Christmissing in Westerham: Paranormal Investigation Bureau Cozy Mystery Christmas Special

By Dionne Lister

Would you risk your life to save Christmas?

When witch Lily discovers another witch stealing from a major department store, little does she know what she’s about to get herself into. Being Christmas, she doesn’t want to dob the woman into the Paranormal Investigation Bureau and have her arrested, but when Lily confronts the woman and things take a dramatic turn, she has no choice.

Lily calls her mentor and PIB boss, Angelica, who questions the woman and finds out what’s really going on. The woman has a good excuse but also needs their help tracking down and saving Christmas’s most important person—Santa.Lily and Angelica undertake a secret and dangerous mission to save the big man in the red suit. If anyone finds out he’s real, the world will never be the same, and if the women can’t find him before Christmas, millions of people will have the crappiest Christmas ever, not to mention Mrs Claus would be heartbroken.

With the help and hinderance of Santa’s sexy elves, Lily and Angelica do their best to save Christmas, but can they wrap it up in time for Christmas Day, or will an evil organised-crime gang rain all over their Christmas parade and burst their Christmas baubles?

*Can be read as a standalone or introduction to the PIB series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dionne Lister
• Release date: Mar 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781922407146

Dionne Lister

I love writing and sharing my stories but I wish they wouldn't keep me awake at night.I'm from Sydney and when I'm not writing I'm tweeting, reading or doing sporty stuff.I'm a USA Today bestselling author, and I've been named by iBooks as "One of 10 emerging fantasy authors you must read." Shadows of the Realm, the first fantasy novel in my Circle of Talia series, has been number one in it's genre categories on Amazon and iBooks, reaching number 1 overall on iBooks Australia. The series is complete with A Time of Darkness and Realm of Blood and Fire.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Christmas music played through the speakers in the bright, shiny Harrods Outlet store in Westfield Shopping Centre London as Liv and I wandered around looking for Christmas presents. Being in a Westfields was almost like being at home—all the huge malls in Sydney were Westfields. This shopping centre was just as huge and shiny as Sydney’s, but we didn’t have Harrods in Australia. A rather large reminder that I wasn’t actually at home. I frowned, but it didn’t last long because, well, I was in London, and that was an awesome place to be.

Care for some perfume? The slim young woman, dressed in white, had a smile that was too big for her face. I gave her a polite closed-mouth smile and was about to say no thanks, but Liv, my best friend, beat me—not to it, but she just beat me.

Liv stopped walking. I lifted my hand, about to push her gently in the back, but I was too slow. Ooh, yes please. Doh.

The woman held up a business-sized card and pumped two sprays from the bottle she was holding onto it. The spritz sailed across and hit me in the face. I coughed. My eyes watered, and I sneezed. And the taste. I gagged, stuck my tongue out, and wiped my fingers over it, trying to remove the offending scent. The woman stared at me, an affronted expression on her face.

Don’t mind her, Liv said in her refined English accent. She’s from Australia. My friend smirked. Very. Freaking. Funny.

The woman nodded slowly. Ah, I see. What the hell? What did she see? Aussies weren’t always uncouth. Some of us had allergies to stuff. Sheesh. Not to mention how rude it was to spray people with chemicals they didn’t ask for. I would’ve defended myself, but I didn’t want to stand in the cloud of eye-wateringly distilled, artificial floweriness any longer. Another sneeze tickled my nose, and I turned away, trying to hold it in. Or maybe I should’ve just sneezed on her and returned the favour of having something sprayed on you that you didn’t want.

That’s lovely, said Liv. I might be back later. We have a few things to grab first. Thanks. She linked her arm through mine. Let’s go. I let her lead me to a handbag display where we stopped.

I looked at Liv. Admit it—that perfume was too strong. I can still taste it. I made choking noises.

She laughed. Yeah, it was pretty terrible.

Oh my God. So why did you tell her you’d be back later?

I was being polite. You should try it some time. She winked.

I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t the one who sprayed someone with stinky chemicals. I had every right to have an allergic reaction, thank you very much.

I know. I’m just teasing. She grinned. So, you said you might get a handbag for Angelica. See anything that suits?

Hmm…. I slowly gazed around at the bags. Angelica, who was not known for her frivolity, was a hard person to buy for. She had pretty much everything she wanted—being a senior agent and a witch at the Paranormal Investigation Bureau gave her the money and power to buy just about anything that could fit in a house, or even an actual house, for that matter. But she wasn’t into fashion. She worked almost every day and was always in her uniform—black trousers or skirt, white shirt, black tie, black jacket. Boring, boring, boring. But functional and imposing. Which was all you really needed when arresting witch criminals. I spied a mid-sized black leather handbag and took it off the shelf to examine it. This is just big enough to fit a wallet, keys, phone, lippy, and a gun. Perfect. I checked the price tag. Yikes, a hundred and twenty pounds. I wasn’t made of money, but I had been saving because I lived in Angelica’s house and paid no rent, so I could afford to splurge on her present. I’d never spend this amount of money on myself.

That looks so Angelica—minimalistic and functional yet timelessly stylish.

Yep. I’ll get it. Still, it seems so… boring. What if she hates it? My shoulders slumped.

She won’t hate it. She’ll appreciate that you went to the effort. Plus, what’s to hate about a black handbag? They’re fairly inoffensive. She gave me an encouraging smile. So you only have James to buy for now?

Gah, you’re no help, and yep, only James’s pressie to go. You only have your dad left? James, my brother, would be easy. He’d be happy with clothes. Liv didn’t have any siblings, and I knew she’d already grabbed her mum and boyfriend something.

She nodded and smiled. Where to now?

Magic prickled my scalp. I scrunched my forehead and turned, trying to find the source. Witches were a secret—non-witches would likely be alarmed enough at our advantages to want to kill us all, so we had a policy of not divulging our existence. Performing magic in public, unless it was something subtle, was a no-no. Maybe the person magicking had forgotten their phone and had popped it subtly into their bag? But maybe that person was doing something obvious or….

Oh dear.

The culprit was an older woman, chubby, dressed in emerald-green trousers and matching loose jacket over a pink shirt. Her dishevelled salt-and-pepper hair fell to her shoulders. The waffle iron she was staring at disappeared. I raised a brow. Was she stealing? It seemed too out there for her to be magicking the items to a shopping trolley sitting in plain sight. A lock of hair fell over her face, and she blew it out of the way, then turned to the display of teapots and cups behind her. Her magic—strong, kind, and smooth with a hint of nervousness—prickled down my nape. A blue tea set winked out of sight.

Wow. Some people had no shame.

What’s wrong? Liv’s brow wrinkled. She wasn’t a witch—although she knew about us and worked at the PIB with Angelica and my brother. She’d sworn an oath to never tell a non-witch soul about us. This oath was backed by magic and had serious consequences. Most oaths included a promise to forgo an appendage. Jail time was also a possibility, and sometimes even death. Not fun.

That woman over there just used you-know-what. I have to find out why. It looks like she stole something.

As the woman walked towards the toy section, I followed. Liv hurried to catch up to me. What are you going to do if she did steal something?

Okay, so I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I don’t know yet.

You can’t arrest her. If you say anything, she might just disappear, and then you’ll never catch her. Plus, you’re not an agent.

True. Although, I could make a citizen’s arrest. All I knew was that if she was committing a crime, I had to do something. The woman halted in front of a pyramid of board games. I stopped behind a life-size blow-up Santa and pulled my phone out of my handbag, Liv overshooting Santa, then quickly backtracking to hide next to me.

Time to get some proof, just in case she ran away when I confronted her. I held my phone up and switched it to video. The Santa had one arm raised in a jolly wave, so with my body hidden behind his, I peeked through the gap between his neck and arm and filmed.

The woman jerked her head this way and that, likely checking for observers. I ducked, counted to ten, then slowly leaned out again with Liv peering from under Santa’s arm. Phew. The lady hadn’t seen us. I pressed Record in time to nab her magicking the middle row of board games away. The games on top of those slowly hovered to land quietly on the ones that had been below that missing row.

Liv and I looked at each other. I nodded. I at least have to question her. If I can’t get a good answer, I’ll call Angelica. She was otherwise known as Ma’am and was my brother’s boss at the PIB. It was their job to deal with witch criminals, but this woman looked too old and nice to be a hardened criminal—at least that’s what her magic told me. Maybe she’d just fallen on hard times? Come on, Liv. Let’s get this over with. I hated confrontation. And I had to be extra careful because we were in public. I couldn’t risk using any obvious magic.

As the woman reached the next toy display, we caught up to her. I looked at her with my other sight. She wasn’t packing any spells, but I put up my return to sender—you could never be too careful. I drew more magic from the ever-flowing river to cast a hold spell. It would ensure she couldn’t go anywhere, at least magically. Excuse me.

She jumped and turned. Oh, my. You shouldn’t sneak up on people. It’s not nice. Her cultured English accent came out in a firm