Murder without Mercy

by Tegan Maher

  “I can’t talk to you right now,” I said, holding my hand up. “You’ve obviously lost your mind.”

  She stood up, turned in a circle so that the fan was blowing on her back, the laid back down. “Suit yourself. You’ve already taken your heapin’ dose of crap this mornin’, though. Enough’s enough.”

  Ah. So that was it. She was angry for me because of the way Cass had treated me. My heart swelled a little. I did love that little fox.

  “I’ll take it under consideration,” I said with a half-smile as I loaded their drinks along with the ones for Amber and Dax onto my tray. She didn’t respond, but she did give the tiniest of shrugs. Apparently, the conversation was over.

  The two women were gone when I took the martini and rumrunner to their table, but their stuff was there, so I just dropped the drinks off and sent a little thanks out to the universe for the pass. I smiled when I thought about Tempest’s suggestion. If I turned every rude customer I dealt with into a gnat, there’d be a world-wide bug spray shortage some days. It sure was tempting, though.

  When I got back to the water bar, Dax was giving Cass, who was knocking back shots with the gargoyles, the stink-eye. A couple of months back, Cass had hit on one of Amber's sisters when she'd been in town for vacation. Of course, she'd gone full mermaid on him and had only missed getting ahold of a wingtip by inches. That would have gone badly for Cass because mermaids were as vicious as they were beautiful when you crossed them. Dax was still holding a grudge.

  “The man’s such a tool,” he said, glowering toward my waste of a boss. “Look at him. Taking shots like he’s the one on vacation. And with gargoyles, no less. He has no shame.”

  "Just ignore him, sweetheart," Amber told him as I handed her a coconut rum and pineapple juice. "He's not worth it, right Des?"

  "Right," I agreed as Dax took his draft beer from me. “Though I agree. I don’t know what I did to piss off Karma. I thought I’d been a good girl.”

  Ignoring my attempt to be flip, Dax just shook his head, disdain coloring his ruddy features. "I don't get it. I mean, I know this is supposed to be his punishment for being the family embarrassment, but what did we do to deserve him?"

  I'd asked myself that so many times I'd lost count. "I don't know, Dax. They probably didn't take us little people into consideration when the decision was made. They just got a kick out of forcing him into servitude."

  "I guess," Dax said, then tore his gaze away and changed the subject. I chatted with them for a few more minutes, enjoying the coolness of the water seeping into my Crocs. The water bar extended out into the water several yards so that water creatures of all kinds could visit and was one of the resort's biggest moneymakers.

  Sort of like a floating, covered dock, it was a long oval, with an elbow rest built all the way around it. Stools were attached sporadically as it extended farther offshore so land-dwellers could enjoy their drinks in the water if they wanted. Most of the servers hated it because it required extra walking, but I loved it. It fed my innate love of water and felt like heaven on my feet when the temperatures extended beyond hellfire.

  A couple of elves were making their way from the hotel to the tiki, so I left Amber and Dax to enjoy their drinks. One of the gargoyles snatched me by the wrist on my way past their table. I glared pointedly at his hand, then looked him in the eye.

  "Three," I said, irritation rising.

  "Three?" he queried, confused.

  "Yeah, that's the number of seconds you have to let go of me if you wanna walk away with that hand still attached."

  As I said it, I sent a little jolt of electricity skittering over the surface of my skin.

  He jerked his hand back, glowering at me, but I didn't care; I was within my rights. According to resort policy, I had the right to defend myself and to refuse service to anybody who became physically or magically aggressive toward me.

  I brushed the gargoyle cooties off my arm. "Now that we've all agreed to the basic playground rules of keeping our hands to ourselves, is there something I can get you, gentlemen?" I stressed that last word, mostly because it was ridiculous.

  "Yeah," the one who hadn't grabbed me growled in a gravelly voice. "We want a round of strawberry daiquiris."

  I furrowed my brow, wondering if he was being sarcastic. They weren't exactly daiquiri kinda guys. "Are you serious?"

  "They said strawberry daiquiris, Maganti. Now!" Cass snapped, and my irritation bubbled. "Make mine mango, but bring five strawberries." He leered at his buddies. "We're expecting company, aren’t we, fellas?"

  "Well, then," I said, droll. "I'll hurry. I don't know the hourly rate of company, but I'd hate to waste your money."

  "Speaking of hourly rates," Cassiel called as I spun on my heel and walked away, "how much were you making before you slept your way into one of the best positions on the island?"

  I froze in place, rage tearing through me. Soft fur wound around my ankles.

  Let it go, Destiny. This isn’t the hill you want to die on.

  Tempest nudged the back of my legs with her head, all her bluster from earlier gone.

  You baited him, and you know he always has to one-up you. That was about ten up, but keep walking.

  She was right, of course. I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut, but between our earlier exchange and the handsy incident, I wasn't feeling the love.

  Fine. But I'm picturing him being crushed by a tsunami.

  I'm okay with that as long as you don't actually conjure one. I hate getting wet. She shuddered.

  I snorted. She never failed to make me feel better.

  "You're a bigger woman than I am," Elsa, an elven woman, said when I stopped to greet them. "I would have turned him into a tree, then conjured pigeons."

  Now there was a visual, along with a lesson. Don't mess with elves. They were beautiful to the point of being ethereal, but they were hardcore.

  "He's a tool," I said, waving a dismissive hand in his direction. "You learn to live with him."

  Tolthe, her husband, replied, "It took me three hundred years to reach your level of tolerance," he said. "You were not here the last time we were, but he heckled the poor brownie who'd taken your place to the point of tears. It's disturbing that he remains."

  That was Cass, spreading sunshine everywhere he went. I suspected that had played a huge part in why I’d been called back and why I had so much latitude. I don't think we'd had anybody stay there for more than a few weeks—other than me, of course.

  "I wonder how Karma deals with angels," I mused.

  Elsa laughed. "I should hope the same as she does with all other beings. She is her own boss and a master bookkeeper."

  "Then hope remains. It's nice to see you two, by the way." I smiled and took their orders, then headed to the bar.

  I was surprised to see the hot werewolf was still sitting there. He hadn't spent much time at the bar beyond eating and sometimes working on his laptop. He glanced up and caught my eye, and I smiled. I was almost sure the corners of his mouth twitched into a brief smile before he glanced back down at his phone. That had happened a few times over the course of the week, and I couldn't help but wonder how he'd look smiling, his eyes glinting with humor.

  He'd wear it well, I decided.

  It took Bob a few minutes to make the drinks. While I was waiting, Stan tripped through behind me, spilling his drink down my leg and crashing into a table of fairies. Bamboo food containers flew from the table, and several drinks spilled.

  "Dammit, Stan!" I snatched the glass out of his hand and swabbed the drinks off the table with the bar towel I kept tucked in my apron.

  Fortunately, fairies are quick, and they managed to escape before the liquid ran off and into their laps, but they didn't look pleased to have lost their lunches. With them standing, it was easy for me to flick a wrist and start the cleanup.

  Stan's face reddened and he began stuttering out apologies. I waved him off when he tried to help. Bob came out from behind the bar to guide him back
to his table, then returned to finish my drinks while I magicked the rest of the mess up. I'd worked in human restaurants before and had hated it because I’d had to do everything by hand, sans magic. That had been such a time-suck.

  It only took me a couple of minutes to have them squared away, including re-ordering the food, and Bob had fresh drinks for them on the bar a minute later.

  As I arranged the daiquiris and Elsa and Tolthe’s drinks on my tray, I glanced across the bar and was a little disappointed to see that the werewolf guy was gone.

  After dropping off the elve’s drinks, I made my way to Cass's table. Three ladies—the painted variety—had joined them. I set the drinks in front of them, biting my tongue to hold back the wide variety of snarky comments burbling in my brain, just waiting to fall out. Instead, I just took a deep breath, pictured the tsunami again, and asked if they were hungry.

  The one with Cass licked her lips, then wrapped them around the straw in what I'm sure she thought was a sexy move. She missed the mark by about eight miles, at least in my opinion, but that was probably because I saw her glamour slip for just a second. I couldn't see what was under there, but if she considered what she was wearing an improvement, I'd hate to see her without the glamour.

  I shuddered, surprised that as an angel, Cass fell for that trick. His beer goggles weren't doing him any favors.

  Thankfully, not my circus, not my monkeys. I was the waitress, not the good-taste police.

  A new couple had joined Amber and Dax out at the water bar, and I welcomed the chance to go out. My shoes were still a little sticky from the drink Stan had spilled on me, and that would get miserable quickly.

  I'd barely made it to the end of the dock when a high-pitched scream pierced the air behind me, nearly rupturing my eardrums. I handed Dax and Amber their drinks, then, since the screaming hadn’t abated, I raced back toward the beach. It crossed my mind that maybe one of Fiona's girls had come back and accidentally turned somebody to stone. I was always a little on edge when the gorgons were around. Great gals, but just thinking about their idea of fun gave me hives. And if that was what had happened, it was going to be a PR nightmare.

  It only took me a few seconds to reach the end of the dock, and the screamer was still hard at it. I cringed, and several emotions flitted through my brain when I saw Cass slumped over the table, his fingers draped over his knocked-over daiquiri glass. Everything was still until a tin of breath mints slipped out of his sagging shirt pocket and hit the concrete tiles.

  The sticky, half-melted mango goo pooled under his face, and the eyes staring at me were sightless. I'd never seen his face relaxed and peaceful, and I realized for the first time how beautiful a man he must have been at some point.

  A ray of golden light began to stream from the center of his back, pulling upward into a string and hovering in a cloud until the last of it trailed from his body. After what seemed like forever but was likely only seconds, it shot straight toward the sky, disappearing into the rays of the sun.

  "Well," said bored a voice behind me. I turned to see Steph, a Valkyrie, leaning on the bar with one elbow, rockin' the daylights out of a black-and-gold bikini. "It looks like this place is about to get a lot more pleasant. Which one of you finally manned—or womanned—up and did it?"

  I looked around, wondering the same thing, and was surprised to see that everybody else was looking at me.

  To keep reading The Deadly Daiquiri, click here.

  Other Series by Tegan Maher

  The Enchanted Coast Magical Mysteries (Destiny Maganti)

  Cori Sloane, Witchy Werewolf

  Haunted Lodge Mysteries (Toni Owens)

  Celestial Academy: The Witch (Shelby Flynn)

  Paranormal Artifacts Cozy Mysteries (Sage Parker)

  Witches of Abaddon’s Gate (Mila Maganti)

  Southern Soul Hunters (Kira)

  Gulf Coast Reaper Chronicles (Wren)

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