“And that is more than enough of that, thank you very much,” she told him and her traitorous body firmly as she stepped away. Luckily, she hadn’t crushed her breakfast muffin or she would be licking it off his chest and not for any amorous reason. Cake was cake. There was no excuse for wasting it.
Besides, she’d have been licking it off his t-shirt anyway, not his bare chest. Unlike yesterday, today he was dressed like a mortal. More or less. The t-shirt and jeans she’d conjured for him stretched over his impressive muscle mass, making her tingle in her lady parts and relive that almost kiss all over again. Through some trickery of fae illusion, his wings had disappeared.
“What are you looking at?” he asked as she lifted up on her tiptoes, frowning as she looked at his shoulders.
“I can’t even see a bulge,” she murmured and then heat rushed to her cheeks as Garlick gave a dirty snigger.
Oberon’s grin broadened and he slid a hand down his body to cup his groin. “Need to look a lot lower, beautiful, and it’s all yours.”
Garlick gagged.
She shook her head at the pair of them and stalked off up the steps. There was no sign of Sybil, so she pushed her way through the rotating doors, letting the boys catch up when they were done being arseholes.
She passed Dave in the gift shop with a small wave, noticing absently that he looked a little upset. Probably been given the boot by one of his many girlfriends. Footsteps rang out behind them as they approached the Pendle witches.
“Whaddup, Daffs!”
She turned to find Meg behind them, running to catch up. As she slid to a stop, she swiped a corner of Daffi’s breakfast muffin in a practiced movement.
“Did you hear the news? Sybil bought it last night!”
Daffi sighed and wrapped her napkin over her muffin protectively. Otherwise she’d have to stab Meg, and stabbing your friend just wasn’t on. Besides, she’d have to clean the blood up and wouldn’t get her section cleaned and ready in time for the tyrant-in-chief, Whipsnide’s, little check.
“Bought what?” she asked, in no mood to play guessing games—unless the prize was another cake. She’d do a lot for cake.
“The farm!” Meg’s eyes were wide, her hiss more sibilant than usual.
“Kicked the bucket. Well, someone nailed her, and not in a good way…” She drew her finger over her neck and made a kkkkreeeeeeeuuuugggh sound.
“Sybil’s dead?” Daffi frowned. “She can’t be. I just sa—”
Her mouth closed so quickly she heard the snap. She’d seen Sybil after she was dead. It was happening again.
“She’s dead?”
Meg nodded, shoving her swiped piece of muffin into her mouth and speaking between chews. “Killer got her down Gore Alley.”
“How?”
“Hellfire machete.”
Daffi winced. Witches and Warlocks were seriously hard to kill, but a machete bathed in hellfire would do it.
Then her eyes widened. “Wait… Gore Alley? I usually go home that way.”
Meg nodded. “Yeah. The watch said it was about half-six last night.”
Daffi’s breath caught in her throat. A horrible feeling settled in the pit of her stomach like the after effects of dodgy takeaway. She normally walked home that way between 6 and 7 p.m. Apart from last night.
“Shit.” She ran her hand through her hair. “If we hadn’t gone to Daphne’s I could have seen the killer. I could have been the killee… is that even a word?”
Meg had sidled around to Daffi’s other side while she was distracted and swiped another piece of muffin as she eyed Oberon up.
“We?” she asked pointedly, popping her purloined section of cake in her mouth as she looked Oberon over.
Daffi smiled a smile she didn’t mean and linked her arm with the fae king’s. She didn’t like the predatory gleam in the other woman’s eyes.
“This is Ron, my boyfriend. He’s helping me out while he has time off.”
Meg cocked an eyebrow. “Really now?”
“Really.” Daffi’s voice was harder as tension swelled in the air. Not the tension that would indicate power being called but an older, much more primitive tension when alpha females butted heads. People thought men were bad for competition…
“Fight… fight… fight…” Garlick stage whispered.
Daffi kicked at him and it broke the spell. Meg shuddered and shook her head. “Anyway, Old Whippy’s got a watchman in The Office. Wants to see you.”
Daffi groaned, an automatic reaction to having to go see the tyrant-in-chief, and turned to Garlick.
“Take O… Ron up to get started. I’ll be up soon.”
“You wanted to see me, Ms. Whipsnide?” Daffi called out as she pushed open the door to The Office. It squealed loudly. Malevolently.
“Yes… come on in, Miss McGee. Sergeant Abberline, this is Daffodil McGee,” Ms. Whipsnide said as Daffi edged around the door. Not because she was nervous but because the damn thing had a habit of snapping back and catapulting the unwary back out into the corridor.
Ms. Whipsnide was sitting behind her desk, her teapot hovering in the air as it poured tea for her and the other occupant of the room. A watchman sat beside her with a plate of biscuits in front of him. Daffi cast them a quick look. Custard creams. Whippy had pulled out all the stops.
“Take a seat, Miss McGee,” she ordered. “Daffodil is one of our junior curators here at the museum. She was the last person to see Sybil alive.”
The sergeant took the tea with a murmur of thanks and balanced it on his knee as he looked at Daffi. He was a thin, neat man with an odd gleam in his eyes. A notebook sat perched on the desk in front of him, a pencil next to it. She didn’t need a set square to know it was perfectly aligned, and she was pretty sure that was a bylaw book peeking out of the breast pocket of his uniform jacket.
The sergeant looked at
