A Curse a Coven and a Canine: A Paranormal Animal Cozy Mystery (Spellbound Hound Magic and Mystery Book 2) Read online

  A Curse, a Coven and a Canine:

  Spellbound Hound Magic and Mystery Book Two

  by

  * * *

  JEANNIE WYCHERLEY

  * * *

  Copyright © 2020 Jeannie Wycherley

  Bark at the Moon Books

  All rights reserved

  * * *

  Publishers note: This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and for effect or are used with permission. Any other resemblance to actual persons, either living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  * * *

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  A Curse, a Coven and a Canine was edited by Christine L Baker

  Cover design by Graphics by Tammy.

  Formatting by Tammy

  Proofing by Johnny Bon Bon

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Have you enjoyed Spellbound Hound Book Two?

  Spellbound Hound Magic and Mystery Book 2

  Read the Wonky Inn Books

  The Wonky Inn Series

  Also by Jeannie Wycherley

  Coming in 2020

  More Dark Fantasy from Jeannie Wycherley

  A Curse, a Coven and a Canine

  is dedicated with grateful thanks

  to Clarissa Place,

  a wonderful journalist

  full of infectious enthusiasm

  and true inspiration for the Clarissa in these pages

  “Ms Mitchelmore has declined to comment.” Clarissa read the words on her screen out loud and wrinkled her nose. After staring hard at them for a moment, she deleted the words Ms Mitchelmore, and instead typed, ‘The owner of The Sunshine Valley Pet Sanctuary has declined to comment at this time.’

  “Hmm,” she sighed, and glanced across at Toby. She’d set up a small desk in the living room, and this provided her with a good view of her spellbound hound, although he was too far away for her to reach out and stroke him. She would have found that comforting.

  The medium-sized Schnauzer-cross-whippety-thingie-that defied-both-description-and-definition lay in his bed by the television, his ears relaxed and his mouth open. His black and grey front paws were suspended in mid-air, making little pedalling motions. Obviously dreaming about squirrels, thought Clarissa, and turned her attention back to the article on her laptop. It desperately needed completing.

  She’d promised to get this copy over to the editor of the Sun Valley Tribune, the local newspaper she worked on, by first thing in the morning. Unfortunately, she’d also had a deadline for a piece about vandalism at the local park, as well as a review of a new delicatessen that had opened in town. Filing all three pieces on time meant that tonight at least, she would need to burn the candle a little later than normal.

  She took a slug of coffee from her mug and grimaced. Stone cold. The carriage clock on the mantelpiece told her it was ten past two—but it had stopped, and she and Toby had altered the time so that it would always look cheerful. The clock on her laptop display told the stark truth. One-eighteen in the morning.

  Clarissa swirled the remaining coffee around her mug and considered making a fresh pot, but if she did that, she’d run the risk of being awake all night needing to pee. She arched her back and then stretched her shoulders. Maybe she’d opt for a swift nightcap instead. Two of her three reports were finished. She could email those across to her boss now, and then have another stab at the kennel fire story first thing in the morning.

  She quietly pushed her chair back, not wanting to disturb Toby when he was slumbering so peacefully, but he opened his eyes anyway. Like most dogs, he could have heard a gnat pass wind at a hundred paces. She smiled at him and he closed his eyes again, totally unconcerned. She slipped through to the kitchen and placed her mug in the sink on top of a plate she’d used earlier, before locating a small glass from the cupboard and a tall bottle of sloe gin from the pantry.

  She poured an inch of liquid and studied the bottle. Old Joe had distilled the gin himself and left several litres on the bottom shelf of the pantry. She loved the sweet burn on the back of her throat. Her recollections of the old man, her late grandfather, were vague, but all the evidence she’d found around the house led her to believe she would have liked him very much.

  Sadly, by the time Clarissa had discovered the existence of her grandfather, Joseph Silverwind had been dead and buried for nearly six months. Toby had been the only witness to his murder, which the police had been keen to write off as a simple stroke. Given the amount of time that had passed by, and factoring in his lowly status as a dog—albeit one that could converse with Clarissa—poor Toby hadn’t been able to convince anyone that Old Joe had met his end through suspicious and unlawful means.

  Incarcerated in The Sunshine Valley Pet Rescue for six months, and with a death sentence hanging over his head, he’d run away. Clarissa had stumbled across the bereft and lonely dog here in Old Joe’s house when she’d come looking for her grandfather. For a while, it had looked like they would lead separate lives, but Old Joe’s final will and testament had bequeathed the house, its contents, his meagre savings and, most importantly, Toby to her. She now intended to take care of the dog on her grandfather’s behalf for the rest of his life.

  In any case, they had permanently bound themselves together, having undertaken a ritual on their first night of legal ownership together, and sworn to track down the woman responsible for his death. They intended to ensure Miranda Dervish paid for the travesty, one way or the other.

  Clarissa traced the handwriting on the label of the bottle. Old Joe had traced his letters with a confident flourish. She found herself wondering about him, and who he’d really been. It appeared that he’d lived out the last ten years or so in this house with little contact from the members of his coven, the Coven of the Silver Winds. Was Clarissa to believe he had forsaken magick altogether? She supposed that was a possibility—her parents had done the same after all—but why then had Old Joe been targeted by Miranda Dervish?

  Yes, Clarissa and Toby knew exactly who had killed the old man, and they knew she’d stolen a gemstone of some kind from him, but they’d been unable to convince the local constabulary to take action against the perpetrator. Miranda Dervish, or The Pointy Woman as they thought of her, had once claimed to be Clarissa’s aunt. She’d turned up at eight-year-old Clarissa’s house on the day her parents neglected to come home and escorted her to a school deep in the Somerset countryside. Ravenscroft Lodge had turned out to be a school specialising in magick, sorcery and witchcraft.

  Miran
da Dervish, it transpired, was no blood relation whatsoever.

  Nonetheless, Clarissa had remained at Ravenscroft Lodge until she’d turned eighteen and headed up to the Midlands to study English at University. After that, she’d undertaken a professional apprenticeship on a newspaper in Birmingham before returning to the south-west to work as a junior reporter on the Sun Valley Tribune.

  An anonymous tip-off that had led her to seek out Old Joe just a few weeks ago had sadly come too late for her to renew her relationship with her grandfather, but Toby had been a true gift. United in their mutual grief, they had pledged to bring The Pointy Woman to justice, somehow, some day.

  They hadn’t as yet made much headway on that.

  Clarissa, leaning against the kitchen cupboard, raised her glass in silent salute. I haven’t forgotten, Old Joe, don’t you worry, she thought, tipping the glass to drain the contents with lip-smacking relish.

  Suddenly the ground began to shake beneath her feet, and a deep rumbling sound startled her. All around her the house and its contents vibrated, severely enough that the mug and plate in the kitchen sink clinked together noisily. Clarissa steadied herself, one hand on the worktop. An earthquake of some kind? A fracking tremor?

  From the living room came a low growl, fearful yet defensive. The rumble had disturbed Toby too.

  A sharp bang on the other side of the wall. Clarissa’s head swivelled. It sounded as though something heavy had fallen somewhere in her neighbour’s house. Clarissa held her breath, regarding the wall with concern. Mrs Crouch lived on that side, a sweet old lady with a great fondness for Toby.

  Clarissa heard the tell-tale pitter-patter of Toby’s nails as he ran over the floorboards in the hall. He joined her in the kitchen. “What was that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Clarissa confessed, her voice trembling. “It might have been an earthquake of some kind.”

  She sounded doubtful, and Toby instantly picked up on this.

  “But you think it was something else?” he asked.

  Clarissa reached out with tentative fingers and placed her hand on the party wall. With the kitchen units in the way, she couldn’t bend over far enough to place her ear against the surface to try and listen, but that would have been assuming she would be able to hear something, anyway. These were solid early twentieth-century houses. The soundproofing here was much better than the student flats or new-builds Clarissa had lived in most of her adult life.

  For a moment, she had a clear image of someone on the other side of the wall. A figure in shadow, bending over Mrs Crouch’s worktop, mirroring Clarissa’s stance. Dark eyes shone with a yellow light.

  Unnerved, Clarissa sucked in her breath and jerked away.

  The image faded.

  “What is it?” Toby asked.

  “I don’t know.” Clarissa’s voice sounded hoarse. She looked around. “Can you hear anything unusual?” They stood side by side, straining every one of their senses, Clarissa even holding her breath and hardly daring to blink.

  Nothing is ever as oppressive as silence at times such as this, and Clarissa almost jumped out of her skin when a single drop of water dripped from the tap and plinked into the mug in the sink.

  She let her breath go, laughing shakily. “It can’t have been anything. Just my imagination. We’ll see something about a tremor on the news tomorrow.”

  Toby remained unconvinced, however. “I can’t hear anything.” Casting a quick glance at Clarissa, he knitted his furry eyebrows together, “but I do feel something. Stay here.”

  He darted through the dog flap, out into the garden. With the light on in the kitchen, Clarissa couldn’t see anything through the window. She quickly snapped the light off. The house wasn’t completely dark; the lamp from the living room and the backlight of her laptop screen gave off enough for her to see, but also cast the kitchen in shadow. Clarissa moved closer to the sink to peer through the window. She could just about make out Toby, standing ramrod straight on the small square of lawn out there, his shoulders square and his ears pricked, hackles rising. He looked east, towards Mrs Crouch’s house, but he wasn’t able to see over the fence because of its height and the numerous trees that grew on both sides.

  He didn’t bark, he didn’t whine. He merely listened, his eyes boring a hole into the dark night.

  Eventually some of the tension left his body. He walked along the perimeter of the fence sniffing, cocked his leg to water the rockery and sloped back inside through the dog flap.

  Clarissa relaxed. “Nothing out there?”

  Toby glanced back at the door. “I wouldn’t swear to it. But there’s nothing to hear. All is quiet in Mrs Crouch’s house.”

  “Any lights on?”

  “I couldn’t see.”

  Clarissa considered her options. It might just be a complete over-reaction, but what if it wasn’t? “I think I should check out the front.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Toby trotted alongside her, so close she could feel his fur on her knee.

  “My hero,” she smiled.

  Under normal circumstances it might have been nice to take a walk in the open air. The day had been hot and humid, and now the skies were clear and the temperature had reached a balmier 16 or so degrees. If she hadn’t been quite so tired, Clarissa might have enjoyed sitting on the step with a glass of sloe gin over ice and gazing at the heavens.

  But now, with gritty eyes and nerves that jangled, she trod lightly as she navigated the path to the front gate. She’d yet to replace the old iron gate and it had a tendency to drag on the pavement and creak on its hinges, so she lifted it and swung it inwards as quietly as she could manage.

  The rest of Chamberlain Drive remained quiet. A street typical of most early twentieth century English towns, the row of semi-detached houses faced out onto a narrow street face-to-face with an identical row of semi-detached houses. The only differences were in the state of repair, the colour of the front door or the design of the double glazing. For some, the shallow front garden had given way to a parking space and a dropped kerb, but for most, the house was protected by a low stone wall… and that was all the security they had.

  Clarissa glanced up and down the street. In a few houses, lights burned in bedroom windows, but for the most part the windows remained shrouded in darkness.

  With Toby by her side, Clarissa stepped out onto the pavement and, hugging the wall close, mooched along until she was standing outside Mrs Crouch’s property. The gate stood open. That wasn’t unusual. The lights in the house were off. That was to be expected.

  So far, so ordinary.

  But something did give Clarissa pause. The front door appeared to be open. Only a crack. It was not something you would notice unless you were looking.

  And Clarissa was looking.

  Clarissa’s insides performed a little shimmy, her heart beat harder and her breath seemed to stick on the top of her chest. Why would Mrs Crouch’s door be open at this time of the night unless something was seriously amiss?

  Clarissa, treading softly, walked through the gate and up the path. Yes. The door was open, just an inch or so. With the tip of one finger she pushed against the wood so that the door swung a little wider, then tilted her head around it to scour the darkness for any sign of movement. Toby pushed against her knees, demanding access, but she stilled him with her left hand, grabbing his collar and holding onto him. He struggled to go forwards, sniffing frantically.

  All of a sudden he shot backwards, almost pulling Clarissa’s arm off in his haste to get away.

  “Wait!” Clarissa whispered urgently.

  “She’s been here. She’s been here. We need to get out of here.”

  Clarissa stared down at the young dog. He cowered away from her, or the house at least, the whites of his eyes showing.

  “Who’s been here?” she asked, confused by his reaction. Did he mean Mrs Crouch?

  “We have to get out of here,” Toby begged, creeping backwards.

  “Toby—”


  “The Pointy Woman! The Pointy Woman has been here!” Toby whined, his cries louder now. Clarissa reached for him, trying to calm him down. He would disturb the neighbours, and she didn’t dare risk that with him so recently out of the rescue kennels.

  “But we need to check on Mrs Crouch,” Clarissa told him.

  “No point. No point.” Toby twisted in her grip and wrenched himself away from her.

  “Shhh Toby. It’s alright,” Clarissa soothed him, holding out her hand, even though she knew it probably wasn’t.

  “Nothing is alright.” Toby backed away. “I smell death.”

  And with that he turned tail and ran.

  Clarissa pushed open the door and entered Mrs Crouch’s property alone. The house was as still as you might expect at stupid-o-clock in the morning, and yet Clarissa’s senses told her something was seriously amiss. Almost as though the very air had been disturbed violently. She remembered the rumble and frowned.

  But…

  On the other hand, she didn’t want to scare an old lady half to death. She tiptoed forwards into the hall. The house exactly mirrored Old Joe’s—hers now of course—so she could anticipate the layout. The lights were off everywhere, even upstairs. If there had been any commotion down here, Mrs Crouch had not bothered to come and investigate.

  Clarissa poked her head into the living room. The scent of woodsmoke seemed strong, and she found that odd. Embers glowed in the fireplace. Why had Mrs Crouch chosen to light a fire on an evening as warm as this? Clarissa was aware that old people feel the cold more, of course, but even so…