Curses and Candy Canes: A Paranormal Mystery Christmas Anthology Read online

  Curses and Candy Canes

  A Paranormal Mystery Christmas Anthology

  Tegan Maher

  Elle Adams

  Samantha Silver

  Stephanie D’Amore

  Ava Mallory

  Danielle Garrett

  K.M. Waller

  ReGina Welling

  Erin Lynn

  Amorette Anderson

  Erin Johnson

  Jenna St. James

  Nikki Haverstock

  April Aasheim

  Copyright © 2019 by Tegan Maher

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Curses and Candy Canes

  Are you ready for more spellbinding cozy mysteries filled with magic, furry familiars, and paranormal fun?

  Then conjure some cocoa from your cauldron and dive into this enchanting collection of holiday mysteries from 13 of your favorite witchy authors!

  Contents

  Elle Adams

  Witch in Need

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About the Author

  Erin Johnson

  Snowflakes, Cakes & Deadly Stakes

  Christmas Eve

  Dinner

  Baking

  The Honorable Santa Claus

  Vlad

  Suspect

  The Greenhouse

  B

  The Dirt

  Meeting in the Library

  Caught!

  Happy Holidays

  About the Author

  Jenna St. James

  Toy Time Tragedy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  Ava Mallory

  Twisted Tinsel Time

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  The world’s not right

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About the Author

  April Aasheim

  Magick Mistletoe

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  About the Author

  K.M. Waller

  Time to Get Jolly: A Witch in Time Short

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  About the Author

  ReGina Welling & Erin Lynn

  A Snowball's Chance in Spell

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  Amorette Anderson

  The Wild Goat Chase: A Hillcrest Witch Christmas Special

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Stephanie Damore

  Time For A Christmas Curse

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  About Stephanie Damore

  About the Author

  Tegan Maher

  The Christmas Crisis

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About the Author

  Samantha Silver

  Twelve Spells of Christmas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Nikki Haverstock

  The Case of the Criminal Christmas Party

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  About the Author

  Danielle Garrett

  Hex the Halls

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About the Author

  Witch in Need

  Elle Adams

  Witch in Need

  It's the holiday season in Fairy Falls, and Blair is looking forward to enjoying the festivities. Unfortunately, nobody else seems to be relaxing. Her eccentric boss has decided to throw a last-minute Christmas office party, her best friend's witchy relatives are in town along with their pet hellhound familiar… and someone's stolen the coven's frozen turkey.

  Can Blair restore order before the holidays end in disaster?

  Chapter One

  “Come on,” I said to my cat. “It won’t be as bad as last time, I promise.”

  “Miaow,” grumbled Sky.

  It was Christmas Eve in Fairy Falls, and my cat was not taking the news of our upcoming guests well. So much so, in fact, that he’d planted himself in front of the door to our ground-floor flat and refused to move. Alissa had already tripped over him once, narrowly missing knocking herself out on the door frame as she rushed around getting the place ready for her family’s arrival. And instead of preparing for my first Christmas party in the magical world, here I was negotiating with my cat.

  “The guests won’t bother you,” I reassured him.

  “Miaow,” he answered, in disbelieving tones. I didn’t really blame him. The last time we’d had guests, they’d ended up commandeering my bedroom and scaring Sky into leaving the flat altogether. Not to mention the incident with the neon pink hair dye they’d left all over our bathroom. I was still mentally scarred from the experience, to be honest, but Alissa swore up and down that her family wouldn’t make trouble for either of us.

  “Look, Alissa’s family is much better than the Head Witch,” I told him.

  “Debatable,” said Alissa, poking her head out of the door with her arms full of decorations. “Offer him a treat.”

  “He says he doesn’t take bribery.”

  My cat couldn’t actually talk, but he managed to pack s
o much expression into his body language that our ‘conversations’ felt more like talking to a wildly intelligent toddler than a pet.

  “Miaow.” Sky sat there like a small fluffy brick, unmoving. His black fur blended in with the darkness so thoroughly that without his one white front paw and his oddly coloured eyes—one blue, one grey—I wouldn’t have been able to see who I was talking to.

  A flash of light came from behind me, where Alissa was decorating the Christmas tree she’d bought at the last minute. We hadn’t bothered up until now—having two cats who did whatever they pleased while the two of us were at work would have been tempting fate—but the news of her impending family visit had sent Alissa into a frenzy of last-minute decorating.

  “How long until the party?” She stepped into view and waved her wand, conjuring a long stream of tinsel. “If you want to get ready, you’d better do it before the place is overrun.”

  “I can stay long enough to meet your family,” I said. “And for them to trip over Sky, at this rate.”

  Despite having lived with her for more than six months, I’d never met most of Alissa’s family members. A lot of them had important jobs in the magical world that kept them busy, so it had come as a surprise when they’d all invited themselves to our flat for the holidays. Since nobody else lived on the ground floor until we found another tenant, Madame Grey had opted to loan the apartment opposite ours to any of her relatives who needed somewhere to stay, so at least I wouldn’t have to sleep on the sofa this time.

  “Sky, I know you don’t like visitors, but it’s for a good cause,” I said soothingly.

  “Miaow,” he huffed.

  “What can I bribe you with?” I asked. “You can go and hang out at Nathan’s place if you want, but he isn’t there.”

  My boyfriend had gone to visit his family for the holidays, and while I’d volunteered to feed his three cats while he was gone, I hadn’t thought to make preparations so Sky would have somewhere to hide from our guests. Nathan and I would be going away together for the new year, but I’d left my own holiday plans to the last minute. Then again, I could say the same for my boss, who’d suddenly decided to hold a last-minute office party on Christmas Eve. And when Veronica got one of her madcap ideas, the rest of us had little choice but to go along with it.

  Alissa’s wand flicked, conjuring more tinsel and looping it around the tree. “Why didn’t we put the tree up earlier?”

  “If we had, the cats would have shredded it by now.” I’d already found Sky attacking the presents I’d wrapped for tomorrow and had to hide them in the back of the wardrobe for safekeeping.

  “Everything all right?” Nina, our upstairs neighbour, descended the stairs towards the gloomy hallway.

  “Watch out,” I called back. “My cat is sitting in front of the door, and he won’t like it if you tread on him.”

  “What’s he doing out here?” She halted at the foot of the stairs.

  “Throwing a sulking fit,” I said. “Don’t look at me like that, Sky, you know you are. He doesn’t want Alissa’s family to take over the flat. I told him nobody’s taking my room this time, but…”

  “Does he want to stay upstairs with me?” asked Nina. “I have plenty of space. No familiar, either. Can’t promise there won’t be hair all over the floor, though. I had two werewolf clients to clean up after yesterday, but I’ve been busy with holiday shopping.”

  Nina was a hairdresser who worked with various paranormals around town, but I hadn’t known she catered to werewolves as well as witches.

  “Sky likes making nests out of hair,” I said truthfully—almost as much as he enjoyed destroying bubble wrap. “It’s perfect. Right, Sky?”

  “Miaow.” Sky padded over to Nina, rubbing his fur against her legs to demand a stroke.

  “He’s in an attention-seeking mood,” I added.

  “So, a typical mood for a cat,” she said, stroking him. “C’mon. Wanna hang out upstairs?”

  Sky padded after her without a fuss, to my surprise. He could be downright docile when he got his way. I handed her some cat treats to give to him and ran back into the flat to get ready for the party. “Is Madame Grey coming here tonight along with the others? Or is she still working?”

  “Is she ever not working?” Alissa levitated another bauble onto the tree. “She’ll be here tomorrow.”

  That meant the only person I knew aside from Alissa would be Sammi, her younger cousin, who was going through a phase of pretending I didn’t exist. The tween witch didn’t get along with Rebecca, my sort-of-apprentice, and I was all too happy not to step into the middle of an argument between junior witches, especially when one of them had years of experience on me. I’d also accidentally turned her transparent during a botched attempt at an invisibility potion a few months ago. I hoped that story wouldn’t come up at the dinner table tomorrow.

  Granted, anything would be an improvement on the first time I’d met Nathan’s family, in which my cat had crashed the party along with a pixie and a troop of elves. Luckily, the elves were all hiding underground at this time of year, out of fear that some overenthusiastic preschool-aged witch would stick them in a silly costume and ask them to deliver presents. But from what I’d heard, Alissa’s family were as hardcore as Nathan’s, except in different ways. Her parents had once been globe-trotting professors who often left Alissa alone as a child, so she’d mostly been raised by her grandmother.

  Alissa levitated the last bauble into place. “That’ll have to do.”

  “Looks fine to me,” I said. “What’s the issue?”

  “You’ve never met my family,” she said. “Several of them are award-winning magical designers, and they’ll have words to say about the state of this place.”

  “It’s not that bad. Just lived-in.” In other words, like two humans and two cats lived here, none of whom was particularly talented at housework spells. “I’m sure they aren’t that bad.”

  “Depends how well you deal with overachieving world-travellers with multiple PhDs and other obscure qualifications,” she said. “Basically, call everyone ‘Doctor’ and you’re clear.”

  “You’re a doctor,” I pointed out. “Or healer.”

  “Yeah, well.” She grimaced. “Literally two other people in my family don’t have multiple sets of letters after their names, and one of them is eleven.”

  “Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” I said. “I’m the one who couldn’t convince my own cat to move out of a doorway.”

  “I’m pretty sure the Head Witch can’t negotiate with your cat, Blair,” she said.

  She wasn’t wrong. Besides, while I might look like a joke of a witch next to Alissa’s overachieving relatives, a year ago I could no sooner have cast a spell than sing opera at the West End. Learning to be magical had taken some adjustment, to say the least.

  Alissa cursed as the doorbell rang. “They’re here!”

  I slipped on my shoes and crossed the living room. Alissa put down her wand and opened the door, wearing a resigned expression as though contemplating a trip to the gallows.

  Alissa’s mother was the first to enter. She and Alissa shared the same long brown hair, but Dr Grey’s was clipped to shoulder-length and she wore glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, like Madame Grey, her mother. At her side, a small tabby cat strode into the room with its nose in the air.

  “This is my familiar,” said Alissa’s mother. “He hates me leaving him, so I hope it’s okay to bring him here. I’m afraid your dad isn’t coming this year. He’s at a conference and insisted he couldn’t miss it. Greta couldn’t find a babysitter, so she’s at home, too.”

  “Oh.” Alissa looked deflated. “That’s a shame. Is Aunt Jeanie not coming, then?”

  She sounded distinctly hopeful.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t miss out on this for the world,” boomed a voice. An older woman with a red hat perched on top of her grey curly hair sailed into the flat, leading a giant dog behind her. The dog growled, looking around at us with eerily
bright red eyes. That… is not a normal dog.

  Roald hissed and hid under the sofa. I found myself immensely glad that Sky had opted to stay upstairs.