by Maher Tegan
I couldn’t even be irritated with her because she was in a horrible situation herself. There was only one of her, and she was right to prioritize. Besides, it wasn’t like I was weak. I had power in spades and so did Aaron, so I was sure we could do it. I’d have to close up shop until we did, though, and I hated that. I could have taken Michael’s route, but I loved my little shop and the no-drama life I led. Or used to lead, I supposed. Kira didn’t have very many people on her side, and if I could help, I would. I wished her luck and hung up.
“Well,” Calamity said, licking chocolate from the last slice of bacon from her paws, “It looks like we have an ornery demon to catch, so we’d best get to it.”
8
While we finished our muffins, we talked about how the demon might be getting around.
“There has to be a common denominator,” Aaron said, snapping his fingers. A pen and paper appeared, and he drew out a little map of the town. “We saw one in the movie theater here, and another in the street not far from the theater, then the one here at Charlie’s.” He put stars on the three spots, but they didn’t form any sort of pattern.
“Plus at the Cracked Cauldron, and Broch said another incident had happened here, at the apothecary.” I pointed to the spot where the little shop sat.
“Don’t forget the one outside our place,” Calamity said.
Aaron nodded and starred it, too. The stars didn’t form much of a pattern, but they did seem to be loosely contained within a certain area of town, except for the Cracked Cauldron. It was a bit of an outlier.
“The problem is that we might not know about all the incidents,” Calamity pointed out.
“Yeah,” I replied, feeling a little overwhelmed. I pulled in a deep breath through my mouth and released it through my nose.
“And this is what poor Kira is dealing with on a daily basis. We just need to figure out what all these places have in common.” Aaron crumpled up his muffin paper, then tossed it on his plate before stacking our dirty dishes. “I suggest we start at the Cauldron just to make sure it’s tied into the others. I know it sounds the same, but it’s not in our little cluster.”
I nodded. “I’m teleporting, though.” I felt full and a little sloshy from drinking my coffee so quickly, and just the thought of trudging six blocks in the heat made me nauseated.
We threw our plates away and thanked Charlie, then Aaron held out his hand as Calamity jumped on my shoulder. “Are you driving, or am I?”
We could both teleport but going separately was silly. We might as well all end up at the same spot. I took his hand and smiled. “Buckle up, Buttercup.”
Two seconds later, we were standing in front of the bar. The best thing about living in a supernatural town was that, unlike the little town I’d grown up in, I didn’t have to hide my magic. That made me a little lazier, but it was also super convenient.
Aaron opened the door and motioned for me to go in ahead of him. The dim interior was comforting and familiar, and I smiled when I caught sight of Shane standing behind the bar. “Fancy seein’ you three in here two days in a row,” he said. “Is it beer-thirty already?”
The thought of tossing beer down on my coffee and muffin made me cringe, and he laughed. “I’ll take that as a no. What can I do for ya then?”
“Not that you don’t have the coldest beer and best cheeseburgers in town, but right now we need info more than anything else,” I replied. Since there was no way what we were doing would escape his attention anyway, I decided to lay it out for him. “We’re checking into what happened with Derek.”
He nodded as he polished a wine glass. “I wondered if you’d be takin’ that on. Michael texted a bit ago and said Kira’d already talked to you. I’m not sure what else I can tell you, but I’ll do all I can.”
Aaron propped his elbows on the edge of the polished wooden bar and leaned across it. “Did you see anything, or smell anything strange?”
Shane crinkled his broad brow in thought, and I couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under his eyes. I could have packed for a weekend away in the bags there. “Now that ya mention it, I did smell burnt sugar cookies.”
“Sugar cookies?” I asked. “Could it have been vanilla?”
He lifted a bulky shoulder. “Sure, maybe. My sniffer’s good, but I’m better at pickin’ IPAs from wheat beers than sugar cookies from spices. It smelled like my gran’s kitchen at Christmas.” He winked. “She baked with love, but let’s just say she had more heart than she did skill with an oven.”
I smiled and thanked the universe that I’d been blessed with a family full of bakers. Unfortunately, Destiny and Cori could burn water, but I was good enough to take up the slack for them.
“Did you happen to see a shadow or smoke leave his body? Or enter it, for that matter?”
He shook his head. “It was dark in here, though, so I might have missed it.”
That was strange, but since he’d smelled the vanilla, I was adding Derek’s experience to the list. I thought about going to the apothecary, but the witch who owned it wasn’t exactly one of my fans. She’d spread around that I was a fraud, and I might have let my temper get the best of me at one point and turned her green when she said it in front of a client. I figured the color matched her jealousy, since I was sure the only reason she was a hater was because I was better at coming up with cures than she was. That was another benefit of living in a magical community. I’d had to pay a fifty-dollar fine, but it had been worth it.
Aaron and Shane laughed when I told them the story.
“She’s unpleasant, for sure,” Shane said, flipping his bar towel over his shoulder. “She comes in here sometimes, and she never tips. She always complains that her sandwich is stale, or her fries are cold, or her wine has turned. At first, I did the right thing and comped it, then I figured out she was just doing it to get a freebie and stopped. She hasn’t been in much since she figured out no amount of complaining was going to get her anything for free.”
A group of werewolves came in and settled at the other end of the bar. “That’s all I can tell you, but if you want to hang out for a bit, Derek’ll be here in about ten minutes. I let him come back to work, but I’m gonna stay here and keep an eye on him.”
“I don’t think you need to do that,” Aaron said. “Since we’ve figured out what’s goin’ on, I don’t think you need to worry about him doin’ it again. It was a one-off thing, and the demon’s gone on to other hosts.”
Shane nodded as he ambled down the bar. “That makes me feel better, then. I can go home and get some sleep. I’m beat.”
While we waited for Derek, we racked up the balls on the pool table. “What about alleys?” I asked, chalking my stick. “Do you think maybe it’s moving through them?”
Aaron pressed his lips together as he rolled a stick on the table to check for straightness. “I don’t think so,” he said, chalking the third one he tested. “She said it needs darkness, and even alleys are well lit except at night. It was active several times during the day yesterday, so that wouldn’t work.”
I missed a shot and Aaron took his turn. I was beginning to think he was gonna run the table on me until he missed with three balls left. I grinned gleefully at him; that was the only opening I needed. Five minutes later, I was about to sink the eight ball when he committed the worst sin possible—he broke my concentration. “Oh, look! Derek’s here.”
I missed the shot and scowled at him. “You did that on purpose.”
He turned one corner of his mouth up in a satisfied half-smile as he bent over the table to take a shot. “Not my fault if you can’t keep your eye on the ball, Maganti.”
I smirked at him, and right as he drew his stick back, I moved the cue ball over an inch when he glanced up and winked at me and he missed, too. I shrugged when he scowled back at me. “Not my fault if you don’t keep your eye on the ball.”
“That’s cheating,” he said, sulking.
“Prove it,” I said with a sassy grin. “Did
you see anything, Calamity?”
My little fox looked up from where she was perched on the edge of the table and blinked her big blue eyes. “Nope. I just saw him miss. I guess it’s your turn.”
He cut her a glance, then stepped back. “By all means, if you feel good about yourself winning that way, then take your shot.”
“Thanks,” I said, bending over and sinking the eight ball. “I will.”
Derek, a tall, dark-haired hulk of a guy who looked to be in his late twenties, strolled over to us, scooping up an empty glass as he did. “Shane said y’all had some questions for me.” He looked at the ground and scuffed his foot on the red-painted concrete. “I don’t know much other than what he probably already told you, though.”
“Maybe,” I said, “but can you tell us where you were right before it happened?”
He tilted his head at me. “I’d been here for four hours.”
“Yeah, but I mean in the building,” I replied, waving my hand. “Did you take the trash out or something?”
His face lit with understanding. “Oh. No, I’d gone to the stockroom because we were out of Jack, but I hadn’t left the building in at least a couple hours.”
“Is there a door in there?” Aaron asked. That was a good question because it was possible the entity had slipped through it from the alley or something.
He shook his head. “Not one that goes outside. Just the one that opens into the kitchen.”
“And you don’t remember anything at all?” Calamity asked. “Maybe you had a moment or two where you knew what was happening but couldn’t control it?”
“I’m sorry, but no. I went into the storeroom to get the whiskey, and the next thing I knew, Shane had me in a headlock. I wish I could help, but the time between is a total blank.” He hung his head. “I told Shane to take the bottles out of my pay, but he refuses to.”
I laid my hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault. You did nothin’ wrong. You were possessed by a mischief demon, and there’s nothing you could have done to stop it.”
“Really?” he asked, hope and relief shining in his blue eyes.
Aaron nodded. “Really. And we’re doing everything we can to catch it before it can do it to anybody else.”
I was glad he’d decided not to mention the other cases, especially the one involving the carriage. It was good that he knew it wasn’t his fault, though.
“Thanks,” he said with the first real smile I’d seen. “You have no idea how much better that makes me feel. Everyone else may think my cheese slipped off my cracker for a few minutes, but now I know I’m not having some sort of mental break.”
“Definitely not,” I replied. “Your cheese is firmly in place.”
As soon as he left, Aaron pulled his little map out of his pocket. “Okay, so it was in the storage room here and probably in the bathroom at ChocoLatte. We don’t know about the apothecary, but the theater has plenty of dark hidey holes. And it disappeared into the sewer grate in the street last night.”
“So you think maybe it’s using the sewer system?” Calamity asked.
I held up a hand, then stood and trotted over to Shane, who was wiping a table not far from us. “Do you have a drain of any sort in the storage room?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I have one in the keg room, but not the dry storage. Why?”
I closed my eyes, disappointed because I thought maybe we’d found our answer. “We’re just trying to figure out how the thing’s traveling.”
“I wish I could help,” he said, “but if you were thinking it got in and out that way, you’re gonna have to give it a rethink.”
“Nope,” I said, sinking back into my chair. “Not the sewers.”
“What we need is somebody who knows this town inside out,” Aaron said, scratching the dark stubble on his jaw.
Calamity perked up. “Then it’s a good thing we know somebody.”
“You’re brilliant,” I said as soon as I realized who she was talking about. Timothy had told us the night before that he’d helped build the town. If anybody could connect the dots and help us figure out what all these places had in common, he’d be our man.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up so quickly I almost knocked my chair over backwards. “We have a leprechaun to talk to.”
9
It didn’t take but about ten seconds to realize that I had no idea where Timothy lived. I’d chatted with him on countless occasions, but that had never come up, and I wasn’t sure where to get the information.
“That’s easy,” Calamity said, preening a little. “Ms. Beatrice. If anybody knows, she will.”
“You’re right. For that matter, they practically built this place around her, too. I’m sure she knows a ton about the town. We might not even need to find Timothy. C’mon!”
We said our goodbyes to Shane and Derek, then teleported back to my shop.
Ms. Beatrice’s store was crazy busy, and as anxious as I was to talk to her, I couldn’t just cut in line and cost her business. She was efficient, though, and quickly had the store cleared. I was relieved when nobody else came in.
“Mila! To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked, her round face alight with pleasure. She’d shed the gardening apron for a white one with her store logo on it, and her gray hair was in a tidy bun. Apparently, she worked like I did—a mess until she was finished, then straightened up when it was time to face the public.
“We’re working on that case I told you about this morning. The string of weird behavior,” I replied.
“Ah,” she said, nodding. “I thought that might be why, though I’m not sure what I can do for you.”
Aaron pulled out the paper with the map and smoothed it out on the counter. “These are all the places where odd things have happened. We talked to Kira, and she said we’re dealing with a mischief demon and that it needs—“
“It needs a dark place to recharge and move around between hosts,” she said. “Yes.” She peered at the map, then rubbed her chin. “You’re missing one.”
I raised my gaze to her, startled. “We are?”
“Yep.” She plucked a leaf off the counter and dropped it into a white wastebasket. “This morning, Geraldine Harvey’s daughter was attacked. She made an awful scene in the beauty parlor.”
Though she tried to sound serious, a hint of humor leaked into her tone. I couldn’t blame her. Geraldine Harvey was one of the town’s biggest harpies, literally, and her daughter was as big a terror as she was. They were both rude, condescending, and thought the world revolved around them.
“Well, bless their hearts,” I said, taking on the same tone Geraldine used when what she really meant was Do tell. I knew that girl was trash. “However will they show their faces in this town again?”
Ms. Beatrice laughed. “With great shame, but I’m sure they’ll manage. They’ll just find somebody else to tear down and make themselves old news.”
“Sadly, true,” Calamity said. “Do you see anything in common with all these buildings?”
Aaron had drawn a star on the beauty parlor. “At first, we thought maybe it was using the sewer system, but not all of the places have one. We need to find that common thread so that we can catch it.”
She pressed her peach-tinged lips together and tapped her fingers on the counter. After a few minutes, she shook her head. “I can’t think of a single thing, but then again, I’ve only been around for a hundred years or so. I do think it’s curious that they’ve all taken place in the older part of town.”
“So do I,” I said, my mind trying to shove together puzzle pieces that didn’t fit. “What about Timothy? Do you think he’d know?”
She lifted a rounded shoulder. “I’m not sure, but nobody knows this town’s infrastructure like he does. I’m fairly sure he helped build most of it.”
“That’s what he told us,” Aaron said, folding the paper and stuffing it back into his pocket. You don’t happen to know where he lives, do you?”
“As a matte
r of fact, I do,” she said, her bun wobbling as she nodded. “He lives in the caretaker’s cottage by the old church over on Levy Street.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “I didn’t even know the place had a caretaker’s cottage.”
She placed her hands on the counter. “It does. It’s quite nice, actually, though that’s more due to Timothy’s care than anything else. He keeps the flowers over there lovely. He’s saved my bacon more than once when I’ve run out of roses on Valentine’s Day. His have the most beautiful blooms I’ve ever seen, and that’s counting the ones I grow myself.”
That was high praise indeed from a woman whose magic was honed in the art of horticulture.
“Thank you, Ms. Beatrice,” I said, smiling at her. “You’ve been a huge help.”
“You’re welcome, dear.” She started to give me a little wave but stopped herself. “Oh, and might I suggest taking one of your sleep powders with you? I’ve found that bad spirits respond to them. You make yours with anise, right?”
I nodded.
She pulled a face like she’d smelled something bad. “That says a lot about it. It’s so overpowering even in small doses that even demons can’t escape it. Take one for each of you. You might find it comes in handy.”
I nodded and thanked her again.
Aaron smiled as we took the few steps between her shop and mine.
“What?” I asked, glancing at him sideways as I unlocked the front door.
“Nothing, really. It’s just that sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in the world who likes licorice and black jellybeans.”
I crinkled my nose. “Probably because you’re close. You’re literally the only person I know who does. You’re lucky you have other redeeming traits because otherwise, I’d be suspicious. There’s obviously something wrong with you, but I’ll consider it a quirk rather than an indication of a deeper character flaw.”
