Ghost Garages_A Boston Technowitch Novel Read online

  Ghost Garages

  A Boston Technowitch Novel

  Erin M. Hartshorn

  Hartshorn Publishing, a division of Eimarra Press

  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

  Pepper and Matt’s Family Trees

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 Erin M. Hartshorn

  Cover Design: Deranged Doctor Design

  http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters, places, and incidents described in this publication are used fictitiously or are entirely fictional.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer, or with written permission of the publisher. Inquiries may be addressed via e-mail to [email protected].

  Published by Hartshorn Publishing, a division of Eimarra Press, Bethlehem, PA

  All rights reserved.

  If you would like to know when Erin's next novel is coming out, sign up for the Erin M. Hartshorn/Sara Penhallow newsletter. Your e-mail address will not be used for any other purpose, and you may unsubscribe any time you wish.

  (http://www.erinmhartshorn.com/newsletter/)

  Created with Vellum

  For Kevin

  Chapter 1

  The first thing I noticed when Ximena walked in for her shift was her red eyes; the second was the unfastened pocket on the side of her purse where she keeps her rescue inhaler.

  “Another bad morning?” I dropped a chamomile tea bag into one of our blue mugs and added hot water.

  “That asshole.” She meant her landlord. He was the only one who ever made Ximena lose her temper. That was one of the reasons she was invaluable for the Wicked Whatever Coffeehouse — the rush hour crowd from the T was a test of anyone’s people skills. “He was smoking cigars again last night, and then this morning, when he finally dropped by to check out the leak in the sink, he blew smoke in my face. He said he didn’t mean to do it, of course.”

  “Of course. Did he at least fix the leak?” I handed her the mug, but she klunked it right back down on the counter, sloshing some tea over the rim.

  “He said he didn’t see it dripping!”

  “Sounds like an asshole to me,” agreed one of our regulars who had followed her in. “Hey, Pepper, can I get a double to go?”

  “Sure thing.” I forced a smile and turned to the espresso machine. “Ximena, go ahead and clock in.”

  I couldn’t tell her directly to take the time to rinse her eyes and calm down before she came back up front, but I trusted that she knew what to do. Meanwhile, I had customers to serve with half-caf and extra cream and shots of vanilla and every other permutation you could think of. One guy even asked if we had civet coffee. I’m proud of myself — I didn’t make a face at the thought of drinking cat poop.

  Like so many other little stores, we were tucked on the bottom floor of a multi-use building — not one of the fancy, high-rent high rises, just a leftover small brick building with apartments above.

  The influx had slowed by the time Ximena returned. I set her to work restocking the pastry case.

  As she rearranged cookies and muffins, she said, “We’re going to have to ask Kendall to increase the order size for those cinnamon chip apple scones. I wouldn’t think they’d be this popular in summer.”

  I made a note of it on the clipboard. Kendall hadn’t been coming in during my shift, so I just left notes. My dad said that was a good sign — she trusted me enough to leave me on my own. My mom said, “For this, you went to college?” Sometimes, I thought Mom wished she had a second child, so maybe someone would follow in her footsteps, but she gambled everything on me. I put her out of my mind and refocused on the coffee shop.

  If I thought that Ximena was done ranting about her landlord, I was wrong. “Did I tell you he hit on Missy last week? And the week before that, he pinched her ass in the elevator.” A trace of her usual good humor peeked through. “I’m the only one who gets to pinch Missy’s ass.”

  And they couldn’t move, not easily, anyway. Sure, there were always places for rent, but those places weren’t always affordable. Life in the big city. Or, in their case, out the T line far enough to afford on their salaries but close enough to commute to work and Red Sox games.

  Ximena kept going. “Not that she said anything. I sometimes think he only rents to us because he’s watched too much girl-on-girl porn and thinks that’s what our daily life is like, instead of laundry, bills, and dirty dishes like everyone else.”

  I’d heard it all before, and her tone said she knew she’d said it all before, but underneath the tiredness was that sharp and bitter hurt, the pain that even though her landlord knew she had asthma, he didn’t care, didn’t care about doing anything but getting his rent check every month. And I was tired of hearing about it. Time to do something.

  I dug my cellphone out of my front pocket and popped open Bitter, my home-rolled app that linked social media accounts for people I wasn’t happy with. The only software I knew of powered by magic — my magic, which I mostly used for rerouting electricity or the like. I never had to worry about a dropped phone call, since that was just another electromagnetic signal. In this case, I would be sending magic as a spell packet via the Internet. I’m a witch, not like the ones you’ll see on the talk shows who are very proud of their designation and Wiccan heritage, but what I lovingly call a technowitch. And I didn’t talk about it to most of the people I know. The other witches I knew just called themselves witches, but still didn’t talk about their magic to the world at large.

  Ximena’s landlord didn’t use a pic of himself as an avatar, although he had upgraded from default blank faces to chisel-faced cartoon characters, if you could call that an upgrade.

  After a quick guilty glance around to make sure no one was watching — I tried to keep my hexing on my own time, not work time — I tapped her landlord’s avatar, then the skull icon on the bottom of the screen. The skull reminded me that revenge was serious business, with serious repercussions, and all those other platitudes that my mentor Carole had tried to instill in me. It wasn’t her fault that my natural talent was for payback. I preferred to think of it as just retribution for wrongs done — and this dude had certainly done Ximena wrong — rather than eye-for-an-eye vengeance feud where it simply escalated forever and nothing was ever enough to settle the debt.

  It let me sleep at night, anyway.

  And it wasn’t like I was going to kill the guy or do anything that would hurt his chance of making a living. Ximena and Missy needed somewhere to live, after all. If something happened to the apartment, they would be hurt more
than he would. No, my intention was for this to be just a tweak to his day to make him think twice about things. In magic, intention mattered.

  The spell seemed ridiculous on the surface — I sent him a gif of Bugs Bunny giving Yosemite Sam an exploding cee-gar (as Sam would put it), with a bit of my magic tied on. The app tugged briefly at me, drawing on my magic, and then it was done. The gif would pop up on whichever social feed he looked at first, from some random name, and he’d never even think about it again. Well, it might cross his mind as a strange coincidence when the next cigar he smoked blew up in his face, but he’d certainly never think of it as cause and effect.

  With luck, that would make him think twice about the cigars in general, and Ximena wouldn’t have to put up with them as much. So she’d breathe easier and be healthier, which our tiny health plan would appreciate. Heck, even the landlord’s health plan would probably benefit from his lowered risk of lung cancer. Wins all around.

  Couldn’t do anything about the leaky faucet in her kitchen sink, though. Can’t do everything.

  Just after the largest wave of the lunchtime crowd dispersed, I was working on espressos for a couple of hipsters — Kyle and Noah, whose names I had carefully written on their cups. (Kyle, in particular, wanting to make sure I didn’t write “Kylo,” since he’d been getting that a lot lately. He hadn’t appreciated my suggestion that he give his name as Ben.) The door opened behind me, and I heard the familiar voice of my best friend chattering animatedly about drawing.

  “I’ll be with you in a minute,” I tossed over my shoulder. Beth had changed out her blonde-and-blue bob to straight green, but before I could frame a compliment on the new do, I got a look at the man she was talking to.

  Tall, dark, and handsome? Check. Classic Greek curls and dark eyes that would make my mom swoon? Check. A dimple in his left cheek that begged me to come over there and kiss it? Also check.

  All of that would have been enough to warrant a second long look, but none of that was the most compelling thing about him. Nope. What grabbed my attention was the prickles shooting up and down my arms as if I’d just walked past a substation, the kind of sensation that I usually only got when I was hanging out with another powerful witch. Not that he had a witchy vibe to him. I didn’t know what he was, other than compelling.

  And strong enough to set off my magic without me intending to let it loose. He flashed a smile, and those prickles turned into a jolt of pure energy, leaping from me to every electrical object within five feet. The espresso machine crackled, and steam and sparks shot everywhere. The smell of ozone cut through the heavier coffee and pastry scents. Embarrassed, I turned back to deal with the mess.

  Of course, the display hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other customers, even if they didn’t know what had actually happened. “What the hell?” Kyle asked. “Does this mean we’re not going to get our drinks?”

  Behind them, Beth gave me a sympathetic grimace.

  I silently counted to five, then ten, as I turned off and unplugged the machine before I turned around to smile sympathetically at Kyle and Aaron. “Just a minor malfunction. It’ll reset.” Because if my power could fry it, my power could fix it, although I preferred to have a circuit diagram before trying that kind of work. Not a luxury I had at the moment. “I’m so sorry for the delay. Have a complimentary pastry while you wait.” I turned to Ximena. “Please get these gentlemen something to eat, and cards for free drinks the next time they come in. It’ll take me a couple of minutes to get the machine back up and running.”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  No circuit diagram, people watching, and the electric presence of that man standing next to Beth. I took a deep breath. If I rushed this, things would get worse, and I really couldn’t afford to have that happen. I rolled my shoulders and opened the side panel on the machine, running my hands over it. A quick pulse showed me that the problem was a quick fix — I popped out the blown fuse and headed to the back room to grab a replacement. Some of the tension drained from me as I went. No mending melted wires today.

  Not that I could, really. What I usually did instead was melt them farther and reforge the wires, and it wasn’t easy because that’s not what I was good at. I could do two things: revenge and tech. Actual physical work took a different mindset.

  Dealing with the machine and the hipsters gave me time to gather my thoughts.

  By the time Beth came up to the counter, I had her usual ready and waiting for her. She gave me a quick hug, which I happily returned before I turned an expectant look on her companion. “Your order?”

  “Just coffee. Black. For here.” His warm voice sent fingers up and down my spine. Magic? Or just sex appeal?

  Maybe a bit of both. I filled a mug with Tanzanian peaberry and set it on the counter between us rather than handing it to him. If his fingers brushed mine, I might knock out power on the entire block.

  He smiled as if he knew what I was thinking.

  Beth interrupted our by-play. “For here? I thought you were going to walk me back to the office?”

  He shook his head, making the curls bounce. “I’m done there for the day, and it sounded like you were going to be quite involved when you get back. Those ideas!”

  She brushed the comment away. “Those won’t take long at all, not to meet what the client’s looking for. And only a bit more time to give them what they actually need. No, what I’m going to spend my afternoon on is contacting a few galleries.”

  “Galleries?” I asked. “For work?”

  “No, I want to dust off some of my old drawings, maybe the paintings I did a few years back, see if someone would be willing to put them up for sale.” She bit at her lip, the way she always did when she was unsure of herself and wanting someone else to shore up her self-image.

  “I told you then that you should show them. It’s about time you listened to me.”

  “Spoken like a true friend.” She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “Damn straight.” I grinned. “Somebody’s got to push you.”

  “Uh-huh. And who’s going to push you to do more with your life?”

  I started ticking people off on my fingers. “My mom. My aunts. Mrs. Liu. Mr. Liu. Both of their daughters…”

  “And we all know how effective they’ve been so far.”

  “It’s a nice, quiet life. Low surprises, just the way I like it.”

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed her pastry bag from the counter. “I’ve got to be getting back. Try not to have any more low surprises like that espresso machine.”

  “I’m not making any promises.”

  Especially with her companion staying behind. He winked at me, displaying that dimple again as he headed for a seat in the corner. Oh, yes. My attention was definitely going to be divided for the rest of the afternoon.

  Chapter 2

  Rich, the other assistant manager, came in ten minutes early for his shift. “Kendall hasn't been in, has she? I've left her half a dozen messages.”

  “Haven't seen her. Dire emergency or normal bureaucracy?” I kept stacking cups to prep for the late night rush from the students at Emerson.

  “The usual.” He reached behind his head and deftly twisted a hair tie onto his shoulder-length brown hair. “Is she going to approve my vacation time, when's she going to hire someone else to help with close, and why is all that paint stacked up in the back room, cutting down on valuable storage area?”

  “As long as it's nothing too pressing.”

  “Easy for you to say. She already okayed your time off.” He nodded at the register. “Counted?”

  “I'll do that now if you'll finish the supplies.” I traded places with him and keyed the register to print the shift’s receipts while I started counting the bills.

  Rich knew as well as I did that Kendall had hired a crew to paint the coffee shop a month ago. It wasn't her fault they hadn't been by since, and I didn't have enough information to hex them and so encourage better behavior. Magic only solved problems if I
had knowledge to back it up.

  He bumped me with his hip. Quietly, he said, “What's the story with the dude over there?”

  My eyes flicked toward the corner, although I knew exactly who he was talking about, knew in my skin precisely where Beth’s friend was, and had at every moment since he'd come in. He wasn't looking at me, but the knowing smile on his face said he knew I was watching.

  “Friend of a friend. Never met him before.”

  “I'd say he means to change that.”

  Heat flooded my cheeks, and the man’s smile broadened. How the devil could he hear us?

  I checked my tally against the register, put the day's cash into a banker bag, and headed for the office to lock it in the drop safe. I called over my shoulder, “The shop’s yours for the night, Rich. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.”

  “I could tell you the same.”

  “Whatever.” As if I ever did anything but head straight home, grabbing the twins on the way.

  Yes, twins — my kids. It's complicated. Or maybe not.

  What do you do if your ex shows up on your doorstep in the middle of a blizzard, telling you his parents are worried about a death curse if he doesn't have kids? It took a while for the whole story to come out — a Lung dragon had put a spell on his mother’s offspring to always have twins, which was fine when only his oldest sister, Vanessa, had children. But now the middle child, Celeste, was trying to get pregnant, and their parents were concerned that four grandchildren would be tied to death, what with the words for four and death being linked in Chinese, so they wanted Matt to have children, too.

  If you're most people, when you hear this kind of story, you probably figure he's trying to get into your pants again. If you're a witch who deals in hexes, you might be a bit skeptical because death doesn’t sound like the intention of the spell. Blessings of abundance don’t turn into death curses. And Matt had always been leery of magic, so pandering to his parents’ fears seemed a bit out of character for him.