She let out a squeal and fell onto a small table as she fell, the table breaking underneath her.
I pulled out my phone, deciding this would make an amazing viral video on Witchstagram, and recorded as Gloria began calling out.
“Someone help me!” she cried. “I’m floating away! Someone get me down! You’re all going to pay for this!”
One of Gloria’s friends cast a spell that made her deflate back down to normal, and she landed on the other witch, who was still sitting in the broken pile of wood caused by the collapse of the table.
“Get off me, you oaf,” Gloria shouted to her friend, who scurried away as soon as the two of them managed to split themselves apart.
Meanwhile, the spell fight raged all around. One witch shot what appeared to be paint balls toward the other group, which narrowly missed their target and splattered on the wall about two feet away from me. Another witch shot some flames toward one of the picnic tables and set it on fire. This had gotten so insanely out of hand. I peeked through the door leading back into the coffee shop to see Starr staring in horror through the glass, not daring to venture out onto the patio and find herself in the middle of this, the Battle of the Retired Witches.
One of the witches had been miniaturized, and was now standing on top of the table yelling at the top of her lungs, her voice barely a squeak as she tried to cast spells in her new, smaller form. Another’s hands had grown to about five times their regular size, so swollen she had been forced to drop her wand, and she ran around with her hands out in front of her, wailing about how she just wanted them to go back to normal.
Suddenly, every muscle in my body froze involuntarily. I couldn’t move anything except my eyes, and as I looked around, I realized I wasn’t the only one.
“That’s enough,” a voice I recognized called out. It was Jake, followed closely by Andrew, the hot new Enforcer originally from Australia who had just moved to Mt. Rheanier a few months ago. I hadn’t even noticed him come in. He had obviously cast a freezing spell on everyone on the patio, and after the chaos of the last few minutes, it was strange to see the only thing moving being the flames licking at the rest of the table that had been set on fire.
“I’m going to reverse the spell, and you’re all going to be able to move again. Anyone who tries to cast a spell after that is immediately going to be arrested. Do I make myself clear?”
There was silence for a moment. None of us were able to answer, but Jake let the gravitas of the situation do the talking, lifted his wand, and cast a reversing spell. I was immediately able to move again, and I turned off the video I’d been recording.
Now that the Enforcers were here the fun was obviously over.
“Why am I not surprised to see you here?” Jake said, looking over at me and raising his eyebrows.
“Hey, I’m actually innocent in all of this,” I said, raising my hands in surrender.
“Are you really? I find that hard to believe.”
“And yet, it’s the truth. Mostly. I’m mostly innocent. I was actually the first victim.”
“Ok, well, as much as I’d love to hear about it straight away, I need to get everything here sorted out first,” Jake said. “Andy, check and see if anybody here needs medical attention.”
“Right away,” Andy said, heading toward the witch with the blown-up hands. I took the opportunity to text the video to Grandma Rosie. You’re never going to believe what you just missed, I added.
Heck, I wasn’t sure I still believed it. Who would have known that there was such bad blood between the older witches here in town?
Chapter 10
It took a while for the Enforcers to sort out what had happened between all of the witches. Upon finding out that I had video of some of the event, Jake insisted that I text it to him as well, which I did. Eventually, all of the witches agreed that they didn’t want to press charges against each other, and the couple of fairies, one elf, and one witch and wizard who weren’t involved in the fight at all were placated, and the witches were all let off with a warning.
Eventually, only Jake, Andy and I were left in the patio area. I was sitting on one of the tables that hadn’t been crushed or burned to a crisp, watching as Jake and Andy had a quick discussion between them before coming over to speak with me.
“So, the others actually back you up; they say you weren’t involved in this at all.”
“I told you I wasn’t,” I said. “The only role I played was that Gloria’s first hex was aimed at me. She missed and hit Betty, and that’s what started all of it. So see? I was a victim.”
“I knew you had to be involved somehow. What on earth did you say to Gloria that made her hex you?”
I shrugged. “It could have been anything; she’s pretty awful.”
Jake gave me a knowing look. “Yeah, but I bet it wasn’t just anything.”
I shot him a wink in return, and looked at Andy.
“I would have thought the two of you were too busy with the investigation into Luca’s death to be dealing with this.”
“We are, but when the call came in that there were a whole bunch of witches casting spells at each other, the Chief Enforcer thought it would be safest to let the Enforcers who can also cast spells take care of things,” Andy replied. “I’d much rather get back to investigating the murder over dealing with a bunch of old witches getting sixty years’ worth of grudges at each other out of the way.”
“Good, then let’s switch to that,” I said cheerily.
“Absolutely not. You promised me you weren’t going to get involved,” Jake said.
“That was before Luca’s parents hired me to look into his death,” I replied.
“They told us about that,” Andy said. “I reckon Jack is right about this. You can’t go around investigating a murder. It’s not safe, whether or not they hired you. You’re much better off letting us, the professionals, solve it.”
“Besides, statistically you’re more likely to just get in the way and ruin the investigation,” Jack said. “I know the Sadoveanus want to find Luca’s killer, but the best way to do that is just to let us do our jobs.”
I shrugged. “You’re welcome to believe that, but I’ve been hired for a job, and I’m going to keep doing it. So, what do you guys know already?”
“I know that you’re going to leave now,” Jake replied, crossing his arms, and I turned to Andy.
“Alright, what do you know?” I asked, and he laughed good-naturedly.
“I’m Australian, not dumb,” he answered. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“Fine,” I pouted. “But I do want to confirm some things with you. Luca was stabbed, right?”
“I guess it’s fine to tell you that,” Jack said slowly. “He was stabbed with a wooden stake through the heart.”
“Do you have a time of death?”
“Around six, maybe seven in the morning. He was probably killed as soon as he got home from work that day,” Andy said.
“Ok,” I said. “That’s all for now, but I’ll hit you up if I need more information.” I gave the two Enforcers a wave as I headed back into the main part of the coffee shop.
“No, you won’t!” Jake called out after me, and I smiled. Fine, so Jake and Andy weren’t going to work with me to solve this case. I was just going to have to do it without them.
I made my way back home and spent the afternoon sleeping, trying to get my sleep schedule to align more with that of the nocturnal vampires that I’d be interviewing to find the killer.
Around six Willow texted me, telling me she was coming by with dinner. She was at the front door thirty minutes later, with my stomach rumbling.
“Oh yes, pizza,” I grinned, taking the boxes from her as soon as she stepped into the shed and moving them to the kitchen table. I grabbed some plates, cutlery and glasses and motioned for her to sit down.
“Hard day at work?” I asked, and Willow nodded. Hard days for Willow always meant pizza, ever since we were at the Academy
together.
“You have no idea. Apparently, there was a huge fight at the coffee shop between a bunch of retired witches. One of them came in with huge hands; it took us an hour to make the salve to shrink them back down to normal.”
“I actually have a very good idea; I saw the whole thing,” I grinned, and Willow laughed.
“I should have known. Let me guess: you were somehow not only involved in this, but also started it.”
“Why does everyone always assume that?”
“I’m not hearing a denial.”
“It wasn’t me! I was only tangentially involved.”
Willow burst out laughing. “Yup, that sounds about right. How exactly were you only ‘tangentially’ involved?” she asked, doing air quotes.
“Gloria Westwood tried to hex me, I ducked out of the way, and she hexed Betty instead. Betty went nuts and started the spell fight.”
Before Willow had a chance to reply, there was a knock on the door. I raised my eyebrows at her and went over to it, opening the door to find Grandma Rosie standing there.
“I know the two of you have pizza and are talking about the events at the coffee shop. So I’m coming in, and I’m eating the pizza. Your mother seems to think it’s acceptable to feed me omelet for dinner.”
I let out a giggle. “What’s wrong with omelet for dinner?”
“It’s a breakfast food, and a breakfast food only. Besides, you’re asking why I’d rather eat pizza than eggs with spinach added to them?”
“Ok, good point,” I conceded, opening the door for her.
“Luckily I always buy two large,” Willow said, making her way to the kitchen and grabbing a third plate from the cupboard. “Help yourself. I’ve only been told the beginning of this story, and it sounds like it’s going to be a good one.”
I spent the next ten minutes or so going over the entire story, and had a few gaps filled in by Grandma Rosie.
“Betty’s hated Gloria since the nineties,” she said. “Their children were both in the broom riding club together. Gloria’s daughter Jane knocked Betty’s daughter Kelly off her broom once, and gave her a concussion. Jane was kicked off the team, and Gloria blamed Kelly for it. Betty blamed Jane for giving Kelly a concussion that was so bad she had to take six months away from the Academy and graduated a year late. Ever since then the two of them have been at each other’s throats.”
“Oh, that explains it,” I said, suddenly understanding.
“Gloria’s problem is she always thinks everyone is on her side,” Grandma Rosie announced. “She has her little group of friends, and for the most part they’ll agree with her on a lot of things, but they are all independent witches with their own thoughts.”
“That fits with what I heard,” I replied, nodding. “She seemed to insist that Grandma Rosie’s pies were awful, and as much as her friends wanted her to win, none of them really agreed that the pies were bad.”
“That’s because my pies are fit for a prince,” Grandma Rosie said. “And I don’t care what she has up her sleeve, I’m going to beat her.”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “She was so insanely confident, I’d be a little bit worried if I were you. I think she genuinely has a plan to beat you, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s trying something nefarious to do it.”
“I’m sure she is,” Grandma Rosie replied. “But the thing is, I have much more experience being nefarious than she does. I’m going to win that ribbon, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
“I hope so,” Willow said. “Gloria tried to accuse me of cheating once when I had her in a class in grade eight.”
“Really? You?” I asked, incredulous. “High school Willow would have probably chosen to stab herself in the face before she’d cheat on a test. Heck, adult Willow would probably stab herself in the face before cheating on exams.”
“Exactly,” Willow replied. “Adult Willow is extremely glad she doesn’t have to write any more exams though, let me tell you. But I never, ever cheated on a single test in school, and if I had I probably would have turned myself in immediately if I’d done it. But Gloria insisted that I had used a spell to solve a math problem, and she even called my parents and accused me of being a cheater. I couldn’t believe it!”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “What happened?”
“Eventually she let the matter drop. My parents believed me over her, which I’m eternally grateful to them for, and Gloria decided it wasn’t worth taking it higher up to the headmaster. Probably because she had absolutely zero proof, because I didn’t cheat.”
“Gloria’s always been a nasty person,” Grandma Rosie said. “Ever since she was little. Why on earth she went into teaching, I’ll never know. My best guess is she thought it would be easier to bully children than adults.”
“That checks out,” I said. “Anyway, it was quite the adventure at The Magic Brewmstick. I saw Andy trying to convince Gloria that she had to pay for the tables that were completely destroyed, and she didn’t want to. It was only when Andy told her that if she didn’t agree to it the owner would press charges that she finally relented.”
“Wow,” Willow said. “Figures she wouldn’t see any of it as being her fault.”
“That video is going to end up all over the internet,” Grandma Rosie said. “I’ve already posted it to social media and it’s gotten a ton of shares. I want one of the big pages like Witches Gone Weird to share it. They have over a hundred thousand followers.”
I shook my head, smiling. “Just don’t let Gloria know I’m the one who took the video; she’ll probably murder me.”
“Speaking of murder, why didn’t you tell me you were looking into Luca’s death?” Grandma Rosie asked, taking a big bite of pepperoni pizza that left a string of cheese dangling off her chin.
“I meant to last night but we got distracted. Do you know Sorina? I don’t have a last name. She’s a vampire, though.”
“Oh, I do,” Willow said. “She was a patient of mine a couple of weeks ago.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And she elected not to see a vampire Healer?” Normally the different paranormals stuck to seeing their own kind when they went to see Healers.
“That’s right,” Willow replied, frowning slightly. “I also remember thinking that was a bit strange, and I thought there might have been something dodgy about it.”
“What was wrong with her?” Grandma Rosie asked.
“She had cut herself. Or at least, she claimed to have cut herself. Her arm was slashed, and to be totally honest I had a hard time understanding how she could have managed it herself. It looked more like someone else had cut her. Maybe with a knife? I asked her about it, but she was evasive, and insisted she did it to herself while cooking.”
“Weird,” I said. “I wonder who could have done it to her. You said it was just a couple of weeks ago?”
Willow nodded. “Yeah. I only remembered late this afternoon. I went back into her file and got her address, but you’re not allowed to tell anyone it was me.” She pulled out a slip of paper and handed it over to me. “And if it turns out she killed Luca to defend herself against him, I’ll have you know I’ll be the first person to testify at her trial.”
“And I’ll be the second,” I said. “Thanks for this, I appreciate it.”
I wondered if maybe Luca, the mild-mannered volunteer at the blood bank didn’t have a bit of a darker side to him he didn’t want anyone to know about.
Chapter 11
Willow, Grandma Rosie and I continued to chat while eating all of the pizza, and eventually the other two left. I looked at the address I had for Soria. I had also gotten Grandma Rosie to tell me where George lived, so I figured maybe I could get two of my interviews out of the way tonight.
I went out soon after the sun set. It had been snowing lightly most of the day, so there were an extra few inches of snow on top of everything, and with the streetlights and the light from inside paranormals’ homes being the only thing illuminating t
he outside world, it made the snow look even more dramatic. I loved the first snow of winter.
Sorina lived in a small, ground-floor apartment in a building a few blocks from The Magic Brewmstick, further away from the lake. The building she lived in was completely average in every way, and I easily found her name on a label next to one of the buzzers and rang the bell.
“Hello?” a friendly-but-confused sounding voice answered a minute later. She obviously hadn’t been expecting anyone.
“Hi, it’s Ali Everwood here. I’m investigating Luca’s death on behalf of his parents, who gave me your name. Would it be alright if I came in and spoke with you for a few minutes?”
The buzzer on the door rang a moment later, so I took that as a yes.
I made my way into a beige-colored hallway and stopped at door 105, knocking. A moment later it opened, Sorina standing behind it. Her black hair was shoulder-length, a few loose waves running through it rather than following the vampire tradition of keeping hair completely straight. Her eyes were round and red; she had obviously been crying. Her pajamas betrayed the fact that she wasn’t getting ready to go out at all, and she looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and sadness.
“Come in,” she said quietly, her voice catching even as she said just those two words.
“I’m sorry to have to intrude like this,” I said quietly as I stepped into the apartment and looked around. “It’s just that I want to find Luca’s killer, and the sooner I can do that the better.”
Sorina nodded as she closed the door behind me. The apartment was small, and not modern, but it was well-kept. Everything was tidy and organized, and pictures on the wall gave it a real homely feel. Sorina might not have been rich, but she obviously made an effort with what she did have.
Sorina led me into the living room and motioned for me to sit on the small couch while she took a seat on the chair at a small desk with a laptop.
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