Unbaked Croakies: A Magical Cozy Mystery with Talking Animals (Enchanting Inquiries Book 1)

by Sam Cheever

  “Pshaw!” she said by way of argument. “You’ll do fine. Just call the police…” Alice dug into all her pockets, including the ones in her banger-stained apron, and finally came up with a dingy, battered card. “This is our man on the inside. Tell him what we’re looking for and that you’re my apprentice. He’ll keep you on the straight and narrow.”

  She grabbed the blade back out of my nerveless fingers. “Off you go then.”

  “I…” My lips flapped. “I…” I reached for her as she hurried away. “Um…I…”

  “See that you’re back in time for dinner. I’m thinking of making Haggis tonight. You’re going to love it!”

  Detective Wise Grym was built like a brick wall. Granted, the wall was man-shaped and very attractive, but it was still a wall. Around six feet tall, the irritated-looking detective had broad shoulders, dark-caramel eyes, and mahogany brown hair that was bleached with golden streaks where the sun had kissed it. His square jaw and sharply cut cheekbones could have been carved from stone. In fact, at that moment, they looked sharp enough to cut yours truly into tiny little pieces.

  Like an angry, man-shaped version of Jack’s blade.

  “What do you mean, they disappeared?” he asked me again. Since he’d walked into Croakies, his handsome face filled with an expression of what could only be called impatient weariness, he’d asked me the same question couched a variety of ways no fewer than five times.

  We were going nowhere. Repeatedly.

  “Like I’ve said five times now, they were sitting on the table when I went to eat lunch, and when I came back, they were gone.”

  Hands on hips, gaze hostile, and lips pressed tight in disgust, the detective seemed to think I had something to do with the missing shoes. Maybe he thought I’d taken them myself.

  “I can promise you I didn’t steal them,” I told him, just in case his beady little brain was dancing that particular chicken dance.

  Grym lifted his gaze from the ugly carpet. He eyed me for a long moment and then sighed. The expulsion of air seemed to take some of the starch out of his sails. “I’d hoped those stupid shoes were in my rearview mirror.”

  “You’ve dealt with them before?” I asked, frowning.

  “Unfortunately. They’ve killed three women so far. And they were nearly impossible to get hold of the first time.” He shook his head. “Don’t you people have some kind of magical holding cell or something? Those shoes are toxic.”

  I didn’t know if we had one of those or not. But there was no way I was telling him that. “Of course we do. But we didn’t even get past the cataloging stage before they disappeared.”

  He glared down at me. “Maybe next time you can secure them first and then fill out your paperwork.”

  I glared right back, too stupid to know when I was beaten.

  Behind me, the dividing door opened and closed. “Oy, Grymsie!”

  The detective glanced at Alice, his gaze narrowing on her as I turned. “What’s that in your hair?” he asked.

  She shook her head, the wild nest of graying brown curls dancing happily with the action. “What? Did I pick up that devil’s spawn of a feather again?” She patted the curly mass, her fingers repeatedly missing the Christmas-colored critter dancing through the strands.

  I squinted at it. “What is that thing?”

  Alice’s confusion cleared. “You mean Oliver?” She laughed gaily. “He’s a magical tree frog. Isn’t he gorgeous?”

  I grimaced as she plucked him from her hair. The little critter blinked at us through round, black eyes, his tiny fingers?…claws?…talons?…clutching Alice’s hand.

  “What does it do?” I asked, trying not to grimace. I was so not a frog person. Although he was kind of cute. In an ugly sort of way.

  Alice peered rather intently at the frog. It blinked back at her. “I’m not sure,” she finally said. “The Quillerans sold him to me. They said he was very special, and that he would one day reveal his magic to me.”

  I nodded as if that made perfect sense. Though, I was pretty sure she’d been taken for a magical mystery tour on that one.

  Grym shook his head. “It’s never dull here, is it?”

  Alice gave her peculiar snorting laugh. “Not for a minute. You two suss out the shoe problem?”

  “There’s no sussing to do, I’m afraid,” Grym told the Keeper. “I’ll have to start hitting all the women’s shoe stores again. If it’s like the last time, it’ll take me days to find them. Hopefully, we’ll get them before they kill someone else.” He sighed. “I don’t have time for this. We’ve had a rash of unexplained robberies in Enchanted, and I’m supposed to be solving that right now.”

  “How can a pair of shoes kill someone?” I asked, immediately regretting my question as Grym turned a hostile gaze in my direction.

  “They carry the wearer into the street and get them run over by a passing vehicle.”

  “Ugh…” My instincts were spot-on. It had been an unfortunate question. And his answer made me wonder why Alice hadn’t been more careful with the things. Feeling responsible for their loss, even though there’d been no way for me to know how dangerous they were, I opened my mouth and offered something I really shouldn’t have. “I’ll help you find them.”

  Gulp!

  What have I done? “I mean, I feel bad about losing them. I’d like to help you look.” That sounded suitably harmless, right?

  Grym stared at me for a long moment and then, to my everlasting surprise, nodded. “Can you get these things to come to you when we find them?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I had no idea. But Alice cut me off. “She’s my apprentice. Of course, she can.”

  I slid Alice a wide-eyed look and she smiled. “Go on with you then. No time like the present for getting a little street experience.”

  I followed Detective Grym out of Croakies feeling as if I was in an alternate universe. I was one day into my apprenticeship and already buried up to my nostrils in trouble.

  The crabby cop pointed to a plain black SUV sitting at the curb down from Croakies. “This is me.”

  The door of the shop next door opened, and a curvy woman with light brown hair streaked in blonde highlights came outside carrying a broom. The woman had beautiful turquoise eyes and wore a plain white tee shirt with a long, pale green skirt that danced around her shapely legs as she walked. She smiled at me and called out to Grym. “Detective. Is everything all right?”

  He lifted a hand. “Nothing I can’t handle Ms. Coleman.”

  I ran my gaze over the name of her shop, which was emblazoned in gold letters across the plate glass window of the front. Herbal Remedies with Mystical Properties.

  I made myself a promise to drop in for a visit soon to introduce myself. From the looks of the woman’s aura, she had magical power of some kind. And I wanted to know what kind.

  I blinked at the thought, realizing I could see her aura. It was shimmering, pale green color like her frothy skirt.

  I’d never been able to see auras before. Hadn’t even known what an aura looked like. The newly discovered skill was surprising. And icy. Once I got over the thrill of it, I wondered what the color meant.

  “Ms. Griffith? Are you coming?” Detective Grym had rolled down the passenger side window and was calling me like a naughty pooch. His manner suddenly irritated me. So I deliberately offered the woman my hand. “Hello, I’m Naida Griffith.”

  “Leandra Coleman. But my friends call me Lea. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Do you work with Detective Grym?” As she asked the question, her gaze slid over my jeans and tee-shirt, the latter of which I realized with horror had an oily stain on the front from banger juice. “No. I’m in training next door. I’d like to chat sometime soon. If it’s all right with you?”

  Lea’s ocean-tinted gaze sparkled with pleasure. “I’d love that. Stop by anytime.”

  “Ms. Griffith, I’m leaving without you if you don’t step it up.”

  I rolled my eyes and the other woman lau
ghed, the sound light and carefree. “I’ll see you again,” she told me, waving at Detective Grumpy Pants before starting to sweep the sidewalk in front of her store.

  I climbed into the car, feeling happy with myself for having made the connection. “She’s nice.”

  Grym grunted noncommittally.

  I scanned him a look, narrowing my gaze in an effort to read his aura. There was a slight, grayish shimmer encompassing his big form, but nothing like the shimmering lightness surrounding Lea.

  He caught me staring. “What?”

  “Nothing.” I wasn’t exactly up-to-speed on supernormal etiquette, but I was pretty sure it would be considered rude to come right out and ask him what species of magic user he was. He was probably some kind of shifter. Judging by how prickly he was, probably a porcupine. I grinned at the thought. “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “There are three shoe shops and two department type stores in Enchanted. We’ll start with those. Hopefully, we’ll get lucky.”

  I nodded. “That shouldn’t take too long.”

  He glanced over at me, giving me a pitying look. “You wouldn’t think so, would you?”

  I frowned. “I’m sensing that you disagree?”

  He sighed. “They can smell a predator a mile away. They were spelled by a black witch and given a sort of innate intelligence. The last time I searched for them, they kept ducking out of every store I entered and returning to the first store I’d looked to throw me off. If the shoes are hiding in a stock room somewhere, we’ll have to go through every single box looking for them. If they’ve already been purchased, we’ll have to chase the buyer down, hopefully before she succumbs to the siren’s song of the shoes. And then there’s the worst-case scenario…”

  I couldn’t imagine what would be worse than going through every single shoebox in the back room of five different stores. “What’s that?”

  “If the shoes managed to find a wearer without even going to a store.”

  I realized he was right. For all we knew, they could have thrown themselves down in front of someone walking down the sidewalk. If I found a pretty pair of shoes that looked new, abandoned on the sidewalk, I would definitely pick them up. I was sure I wasn’t alone on that.

  “At least they’re limited to only women who wear that size,” I offered helpfully.

  The pity in his gaze deepened. “Wrong again. The shoes will size themselves to the wearer’s feet.”

  Of course they would. I thought bitterly.

  Grym narrowed his eyes on me. “How long have you been working with artifacts?” His inference was clear. He was asking me why I knew so little about how things worked in the supernormal world.

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t raised by supernormals.”

  Just when I thought he couldn’t find me any more pathetic, he looked at me as if I were a one-armed blind woman trying to tie her shoes.

  We sat in uncomfortable silence for most of the short trip. I tried to break the tension once by asking about his robbery case. But he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. All he would reveal was that the police couldn’t figure out how the thieves were getting into the banks and jewelry stores they were robbing.

  By the time the detective finally pulled into a small, paved lot on a quaint, cobblestoned street in the market section of Enchanted, I was considering just opening my door and flinging myself out onto the cobblestones.

  The detective wasn’t driving all that fast. Maybe I’d even survive.

  “Okay,” he said. “Fortunately, two of the target stores are on this street.”

  I followed his lead and climbed out of the car.

  Grym pointed to a shop called The Cobblers Heels and glared down at me. “I’ll take the lead. I just need you to quietly throw out your Keeper magic to see if the shoes are there.”

  I swallowed hard, nodding.

  Alice had briefly explained how that worked, but we hadn’t practiced it yet. She’d told me the skill was a second week of training kind of thing. It had seemed like the most important skill of all to me. I’d attempted to argue with her, but she’d plowed on to the next item on her personal slave list before I could utter a single word.

  With the sun shining high overhead and a flower-scented breeze wafting over us from the enormous pots of flowers along the street, I realized the boondoggle with the detective was actually a vast improvement on dusting shelves and checking tags with Alice.

  My dusting skills had never been all that great anyway.

  4

  Flip Flopped With Extreme Prejudice

  “Can I help you?” a soft female voice asked when we entered the shop.

  We’d been to all the possible stores and had spent hours searching for the shoes, finding nothing. We’d begun to suspect that the shoes had returned to the first shop we’d searched, as they had the last time Grym had looked for them, and we’d returned to that shop hoping to catch them unaware.

  Grym headed for the sales girl, who gave him a bright smile. “You’re back. Are you thinking of buying those boots after all?”

  I left him to it and headed into the woman’s side of the store. Despite a frustrating day of searching, I still moved toward the shelves of shoes like a zombie heading for fresh brains.

  Shoes were my drug of choice. Aside from egg rolls, tacos, and anything sweet and fattening, shoes were my biggest weakness. I walked along the shelves of strappy sandals, my fingers reaching out to reverently touch each one. I sighed with happiness and then moved toward the heels. A moment later, I stiffened when a large form heated the air behind me and cleared its throat.

  I turned and gave Grym a stiff smile. “Haven’t found them yet.”

  He arched a pair of dark brows. I was beginning to suspect he was on to me and my shoe fetish. “You’ll need to use your Keeper magic. As we discussed before, they can change their appearance and even their size, so a visual search won’t work.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from sticking my tongue out at him. Pulling my shoulders back, I opted instead for more adult behavior. “I was just getting ready to do that.”

  He nodded. “Do the back room too.” He walked around the shelves blocking me from the sales lady’s view and returned to the young woman with a smile that made her flush with pleasure.

  I looked at her with a shocked expression. Who would smile like that at Detective Crabby Pants? The poor woman must be desperate for a boyfriend. On the plus side, when he left her sobbing into her sushi, she had a vast array of options for shoe therapy right in front of her.

  I forced my attention back to the task at hand. At least his interest was pointed elsewhere, and that was good for me.

  I closed my eyes and tried to feel the energy waiting deep inside my core. I concentrated hard, trying to shove the sound of the flirting across the store out of my consciousness. It wasn’t easy.

  I mean, ignoring the flirting.

  Well, finding my Keeper magic wasn’t easy either.

  But the flirting made me kind of sick.

  I belched softly.

  Nope, that was the banger coming back for a visit. I grimaced. It didn’t taste nearly as good the second time.

  “Were you looking for anything specific?” the girl asked Detective Grouchy Britches.

  I twitched, realizing I’d gotten distracted from my task.

  My energy wilted like a plucked dandelion in the hot sun.

  I shoved air out of my lungs, shook my hands as if trying to loosen them, and then closed my eyes again, searching for the core of my power.

  Nothing.

  Except for a hard knot in my belly, which I suspected was lunch.

  Using my Keeper magic wasn’t coming easily to me. It had gotten a tiny bit easier each time I tried, but I was still far from good at it.

  Something touched my shoulder. I jumped with a yelp and swung around.

  A delicate pair of sandals hung in the air in front of me. The sun beyond the glass found the pink crystals arranged at the top of
the shoes and sparked with vibrant energy.

  The rogue shoes had found me. I must have leaked again. For once, my leakage had come in handy. “Well, hello there,” I murmured softly.

  A tiny part of my brain reminded me that the shoes were dangerous.

  But they were so pretty.

  My hands came up, my gaze locked on the dainty sandals. As I looked at them, they gave a happy little dance and shot toward the floor, positioning themselves in front of my feet. All I had to do was slip off my sneakers and…

  “Yes, the more tread, the better,” a loud male voice said.

  My gaze jerked toward Grym and I found him staring at me over the woman’s bent form as she dug into her supply of men’s boots.

  I shook my head to clear it of the shoes’ magical influence, but he seemed to take that as a denial that I’d found them. He pointed impatiently toward the open door behind the sales counter. Through the wide crack between a pair of white curtains, I could see rows and rows of shoe boxes, stacked from the floor all the way to the ceiling.

  I grimaced.

  My gaze was caught by movement down by my feet. The sandals were shifting color, their pretty jeweled uppers sifting through the rainbow from pink to white, to turquoise blue, to violet, to…

  I forced myself into action, shoving away the magical muzziness I didn’t doubt the shoes were causing in my brain.

  Either that, or I was suffering from banger poisoning.

  Hm…

  I bent double, reaching for the shoes. “Come to me, my pretties,” I mumbled.

  Something in my voice or expression must have warned them that I meant trouble.

  They jerked out of my grasp and hung in the air for a moment, shifting with the light to cast pretty shapes over the nearby shelves with their crystals. Watching the shapes, I felt my mind going muzzy again.

  I gave myself a hard shake, one hand snaking out to grab a shoe out of the air.

  As soon as my fingers closed around it, the thing went spastic.

  It shot skyward, taking my hand with it. I barely held on as the shoe tried to yank away from my grip, the other sandal pummeling me about the head and shoulders.