting stronger over the past year, ever since I’d come back home, but my ability to control them hadn’t progressed as fast. The results were sometimes disastrous. “I only meant to shock her a little.”

  “If that’s the little shock,” Lily said, “I’d hate to see the big shock.”

  “If she hadn’t tried to shoot me, I wouldn’t have had to defend myself.” I walked to the bed and sat at the foot of it. I was feeling a little shaky from the near-death experience. “Dead wedding planner assassin is the last thing I need right now.”

  Lily joined me and put her arm around my shoulders. “Nobody needs this kind of thing, honey.”

  A sharp knock at the door made me yelp. “Everything okay in there?”

  My fath
er, Kent Kinsey, was doing the traditional dad thing and giving me away. This antiquated ritual based on the masochistic idea that I was somehow property to be given away made my dad happy. I liked seeing him happy. Even if it sometimes grossed me out. For example, he and his plus one—gag—were staying in the Celestial Suite, across from the Groom’s Room and next to the Bride’s. Which meant, we shared a wall. Gag. I had warned him that I better not hear any monkey-rooster noises coming from that direction or else. Or else what? I had no idea, but I’d make sure it wasn’t pretty. What I didn’t take into consideration was that he could hear noises coming from my room.

  “It’s fine,” I lied. “Everything is A-okay.”

  My best friend said in a hushed voice, “Maybe we should tell him.”

  I shook my head.

  “I heard shouting,” Dad said.

  “It’s a new stress release technique called Scream Your Pain.”

  “Are you sure it’s not called Getting Cold Feet?” he asked.

  “No!” As if. There was nothing cold about my feelings for Ford Baylor.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No!” shouted Tizzy, Lily, and I at the same time.

  My father had a penchant for translocating into a room on a dime, so I added, “I’m naked.”

  “All right. I’ll check on you in a little bit.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I gave Tizzy side-eye. “Find me a place to put Vivi until I can think of something better. People are going to be traipsing in and out of this room for an hour before the ceremony, and I can’t have them tripping over her corpse.”

  The ceremony would take place at midnight tonight under the Goddess’s Light Temple aka an open gazebo on the lake. The sendoff would end at ten o’clock, and I would return to the room to change into my wedding gown and receive blessings from all the female guests before they followed me out to the gazebo to meet Ford and take his soul to mine. Lily and Tizzy were my maids of honor, which wasn’t traditional for a binding, but I’d lived in the human world long enough to want them standing with me on this important occasion.

  “Hiding the body?” Tizzy affected disappointment. “This is very un-cop like behavior, Haze. You’re the chief of police. This could really affect your re-election.”

  I shooed her off my shoulder. “It won’t matter if someone murders me.”

  Tizzy jumped onto the vanity. “Now who’s being dramatic.”

  “You weren’t here when she was taunting me. Trust me, no extra drama here.” I glanced at Lily. “I think you better find Ford.”

  Tizzy sighed theatrically. “Do we really have to involve old furry, saggy butt?”

  “He has a middle-aged, sexy, firm as hell butt, and no fur on it, at least not when he’s in his human form.”

  “Is this really the best topic of conversation considering the—” Tizzy gestured to the body.

  “You think she cares?” I looked at Lily. “Will you get Ford for me?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  The high-pitched voice of doom said, “Isn’t it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?”

  “Don’t be daft. Besides, I don’t think my luck can get any worse.”

  “Fine.” Tizzy jumped off my shoulder, spread her arms and legs and glided to the door. Her soft, proficient landing would have given superman a run for his money. She gave me a final look of disdain. “All I have to do is find hiding spot for a dead wedding planner in a farmhouse full of people. Nooo problem.”

  Lily squeezed my hand. She walked to the door and opened it a crack. “I’ll be right back with Ford.”

  “Don’t you mean Fuzzy Wuzzy,” Tiz corrected and slid through the opening.

  “Please don’t call--” Tizzy was gone before I could finish.

  Lily looked sympathetic. “I can talk to her if you want. I think she’s just scared.”

  “Of what? I think I’ve proven I’d go to great lengths to not lose her.” I’d even given up being a witch, which royally blew, for a short period of time when the High Clowder, which is just a formal way of saying a familiar council made up of a bunch of stuck-up cats, had tried to take her away from me and assign me some hairless nimrod named Lonnie in her stead. When I refused, they stripped me of my magic.

  Let me just say here and now, being human, even for a couple of days, sucked ginormous, non-magical, hairy balls.

  “I was willing to give up everything that makes me who I am to save Tiz.”

  “She knows that on an intellectual level, but emotionally… She’s always been the most important being in your life until you moved back to Paradise Falls. Even though you and Ford are already mates, making it official with this binding will make it official with Tizzy that she has to share you for the rest of your long, long life.”

  I hoped it was a long life. I almost died fifteen minutes ago and the day wasn’t over yet. “She’s got a girlfriend, Lils.”

  “Who you dislike for the same reasons she doesn’t always like Ford.”

  “In my defense, the cat hated me long before I hated her.” But I had to admit that occasionally it hurt when Tiz would blow me off to spend time with Loopydoopy.

  Lily laughed. Amazing, considering our current circumstance. “True story.”

  I huffed. “I’ll talk to her.”

  “I’ll be right back with your beau.”

  After Lily left, I got up and shuffled to the window. I sniffled. As tears streamed my cheeks, the mineral mask on my face loosened and made the clay all gloopy. Damn it. This couldn’t be happening. Not on my wedding eve.

  Chapter Two

  L’Amore Celestial Gardens was a palatial three-story farmhouse on fifteen acres near Paradise Park, and the premiere venue for weddings and proms in Paradise Falls. Okay, it was the only venue. The Bride’s Boudoir was a circular room with large windows located on the third floor. It had a four-poster bed near the north windows, a large vanity, a tri-fold mirror, a plush sitting area with a love seat and two over stuffed loungers, and a circular ottoman. The entire color scheme was cream and ivory, even down to the fresh flowers in large vases strategically, yet tastefully placed. It was a bride’s fantasy come true.

  Except for the dead body.

  I would have screamed my frustration, but I didn’t want my dad or his date—gag—charging headlong into the room. This weekend was supposed to be magical, not homicidal. A knock at the door startled me.

  The deep, baritone voice on the other side said, “Haze, I’m coming in.”

  My stomach dipped as the scent of cinnamon rolls and pumpkin bread preceded all six feet nine inches of hunky bear Shifter. He opened the door wider to get his large body through, stooped under the arch, and walked inside. Goddess, he was it for me. I’d known it since my junior year of high school, and now, all those times I’d practiced writing Mrs. Haze Baylor on my notebooks would finally pay off.

  The wonderful aroma of cinnamon rolls and chai lattes filled the room, overtaking the scent of charred meat. Ford’s blue eyes twinkled when his gaze met mine. “Nice look,” he said.

  Ack. I forgot about the clay mask on my face and my hair up in curlers. “I have bigger problems than my appearance.”

  He raised his brow. “I can see that.” He closed the door behind him. “So why is Vivi Lashay on the floor with a hole in her chest?” He sniffed. “And why does it smell like barbecue?”

  I gagged as I pointed to the gun near Vivi. “She started it.”

  “A Walther PK380, huh?” He stooped down and picked up the weapon. “That’s some serious hardware.”

  “Right? She freaked me out when she yanked it from her purse. After she made it clear she planned to blow my brains out, I just reacted.” I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers.

  Ford stepped out of the direct line of my hands. “I can see that.”

  “The gun isn’t even the worst part.”

  “I’d agree.” He crouched down and wiggled his fingers into the empty space where Vivi’s heart used to be.


  “Don’t be mean.” I waved at Ford.

  He ducked.

  Ouch.

  “Better her than you,” my hubba-licious bear said.

  “Damn skippy.” I crossed my arms. “When she was threatening me, she said there was a bounty on my head, and she’d get paid double for killing before the final binding ceremony. A bounty! That means Vivi was just the first. Why would someone rather see me dead than wed?”

  His spicy fragrance grew thick and pungent. Ford’s forehead wrinkled as he narrowed his eyes. “Not going to happen.” He stepped over the body with one long stride and swept me into his arms. “Whatever it takes, we are getting married. We can runaway right now if you want and go to some justice of the peace.”

  I clasped my hands behind his neck. “That doesn’t have the same permanent commitment that a binding has, and I want to make sure that there is no misunderstanding that you will be mine until death do us part.” I just hoped death didn’t part us before the binding. “Besides, your mom would end up collecting the bounty if we tried to bail.”

  Nita Baylor had shelled out a lot of dough for the L’Amore Celestial Farms venue. The cost, including the dinner tonight, had been in the six-thousand-dollar range. More money than I would have spent on a wedding, but she hadn’t taken no for an answer. To anything.

  “I’ve waited eighteen years to marry you, Hazel Marie Kinsey. I’m going to marry you tonight, and I’m not going to let anything or anyone stop me.”

  “Agreed,” I told my Boo. “But the only way that’s going to happen is if we figure out who is behind the hit and get him or her to call it off in time for our nuptials.”

  The door opened and closed as Lily and Tizzy made a quick entrance.

  “Good. Ford’s here,” Lily said. “What’s the plan?”

  “I found a place to stuff Vivi for the time being,” Tizzy grumbled. “Just in case you were wondering.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Where?”