Batty Blend (A Paramour Bay Cozy Paranormal Mystery Book 13) Read online

  I’d been prepared for one of our epic arguments, maybe even a long-winded lecture on my part for once instead of the other way around. What I hadn’t expected was to witness my mother’s lower lip tremble as she fought against the tears that inevitably welled up in her eyes.

  What is happening? Raven, tell her to stop that right now. I don’t handle the crying thing very well.

  I didn’t even bother with the rearview mirror this time.

  I turned around and glared at Leo with all my might when my mother burst into those tears she’d been trying to stem. Sob after sob wracked her body.

  Don’t look at me. It’s my supplier and former BFF who has created this whole mess!

  “Mom, please don’t cry,” I pleaded as I leaned over her lap to open the glove compartment. I rummaged around until I found some brown paper napkins that had been stuffed in there some time ago. “We can fix this. We can. We’ll let Beetle know that there’s another way than faking his death and leaving town.”

  I just realized that I’ve gone from a soulmate to a former soulmate and then a BFF to a former BFF all in the span of one day. I’ve got a feeling that it’s a record of some kind, but that might give me a complex. Carry on.

  “You’ll really d-do that for me?” my mom asked as she tried to control the uncontrollable sobs.

  I feel like I should have hitched a ride with the good ol’ sheriff. I don’t care for these tugs on my heart strings. I’m vulnerable today for obvious reasons, you know.

  “Mom, what on earth are you talking about?” I shoved the napkins into her hands, recognizing the fact that she’d missed all of today’s events. “Harry, Ted, Justine, and Leo have all agreed with me that we should offer the vampire a hand at being able to remain in Paramour Bay. Knowing that it was Beetle we’ve been searching for all along, we’ll do everything we can to make sure that he stays here.”

  I don’t mean to stall this conversation or anything, but I would like a bit of clarification. Are we saying that we don’t mind that my former BFF drinks blood to survive? I’ve got to be honest and say that it skeeves me out a bit.

  “I love him,” my mother said, drawing out the words as if she was going to have to say goodbye to him. “When I figured out that he was the one we’d been searching for all these months, I needed to take some time to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

  I don’t blame her, Raven. I’m not so sure I could lie against a cold undead corpse in my cat bed, either. Then again, my new mate is being groomed to be a filthy hoarder as we speak. I completely understand the tough decisions that now weigh on us all.

  “Tell me what happened,” I prodded her gently, shoving another napkin in her hand after she’d blown her nose in the other napkins. “I take it you found out about Beetle this morning?”

  My mother nodded, sniffling loudly as she used the clean napkin to dap underneath her eyes so that she didn’t smudge her eyeliner. She took a few more moments to compose herself, but she was eventually able to draw in a trembling breath and start at the beginning.

  Make sure she throws those used, snotty tissues into the garbage. I don’t want to inadvertently step on one of her snot rags.

  “I was about to head home when I decided to stop by a café that is known to be a morning hangout for some of the more supernatural elements if you get my drift,” my mother shared, her voice still a little shaky as she wisely ignored Leo’s off-handed comments. “I honestly didn’t expect to find out anything, mostly because only witches, wizards, and an occasional druid frequents the place. Imagine my surprise when I was standing in line and my phone rang with my usual good morning call that I receive from my Beetle.”

  I see where this is going, Raven. Let me clue you in—your picture shows up on your mother’s phone when you call her. I’ve seen it happen. I can only assume that my former BFF’s image does the same. I find it so hard to picture him with fangs. This is just heartbreaking.

  “Leo’s right.” My mother’s voice cracked just a tad before she regained her composure. “You see, the witch who had been standing behind me saw Beetle’s picture show up on my display. It turned out that she was a nurse at our local hospital. She was returning home just like me after a weekend in the city, and she just so happens to be the one who helps Beetle pilfer bags of blood from their blood bank.”

  I bet your mother needed an espresso after that bombshell.

  “I’m right here, Leo.” My mother seemed to have collected herself now that she’d finally revealed what had happened to her this morning. I didn’t doubt that she would rebound after such a shock. Thinking about what she had said when we were back at the house told me that she’d already made her decision. “You don’t have to talk about me as if I’m not here. Anyway, I did happen to need something to get me home. It was a double shot of espresso, if you must know. I needed time to figure out what I wanted to do and—”

  “And you love him,” I said, finishing what I already knew to be the truth. “You want Beetle to stay, and you were afraid that the rest of us might not agree. I take it the colony of bats is an indicator of some sort that lets him know his time here has come to an end?”

  My mother tilted her head in a way that told me there was a lot more to the story that she was leaving out.

  When isn’t there? I’m still waiting on how my former BFF can be the visiting vampire when he was born and raised in Paramour Bay. Even all the mental antioxidants currently running through my brain doesn’t seem to be helping solve that particular math problem.

  Leo had a point, and I frowned as I tried to connect the dots that weren’t anywhere to be found. We’d been looking for someone who hadn’t born and raised here, which had clearly been a red herring.

  Something wasn’t adding up.

  “The Beetle who I grew up with is somewhere living in Europe, if you must know.”

  Leo and I both gasped in surprise, not expecting that little tidbit in the least.

  Hold the garlic catnip! I think I’ve seen this movie before. Face Lift? Face Off?

  “A long story short, Beetle must have seen me and my mother during one of our lessons. I never knew, of course,” my mother said with a wave of dismissal. I’m not sure how she didn’t find that noteworthy, but I wasn’t about to interrupt her now that she was on a roll. “Beetle went to college, studying accounting while minoring in the Occult Sciences and Parapsychology. The more he focused on his minor, let’s just say that he became so engrossed in the details that he somehow discovered the identity of the visiting vampire.”

  My mother finally inhaled, giving both Leo and I the opportunity to digest this bit of news.

  Speak for yourself. I’m still trying to figure out who has been giving me blueberry edibles. I’m clearly going to have to separate the two in my verbiage. VB for Vampire Beetle and FB for Former Beetle.

  “Well, VB is who we all know and love,” my mother explained without snapping Leo’s head off. That in and of itself told us how much she adored the man. “I’ll sum it all up like this—the real Beetle realized there was a visiting vampire by running into Mr. Sizemore in London. He was supposed to have died in an accident on the pier around the time we were born. Anyway, the real Beetle and the so-called Mr. Sizemore talked for hours. The real Beetle offered up his identity for Mr. Sizemore to return. Of course, they needed to come up with a way to make them look the same. In the past, the vampire would just wait long enough to where no one remembered him. This time, he dyed his hair white and used blue contacts. He had help from some druid, of course. We haven’t had time to really delve into that part of the story. Anyway, the real Beetle and our Beetle spent enough time together that he was able to mimic the real Beetle’s character. The vampire finally returned to town to take over the accounting firm that the real Beetle had started right after college. You see, he’d hired someone to take over during his hiatus to Europe. It turns out that he wanted to remain there to study the occult. It was the perfect exchange, and they formed
a pact.”

  I don’t like where this is headed, Raven. This means that I’ve been taking edibles from a vampire this entire time. Pretty soon, you’re going to tell me he doesn’t even drive a red VW, but a white van with catnip balloons printed on the side to lure unsuspecting familiars to their death.

  “Our vampire Beetle is the most kind, generous, and compassionate man who I have ever met, Leo,” my mother defended with conviction. “He loves Paramour Bay. It has been his home for centuries, and he always returns. But most importantly, he made sure that all of his clients had proper representation when it came to their finances, he has always lent a hand to anyone who has needed it over the years, he now helps out at the teashop because he wants to remain a part of the town, and he absolutely adores you, Leo. He is always mulling over new flavors so that you never stop wanting him to bring you treats.”

  Leo and I had remained silent while my mother told us what our Beetle stood for, and he sounded just as wonderful as we knew him to be.

  Mom had pretty much given us the answers to everything but…

  The end.

  Had Leo’s voice displayed a tremor of sadness?

  Was he on the brink of tears?

  I don’t believe I’d ever seen Leo cry before.

  Don’t be ridiculous. I’m wondering if this is the end of my premium organic catnip treats that I’ve been receiving on a regular basis ever since VB came to work for us. Although the fact that he purposefully avoided buying the garlic catnip edibles makes more sense now that we know his true identity.

  “Mom, did the colony of bats come to tell Beetle that it was time for him to go?” I asked gently, not wanting to descend this conversation back into tears.

  “Yes, but CC is getting old and his arthritis kicked in,” Mom replied with a tumultuous smile. “He is the cutest little thing, isn’t he?”

  I’m relatively sure that if we all looked in the dictionary under the word cute, the last picture that would be found would be of a hairy-legged vampire bat. Just say’in.

  “Old?” I asked, wondering if this wasn’t the winning ticket that would achieve the goal of keeping Beetle in town. “Are you saying that Beetle is…”

  Sweet angel of mercy, you just handled this situation with kid gloves in order not to send your mother into another sob fest, and now you go and ask her if he’s about to kick the bucket? Hey, I wonder if our local grim reaper has them actually do such a ritual. Remind me to ask him on Wednesday night if he owns a bucket.

  “My dear Beetle is nearing his natural end, and it would most likely coincide with my death of old age,” my mother stated matter-of-factly, tucking the used tissues into her purse. “Unfortunately, I’ll look eighty and he’ll still appear to be in his late fifties. Vampires age differently than we do, you see.”

  “And what if we were able to age his appearance with a spell every ten years or so?” I proposed, having already skimmed through the family grimoire. If we were able to create a tea blend to stem the aging process, it was more than like we could do the reverse. “I guess what I’m really asking is if Beetle wants to remain here in Paramour Bay and live the rest of his life out with you.”

  Let me get this straight. We’re going to offer a vampire the ability to stay in town along with his colony of bats, die alongside the Mistress of the Dark, and serve me premium organic catnip edibles for the next forty years or so? Oh, the sacrifices I make in my loyalty to the Marigold family. Twist my crooked whiskers and count me in!

  Chapter Sixteen

  Is there a reason that your mother didn’t mention this to us earlier?

  “Leo has a point,” I said with exasperation after we’d driven back to Beetle’s house. Mom, Leo, and I were gathered on the porch, but we’d yet to open the front door. “How does Beetle not know that you’re a witch, Mom?”

  “It didn’t come up in the conversation,” my mother replied, completely back to her usual self. She had even pulled out a tube of lipstick and hand mirror to reapply a fresh layer that was aptly named Blood Red. “I simply stated that I knew what he was and loved him anyway.”

  My hairball gag reflex is about to kick in. Can we just get this over with? I have a squirrelpocalypse to stop, a potential mate to woe, and a contract for the two golems to sign so that I don’t end up being a babysitter to a bunch of Weeble Wobbles.

  “Well, there’s no time like the present to come clean,” I said, pulling my hand away from the doorknob when another thought struck me out of the blue. “Wait a second. Mom, why did you go see Aunt Rowena this afternoon?”

  My mother arched her brow in that haughty manner of hers, but I countered it with one of my own. Now wasn’t the time to be keeping anymore secrets.

  Don’t back down, Raven. It would behoove us to know if we’re all about to get turned into fried frog legs.

  “I had planned all along to ask her to the wedding,” my mother shared with me as she stored her lipstick tube and hand mirror back into her purse. She acted as if it wasn’t a big deal to go visit a member of the governing council for the witch’s coven from which Nan had been excommunicated from years ago. Granted, we’d been doing so ourselves on and off for the last two years, but only out of necessity. “After finding out that Beetle was our visiting vampire, I was having what you might call a mini-panic attack.”

  Sweet angel of mercy, we’re all going to die a horrible death!

  “We’re not going to die or be turned into frog legs, Leo,” my mother replied with impatience. “I didn’t tell Aunt Rowena a thing about my predicament. You see, I’d already decided that I loved my Beetle too much to let him disappear into the night, never to be seen again. I simply took the opportunity to rifle through her grimoire.”

  Mom’s announcement of going behind Aunt Rowena’s back and sneaking around in her personal belongings had Leo gasping for air.

  He really did have a phobia of being turned into a toad.

  They have warts, Raven! Warts!

  “Mom, you know that Nan was the one to keep the family grimoire. Aunt Rowena only has what is basically a cheap knock-off, and she doesn’t even have all of the additional spells that Nan was able to add over the years.”

  “You and I both know that Aunt Rowena is a resourceful woman. She used her position on the council to collect spells from all the other members of the coven. Her collection of grimoires now rivals that of any that have ever existed in the history of the combined covens in America or Europe. I didn’t want to waste any time, so I took advantage of the situation.” Mom removed what had to be an imaginary piece of lint off of her shoulder. There wasn’t a speck of dirt or anything else on the black material. “If it matters any, I ran out of time in finding anything to do with vampires.”

  I think I might have found the root cause to all my bald spots—stress dealing with the you two dingleberries. I really need to see my HR rep.

  “You have bald spots because you always seem to get into tuffles with all the wildlife that resides in Paramour Bay,” I said wryly, attempting to step forward. My mother didn’t budge, which brought me up short. “Mom, let’s go inside and make Beetle our offer.”

  I might have to eat the rest of the blueberry edibles. We need to make sure to slip that in during your conversation. Back me up, Raven. I can’t be missing out on all those mental antioxidants.

  “Mom?”

  “What if Beetle doesn’t want to stay?” my mother asked, unmistakable doubt lacing each of her words. It was so out of character for her that I had to quickly wrack my brain for how to handle this situation. “What if he wants to leave?”

  “Mom, you came home and already spoke to him. You were even dressed in your kimono, so I’m assuming that your homecoming went well.”

  It’s like you just poured acid into my eyes and poison into my ears all at the same time, Raven. Must you inscribe those lurid and horrid images into my brain? I’m pretty sure they’re slowly killing off whatever mental antioxidants that I have left.

  “I prete
nded that everything was fine after our discussion,” my mother replied with a small shrug of her right shoulder. She was staring at the front door with vulnerability. “He doesn’t know that I know about the colony of bats.”

  “Well, he’s about to,” I said with determination, stepping around my mother and throwing open the front door. “Beetle, we’re home! Did Count Cuddles enjoy his tea?”

  Silence weighed heavily over the house, causing all three of us to come to a standstill in the middle of the living room.

  There wasn’t even a ripple in the air.

  My heart seized at the thought of Beetle packing his bags and leaving with his colony of bats. I’d never before seen my mother so in love before, and I’m relatively sure this would devastate her.

  Why are my eyes burning, Raven? Not even blinking rapidly is making the pain ease. Do something!

  Beetle had an old grandfather clock that was currently positioned in the corner, and the rhythmic tick was anything but reassuring. A hundred consoling sayings went through my head, but none of them were good enough to ease the undeniable heartbreak that was about to commence.

  I think I actually heard the first crack, Raven. I’m not sure if it was your mother’s heart or one of my mental antioxidants exploding into dust.

  “Hello!” Beetle exclaimed, causing all three of us to startle right off the carpet. “Hello! CC loved the tea, my dear Raven. How did you do it? No, don’t tell me! Don’t tell me. I’m just thrilled to know that the fluffy birds at the pet shop are safe from such a horrible ending. See, he is completely sated and sleeping. Why, yes he is!”

  Sure enough, CC was wrapped in his blanket making those high-pitched whistling snores through his nose as he slept in his enclosure all safe and sound.

  He really was a cute little thing with those hairy legs of his.

  “Oh, honey,” my mother exclaimed in relief, tossing her purse onto the couch as she walked toward him. She then swung her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “I thought maybe…”