“No,” I drawled, looking down at myself covered in muck and mud. “We decided to take a mud bath.”
Maybe that was too snarky. I chuckled to soften the sarcasm.
“Yes,” Beth said in a bright, professional voice. “We just got back. Your problem is all taken care of.”
Taken care of, indeed. My Karmic powers had done us a major solid today. Every time the water nymph tried to hit us or lashed out with her sharp-edged tail, the blows rebounded on her instead. It was satisfying to get hit but feel no pain from it.
Water nymphs were nothing like they’d been portrayed in pop culture. In movies and TV shows, they were all pretty, sometimes sexy even. Not in real life, oh no. They looked like fish with humanesque faces. Unlike sirens, nymphs were small, fast, and vicious. Sort of like a monkey compared with a human.
And that nymph-monkey had been angry. She’d taken us for a wild ride all over the lake on Stefano’s property. We’d eaten cookies from Deva to help us hold our breath for extraordinary lengths of time, and Beth had found a spell to create bubbles of oxygen to breathe, which had sort of worked. We’d had to come up for air a couple of times. Beth was more of a psychological sort of witch. She got visions that usually helped us solve cases and could communicate with animals. It had helped us catch the nymph. We’d hoped she’d be able to consult directly with said nymph and make all this much easier, but if her powers worked on the creature, it was not in the mood to talk to us. At least the other fish had helped us corner her or let us know where to go.
It’d taken most of the afternoon. Finally, though, we’d captured her. Beth held up the bucket we’d stashed her in. “You’ll want to change the water soon,” Beth said. “What are you going to do with her?”
Stefano shuddered delicately. “Borrow a boat and take her out on the ocean.” He snarled his upper lip at the bucket when it shuddered and sounds of water splashing came from it. “Way out.”
“I thought they were freshwater creatures?” I asked. Although I desperately wanted to make sure there weren’t any leeches in my butt crack, I couldn’t help but be curious about magical creatures. It was interesting. Maybe I would’ve known more if I’d grown up with all these powers like my friends had, but this wasallstill new to me.
“Water nymphs can live in any water,” Stephano said. “Even polluted. They’re hardy creatures, but their appetites are ferocious. She’s already gone through most of the trout I stocked in that lake.” He sniffed delicately. “That trout was for me. Not that vicious little creature.”
I held up one finger. “Sorry, but I can’t help but be curious. Surely you would’ve been faster at catching her, and certainly, it would’ve been a lot cheaper if you’d done it yourself. Not that I mind the job, of course.” I laughed uncertainly. The money was nice, but this was one job I could’ve done without. Beth was supposed to be running a detective agency, but somewhere along the line, I’d been drafted into doing magical cleanup of all sorts, including magical creatures.
Stefano’s face contorted. “Money is no obstacle. Why would I go through all that when I can so conveniently pay you two?”
Why indeed?I gave him a mock salute before heading upstairs. Time to clean out the hoo-ha and butt crack.
Beth slipped into the bathroom as I went out, and by the time I had my hair tied back and my spare change of clothes on, she was coming out in her robe. “Bryan wasn’t kidding when he said trouble was brewing in Mystic Hollow,” I said as I slathered moisturizer on my face. “The last few months have been nuts.”
She nodded and slipped behind the big screen we kept in the bedroom for a bit of privacy in moments like this. “True. We’ve had one crazy call after another.”
“Has Carol heard from him since then?” I asked.
She walked out from behind the privacy screen shaking her head and looking a little sad. “Nope. Not a word.”
I couldn’t help but be disappointed myself. Carol and Bryan were so good together. Most high school relationships everyone sort of knew would just end. And that wasn't a bad thing. Being that young, none of us knew who the heck we were yet, nor had we had any actual life experience. Everyone we dated seemed to just be someone fun to pass the time with until we went to college or got proper jobs.
But not them. In high school, Carol and Bryan had just seemed to be one of those couples who were meant to be with each other. They justgoteach other. I can't remember how many times I found those two on the bleachers knitting together. Bryan didn't care if he looked uncool doing it. Every time she was around him, he glowed, like it was the best day of his life. He played baseball, and Carol went to every game, even though she hated sports. He wore the sweaters she made for him before games for good luck, and she'd hold up signs and cheer him on.
And then he'd disappeared, her heart was broken, and I never saw her take that kind of interest in a man again.
“He seemed so worried when he came to my door a few weeks ago, and warned me of dire things coming,” I mused. “And then disappeared.Again. What gives?”
Beth bent over and ran some sort of cream through her curly blonde hair. “I’d sure like to know that myself.”
Bryan had shown up out of the blue at my door a week ago, supposedly in town for his uncle’s funeral. He was the nephew of Cliff Miller, Beth's ex's business partner, who had beentaken care ofby my Karmic powers. And even though in high school he'd just been a shy guy, a shyhumanguy, who’d seemed to love Carol... well, before he’d disappeared. He was no longer that guy. Still shy and awkward, but not human.
A vampire. It still seemed unreal. I was new to the supernatural world, but most of the vampires I’d met so far had seemed to come from a long line of vampires. I'd never met one that I'd once known as human and then been turned into a vampire. The vampires I’d met had just already been vampires, and probably for a really long time, not that I’d asked them their exact age.
The ladies had explained it didn't often happen. And yet, I didn't care that much about the vampire thing. I mean, I was human once too. What I cared about was the fact that he'd laid out a warning, told me trouble was coming, then got spooked and left.
I was starting to think that was the guy's MO. Mr. Unreliable. At least this time he managed to not break any of my friends' hearts before he left.
"As long as he leaves Carol alone, I don't care," I told her.
Beth gave me a look, those big blue eyes of her reading my soul in one glance. She knew I did care. That I'd been a little on edge since that day. "I'm sure we'll see him again. The world just sometimes takes us on weird paths."
Weird paths? Yeah, that sounded like something my witchy friend would say. I just wished I had her faith.
I sighed and picked up my dirty clothes, stuffing them into a spare grocery bag. “I’m going to get home and get these in the wash.” Yeah, there was a washer here, but it was easier to do it at home, where I spent more time. It was enough to just have clean clothes here, because at least my car wouldn't be covered in muck like Beth’s. “Want some help with your car seats?”
