I tucked my tool bag beside the front door, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work, smashing a beetle under my boot as it tried to scurry away. The crunch made me shiver with revulsion.
Yuck.
CHAPTER 9
Fiella
Ifelt much better once I had a mission in mind.
Step 1, convince Kizzi to help me get rid of the demon-spawn beetles, but without impacting her business in the process.
Step 2, clean up my shop enough that the vampire stranger can start rebuilding my shelves.I really need to figure out his name at some point.
Step 3, rebuild and reorganize.
Step 4, sell everything in the shop, get rich, and never have to work again in my life unless I want to.
Goblet-half-full, or whatever.
I burst into Kizzi’s shop desperate for some help. I knew she would have my back, as she always did, but I didn’t know if her magical expertise would extend to beetle extermination.
“Kiz!” I shouted as soon as I caught sight of the witch behind the counter. Thank the gods there weren’t any customers in the shop today, I didn’t want to make a habit of scaring away her clientele.
We all needed as many customers as we could get during the slow season.
I didn’t waste any time getting straight to the point. “I need your magical brain to figure out how to get rid of wood-munching beetles!”
Kizzi just stared at me for a moment. “A quickhellowould have sufficed, but I suppose that works too.” She set a bundle of herbs on the counter and dusted her hands off on her thighs. “I’ve been thinking about this since you came into my shop this morning, but I need all the details. You didn’t really explain much when you were blubbering on my shoulder, which is totally understandable, by the way! I’m not judging at all. I’m just saying. Explain, please.”
I did. I told Kizzi everything, even including the parts where I drowned my sorrows in lavender blueberry ciders and encountered the nameless vampire with my face smeared in snot.
Kizzi’s face filled with compassion as she absorbed my story. It wasn’t that I didn’t like pity, because who didn’t like to be the center of attention every once in a while, but coming from my best friend, it made me feel squirmy.
What I needed was some help and a kick in the ass to get things fixed.
“Girl… no offense, I know you’re having a delicate moment right now, but that’s so embarrassing,” Kizzi said. Her hand pressed over her mouth muffled her words. “That guy was pretty cute too! Rude, but cute!”
“Don’t remind me,” I grumbled. It was bad enough that anyone had seen me during a humiliating low point. The fact that the guy was an asshole and a hottie made it a million times worse.
“You’re lucky your best friend is a magical genius!” Kizzi proclaimed. She was many things, but humble was certainly not one of them.
Kizzi went on to explain to me that, while she didn’t have all the necessary ingredients to create a fumigation brew, she knew exactly where to find them.
I didn’t ask for all the details, because I didn’t understand most of what the witches got up to, but I trusted her to handle it.
“Will you bring me one of those beetles when you get the chance? I’ll get it to the coven so we can start investigating,” Kizzi asked.
“Now how in the realms am I supposed to do that? Just pick it up and carry it in my hand?”
She flapped a hand in my direction. “I don’t know, Fi, figure something out. Use that beautiful brain of yours.”
“Whatever. Sure, sure. I’ll bring one of those demon-spawn beetles over as soon as I can.”
Discovering where the enchanted beetles had come from orwhohad sent them was going to be a whole different situation to sort out. But that was a problem for another day. I could only do so much at a time. Hopefully the coven would be able to perform a ritual or something and they would have answers for me.
I left Kizzi’s, feeling hopeful now that I knew I could get rid of the beetles and rebuild my shop, one step at a time.
Iburst back into Fiella’s Finds, completely forgetting the vampire stranger I had left behind earlier. Once I had my mind set on an idea, I got tunnel vision and couldn’t think about anything else.
