Witches Brew Read online

  Witches Brew

  Phantom Queen Book 6 - A Temple Verse Series

  Shayne Silvers

  Cameron O’Connell

  Contents

  BOOKS IN THE TEMPLE VERSE

  SHAYNE AND CAMERON

  FAE ARE MISSING ALL OVER BOSTON…

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  TRY: OBSIDIAN SON (NATE TEMPLE #1)

  TRY: UNCHAINED (FEATHERS AND FIRE #1)

  MAKE A DIFFERENCE

  BOOKS IN THE TEMPLE VERSE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT SHAYNE SILVERS

  ABOUT CAMERON O’CONNELL

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Shayne Silvers & Cameron O’Connell

  Witches Brew

  The Phantom Queen Diaries Book 6

  A Temple Verse Series

  © 2018, Shayne Silvers / Argento Publishing, LLC / Cameron O’Connell

  [email protected]

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  VIP’s get early access to all sorts of Temple-Verse goodies, including signed copies, private giveaways, and advance notice of future projects. AND A FREE NOVELLA! Click the image or join here: www.shaynesilvers.com/l/219800

  FOLLOW and LIKE:

  Shayne’s FACEBOOK PAGE:

  Cameron’s FACEBOOK PAGE:

  We respond to all messages, so don’t hesitate to drop either of us a line. Not interacting with readers is the biggest travesty that most authors can make. Let us fix that.

  BOOKS IN THE TEMPLE VERSE

  CHRONOLOGY: All stories in the Temple Verse are shown in chronological order on the following page

  PHANTOM QUEEN DIARIES

  WHISKEY GINGER

  COSMOPOLITAN

  OLD FASHIONED

  DARK AND STORMY

  MOSCOW MULE

  WITCHES BREW

  FEATHERS AND FIRE SERIES

  UNCHAINED

  RAGE

  WHISPERS

  ANGEL’S ROAR

  SINNER

  NATE TEMPLE SERIES

  FAIRY TALE - FREE prequel novella #0 for my subscribers

  OBSIDIAN SON

  BLOOD DEBTS

  GRIMM

  SILVER TONGUE

  BEAST MASTER

  TINY GODS

  DADDY DUTY (Novella #6.5)

  WILD SIDE

  WAR HAMMER

  NINE SOULS

  HORSEMAN

  LEGEND (TEMPLE #11) - COMING DECEMBER 2018…

  CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: TEMPLE VERSE

  FAIRY TALE (TEMPLE PREQUEL)

  OBSIDIAN SON (TEMPLE 1)

  BLOOD DEBTS (TEMPLE 2)

  GRIMM (TEMPLE 3)

  SILVER TONGUE (TEMPLE 4)

  BEAST MASTER (TEMPLE 5)

  BEERLYMPIAN (TEMPLE 5.5)

  TINY GODS (TEMPLE 6)

  DADDY DUTY (TEMPLE NOVELLA 6.5)

  UNCHAINED (FEATHERS… 1)

  RAGE (FEATHERS… 2)

  WILD SIDE (TEMPLE 7)

  WAR HAMMER (TEMPLE 8)

  WHISPERS (FEATHERS… 3)

  COLLINS (PHANTOM 0)

  WHISKEY GINGER (PHANTOM… 1)

  NINE SOULS (TEMPLE 9)

  COSMOPOLITAN (PHANTOM… 2)

  ANGEL’S ROAR (FEATHERS… 4)

  MOTHERLUCKER (FEATHERS 4.5, PHANTOM 3.5)

  OLD FASHIONED (PHANTOM…3)

  HORSEMAN (TEMPLE 10)

  DARK AND STORMY (PHANTOM… 4)

  MOSCOW MULE (PHANTOM…5)

  SINNER (FEATHERS…5)

  WITCHES BREW (PHANTOM…6)

  LEGEND (TEMPLE…11)

  SHAYNE AND CAMERON

  Shayne Silvers, here.

  Cameron O’Connell is one helluva writer, and he’s worked tirelessly to merge a story into the Temple Verse that would provide a different and unique voice, but a complementary tone to my other novels. SOME people might say I’m hard to work with. But certainly, Cameron would never…

  Hey! Pipe down over there, author monkey! Get back to your writing cave and finish the next Phantom Queen Novel!

  Ahem. Now, where was I?

  This is book 6 in the Phantom Queen Diaries, which is a series that ties into the existing Temple Verse with Nate Temple and Callie Penrose. This series could also be read independently if one so chose. Then again, you, the reader, will get SO much more out of my existing books (and this series) by reading them all in tandem.

  But that’s not up to us. It’s up to you, the reader.

  You tell us…

  FAE ARE MISSING ALL OVER BOSTON…

  And apparently, no one else is suicidal enough to look into it.

  Good thing Quinn MacKenna—black magic arms dealer and Fae half-breed—has been searching for a way to earn back some of Boston’s goodwill after almost destroying the city…twice. Besides, favors for the Fae usually pay dividends if you play your cards right…

  As long as the Fae don’t double-cross or otherwise backstab you. But that hardly ever happens…

  Thankfully, Quinn has Robin Redcap to back her up—between his skill at navigating Fae politics and his penchant for extreme, brutal violence, it’s a match made in Heaven. Or Hell.

  But the only evidence they have to go on is a crime scene laden with ritualistic ingredients and blood—lots and lots of blood—leading Quinn to suspect witchcraft.

  Except the witches are a tight-knit community who don’t appreciate Quinn’s intrusion—even when all she wants to do is help. Simply put, what happens in the coven stays in the coven.

  The situation grows murkier and deadlier by the minute as Quinn finds herself cauldron-deep in a swirl of betrayal, conspiracy, and vengeance.

  Especially when she discovers who is really stirring the pot, and that it might all stem from an unfulfilled promise made by a certain trigger-happy redhead regarding a certain magic-slinging wizard in St. Louis. And the Fae put pretty big stock in promises and agreements.

  Double, double, toil and trouble…

  This little oath-breaker is in big, big trouble.

  Chapter 1

  In my opinion, there’s something inexplicably wrong with your life when you find yourself in a strip club before noon on a weekday. To me, it felt as cultur
ally insensitive as using a fork to eat sushi: just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should. Of course, maybe that was only me. It’s not like the time of day would make much of a difference to your average person; all strip clubs are kept dark and windowless, which meant most would be hard pressed to tell whether or not it’s night or day outside, let alone guess the hour.

  But if you knew what to look for—if you’d been to enough clubs enough times to sense the sun creeping up on the horizon in a windowless room like a hand reaching out for you in the dark—you’d recognize the symptoms. You’d notice the energy of the club was calmer, somehow—the girls less inclined to hustle, their breaks longer, the drinks thinner. The customers would appear likewise changed, their gazes less intent, shoulders slumped, nursing their drinks instead of pounding them.

  It felt almost like everyone was catching their breath.

  Considering the fact I was nursing a slight hangover of my own, I supposed I couldn’t blame any of them—not the girls for being tired and worn down, or the customers for looking sad and forlorn. I could, however, blame the three people sitting across from me for dragging me out this early. Although I suppose calling them “people” would be stretching things a bit.

  One of the individuals opposite me, his back pressed firmly against a red leather couch, was a Faeling—a creature born in the Fae realm, an alternate dimension of sorts which bordered ours and, occasionally, bled over. Robin Redcap, once an infamous castle-haunting baddie turned rogue spy, fiddled with his blood red ball cap, a habitual gesture that I couldn’t attribute to any particular emotion. Hell, for all I knew, I brought it on; I’d never seen him fuss with it as much as he did when around me. The Faeling wore a dark blue T-shirt which read “The Hunt for Red Soxtober” in blockish red letters, spread wide across a thick, burly chest—a sentiment which admittedly won him brownie points with me.

  I was born here in Boston, after all.

  It was Robin who’d requested the meeting and the time, though I’d been sure to pick the venue. Ordinarily, I’d have gone with some place a little tamer, but The Seven Deadly Inn constituted familiar territory, and frankly, if there was one thing I’d learned over years spent making deals with disreputable people as a black magic arms dealer, it was to avoid the nice, relaxed locales when setting up potentially hazardous meet-and-greets.

  Nobody likes it when their favorite park becomes a warzone.

  So, here we were, in a strip club in the wee hours of the morning. Of course, while snagging breakfast at a strip club wasn’t exactly on my to-do list, I had to admit the Inn had a few perks—even during daylight hours—that I simply couldn’t get elsewhere: a decent drink selection, privacy, and enough nudity to distract my would-be clients.

  What’s more, it seemed that particular strategy seemed to be paying off; the other two individuals crowded beside Robin on the couch had nearly identical, utterly blank expressions on their faces, despite the fact that one was male and the other female. In fact, Hansel and his sister, Gretel, sat with their hands clasped between their knees, pointedly turned away from the stage and its promise of flesh, as if we were sitting in an office and not a lounge. Both Germans had long blonde hair, which might have passed for white in the right light, but which currently reflected the various strobes of color swimming throughout the club: red, green, purple, and back again. They each had pale blue eyes, though neither were as lovely, or captivating, as Robin’s—the Redcap had grown a beard so thick and high on his cheeks that his eyes were practically all I could see of his face beneath the ball cap. His eyes, unlike the cool gazes of his two companions, seemed to be urging me to be civil, as if he were silently worried I’d say something to piss the fairytale siblings off.

  Who, me?

  “So, what is it ye two want, then?” I asked, finally.

  Robin sighed.

  “Miss MacKenna,” Gretel began, wisely deciding not to call me by my first name, Quinn, without permission, “I think we should begin by acknowledging that what my brother did to you several months ago was deplorable, and that his behavior during that time was utterly inexcusable.”

  I felt my eyes widen as I glanced over at Hansel, hoping to gauge his reaction. But the elder German man had already pointedly looked away. Of course, that meant he’d begun inadvertently staring at an inverted stripper, her legs spread wide on either side of the pole. His gaze quickly shifted to his shoes, his cheeks burning. I would have laughed at his expense, but honestly, I was too busy fighting the urge not to gape at his sister; of all the things I’d expected her to say, that hadn’t been one of them. Thing was, a ridiculous amount of shit had happened since Hansel—Grimms’ Brothers fairytale figure and one of the three attorneys who worked for the Faerie Chancery, an organization designed to both protect and control the Fae population here in Boston—and I had last spoken in his office.

  Last spring, following a fresh crop of horrific murders in the Boston area, I’d been manipulated by Hansel and a few select members of the Chancery—including Robin—into finding and taking out the serial killer responsible for the deaths. To say I hadn’t taken kindly to being their pawn would be an understatement. In fact, between that experience and the loss of my aunt this past summer during a cataclysmic altercation with an ancient race bent on the destruction of all things Fae, I’d pretty much written off the fair folk in their entirety; fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, and I’ll fucking end you. And yet, here was Gretel—one-third of the law office of Hansel, Hansel, and Gretel—calling out her brother in public for something he’d done to me months ago.

  It was enough to make me suspicious.

  “So I’ll ask again, what d’ye want?” I asked.

  “To apologize, first and foremost,” Gretel replied. “It wasn’t until I first considered approaching you that my brother confessed to what he’d done. Apparently, he thought you might be reticent to help us, under the circumstances.” When Hansel said nothing, Gretel nudged him. “Tell her.”

  “I am sorry, Miss MacKenna,” Hansel said, head bowed so far down his hair trailed over the lip of his shirt collar. “I have been among the Fae a long time. I fear I have come to think as they do. To plot as they do, with little consideration for those we use to achieve our aims.”

  I found myself shaking my head. “We Fae don’t plot, ye know.”

  Both lawyers frowned, wearing eerily similar, disbelieving expressions. “What do you mean ‘we Fae’?” Gretel asked, incredulously.

  Now it was my turn to look away. I studied the dancer’s gyrations and knew, from nothing but the exposed back and curve of ass, that Heresy was on stage. True to the Inn’s tradition of naming the dancers after one of the many, many Biblical sins cited in scripture, Heresy moved like a caged animal, prowling the edges of the raised dais on her knees, her dark brown skin so smooth it looked like it had been poured on. Unlike Hansel, I didn’t bother looking away; I’d always enjoyed watching Heresy move, especially through a crowd—she drew more stares at just over five foot than I did at six, although my flaming red hair and bright green eyes tended to earn more lingering attention. “I meant what I said,” I replied, at last. I turned back and gave the lawyers my full attention. “I’m guessin’ Robin kept me little secret to himself, then.”

  Robin cleared his throat. “The Huntress said that if I told anyone anything about you, she’d—and I quote—‘shove my hat down my throat and sew my mouth shut’.”

  That made me smile. The Huntress, an infamous warrior woman named Scathach, was essentially my twisted rendition of a Faerie godmother. Of course, the fact that she was training me three days a week to fight and kill using my newfound abilities—not to mention the fact that she apparently went around threatening to maim people on my behalf—should go to show exactly what kind of Faerie godmother I needed in my life.

  Basically, the only reason I’d wear glass slippers was so I could turn them into shivs.

  “Aye, that sounds like her,” I said.

  Robin gri
nned and nodded, his gruff voice carrying a little over the sound of Heresy’s set. “I wasn’t planning on telling anyone anyway.”

  “Is that so?” Hansel asked, eyes narrowed.

  Robin’s grin faded. “I don’t work for you anymore, Hansel. For anyone. What I keep from you is my business.”

  “Went freelance, is that it?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. Trouble was, as long as I’d known Robin, he’d been a spy—albeit a spy whose loyalties I’d never entirely sorted out. But the fact remained that, while he may have kept information from Hansel and Gretel, I still wasn’t entirely sure I could trust him.

  “Sort of,” Robin replied, staring down the elderly German man. “I applied to become an Adjudicator.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that. As far as I knew, the Adjudicators—of which there were only two—were Faelings responsible for governing the Faerie Chancery and its various factions. Last I’d spoken with Robin, he’d been pretty dissatisfied with that system, even going so far as to contemplate rebellion. Which meant either something significant had changed, or he had.

  “That application is still pending,” Hansel growled.