Friday Night Bites: A Cozy Witch Mystery (Magic Market Mysteries Book 2)

  FRIDAY NIGHT BITES

  A COZY WITCH MYSTERY

  ERIN JOHNSON

  CONTENTS

  Prequel Novella

  1. Front Page News

  2. Ludolf's Goons

  3. The Case

  4. The Spider

  5. The Sweatshop

  6. The Storeroom

  7. The Knockoffs

  8. The House of Hahn

  9. Spider Silk

  10. Model Behavior

  11. The Station

  12. The Autopsy

  13. Chin Beard

  14. Under the Catwalk

  15. Disguise

  16. Undercover

  17. The Photograph

  18. The Locket

  19. Ferdinand D’Lin

  20. Spider Bite

  21. Poached

  22. Madeline

  23. Aileen

  24. Runaway on the Runway

  25. The Confession

  26. Peter

  27. Told You

  Primping

  If Looks Could Kill

  Policeman's Ball

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Get the FREE Prequel Novella

  A magical academy. A suspicious death. Can an inexperienced cop expose the deadly secrets lurking behind bewitched classroom doors?

  Check out rookie officer Peter Flint’s first case with Daisy. Saved by the Spell is the prequel to the Magic Market paranormal cozy mystery series.

  Download Saved by the Spell to solve a mystical murder today!

  FRONT PAGE NEWS

  I raised a fist and banged against the black metal door. I’d have missed it in the near utter darkness of the narrow alley if I hadn’t known the way to my friend Will’s illicit veterinarian clinic like the back of my own hand.

  Speaking of the back of my hand… I lifted my other wrist to my mouth and licked up a drip of mayonnaise that had escaped from the arepa I clutched. My stomach ached with fullness, but I popped the last bite in my mouth and savored the chicken salad filling. I closed my eyes and moaned as I crumpled the paper wrapper up. It’d been a while since I’d had too much to eat—I could get used to this.

  Though it was just past 3:00 a.m., the thrum of music and chatter from the main street of the Darkmoon Night Market drifted through the warm summer air.

  Slick. I peeled an eye open to find a couple of dark, almond-shaped ones peering at me from a slot in the door.

  I twiddled my fingers in a wave. “Ig mee,” I mumbled around my giant mouthful of food.

  The eyes crinkled in a smile. “Oh hey, Jolene!” The panel slid closed, three locks clicked in quick succession, and then pale, fluorescent light flooded the dark alley as Heidi pulled the door open. She stood slightly behind it and tipped her head toward the waiting room behind her. “Come in!”

  I tugged lightly on one of her black braids as I passed, and she swatted me away but giggled. The locks clicked shut behind me as I shot my paper wrapper into the wastebasket behind the tall front desk—score!

  “How’s your night going?” Heidi resumed her spot behind the receptionist’s counter. She fluffed her white lab coat out behind her and settled onto the tall stool. Below the coat, she sported black bike shorts that rose up above her bellybutton and a neon pink sports bra.

  I ignored the several beat-up chairs that lined the wall beside the door, and instead folded my arms on the counter and leaned over. “Eh. Gave a reading to a witch whose cat familiar had gained unexpected weight.”

  Heidi lifted a brow and grinned, her dimple showing. “Let me guess….” She tapped a slim finger to her lips. “He figured out how to open the cupboard and was getting into the tuna.”

  I drummed my fingers on the counter. “He’d have also needed to learn how to open cans for that.”

  Heidi giggled and pulled her half-eaten bowl of ramen closer. I don’t think I’d ever seen that girl when she wasn’t eating—I envied that about her. “I give up.” She twirled some noodles around her chopsticks.

  “Turns out the he was a she, actually. And Mr. Handsome Face, who apparently needs a new name, got a little frisky with the tomcat next door and is now expecting kittens.”

  “Aw.” Heidi pouted up at me before shoving the noodles in her mouth. “I wang a kiggen.”

  I pressed my lips tight together as I thought over the “reading” I’d done for the witch. While I wasn’t actually a pet psychic, I could speak with animals, which amounted to basically the same thing. I just masqueraded as a seer, because the lovely magical community here on the enchanted island of Bijou Mer viewed my kind, shifters, as third-class citizens. And admitting to being able to speak to animals was akin to shouting, “hey, I’m a shifter.”

  Most shifters could only speak to their own kind when in animal form. As far as I knew, the curse that had cost me my law career—and whole life, basically—had also given me the unique ability to speak to all animals… while also robbing me of all my other powers. It wasn’t a trade I’d have voluntarily made, but you know the old saying. When life gives you lemons, you move back to the slums and live in squalor. Or something like that.

  And seeing as I was already barely scraping by, I wasn’t in any hurry to further stack the deck against me by making the world even more suspicious. So, aside from Heidi and Will, no one knew the truth about my powers... or lack thereof.

  Recently, though, my luck seemed to be turning around. I’d landed a sweet gig as a consultant for the police when Officer Peter Flint had come to believe in my “psychic” abilities. I drummed my fingers again. Though it’d been a whole six days (not that I was counting or anything) since that first case, and I was itching for another one.

  The money was better than my regular job, and it felt good to be helping people get justice again. It didn’t hurt that I got to work with Peter either… though I could’ve passed on his hard-nosed, truth-sniffing dog, Daisy.

  I lifted a brow. “Well, not sure what the witch plans to do with the kittens, but I sure got to hear all about what she plans to do with their placentas.”

  Heidi made a face.

  “Oh, yeah.” I opened my eyes wide. “Guess they make excellent bases for stew.”

  Noodles and broth poured from Heidi’s mouth back into her bowl as she gave me a disgusted look, mouth downturned. “Ew.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Heidi pushed the bowl away. “I think I lost my appetite.”

  I blinked in surprise. “That’d be a first.”

  She nodded seriously. “I know, right?”

  I frowned and pointed at the newspaper in front of her. A magically moving picture took up nearly the entire front page. Lights flashed in the image, and a crowd thronged around a woman lying on what appeared to be a catwalk.

  “What’s up with that?”

  She blinked at me, then glanced down at the local paper, The Conch. “Oh!” She looked back up at me. “Did you see the midnight news?”

  I gave a slight shake of my head.

  “Bel Hahn died during her fashion show. They think it was a heart attack.” Heidi’s face fell as she looked back down at the newspaper. “So sad.”

  I mean… it was sad, but I couldn’t help shooting Heidi a slightly perplexed smile. Since when did she take a personal interest in the designer for the House of Hahn? My eyes drifted to the large leather bag on the desk beside her—a massive gold double H emblazoned on the side. Ah. There it was.

  “Nice bag.” I lifted my chin toward it, and Heidi glanced over, then up at me.


  “Thanks. Just got it.”

  I nodded. “A House of Hahn, huh? It’ll be worth a fortune now that she’s dead.”

  My friend, eyes still downcast and brow pinched in concern, murmured, “You think?”

  I smirked. Oh, Heidi, so smart, yet so naïve. “I mean, it would be, if it weren’t a knockoff.”

  She jerked her head up, eyes wide in surprise. “Knockoff?” She reached over and pulled the bag closer, turning it this way and that. “How can you tell?”

  I chuckled. “Well, for one, you don’t have the pinched look of someone who’s mortgaged her house to buy a handbag.”

  Heidi, eyes glued to the bag, shook her head. “I don’t even have a house to mortgage!”

  Heidi still lived at home with her family. It was common in the Darkmoon District for kids to live with their parents all through their twenties—sometimes longer. Folks here just couldn’t afford to move out on their own.

  She grinned up at me. “But I didn’t have to, anyway. I got a great deal on it. That guy down Anemone Alley had a trunk full of ’em.”

  “I’m sure he did.” I lifted my brows.

  Heidi’s face fell. “Oh. Right.” She looked forlornly at the bag. “Caught and cleaned.”

  I felt like kind of a jerk. The Darkmoon phrase meant something along the lines of—man, I was an idiot. Caught and cleaned like a fish—I fell for it. I patted the counter. “But who cares, right? It looks great.”

  Heidi rubbed her thumbs on the oiled leather. “Yeah.” She grinned at the bag. “It does—who cares?”

  I gave her an encouraging smile, straightened, and strode a couple steps to the swinging door that led to the exam room in back. “What’s Will up to?” I pushed it open as Heidi whirled to face me.

  She stretched an arm out. “Wait! I wouldn’t go back there—”

  Too late. I froze as I took in the exam room. A wiry guy covered in tattoos sat on the metal exam table as my friend Will, who stood behind him, pulled stitches through a cut in his cheek. They froze, as did the beefy wall of a man who slumped in a chair to my left and the well-groomed guy who leaned against the wall to my right.

  In a flash, they all three pulled their wands and leveled them at me, the tips glowing white.

  LUDOLF'S GOONS

  “Oh. Perfect timing, Jolene.” Will rolled his eyes and huffed. His hands still held a thread that was looped through the tattooed guy’s face.

  Neo, the guy standing to my right, glared at me with dark eyes, then addressed Will. “What’s she doing here?”

  I folded my arms and leaned into one hip, shooting Neo a flat look.

  “That’s a great question.” Will hiked his bushy brows up and returned to stitching up Victor, the tattooed maniac perched on his exam table. “Why don’t you ask her?” He grumbled to himself as his hands moved quickly, expertly stitching up the cut. Knowing Will’s work, there wouldn’t even be a scar. Which, judging by Victor’s “I’ll shank you for a corndog” aesthetic, would probably be viewed as a negative. I gave a little shake of my head. My brilliant former surgeon friend’s talents were being wasted here.

  I cocked a brow at Neo and felt a flush of satisfaction when his gaze momentarily flicked to my feet, then back up.

  Despite being a captain in Ludolf Caterwaul’s secret Shifter Underground, I’d always managed to intimidate him, at least a little. We’d grown up in the orphanage together, and back then, him being a few years younger than me counted for a lot. It’d made me ages wiser and stronger than him (in kid terms), and the dynamic continued today. Who knew what I’d do if he actually called my bluff.

  Heidi claimed he had a crush on me, but considering I was wearing a T-shirt that hadn’t been washed in weeks, a bra held together by a safety pin, and a ponytail so tangled I’d have to cut my hair tie out of it, I doubted my womanly charms had much to do with it.

  The pale overhead exam lighting accentuated Neo’s sharp cheekbones. A muscle twitched in his jaw as we glared at each other. Finally, he jerked his head and shoved his wand back into the waistband of his black jeans. His two goons followed suit.

  “Hey, Jolene.” Sacha, the bald brute of a man who sat to my left, inclined his head. His low voice rumbled from deep in his chest.

  I crinkled my nose at his black eye and fat lip. “What happened to you guys?”

  Neo sniffed and ran a ringed hand through his slicked back black hair, the sides shaved. “Got into it with some pirates.”

  “Yah!” Victor, who clutched a bottle of glowing green liquor, sneered, revealing several gold teeth… and a few missing ones. “Ya should seen da odder guys!”

  I stifled a smirk and caught Will’s sardonic eye for the briefest of moments. Right. I was so sure.

  These three were in here every other week. Neo was captain of our little neck of the Darkmoon Night Market, the seediest part of Bijou Mer… aside from the docks, which they seemed to drift over to quite often. Almost as though they were looking for trouble. I frowned at Victor, who took a swig from the half-empty bottle, green potion dribbling down his stubbly chin.

  Will huffed and threw his gloved hands up. “You squid sucking—erg! Stay still!”

  “What’d you call me?!” Victor whirled on my friend, the ugly gash on his cheek gaping, bottle raised as a weapon.

  Neo leaped forward to intervene, but Will just shot Victor a flat look. My friend was an enormous bear of a man (who did actually happen to be a bear shifter) and wasn’t easily intimidated.

  He sneered at the wiry thug. “I’d love to see you try.”

  “Wha’ever.” Victor scoffed and spun back to face me before taking another swig.

  Will rolled his shoulders and pressed his lips together. “May I continue?”

  Victor snorted.

  “Oh, a grunt, very civilized. I suppose that’s a yes.” My friend went back to fixing the guy’s cut-up face.

  I watched Will’s enormous hands fly. It never ceased to amaze me how such thick fingers could do such delicate work. Will had been one of, if not the, top surgeon in Bijou Mer, the capital of the Water Kingdom, before his temper got the best of him at a dinner party with the island’s elite.

  He’d shifted into bear form, and it’d killed his career. Depressed, he’d quickly lost his home—everything—and had to go to the shifter mob boss, Ludolf Caterwaul, for a favor.

  Ludolf had set Will up with this clinic in exchange for a monthly protection fee (which just kept Neo and his goons from vandalizing the place) and for patching up his people when they got hurt. Which was often with these idiots.

  I leaned against the wall and sighed. Will now used his skills to heal pets and familiars and shifters—since normal magical folk were so prejudiced against our kind. But he was so talented—he deserved so much better than this hole in the wall down a dark alley.

  I, on the other hand, had done everything in my power to fly under the sonar with Luldof Caterwaul. I wanted nothing to do with him or his “favors.” I shuddered at the thought of owing anything to a man like that.

  Neo, also leaning against the wall, slid closer to me, his strong cologne masking the exam room’s scent of lemon cleaner, blood, and booze. I raised a hand to my face and sneezed.

  “So…, Jolene….”

  I tried hard not to roll my eyes. If he tried to ask me out after drawing a wand on me and acting like I couldn’t speak for myself, I’d kick him in the shin. I admired the shiny new boots I’d bought with the bonus Peter had given me for going above and beyond on the case we’d worked together. It’d be a shame to scuff the toe over a guy like Neo.

  He glanced over at me—or rather my chest—and I resisted the urge to hike my T-shirt up higher. “I heard a rumor about you.”

  Oh, boy. Here it came. I glanced up into his chiseled face and gave him a simpering smile. “That I punch people who spread rumors about me?”

  He glared at me. “That you’re hanging around with cops now?”

  Will choked, and we both looked over at him. He
snatched the glowing green bottle from Victor, threw his head back, and took a swig. He slammed the bottle on the metal table and shot me a heavy look that reeked of “I told you so.”

  I rolled my eyes. Will had been warning me for the last week, ever since I worked with Peter, that Ludolf was bound to find out and that there’d be dire consequences. Blah blah blah. Which, though annoying, had given me time to come up with an excuse for an occasion just such as this.

  I waved a hand and turned back to Neo. “Me? Nah.”

  He lifted a brow with a scar running through it.

  I shrugged. “I witnessed that murder last week—you know the one where the lady flew out of the window?”

  He just shrugged.

  Yeah. It was tough to keep track of all the murders in the Darkmoon District.

  I raised a nonchalant brow. “The cops just came by for a statement, that’s all.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Neo’s eyes searched my face, then he turned to face the other guys and spoke loudly. “I told everyone it was just a rumor.” He lifted his brows. “I knew that would be ludicrous, seeing as cops are mortal enemies to us shifters.” He shot me a pointed look. “But it’s good to hear you deny it from your own lips.”

  I raised my brows. “Which you can stop staring at.”

  His throat bobbed, and his eyes grew wide for just a flash.

  Three knocks sounded from behind me, ringing against the metal door to the alley.

  “Hi! Is Jolene there?”

  My stomach tightened. Peter—the cop—was here. Now. Not good.

  Will’s enormous eyes got even bigger, the whites showing all around as he flashed me a wild look. He pressed his pale lips together behind his scruffy beard, a vein popping in his temple. I felt tempted to remind him that if he popped a blood vessel, he was the surgeon and no one else would be able to help him.

  Neo’s expression grew grim. “Who’s that?”

  Sacha, the boulder of man to my left, reached for his wand.

  Will curled his lip at me in a snarl. “Yes, Jolene.” His words came out taut. “Who is it?”