by Zoe Arden
The heavy iron doors were spaced out a lot like the lights, one every ten feet or so. It was like something out of a jailhouse except there were no bars. The doors were solid metal, and each one had what looked like an advanced locking mechanism. The kind of thing that you needed a pass key to open.
He didn't know what was really behind these doors, but he doubted it was black mold.
With all the paranormals teeming around Heavenly Haven, Damon wondered why Standards didn't employ some of them as security guards. Certainly a vampire or wizard would make a better security guard than a human, but all the guards, as well as the warehouse workers, were human. Until Gordie had told him otherwise, he'd thought Burch was human, too.
Damon had only been down here once before in his two weeks on the job, when Burch had shown him around that first day.
"Stay out of these rooms," he'd told him. It was Burch's mantra. Stay out of the rooms or get infected by black mold.
There was a noise at the far end of the corridor. Damon's head shot in its direction. "Hello?" he called. He was answered with silence. His shoulders relaxed again. He was just hearing things.
Splat!
The noise sounded again. Damon stopped walking. He had a flashlight on his belt, and he held it out in front of him. It sent out a powerful beam that made it all the way to the end of the corridor.
"Hello?" Damon called.
The noise continued. It was a strange wet sound, like someone was hitting the floor over and over again with a giant wet sponge.
"Gordie? Is that you?"
The noise was getting closer. It was rhythmic, like... footsteps. Very wet, very sloppy-sounding footsteps. Damon hesitated, then moved toward it. This was what he was getting paid for.
At the end of the hall, Damon realized there was a second, interconnecting hallway. Burch hadn't taken him down this one on their tour. He wasn't sure what was down it. More doors?
He couldn't see what was around the corner, but he could hear it. He held his breath. "G-Gordie?"
Slowly, Damon peeked around the corner. His eyes widened, and his breath hitched in his chest, making his heart beat erratically. Then a figure appeared.
"Oh, my roses," he said and turned to run.
He almost knocked Gordie down when he got upstairs.
"Hey, careful," Gordie shouted.
"We've gotta call Burch."
Gordie eyed him cautiously. "What?"
"We've gotta call Burch."
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea. What's the problem?"
"Something's in the basement."
"Something? Like what? Damon, talk sense."
"I don't know what it was. It wasn't a vampire or a witch, I know that much. I've never seen anything like it before."
Gordie licked his lips. "Whoa, okay, relax. Are you familiar with all the paranormals on Heavenly Haven?"
"Of course, I am, I grew up here," Damon snapped.
"You don't need to be defensive. Most humans know diddley about paranormals."
"Well, I know plenty, and I'm telling you, that thing I saw isn't a typical paranormal anything. It was like... like a cross between a merman and a werewolf."
Gordie laughed, and Damon got annoyed. He went to the control room and dialed Burch.
"Let me take a look first," Gordie said, pleading with him as the phone rang.
"No," Damon snapped. "You don't want to go down there. Trust me."
The line clicked over. "Burch here."
Damon said, "We've got a problem. In the basement. Something's running around down there."
There was a long pause. "Is that you, Tellinger?"
"Yes. You need to get down here. Now."
“Something's loose?"
"Yes."
Another long pause. "Okay, stay there. Don't move. Don't do anything. I'm on my way."
"We're in the control room."
Burch hesitated. "You haven't told anyone else what you saw, have you? Haven't called a friend or sent a text?"
The hairs on the back of Damon's neck prickled. "No. Why?"
"Good. Don't," Burch said and hung up.
"Well?" Gordie said. "What now?"
"Now I guess we wait."
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CHAPTER
ONE
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"Here, Ava, try this one," my aunt Trixie said and passed me an even larger and thicker magazine filled with nothing but wedding dresses. "There are some lovely gowns there in the middle."
I looked at the magazine, which was the size of two dictionaries stuffed together and almost as heavy. "I think it might just be easier to look online," I told her. "Later." Much later, if I had my way.
Trixie and Eleanor hadn't stopped shoving wedding magazines in my face since Colt and I had set our date. February fourteenth might have been a little cliché, but that didn't mean it wasn't perfect.
Eleanor looked at us from her place by the bakery's front window display. She'd just finished changing it out and was cleaning up. She stood up and left her spot, hurrying behind the counters to pull something out. She walked quickly over to me and set it down. It was another magazine, just as big as the one Trixie had given me, only this one was filled with cakes.
"Aunt Eleanor," I started, but Eleanor only waved her hand in the air.
"Don't tell me it's too much," Eleanor said. "You're getting married in four months. These things have to be selected."
"Yes, but do they all need to be selected today?" I asked.
"The sooner the better. Trixie and I will need to do a practice cake before we make the real one. Maybe even two or three practice cakes. You never know, you might want to make changes to it once you see it in person."
"You should talk about it with Colt, too," Trixie said. "Show him some pictures."
She was busy straightening one of her neon yellow tights. Today, her tights had a back seam that kept getting twisted around. She'd been fussing with them all morning. She'd tried casting a spell to keep them straight, but so far it didn't seem to be working. The tights were almost as yellow as her hair. Trixie, Eleanor, and I all had slight variations of the same shade, though I thought Trixie's hair was the brightest.
Eleanor pursed her lips. "Yes, show him, but remember that Colt's a man and knows very little about cakes, like most men." She looked to my father for confirmation. I looked to him for help. He was seated on a stool, wooden spoon in hand, stirring some caramel sauce Trixie had given him.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I'd be lost here without you girls."
"You see," Eleanor said as if that settled everything. "Eli works in a bakery and has only the vaguest sense of what makes a good cake."
My dad's brow furrowed. "Now, hold on a minute, I wouldn't say—"
"Colt works for the Council on Magic and Human Affairs," Eleanor continued, cutting him off. "He's bound to be useless to you when deciding between buttercream or whipped topping."
Eleanor walked back to the front window and gathered up the rest of her materials. Her arms were filled with several empty boxes, some ribbon, and extra cake stands. They started to slip, and she muttered a spell, catching everything in midair before it could crash to the ground. She brought the materials into the back room where the ovens were and returned with an expectant look on her face.
"Well?" she asked. "What do you think?"
When we all stared blankly at her, her face twisted up so that she looked a bit like a fish.
"About the new window display," she said impatiently.
"Oh," Trixie, my dad, and I said together.
I was glad for the opportunity to set the magazines aside and walked over to the window with Trixie and my dad. Eleanor had done a spectacular job. Beneath the sign reading The Mystic Cupcake, which was scrawled across the window in gold lettering, sat a three-tiered wedding cake with glittering white frosting and ruby red roses. It was classic, but
the cakes, cookies, and pastries surrounding it were far from ordinary.
Eleanor had created an Eiffel Tower made from double chocolate brownie bars, peanut butter dream bars, and snowflake meringues. She'd balanced out the other side of the case with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, recreated from assorted pies, tarts, and cookies as big your face.
"I wanted to show that we can be creative as well as traditional," Eleanor said.
"Well done," said my father, and she beamed proudly back at him.
"And everything in the case was made with a combination of Ava's desire and happiness extracts."
"My extracts only work if you eat them, though. They don't do anything just by looking at them." Though I thought it would be a neat trick if they did.
"I figured it couldn't hurt. You never know, someone might take a bite off our Eiffel Tower when we're not looking, and if they do, they won't leave the store empty-handed. That's for sure. I used twice as much extract as normal. They'll be filled with the desire to buy everything we're selling."
The rest of the case had been filled in with cookies, brownies, and smaller pastries that she'd colored and layered so that it looked like silvery-blue rolling ocean waves. The wedding cake, Eiffel Tower, and Leaning Tower of Pisa appeared to be floating on the water. The overall effect was magnificent. I was almost a little jealous that she'd come up with something so brilliant. All I'd have been able to do was set out our cakes and pies on pretty little dessert trays with some fancy tablecloth.
The door chimed, and Lottie Mudget came in. "Love the new window display. It's the best one yet," she said, pausing to look at it before heading up to the counter.
"Thanks," Eleanor said, so happy to receive the compliment that she offered Natalie a fifteen percent discount on the chocolate truffle fudge balls she was buying.
The phone rang, and I ran to answer it.
"Ava?" a deep voice greeted me.
"Colt, hi." I smiled as if he could see me through the phone.
"How's it going? Are Trixie and Eleanor still pushing those magazines on you?"
"If they give me any more to look through, I'll be able to start a library just of wedding magazines."
He laughed, and my heart raced like it always did when I knew I was the cause of it. Colt and I weren't exactly two peas in a pod like some couples I knew. We had our differences, but it was the differences that kept things interesting.
"I thought I'd free you from their torture for a little while and take you to lunch."
My racing heart suddenly stuttered like a dying lawnmower. "Oh." I forgot to breathe, and my head suddenly ached like someone had hit it with a sledgehammer. "I'd love to, but I can't."
He waited, probably expecting a reason, but I wasn't going to give him one unless he pressed me for it.
"Too busy?" he asked. "You still need to eat. Real food, I mean. Not just sugar."
"Ha ha," I said. "I'm meeting a friend for lunch, that's all."
"Oh, which friend?" He didn't sound disappointed, only interested.
There was no way I was going to tell him that I was meeting Damon. I wasn't a dim-witch, I knew how he'd react—much the same way any man would if their fiancée told them they were meeting an old boyfriend for food and drinks. Lots of yelling, lots of hand waving, lots of snide remarks about why the old boyfriend was not worth staying in touch with.
I was saved by my dad. "Honey, we've got a line going here," he said just loud enough for Colt to have heard. I wanted to hug him for that.
"Sorry, I've gotta go. I'll talk to you later." I hung up before he could ask anything else and hurried to the register, where several customers were standing impatiently by. When had they all come in?
I checked the time on the wall. I was supposed to meet Damon in an hour. I hoped the line died down by then. I had enough on my mind as it was. I didn't know what Damon wanted to see me about, I rarely talked to him since he moved out of Sweetland Cove and to Mistmoor Point, the only other town on the island. Personally, I preferred Sweetland, but then all Sweetlanders did.
Whatever Damon wanted to talk about, I just hoped it wasn't what I was afraid it was. I knew he'd broken up with his girlfriend a little while ago and was afraid he was revisiting old flames. If that was the case, I'd put a stop to it immediately. The only reason I was going was that when he'd called, he'd sounded... off. I couldn't place my finger on it exactly; he just didn't sound like the Damon I knew. And he'd said it was important. So, I'd agreed to meet him. I just wished I didn't have to deceive my current boyfriend to do it.
* * *
CHAPTER
TWO
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Mack's Bar was packed when I got there. Natalie Vargas had done an excellent job of turning it into a lunchtime destination and not just another bar, though I wasn't sure its namesake would completely approve if he were still alive. Mack had always catered the bar to those in the paranormal world who needed a safe place to converse and meet discreetly. This didn't look very discreet.
"Ava," Natalie called, waving to me from behind the bar. She started over. I wondered how her husband felt about her old boyfriend leaving her this place in his will. The grand re-opening sign was still hanging out front and streamers and balloons still decorated the ceiling.
Stepping farther into the room, which she'd brightened up with a fresh coat of paint and new lighting fixtures, I was struck by the silence of the place. I looked around and saw people talking animatedly at their booths or tables, but no sound reached my ears.
"A silencing charm?" I asked Natalie, impressed.
She grinned at me. "I got the idea from Coffee Cove. Everyone who goes their loves the fact they can carry on a conversation without it being heard at the next table, so I did the same thing here." She screwed up her face a little. Her shoulder-length brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that made her look younger than her thirty-something years. "I had to pick Melbourne's brain a little to figure out how he did it, though. And it wasn't easy."
Melbourne was one of two owners of the Coffee Cove and was immensely proud of the silencing charms he had around each table in his coffee shop. You had to be standing right next to someone or sitting across from them at the same table in order to hear them. It was a difficult spell to accomplish.
I supposed that with silencing charms in place, the old clientele who needed a discreet meeting place could still find it here, and those who wanted to be loud and obnoxious could find that as well. Natalie had found a way to satisfy both crowds. Someone sitting at the bar let out a loud laugh that sounded that much louder in the room's silence.
Natalie rolled her eyes. "I couldn't figure out how to silence the bar itself. Every time I tried, I ended up making it so that you couldn't hear the person at the stool next to yours. That'd never work, and Melbourne refused to give up any more of his secrets, so I just left it alone. I've got a warning sign up, though. See?" She pointed to a sign just above the bar that said, Warning: Bar Seating Is NOT Silenced!
She looked at me hopefully.
"You don't think that's a big deal, do you? I mean, people can just get a table if they want to talk privately."
"I think you're fine," I told her. "It's great."
She smiled and told me to grab any empty seat I wanted. I ordered a wine spritzer, hoping it would ease my nerves, and grabbed a seat in a far back booth.
I was surprised Damon hadn't asked to meet in Mistmoor Point. He probably figured I was doing him the favor by meeting him, so he didn't want to make me travel the two hours to get to the other side of the island. With a good speed spell, you could make it in an hour and a half. No speed spell at all and it was more like three. Travel between the two towns was the one time when a car was absolutely necessary. If you stayed within your own town, however, you could walk everywhere. Only tourists drove cars.
Natalie brought my drink, and I sipped it slowly, waiting.<
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Ten minutes slipped by and I double checked the time. Another ten and I checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls.
Natalie came back over.
"Who are you waiting for?"
"What makes you think I'm waiting for someone?" I said, garnering an arched eyebrow from her.
"Because you keep checking the time and you look like someone who's losing their patience."
When had Natalie gotten so smart?
"Just a friend," I told her and slurped down the rest of my drink. "How about another?" I twirled the straw and handed her my empty glass. She returned a minute later with a fresh round.
"Is it Colt?" she asked. "Because he was in here for breakfast earlier with Dean and when they left, I got the impression they weren't coming back."
"Colt was in here with Dean?" I asked, surprised.
Dean Lampton was the ogre who ran the Council on Magic and Human Affairs where Colt worked. He wasn't a real ogre, though he sure acted like one. He said you had to be to run a place like COMHA. I thought Dean just enjoyed being a snot to everyone.
"Colt didn't mention meeting Dean today," I told Natalie. Not that it was particularly unusual. Colt worked with the guy, they saw each other all the time. What was unusual was Dean coming to Heavenly Haven. He only did that when something big was going on, otherwise he stayed on Florida's mainland.
Natalie shrugged.
"Anyway," I said, "it's not Colt I'm meeting." Natalie waited patiently, as if she thought I was going to continue talking. "Can I get some cheese sticks?" I asked.
She puckered her lips and went to place the order.
I didn't know why I was holding back. She'd recognize Damon as soon as he walked in. I guess I just wasn't in the mood to answer questions. Eleanor and Trixie hadn't stopped asking them of me since Colt and I announced the date.
