“You’re all bitches.”
“Stop with the sexist slurs,” I said. “There’s nothing worse than a female misogynist.”
“Assholes,” the spirit/Felicia spat.
“That’s better,” I said. “How are you doing this? Witch spell? Mage?”
“Got it from a coven member,” she said. “I’d have gone to you, but I knew what you’d done to my campaign.”
The La Paloma coven. Why was I not surprised? Margaux Ramirez, the coven mother, had been on my shit list since she’d declined to lift a finger to help Mom on the day she was killed. What’s worse was my mom had considered her a friend.
“Hey, now, that campaign business was me.” Ida finished her coffee and set the mug in the sink. “Betty wasn’t involved in the sign thing. She just voted for Carmen is all.”
“I’m not talking about that. She,” Felicia jabbed a finger at me, “blocked Alpha Pallás from running for mayor of La Paloma.”
Ida, Carmen, and I all looked at each other in confusion.
“What’s one got to do with the other?” Ida asked.
“The alpha leader and I were a team. Together, we would’vemerged Smokethorn and La Paloma into one city. The business opportunities would’ve been enormous.”
“If that were the case, Smokethorn wouldn’t have needed a mayor,” I said. “You’d have merged yourself out of a job.”
“I would’ve been the mayor of La Paloma. Alpha would’ve stepped down once we’d formed the conurbation of our towns.”
Ida and I burst out laughing.
“If you believe Alpha Floyd was going to relinquish even a drop of power, I’ve got some herbal weight loss supplements to sell you,” I said, practically bent over with laughter. “Lose twenty pounds in five days, only 59.99.”
The ex-mayor’s projection’s mouth tightened in obvious annoyance.
“Conurbationsounds like something you do by yourself in the dark,” Ida said.
Carmen chuckled. “It means an urban area comprised of smaller towns or suburbs.”
“Like a county?”
While the mayor explained the specifics to Ida, I set my attention on the ex-mayor. “What did you hope to accomplish by showing up here?”
“I wanted to run her out of town.”
“If that happened, you still wouldn’t be mayor. You’re not even on the city council anymore.”
She scowled—even harder than she’d already been scowling, which was saying something. “There’s a statute that can be enacted if an acting mayor steps down. As a former town leader, I could’ve called for an emergency election.”
“You gottenpercent of the vote last time,” Ida said. “How many times do you want to lose?”
“Shut up,” Felicia snarled then turned to me. “What did you have on Alpha Pallás, anyway?”
Ida answered for me. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I looked through her projection to the hallway where Fennel sat, his tail gracefully wrapped around his sleek black feet.
“Ready?” I took a last sip of coffee and set the mug on the counter.
“Ready for what?” The ex-mayor whipped her projection’s head around, looking from Carmen to Ida to me.
Fennel padded lightly into the kitchen behind the spirit. Now that he was in the light, the evidence of his trek through the attic was obvious. His fur was draped in cobwebs and there was a patch of dust on his back.