Heists and Homicides

by Lily Webb

  “Let’s say we take out a loan today. What are your terms?” Grandma asked.

  “That’s a great question. The terms are quite simple. Based on your credit history, we’ll happily finance up to five-hundred thousand Moons with zero interest if repaid in full within ten years. That should be more than enough for a starter home,” Percy said.

  “That’s five-hundred thousand dollars,” I told Grandma.

  “Correct,” Percy said, smiling.

  “But I ain’t got credit here,” Grandma said. “I just moved.”

  “Not to worry, we can access your records outside of Moon Grove as well,” Percy said.

  “And what happens if we miss a payment?” I asked. “Are we going to be hauled out of here by gargoyles too?”

  Percy frowned. “We have a generous grace window for the times when money’s tighter than our clients planned. All the details are laid out here,” he said and pulled open a drawer in his desk to produce a tri-fold brochure, which he slid across for us to read. As far as I read, there weren’t any hidden gotchas.

  “Have you already selected a place to build?” Percy asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “We wanted to know what sort of financing we could lock down before we looked.”

  “I wouldn’t expect any less from someone as diligent as yourself,” Percy said. The phone on his desk rang and Percy leaned to see who was calling; I tried to look too but the text on the tiny LCD screen was a wash thanks to a glare from the lighting above.

  “I’m sorry, this is a very important call I have to take. Please, have a look at the brochure and discuss amongst yourselves. This won’t take long,” Percy said and picked up the receiver without waiting for an answer from us.

  Though it was as quiet as a grave in Percy’s office, and though he kept his voice low, I still managed to make out what he said — and given that he refused to make eye contact with me, I would’ve sworn he was trying to avoid me popping into his thoughts during the call. That was probably a smart idea on his behalf.

  “Yes, I understand, Giovanni, loud and clear. You don’t need to worry, we’re taking care of everything on our end and we should be settled by close of business today,” Percy mumbled. Giovanni’s reply was muffled, but the shade of scarlet that spread across Percy’s face told me it wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “Understood. I’m with a client now, we’ll have to talk about this some other time,” Percy said and set the receiver down on the hook a little too forcefully, his fake smile returned. Who was Giovanni, and what message had he related to Percy?

  “I apologize for the inconvenience, but it seems something urgent has come up that I need to attend to,” Percy said, his hands clasped together on his desk, his face still so red it was almost purple. “Have you made a decision?”

  “We’ll take it,” Grandma blurted and all the air in my lungs vanished.

  “We will?” I wheezed.

  “Yes,” Grandma said, glaring at me. “If we can’t find a way to pay back five hundred G’s in ten years, we got bigger problems, Sugar.”

  “Excellent,” Percy said, scrambling like he’d won the lottery. “My secretary and lovely wife, Selena, will draw up the contract and walk you through it together. Normally, of course, I’d do the dirty work myself, but I really must be excused, so if you’ll follow me this way, we can get the ball rolling immediately.”

  Percy bounced out of his chair and walked to his door. Reluctantly, I followed him into the lobby and to the adjacent office. What was so important that he had to walk away from a big deal like the one we were about to sign? Did it have something to do with Giovanni?

  “Selena, dear, I need your help drawing up a contract for a loan for these two lovely ladies,” Percy said. A stringy woman with hair the color and texture of a broom’s bristles glanced up from her computer. The skin beneath her eyes sagged and her face was gaunt.

  “Sure, of course. Please, come in,” Selena said. Percy went first and bent down to whisper something in Selena’s ear while he scribbled notes on a pad of paper on her desk; her brows furrowed but she nodded and rolled her wand between her fingers. Hopefully, she didn’t have a reason to use it.

  “Come now, no need to be shy. Selena doesn’t bite,” Percy said, waving us inside. Grandma and I sat at yet another desk and I wiped the sweat from my palms on my robes. Were we really about to take out a loan for five hundred thousand Moons on a whim?

  “Are you sure about this?” I whispered to Grandma as Percy left the room. The glass door whooshed closed behind him, sealing us inside along with our financial fate.

  “Not really, but it’s the only thing we’ve got short of sellin’ the farm,” Grandma said. “And I ain’t about to let that go so easily.”

  “Good,” I said. The Clarke family farm was where I’d grown up and I couldn’t imagine it not being in my life anymore, even if I wasn’t living on it anymore.

  “Pardon me for the repetition, but I want to make sure everything is in order for the record. Percy told me you’re requesting five-hundred thousand Moons, is that correct?” Selena asked as she readied a pen.

  “Yes,” Grandma answered.

  “Good, then let’s begin,” Selena said. She waved her wand and a file cabinet behind us rolled open. A stapled stack of paper fluttered out and landed on the desk in front of her. “Whose name will be on the note?”

  “Mine. Eleanor Clarke, with an E,” Grandma said.

  “Would you like to add your granddaughter as a co-signer?” Selena asked automatically as if by memory.

  “I reckon I should,” Grandma said and Selena drew another pen from the holder on her desk like a sword. She offered it to me and the other to Grandma.

  “Please read over the contract carefully and if you have no further questions, sign your names at the bottom where it’s marked,” Selena said.

  “Wait a second, I thought y’all were gonna check my credit first or somethin’ like that,” Grandma said.

  “It’s already done,” Selena said, wearing a weak smile.

  “Lemme guess: magic?” Grandma asked and Selena’s smile widened as she nodded.

  “How else?”

  “I shoulda known,” Grandma grumbled as she read over the contract.

  “Don’t worry, we aren’t hiding anything in the fine print,” Selena said. But it wasn’t the contract I was worried about — it was Percy. Careful not to look too suspicious, I glanced over my shoulder to see where he might’ve gone but there was no sign of him.

  “Something wrong?” Selena asked.

  “No, sorry, I was a little distracted,” I said and made to sign my name at the bottom of the contract without even reading it — I didn’t really have a choice by that point anyway — when an explosion in the lobby shook the whole room and knocked dust from the ceiling.

  Selena and I both jumped out of our chairs, Selena clutching the edges of her desk like she was afraid she might float away if she let go.

  “What was that?” she asked, her sunken eyes wide like a cornered animal.

  “I dunno, but it didn’t sound good,” I said and reached into my robes for my wand. I still hadn’t learned how to do much of anything useful with it, but it made me feel better to have it in hand anyway.

  A beam of light tore through the lobby in the direction of the vaults and the room shook again. Selena crouched down behind her desk, her knuckles white.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Get down,” Selena hissed, so I pulled Grandma to the floor beside me. The last thing I wanted was for whoever was out there hurling spells at the vault doors to see us and decide to make us their next target.

  With my breath held, I peeked between the gap in the chair’s cushions into the lobby and gasped. Someone in black, shining leather robes and a matching mask that concealed their entire face stood with a wand held in front of them. They advanced toward the gargoyles and the vaults with careful steps, a short cape billowing behind them.

  “I
f no one moves or tries anything funny, no one gets hurt,” the attacker said, their voice magically slithering through every room in the bank like a snake. Their speech was distorted, neither clearly male nor female, and a chill swept down my spine as I realized what was happening...

  Someone was robbing the bank and we were all in trouble. I spotted Victor’s horrified face across the hall as he crouched behind his desk with Xander.

  “Dear Lilith, it’s happening,” Selena gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. What did she mean? It didn’t make any sense. The burglar glanced in our direction as they passed Selena’s office and instinctively we crouched further down.

  The thief didn’t seem to care, however, as they turned back to the vaults and zipped their wand through the air in a circular motion to pitch a spell at the gargoyles who were snarling at them. I had no idea how the intruder intended to get past the pure strength of the winged creatures, but they must’ve already planned for that.

  Once more, the anonymous tip I’d gotten in a p-mail flashed in my mind; was this what they meant when they said the Bank of Moon Grove was in big trouble? Did someone know ahead of time the bank would be robbed, and were they trying to use me to prevent it — or were they trying to make sure I was involved?

  “Stop!” a high, shrill voice rang through the lobby and into Selena’s office. Against my better judgment, I raised my head a little higher to get a better look at who might’ve shouted at the robber.

  My heart stopped when I realized it was Percy. He stood with one arm outstretched, his wand trembling in his stubby hand.

  “Percy, no!” Selena shouted as she jumped up and the burglar whirled on us. They raised their wand in our direction and without thinking, I bounded to my feet and leaped over Selena’s desk, my arms outstretched. We collided and tumbled to the ground as a bolt of light and the shriek of shattering glass filled the room.

  “Don’t move!” I shouted, barely able to breathe as the room spun around me. The spell had missed us — barely.

  “Zoe, are you okay?” Grandma whispered. I peeked around the corner of Selena’s desk and found her lying flat on her stomach, no doubt hoping the burglar wouldn’t see her.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered back, hoping not to draw further attention to us.

  Maybe the burglar would think they’d taken us all out and go back to their main objective: robbing the bank. More shouts and explosions rippled through the office and I held Selena tight as she whimpered. I had to keep her stationary; if she tried anything else, we might not be so lucky again.

  And speaking of unlucky, I must’ve landed on my wand in the jump because it sat in two pieces on the ground beside me. I groaned as I pocketed the two halves, hoping against hope it could be fixed — assuming I got out of the bank in one piece myself.

  “I said stop! I won’t let you hurt my wife or anyone else!” Percy shouted again, and I glanced over at Selena’s desk in time to watch the burglar call “Obstupefacio!” and jab their wand through the air in Percy’s direction. Percy’s arms locked to his sides as he turned as rigid as a board, and his wand clattered against the marble floor beside him.

  The gargoyles roared and charged at the thief, but they vanished in a puff of smoke and reappeared with one arm around Percy’s throat, their wand pointed at his temple. The gargoyles froze, their claws and wings flexed.

  “Stand down and clear the way,” the burglar’s voice hissed and the gargoyles roared, the primal sound of grinding stones tearing through my ear drums. “Now!” the thief shouted and the gargoyles flapped their wings as they scattered, parting to allow the burglar through their wall of raw strength.

  With their wand still aimed at Percy, the robber dragged Percy through the gargoyles toward the vault. Their back facing the imposing steel door and one arm still holding Percy tight, the burglar pointed their wand at Percy’s lying yards away on the floor and the gargoyles hissed.

  “Devoco!” the thief said and Percy’s wand zipped through the air to hover in front of them. “I’m going to release you and I want you to unlock the vault. If you try anything, it won’t be pretty,” they said. Percy whimpered his assent.

  “Erigo,” the burglar muttered and Percy’s body relaxed. Trembling, he slowly reached for his wand and snatched it out of the air.

  With tears in his eyes, Percy waddled around the burglar to the vault and tapped the tip of his wand against it. The door surged with magical light, and when Percy rested his palm against it, the mechanical sound of locks twisting echoed throughout the bank. When the sound ceased, the door still wasn’t open.

  Percy traced a complicated shape on the door’s surface with the tip of his wand, and again the steel came alive with magical light, throbbing like a pulse. Seconds later, the door eased open with a puff of air as if exhaling its relief and for a few tortured moments that stretched on for an eternity, no one moved.

  “Inside. Now,” the burglar said, jabbing their wand into Percy’s back. He yelped and peered over his shoulder at the masked thief, his expression pleading. “Move!”

  “No,” Selena groaned and I held my hand over her mouth. None of us had the magical chops to take on whoever was under that mask, and I wasn’t about to risk it.

  Percy pulled the vault door further open, revealing a glimpse of a set of dark stone stairs that seemed to stretch down into the belly of the earth itself. Together, Percy and the thief stepped over the threshold onto the stairs and as if it knew it’d been violated, the vault slammed shut, the thud reverberating through the whole bank as the door glimmered with magic.

  “What’s in there?” I whispered to Selena, but she seemed outside herself like her soul had drifted out of her open mouth and gotten sealed inside the vault with Percy and the thief.

  Why did the robber need Percy to come inside with them? Was there some sort of security spell to trap anyone who broke inside or was holding Percy hostage an insurance policy for whenever they re-emerged?

  As the gargoyles surrounded the vault, I racked my brain for some way to help, but nothing came so I sat holding my breath and Selena’s clammy hand.

  “What’s happening?” Grandma hissed, still lying face down on the floor a few feet away from me.

  “Percy and the burglar went into the vault together and it closed behind them,” I said.

  “This is just our luck, ain’t it?” Grandma moaned. She wasn’t wrong. A rumble from somewhere deep underground shook the floor beneath us and Selena whimpered. I didn’t have the faintest clue what might’ve caused it, but my brain conjured up all kinds of fantastic magical traps Percy and the thief might’ve come across.

  But when a second eruption shook the bank and knocked me to my side, I panicked. What if neither Percy nor the robber came out again? When would we know it was safe to evacuate, if ever?

  Before I finished working myself into a frenzy, the vault’s door surged with light and once again the clicking and sliding sound of locks moving whispered through the lobby. The gargoyles tensed, ready to pounce, and the door wheezed open to reveal the burglar with Percy hanging lifeless from their shoulder, his suit singed and torn — but the robber seemed to have come up empty-handed; no cash, no coins, nothing.

  The thief sloughed Percy to the ground and the gargoyles took flight as the vault door resealed itself, but at the last second the burglar vanished in another wisp of smoke and the gargoyles collided with each other.

  Howling, Selena wrestled free of my grip and ran from the office to where Percy laid on the floor. I chased after her and froze in my tracks when the front doors of the bank flew open and Police Chief Berric Mueller charged inside with Officer Ewan Barrett at his side, guns drawn.

  “Zoe, wait!” Grandma shouted, but I paid her no mind — because a group of winged fairies in black robes fluttered in around Mueller and rushed toward the vault, shortened wands at the ready. Bright yellow letters screamed “FBI” from the backs of their robes as they flitted past. Mueller took one look at me and sighed as he holstered his
gun and approached.

  “Why am I not surprised to find you here?” he asked, his bloodhound-like jowls swaying.

  “It’s good to see you again too.”

  “What happened here?” Mueller asked as he eyed the lobby.

  “Some sort of robbery, or at least an attempted one,” I said. “And before you ask, I was here to get a loan with my grandma. The robbery happening was a coincidence.”

  “Right, a coincidence, of course,” Mueller said and crossed his arms over his chest, though a hint of a smile appeared on his face. “What do you mean by an ‘attempted’ robbery?”

  “A person in a weird leather set of robes and a mask showed up and forced Percy to open the main vault there and go in with them,” I said, pointing at the door. “But when they came out, Percy was dead and the burglar didn’t have any loot.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Not as far as I saw, unless they tucked it into a secret pocket in their robes or something,” I said. “Who are those guys anyway?” I asked, nodding at the black-robed group of fairies.

  “Fairy Bureau of Investigation,” Mueller said and it took me a few moments to be sure I’d heard him correctly. “A case like this is far beyond what our resources can handle. The FBI works with local law enforcement across magical communities.”

  “Life here keeps getting stranger,” I muttered. “So what are they going to do?”

  “They’ll search the vaults and the bank itself for any signs, take stock of what’s missing, if anything, and help us try to track down the objects and the thief,” Mueller said.

  “Interesting,” I said.

  “I can already see the cogs turning in your head, Zoe, but let me be clear: this one’s above your pay grade,” Mueller said. “If I were you, I’d stay as far away from this as possible. Report on the facts as we release them, and leave the rest of the investigation to us.”

  Fat chance of that happening, especially now that an elite unit of fairy detectives was involved. Whatever was inside the bank’s vaults, the risk of something stored there going missing was enough to draw the attention of a magical group from outside Moon Grove — and that was more than enough to keep my interest, even if I hadn’t been personally involved in the robbery.