The Chimera Charm

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “And I keep telling you that sometimes it really does hurt to ask,” Portia spat. “You don’t think the Unseelies know what we’re up to now? You don’t believe that any previous advantage we had by keeping our movements unknown to them is now lost?” Old lady Fearwyn’s eyes were stormy.

  “There’s another portal to Mag Mell I found four days ago,” I said, looking to head off another pointless argument. “It’s a cottage on the Glessie coast, leads straight to Ankou’s Dying Throne.”

  “Oh, you went to see Ankou?” Hinrika squealed. “That must mean you finally unlocked the rune, right?!”

  “Umm, yeah,” I said, showing her the wand.

  The black-toothed fairy twirled her way toward me, the hem of her satin dress flaring, and grasped me in her long willowy arms for a hug. “I knew you could do it!” She squealed in my ear with her licorice breath. “You have so much power, Hattie. Way more than you can conceive of.”

  “More to the point,” Portia said through gritted teeth. “We’ve known about that particular portal for months now. I appreciate, however, the fact that you were willing to tell me about it.”

  “So…how were you planning on digging up this time capsule?” David asked, changing the subject. “I have yet to see any picks or shovels. So I’m guessing you’ll be using your own brand of voodoo?” The contempt in the chief’s words was clear.

  Hinrika released me, but not before kissing me with her black lips, leaving a muddy smear on my cheek. “How else, David? Nothing elaborate or complicated…just a little earthquake magic,” she tinkled.

  “‘Earthquake’?” I asked in alarm.

  “Nothing too drastic,” Portia said. “This area sits on a fault line. It’s relatively stable, but we can still trigger some localized tremors for our purpose.”

  “What purpose?” David scoffed. “Razing this already crumbling school to the ground?”

  “Oh, Portia would never let things go that far,” Hinrika said.

  I was less sure about that but held my tongue.

  “With a strong enough tremor, the soil should liquefy,” Portia explained. “It should make the ground loose enough for us to extract the capsule with very little soil erosion.”

  “A little levitation magic, a divining enchantment to determine its contents,” Hinrika added. “And then we can either take out Morag’s hidden treasure — if it’s here, of course — or put it back with no one the wiser.”

  “Um, did you forget the ‘tremor’ part of this brilliant plan?” David pointed out. “However mild you make it, SOMEONE is definitely going to notice the ground shaking. And, I don’t know how stable you think this school is, but it already looks like it could fall with just a stiff breeze.”

  “If we time this correctly,” Portia insisted. “No one will ever notice more than the tremor, and Cagliostro will remain intact.”

  “Well, I’d like to go on the record and say that this is borderline insane.”

  “Objection noted,” Portia said, kneeling down to place her hands on the ground.

  The earth beneath our feet began to shake, prompting Carbon to jump into my arms. I got us both aloft on my broom to avoid the worst of the quake. We hovered just a couple of feet off the unsteady ground. David, who would rather die than show weakness in front of Portia, stayed on terra not-so-firma. Hinrika, on the other hand, twirled and giggled with delight as the ground started moving. Even with her mad fairy dance, we could see the giddy woman chanting and raising her arms in peculiar gestures. More strange than usual, I mean.

  “Goddess, I love that kook,” Carbon sighed from behind me on the broom. “She’s completely out there, huh?”

  “I’d have to agree, fire-face,” I replied.

  Amid the chants and Hinrika’s pagan dance routine, the soil at Portia’s feet began to break open, and from the rent in the earth, a solid iron capsule floated into the air just above the newly formed crevasse.

  “Don’t just stand there, CPI Trew,” Portia barked. “Scan the contents!”

  David’s eyes widened in unmasked surprised. Portia was testing the chief. She knew he rarely practiced magic, but she was testing his skills right here, and right now. I held my breath. Carbon turned his gaze toward the chief, and he looked as if he was almost willing David to pull it off.

  The love of my life blinked a few times, but then put his hands to his eyes in a mock gesture of holding a pair of binoculars. Ah, the Transpara charm; popular with voyeurs and Peeping Toms as well as archeologists and CSI techs.

  David scanned the capsule’s contents and then shook his head. Portia’s voice was tight, “Put it back, Hinrika.”

  Hinrika’s disappointment was as obvious as David’s and Portia’s as she lowered the capsule back into the shifting ground. Portia kept her hands in position for a few seconds longer before finally standing up. The tremors stopped the minute her fingers lost contact with the dirt.

  “Wow,” Carbon said. “Old Trew Love actually pulled it off.” I nodded in silent agreement, my heart expanding outward toward my best friend.

  “Another failure,” Portia pounded the earth with both hands in disgust.

  “We did NOT fail, dear friend. We just found another place where Morag’s missing trinket is NOT,” Hinrika said as I lowered my broom back to the ground.

  Portia rolled her eyes.

  “So…what now?” David asked, his eyes alive with … with what? Magic? Had my friend just felt the thrill and tingle of his own power?

  The lights came on in the school then.

  Portia, summoning her broom, and nodding toward the newly illuminated windows of the building, replied, “Now, we leave the premises before we are found out. Tomorrow night, all of you will come to Gaunt Manor for an occasion that is long overdue.”

  “What kind of occasion?” I asked as I once again mounted my broom.

  “No time to explain,” Portia said as Hinrika climbed onto the back of her broom. “Just be sure to bring all of your cats with you.” She took off for the skies without another word. Hinrika, riding backward, to face us, blew kisses as her flowing form receded into the night air.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning I busied myself with the day’s orders and deliveries. Dillwyn Werelamb had placed a request for more Phoenix Tears Balm, so I prepared a heaping dose of the fragrant unguent. The Angel was busy as soon as Millie opened the doors. Word had been getting around the Isles of my involvement in local murder investigations, and the nosy and inquisitive wanted to see what an apothecarian-sleuth was all about. I couldn’t complain, my shop needed some publicity, and the proximity of the location of Morag’s death brought in more buyers.

  Come the afternoon, Millie, the cats and I had only one another for company. We ate some lunch together in the back kitchen, the Infiniti munching on some fresh chicken breast Millie had brought in with her.

  The conversation turned to Portia Fearwyn’s strange invitation from last night.

  “You really have no idea w-why Portia Fearwyn—THE Portia Fearwyn—would w-want to invite all of us?” Fraidy asked, shivering. Last night’s tremors had shaken the ground less.

  “Just making a wild guess here,” Gloom sniped. “But based on the previous five times you asked that question, Captain Coward, I would say the boss-lady still has no idea.”

  “Gloom,” I cautioned.

  She turned her back on me and swiped her tail from side to side in curt flicking movements.

  “Sheesh, she can be such a bi—“

  “Shade!” I yelled. “Don’t call your sister names like that.”

  Gloom turned, her ears flat, and her eyes squinty. Millie backed away from the shelf my grumpy cat was adorning.

  Gloom did a half growl-purr. “Yeah, well I maybe a biatch, but at least I have the brainpower to contribute to this case. What have you guys done?”

  Carbon yawned from his place by the hearth. “I made a good fire, so don’t say I haven’t done anything.” He laid his head back on the flo
or and stretched his body until he was impossibly elongated.

  Onyx opened his mouth to say something, but Gloom pointed her paw at him. “Whatever deathly long Shakespearean oration you’re about to spill, brother of mine … DON’T”

  Onyx looked at his sister with ever-peaceful eyes, but I could tell he was offended just by the way he squared his shoulders and held his head higher.

  “Are you suggesting we should refrain from discussing all of the concrete, factual elements we DO know about Morag’s death?”

  Gloom clapped a paw to her forehead. “Bran the blessed, why do you have to talk like that? Do you think you’re Mister Darcy or something?”

  “Okay, so we know Morag was killed by a lethal combo of a Puppeteer Charm and this…catnap curse,” Millie said, expertly ignoring the petty cat squabble.

  “Vencap curse but yeah,” I said, coming to my assistant’s aid. “The whole thing would have looked like a suicide if I hadn’t cast the Chimera Charm, which stopped the Puppeteer Charm from wiping out all traces of the Vencap.” I let out a deep breath. “That’s a lot of magic to keep in order.”

  “True dat, boss,” Shade said, shaking his head, “But, Bast! You handled it! You disrupted two streams of dark magic just by opening your channels to our dear old Chimera.” Shade put a paw to his stomach and offered me a bow.

  “Thanks, Shade, that’s sweet,” I said. “But, I didn’t disrupt the magic well enough to stop it from working, now, did I?”

  “Yeah, and you won’t stop world hunger, or drought either,” Millie replied with a matter-of-fact look stamped on her features. My assistant tossed her peacock locks having made her logical point.

  “Well, the Vencap curse had already dispatched our lawyer, Morag, at the point she left the Ferris wheel car.” Eclipse observed between washing his belly.

  Jet’s head bobbed up and down in a rapid blur. “So, yeah, so like the only thing that stepped out of the Ferris wheel car was an animated corpse. Yep, yep. Assuming Morag hadn’t expired before you cast the Chimera Charm, that is, right? Right. Yep, yep.”

  “Bu-but it looked like Morag knew something like this would happen,” Fraidy added. “She had something important tha-that she needed to hide, and Infirma already told us that her sister had been l-l-ooking over her shoulder the last little while.” Friday cowered lower under the tea shelf. “Poor woman, I know how she feels,” my timid cat empathized.

  “Well, all the digging you guys have done hasn’t yet uncovered whatever this mystery item is,” Gloom judged. “Nor have you even figured out what said item is.” Her face pursed in pure disgust.

  Onyx cleared his throat. “I think it best that we adhere to only the known fa—“

  “Oh, Goddess, he’s off again. Let’s all listen to ‘Pride & Prejudice’ here. I’m sure he’ll be finished by Midnight.” This time Gloom used both of her paws for a full face-plant.

  “Well, I agree with O on this one, sis. We can work on the ‘unknown’s’ in due course. But, for now, let’s deal with the stuff we know.” Midnight chipped in. Onyx gave his brother a formal nod for his sibling’s support.

  “Yeah, well, here’s a big ‘known’ we’re skipping, dudes and dudettes,” Shade chimed: “Apparently our late lady lawyer was part of a cabal of some shady Warlock legal-types. Oh, and this cabal?” Shade strutted before us; his enjoyment of sharing his valuable intel was evident. “Yep, this cabal just so happens to take their marching orders from one Governor Gideon Shields of Cathedral.”

  “Shields sounds like a prime suspect to me. I neither like, nor trust that idiot” Gloom sneered.

  For once, there was no arguing with my morose cat’s acidic observation. We all nodded, and Gloom’s brothers offered a few supportive meows. “Well, what about that Puppeteer Charm I found in Infirma’s bedroom, yep? Wouldn’t that piece of evidence, you know, make her a suspect in all this?” Jet sputtered hopefully.

  “Yeah, but, the Puppeteer is one of the most common Warlock spells out there,” Eclipse countered, surveying us all down the length of his belly, his head cocked at a cute angle. “We’ve no reason to assume this one was the one used on Morag.”

  “Oh, so we believe in coincidence all of a sudden?” Gloom piped up. “That’s solid, brother. Really solid. “

  “It DOES look suspicious,” I admitted. “But we don’t know the whole story yet. So let’s hold off on any hard conclusions until we do. Besides, you all saw Infirma holding on to Morag’s pant-leg as Morag was about to jump. Infirma darn well nearly came out of the car herself.”

  “Speaking of not knowing the whole story and coincidence, what’s up with Mayor Jones and Shields’ right-hand man Kramp?” Millie asked in one of her ‘what does she see in him?’ looks. “That’s definitely a weird connection, no?”

  “Yeah,” Midnight said. I noticed my night-stalking cat’s head nodding toward his chest.

  “Hey, Midnight Hour,” I said gently, stroking my kitty from his head down the length of his back. “If you want to take a nap, I’ll understand.”

  “No, no,” Midnight said with a hard shake of his head. “When I had that insomnia last month … you know, on the Aurel Nugget case? Well, it showed me how much I miss by sleeping the day away.” Midnight turned his face up to me. “I promise I’ll sleep when people stop getting murdered, deal?”

  I was about to tell him to have a cat-nap anyway when there was a knock on the back door. Our heads swiveled toward the door, but we could see no one there. We stood, ears pricked, eyes alert, waiting for someone or something to appear. Gloom suddenly hissed and sprinted under the giant kitchen table toward the door. We watched as she pinned a tiny figure to the floor. Seamus. From out of the brownie’s strong grasp, a black book went skittering across the kitchen floor to come to rest under the table. The volume looked to be about three times Seamus’ size.

  “Ye gods, kitty!” The pixie protested. “This is a friendly call, like. Can ye not get off me sos I can tell ye why I’m here?”

  “C’mon, Gloom,” I said. “Let him up.”

  Gloom took her haughty paw from Seamus’ chest and then slowly lifted her ample behind from the brownie’s match-stick sized legs. She backed away, fur on end, silently shaking her head. Seamus coughed as he picked himself up. Straightening out his clothes, he said, “I’m beginning to see why, Midnight, me lad, why you tol’ me ne’er to come by yer home.”

  Midnight trotted across to the brownie, all traces of his previous sleepiness gone. “Well, you’re here now, Seamus. I’m gonna bet it’s for a good reason.”

  “Yeah, yeah…I wouldna waste yer time with a trifle, no sir.”

  “Aww, he’s cute,” Millie said, leaning down to face the little brownie with a smile. My assistant tickled the brownie’s chin with a careful finger.

  Seamus blushed and gave her a bow. “And you, milady, are a most welcome sight.”

  Midnight tapped his claw a couple of inches from our visitor. “Getting back to business…”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah,” Seamus said, turning around to grab the book.

  Once again, the little man surprised me by hoisting the tome with less effort than I would have expected. He gave it to me, and I cracked open the cover straight away. The first page had an elaborate string of numbers, punctuated by dashes in between some of the numerals. Just below that, a series of dates and money amounts were carefully recorded. The next several pages had more of the same: dates and Sols and lunes payments.

  “Looks like a ledger for some kind of weekly payment plan,” Millie said, looking over my shoulder.

  Flipping to the first page, I noted, “This goes back to last year.”

  I went all the way to the end and found that the last payment noted had taken place two days before Morag’s murder.

  “So, sir, where did you locate this pecuniary ledger?” Onyx asked from atop the table.

  “According to me boyos, it were in the library,” Seamus explained. “Got all excited ‘bout it, which I did not understand. T
hen they tol’ me how it were stuck twixt a volume a’ Jane Austen and another book by Ms. Emily Bronte. They accidentally knocked it off while they was dustin’ an’ there were all the numbers that ye see now, and I thinks to meself: ‘Seamus, if this here ledger ain’t worth lookin’ at, then I’ll eat me ‘at.'”

  “And, if it turns out that it isn’t worth looking at, I’ll eat YOU.” Gloom’s eyes dilated to black saucers.

  I ignored my cat’s threat and said. “Hiding it in plain sight, then.”

  “Which novel?” Onyx asked. Everyone looked at him. “Which Jane Austen novel, dear little friend?”

  “Uh, I’s afraid I dunno which book, Mister Kitty,” Seamus looked confused.

  “Oh, brother,” Gloom butted her head into the table leg in a drama of dismay.

  Seamus shook his head and answered my question. “Aye, indeed it was in plain sight, milady. Promised me boyos I’d get it ta Ms. Infirma ta ask on it. But I figure ya might want to know ‘bout it yerself, yeah?”

  “So…you still haven’t found that missing artifact,” Gloom said with a savage grin, her coal colored eyes sparkling. She looked like she was about to pounce on the wee man again.

  Seamus spread his arms in exasperation. “Faith, kitty cat, how could I ‘ave found it? Been spending most of me time since by Ms. Infirma’s side. Since she had the ‘attack,' you knows? Not a lot a’ opportunity ta go snoopin’ round, ya know?”

  Midnight nodded his head thoughtfully. “Point taken, brother.”

  A hopeful smile came over Seamus’ face. “So…on account a’ me givin’ ya this, I can call off me search ta—“

  “Call that search off, rodent, and I’m going to be calling on you,” Gloom whisper-hissed with an even more hideous smile than before.

  Seamus’ face collapsed. “Ah, well…worth a try, yeah?”

  “We’ll get this to Infirma a little later. After we’ve looked over it.” I promised. “Is she doing okay?”

  “Yeah, glad to say so. Doctors say they wanna keep ‘er a couple a’ days longer to be sure. But they say she’s outta the woods.”