Karma's Shift (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 2) - Lacey Andersen (black female authors .TXT) 📗

Gosh. I hated everything about this woman.

“So, what does she have to do with anything?” Deva asked in a sassy tone of voice.

“She was a witch,” Tiffany said, as if it was obvious. “A powerful witch, supposedly.”

“More,” Carol growled. “You know more.”

Tiffany scuffed her toe on the carpet, digging it in as though she could dig herself out of this situation. “Um, her name was Catrin. As far as I heard, he hired her to turn Cliff into some animal or another. Then, Roger took over the business.”

Man, this woman and Roger really were the perfect match. Two cheating scumbags who would stop at nothing to screw over everyone around them.

I could feel my body tingling. No, I hadn’t consciously called on my powers, but karma was having trouble holding back.

“I doubt she would kill him though,” Tiffany rushed out. “If she wanted to, she would’ve done it a long time ago.”

“No, she isn’t trying to kill him, but Cliff is, because now the spell is falling apart.” Beth sighed and rubbed her eyes. “And Cliff is coming for us all.”

Tiffany went pale and drained the rest of her martini from the glass, before fishing out the olives and chewing on them like crazy. But call me heartless, I didn’t feel even a little bad for her.

“Where do we find this witch, Catrin?” I asked wearily. It was going to suck going after this one.

With a sigh, Tiffany wrote down an address. “Don’t tell her you got this from me, please. I have no way to fight back against her.”

I scoffed at Beth’s little sister. “You’d deserve it if we did.”

Her eyes widened.

Beth spoke before I could. “But we won’t.”

As we all stood, the others headed for the door, but I lingered back with Tiffany. When her gaze met mine, I said. “Karma should have punished you a long time ago, but she will now.”

“No,” she squeaked.

“Whatever the universe decides is your punishment.”

“What if I play nice with Beth again?” she rushed out, then pointed to the sofa. “She could have some of the furniture.”

I smiled but it wasn’t a nice one, and she stepped away from me, looking nervous. “No, you stay away from Beth. Be alone forever, like you deserve.”

And even though my words weren’t a spell, they felt like one. Yeah, Karma could hit her with a bus. Karma could make all her hair fall out and make her butt the size of a couch. But spending her life alone? That was what she truly deserved.

And when we spoke to the witch and were done dealing with Cliff, Beth would have the happiness she deserved. I swore it.

20

Emma

“Are we ready for this?” Deva asked. “I made a few hex bags, but I’d rather not use them on a witch like this.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I muttered. “Maybe my powers will really kick in and help.” I honestly wasn’t sure that they would. Sometimes it seemed like the more I tried to reach for them the further out of my grasp they went. I was trying to grab onto smoke. And sometimes, they worked when I least expected them too.

As much as I knew my power had to be instinctual on some level, I also wanted control. There was too much in my life that was out of control, I couldn’t stand it if my powers were the same and just burst out of me whenever they wanted. Sure, I’d made the waterfall flow, I’d even made that bully of a big brother run into his mom, but any time I tried to get Karma to do its job, it was hard, like walking on a sprained ankle, hard. When I’d first tried, I’d say it was more like walking on a broken ankle though, so at least it was getting better. I sent a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that I could do what I needed to in order to protect my friend.

Beth looked at the small house with fear in her eyes. “We have to. If she’s as dark as it seems we won’t have a choice.” The house was severe, all squares, metal and glass. Were those shipping containers? The closer we got to it the more I realized they had to be, there was nothing else that looked like that. The corrugated metal was a deep blue, and one end of a container still had the stickers and labeling on it. No joke. There was some siding around the rectangle that made up the front door area, as well as a little awning over the front steps. That was about the only normal part though. Everything else was either shipping container or window. It felt oddly exposed seeing floor to ceiling windows on a house like that if it could even be called a house. The windows allowed us to see inside though, and it was remarkable, from the inside I wouldn’t have guessed that the place was made of containers like that. It looked like a totally normal house.

Throwing open the passenger door, I stepped out of the car to get the ball rolling. If one of us didn’t move, then we would stay there waiting for hours as we worked up the courage to face this dark witch. It helped that I didn’t quite know what that meant. I was blissful in my ignorance of the different types of magic.

As soon as everyone was out of the car, I strode forward and rapped on the door. We had to get this figured out, had to save Beth. We didn’t have much time.

A woman opened the door with a knowing look on her face. As her gaze flitted from me, to Carol, to Deva. She smiled smugly, but then when she saw Beth, her smile broke into a wide grin. “Well, well, well.” She clearly knew exactly who we