Sure enough, going back to the other emails, the Pacific Cove Enforcers had sent out a mass email to all of the Enforcement officials in the area alerting them that the threat was no longer a threat, that the assumed suspect was dead.
Wow. Charles Perkins was even worse a wizard than I had thought. It wasn’t enough that he was creepy and blackmailing people, but on top of that, he was also harassing female paranormals? The butt-grab wasn’t an isolated incident, that was for sure.
I shook my head at the computer, but before I got a chance to look at it further, I heard a sound coming from the back of the house. I paused. Andrea and Ashley were both upstairs; I had heard them going up and they definitely had not come back down since. So that meant whoever was in the house was another intruder. It couldn’t have been Carl; he would have come in through the front door, and he would have turned the lights on straightaway. Whoever had just come in was sneaking around as well.
My heart leaped to my throat as I realized that what we had just done might have been a terrible idea after all. What if we got caught? No, I couldn’t let that happen. I had to see who else was in here.
I carefully stepped away from the computer, making sure not to make a sound. I didn’t want whoever was in here to be warned of my presence. I could hear their footsteps coming toward me, so I crept toward the wall next to the door through which they would inevitably pass and pressed myself up against it. At least this way I had the element of surprise on my side.
Grabbing my wand, I took a deep breath as the steps came closer, and closer, and closer, until finally, the intruder was next to me.
All I could see was a shadow, and as soon as it took another step, I acted. I jumped forward, intending to grab whoever it was around the torso to stop them from accessing their wand, but instead I tripped on the edge of the rug and fell headlong into them.
“Ahh!” I cried out, reaching forward and grabbing the intruder, pulling them to the ground with me.
“What in the name of Jupiter?” I heard a voice cry out. It sounded familiar, somehow. Still, I rolled over, trying to get my bearings and stop the intruder from getting the upper hand. Too late.
“In the name of Jupiter, bind and tie her!”
I let out a yelp as invisible ropes suddenly bound every inch of my body together. My hands were plastered against my body, and I tried to move around, but nothing worked. It was like I was a pencil, incapable of moving any of my limbs.
So much for getting the upper hand. Now I was going to be the next murder victim in the paranormal world, surely.
Well, I wasn’t going to go without a fight. A light suddenly appeared in front of me, and I realized that sadly, this was it. This was the light at the end of the tunnel. Whoever this intruder was had obviously cast a spell to kill me, and I was moving on to the next world.
Chapter 22
I just hoped Ashley and Andrea would see who it was so they could avenge me. Boy, did I love my sisters. And my mom and dad. I was going to miss them.
But the light never went away. It stayed, and eventually, my eyes adjusted and I realized it wasn’t light leading me to the next world, but just a ceiling bulb, which the intruder had turned on. I looked over and found Ellie standing next to the light switch, doubled over with laughter.
“Ellie!” I cried out. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question,” she said through her laughter. “I thought I was going to have a heart attack. You nearly killed me.”
“I thought you killed me!”
“Obviously I didn’t!”
“Well, I know that now. Can you undo this spell? It’s weird, not being able to move.”
“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Ellie said, casting a quick counter-spell. Suddenly, my arms and legs were free to move once more, and I stretched them out, happy to feel freedom again. A moment later, Tina stuck her head through the door.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked, then as she saw me, her eyes widened. “Megan!”
“Ellie here tried to kill me,” I replied.
“You tried to kill me first,” Ellie protested.
“I didn’t know it was you!”
“I didn’t know it was you, either! What are you doing here, anyway?”
“We found out Carl Perkins’s alibi was false, and so he flew to the top of our suspect list. We came here to talk to him, but he wasn’t home, so we thought we’d just have a quick look inside,” I said sheepishly. “How about you?”
“Same. Amy found out her father wasn’t where he said he was that night, so he was obviously lying for Carl, so we came to see what we could find out. Carl is at the bar, and he’ll probably still be there for a few hours. He’s hanging out with some coworkers of his. So what have you found out?”
At this point, the commotion brought Andrea and Ashley down into the room, and I told them what I had discovered.
“It doesn’t point toward Carl being the killer, though. The fact that Charles was probably the wizard the Enforcers were after proves he was an awful wizard, but it doesn’t give Carl any more reason to want him dead,” I pointed out.
“We’re going to have to tell Amy that her uncle was targeting women,” Tina said slowly. “That’s not going to be a fun conversation.”
“Why isn’t she here?” I asked.
“She refused to come on the basis that she isn’t a fan of felonies,” Tina explained.
“I’m with her,” Ashley said, crossing her arms. “I was peer pressured into this; I want that on the record.”
“Noted,” Tina said with a small smile. “Have the two of you found anything?”
Ashley and Andrea nodded. “Not proof, exactly, but it’s certainly something,” Andrea replied. “Upstairs, in a small box in one of the dressers, Carl kept copies of angry letters he wrote to Charles. One of them says that if Charles doesn’t get his money back, he’ll kill him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well, that’s certainly something.”
“I wonder how serious he was about that threat,” Ellie mused. “Come on. Let’s keep looking.”
“I’ll look at the computer some more with Megan, if she’ll let me,” Tina said, and I nodded.
“Of course, let’s do it.”
Tina pulled up a chair and the two of us continued to search through Carl Perkins’s emails, and when we didn’t find anything, his other computer files.
“So what was life like in the human world?” I asked Tina.
“Very different to here, to be honest. Really, really different. Like, imagine everything you do with magic. Now picture all of that disappearing.”
I thought about just a few hours earlier, when I’d blown red potion all over the kitchen, and how Grace had wiped it away in just an instant. All that couldn’t happen? Mind-blowing. Humans must have spent all of their time cleaning.
“What about your friends and family?” I asked. “Don’t you miss them now that you live here?” Tina’s back tensed slightly, and I realized perhaps I had crossed a line. “Sorry. Don’t answer that if you’re not comfortable with it.”
“No, no. It’s fine,” Tina said to me with a smile. “It’s just, I was adopted in the human world by two wonderful people, and they both died in the past year.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks. It’s been hard, but the community and family I’ve discovered here has been a godsend. I know they’re not my real coven, but they really feel like family.”
“Family doesn’t necessarily mean blood,” I said with a smile, and Tina nodded.
“Don’t I know it!”
“Do you not know what coven you belong to, then?”
“No,” Tina said, shaking her head. “We’re looking into it, and we have a few leads, but nothing solid yet.”
I couldn’t help but get the feeling that Tina was hiding something from me, but I didn’t press her further. After all, her history was her own business.
“I’m glad you’ve found a
group of witches to be your people,” I told her honestly. “I imagine it’s made the transition into the magical world a lot easier.”
“Oh, much,” Tina said with a laugh. “I’d be completely lost without them.”
The two of us turned back to the computer, but even though we searched through everything we could find, there wasn’t a single piece of evidence that might prove that Carl Perkins killed his brother.
Eventually, the others came back into the room. “We’ve given up,” Ellie said matter-of-factly. “I don’t think there’s any evidence in here. Please tell me you’ve had better luck with the computer.”
I shook my head no. “Sorry. Same here.”
“Great,” Ellie sighed.
“Well, on the bright side, we don’t have to tell Amy that we have definitive proof that one of her uncles killed her other uncle,” Tina pointed out.
“There is that,” Ellie nodded.
“Should we get going?” I asked, and we all decided that was probably best. Right at that moment, however, for the second time that night, I suddenly heard a door open. I stopped breathing. All five of us stared at each other. This wasn’t the back door. Whoever was here this time was coming in the front. Was Carl back from the pub already?
Tina immediately rushed toward the light and turned it off, steeping us all in darkness.
“We have to get out of here,” Andrea said in a hushed whisper. “Back door?”
Ellie nodded, her silhouette just barely visible in the dark. “Quietly.”
The five of us began sneaking toward the rear exit through which Ellie and Tina had come in. I could hear Ellie casting invisibility spells over all of us when all of a sudden a voice called out from the front of the house.
“Who’s in there? Whoever you are, you’re trespassing.” I recognized the voice. It was Chief Enforcer Lupo.
“Keep going,” Tina muttered quietly, and we all kept moving toward the back. Worryingly, Ellie’s invisibility spells didn’t seem to be taking. I could still see everyone, even though I had definitely heard her cast the spells.
We were almost at the back door. I could see it now. All we had to do was get through it.
“Halt! Stop right there!” Chief Enforcer Lupo’s voice called out. “I see you, Megan. And your sisters. Whoever you’re with, you all had better stop what you’re doing right now. That’s an order!”
Great. We were definitely caught.
Chapter 23
“Don’t stop, keep going,” I heard Ellie whisper in Ashley’s ear. “Ignore him.”
The five of us rushed out the back door. “Do you have brooms?” Ellie asked, and we all shook our heads.
“Alright then. This way!”
Ashley, Andrea, and I followed as Ellie quickly ran through the backyard and through a gaping hole in the fence that must have been the way they had entered in the first place. We found ourselves on a quiet, tree-lined street and followed after Ellie as she expertly ran around from street to street, never staying in one spot very long. Eventually, she ducked behind a fence, and the four of us followed behind her, happy to get a second to catch our breath.
I was definitely not in good enough shape to be running from the Enforcers. I hunched over, feeling like I was going to die. I was not one of those witches who ran for fun to stay in shape. That sounded like the worst idea ever. But right now, where the alternative seemed to be getting caught trespassing by the Chief Enforcer who I was fairly certain held a grudge against my family, running all of a sudden didn’t seem so bad.
“Did we lose him?” Tina finally asked between gasps of air.
“We should have,” Ellie said, daring to peer around the fence. “I took us on the most convoluted route I could think of; he’s not local, so he’ll have no idea what the streets around here look like.”
“Are you sure?” Andrea asked, peering over the top of the fence. “That’s him coming up now.”
“He’s a wolf shifter,” I pointed out. “He’s probably smelling us.”
“Oh, shoot,” Ellie said as the five of us began running once more, following Ellie again. Chief Enforcer Lupo was hot on our heels, and I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn’t the only one of us who wasn’t going to be able to keep this pace up for long. Chief Enforcer Lupo, however, being a wolf shifter, would definitely be naturally a much better runner than us.
“Go up the street, as fast as you can,” Tina panted.
“Up? But that’s a long, straight road,” Ellie said. “He’ll be able to see us.”
“Trust me,” Tina said. “I have an idea.”
“Ok,” Ellie said, continuing up the street we were on. It was an uphill climb, and a steep one. To call it a slog would have been an understatement. By the time we reached the top, I couldn’t help but feel that it didn’t really matter what Tina’s plan was—I was going to die before she was able to put it into action.
As soon as we reached the crest of the hill, I stopped, my hands on my knees as I gasped for breath. Tina arrived a second later, pulled out her wand, and muttered something. I was far, far too exhausted to even pick up on what she was saying, but a moment later, my eyes widened in surprise as a gush of water left her wand. I had never seen anything like it! Torrents of water escaped the tip and rushed down the street, turning it into a river. Chief Enforcer Lupo, who was halfway up the hill, was immediately washed away, calling out, cursing at us as he was swept back down the hill. How on earth had Tina managed to cast a spell that powerful? I wasn’t sure I could have cast a spell like that, and Tina was brand new to the magical world.
“Come on, we have to keep going,” Tina said. “But now we can walk.”
A small chorus of relieved laughter broke out among the group as we realized that there was no more running in our immediate future. As we walked along the crest of the hill, Tina continued the torrent of water, although she slowed it down to more of a stream than a river.
“This way, it will cover our scent,” she explained. “He won’t be able to follow us.”
“And we’ll take the shortcut through coven gardens to get home so he can’t follow the trail of water, either,” Ellie said. “The grass will just soak it all up.”
We had finally gotten away, although only just.
When we eventually got back to Ellie and Tina’s house, Sara was sitting on the couch watching TV.
“What on earth have you guys been up to?” she asked. “You look like you just went for a swim in the pool.”
“You don’t want to know,” Ellie said. “But basically, the Chief Enforcer of Pacific Cove caught us breaking into Carl Perkins’s house, and Tina had to get him off the scent with a timely spell.”
“That spell was amazing,” Ashley said. “I’ve never seen a simple water spell so powerful.”
“Tina’s pretty good with the water spells,” Ellie nodded.
“It was good thinking, too, washing away our scent. I don’t know how we would have gotten away otherwise.”
“We’re all ignoring the bigger problem, though, at least for us,” Andrea interrupted. “As soon as he gets back to Pacific Cove, Chief Enforcer Lupo is going to head to our place, and he’s going to be waiting for us.”
“So we need to get back as soon as possible,” I said.
“No,” Ashley replied, shaking her head. “There’s only one problem with that. Chief Enforcer Lupo is going to say he saw us in Western Woods, and he’s going to check the portal records. They will show that we came into Western Woods before the break-in, and they’ll show that we left afterward. It’ll be his word against ours, and the portal records will back up his story.”
“So what are you going to do?” Tina asked, looking worried. I had to be honest; I had absolutely no idea.
“Well, the first thing we need to do is erase the portal records,” Ellie said. “We have to get rid of any proof that you came into Western Woods.”
“How can we do that, though?” Tina asked.
“I’ll text Amy. She’ll take
care of it,” Ellie said. “Lita, the head of our coven, has access to the records, and Amy is working for her right now. Then we have to figure out how to get you three back into Pacific Cove without using the portals. Because at least that way, once you’re back in Pacific Cove, you can always claim there’s a mistake with the portal records since there would be no record of you coming back into town.”
“But how are we going to do that? There’s no way to get around the paranormal world without going through the portals,” I said.
“I’ll text Kyran,” Tina said. “If anyone knows how to get around that sort of thing, it’ll be him.”
Five minutes later there was a knock at the door, and in walked one of the most incredible-looking elves I had ever seen. His hair was cut short, but a little bit scraggly, and his eyes were like ice as they bored into us.
“Alright, what kind of trouble have you all gotten into this time?” he asked, and Tina stuck her tongue out at him.
“To be fair, it’s not really us that need the help this time, it’s our friends from Pacific Cove. They need to get home, but they can’t do it by using the normal portals. Do you know of anything that could help?”
Kyran bit his lip and looked to the ceiling for a moment. “There’s one portal whose records the city wouldn’t be able to access there; inside the chocolate factory.”
“No good,” I said, shaking my head. “The city took over the chocolate factory. It no longer belongs to my family.”
“No way!” Ellie exclaimed, and I realized I hadn’t told them yet.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding glumly. “Part of the deal our parents agreed to. But don’t worry, they can’t keep us down. I’m starting a brand-new company from our kitchen.”
“Good. We’ll be your first customers,” Tina said. “You have to let us know when you’re ready for orders.”
“I will, thanks,” I replied gratefully. It was nice to know that I already had a few people in my corner, and a few customers at that.
“That’s the only portal I can think of that’s not watched.”
Dark Chocolate and Death Page 12