Three's a Coven

by Samantha Silver

“We think it might be related to Professor Lei’s death, which we’re kind of looking into, since apparently Orson Brown is a total idiot who wouldn’t be able to catch a bank robber if he handed him a wad of hundred dollar bills.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense. Orson is an idiot. There isn’t a chance in hell you’re going to get any sort of answers with him in charge. But I’m sorry, I can’t go find out that information for you.”

  My heart sank in my chest. “Oh, cool,” I said, trying not to show my disappointment. After all, Kyran didn’t actually owe me anything. If anything, I owed him for a whole bunch of favors.

  “It’s nothing to do with you,” Kyran replied. “I promise. I would do this for you if I thought it wouldn’t affect you at all.”

  “What do you mean? Is there a reason why we should stop looking into Chief Enforcer King’s disappearance?”

  Kyran shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks for the DVD,” I said, holding up the disk.

  “No problem. Sorry I can’t help you. What I can tell you though, is that the shifter switch for shifts takes place at midnight, and if I were going to try and sneak into Chief Enforcer King’s office, that’s the time I would pick, since things are a little bit more hectic than they are at other times of the day,” Kyran added with a wink.

  “Thanks,” I smiled. “I appreciate the heads up.”

  As Kyran left, however, I couldn’t help but feel like something was a little bit wrong. I wasn’t sure what, but there was definitely something. It just felt off. Kyran was normally super happy to help, and if not, he wasn’t invasive about the reasons why. I wondered what on earth was going on.

  Making my way back into the living room, I shared the new information that I had gathered with the others.

  As I finished, Amy groaned. “This means the rest of you are going to want to break into the City Hall, doesn’t it?”

  “Of course,” Ellie grinned. “It sounds like that’s going to be the best way to find out what Chief Enforcer King was working on.”

  “And of course, you guys know that I’m not going to let you do it by yourselves, since I’m the best of the four of us at finding wards, and we all know that Chief Enforcer King’s office is going to be warded to the hilt.”

  “Isn’t it nice having friends that manage to guilt you into having adventures?” Ellie replied.

  “You say adventures, I say felonies.”

  “Po-tay-to, po-tah-to,” Ellie grinned, earning herself a glare from Amy.

  “Okay, so if everybody agrees that this is the thing we’re actually going to do, when should we do it? I think tonight would be best; I want to get to the end of this as quickly as possible,” I chimed in.

  “I agree,” Ellie said. “After all, the sooner we managed to figure out exactly why someone killed Professor Lei, the more likely we are to actually find the killer. I’d rather know sooner rather than later whether we’re on the wrong track with this.”

  “I agree,” Sara said.

  “All right,” Amy nodded. “It’s settled then. Lita told me to go home and get some rest, so I’m not working tonight either.”

  It looked like once again, the four of us were going to make a middle of the night break in to try and get some information.

  The difference was, this time we were well and truly going into the belly of the beast. We were trying to get information on the head of law enforcement in town.

  By 11:30, the four of us were standing by the front door, getting ready to leave.

  “I don’t understand why I can’t come,” Mr. Meowgi complained. “After all, only the vampires and some of the shifters can see me in the dark anyway. Besides, the last time you did this, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have even gotten into the building.”

  It was true that Mr. Meowgi’s black coat was definitely an advantage in the middle of the night. And he did have a point about having come in handy the last time.

  “Fine,” I relented. “You can come, but you have to stay out of the way. And if you see a shifter who might be able to see you in the dark, you definitely need to stay away.”

  “I have the subtlety and agility of a ninja; you don’t need to worry about me.”

  Somehow, I wasn’t convinced.

  “We’re going to walk,” Ellie said. “I think it will be the best way to go; it’s early enough that we could very well be going to The Magic Mule for a couple of late-night drinks.”

  “Good plan,” Amy chimed in. “Since the bar is just around the corner from City Hall, we’ll be heading the right way anyway, so we’ll have a built-in excuse if anyone asks us what we’re doing.”

  “Mr. Meowgi is coming with us as well,” I added. Sara reached down and gave him a pat on the head.

  “I hope you’re ready for an adventure little guy,” she told him.

  “I was born ready,” Mr. Meowgi replied to her, even though she couldn’t understand him. I smiled; while all the other girls familiar’s were happy to hang around in the house all the time - except for Amy’s owl who liked to fly around on his own at night - it was kind of nice to have a cat who enjoyed coming with me wherever I went.

  Our whole crew left the house and began making our way down to the center of town. We were all dressed normally, which was kind of strange given what our plan was, but it would have looked a lot more suspicious if we were all dressed in black as we made our way down for what was supposed to be a casual drink at the local witch’s bar.

  Ten minutes later we reached City Hall, and quickly made our way towards a bench that overlooked the river that snakes through town. After all, from here we would look like just a crowd of witches getting ready to go in for a drink, rather than a group of witches planning on breaking into Chief Enforcer King’s office.

  “Okay, what do we do to start?” Sara asked. “There are a lot more people here than I was expecting.”

  Sure enough, there were still a few shifters, vampires, and witches meandering through the streets. We were going to either have to use an invisibility spell on ourselves or do something else if we planned on getting in without being seen.

  “Why don’t we send Mr. Meowgi in?” I asked. “After all, no one is really going to think too much of a cat wandering around.”

  “Of course I’m willing to go be a scout,” Mr. Meowgi said, looking excited at the prospect of being involved. “The four of you stay here; I’ll be back soon with any information to report about who is inside the building.”

  As he darted off towards the town hall, I explained to the others what was going on, and we stood around nonchalantly, waiting for my familiar to return with his report.

  Mr. Meowgi returned about five minutes later, looking extremely pleased with himself.

  “Right. Something is definitely happening in there, all of the shifters are moving around instead of just standing at their posts. Everyone seems tense for some reason, too. Once you’re inside Town Hall, however, there isn’t much to deal with until you’ve reached Chief Enforcer King’s office. It’s going to be slipping past the shifter at the door that’s going to be your issue, since both shifters are wolves with a keen sense of smell.”

  “Okay, so both of the guards are wolf shifters, which means we can’t go invisible?”

  “That’s right,” Amy nodded. “It’s unfortunate; if the guards had been lion shifters or bear shifters instead, we wouldn’t have had a problem with an invisibility spell, but wolf shifters are hard. Even if we go invisible, they’re going to be able to sniff our presence.”

  “What we need is a distraction,” Ellie said. She looked over at Mr. Meowgi, who practically beamed as the realization dawned upon him that he was going to be called on to help once more.

  “Of course, I can cause a distraction,” Mr. Meowgi bragged. “Obfuscation is an important skill for every martial artist such as myself to master.”

  “Great, if you’re in then that means Amy can cast the invisibility spell on all of us,
and then we can slip into the building while you distract the wolf shifter guard.” I said.

  “Everybody ready?” Amy asked. “Once we get past the guard, we meet in front of Chief Enforcer King’s office. Nobody try to go in before I have a chance to check for wards, since it’s almost certain that there will be protection of some kind on the door to her office.”

  The three of us nodded, and a moment later Amy took out her wand, looked around to make sure there was nobody checking to see what we were doing, and cast the invisibility spell. While most witches had to chant the incantation to go with this spell, Amy was an advanced enough witch that she managed to do so silently. It was pretty strange, a moment later, when Sara suddenly disappeared, and only seconds later, I looked down to see that I had completely disappeared as well.

  Chapter 10

  When all four of us were invisible, Mr. Meowgi ran back towards the City Hall entrance. I followed after him this time, making sure to stay at least twenty feet away from the door, hoping that was far enough away to avoid arousing suspicion by the wolf shifter guard.

  About five seconds later, I heard a crash, and then a shout. “What on earth was that? Hey! Get back here!”

  Daring to step a little bit further forward, I poked my head into the building to see the guard rushing after Mr. Meowgi, away from the door.

  Perfect.

  I slipped into the building and began speed walking down the hall towards Chief Enforcer King’s office. I refused to turn to look behind me; if I didn’t know what was back there, then I couldn’t be caught. At least, that was the reasoning my brain was going for. Making a beeline towards the office door, I stopped when I reached it.

  “You guys here?” I whispered.

  “Yup,” Sara’s voice replied a moment later.

  “Same here,” Ellie said.

  “Amy?” I asked quietly, looking around.

  “Yeah,” Amy replied, sounding slightly out of breath. “I made it. Let me check the door for wards.”

  She muttered a spell under her breath, and a second later, the door glowed green. However, it glowed a much deeper green than the last time I had seen Amy do this same spell.

  “This isn’t an easy ward to break,” Amy muttered, and I could hear the frustration in her voice. Still, none of us had expected this office to be an easy one to break into. For a few moments, I heard Amy muttering spells, then re-doing the ward test. The first three times, the door glowed green once more. But on the fourth try, nothing happened.

  “Good, we’re in,” Amy said, and the door handle seemed to turn by itself before the door swung open. “I’m going to check for wards inside really quickly. Stay outside until I tell you.”

  I held my breath while Amy muttered a spell once again, but when she finished, nothing glowed.

  “Ok, we’re good to go.”

  I slipped into the room along with the others, bumping into someone – I wasn’t quite sure who – along the way.

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  “No problem,” Ellie whispered back.

  “Everyone in?” Amy asked, and after a murmur of assent from all of us, the door closed.

  “Can you reverse the invisibility spells for a while?” Ellie asked. “After all, if one of the shifters come in here, they’re going to be able to sniff us out.”

  “Fine,” Amy said, and one by one the four of us re-appeared, with Amy making herself visible last. I looked down at my hands like I’d never seen them before; I still wasn’t entirely used to this whole invisibility thing.

  “Ok,” Ellie said, making her way over to Chief Enforcer King’s desk. “Time to get cracking, ladies. Let’s try and be out of here in the next five minutes.”

  I immediately saw Ellie grabbing at some stuff on the desk, and I made my way to a cabinet along the side wall. Opening it, I found a book filled with expense reports.

  It appeared Chief Enforcer King had eaten at various restaurants. “Chief Enforcer King sure liked eating at Elixir of Life,” I commented out loud. “What is that place?”

  Ellie looked at me strangely. “Really? When?”

  “Umm, she’s billed them four times in the last month,” I said, scanning the expense report. “Why?”

  “Elixir of Life is a bar in one of the towns near here,” Ellie explained. “I’m surprised to hear that Chief Enforcer King would have to go there so often, seeing as she is Chief Enforcer here are not there, but at the same time Desert Plains isn’t exactly the best paranormal town.”

  “I think that was her main case,” Sara said, going through her papers. “She’s obviously been doing a whole bunch of research about the gambling and the kinds of paranormals that have been heavily involved in that.”

  “Interesting,” Amy said. “Maybe that was what Professor Lei was helping her with? After all, she was predominantly an astronomy professor, but she also did teach a few math courses.”

  “I have a few meetings here on the calendar between Chief Enforcer King and some names I don’t recognize,” Ellie said, grabbing a Post-it note and jotting the names down. “I think we should look into this thing she was doing in Desert Plains, since it sounds like it was her main case.”

  “Good,” Amy said. “Now, let’s get invisible again, and get out of here as fast as we can.”

  A few minutes later, the four of us were invisible and standing outside of Chief Enforcer King’s office once more.

  “How are we going to get past the guard now?” I asked. “After all, if he can smell us, then he is going to be able to smell us when we leave too, right?”

  “Right,” Amy said. “At least it’s easier to cause a distraction from the inside. When I say run, run. We’ll all meet at the side of The Magic Mule.”

  “Got it,” Ellie said. I waited with bated breath, curious as to what Amy was about to do, when a few minutes later the acrid smell of smoke reached my nostrils, and I heard shouts coming from towards the main doors.

  “Crap, how on earth did that tapestry catch fire?” I heard the guard asked as he sprung up from his chair and rushed towards the back wall of the building.

  “Now, run,” Amy said, and I didn’t need to be told twice. I rushed towards the front door like I was an Olympic sprinter competing for a gold medal. Even though it was less than one hundred feet, I’d exerted so much effort that by the time I reached the sidewalk, I was panting for breath. I stopped and put my hands on my knees for a second before rushing towards The Magic Mule, not wanting to be near the entrance to the town Hall for any longer than was strictly necessary.

  By the time I got there, Amy had made everybody else visible again. A second later, after announcing my arrival, I was visible once more as well.

  “So? What did you witches find out?” Mr. Meowgi asked.

  “I’ll let you know once we get home,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it in public.”

  I was fairly certain we’d discovered which case was taking up most of Chief Enforcer King’s time these days. I was also pretty sure we were going to have to go visit Desert Plains.

  The next morning, Sara had to go to work, and Amy had to go to coven headquarters for a meeting of all the students who had their exam not take place due to Professor Lei’s murder. That left Ellie and I available for the day to go visit Desert Plains and see what information we could dig up.

  “Make sure to interview Kelly,” Ellie said. “After all, she is one of our main suspects, and it would be interesting to see what she has to say about Professor Lei.”

  “I will,” Amy nodded. “If we’re lucky, by the end of the day we’ll hopefully be able to narrow down our suspect list to just a few people.”

  I sincerely hoped Amy was right. By the time Ellie and I were the only two people left in the house, I realized that I was actually a little bit nervous.

  “So are all paranormal towns like Western Woods?” I asked Ellie.

  She shook her head. “No, they can actually all be quite different. For example, not all paranormal typ
es live in all towns. Here in Western Woods, we have witches, vampires, fairies, elves, and shifters. That’s pretty standard for most of the towns based in America. However, if you were to go to Europe, you would find the town makeups to be quite different. Eastern Europe has a very heavy vampire influence, Northern Europe has quite a few more fairies than most other places, Iceland’s paranormal towns are almost entirely comprised of elves, and some places have different paranormals that we don’t even have. In Greece, for example, the paranormal towns have nymphs, but you would never find a bear shifter there.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “So really, even the paranormal world is a lot like the human world, where different parts of it have different populations.”

  “Exactly. When we get to Desert Plains, you’ll find that it looks significantly different to Western Woods, but the population makeup will be fairly similar.”

  “How do we get there? Are we going to go see Drake?” Drake was a dragon shifter who guarded the tree that was used to get back to Seattle.

  Ellie shook her head. “No, to get to other paranormal towns there is actually a special portal, since there are so many of them, and travel between paranormal towns is much more common than travel between the paranormal world and the human world.”

  “Cool,” I said, but in reality, I was a little bit nervous. Everything about Western Woods had been so new, this was definitely going to be taking things to a whole new level. As if she could read my mind, Ellie gave me a gentle smile.

  “Don’t worry. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s no worse than travelling between the human world and the paranormal world. Besides, I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  “Thanks,” I said to her with a kind smile. If there was anyone I would be comfortable going somewhere completely new with, I had to admit, it was definitely Ellie. She was just so incredibly street smart; she was the type of witch who could get by absolutely anywhere.

  “Good,” she said. “Now, let’s get going. We have a lot of stuff to figure out.”