by Nova Nelson
Finally, Bloom looked up, the large musty book still open in her left hand. “There’s just a brief mention of Taurus here. Maybe there’s more farther on. I’ll check in a second.”
“And what does it say?”
Bloom read it off. “Because of their directness and minimal desire for rich social interactions, minotaurs have frequently become objectified within werekind’s myths, often employed as a symbol of death and destruction or a dangerous adversary. The legend of Taurus, for example, is passed down through various werebeast cultures and is generally used as a means to keep their young from venturing out on their own.”
Ruby waited for more, but Bloom had stopped speaking. “That’s it?”
“In this section, yes. I thought it might continue on the next page, but it changes topic completely. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll finish the rest of this one and let you know what I find.”
Ruby nodded and decided there was no point in hovering. She tucked her hands into the pockets of her long robes and nodded for Clifford to follow on their stroll.
They passed a smattering of Eastwinders whom Ruby only vaguely recognized sitting at the long reading tables.
“I’ve been here twenty years and there are still so many people I don’t know. It’s not a large town.”
“Eighteen hundred and twenty-seven,” replied Clifford.
“What’s that?”
“The population. Although, depending on how this Swamy thing shakes out, it could be eighteen hundred and twenty-six.”
A young ogre who could have been mistaken for a boulder sat completely still, hunched over a thick book with its black leather cover peeking out around the edges of the pages. On the table beside it were no fewer than a dozen other books stacked precariously one on top of the other. A hard nudge to the table, and they would have come tumbling down.
Ruby had a strong urge to ask the young ogre if he should be in school, but she supposed any child who skipped school to go read at the library would probably be better off in the long run.
Was Bloom done yet? It wasn’t like Ruby to be anything but relaxed at the library, but she knew she didn’t have enough time to dive into a book on her own, so she felt a little like a kid in a candy store without any money.
Well, it wouldn’t hurt to browse. Maybe she could find something else to read once she got through the ten she already had at home.
She knew a shortcut through the rows of physical enchantment manuals toward the fiction section (her favorite), but she hardly made it around the first corner before she nearly smacked right into a face she could put a name to.
“Oh, pardon!” She blinked. “Ezra.”
He looked up from the book in his hands and grinned. “Ruby!” His smooth, dark skin and eyes as sweet and dark as chocolate sucked her in and transported her back in time. That was always the case when she saw him because he existed outside of time, and had for almost fifteen years now, not aging a single day… as her red hair took on more and more grays.
He’d had a choice about it. It wasn’t as if someone had cursed him with youth. And in the end, he’d made his choice, and a life with her, growing slowly older together, wasn’t the life the South Wind witch had chosen.
He snapped the book shut and slid it back on the shelf, but not before she glimpsed the title on the spine. Amulets for the Ages: Appropriate Protection for Young Witches.
“How are you, my beautiful lady?” he asked.
Surely, he must have known calling her beautiful after everything that’d happened would only made her angry.
But, no. She wouldn’t take it personally. Ezra was like this to everyone. His incredible levels of charisma and unparalleled likability were what allowed him to simply stop the aging process midway through his thirties and have not a single person in Eastwind decide to look into what was going on behind the scenes. Everyone had turned a blind eye, perhaps because they were just thrilled to think they could have him around town longer. Did it work that way? Had be become an actual immortal?
She’d never bothered to ask, because it was no longer relevant to her.
She brushed off his initial question, and said, “Thinking of creating a new product?” She nodded toward the book.
“Ah yes.” He held it up demonstratively, beaming. “I had a concerned mother come into the store yesterday asking about protection for her young twins. She seemed convinced her house was haunted.”
Ruby groaned. “That woman didn’t happen to be Mrs. Goldhorn, did it?”
Ezra’s pleasant smile didn’t falter, but he did tilt his head to the side. “It did. How’d you know?”
“She consulted me on the matter. I told her it wasn’t a ghost she was dealing with but rather the twins themselves who were hiding things around her house. Guess she wanted it to be a ghost badly enough to ignore the wisdom of the person in town who would actually know.”
Ezra chuckled. “You know everyone around here is dying for a good story.”
“I do, but I don’t understand it. With all the fangs and claws, we’re only ever a few seconds away from a deadly altercation.”
Ezra tucked the book under one arm and slipped his hands into his pants pockets, leaning a shoulder against the sturdy bookshelf. “It’s true.”
“I suppose you’ll still settle on some new amulets for children?”
“Naturally. It’s not my job to sell people like Mrs. Goldhorn the truth. It’s my job to sell them what they want. And if people want a protective amulet for babies—who you and I both know are notoriously poor vessels for any type of possession—then it’s my job to stock them.”
“A crystal neckless is more dangerous for a toddler than any spirit could be.”
“Which is why I’m looking for other ways to charm the wee ones that won’t accidentally snuff them out.”
“You’re such a hero,” she quipped.
Clifford stepped forward, wagging his tail lazily, and Ruby thought traitor just before Ezra’s grin stretched wide and he scratched the hellhound behind the ears. “Good to see you, friend,” Ezra said. Clifford’s nose went to his pocket, and the witch chuckled, jammed a hand inside, and pulled out a small parcel. He unwrapped the cloth to reveal a few small cookies. “I could never sneak this by you, my man.” He offered one of the cookies to Clifford, who took it happily.
“And you?” Ezra said, offering them to Ruby.
They did look delicious, but she found she wasn’t in the mood to take anything from him right now. In fact, his generosity and usual charm was suddenly more irritating than she could stand.
“No, thank you,” she said, keeping her voice level. “I can’t just eat whatever I want anymore. I’m not as young as I used to be.”
The silence between them was nothing short of icy, and she regretted her harsh jab as soon as she’d said it. Because a part of her completely understood why Ezra had made the decision he had. He’d done what every mortal wished they could do. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t offered Ruby the same thing. They could have stayed just like they were back then, together…
And she’d chosen not to. They’d both made a choice.
But before she could apologize for the unnecessary punch below the belt and assure him it was all water under the bridge and she didn’t know what had gotten into her, Bloom’s voice cut through the tension like a knife. “There you are. Ah! And Ezra! How are you, sir?”
He nodded and grinned at the angel in such a convincing way that Ruby wondered if she’d simply imagined the hurt expression he’d donned just a moment before. Maybe she’d only seen what she’d wanted to see.
“I’m doing fantastic, Sheriff. Just a little research for the store, and I had the treat of running into Ruby and Cliff. I had no idea when I woke up this morning that it would be my lucky day.”
Not even Bloom was immune to his charms, and she chuckled in a manner that bordered disconcertingly on a giggle. “I hope you’ll excuse Ruby. I need to speak with her.”
“Ooh…”
He leaned forward conspiratorially. “Official business?”
“Is it ever not?” said Bloom.
“Not with you, Gabby. You could ride a unicorn across town in nothing but the skin your goddess gave you, call it official business, and I would argue to my grave that it was.”
Ruby’s eyes went wide, and she turned to the sheriff, expecting his words to be taken with at least a little offense. After all, Bloom was nothing if not stately, classy, and respectable, so—
Was the angel blushing?
Ruby observed with more than a little shock that she was. And it only made the sheriff even more frighteningly beautiful.
“Oh hush,” Bloom said, and by this point, Ruby was actually surprised the sheriff didn’t take a playful swat at him.
“We’d better get back to work,” Ruby cut in. Then she grabbed Bloom by the arm and without another word to Ezra, pulled the sheriff away.
Once they had some distance between them and the South Wind, Bloom slipped her arm free from Ruby’s grasp. “Sorry,” she said. “I hope I didn’t make you… I just mean, I didn’t intend to interrupt.”
“You didn’t interrupt, and you didn’t make me jealous. If anything, you made me feel a little better about how easily I can slip back into it with him.”
“He’s charming, that’s for sure.”
“Emphasis on charm. If anyone’s found a magical way to conjure that sort of charisma, it’s Ezra.”
Bloom sighed. “You know, he once sold me a pocket crystal that helps improve judgment.”
Ruby shook her head. “I can believe it. He could sell… well, he could sell a judgment crystal to an angel. That’s about the most ridiculous thing I could think of.”
Bloom led the way toward the exist, and Ruby chimed in with, “I suppose you got all you needed from the book?”
“I did. There was nothing else on Taurus. Not in that one or the other two volumes. I even looked through one on Minotaur folklore and found just one mention that was about as informative as the first.”
“So where are we headed now?”
“I’m headed back to the sheriff’s department. You’re free to head home for now. I think it’s pretty clear there’s nothing to this tale of Taurus.”
“It wasn’t clear to you before?”
They entered into the bright spring day and Ruby shielded her eyes from the sun. Bloom didn’t seem to notice it. “It was clear enough, but I don’t like to rule anything out, no matter how far-fetched it sounds. And now I can confidently tell anyone who mentions it that the creature they speak of is complete unicorn swirls.”
“So, what do you think we’re dealing with?”
Bloom paused and put her hands on her hips, looking down at Ruby. “I don’t really know. That’s another thing I just learned. Minotaur scratches are necrotic.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you don’t want them. It takes quite a powerful treatment to keep the skin around the wounds from rotting and falling off. A minotaur scratches you on your calf, and you could end up losing your whole leg if you’re not careful.”
“Were Virgil’s injuries like that?”
Bloom shrugged. “That’s what we don’t know. I didn’t know about the necrosis at the time, so I didn’t think to check under the bandages.”
“That says a lot about minotaur restraint, if you’ve never had need to know.”
“It does. But I guess they’ve learned their lesson after being run out of every place they’ve ever settled. Wish witches were as quick of learners.” She snuck a sideways glance at Ruby.
“What?” said the Fifth Wind, “I don’t disagree with you. Witches don’t make good neighbors.”
“Don’t forget you’re one of them.”
Ruby scoffed. “I wouldn’t dare. Don’t tell any of them that. They’d much rather forget.”
Her mind wandered for only a minute before it traveled back to the topic at hand. “Zax was getting supplies at the Pixie Mixie for Virgil’s wounds. You think that means the injury is necrotic or not?”
The sheriff narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “Did he by any chance buy phoenix blood?”
“Phoenix blood?” said Ruby, surprised. “Do they even sell that at the Pixie Mixie?”
“They do, but it’s kept behind lock and key. They have to import it from Avalon, so it’s not cheap.”
“I don’t think I saw him buy anything like that, but I wasn’t exactly keeping tabs on his shopping basket.”
Bloom fell silent. Then, when it seemed like she might be done with the conversation, she said, “I’ll go check on Virgil once I speak with Deputy Titterfield and see about this morning’s search party. If Virgil’s wounds are healing just fine, then we don’t have a minotaur on our hands.”
“And we’re agreed that it’s not Taurus we’re dealing with?”
Bloom nodded. “Yes, we’re in agreement on that.”
“Well then. You better get back to your official business, and I’m going to attend to mine.”
“Which is?”
“A nap. Not all of us have the energy to ride a unicorn naked through town, you know.”
Bloom shook her head, and the two women parted ways.
Chapter Eight
Sheriff Bloom wasn’t sure what to make of this strange case so far. She sat in her office, surrounded by the familiar stacks of unfinished paperwork for the High Council, and contemplated the facts.
Often, when she could take a minute to herself and run through each fact one by one, turning it over and examining it, tuning into her innate gift of judgment to see if she could draw anything to the surface, she would discover that a fundamental assumption she’d been carrying with her was flawed. Things usually fell into place after that. At least they had for the hundreds of years since she’d taken this job in Eastwind.
Fact number one: Swamy was missing. Or at least Opal didn’t seem to know where he was. Those two things, though, were not necessarily the same. And it was important to keep that in mind.
Often, when people went missing, they were either on the run from something dangerous, were already dead, or had simply gone on a trip and forgotten to leave notice. Only a couple of times had people actually gone missing in Eastwind to the point where even the missing person didn’t know where he or she was. That usually involved a Befuddlement Brew or some other form of disorientation magic, though. So far, there were no signs of magical interference, but she would keep an eye out for it.
Fact number two: something had attacked Virgil in the woods.
But could she be sure of that? She hadn’t actually seen his scratches. She’d only seen a bandage. She’d taken Zax’s word for it that there had been scratches, but either he could be lying or Virgil could have managed to mislead him. Or even stranger, Virgil could have self-inflicted scratches. She had just as much evidence for one theory as she did the next, when it came down to it.
Fact number three: Virgil saw something that looked like a minotaur in the woods of the Silent Reach.
Again, he could be lying. Or he could simply be mistaken. That was one of the many interesting inconsistencies when people were attacked. Some were able to recall every vivid detail of the attacker, from eye color to his smell to a single misaligned tooth, or even freckle patterns—but those same people couldn’t tell you a single thing about anything else in their surroundings. Meanwhile, other victims were shown to be so far off on their attacker’s description that they might point the finger at a genie when the assailant was actually a leprechaun. But victims in that second group could provide a vivid and accurate account of the environment—a leaky faucet in the next room over from the attack or a unique plant that they’d almost fallen on when they were tackled.
The trick for Bloom was figuring out which kind of witness each victim was. Memories were fickle things. They wanted nothing more than to be whole, and that usually meant making up details to fill in the gaps. Memories also wanted to serve the rememberer, and that could lead to the mi
nd erasing the worst of the ordeal and whitewashing it with something tolerable.
Bloom sighed and tried to recall more assumed facts she’d been holding onto, whether consciously or subconsciously, in her investigation thus far, but her focus for the day was waning, and the immensity of the paperwork around her, which she may never get through in all her immortal years, came crashing through her awareness, demanding to be seen.
“Fine,” she muttered, and took one of the reports from the top of a stack and began looking it over. Goddess save her, this one was from two years ago. Deputy Titterfield had written it up in his usual scrawl and all she had to do was read it over, sign it, and file it away in the departmental records cavern below the station.
It was tempting to sign it without reading it—after all, what were the odds that anyone on the High Council was actually looking these over?—but her conscience wouldn’t let her.
Stupid conscience. I bet Ruby wouldn’t have a problem just signing the form.
She’d hardly put a dent in the pile, relocating each finished form to the records department with a flick of her wrist and feeling a small high as it disappeared, when there was a knock on her office door.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Deputy Titterfield peeked his head in. “Afternoon, Sheriff.”
“Afternoon. What’s the latest?”
Deputy Titterfield had been on the force for decades. As the only deputy in the Eastwind Sheriff’s Department, he was usually all that stood between order and chaos in the town while she was cooped up in the office. He did as well of a job as she could expect any single person to do, but he was getting up there in years, and so she’d found herself forced to step out of the office and be more hands-on than usual lately. She didn’t mind it one bit. The paperwork, on the other hand, seemed to be holding a grudge.
Morris Titterfield had been a good deputy from day one. Not great, but good. Yet he was a North Wind witch, not an immortal or even a long-lifer, and the years were wearing on him now.
“We completed the first sweep of the Silent Reach. No sign of Mr. Stormstruck. I have the volunteers searching everything within a mile radius of the edge of the Reach. We should be able to complete that by nightfall. If we can’t find anything, we widen the search by a mile in each direction tomorrow, starting at sunrise.”
