The Deadly Diadem: A Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mystery (Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mysteries Book 2), Tegan Maher [read this if .txt] 📗

“I’m curious,” I said. “How did you know about this?”

“One of the guys from the coroner’s office moonlights with the moving company, and the other guy is his cousin,” he replied. “I’ve put the entire staff on notice that they’re to call me if anything strange or out of the ordinary happens, and this qualifies for sure.”

I couldn’t argue with that. My entire life had turned into the definition of strange and out of the ordinary.

“Let’s get to it, then,” I said. The faster we took care of this, the sooner I could finish my coffee.

Chapter 15

“So what do you want me to do?” James asked.

“Distract the men,” Sybil replied. “Get them inside and out of sight. I don’t know what we’re going to have to do, and I’d rather not have to mess with their minds if we don’t have to.”

Considering I’d avoided answering questions about that particular topic with James before, I cringed a little. All he did was press his lips together as he moved toward them, though.

After he had them out of the way, Sybil, Eli, and I moved toward Mrs. Hightower, who was standing at the edge of the loading dock, yelling for them to come back. Since she was too short to climb onto it, though, that was all she could do.

I was relieved that a colorful beaded purse hung from the crook of her elbow.

“Now what do we do?” I asked Sybil.

“Now we get that purse away from her, then stand back, throw up your protection shield, and let me do my thing.”

“You don’t need us to do anything?” I asked, but she shook her head. “No, Luther’s here, and we’ve done this enough times that we should be able to handle something this small.” She looked back and forth between us. “But you two, and your brother, too, are going to have to learn how to do it yourselves at some point. We might not always be around, and there might come a time when it will take more than just the two of us to reverse a curse. They’re not all going to be this easy.”

I thought back to the pendant. It had taken all of our magic to exorcise the spirit from the woman, and I was positive Eli, Jake, and I couldn’t have done it alone. We might have had the power, but we didn’t have the knowledge.

“We’ll talk about that later, though,” she said, inclining her head toward our current problem.

“Hey, Mrs. Hightower,” I said, moving toward her as if my presence was the most normal thing in the world. “How you doin’ this morning?”

She turned toward me and did something that I’d never seen her do before—she smiled at me. “Hello, Sage. Eli.  It’s lovely to see you both. I’d be doing just fine if those boys would come back out here and unload the truck. I’m sure there are poor people who need it.”

My armlet warmed, a sure sign that dark magic was present. I was a little confounded by how dark magic could improve somebody, though.

Eli’s mind must have gone in the same direction as mine. “Are you sure we shouldn’t leave her this way? I mean, it’s sort of an improvement.”

Sybil cast him an irritated glance. “You mean it’s a good thing that a little old lady, no matter how mean, is giving away all her material goods? Where will she live? What will she buy food with? I’ll guarantee that the bank is her next stop, assuming she hasn’t already done that.”

“Oh, no, dear. Not yet. I have to make sure I have the money to pay the movers and the realtor, and whoever else will charge me a fee to free myself of the shackles of material wealth.”

Now my armlet was so warm that it was uncomfortable, and I rubbed it. “If we could keep her from saying anything else, that would be great. Otherwise, I’m going to need some burn cream, here.”

Sybil shook her head. “No, you won’t. It might feel that way, but the armlet will never harm you.”

I didn’t figure right then was the time to ask her what she knew about it, but I filed it away for a later conversation.

“Mrs. Hightower,” Eli said, moving closer to her, “may I see that lovely purse?”

“Wait a minute.” I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to handle it.

The last thing we needed was for the curse to hit him, too. He did, after all, like his stuff. Not the point that the little old lady before us did, but enough that it worried me. If I was going to get his crystal dragon and fairy collection, it was going to be by beating him at something fair and square, not by him giving them up because he was cursed.

He gave me an oh, please, do I look like an idiot? look as he pulled my shop gloves out of his pocket. I’d made them from silver links and put so many protection spells on them that there was no way a curse of any kind would get through them. They’d saved my hide on more than one occasion while I was cleansing objects of magical nasties.

“Why do you want to see my purse?” she asked, suspicion creeping across her face as she pulled the bag against her in a protective gesture. That was probably the curse guarding itself.

“I just think it’s beautiful, and I’d like to take a closer look at the beadwork. Is it handmade?” Eli said, taking a couple steps toward her.

Luther sprang toward her when Eli was within arm’s length, twining around her legs. Maybe not the safest bet, but she did drop the defensive stance in favor of not tripping, and the purse slid down her arm. Eli reached out with his hand to steady her and slipped the bag from her wrist as he did.

She protested and made