The buildings here, however, were much more London than small-town Germany. Instead of little cottages with cute shutters, the buildings around us rose five, six, sometimes even ten stories into the air. But rather than being made of plain glass like big cities in the human world, these were all crazy, physics-defying designs.
One building, rising at least six stories high, was made entirely of glass, but in the shape of a reverse pyramid. Each pane of glass was a different color, and they all changed in two-second intervals, creating a sort of dancing light show for onlookers.
Another building down the street was built like a half-finished game of Jenga, with random holes in the middle and offices sticking out here and there. I shuddered to think what someone who was afraid of heights might feel having to work in one of the offices whose floor would be a pane of glass looking down four floors onto the concrete below.
The paranormals walking around town looked a lot more professional, dressed in more human-world style suits and ties than regular paranormal world clothes.
“Is this some sort of major center?” I asked, and Sara nodded.
“Yeah. Spokurse is one of the biggest paranormal towns in the world now, funnily enough. The human town nearby is just a large-ish regional center, but about twenty years ago a couple of major businesses moved their headquarters here, and now it’s one of the biggest paranormal towns in the United States.”
“Wow,” I said, looking around.
“The coffee roaster isn’t downtown, though,” Ellie explained. “Come on, let’s grab a quick ride to get over there.”
Ellie made her way to a set of stairs that led up to an empty platform about thirty feet in the air. Sara followed after her, and so did I, wondering exactly what was going to happen up here. As soon as we reached the top of the stairs, we sure enough found ourselves on a simple raised platform with absolutely nothing else around. There were no railings, nowhere leading to anything.
I was just starting to wonder if this wasn’t some sort of weird practical joke when out of nowhere a giant, bullet-shaped vehicle approached. It was sleek and silver, with reflective windows along the sides, and looked one hundred percent like the sort of thing you would expect to see in a sci-fi movie. Gliding noiselessly towards the platform, the weird kind of miniature bullet train stopped in front of us. A door that had been seamlessly integrated into the vehicle body slid open, and Ellie and Sara walked straight in.
“This thing makes the carriages in Desert Plains seem like antiques,” I said.
“Columbia Coffee Roasters,” Ellie said clearly, and the bullet zoomed off, magically speeding through the air. I pressed my face against the window like a child on an airplane for the first time.
“This is so cool,” I said as we zipped between the fancy buildings, thirty feet in the air. After a couple of minutes the highrises turned into significantly lower-rises, and we eventually found ourselves in an industrial area, apparently on the outskirts of town. The bullet stopped in front of a large warehouse, and the door opened once more. The three of us piled out of it, and a second later the vehicle noiselessly sped off once more. While riding inside of them was amazing, from the outside, I had to admit those silver bullets definitely seemed a little bit creepy. Maybe it was just the silent way they glided though the sky.
The large rolling door that rose from floor to ceiling in this building was all the way up, showing off the interior of the building that I had to admit was significantly emptier than I had expected. The space had to have been at least two thousand square feet, with about four people working there in total. A couple of large machines on the right hand side generated more noise – and heat – than I had expected. Even with the door open wide, it was quite warm next to the machines.
One wizard was carefully looking at one machine, and occasionally casting a spell on it. I didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but we watched for a few minutes, and when he was finished, he cast one final spell and a door at the bottom of the machine opened, causing thousands upon thousands of coffee beans to spill out the door and into a large metal tub underneath.
The aroma of freshly-roasted coffee flew straight to my nostrils, and I was overcome by a sudden desire for a nice cup of joe.
“Hey, Barry?” Ellie called out, and the wizard turned towards her, looking surprised. He was on the tall side, with dark blond hair and an easy smile.
“Well, if it isn’t Ellie Graham. I haven’t seen you in years! What are you doing here? Sorry, I’d give you a hug, but I’m a bit sweaty.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ellie said with a smile. “We were actually hoping to have a chat with you about the incident with Aquaria and the vampire at the coffee stall yesterday.”
Barry looked around quickly, then motioned for us to follow him. The four of us made our way back outside into the cold air.
“I felt bad for Aquaria, to be honest. I know the boss hasn’t told her yet, and this can’t leave the room, but he doesn’t want her working next week. He’s worried that with everything that happened, and everyone in Western Woods thinking she killed that vampire that it’s going to hurt business. He’s going to give her the call that he’s letting her go later today.”
I shook my head sadly. That was definitely not what Aquaria needed. Now she was going to lose her job just because people suspected she was a murderer? Whatever happened to the idea of someone being innocent until proven guilty?
“So you don’t think she did it?” Sara asked, and Barry shook his head.
“Nah. Why would she? I’ve stood at that counter and made a lot of coffees while a lot of other paranormals have come by and said just as bad to Aquaria, and other fairies. So she was having a bit of a bad day and she went off on the vamp. Who cares? That’s not the sort of thing you kill someone over. She killed her mother in self-defense after years of abuse. Totally different situation. Anyone who thinks Aquaria killed that vampire is an idiot.”
I immediately liked Barry; he was plain-spoken, but confident, and unlike most of the citizens of Western Woods, didn’t think Aquaria should be hanged immediately.
“What do you remember about the encounter between Aquaria and Florin?” I asked, and Barry’s brow furrowed as he tried to think.
“To be honest, I didn’t really realize anything weird was happening at first. All I knew was that Aquaria had taken an order, and at that point I had been making coffee for something like four hours straight, so mentally I wasn’t exactly paying too much attention to what was going on around me. But after a few minutes, I realized something weird was happening, and I listened in a little bit. I just caught the tail end of the conversation, and then heard the vampire complaining that the coffee was way too hot. Which was super weird, because Aquaria had a little sip of it from the same container a minute afterwards, and it was fine.”
“We think one of the witches or wizards who was waiting for coffee at the time might have placed a curse on the cup to make the coffee too hot,” Ellie explained. “Do you remember who was there at the time?”
“Well, I know she was,” Barry said, looking at me with a grin. “You were gripping your wand so tightly your knuckles had gone white.”
A small blush crept up my face. Obviously, I hadn’t been quite as calm, cool and collected as I thought at the time if even the barista noticed.
“Anyone else?” Ellie asked, and Barry thought hard.
“There were a couple of shifters, two lion shifter females. I remember them because they ordered iced lattes, despite the fact that it’s way too cold for iced coffee right now. Then there was that old wizard, Edward Flash. He’s a regular at the stall, and comes by every single week at exactly the same time. Always the same order, too. Large cappuccino with extra froth and chocolate sprinkles on top.”
Barry shifted on his feet and closed his eyes. “There were a couple of other witches there, too. Heather and Jennifer Bolt. I wouldn’t put it past either of them to have cursed the vampire’s coffee; I’m friends with Jen
nifer and see her from time to time. She definitely would not have appreciated Florin’s unwanted flirting with Aquaria.”
“Thanks,” Sara said with a smile.
“No problem. Whatever I can do to help. Oh, I think there was also another vampire there. Elgin, from Western Woods. If I remember right, though, he didn’t seem especially worried about Florin, and didn’t seem to care about the situation. I don’t know if he even knew the guy, since Florin was from here, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right, we’re going to go and see if we can find the cousins that he was with,” Ellie explained.
“Well, I can’t guarantee it, but the main vampire bar here is actually in this warehouse complex. If you keep going down three buildings, turn left at the intersection and keep going, you’ll come across a large warehouse that’s painted completely black. That’s the vampire bar. Still, it’s a creepy place. Personally, I wouldn’t go in there unless I absolutely had to. But it’s where you’re most likely to find those cousins of his. My guess is all of the vampires in town are hanging out at that bar today and mourning their friend.”
“Thanks,” Ellie said with a smile. “That’s more helpful than you could possibly know.”
“Always happy to help,” Barry said. “As I said, I feel bad for Aquaria. She shouldn’t be fired over what happened, especially since there’s no proof whatsoever she was even involved. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
“Will do,” I said, and as we turned to leave, Barry spoke once more.
“Hey, Ellie?”
“Yeah?” Ellie said, turning back to have a look at Barry again.
“If you really want to thank me how about you let me take you out to dinner? It’s been a few years, and I can’t even remember why we stop seeing each other.”
Ellie grinned. “Let’s see if the vampires are at the bar first, and I’ll get back to you.”
Barry grinned good-naturedly, waved at us, and went back to work inside the warehouse.
Chapter 9
“Are you joking?” I hissed at Ellie as we left. “You’re going to go out with him but only if the information he gave us pans out?”
Sara laughed. “Personally, I think it’s a great idea, and I think Ellie should offer up her body for information more often. We might actually solve crimes a little bit faster that way.”
Ellie glared at us. “That’s enough out of both of you. Even though it’s none of your business, for your information, I’m going to go out with Barry no matter what. I’m just playing hard-to-get so that he wants it even more.”
I barked out a laugh. “You’re hilarious, Ellie.”
“What? We can’t all have the elf of our dreams just land in our lap one day,” she said to me.
I shrugged. “If anything, Kyran and I have to deal with the more difficult relationship, what with everybody thinking that witches and elves shouldn’t be together and that paranormals should all stick to their own kind.”
“She has a point,” Sara said. “Now, are we going to keep bickering, or are we going to go find this vampire bar?”
Barry’s instructions had been simple to follow, and sure enough, just a couple of minutes later we found ourselves standing in front of a pitch black building. It was almost a perfect square, and the door was so well hidden that it took us a couple of minutes before we found it.
Passing through the door and into the building, we found ourselves entering another dark room, closed the door behind us, and then passed through yet another door into the main vampire bar. I was getting used to this system by now; vampires used it to minimize the amount of light coming in from the outside. It kind of reminded me of how some zoos used the double door system to stop animals from escaping, but I never mentioned that aloud, not wanting to accidentally offend the entire vampire community.
Vampire bars were definitely different to all the other paranormal bars. For one thing, they opened during the day, rather than at night. Because of that, bartenders weren’t allowed to serve any paranormals except for vampires, since paranormal law dictated that bars were only allowed to be open at night for other paranormals.
In this bar, candles hung upside down from the ceiling, flashing small amounts of light into the room, and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. The entire left hand wall comprised of the bar, which was made of some sort of black rock, maybe jet. It had a very uneven, natural sort of look about it, and behind the bar was a female vampire who glared at us as soon as we walked in. We were obviously not welcome.
The rest of the bar was filled with small tables, but funnily enough, there were few chairs. Most of the vampires stood, nursing drinks and talking amongst one another in small groups. I couldn’t help but notice that everybody was dressed in red, which seemed a little bit strange to me.
“Why all the red?” I asked Sara in a hushed voice, and she turned to me.
“When vampires die their mourning color is red. All of these people are grieving Florin right now.”
“Oh,” I replied, suddenly feeling like I had walked into somewhere where I wasn’t welcome. This wasn’t a funeral, but it certainly had the tone of one, and I felt like an intruder. I supposed I was.
“What on earth are you three doing here?” a vampire came up to us and asked. He was tall, with jet black hair gelled up into spikes, and I recognized him as being one of Florin’s cousins from the other day at the market. “Witches aren’t welcome here. Can’t you see we’re grieving the loss of one of our own?”
“We are sorry for interrupting,” Ellie said softly. “We mourn Florin’s death but were hoping that we could find somebody who was there and could answer a few questions.”
“You’re one of his cousins, right?” I interrupted. “I saw you with him that day.”
The vampire looked at me carefully, his eyes so piercing it was like he was trying to bore deep into my soul. The effect was incredibly unnerving.
“Who wants to know? What did you have to do with my cousin?”
“Nothing, I didn’t know him. I only saw the interaction between him and the fairy at the coffee stall.”
The vampire spat on the ground suddenly. “That fairy deserves to rot in jail forever for what she did to my cousin. He was supposed to live forever; he was supposed to live a long, happy vampire life. Instead, he was cut short in his prime, barely 300 years old, all for some harmless flirting. What an absolute shame. Why are you looking into Florin’s death, anyway? You’re friends with the fairy, aren’t you?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Ellie said quickly, raising her hands. “We just don’t like to see somebody’s death go unavenged in Western Woods and so we thought we would find out whatever we could.”
“Liar,” the vampire hissed. “I recognize you. You work at the café in Western Woods, the one where the fairy who murdered my cousin used to work as well. You’re here on her behalf, and you’re trying to prove that one of us killed Florin. Well, for the record, you’re wrong. None of us killed Florin. That fairy did it. Everyone knows it, and she’s going to pay for what she did.”
The vampire took a step back, then raised his head towards the ceiling. “These three witches have come to exonerate the fairy who murdered our cousin. They have invaded our territory, with the intention of blaming one of us for his death. Are we going to let them get away with it?” he called out, his voice resonating through the room.
My mouth went dry as every single vampire in the bar turned and stared at the three of us. I took a quick look behind me, but the door had already been sealed off, three huge vampires standing in front of it. Going out that way obviously wasn’t an option anymore. Unfortunately, I didn’t think there were any other exits.
This was definitely not good.
Ellie already had her finger on her wand, and Sara’s hand was moving towards hers. I grabbed mine, and pulled it out, moving closer to the other girls instinctively. If this was going to turn into some sort of fight, I wanted to be close to the others, who we
re much more magically talented than I was.
My eyes scanned the room for a broom. After all, Sara was a championship-level broom rider, and our best chance of getting out of here was giving her a broom to ride up high, where the vampires wouldn’t be able to get her.
“What kind of magic do vampires have?” I muttered quickly to Ellie. We had never been attacked by vampires before, and I wanted to know what we were in for.
“Mostly, if any of them manage to bite us, we turn into vampires ourselves, or we die. So, don’t let them bite you. They can also cancel out our light-emitting spells. So don’t bother trying to scare them with flashing lights, it won’t work. We need to try and draw them over to the other side of the room, and then we have to get over to that door.”
“Right,” I said with a nod, hoping I sounded more confident that I felt. I had absolutely no idea how we were going to draw out a bunch of vampires, and as they circled around us, their fangs bared, I realized that they one hundred percent intended to bite us.
I swallowed hard and got ready for the upcoming fight.
“Come on now, let us bite you,” the cousin of Florin who had spoken to us initially said. “We promise you, you will get a quick death with us. You cannot be permitted to leave. Not when you are trying to clear the name of the fairy who killed our cousin. Justice for Florin! Justice for Florin!”
The call rose up like a chant from all the other vampires in the room, and there had to be a hundred of them. “Justice for Florin! Justice for Florin!”
Were those going to be the last words I would ever hear? I couldn’t help but wonder.
Chapter 10
The crowd’s chants grew louder, and I really, really just hoped they would chant themselves out, but they were definitely out for blood - literally.
Right now, there were two things we witches had as an advantage: for one thing, we were able to cast spells. And for another, I was fairly certain the vampires here thought they had us too scared to attack. After all, looking at Sara’s face, she was obviously terrified. Ellie was trying to put on an air of bravado, but the blood had drained so completely from her face that she fit right in with the female vampires right now. And as for me, well, as much as I might have been trying to put on a brave show, if the conversation with Barry had taught me anything, it was that I never looked nearly as brave as I felt.
Six Ways to Spellday Page 5
