Page 40 of The Hearth Witch’s Guide to Magic & Murder (The Hemlock Saga #1)

The fey within had not bothered to glamour, nor had anyone done the service for him.

He would not be seen by human eyes that night, and so he remained in a form somewhere between a man and a warthog.

His large tusks were painfully white against the dark hair that covered most of his face and arms. He grinned at Avery, genuinely pleased to see her.

“Avery ’emlock, as I live and breathe. I thought you were going to be lost to the ages!

” Despite having moved to London sometime in the 1700s, Bimo Shinwell had taken a shine to the cockney accent.

He found the dental fricatives of the dialect were a fantastic tool for overcoming the trouble of speaking a mortal language around his great tusks.

In fact, he was so enamored by this trick, he had implemented the cockney dialect regardless what language he was speaking.

“And I worried someone would have gutted you by now for taking their last cent in one of your grand schemes,” Avery admitted grimly.

The babi ngepet40 folded his arms and snuffled indignantly. “I’ll have you know I run a legitimate business these days… Well, ran. Can’t do much right now, I suppose, can I, protective custody and all?” He chuckle-snorted genially.

“Yes, intriguing that, whatever have you got yourself into?”

“Council’s got it ’andled, but I am not allowed to talk about it.

Not that they thought I’d be able to talk to anyone anyway.

I am a valued witness—bah, but you got me talkin’, didn’t ya?

No, ’emlock, best thing to do is leave well enough alone, it ain’t nothing you need worry about—fates know I ain’t.

” He stretched and leaned back as if he were merely on holiday.

“Once this gets settled though, it’ll be back to helping people manifest their dreams.”

If Avery Hemlock had ever been the sort to be able to leave anything “well enough alone,” she might have adopted a far different profession. She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And how exactly do you do that?”

“I teach a series of courses that help poor mortals open their third eye and clearly visualize the future they want.” He gestured grandly before sitting back in his seat once more.

“And then you help them take those steps?”

“What steps?”

“The steps to manifest that future into reality.”

“Oh, no.” Bimo shook his head vigorously. “There’s no steps. They just visualize it clearly, and it manifests into their life. It’s about energy and wanting it enough that your life is open to making it happen.”

The skepticism rose. “Your legitimate business is teaching people how to think really hard about what they want until it just comes to them without any effort or action?”

“Allowing yourself to be a conduit for the good you want in your life.”

It was becoming rather clear why Bimo Shinwell was in protective custody, though Avery was struggling to fathom what possessed the council to grant it. What could he have possibly witnessed? “And what happens when they don’t actually get it because all they did was think about it?”

Bimo shrugged. “We advise them they may need more guidance to better picture it happening.”

“So you shift the blame and explain the issue isn’t with the method, but rather how they have applied it, and in turn they pay you more until they finally become wise that you’re selling hogwash.”

Bimo gave a wounded snort. “That is offensive and slanderous terminology.”

Avery shook her head. She didn’t have time for this.

Whatever the council was protecting Bimo Shinwell from, it was unrelated to her current case.

There was a dragon counting down the minutes just outside, and she certainly wasn’t going to get her answers by “manifesting” them.

She drew the files from her coat and held them out to Bimo, who took them with thick-nailed hands that resembled hooves.

“Two victims, each with an organ missing, each with a mass of herbs, straw, and oil found in the organ’s place. ”

“Oooh, now that’s interesting…” Bimo peeked through the file, skimming over notes as Avery continued.

“The herbs in each all have both medical and magical correspondences to the missing organ. Hawthorn in the heart, lemon balm in the brain. I don’t know why our killer is stealing the organs, but I do believe they used these straw organs as poppets, possibly triggering these spells at a distance and performing the initial ritual a few days prior.

This has enabled different apparent causes of death and would have gone undiscovered under normal circumstances.

There is a chance they may have gotten away with it before.

What I need to know is, how would this kind of magic be accomplished? ”

“Hmm,” Bimo answered, the frown apparent on his piggish face.

“Hmm, what?” Avery asked.

“Well… You know I love the way your mind works, I do, but I think you might have lost the plot on this one.” He shivered. “Sounds too personal and vicious to be about organ theft.”

Avery recalled Saga voicing a similar reservation. “How do you mean?”

“I could be wrong,” Bimo prefaced, showing her the picture of the herbs in the brain bowl.

“But there is such care put into the construction of the spell, and the specific herbs, the straw body maintaining its relative shape, the oil to bind it all together.” He took a moment, preparing his statement with a deep breath.

“I think these were meant to be fetches.”

The word hit Avery like cold water. “Fetches?”41

“Well, partial fetches.” He turned to Saoirse’s file.

“This heart, see… All of these herbs are focused on heart health—you don’t need all that for a poppet.

You just need a lock of hair, drop of blood.

And if you’re close enough to perform a ritual around someone, you certainly don’t need a poppet.

Nah, my money is this wasn’t about making it similar enough to a heart, but rather meant to act as an actual heart…

Well, for a few days, anyway. You couldn’t live for very long with one of these, no matter how powerful or well crafted the charm. ”

“Why not?”

Bimo neatly closed both folders and handed them back to Avery across the car. “It’s a bit of a lost art, creating a fetch. That was before your time even, wasn’t it? Been illegal for quite a while—ever since Faerie put a sanction against human captivity and trade.”

“That didn’t exactly stop trafficking,” said Avery gravely.

“Made it more difficult,” Bimo Shinwell offered as if trying to find the silver lining on a cloudy day.

“But no, definitely hasn’t stopped mortal trafficking.

So yeah, maybe your organ theory could hold water…

But see, a full and proper fetch doesn’t have to function with human physiology, does it?

It just has to seem human to other humans—it’s not actually alive, just mimicking life.

And, even then, in order to keep it stable when not in the presence of the caster, you’d have to bind the charm to an object—something solid and unchanging—I believe necklaces around the fetch’s neck were common. ”

Avery thought about the necklace she found in Valentina’s jewelry box. “Could one of these organs also be bound to something like that?”

Bimo stroked his snout thoughtfully. “I suppose one could try, but full fetches mimicking humans know they cannot take off the necklace—sounds to me like your victims didn’t know they’d had a swap, eh?

” He grinned his tusky grin. “Nah, to make an artificial organ using fetch magic, you’d have to bind it to the body itself.

Maybe if you infused it with some sort of healing charm you could manage, but…

If there’s something a mortal body ain’t, it’s ‘unchanging.’” He chuckled at that last part.

Avery didn’t laugh. “So that’s why these organs failed?”

Bimo shook his head and clarified. “That’s why these was never going to succeed. Anyone who remembers anything about the old magic enough to make a fetch should know that. So if they did it anyway, they was either really desperate, or they wanted those organs to fail.”

“You said anyone who remembers. Would they have to be old fey?”

“I don’t see how they’d get any of the information otherwise. Council ordered it all destroyed on this side centuries ago. I suppose someone could cobble something together if they dug enough, though I can’t imagine that would be very successful.”

Had these been successful? Avery turned a doubtful expression to the files in her hands. If this was true. If this was right… “Have you heard of anything like this?”

“No, but I’ve also been off the grid for about a month.

” His thick nails scratched at his wiry beard.

“My best guess is this is very personal to someone. They chose these victims very specifically. Risking banned magic to inflict organ failure? They wanted them to die slowly and painfully. If I were you, I’d be looking for whoever wanted revenge. ”

Avery growled at the word; guttural, involuntary, and animalistic.

“Or maybe not,” Bimo said quickly. “Maybe they were hoping the organs would never fail and these people would go on living their lives as if nothing was wrong.”

“If only,” Avery muttered. She grimaced apologetically to Shinwell. “Thank you. This does really help. It just…creates some complications for me.”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you,” Bimo answered with a toothy smile.

The word “business” gave her pause. “Why did you talk with me? I haven’t given you anything in exchange. Am I to owe you some sort of favor in the future?”

Bimo winced. “The dragon made it clear that if I was uncooperative, the paperwork surrounding my sanctuary at Blackthorn might be…mysteriously misplaced.”

Knuckles rapped on the window. Ten minutes were up.

Avery carefully exited the car, tucking the files back into her coat.

“Did you get your answers?” Fiore asked.

“As much as I am going to tonight—along with a hundred more questions.”

Fiore clicked their tongue. “Good.” The dragon strode to the front of the car. “Then I expect I will not have to see you for some time.”

“Fiore,” Avery called after them. “Why have you done all this?”

Gold eyes leveled on Avery, appraising the sincerity of her question.

“Because she asked.” The soft reply came simply, matter-of-fact.

The sun rises, a new day begins. The lightning strikes, the thunder follows.

Esteri asks, Fiore answers. These were all equal cause and effect to the dragon, and thus no further explanation was called for.

“Which reminds me…” They reached into their pocket and produced something about the size of their hand before tossing it to Avery.

“I’m afraid it doesn’t come with sprinkles. ”

Avery caught it and was surprised to recognize it as a phone similar to the one Saga had used to let her talk to Reza.

“I took the liberty of not putting myself into your contacts. Do not seek to alter that, it was not an oversight.”

Avery turned the phone over in her hands and saw a piece of paper had been taped to the back with a series of eleven numbers. “Is this a combination to something?”

“It’s your number,” Fiore said flatly.

“I do not understand,” Avery admitted.

“My time is too valuable to act as your tech support. Have your little friend explain it to you.”

“My little…” Saga. Avery’s eyes widened in realization and she looked up in time to see Fiore opening the door to the driver’s seat.

“Esteri and I have no secrets, Hemlock,” Fiore said, getting in. “It’s embarrassing you don’t know that by now.” The car door shut, and they drove away.

39 The most powerful fey. Known by many names, but in Celtic mythology they were referred to as “Aos Sí,” the “daoine síth,” or the “sidhe.” In other cultures, they might have been merely known as gods.

40 In Indonesian mythology, babi ngepet were believed to be responsible for magically carrying away gold and valuables from the villages.

Known in Java and Bali, it was said the practicing of black magic transformed the caster into a boar-like demon, though upon being questioned, both a babi ngepet and a boar would scoff that they do not see the resemblance.

41 Fetch (Celtic folklore): A supernatural apparition or double of a living person. Similar to the German doppelg?nger. Some humans believed that to see a fetch of your own image was an omen of your death.

To the fey, they were a powerful and useful creation to take the place of and mimic a human stolen from the mortal realm.

It should be understood, however, that a mimic, no matter how well crafted, is always inferior to an original, only able to parrot information rather than craft their own ideas, which makes them terrible conversationalists.

It is, however, since the invention of the sycophant, far more difficult to identify a fetch in the wild.