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

  “It is, Justine,” Ted confirmed in his monotonous tone.

  Oy vey. You’d think that the prehistoric crypt keeper could have gone the extra mile on her verbal acumen. Speaking of things that go bump in the dark, have you heard from your mother?

  “No, I haven’t,” I muttered back in response as we walked up the small path toward Mr. Jenkins’ front door. “Heidi, have you heard from my mother?”

  “No,” Heidi replied as she reached into her purse. She gave me a curious look before she rang the doorbell. “Why? Isn’t she on her way back from New York City?”

  “I texted her an SOS, but she hasn’t replied at all.” I blamed Leo for bringing up my mother, because now all I could wonder about was if she was in some kind of trouble. Again, one would think that my palm would react to such an obvious threat. “I’ll try her again as soon as we’re done speaking with Mr. Jenkins. Leo, do your blippy thing before—”

  My sentence was cut off when Mr. Jenkins swung his front door open with his usual perpetual frown in place. He was a bit overweight with ruddy cheeks and a slightly bulbous nose. It was hard to picture him being much of a vampire.

  “Hi, Mr. Jenkins,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. “We were wondering if we could—”

  “Your annoying cat jumped into my petunias again,” Mr. Jenkins grumbled, cutting me off for a second time. I spared a glance down to make sure that Leo wasn’t still visible, breathing a sigh of relief when he was nowhere to be found. “You’re lucky there was no damage this time.”

  “Actually, that’s why we stopped by,” I said, hesitating when I spotted Heidi pull her hand out of her purse. It wasn’t long before I got a whiff of strong garlic. “Um, we were wondering if you heard about the hairy-legged vampire bat that Janice rescued recently. Apparently, she left his enclosure open, and he escaped. You know how bats like fur, hair, and such. One thing led to another until Count Cuddles landed on Leo, who then ran into your petunia bush to try and shake him off. I was chasing close behind, but we think the poor thing might still be in your bush.”

  I didn’t need to see Heidi’s smirk to know that I was rambling, but it would be well worth looking like a fool if Leo found evidence that Mr. Jenkins was the visiting vampire. The older gentleman was still frowning, but at least he hadn’t booted us off of his property.

  “Ted is helping with the search, so he’s just taking a peek around your back yard,” I continued, noticing that Mr. Jenkins was giving Heidi an odd look. “As always, you know that if Leo damaged your petunias that I would pay for any of the damages. He was so scared when the—”

  “Are you sick or something?”

  I snapped my teeth together when Mr. Jenkins interrupted me to speak with Heidi, his brow deeply furrowed in suspicion. He didn’t seem concerned in the least that Ted and Justine were in his backyard, nor did he seem even the slightest bit perturbed that there could be a hairy-legged vampire bat on his property. Not that he would be bothered by such a thing if he were a vampire, but I’d still assume that he wouldn’t want to be connected to the fanged critter in any way.

  “I’ve been a little under the weather,” Heidi replied as she rested her left hand on her cheek. She still had slight blemishes underneath her eyes from lack of sleep. Granted, she looked better than she had earlier this morning. “Don’t worry, though. I wasn’t near the bat or anything. I just thought I’d come help Raven search for the poor rascal. Do I look bad, though?”

  “I smell garlic,” Mr. Jenkins mumbled, rubbing a finger under his nose. “I always eat more garlic than usual when I feel a cold coming on. Well, go on then. Look around the house, but you keep your irritating feline menace to society out of my petunias.”

  And just like that, Mr. Jenkins slammed the door in our faces. We stood there staring at the brass knocker in shock.

  Had he been telling the truth?

  Did he eat garlic on a regular basis?

  For that matter, any basis?

  “Well, that didn’t go quite as planned,” Heidi murmured, shoving the garlic powder back into her purse after she’d screwed the cap back on. She scrunched her nose when she realized that the odor had become rather overbearing after having gotten stuck on the palm of her hand. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d probably never be able to use her purse again. “What do you make of that?”

  “I’m afraid that Mr. Jenkins might not be our visiting vampire,” I replied, deep in thought. We both turned and began to walk slowly down the thin pathway. “Leo ending up in his petunias might just have been a coincidence.”

  “I take it that your palm didn’t heat up or anything?” Heidi asked as she rummaged through her purse. She finally let out an exclamation of victory when she produced a tissue, which she used to try and wipe the strong garlic odor from her hand. “When was the last time you felt any tingles indicating danger?”

  “At the shop, but that was only because I met Justine.”

  “I can only imagine how that went down.” Heidi gave up with the tissue and tossed it back into her purse. “Do you think Rye is going to be a problem? I mean, he won’t go bringing the coven down on our heads, will he?”

  “No, although he did say he was going to warn Aunt Rowena that Ted finally has a companion.” I debated if we should go around back to search for Count Cuddles, but I caught sight of Ted and Justine walking toward us from around the other side of the house. “Trust me, even Aunt Rowena isn’t brave enough to go up against a druid of unknown strength. She’ll leave well enough alone. Look, here comes Ted and Justine.”

  “We didn’t find the bat, Miss Raven.”

  “We checked all the bushes, too,” Justine said with certainty.

  “Do you need us for anything else?”

  “We can stay if you like,” Justine followed up as she switched her focus between Heidi and me.

  Maybe I should go back inside with the hoarder. I can’t take the monotonous conversation that’s barely flowing out here.

  “Leo, what did you find out?” I asked when he suddenly appeared from underneath my car. He was now sitting on the sidewalk next to Heidi’s red high heel. “We’re not sure he’s the visiting vampire. He said that he likes to eat garlic to ward off common colds.”

  “By the way, that was the perfect opportunity for a sales pitch on your holistic blends,” Heidi interjected with a bit of disappointment. She then waved her hand when I sighed in exasperation. “Sorry. Carry on.”

  You’re lucky that I got out of that pigsty alive. Papers, boxes, magazines, and seed packets were stacked on top of one another, and that doesn’t even include the pile of junk mail that I may or may not have knocked over onto the floor. I couldn’t help it. It all but dared me, Raven.

  “Well, it looks as if we’re back to square one,” I said with a bit of defeat. “Ted and Justine, are you sure there wasn’t any sign of the bat? I mean, he’s relatively small. He could be easy to miss.”

  Are you kidding me? With that red hair, Count Fangs-A-Lot would have been all over that plastic—

  “Get in the car,” I ordered with impatience, unhappy that this entire mission had blown up in our faces. I turned back to Ted and Justine, making sure that I had a smile on my face. They were so happy together that it was hard to feel otherwise. “You two can go and enjoy your afternoon. Heidi and I are going to try and track down Mom before we grab some lunch. I’ll need the standard ingredients for a charm spell later tonight, though.”

  “I think it’s time you meet Ivan,” Ted said to Justine as he took her hand and began to lead her away.

  “Is Ivan the local grim reaper?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is all very exciting.”

  Heidi and I listened to their conversation as they walked hand in hand down the sidewalk. Ted was wearing his black suit, while Justine resembled a woman right out of the 1960s. Her lime green bellbottom pants were complimented with a yellow top. It wasn’t easy coming to terms with the fact that a plastic golem had better
taste in clothes than me.

  “Not a word, Leo.”

  Who? Me?

  “I wonder if Agnus would be willing to tell me where she bought Justine’s clothes,” Heidi said, no doubt admiring the green and yellow scarf that Justine had tied loosely around her neck. “I simply love those vibrant colors.”

  I don’t know about you, but I’d say that we all deserve an afternoon nap. Seeing as we’re back to square one, we might as well sleep on it.

  “We’re not back to square one,” I said with a little pep in my step. I walked around to the driver’s side door of my old Corolla with a few missions in mind. “We still have two names to check off our list of who could possibly be the visiting vampire. We also need to reach back out to Mom and find Count Cuddles.”

  “I’m going to walk back to my house and wash my hands first,” Heidi said, holding her fingers wide open. I was really glad that I was on the other side of the car. “Then I’ll start calling your Mom. She’ll answer eventually.”

  “Okay,” I replied, liking that we were splitting up the duties. “I’ll find out where the two other men live and see if it’s possible that they could be the vampires. Leo, you canvass the neighborhood to see if you can find Count Cuddles.”

  What do I look like to you—a slobbering hound? Besides, I’m pretty sure that my beloved Rosemary’s necromancy spell gave me a deviated septum. Does my nose look bent to you? It could be why my whiskers appear crooked.

  Heidi waited for me to relay Leo’s message, but I shook my head. It wasn’t worth repeating, and we had a lot to do today.

  “Meet me at the diner in a half an hour,” I suggested, opening my car door. “I’ll find out what I can about Sampson Aker and Charlie Buttons. I’ll also check in at the pet shop to see if Janice found Count Cuddles. Maybe someone in the neighborhood spotted him and gave her a call.”

  “It’s a good thing that I didn’t have any appointments today,” Heidi said, turning with wave. “See you in a bit.”

  Maybe I should go with her. You never know if Count Fangs-A-Lot is just waiting for some unsuspecting blonde to walk by his hiding place. I mean, look at how attracted he was to my orange and black tufts.

  “You’re not going with Heidi,” I said sternly, knowing that Leo was thinking that maybe he could score some more delicious edibles. He’d had his quota today, and he certainly didn’t need the calories. For that matter, neither did I. There was definitely a salad in my immediate future. “You’re going to join the search for Count Cuddles. I don’t know how he found you originally, but maybe he’ll do so again.”

  You want me to purposefully sacrifice this GQ body for a defective bat? I’m to be used as bait then. We need to go over the terms of my contract that you seem to think I didn’t sign. You are clearly in need of some mental antioxidants, Raven. Do you like blueberries?

  Chapter Seven

  “Any luck?” I asked Liam after spotting him walking out of the pet shop. I hadn’t even had time to check on Beetle, but he would have called if there had been a problem with any sales today. “I was going to check with Janice to see if she had any luck with finding Count Cuddles.”

  “No,” Liam replied grimly. He scanned the street and sidewalks before focusing his attention on me. “Janice told me that he can’t fly at all. I’m afraid—”

  “Don’t say another word,” I said, covering my ears until I was sure that he wouldn’t finish his sentence. “I’m well aware of what could happen to him. We just searched Mr. Jenkins’ yard, but there was no sign of him. I wouldn’t think he could have gotten far, so I sent Leo back out to look for him.”

  “I bet that went over like a ton of bricks,” Liam said wryly before crossing his arms in thought. “I take it Mr. Jenkins isn’t who you thought he was?”

  “No, he was not,” I said begrudgingly, lowing my arms and slipping my hands into my pockets. “He apparently loves garlic. What do you know about Samson Aker and Charlie Buttons?”

  “I highly doubt that either one is a vampire, if that’s what you’re asking. Then again, I never suspected Ivan as the grim reaper.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to get used to one more supernatural being,” I warned, wishing that I didn’t have to spring this on him now. On the bright side, it meant that I didn’t have to cast a spell that was way beyond my abilities. “Justine is here.”

  Liam blinked a few times before recognition dawned and his jaw slightly opened in shock.

  “I know, it surprised me too.” A flash of pink caught my eye. It looked as if Mr. C had somehow absconded with a pink feather for his nest. The colorful home was quite the sight up on the lamppost outside of the bakery. “You can meet her later. She and Ted went to visit Ivan. Do you want to join Heidi and me for lunch?”

  “I wish I could, but I told Janice that I would go have a look around the church. Apparently, bats like steeples. I’m not so sure that is true of ones that can’t fly, but I’m willing to gamble,” Liam replied, going into more of an explanation as to why he would be checking the base. It wasn’t like Count Cuddles could fly up there. “She said that Elsie and Wilma commented on seeing large birds flying around the steeple the past few nights. Janice knows those two well enough that they could easily mistake a bat for a bird. If that’s the case, maybe Count Cuddles is hanging around the church grounds with the rest of his colony.”

  The palm of my hand began to tingle in warning. The sudden energy that began to coil was quite startling, and I realized that the vampire’s beacon to pack up his bags and leave town was happening sooner rather than later.

  “Liam, I’m afraid that we’re running out of time,” I murmured, massaging my hand with a bit of caution. “Will you call me immediately if you find Count Cuddles or any of the other bats?”

  “Of course,” Liam assured me, giving me a curious glance. “Are you sure that you don’t want to go with me?”

  “I think I’m going to try to use a locator spell.” I’d thought about casting such an incantation this morning, but that meant I had to acquire something of Count Cuddles. Considering he was a bat, that made it rather difficult. “I need to see inside of Count Cuddles’ carrier. There’s got to be something inside that I can use for the spell.”

  Liam held up a finger as he began to walk backward, a smile forming on his handsome face as he finally turned around on his boots and reentered the pet shop. I debated following him, but he would have let me know if he’d wanted me to accompany him back inside. I waited patiently while waiting for him to return, hoping that Heidi had been able to reach my mother by now.

  Just to make sure that I hadn’t missed any texts from Mom, I checked my cell phone.

  No messages whatsoever.

  It wasn’t like her to completely fall off the grid. She’d been keeping in close contact with me on her trips to New York City, letting me know who she was meeting in rather obscure settings. The supernatural took their security and safety to the extreme. It was a possibility that she’d underestimated the lengths they would go to in order to ensure their secrecy.

  Maybe I should cast a locator spell on her.

  If there was even the slightest chance that she was in trouble, it would be best to get out ahead of it. Then again, using such an incantation would generate energy that someone or something might notice around my mother. A spell of such nature could actually put her in more danger.

  I was in quite the conundrum, wasn’t I?

  Is there a reason that you’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, mentally having a conversation with yourself?

  “Leo, don’t do that!” I exclaimed, startling to the point that I almost dropped my phone. He waltzed out from behind a car’s tire, wiggling his backend as if he’d completed a very important task. “You’re a familiar. Not a domestic housecat, as you’ve reminded me on more than a few occasions.”

  Instincts are sometimes very hard to overcome. I’ve got to admit that I got that special zing of satisfaction at watching that pile of junk mail
go toppling down onto the old geyser’s living room floor.

  “Why are you here instead of out looking for Count Cuddles?” I asked suspiciously, all the while wondering what Liam was doing in the pet shop. It then hit me that maybe Leo had found the hairy-legged vampire bat. “You found him? Leo, this is fantastic! Liam was just telling me that there might be a colony of bats seeking shelter inside the church’s steeple. I was afraid that we were running out of time to figure out who—”

  Colony? You mean, more than one flying demon is among us? Oh, I don’t feel so good. I’m suddenly thinking of taking a mental health day.

  Leo plopped down on his haunches as his left eye protruded quite predominantly more than his right. His whiskers also had an uncontrollable twitch, which told me that he was a hair’s breadth away from one of his dramatic asthma attacks.

  “Leo, where is Count Cuddles?” I asked, leaning down and giving him a pat on the head so that any onlookers didn’t think that I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk talking to myself.

  How should I know? You just told me that Hades is about to reign down on us! We need to take a page out of Skippy’s battleplan, Raven. I thought that maybe he was overreacting, but he clearly had the right idea all along!

  “Leo, we have time,” I reassured him as best I could without giving away my own anxiety. That wasn’t an easy feat, to say the least. “One, I remember reading that the bats circled the church’s steeple for many nights before any major catastrophes took place near the pier. I’ll let Liam know that he should call the harbormaster to monitor the marina.”

  You said one. I take it there is a second reason that I shouldn’t be hyperventilating?

  “Yes,” I replied, though it wasn’t the greatest motivation in this situation. Actually, it was rather selfish. “The major diversion that the visiting vampire uses to make his getaway seems to always be centered around the pier. We’re safe in town.”

  Leo’s left eye blinked slowly, but at least he hadn’t initiated his hairball routine.