Magic and Mayhem: Witchin' Impossible (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Hazed & Confused Mysteries Book 1) Read Free Page A

bed made. The next door was a towel closet. Then the bathroom. All clear. And the last door was Boyd’s bedroom. I had a memory flash of Lily and me, elementary age, jumping up and down on Boyd’s bed while he judged who could go the highest. He’d been a goofy and funny kid. Not too bright but genuinely nice.
    I braced myself for what was coming. The wall near his door had a grease smudge. It was probably nothing, but Joy was a fairly neat housekeeper, even with the old worn furniture, the bare floor of the hall was swept, and the carpet had been vacuumed.
    The door was wide open, so I didn’t have to worry about getting my prints on it. Just in case there was blood on the floor, I stuck my head in first. No blood, but…
    “Oh, Goddess.” I put my hand to my mouth. What I assumed was Boyd look more like a twisted lump of skin, misshapen flesh, and patches of white and black fur. An arm was extended out from what looked like a butt crack, not kidding, and the fingernails had turned to slender black claws. I gagged, because, hello, witch. My kind had a highly developed gag reflex. Over the years, I’d gotten better at not throwing up at crime scenes, but I always brought a baggie with me just in case. Right now, I wished I had the bag.
    I cast a sideways glance at the bulge-shaped Boyd. He looked like he’d been mid-shift when things had suddenly gone very wrong.
    A skittering up my leg startled me forward into the room. A high squeaky voice said, with great alarm, “What the fudge? Goddess in a mini-skirt, Haze! That’s some awful crap.”
    I pushed Tizzy away from my ear and farther out onto my shoulder. “Don’t sneak up on me at a crime scene, Tiz. Not cool.”
    “I wanted to warn you that police chief is here.”
    “Why warn me?”
    “It’s Dick Knuckles. The peckers in this town saw fit to promote him to asshole-in-charge. He heard you were in here, and he looks ready to blow a dozen veins in his flabby nose.”
    Dirk Nichols was a warlock, which meant Tizzy was exaggerating his looks. He would be handsome. There was no such thing as a physically unattractive witch or warlock. Regrettably, Lily, Tizzy, and I might have pranked once or twice in our misspent youth, but surely the man wouldn’t hold a grudge. After all, we were both law enforcement officers now. I hoped he’d extend me some courtesy.
    “Officer Baylor,” I heard Nichols say from the living room. I felt the color and heat drain from my face. Not Ford. Not Ford. Not Ford. Please don’t let it be Ford . “Escort Miz—he said it with a really hard Z—Kinsey to the police station. If she gives you any trouble, arrest her for interfering with a potential crime scene.”
    “Yes, chief.” The low timber of his sexy voice made my skin shiver.
    “Crap.”
    “The po-po is coming for you, Haze.”
    “I am the po-po,” I reminded Tiz.
    If I was getting hauled to jail, I might as well get my money’s worth. I strolled closer to the body, careful of where I stepped. The room smelled vaguely of the smoky tang of recreational pot. There was a pair of jeans thrown haphazardly on the floor, but otherwise, the room was as neat of the rest of the house. His lamp had one of those multi-faceted round crystals used to reflect and disperse light, and just under that was a water bong, confirming my marijuana suspicions.
    While my magic wasn’t strong, I’d gotten good at location and reveal spells from a Witchcraft for Idiots book of all places. I’d bought it at a bookstore on a lark before Quantico, and while most of the book was nonsense, a few of the spells had worked with a little tweaking. It had been a valuable tool when I started working kidnappings. The spells helped me to discern actual clues from normal items at a crime scene.
    My time was limited, so I quickly incanted:
    “Goddess bring me second sight.
    Turn the darkness into light.
    A deed is done, most obscene.
    Reveal the path, unseen seen.
    Done is done, Goddess grant to