Good, I was another minute of her chatter away from letting loose a verbal attack of Little Mermaid jokes, including a few bars of “Part Of Your World.” She’d been talking since we entered. It’d been at least ten minutes and I was worried she was going to suffocate. Okay, I got less worried and more hopeful as the spiel went on.
“Okay,” Faye said with a head shake, like she needed it to recover from the onslaught. “We’re going to look around.”
The shelter was nice at least. And it wasn’t a puppies and kittens only place, where the shelter found homes for unexpected litters while they were still tiny and cute. Those guys would do fine.
If I was going to subject myself to a self-centered monster whose poop I had to clean up, it was going to be one who really needed a home.
“Okay,” Ariel said. “Oh yeah, we have an adoption day this Friday where you can get your animal half off if you want to pick someone and come back then.”
“It costs money to adopt?” I asked.
“Yes,” Faye said. “They have to make money to run this place somehow.”
“Actually,” Ariel said. “It’s a hundred dollars and that’s just to help pay for the animal’s basic health care, like the shots. Most of the time we run on donations, but the shelter’s getting pretty low on funds. We’ve been in the red, or whatever it’s called, since the recession.”
“What about a fundraiser?” I asked, staring down the line of cages. There had to be at least fifty dogs and cats here. How long did they keep them before the poor things got put down?
“We do one every fall, but last year we didn’t pull in enough to keep the place running. I don’t even know how to set up a fundraiser. I mean,” her voice picked up speed and she was off and jabbering.
I shook my head. Not another ten minute monologue, please. And it’s not like it’s hard to run a fundraiser. It’s hard to get money. That’s why…
I whipped my head around. Lightbulb!
“What about doing one during the adoption day?” I asked, interrupting whatever she was babbling. “Cute animals to play with will be the gimmick, the event to bring people in. Add some food, music-”
“We couldn’t put one together that quickly, I mean-”
“I could,” I said before she could get going again. “Go get me the info of the person in charge. I’ve ran the fundraiser for the hospital I work at every year since high school.”
“Are you a nurse?”
I took a deep breath. “Lawyer. I work for the hospital’s General Counsel now, but I’ve been there forever. Putting a fundraiser together in a week won’t be hard since you’ve already got an event set up. Getting the word out to the right people is the problem. I can do that.”
Ariel’s mouth worked and she made some noise I’m sure got the dogs’ ears perked up before running back towards the front desk.
“Whatever you’re thinking, no,” Faye said.
I grinned, holding up two fingers. “Ohhhhhh yes. Two birds.” I dropped a finger. “One stone. We’re going to do our fundraiser, and help out some of these little guys in the process. It’s, wait for it.” I held up my hands. “Purrrrfect.”
Faye groaned. “Oh, that’s bad. That’s so bad.”
Ariel came back with the info and I shook my head at Faye, mouthing we’d talk later.
I’d get people to the fundraiser, handling the animals and playing with them, holding different ones to decide who to take home. I’d put the Luck Scramble spell on the cats, and when I took the cats back from the people handling them, I’d store whatever the furballs gathered.
But I still had my own fuzzy friend to find.
“He’s about five,” I said on Friday, taking the tiny tabby back from the woman. “They said he had a family that dropped him off last month because they were moving.”
The fundraiser took a hell of a lot more work to set up than I thought it would. On top of my job it’d been a long ass week, but it was worth it.
The section of the park roped off for this was filled with dogs, cats, even some rabbits, from shelters all over the city. We’d talked them into joining and helping us promote. I got restaurants to donate food, a giant tent, heaters to keep everyone toasty against the February chill, and managed to wrangle us a band to play some rock/alternative music. If it wasn’t Utah, I’d probably been able to get us some booze.
Alcohol licenses in Utah are a nightmare and sure as hell not happening in one week.
People crowded our tent and bunched around the warmers. They were wrapped in coats and stomping snow off their boots, but they were pouring in.
Animals were everywhere. Some in their cages and resting, a few dogs running around in their little playpen. The cats couldn’t really be let out like that. Too good at getting away. But they were being held and passed around.
Volunteers helped handle the animals and keep everything clean. I ran the table at the back of the tent, bringing the cats out for people to check out and putting them back in their cages, helping people choose their new babies.
Mine licked his paws next to me on the table. He was a two year old black Maine Coon named Gremlin who’d grabbed my heart in five seconds. I brushed him with the luck collecting spell, but so far he hadn’t gathered anything, purr-fectly content to stay by me and eye the other cats like he knew he could beat them up.
“They said he’s very good with other cats, dogs, kids,” I said to the woman, scratching the tabby’s head.
“Oh, I don’t know,” the woman said, looking around. “I think I’m just going to keep looking.”
“Okay.” I swiped the energies off the tabby’s fur with one last pet before putting him back in his cage and grabbed the necklace in my pocket to deposit the energy there.
“Hey.” Faye inched out of the crowd moments later and dropped into the seat next to me. Gremlin gave her a fish eye, meowed and went back to cleaning himself.
“Great turnout,” Faye said, petting Gremlin’s head and making him purr. “And the shelter’s already raised nearly five thousand dollars. How did you pull this off?”
“Years of building connections doing the fundraisers for the hospital with my mom. The key to something like this isn’t a cool theme or even a worthy cause. It’s knowing the right people to invite and convincing them all the other right people will be there. Mom tells her society friends to show because it’s this fresh, new thing and that everyone will be there, they all show. This isn’t the hospital’s Fall Society Ball or anything, but it’s not a bad turnout.”
“The-” Faye’s phone buzzed and she pulled it out, frowning as she read the text.
“What?”
Faye pursed her lips, staring at the screen. “She… that bitch Maggie is asking where I am. They’ve gathered for the Luck Scramble and she thinks it’s suspicious I’m not there.”
“Oy vey! What do we do? What if she comes here?”
“At least she’s not tech savvy. Probably didn’t see all the Facebook posts and Tweets and whatever else you do for this stuff.”
“Is she going to do something? Like try to figure out where we are or what we’re doing?”
Faye’s phone buzzed again and her eyebrows flew up.
“I’m afraid to ask,” I said.
“She said she heard about a pet adoption day and thinks it’d be a good place to hit for the Good Luck Scramble. She’s going to mix her cat in with the ones here, pretend the cat is here to sniff other ones and see who would get along well with her cat or something like that.”
“She wants to bring her cat here?”
“Yes.”
“She’s onto us.”
“I don’t think so.”
“How do we keep it that way?”
###
Faye intercepted Maggie and her group at the entrance to the tent nearly an hour later. I found someone to cover for me.
And watched from behind one of the band’s speakers.
Oy vey. This was going to go bad so freaking fast.
And that meant the Council did.
I took a deep breath. Stay calm. Just stay calm.
The necklace in my pocket was heavy with the energy I’d pulled so far. The near identical one on Faye was probably the same way. If Maggie so much as thought we were still trying to pull this off and tested Faye’s necklace, she’d see there was a ton of extra energy and realize Faye didn’t just get here to meet the group, she’d been here since this thing started at five.
And that’d only lead to more questions.
“Hey pretty lady,” someone said behind me.
“Ah!” I jumped and whirled.
One of the guys from the band smiled down at me from the stage, winked, and lifted his guitar in a greeting before launching into the next song.
I grinned, rolled my eyes and turned back around.
The smile disappeared. Maggie had worked her way down the first line of cages and was headed right for me, Faye behind her with wide eyes.
I met Maggie halfway, crossing my arms and staring her down.
She mimicked my pose and stared back. I shrugged. No way in hell would I speak first.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she finally said. Point for me. I fought down a grin.
“It’s for a good cause. These little guys need homes, the shelter needed help, and I’m good at fundraisers. What are you doing here? Never pegged you for the civil minded type.”
“Cat Luck Scramble. Seemed like a good place to gather energy. Of course, you thought of that first, didn’t you?”
She smiled, wicked and tight.
It sliced through my belly, making my knees shake.
“I’d say see you around, but I have a feeling the Council’s going to have you… tied up for a while.”
Fear dropped into my stomach like ice and I grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. “You’re not telling them anything.”
“Get your hands off me.”
“Nope.” I looked around. We weren’t attracting much attention yet, but if this went down, we would.
Faye shook her head at me, making a throwing motion. Throw the necklace away because of some bully? Oh hell no!
“Come on,” I said.
I pulled Maggie through the tent’s back flap, night draping us as the flap fell back over the lighted inside. Cold bit my nose and ears, making me shiver. Wish I’d had time to grab my coat. I dragged her behind the line of trees half a football field away from our tent before I stopped and looked around, eyes straining in the dim streetlights lining the park.
Thank the Goddess for the cold keeping the park mostly empty.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even. “Nobody does something like this without an agenda. What’s yours?”
“Keeping witches protected,” Maggie said like it was the simplest thing in the world.
“Bull. You’re not telling the Council on me.”
“Are you going to kill me to keep me from talking?”
“That would be overkill, don’t ya think?” But I narrowed my eyes, drawing up my power.
I didn’t have to kill her, just make her see things my way.
“You can’t take me,” she said, but her eyes widened. “I have twenty-five years of spelling on you.”
I shrugged, using the motion to cover up pulling my phone out of my pocket. I fumbled for its power button behind my back, turning it on. How could I get through it without her seeing me and wondering what I was doing?
“And?” I asked. “My family’s always been more powerful than yours. One of the reasons you hate us so much. I can take you, Maggie. Only question is, are you going to make me?”
She didn’t move so much as twitch, but it was enough warning.
I dodged to the side, grabbing the necklace around my neck. It’s my wand, for lack of a better term. It focuses my magic.
Maggie’s spell flew by me, something icy that’d probably leave me hollow as a cold shower. Our powers reflect our temperaments, and she was a water witch who was a cold bitch down to her core.
I shot flames at her, not bothering to keep the spell invisible like she had.
I was done pussyfooting around.
Maggie jumped to the side, almost too slow. Her age gave her more experience and power than me, but left her seriously outmatched in anything physical.
Goddess, why didn’t I bring my gun! It’d be easier and take a hell of a lot less of my energy to shoot at her.
I spit another whip of flame at her, keeping it powered so it didn’t flicker out. I raised a cell-wide wall on the right as I flicked more at her on the left and curved them behind her, boxing her in.
The flames hardened into ice and fell to the cold, hard ground, shattering into chunks.
I ducked behind a tree and shot a fireball at her. She dodged, raising her hand. Water hit the tree, visible and obvious under the streetlights.
I pulled fire from my belly, growing a wall in front of her face. I swished the flames around her, making them flick and twitch at her and fumbled with my phone to hit the right buttons.
I tossed my phone, holding it in the air and veiling it with a puff of magic as the flames fell from her face with another splash. I hurled a fireball straight at her face and she dodged. I pulled up another and another, lobbing them like baseballs as my power waned.
I grabbed my necklace and yanked power from its core, breathing in a rush of smoky goodness, and shot a wall of flames at her.
She paled and threw up her arms, making a visible wave of ice crash over my flames. The ice charged forward and I flung myself to the side, grabbing my phone and making it visible.
I grinned, holding it up. “Smile, Maggie. You’re on Candid Camera.”
Her arms fell, sending the ice smashing to the ground, and she covered her mouth, eyes wide as she looked around the park. Nobody was out and about, but they could’ve been. She pulled her hands from her face and stared at them like they were possessed and pulling her intestines out an inch at a time.
“No,” she said almost too quiet for me to hear and shook her head. “I didn’t mean… I was scared…” Her face hardened but she didn’t look up. “You tricked me!”
“And yet,” I said, stopping the recording and emailing it to Faye and my dad just in case Maggie tried anything. “The Council won’t care. All they’re going to care about is we did this in public. Just like they wouldn’t care all I wanted to do was give my friend a confidence boost with no real risk of exposure. Just like you didn’t care.”
“But… but…” She dropped her hands and looked at me. “I had a reason. You were attacking me!”
I shook my head, tucking my phone back in my slacks. “I show this to them and you know as well as I they won’t care about either of our reasons. Those rules you love so much? They don’t leave room for any kind of reason or exception.”
“They’ll… to both of us, they will punish us.”
“And I could’ve killed you when I put that fire in front of your face. At the very least severely burned you. I didn’t. This video goes nowhere besides the people I just emailed it to unless you tell the Council on me.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “I don’t expect us to be friends, Maggie. But I do hope you’ll take this and consider maybe, just maybe I’m right on this one now that you’re in my shoes.”
I turned and walked back to the tent and the cute fuzzies.
Maggie didn’t try to stop me.
“Alright,” I said, holding the necklace up by its chain. “Open your eyes.”
Ashley’s eyes popped open and she looked from the necklace to me and back. I’d gotten my hands on dozens of kitties, and at least twice that many people’s loose energy, and stored it all in the necklace. Faye made out even better. It wasn’t enough good vibes to magically change the test for Ashley or Ge
orge, but it sure as hell was enough to give them the boost they needed.
“It’s a good luck charm for the bar tomorrow,” I said with a laugh. “Here.” I put the crystal pendant on her hand and poured the chain around it with a silent blessing. “Wear it both days of the bar. It’ll give you luck.”
“Evie, you know-”
“You don’t go in for all that New Age stuff, yeah yeah.” I curled her fingers around the spelled talisman. “But this is old age, baby. I spent Friday the Thirteenth collecting this good luck for you at that pet fundraiser I did.”
She threw her head back laughing. “Oh man, you are hilarious.” She squeezed the necklace, forehead wrinkling up. “You know what? I actually feel better.”
I smiled. We had our people equipped for the battle ahead, dozens of animals found homes while the shelter got a nice boost to its charitable dollars, and I hadn’t heard boo from Maggie in ten days. That was pretty damn successful in my book.
I stood, looking around Ashley’s apartment. “Wear that tomorrow. It’ll help. I’m not kidding.”
“It’s not going to really work,” she said, snorting.
I raised my eyebrows. “You’re holding it and you said you already feel better. Wear it and then tell me it doesn’t really work.”
“You can’t be serious. How could it…” She shook her head and stared at the necklace. “It feels warm. How…?”
The Council can suck it. I smiled and winked. “Magic.”
Thanks for reading!
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This story is the second in the Evie Jones series of shorts. The other five, and my other shorts and novels are available on Amazon from my page at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01651YIZU.
EJM02 - Evie Jones and the Good Luck Fundraiser Page 2
