Hallow Haven Cozy Mysteries Bundle Books 1-3 by Mara Webb (books to read fiction .txt) 📕

didn’t have the luxury of time to argue with him about it, so shrugged my shoulders at Walter and followed Ryder out onto the high street.

He took the route through the buildings towards the edge of the trees that he had taken me on last time, but as soon as the moonlight was blocked by the leafy canopy, and the streetlights grew dim in the distance, I could see almost nothing.

“Follow my voice,” Ryder encouraged.

“Easier said than done, I think there is an owl throwing a tantrum in here and if a snake touches me, I am going to freak out,” I whimpered.

“You are about to infiltrate a gang of musicians that are performing dark magic, now might not be the best time to lose your courage,” Walter reminded me.

“Good point, but unless one of them turns into a snake, I’m not scared of them,” I replied. Should I be though? I mean, I was an actual witch, they were just play pretending. Jake’s murder hadn’t involved witchcraft, they hadn’t demonstrated that they could actually do anything yet, had they?

I saw a shaft of moonlight cut through the trees and glisten on the tip of the arrow that was loaded into Ryder’s crossbow. At some point he had also donned a quiver and the sound of the arrows rattling together as he ran up hill made him easier to track.

I wished that Miller were here, something about his proximity lately had made me feel safe. Ryder turned back to look at me, as if he could hear what I was thinking. I gulped nervously, worried that he was picking up on my doubt.

“Stay close to me,” he whispered in the dark. “We are almost there.”

His voice was gentle, soothing enough to give me pause. Suddenly he extended an arm to block my path. Walter was right behind me and crashed into the back of my body after my abrupt halt.

“What is it?” Walter asked.

“I can hear something,” Ryder replied. I listened out and could only just make out a sound that wasn’t coming from the animals of the island or the breeze.

“Are you part bat?” I joked. “The last thing my life needs is a vampire.”

“Tell me about it,” Walter mumbled. What?

“They are reciting something, I think there are three or four of them,” Ryder said, ignoring my comment. “What did you want to do? What needs to be done?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “We need to stop them, but I don’t know how dangerous they might be. I guess I didn’t consider that they would outnumber us.”

“I can defend you, as well as Ryder,” Walter assured me. “I know you’re new to this, but your magic can help. You might surprise yourself.”

We crept higher up the hill, choosing our steps carefully to avoid snapping any large branches. The voices grew louder, and I suspected that they wouldn’t have been able to hear us even if we had bulldozed our way to the clearing. They were chanting, repeating strange sounds over and over that sounded like a foreign language.

“They must have someone up there, a victim on the flat rock,” Walter said. “They are close to the end of the ceremony. We have to move, now!”

I nodded silently. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears now, almost totally drowning out the sound of the chants. There was a light in the clearing. I could see four figures standing around the place where I knew the flat rock to be. Walter was right, there was someone on the stone. I could see a limp hand hanging down from the body.

“That’s not Jake,” I muttered. “That’s his wife. They must have taken her body from the house.” How could they have done that in such a short space of time? Who even knew that she was dead?

A sound pierced the air so loudly that I had no doubt every person on the island could hear it. It was a long, pained howl. Miller. The four figures around the rock seemed to break focus and stopped chanting. One of them turned to see us lurking in the trees at the edge of the clearing and when I saw the face of the man staring at me, I knew what had happened.

One of them shouted, ‘run’ and they scattered in all different directions. I saw Max as the moonlight hit his face, I recognized him from the photo that Effie had been clutching on his bed. Walter seemed to know who he was too, so ran towards him and off through the trees. Ryder moved forward into the clearing with his crossbow against his shoulder, one eye squinted shut as he tried to take aim.

I knew my target.

I followed the man that had looked at me. I ran towards him as he tunneled left, racing between branches and leaping over roots that burst through the earth like the trees were trying to pull themselves out of the ground. The man that had looked at me had been in the police car that had rolled into the gated community, after Miller called the station to report that we had found Mrs. Hall dead on her living room carpet.

He was a police officer.

I heard the crossbow fire; Ryder had shot at something. I had no idea where my guardian was, and I was now alone in an area of the woods chasing down a bad guy. Perhaps the officer realized it at the same time as me, because he stopped running and turned to face me.

I was in real trouble now. I could see a taser on his belt, his hand racing to grab hold of it as a warning to me. I stopped moving.

“It’s over,” I said, my hands up, palms facing him, trying to lower the temperature of the confrontation. “Let’s just take a second to stay calm.”

“Do you know how my girlfriend looks at me when I tell her that the band might get signed any minute? She rolls her eyes.