A Magical Trio

by A. A. Albright

  The cat raised its head, and peered at me through yellow-green eyes. It began to purr, and jumped down off the chair and brushed itself against my legs. I picked it up and began to stroke the lustrous black fur – on further examination, it was definitely a he. I kept him in my arms as I walked downstairs. He was so warm and fluffy that I wished I could keep him in my arms forever. But no doubt he belonged to Nollaig or Pru, and he’d just gotten stuck in my room last night when I tipsily closed the door without noticing him there.

  Pru was laying the table for breakfast when I entered. ‘Hey Ash,’ she said, smiling. ‘Mam’s just gone up to bed for the day. I mean … because she’s sick. Hey, who’s your little friend?’

  The cat meowed.

  ‘He’s not yours?’ I asked. ‘I found him in my room.’

  Pru shook her head. She was dressed in what I was coming to think of as her usual uniform – a gypsy shirt and jeans, and a lot of silver jewellery. ‘Never seen him before in my life. Cats tend to stay away from us. Because … um …’

  ‘It’s okay.’ I sat at the table with the cat on my lap. ‘I know you’re vampires. Although I’m confused about why you’ve all been keeping it a secret – seeing as Arnold’s probably going to wipe my memory on Friday.’

  Pru’s eyes widened, and she dropped into a seat opposite me. ‘He’s going to what now?’

  She seemed genuinely surprised, even a little angry. ‘Well, that’s what he’s done with the previous reporters he’s trialled – according to Detective Quinn anyway.’

  Pru scrunched up her nose. ‘You know we all just call him Dylan, right? We’re not very formal around here. But honestly, Ash, I had no idea that’s what happened to the previous reporters. Any time Arnold asked us to put one up, he asked us to keep shtum on what we were until they got comfortable. He said he wanted to break things to them gently or whatever. And when they didn’t stay on, I figured they’d just decided the place was too weird for them.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s not what happened.’ I reached for a slice of toast and began to butter it, thinking carefully. Why was Arnold asking the supernatural residents to keep their true nature a secret if I was going to be forced to forget I ever even met them? ‘But don’t worry about it. You only did what you were asked. Hey, I’m not really sure what to do about this gorgeous guy then, if he’s not yours?’ I stroked the cat. ‘Should I try to find his owner? Or feed him? I’ve never had a pet, so I really have no clue.’

  Pru shrugged and poured herself some juice. ‘We’ll leave the window in the kitchen open so he can come and go as he wants – although, I really did mean it when I said that cats tend not to like me and my mam, so it’s super weird that he’s here in the first place. I’ll leave out some food for him and, I dunno, maybe put up a sign in the shop? See if someone is missing him? But you know what cats are like. The place they are is usually the place they want to be.’

  ≈

  I arrived early at the Daily Riddler, but the door was open so I knew I wasn’t the first. When I strode towards the desk that had been allotted to me, I spied Edward, the cleaner, and Roarke, the guy who wrote the puzzles. For some reason, the two of them were hiding under the desk adjacent to mine.

  ‘Hi guys,’ I said. ‘Something interesting down there?’

  Edward put a finger to his lips, while Roarke pointed towards the staircase. A moment later, I heard the sound of something crashing in Grace’s apartment. Another moment passed before I heard angry shouting. It sounded like Grace and Detective Quinn.

  ‘How long have they been at it?’ I whispered.

  ‘Half an hour,’ Edward whispered back. ‘Although I was running the vacuum cleaner for a while so it could be even longer. I didn’t see Dylan arrive.’

  ‘I think it’s about you,’ said Roarke.

  As if to underline his assertion, I suddenly heard Grace scream, ‘And what am I supposed to do about Aisling now?’

  ‘I reckon you might be right,’ I said. ‘Are Malachy and Greg up there too?’

  Roarke shook his head. ‘They were,’ he whispered. ‘But now Greg’s pretending to fix something in the server room, and Malachy’s off making everyone some chamomile tea.’

  I sat at my desk and turned on my computer, thinking that I might take this chance to get a better look at the newspaper’s private network. Greg had told me it was down, but given everything I’d learned last night, I was pretty sure he was lying. Just as I managed to navigate myself as far as the password screen, I heard my name screamed aloud once again.

  Decision time. I could sit here and try to sneak my way past Greg’s network security (and, let’s face it, I was never going to manage that), or I could go up there and demand a password. Actually, I could go up there and demand a lot more than just a password.

  I didn’t think on it too long, in case I talked myself out of it – instead I threw my bag on my desk, marched up the stairs and knocked loudly on Grace’s door.

  ‘I can tell that you’re both really enjoying your little tiff,’ I called out. ‘But seeing as I’ve heard my name mentioned a dozen or so times, I figure this might be something I ought to be in on.’

  The shouts lowered to intense whispers, and then Grace pulled open the door. ‘You can come in, Ash,’ she said. She turned to the detective. ‘And you, Dylan, can most definitely get out.’

  He scowled at her and left the apartment, not even looking my way as he thundered down the stairs and out of the building.

  Grace moved to her desk, tossing back her hair and doing her best to appear composed. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Dylan should never have brought you to Riddler’s Cove last night. No matter how many trees you saw.’ She picked up the same magnifying glass she had peered through yesterday, and handed it to me. ‘This is an Aurameter. It allows me to see if a person is a witch or not. I can see their power through it. It’s like … this enormous aura surrounding them. If the person is a powerful witch, then looking through this should almost blind you. If they’re your average, work-a-day witch, then you’ll see a nice golden glow surrounding them. If they’re without power, well then … you’ll just see their pores.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘And I’m afraid that all I could see when I looked at you were pores.’

  I picked it up and raised it to my left eye, looking at Grace. Then I dropped it, shook my head, and picked it up again. No, I hadn’t been imagining it the first time – Grace was surrounded by a line of gold. It was stunning.

  I could hear chatter downstairs – it sounded like Malachy and Greg. They must have come out of hiding after the detective left.

  I rushed to the stairs, the Aurameter in my hands, and peered through it at them both. They were standing around with Edward and Roarke, probably talking about what was going on upstairs. There was nothing to see, though, when I looked at Malachy and Greg. I might as well have been looking through an average magnifying glass. I looked at Edward and Roarke next. Edward had no glow, either, but Roarke had a faint golden shimmer.

  I could hear Grace rush out after me. ‘What are you doing?’ She snapped the Aurameter from my hands. ‘You can’t make yourself have power, Ash, much as you want to. And whilst I might not care about anything except the fact that you’re a decent reporter, Arnold isn’t looking for a decent reporter. He’s looking for … for something else.’ She flounced back to her desk and I followed, sitting across from her.

  ‘Okay, I’ll be asking you about what it is that Arnold wants in just a second,’ I said. ‘But first – how come Greg and Malachy don’t have the same golden glow as you? Oh, yeah – Greg’s a wizard, right? His power isn’t innate. Or something. But what kind of supernatural is Malachy? Or is that a rude question?’

  She blinked, her false lashes causing a bit of a butterfly effect. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m talking about what I saw when I looked through the Aurameter. You have the lovely golden glow you were talking about. Not blinding, but pretty fandabidozi if I do say so myself. But Greg and Malachy … well, I imagin
e if I was standing a bit closer, all I’d see was their pores. Roarke has something too, but it’s fainter than your glow.’

  She swallowed. ‘You … you see through the Aurameter?’

  ‘Isn’t that what it’s for?’

  She swallowed again. ‘Aisling … you … you shouldn’t see through the Aurameter. Only an empowered witch can see through the Aurameter. And I’m telling you, you have no power. Like Dylan told you last night, Greg is a wizard. He gets his power from outside sources. Hence no glow. Malachy is a vampire. We need different devices to see their powers. Edward’s a weredog, and they don’t really have any powers other than howling at the moon and having a great sense of smell.’ She paused. ‘You definitely see a golden glow when you look at me and Roarke?’

  ‘I definitely do. Much fainter with Roarke, though. What does that mean?’

  She looked completely unsure. Of course, that was the exact moment that the cat decided to make appearance.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said. ‘This cat turned up in my room this morning. Cute, isn’t he? I think Pru’s going to post an advert in the local shop to see if anyone’s missing him, but maybe we could run something in the paper, too.’

  She stared from the cat to me. Then she raised a finger, swirled it about, and magically closed the door to her apartment.

  ≈

  Five minutes later, we were still locked inside her apartment together, and Grace had yet to say a thing. The closed door told me that she wanted to say something, though, so I figured I might as well just hang out with the cat and wait.

  ‘You know …’ she said after the sixth minute.

  ‘It’s just that …’ she added after the seventh minute.

  ‘Okay,’ she said after ten minutes had passed. ‘I’m just going to lay it out on the table. Dylan has explained why he told you what he told you last night. He told me you see a haze surrounding supernatural areas. Well, you shouldn’t. That haze is what we refer to as a veil of mist spell. One of many methods we use to keep the entry points to our enclaves hidden from the world. It’s the same haze that supernaturals who aren’t witches sometimes see when they look upon a witch enclave without some form of Admitaz – that’s the green stone in the ring you’re wearing.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’d forgotten to take the ring off, and Detective Quinn had never asked for it back. ‘Yeah, Detective Quinn said something about witch enclaves being different. Like, you need to be one of them, or to wear some magical jewellery to enter there.’

  She nodded. ‘Exactly. Now, you’ve met Dylan, so you know that there are also unempowered witches. Witches born to witch parents, but who don’t have any power themselves.’

  ‘He said he was a dayturner,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Ah. Yes. Well, now he is. But he was born an unempowered witch. And I had you pegged an unempowered witch, too. Right up until you told me you could see my power through the Aurameter. You got all of it spot on. I have an average amount of power, hence the golden glow. Roarke is just barely empowered, so his glow is far fainter. And you saw that. All of it. And now, of course, there’s the matter of the cat.’ She gave me a funny smile. ‘Can you hear him, right now?’

  I looked down at the black cat. He was looking up at me and purring. ‘Yeah, he’s like a little motorboat, isn’t he? I see what people like about cats.’

  Grace blinked. ‘That’s all you hear? Him purring? Because I hear him talking.’ She looked at the cat. ‘All right, I’ll tell her.’ She sighed and turned back to me. ‘He says that there’s no need to put any signs up. He told me that you are most definitely his. He also says to tell you his name is Fuzz. Not the most elegant name in the world, but …’

  I gawped down at the cat. ‘Fuzz?’

  The cat nodded.

  ‘And you’ve decided that I’m yours, have you?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Ash, Dylan and I … we didn’t want you here,’ Grace went on, striding to her sunken couch and beckoning me to follow. ‘We didn’t want to run this trial, because we have already run three trials, with three other women hired by Arnold. And it didn’t bother me that none of those women were witches. They were excellent journalists. It’s not uncommon for humans to work in our world, as long as they know how to keep a secret. Whether you were an unempowered witch, or a human … no matter what you are, no matter what any of the other reporters were, it didn’t matter to me. But it does matter to Arnold. He’s looking for something specific. Someone specific. I think it’s safe to say that you have some power, even if I can’t see it through the Aurameter. But … I can’t promise you that you’ll be what Arnold is looking for. At the end of this week, he might still try to do his memory spell. You might forget all of this ever happened. I shall argue your case, of course, but … I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to stop him.’

  The cat had come over to the couch too, and I lifted him up, feeling somehow comforted by his presence. ‘I’m not okay with that. But if you have magical powers and you still don’t think you’ll be able to stop Arnold, then there’s probably not a lot I’ll be able to do about it, either.’

  Her eyes watered a little bit. ‘No. Probably not. But in the meantime, I’d like to continue with this trial. I’d like you to do a real piece on Bathsheba’s murder. A piece for the evening edition.’

  13. The Evening Edition

  On the surface of it, there was little difference between the Daily Riddler’s daily and evening editions. They both covered the same stories, and they both included a crazy amount of puzzles.

  But when you looked closer, you saw that the two were nothing alike. The whole job of the daily edition was to come up with an explanation for the strange things that happened in Riddler’s Edge.

  One story featured an explosion that took place on the beach. It had been caused by a wizard – a friend of Greg’s, in fact – who underestimated the power of a magical shell he’d found on the strand. In the daily edition, the article talked about some careless tourist letting a camp fire get out of hand on the beach, whereas in the evening edition, the true story was told.

  There were some differences in the word puzzles too, but that was just sensible. I can’t imagine many humans would have known the answer to questions like: It’s a substitute for lurpwart in a popular cold remedy. It’s also the name of a famous vampire opera singer.

  As well as finally letting me see the evening edition, Greg had given me the passwords for the paper’s network. He’d also given me the password for the search engine that supernaturals accessed online. He gave me books to read, too, so I could swot up on the Irish supernatural world.

  Once he got me acquainted with the real newspaper, we got to work on the story Grace had asked me to write. Greg showed me Grace’s own reports on the previous Night potion murders, and how to pull up all the reports the detective had submitted. I read over every single word as many times as I could. Seeing as I was going to be questioning Gunnar Lucien the next day, I wanted to be prepared.

  Detective Quinn agreed to the interview the second I called him to ask. Instead of being delighted by his change in attitude towards me, it was making me feel a little hopeless. No one thought I was going to make it through this trial. They were just pandering to me in the meantime. Of course, even while being helpful the detective had still managed to irritate me – because being a big giant pain in the rear was his default setting. Just before I hung up he said, ‘You know, he’s not going to talk to you. Gunnar, I mean. But if you want to waste your time, go for it.’

  ‘He’s probably right, you know,’ Greg said, overhearing the latter part of the conversation. ‘These Vlad’s Boys don’t talk. Ever. Y’know, unless it’s to smear some vile graffiti about dayturners on every wall they find.’

  ‘Well, that’s why I want to be extra prepared,’ I said, slamming the office phone back onto the receiver. ‘I’m sure there’s something among all this I can use to irritate Gunnar into talking.’

  Greg grinned. ‘That sounds like someth
ing Grace would say.’

  ‘Hey.’ I scooted closer to him and lowered my voice. ‘Speaking of Grace, what’s with all the fifties glam? I mean, don’t get me wrong – her apartment looks almost as amazing as she does but … she’s a witch, right? Not a vampire?’

  ‘You’re surprised she’s a witch? You expected her to be a vampire because of how she dresses? So … what? You think vampires spend their lives stuck in some fashion time warp from the decade they were turned?’ Greg almost spat out his coffee.

  ‘Don’t they? I mean, I’m still wearing the same outfits I wore in the early noughties. You find something you like, you stick with it. Well, if you’re lazy like me you do, anyway. That’s why I’m confused about Grace. I figured maybe a vamp would enjoy dressing the way they did in their heyday, but Grace is only forty or so, and she’s a witch. So she couldn’t have been around in the fifties. Could she?’

  Greg popped a lollipop in his mouth and kept his eye on what he was doing. The guy seemed to have an endless supply of snacks. ‘Vamps aren’t the only ones who can live long lives. Witches can be pretty old, too. Some look younger because of glamour spells. Some stay physically young forever because of dark magic.’

  I glanced up towards the apartment. ‘So which is it with Grace?’

  Greg kept sucking his lollipop, and shrugged. ‘I’ve never met anyone who dared to ask her, so I’ve no idea.’

  I wasn’t so sure I’d be brave enough either, I thought, continuing to leaf through one of Greg’s books. It was all about vampires, and their seemingly endless powers.

  ‘They can move things with their mind?’ I asked. ‘For real?’

  ‘Some can. Remember the pager I was waving around yesterday? Well, it wasn’t a pager.’