The Baker's Guide to Risky Rituals Read online

  The Baker's Guide to Risky Rituals

  Sweet Pea Mysteries, Book 1

  Kathryn Moon

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Copyright @ 2019 Kathryn Moon

  The Baker’s Guide To Risky Rituals, Sweet Pea Mysteries Book 1

  First publication: October 18th, 2019

  Cover art by KellieArts

  Editing by Meghan Leigh Daigle

  Formatting Image Shape from Shutterstock

  Formatting by Kathryn Moon

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kathryn Moon

  [email protected]

  Kathrynmoon.com

  Created with Vellum

  For Chloe,

  Bell’s still your man!

  Contents

  Foreword

  Untitled

  1. King Beleth Comes to Sweet Pea

  2. Josephine's Bakery

  3. The Charms of Grimsby House

  4. Knitting Knaves

  5. Blood on the Blade

  6. Good Times At Gunney's Tavern

  7. The Fall Colors

  8. Love Thy Neighbor

  9. The Appetite of Demons

  10. Friendly Interviews

  11. Banks County Calls a Meeting

  12. House Guests

  13. Miscalculations

  14. A Visit With Papa Legba

  15. Confused is a Four-Letter Word

  16. Bad Alibis

  17. Vines of Discord

  18. No Rude Man

  19. The Blessing of a Non-Believer

  20. Blood and Promises

  21. Compromise

  22. A King on the Streets

  23. A Samhain Circle

  Epilogue

  Also by Kathryn Moon

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Foreword

  First, a quick word. The demons you are about to meet are inspired by the demons of the Ars Goetia or Lesser Key of Solomon, a mid 17th century grimoire of anonymous origin. Some of the incantations have been adapted from the same grimoire, although I shortened them because mid 17th century anonymous authors sure can go on about it.

  This series also includes inspiration from Christian mythology, which I have liberally and enthusiastically adapted to suit my own imagination. Those adaptations, or re-imaginations, will increase throughout the series and include some cases of renaming places or notable figures to help differentiate this story’s version from the Bible’s.

  If you feel yourself troubled by any of those changes, please remember one thing: this is only a work of fiction.

  As portents go, the seven riders looked suitably ominous on their black-brushed, chrome, two-wheel chariots as they stirred tornados of fall colors into flight behind them.

  The scenery of Sweet Pea was every bit as quaint and tooth-rottingly sweet as they had been warned by headquarters. Even with the sound of their engines tearing through the peaceful Sunday morning of the countryside, the riders received the standard local greeting of hands raised and smiles stretched as they sped by, kicking up dust behind them. The changing colors of the season glowed in the valley, reflecting off the dark leather jackets and polished silver as the bikes rolled down the curling roads towards Sweet Pea, Virgina. The Safest Town in America.

  For now.

  The threat of the motorcycle crew was larger than noisy Sundays or menacing stares from strangers, and their intent in traveling to Sweet Pea was darker than casting long shadows over dew-brushed cobblestones.

  The Hell’s Bells Motorcycle Club was a product of the infinite imaginations of the Seventh Circle and the club’s leader, King Beleth of Lucifer’s Legions. He led the charge, black hair tied back under a black bandana—nothing fancy, skulls were for those who had to try to intimidate you and Beleth hadn’t had to try at anything in millennia. The six riders at his back called their leader Bell—a name intended to disguise him in the human world. The rest of the Bowels of Hell knew him as Your Lowness, or Beleth the Warlord, one of the Great Demon Kings beneath.

  His black eyes spared a glance for the sign growing closer as he rode, pastel paint on cracking wood, carved flowers curling over every corner. Sweet Pea.

  The name alone was enough to give Bell a queasy feeling. The pavement took on a sparkle as they reached Main Street, and the sun overhead glowed golden through his shield of dark sunglasses.

  What a fuckin’ town, he thought, lip curling back in a snarl as a cotton ball of a dog yipped in excitement at their passing.

  It was worse than HQ had detailed in the mission description. Red brick houses with pebbled glass windows, and window boxes flooded with herbs and flowers. Bicycles with baskets all lined up together at the corner of a sidewalk, each in a different color. There was a florist shop, peach roses growing wildly over a trellis by the door, and a cafe named Love & Lattes. The rider known as Aim—no King, but a Great Duke and very partial to setting fires—eyed the shop with a hungry interest that implied its arson-free days were now numbered.

  The crew parked in narrow spots designed for motorcycles and Bell rose from his seat first, bones cracking as he stretched and glared at his own reflection in the window in front of him. For a demon used to any number of heads and limbs that suited him, a human form was deeply limited. After a week of riding—scattering trouble and chaos behind their wheels—he was already sick of two-legging it.

  “Look at this shit, Bell,” said one of the riders, boots stomping to the pavement, soot scattering from his footprint. “’S downright hospitable. They got spots for bikes n’ shit.” Barbatos, although the patch on his leather jacket read Barbie—unironic and the matter of a clerical error on the part of HQ—was an Earl of Hell. As a human he was unwashed but handsome, with a sour expression and tattoos up to his chin.

  “Shoulda parked on the sidewalks like those little fuckers,” Vine said, glaring at the Schwinns with their bike baskets down the road with a half-hearted intent to disintegrate them. Vine was the redheaded King of Hell—his crown a more recent promotion than Bell’s—now demoted to play the part of the Warlord’s soldier.

  “Not just yet,” Beleth said, dark eyes fixing their stare down Main Street. “We’re looking at a long stay.”

  Sweet Pea was the kind of town folks intended to drive through on their way to somewhere else, and then stopped because of how welcoming it looked. And worst of all, according to the report passed to Hell’s Bells by the Bowel’s research department, the news was that everyone who passed through Sweet Pea had started calling it the dreaded three word name: Heaven on Earth.

  Not for long if Hell had to say anything about it, and they had sent their best man to ensure success in battle. It wasn’t a matter of Aim setting fire to the library, Vinny bringing in a few destructive storms, or Dante spreading a few good ru
mors. Bell knew that a town this… good started to hold a kind of power in its bones. In the bricks of the buildings and the hearts of the people who inhabited them. Move too fast and Hell’s Bells would be chased right back out the way they’d come, and the town would band together stronger than ever. Real destruction would take patience and art. Exactly what the seven riders had been chosen for.

  A door swung open at the demons’ right, bells tinkling, and a whiff of butter and vanilla and yeast came wafting out onto the street.

  “Oh!” A paper bag hit the sidewalk and a tiny woman with short black hair and glasses almost as big as her face stared with wide nervous eyes at the pack of demons in their best human disguises. “Um… welcome to Sweet Pea,” she squeaked out, and then dove for her bag of baked goods and scurried away, head whipping on her shoulder to stare at them again as she rushed down the street.

  Aim grinned at her and winked, and her toe caught in a crack, nearly sending her face down onto the sidewalk. Well, that was a nice greeting. It boosted a demon’s ego to make mortals a little nervous, although one skittish woman wasn’t half as rewarding as the frat house they’d left pissing themselves in Pennsylvania.

  “I like it here already,” Aim announced, inked knuckles cracking as he grinned at the flipping skirt of the retreating woman.

  Bell’s eye was caught elsewhere, snagged through the window of the bakery on the woman glowering at him from behind the counter. She was tiny, laughably small behind the pastries, and it looked like she had a vicious set of curves on her, although it wasn’t quite clear with her arms crossed in front of her like that. Thick, black, feathery lashes drew in around dark eyes, narrowed in suspicion, and her pink lips pursed as she stared at the men. She turned away behind her counter, shaved head bobbing as she strode back to the kitchen and the corner of her jaw a perfect right angle.

  A nervous woman was one thing. A defiant woman was an entirely different kind of treat to Bell’s tastes.

  “Who’s in the mood for a cupcake?” he asked the others. It was time to stretch his legs. Even if there were only two of them.

  The bells on the front door of Josephine’s Bakery made a strange clanging noise, more like a warning than their usual bright welcome. Josephine Benoit, the owner, stood in the kitchen with her nose to the air as the scent of char cut through the haze of butter and vanilla. Her nose wrinkled as the sound of boots hit the lovely black and pink checkered-tile floor of her patisserie. Burning was never a welcome smell in her kitchen, but when it came from the street it was curious. Grabbing a few boxes of macarons, done with their day of rest after being prepared yesterday morning, Josie headed back to her shop front.

  In a witch’s life, there is always such a thing as bad vibes, although in Josie’s opinion the term was applied more widely than it really needed to be. However, when it came to the men sauntering into Josie’s little French bakery, they weren’t just bringing the bad vibes with them. They were the bad vibes, and they left a bitter, ashy flavor on her tongue.

  Worse, she realized, they were ridiculously hot.

  She’d heard the bikes roaring up the road, a heady thrill running through her body at the sound, head working up a fantasy of attractive strangers. In a way, she was right. They were attractive, and they were strangers. Josie’d watched them park in front of the shop, each of them tall and broad, sunglasses knocked up to reveal rough and handsome faces. Until one had looked up through the window and caught her eye—the one currently kicking one of her thrift shop chairs around so he could sit sprawled across its seat, his fire red hair gathering sunlight from the front window. It hadn’t been spicy attraction she’d seen in his gaze, or even rebellious spirit. Just pure, nasty, mean intent.

  Josie wasn’t about to stereotype a pack of bikers. She herself wasn’t a girl who fit comfortably inside of labels, and she didn’t like putting them on other people. But these guys were straight up trouble, and it had nothing to do with their bikes or tattoos or boots.

  Her gaze slid to watch another; he had gray blond hair with dark roots and thick black framed glasses and he was eyeing the bells over her door as if they offended him. A gray streak ran through his dark goatee, and he dressed like the rest of them in black leather and denim, little varying details of tattoos on most of the skin she could see. She was about to tell Glasses to back off the bells, it wasn’t their fault they didn’t like him, when another of the bikers stepped in and blocked her view.

  Josie’s heart stuttered.

  She’d noticed him outside earlier too, and the look they exchanged through the window left her shivering, only this time she was less certain of the cause. He was shoulders and head taller than her, with inky black hair hitting the collar of his leather jacket. Silver streaks shot through the dark hair framing his face, more gray peppering in over the scuff of beard across his jaws. His dark eyes smiled, creases in the corners, but it wasn’t a friendly look. More like a predator licking its chops as it spotted prey.

  He was painfully handsome, face broad and lips wide, eyes narrow, and his weathered leather jacket fitted to those shoulders with all the care of a lover. His eyes studied Josie until every hair on her body stood on end. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin, studying him with equal interest as he glanced down at her bakery case and frowned.

  “Where are the cupcakes?”

  Josie blinked, and it took a moment to shake that whisper soft voice out of her head, like shooing away an affectionate stray cat, knowing it could scratch at any moment.

  “This is a patisserie. I don’t carry cupcakes.” She could give him the spiel she gave to Mrs. Montgomery when the old busybody asked. Cupcakes could be bought at the grocery store for less than a dollar a piece. Josie’s wares were baked with techniques that took professional training, if not at least regular and studied practice. Mrs. Montgomery still asked every other visit.

  “Three dollars for… what is that?” He asked, sneering at the brightly dyed macarons.

  “It’s a cookie, but harder to make,” Josie said, cocking her hip. His eyes licked at the movement, and the response of her skin was a betrayal, her imagination conjuring warm fingertips stroking up her side and raising goosebumps. She had to stifle her gasp.

  “It’s a rip off. I could fit two of those in my mouth for one bite,” he said.

  “For six dollars you could.”

  He laughed, or coughed, and the flicker of a smile was twice as dangerous as the redhead’s glare from the other side of the room.

  “How about I choose for you?” Josie asked. She refused the blush that threatened her cheeks as he looked up, one dark eyebrow raised. I’m just trying to make business easier with a difficult customer, she told herself. She wasn’t flirting with Mr. Bad News.

  “Sure. Give it a shot.”

  “Take a seat,” she answered, raising her own eyebrow.

  He cough-laughed again and returned to where his crew had made themselves comfortable, somehow taking up all six of the bakery tables. Only two of them chose to share a table, an odd pair. One with glossy brown skin and a sharp, dark beard, lounging like a lazy cat. The other a twitchy blond with ice blue eyes and unwashed hair. The remaining two were equally intimidating, one as handsome as an old movie star, and the other as rough and enormous as a great grizzly bear.

  Josie eyed her pastry case, ignoring the stares of the men, and plated up careful choices. She started with the mean redhead, feeling Mr. Bad News track her with his stare as she served his fellow bikers.

  “Canelé,” she said, setting down a small rum, custard, and vanilla pastry cylinder in front of a derisive stare. She moved to Glasses next, announcing, “Lemon creme petit fours,” and receiving a brief but polite dip of the head.

  Madelines for the movie star, and rose pistachio macarons for the bear, which actually earned Josie a smile. A pair of eclairs went to the mismatched set sharing a table. Finally, Josie stopped in front of Mr. Bad News and set down a plate. “And a chocolate croissant for a man who
doesn’t really like cupcakes anyway,” she said, the words coming unbidden on her tongue.

  There was already a rustling murmur of enjoyment from the eclairs, and she knew the others would chorus soon enough. There was a reason why Josephine’s was the only bakery in Sweet Pea, cupcakes or not. Josie’s skills in the kitchen were magical, whether she was working spells or simply whipping expert choux. Her pastries made mouths water and hearts pound, nostalgia stirred up even when it was a flavor or treat her customer had never tried before.

  As much as she wanted to watch that experience wash over Mr. Bad News’ face, she made herself turn back to her counter. “You can pay when you bring the plates up,” she added, pointing over to the bussing station for customers. Not that half of them didn’t think it was her job.

  Her phone was waiting on the espresso counter, face down, and she glanced between it and the men sitting at the tables, who took slow bites of her food and chewed it as if they were waiting for the arsenic to kick in. She slid her phone into her hand, knowing she didn’t want Bad News to see her texting but not understanding why.

  Strangers in town, Josie texted to the group chat Rosa had dubbed what up, witches! despite multiple attempts on the others’ part to change it to anything else.

  Babe, strangers are always in town, Rosa answered immediately.

  Not like these ones.

  Rosa answered with a pack of side-eye emojis, and Josie debated how to explain her instincts. While instincts were generally a common vocabulary amongst witches, the other members of their coven were less easily convinced. June always pressed for facts, and her sister Imogen… well, Imogen hardly ever looked at her phone from what Josie could tell.