Amuletto Kiss (The Magic & Mixology Mystery Series Book 5) Read online

  Amuletto Kiss

  Magic & Mixology Mystery Series, Volume 5

  Gina LaManna

  Published by LaManna Books, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  AMULETTO KISS

  First edition. May 4, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Gina LaManna.

  Written by Gina LaManna.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Synopsis

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note | (and super-exciting announcement!)

  To my husband: I love you!

  Acknowledgments

  SPECIAL THANKS:

  To Alex—Here’s to one year in Minnesota, six months married, and 95 pounds of chocolate consumed. я тебя люблю!

  To my family—May the Fourth be with you.

  To Stacia—For being the best BFF a gal could ask for! (And for not flinching when I email you this beast and say goodluckandsorry!) :-)

  To everyone in LaManna’s Ladies—For making every book feel so special. If I could blow you all an amuletto kiss, I would.

  Synopsis

  Hold your loved ones close, islanders...

  Life for Lily Locke has not been normal ever since she learned of her witchy heritage, but now more than ever, her world is spiraling out of control. When a series of strange events begins to tear her beloved island apart, it’s up to the famed Mixologist to seek out the most powerful wizard in the world and spare him from death. However, as Lily begins the hunt for the Master of Magic, she encounters a prophecy that could destroy everyone she’s come to know and love.

  ...there is darkness on the horizon.

  Prologue

  THE FACTION HAS RETURNED...

  This is Peter Knope, reporter for the Wicked Weekly, writing from behind enemy lines. To all those back home on The Isle, consider this message a warning:

  Be wary, protect yourselves, stay alert.

  This is war.

  And above all,

  Hold your loved ones close, islanders...

  There is darkness on the horizon.

  —Peter Knope

  Chapter 1

  I SET THE PAPER DOWN, my gut churning.

  Sunday morning, front page. How could Peter’s story have ended up there? I rubbed my forehead with my thumb and forefinger, easing away the stress.

  When Peter and I had been held captive in Wishery, he’d entrusted me with this exact article. He’d requested I submit it for publication to his editors when I returned to The Isle, and I’d fully intended to do so...soon.

  Someone had beaten me to it.

  “I thought we decided to wait on this?” Ranger X burst through the front door of the bungalow, forgoing his typical morning greeting. “I asked for one more week before you had this printed.”

  “You did, but—”

  “Why, Lily?” Ranger X looked at me with such heartbreaking hurt that I fell speechless. “I asked you specifically to give me more time before this news broke. We need to get the Ranger trainees formally initiated into the program—Zin included—before Peter’s fear-mongering letter wreaks havoc on the island. Though I suppose it’s too late for that now.”

  I opened my mouth to respond and found I couldn’t. My stomach flipped, torn between curiosity and frustration. I hadn’t betrayed X’s wishes—I wouldn’t. A part of me sizzled with annoyance that he’d doubt me. After all we’d been through, hadn’t I earned his trust?

  “I have to go deal with this,” he said, his eyes flicking toward my feet when the silence stretched long and weary. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to cancel our lunch plans.”

  I barely managed a nod before he was gone. I couldn’t say how many minutes I waited, still as a gargoyle, before I exhaled a shaky breath. Gus found me sitting in the same position some time later.

  “Well?” My assistant let himself through the front door and ground to a halt. “Why the long face?”

  Startled, I shifted my gaze back to the newspaper. Without speaking, I pushed it forward.

  Gus read through it quickly, his cheeks turning red. “Peter’s an idiot.”

  “I promised him I’d publish this article, Gus.”

  “I thought you decided to wait another week before you made that call. Has X seen this? He won’t be happy.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “Ah. Now I understand the long face.” Gus seemed unperturbed by my argument with X and shuffled toward the shelves along the back wall. He began tinkering with vials of rainbow colored liquids and jars of dried herbs. “Why’d you do it?”

  I kept my silence until Gus turned to face me. My expression told him everything.

  “You didn’t do it,” he said slowly, understanding. “But Ranger X jumped to conclusions.”

  “Correct.”

  “Shame on him, and shame on me,” Gus said thoughtfully. “But that doesn’t answer the burning question.”

  “I don’t know who beat me to it.” I shook my head. “I’ve kept the article in my nightstand since we returned home. Nobody outside of a few key people even knew about it. In order for someone to have a copy with this exact wording, they would have either had to find Peter’s original in my room, or they’d have had to go straight to the source.”

  “Well, I’ll be...” Gus tsked, looking furious. “They can’t have found Peter; he’s still hiding with the enemy, so that eliminates him. Which means someone snuck into your bedroom and took that note.”

  “It must be someone I know. I haven’t told anyone about Liam’s visit, Peter’s note, or the threat against the Master of Magic except for The Core and Ranger X. As far as everyone else on The Isle is concerned, it’s business as usual here at the bungalow.”

  “Is the note gone?” Gus frowned. “I can tell you it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t X. Could that old bat have done this?”

  “Which bat?”

  Gus allowed himself the smallest smile, then shook his head. “Never mind. Hettie might get a kick out of stealing your things, but she wouldn’t hurt you. Harpin would hurt you, but he’s too lazy for this, and there’s not enough glory for him in it. It wouldn’t be Poppy or Ainsley or Zin—I know they’re not Core members, but they hang around. They hear things.”

  “But nobody else knew—”

  “Someone else knew,” Gus corrected. “And we need to find out who.”

  “I’m going to see if the note is gone. Peter wrote the note specifically for me, in longhand, while we were being held captive. There’s really no way another copy could be in existence.”

  “Did anyone else see the note between then and now?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Then it can’t
be a copy,” Gus mused, “which brings us back to square one. Don’t you worry, Miss Locke—whoever stepped foot in your room will regret it. I’ll make sure of it.”

  THE NOTE WAS THERE.

  Set gently in my bedside drawer, completely untouched. Just as I’d left it.

  I tucked the letter deeper into the drawer and threw a few pairs of socks over it, masking the crumpled surface completely. The paper, the drawer, my bedroom—as far as I could tell, nobody had tampered with a thing.

  I breathed easier. In retrospect, it seemed highly unlikely that someone had crept into my bedroom without anyone noticing. There were spells protecting this bungalow, and more obviously, there were always people around. Someone would have noticed something.

  I returned downstairs and relayed the news to Gus, who grunted in confusion. When he didn’t have more to say on the subject, I distracted myself with work. I needed the physical movement, the sweeping and organizing and shuffling around. Otherwise, my frustration would get the better of me.

  As I moved through the storeroom gathering up supplies for the day, I pondered who could have discovered the note—and how. Who had gotten the article published before me?

  Even as I shuffled vials of champagne dust to reach the dried eel on the top shelf, my mind worked in overdrive. Ranger X was the only person who’d known about the article and where I’d kept it.

  In theory, it would’ve been easy enough for him to grab the paper from my nightstand and return it looking relatively untouched. Nobody would have noticed since he came and went from the bungalow whenever he wished without question.

  I knocked over a vase of apple cores in my haste to push the thought out of my head, ignoring Gus’s quiet curse at the sound of shattering glass. Grabbing a broom, I began sweeping up the mess, my brain flicking through several unlikely scenarios.

  “It wasn’t him,” Gus said. “You can stop breaking things. Ranger X didn’t leak that story.”

  “I know.” My voice came out quiet, broken. “But he should have trusted me enough not to barge in here thinking I’d done it.”

  “So should I,” Gus said gruffly. “Men, we’re idiots. Most people are, especially in tense times. Emotions are running high right now, and that article ain’t gonna do us any favors. I still don’t see why you intended to publish it in the first place.”

  “Peter asked me to, Gus.”

  “And you’re loyal to a fault, Lily Locke, but I still think you should’ve waited. Peter would have understood. The last thing we need is a wave of terror sweeping across The Isle.”

  “Yet without his help, I’m not sure we would’ve escaped Wishery. I owed it to him after he sacrificed himself to stay behind.”

  “Well, it wasn’t X. I think you should give him a break on this one and let his accusations roll off you. And that’s saying something: You know I never side with that oaf.”

  “He’s not an oaf.”

  Gus’s stare found mine, pleading. An unlikely expression. “We don’t need the two most powerful people on this island arguing. Not at a time like this.”

  My mind briefly flicked back to our mysterious encounter with Liam, and his request for help as well as the mention of a prophecy. Gus had a point; it certainly wasn’t the best time to be struggling through personal issues, on top of everything else.

  “I thought the sign said you opened at nine?” The question came from Magic & Mixology, from a faceless voice no doubt standing at the counter of the outdoor bar attached to the bungalow. “It’s nine-oh-two. You’re two minutes late.”

  Gus rolled his eyes. “Want me to get that?”

  I shook my head. “But this conversation isn’t finished.”

  I left the colorful, musty storeroom reluctantly. This room was a cozy little space that housed private conversations, deep research, and the familiar feeling of home—that feeling similar to loading up a car with all one’s possessions in the world and sitting there, comforted by the sheer closeness of it all.

  Breezing through the doorway between the storeroom and the bar, feeling the cluttered warmth slip away, I eased into the bright and open salty air of the beachfront bar.

  The atmosphere shifted, and I sighed. The lake that surrounded us spread endlessly in all directions—superior to all others, as suggested by the name. Blue waters lapped onto the sugar-sand shore, the skies cloudless and pure.

  “Sorry for the rush,” a harried-looking woman said, brushing long brown locks behind her ear. “But I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

  I didn’t know the woman, so I smiled and introduced myself. “How can I help you?”

  “I live over near the library on the East Isle, and I’m looking for a protective spell.”

  I immediately understood she came from wealth. She lived in an area of The Isle flanked by the most exquisite housing and pristine grounds. I wondered if she worked for MAGIC, Inc. since most of the agency employees who retired to The Isle lived in luxury.

  I frowned. “What sort of protection?”

  “What do you have?” Her mouth pouted and her freckles gleamed. “I want the kind that keeps bad people away.”

  “Are you afraid of robbery, looking for a general alarm system, or just wanting a painless jinx that’ll shock trespassers?”

  She didn’t look convinced at any of my suggestions, so I continued, waving to the general menu behind me as it flickered to life and populated with a list of available options.

  “We have a wide variety of simple hexes and protections for purchase. The Seashell System is one of my particular favorites. Made from crushed shells and enchanted salts, the user just sprinkles the mixture around the perimeter of their home, and—”

  “No, no, I need something stronger,” she said. “Not your basic stuff. I need something that’ll...”

  “That will what?”

  “That will hurt,” she whispered. “That will hurt anyone who comes after my family.”

  A light bulb dinged over my head. “You read the article.”

  The woman shifted uncomfortably. “It was on the front page. How could I have missed it?”

  “I don’t sell harmful spells,” I said flatly, gesturing to a sign on the wall where it proclaimed the famous Do Good motto of my predecessors. “I’m the Mixologist.”

  “Isn’t it good to help citizens protect themselves?”

  “Let me be clear,” I said, leveling my voice. “I don’t sell anything that is purposely intended to harm another person. Period.”

  The woman looked slightly annoyed. She leaned forward and rested her elbow on the counter, her chin in her hand, surveying the menu. “What’s this Yard Yelper I see up there?”

  “You can set a spell where unfamiliar footsteps on your lawn set off an alarm,” I said a little stiffly. “It sounds the alarm, but it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Ah,” she said, looking disappointed.

  “There’s a logical reason for it. These spells are too easy to fool,” I continued, for some reason feeling the need to back up my moral code. “The newspaper delivery person or a surprise guest arriving earlier than expected—you wouldn’t want to hurt someone you love, would you?”

  “No, but what if it is a person intending my family ill will?”

  “The article...” I hesitated.

  I wanted to tell her the article had been an overreaction, but I couldn’t bring myself to negate Peter’s words. He’d saved our tails in Wishery, and though he’d had the opportunity to leave, he’d chosen to stay in Faction territory to get the first-hand story. I owed him.

  “Yes?” she prompted. “You were there, weren’t you? You saw The Faction alive and healthy with your own eyes?”

  “I was with Peter for a bit, yes,” I hedged. “But I still think the letter—”

  “Were things really as bad as Peter said? Is war on the horizon?”

  I turned her question over for a long moment, my gaze drifting downward as I shuffled through a stack of ingredients. I averted my face so it didn’t gi
ve me away as I stalled, thinking.

  Finally, I selected a small array of Security Spell Sets for beginners. “The world is complicated at the moment,” I explained. “Do I think anybody will appear at your door to hurt you and your family? No. Do I think The Faction is a problem? Yes, probably. Do I believe the Rangers and the appropriate law enforcement agencies will take care of it? Absolutely.”

  Instead of comforting her, my words seemed to have the opposite effect. The woman’s eyes flicked to the supplies on the counter. “I’ll take all of them.”

  “I didn’t mean you needed—”

  She grasped at three Security Spell Sets and hoarded them to her chest like the last pieces of food on a desert island. “All of them.”

  “It’s completely unnecessary,” I explained. “These three sets all do the same thing.”

  But the woman had already tossed payment on the counter and whirled around, heading for the door. At the last moment, she stopped and peered over her shoulder at me.

  “Miss Locke,” she began uneasily. “Do you know where I could buy something stronger?”

  “No. And looking for something to harm another person will only lead you to trouble.”

  She left, looking chastised, as two more people entered the bar area and approached the counter one after the other. I offered my help to both.

  “Do you have, uh...” The first man was smaller, ruddy in complexion and thick in size. He cleared his throat. “Can I purchase security spells from you?”

  I reached behind me, feeling an expression of stone settle into place as I retrieved a few more Security Spell Sets for beginners and set them on the counter. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  The second man, as tall and lanky as the first was short and stocky, crept toward the counter and pulled a box possessively into his arms.

  “This says it’s for beginners,” the lanky one said, offering a smile that showed he was in dire need of a dentist. “We ain’t beginners.”