The bartender grumbled and handed over an envelope. It was thick with cash; Ellie had definitely made out extremely well from her betting today.
“Look. I can’t help you, and you didn’t hear this from me, but there is a vampire in town who might know the information you’re after. You can find him at Caesar’s Palace, a vampire bar in town. He’s there every night. He won’t like you showing up to visit him, though.”
Ellie slid a few bills across the table at the bartender, nodded at him, and the three of us left the bar. It looked like we knew where our next stop was.
“Do you have any idea where that bar is?” I asked. Caesar’s Palace was a hilarious name for a bar in a town that was so similar, and yet in other ways so different to Las Vegas.
“No idea,” Ellie said. “Luckily, in this place, you don’t need to know where something is to get to it.”
As if on cue, one of the floating golden chariots arrived and stopped right in front of us. Ellie motioned for Sara and me to get in first, and we did so, a warm glow of light filling the interior of the chariot now that the sun had gone down.
Ellie got in after us, and as soon as she closed the door behind her, the chariot floated off, stopping a few minutes later in front of a building that I initially thought had been abandoned. The windows were all boarded up, and no light seeped through. However, a moment later, two female vampires left via the front door and as soon as it opened the sound of pounding music reached my ears. Evidently, even though it looked deserted from out here, there was still something going on in there.
I raised my eyebrows at the others and passed through the door, with Ellie and Sara following after me. We found ourselves in a tiny room, with a large sign that read ‘Please allow the outside door to close fully behind you before entering in order to minimize light leakage’. I did as the sign asked, waiting a couple of moments for Ellie and Sara to get in as well and for the door to close behind us, before I pushed in through the second door and entered the vampire bar at Caesar’s Palace.
I let my eyes adjust to the low light, a couple of candles placed here and there being the only emitters. I was tempted to take out my phone and turn on the flashlight to get a better look at the patrons, but I had a sneaking suspicion that wouldn’t exactly be appreciated by the clientele here. If I had learned one thing about vampire bars, it was that the patrons definitely did not appreciate extra sources of light while they were drinking.
“How are we going to know who we’re after?” Sara whispered.
“There,” I said, pointing to the vampire I had seen speaking with Kelly. As soon as the bartender had told us there was a vampire involved, I was almost certain it was him that he was talking about. Sure enough, he was here now.
The three of us made our way over to the table where the vampire was drinking something unidentifiable - he was pretty far from the nearest candle - and as the three of us sat across from him, his expression didn’t change at all.
“This is not a bar for witches.”
“Do you want to talk elsewhere?” Ellie said.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“Well, that’s too bad, because I have all this money here and I guess maybe I’ll go spend it with someone who does want to talk.”
Ellie pulled out a stack of bills, and the vampire practically drooled as he looked at the money.
“All right, what is it you want to know?”
“Start with the basics. What’s your name?”
“Anton.”
“All right, Anton. I hear you’re neck-deep in Aquila’s gambling ring.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Right. Of course you don’t.”
“I heard you talking to Kelly today in the concourse at the arena,” I said, and Anton looked at me carefully. I did not like the look he was giving me at all.
“Fine. But if anyone else asks about it, I’ll deny I told you anything.”
“That works for us,” Ellie said. “As far as we’re concerned, as soon as we leave this building, this conversation never happened.”
Anton nodded, and Ellie took a seat at the table across from him. Sara and I followed her cue and did the same.
“Where do we go to find Aquila?”
Anton laughed, a dry, mean laugh with no humor behind it. “Yeah, right. You’re never going to see him. Even I don’t know who Aquila is.”
“We were told you could get to him.”
Anton shook his head. “Aquila as a ghost. I’ve spoken to him on the phone, and I’ve organized drop-offs, and I’ve even stayed behind to see if I could catch a glimpse of him, but it never happens.”
“Do you know what kind of paranormal he is?” I asked.
“He has to be a wizard. Only a wizard would be able to create the magic required to hide himself from me when he collects the money that I drop off for him.”
“What does his voice sound like?” Sara asked.
“Changed. It’s definitely not a natural human voice. To be honest, I can’t even say for sure Aquila is a he.”
“Do you know if he was involved in Chief Enforcer King’s disappearance, the Chief Enforcer from Western Woods?” Ellie asked.
“Wouldn’t be worth my life to tell you that,” Anton said, shaking his head. “I’ve already told you too much. This conversation is over.”
He turned away and Ellie shrugged at us, and the three of us turning and leaving the bar. That hadn’t been nearly as productive as I had hoped it would be.
With nothing left to do in Desert Plains, the three of us took the chariot back to the portal and made our way back to Western Woods.
As soon as we got home, the three of us flopped down in the living room while Amy came out with a bottle of wine. She popped the bottle and handed out glasses. “Going by the look of the three of you, you could definitely use these,” she said.
“Yeah, what idiot had the idea of getting us water instead of alcohol to watch the duel?” I teased with a smile, and Ellie stuck her tongue out at me.
“I’m guessing you didn’t get to interview Kelly Treach?” I said to Amy as she poured out a glass of wine.
“That’s right, how did you know?”
“We saw her, in Desert Plains,” I replied, and the three of us spent the next twenty minutes taking turns telling Amy everything that had happened that day.
When we finished, Amy let out a low whistle. Wow, and I thought my day was interesting.”
“What did you find out?” I asked.
“Well, for one thing, Professor Lei was probably having an affair. That would be a pretty good reason for the fight she had with her husband a few days before she was murdered.”
“Not to mention, a pretty good motive for murder. Do you know who the affair was with?”
Amy leaned in and answered in a hushed voice, even though we were the only people in the house right now. “I think it might have been Professor Fulgur.”
“Who?” I asked.
“John Fulgur, you met him the other day,” Ellie told me.
“Oh, right. Him. Oh,” I said again, my eyes widening. “Really?”
“That’s the rumor,” Amy said. “I don’t know if it’s true. But Professor Thor was telling me that they’ve been seen together a lot, and there have been whispers about them being more than just colleagues.”
“Well, that can just be idle chatter as well,” Sara said. “After all, they might just be good friends.”
Amy smiled. “That’s what I thought, too. So I snuck a truth serum into a Hexpresso Bean coffee that I brought over to him. He didn’t suspect a thing. That’s one advantage to being one of the most trustworthy witches in the coven. I felt really bad about it, and I wasn’t going to do it, but then I realized that if there was a chance he was the murderer, then didn’t I owe it to Professor Lei to find out?”
“Oh, that’s so smart,” Ellie said.
“Wait,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me once that truth serums don’t
allow you to get answers to questions that might get someone in major trouble? That’s why we can’t use them to rule out murderers?”
“That’s right,” Amy nodded. “So I had to be careful about what questions I asked. I started off by asking if he was spending more time with Professor Lei than he did a few years ago. His answer to that that yes, he was. I asked if that time they spent together was outside of a professional setting, and he confirmed that yes, it was.”
“So they almost certainly were having an affair,” Ellie said with a slow nod.
“It appears that way,” Amy said. “I did ask him if he and Professor Lei shared any hobbies outside of work; if they were both members of the same book club, for example, that would rule out an affair but also give me an affirmative answer to his other questions. He said that no, they didn’t do any hobbies together.”
“Were you able to confirm whether or not they were still together?” I asked.
“That came next, and it was a little bit harder to get out of him. Eventually, I asked Professor Fulgur if he and Professor Lei had spoken in the days leading up to her murder.”
“And?” Ellie asked.
“He said they did, but he wasn’t very forthcoming, which I thought was suspicious. So I asked if they had an argument, and he wouldn’t answer, which meant I was treading in too dangerous waters for the truth serum. So I asked instead if Professor Lei started an argument with him, and he said she had. I asked if Professor Lei had said she didn’t want to see him again, and he said yes.”
“So she broke up with him,” Ellie said slowly. “That’s a pretty good motive for murder right there.”
“That’s what I thought,” Amy said. “What if the argument came from Professor Lei’s husband finding out the affair? And then she decided she wanted to end it with Professor Fulgur, and he didn’t like being dropped like that?”
“That would be a pretty good motive for murder,” I agreed.
“I think we need to find out whatever we can about this Aquila person, though,” Ellie said. “I think he – or she – is the key to the whole thing. Even if it’s nothing to do with Professor Lei’s murder, I think it’s got something to do with Chief Enforcer King’s disappearance, and I want to investigate it further.”
“How are we going to manage that, though?” I asked. “After all, I think Anton was probably the closest we’re going to have come to meeting Aquila, and he said that he has never met Aquila, either.”
“Who knows?” Ellie said. “We can cross that bridge when we get to it. Tomorrow is Professor Lei’s funeral, though, so why don’t we make that our next step? We’ll go there, and we’ll see what we can discover. I think as far as this whole Aquila thing goes, we figured out as much as we can for now. But tomorrow, at the funeral, we can investigate Kelly, as well as Professor Lei’s husband, and her probably former lover John.”
“Good plan,” Sara said, and I nodded. Slowly but surely, we were going to get to the bottom of this murder, even if we didn’t quite know which avenue to follow just yet.
Chapter 18
The next morning, I watched as my three roommates all dressed in long, flowing robes. They were a dark green, with a silver effect that gave the impression of lightning strikes every time they took a step.
“You can borrow one of my formal robes,” Ellie said. “We could have bought you a set when we went to get you clothes from Randy’s store when you first got here, but to be honest, we didn’t think that you were going to end up going to a witch funeral so quickly.”
“I’d be a lot happier if I hadn’t,” I said with a smile. “That’s not real lightning on the robes, is it?”
Ellie grinned at me. “No, of course not. It’s just a magical effect to give that impression. Every coven has their own set of formal robes, and obviously ours is lightning based.”
“Right,” I nodded. “So it’s okay for me to wear one of your robes?”
“Well, normally a witch is not allowed to wear the robes of another coven. However, since your situation is a little bit unique, and you don’t know which coven you do belong to, it’s more important for you to be dressed as a witch than it is for you to be dressed in the clothing of your specific coven. Once we discover which coven you belong to though, we will make sure you get a set of robes from that coven. For now, your adoptive coven is fine.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully to Ellie. It was really nice of the coven of Jupiter to make me feel like I belonged, even though we didn’t know which coven I was truly born into.
A few minutes later, I draped her robe over myself, and sure enough, even though every time I took a step my robe flashed with magical lightning, I couldn’t feel anything. It was definitely pretty cool.
Twenty minutes later, the four of us made our way down to the lake, which was a part of coven gardens, and was where all witch and wizard funerals took place. All around were witches and wizards, all dressed in the same deep green robes with silver lightning flashing across every time they moved. From time to time, I saw someone wearing a different type of robe. There was a wizard obviously from a fire coven, whose robe was pure black, but every time he took a step, flames leapt up from the bottom of the robe. The faster his steps, the more intense the flame. Another witch, presumably from an Earth coven, wore a robe that seemed to camouflage her perfectly in the gardens. Sure enough, what Ellie had told me was obviously right: every coven had their own formal robes. It was quite interesting to see.
While the majority of the people attending were witches and wizards, given as the victim in our murder case was a witch, a number of the town’s other residents also milled around here and there. I recognized a few of the fairies that worked at Hexpresso Bean, all huddled together, and a few shifters, including Orson Brown, milled around towards the back. I imagined they must’ve been there more for the investigative aspect than for grieving purposes.
While I had seen a funeral take place since moving to Western Woods, it had not been for a member of the coven of Jupiter, but for a member of the fire coven who lived here. I was a little bit curious as to what was going to happen. We arrived just in time, and before we had a chance to interact with anybody, a tall wizard that I recognized as the high priest for the coven of Jupiter made his way to the front of the chairs set up, raising his hands for silence.
As soon as the man raised his hands, everyone stopped talking and those who were still standing made their way towards the seats.
“Thank you all for coming to the funeral of Mai Lei, a stalwart in our coven’s community. Mai worked as a professor, and her love of learning professed itself in everything she did. She studied the stars, and she studied numbers. The subjects some of us found the most difficult, she embraced with a tenacity and a determination matched by none. Mai also loved her husband and her children. They were everything to her. I had never thought that Mai Lei would ever find anything that would interest her more than the secrets of the night sky, but love has a of taking over people’s lives in a way we can never imagine. Ever since Mai met Andrew, her heart was given over to him completely. And when they had the girls, I never saw a woman so determined to be such a good mother.
“Now, if all of you could please join me in singing the song of Jupiter as we release Mai’s body back into the skies from which we came.”
I had no idea what to expect next, but in the center of the lake, an island suddenly formed out of nowhere. It rose up like a submarine, water pouring off it from either side and causing large waves to lap at the side of the lake. In the center of the island was a large, black ball. It had to be at least twelve feet across.
As the island rose up, the sky above suddenly went dark. Black clouds covered the sky as far as the eye could see, and the rolling sound of thunder loomed overhead. A few cracks of electricity sparked in the sky, and I looked up in wonder.
The high priest opened his arms and looked up. “Jupiter, God of the skies. Please, take the body of Mai Lei back to your home, to the land of thunder.�
��
The sky above the large ball suddenly began to spin; kind of like what I imagined the eye of a hurricane would look like. A small hole opened up and cast down a ray of light directly onto the large black ball, and the priest began to chant.
It was a low, deep chant, kind of like the Gregorian chants that I had learned in school. Most of the crowd - all of the witches and wizards - joined in a moment later, and as the sound rose, so did the black ball. It left the magical island and floated straight up into the sky, directly into the hole in the clouds that had been formed. As soon as it crossed the threshold into the clouds, the clouds closed up and a storm of thunder and lightning, but no rain, poured down from the sky.
I had to admit, it was incredibly enchanting.
“Jupiter has taken back Mai Lei,” the high priest announced. “Please, remember her time on earth amongst yourselves fondly.”
With that, everyone began to get up from their chairs. I supposed that meant this part of the funeral was over. The four of us made our way to the tables nearby that were laden with food and drink, and I spotted Kyran out by the trees.
“I’ll be back,” I said to the others as I made my way towards him.
As soon as he saw me, however, Kyran turned and began to leave.
“Wait,” I called out to him. “Hold up, I want to talk to you.”
“Haven’t I told you how bad of an idea this is?” Kyran asked. “Your life as a new witch here in Western Woods is going to be difficult as it is. You don’t want to make it worse by being friends with me.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that for myself?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips.
“Because you don’t know what you’re getting into. I’m a pariah here, and it was stupid of me to think that I could possibly be your friend without it having negative consequences that would affect you.”
“Well, people can think what they want. Negative consequences or not, I think you’re okay, and what’s the point of living if fear stops you from doing what you want?”
Kyran grinned. “I knew I liked you for a reason. Fine. If you insist on being associated with my pariah butt, then it’s on you. But let me tell you now: if you ever decide that it’s too much of a risk to be associated with me, I won’t be offended.”
Three's a Coven Page 10
