Wolfsbane Hall by Hazel St. Lewis

Celestine Sinclair hated being a murderer.

She hated blood dripping through her fingertips and clumping in her hair. She hated watching poison devour a body, and the feeling of her hands stretching around a slender throat.

Everything about murder was ghastly, but if she had to choose, her favorite way to kill was suffocation with a pillow while a person was drugged and unconscious. It was two and a half minutes of hell—hell she deserved for the act—but at least it was quiet and didn’t leave a mess.

Celestine loathed messes.

Unfortunately, the very nature of her profession required much more theatrical deaths. The audience didn’t come to Wolfsbane Hall to watch, as they put it, dull and tedious deaths; no, like vultures, the rich, pompous pricks wanted carnage.

They wanted a show.

So, Celestine Sinclair would give them one. That was her one objective as an actress at the infamous nightclub: show above all else.

Show above one’s own sanity.

“You’re wasting time,” said a voice forged from darkness, twisting from the room’s shadows. It was glazed in honeyed whiskey. Sweet yet potent.

The Specter—the magical and mysterious owner of Wolfsbane Hall, the glittering palace at the edge of San Francisco, filled with as much mystery as magnificence. It was a place patrons became a part of a murder mystery show. Glitter, grandeur, and witchcraft were laced into every inch of the manor, interwoven into a tapestry of entertainment.

“You must prepare for your next murder,” the Specter said as a whisper in her ear, darkness twirling and cloaking her from the patrons meandering into the Grand Ballroom—the club’s showroom.

“I know, Specter,” Celestine breathed.