This Spells Doom

by Stacey Alabaster

Vicky was watching the scene through the glass with Warren clutched to her chest. I’d asked Damon to step outside while we discussed this ridiculous prospect. Before I’d left, I’d whispered to Vicky. “Don’t worry, there’s obviously no way I am going to help this joker out.”

  It was hot and sticky outside, almost like the interior of a butterfly enclosure. Damon was still dressed in a full suit, not even breaking a sweat. I wondered if he was part reptile.

  “If your team is the best in town, then how come—” I paused for a second, as I was almost tempted to end the sentence with “one of them got killed.”

  I cleared my throat. “How come none of you can investigate this yourselves?”

  Damon glanced around and squinted against the sun. “I need someone who is objective.”

  I turned my back and headed toward the door of my office. “Yeah, well, you’ve got the police force for that.”

  Damon stopped me. “You and I both know how this game works. If we want something solved, investigated thoroughly, then we have to do it ourselves.”

  I shook my head and placed my hands on my hips. Boy, did I wish I was just a little taller. Vicky was tall. Maybe she should have been doing this. “You came into town, stole all my business, and called me a joke. Why should I help you?”

  Damon opened his mouth, and then he said the one thing that riled me up more than anything else could have. “Don’t you want to prove to me that you are the better detective, Ruby?”

  I turned back toward him so that I was staring directly at him, and took a step closer. “No. I want to prove to myself that I am the better detective.” I took a step back, but he still had a slight smirk on his face.

  “I will double your rate,” Damon said as I started to walk away again.

  “Triple it, and I might consider it,” I said, strolling back into my office and slamming my door.

  Busking on a street corner. So, it had really come to this.

  I walked up and stood back for a bit, appreciating the music for a moment. Vicky was a skilled guitarist. Good enough to be a professional musician. She was also a pretty good vocalist, although that wasn’t her strongest skill. During the break between songs, I moved closer for a better look while I clapped. The only other audience member shrugged and kept walking.

  Warren was nestled in the corner of the guitar case. In the middle, there was a scattering of coins. At a quick glance, it didn’t even look like enough to buy a burger and fries, let alone pay an electricity bill.

  Maybe part of it was due to the fact that Vicky refused to play anything popular and instead stuck to obscure country songs from the ’60s and ’70s that no one except my grandmother would possibly remember.

  She started another song by somebody called Bobby Gentry.

  After I tossed a couple of dollars into the case, Vicky stopped playing for a second. It was all I had. “Oh, Ruby, I’m glad you’re here. This is good timing, actually. I need you to come with me to Geri’s house to plead Warren’s case with me,” she said, nodding down to the turtle.

  I told her that I was too busy to come with her that afternoon, and it would need to be some other time. She frowned down at me and asked why I was so busy when I had no clients.

  I just shrugged and mumbled something about having some decisions to make. “I mean, there might be a new client . . .”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “Hmm.”

  I glanced down again at the money—or rather lack thereof—in Vicky’s guitar case.

  There was no one walking past at that time of day. So maybe it wasn’t just the obscure country hits that she was playing. There wasn’t much of an audience for buskers in Swift Valley, especially not on this unpopular street corner. Which just happened to only be a block away from The Agency. It was kind of why I was in the area. Vicky packed up her case and told me she was done with that corner for the day.

  “I have somewhere to be,” I said, hurrying off. I hadn’t made up my mind. I was just investigating my options. But I was headed in the direction of The Agency, and Vicky knew it, as she recognized the direction I was headed.

  She was hurrying after me. “Are you actually going to take the case?”

  “Of course not . . . I haven’t decided yet.”

  I stopped and turned to look at Vicky, who was struggling to lug both her guitar case and her turtle to the next street corner. I sighed. “If I take the case, then you’ll be able to come back and work for me. I’ll at least have enough to pay you for the month.”

  Vicky beamed. She was so excited that she almost dropped her guitar case. “Oh, Ruby, really?”

  I nodded. Maybe I didn’t need to race over to The Agency to snoop around after all. My mind was made up. “Come with me, Vicky. Your street corner days are over!”

  Geri peered down at the algae-covered rock and screwed her nose up.

  “What is that?”

  I tried not to laugh. Those were my exact words as well upon meeting Warren for the first time. It was what most people said when Vicky presented the rock to them, actually. Warren had a shy personality, shyer even than most turtles, I thought. Strange, because familiars usually liked to stick their noses in other people’s businesses. At least, mine did.

  Vicky took a deep breath before she made her announcement. “This is my new familiar, Warren.”

  Geri sucked in a quick breath and didn’t do a very good job at hiding her irritation. “When I told you to get a familiar, Victoria, I meant one that could actually act as a protector! You know, one with a little bit of flair or courage. I was thinking maybe a snake or an owl. For crying out loud, even a lizard would be better than this pitiful creature. Vicky, a turtle is just about the worst familiar that a witch can have!”

  “Oh, but he is so sweet and loyal!”

  Geri placed her hands on her hips. She had a strict schoolteacher’s look on her face, and she was not willing to listen to any back chat or put up with any disobedience.

  “And what is he going to do when you are in danger? When your life needs saving? Stick his head back inside his shell and pretend that nothing is happening?”

  The bottom of Vicky’s lip appeared to be trembling, but I wasn’t sure if it was just for show or whether she was truly upset. “Geri, I can prove that he will be a good familiar. I just need to give him a little more training and a chance to prove himself.”

  Geri shook her head and crossed her arms. “No. This is simply unacceptable.”

  “What do you mean?” Vicky asked, clutching Warren to her chest like in the scene from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy is told she is going to have to give up Toto.

  “You’ll need to take him back to wherever you got him,” Geri said, screwing up her nose. “Where was it, some swamp or something?”

  “The pet shop,” Vicky said, still pouting.

  Geri blinked in surprise. She stared at the back of Warren’s shell, which I had to admit, didn’t exactly scream “five-star breeder.”

  “What are they doing, selling a turtle that looks like that?” she asked in mild shock.

  Vicky pulled him closer to her, defensively. “He is a beautiful turtle. Anyone would be thrilled to have him as a pet!”

  “Then he won’t have any problem finding new owners. Take him back.”

  On the steps of Geri’s house, I tried to comfort Vicky. I told her that she would have no trouble finding another familiar, and that Warren would be happy with a new family as well. Maybe one who wouldn’t put quite so much pressure on him.

  But Vicky stared up at me with large, watery eyes and shook her head.

  “I’m keeping him.”

  3

  “Welcome,” Damon said and stepped back, attempting to wave me into the office.

  I hesitated to take a step across the threshold. Seemed like once I took that leap, I could never go back. “I still don’t understand why we are having the meeting here. I am the lead detective on the case. You hired me. Usually, I see clients in my office,” I stated.

/>   “Your empty office?”

  “My freshly-painted office.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, why don’t you step inside, seeing as you’re here. Would make it more convenient for the both of us, wouldn’t it?”

  I knew that Damon calling me to his office was a power play. The Agency office wasn’t the scene of the crime. Mikhalia Bryce had been killed down by the lake on the other side of town. Damon was doing this just to show off. Maybe even to intimidate me.

  “We have superior resources here,” Damon said swiftly as he led me into the office. He strode so quickly that I had to race to keep up with him. “The best and newest equipment. Access to all the paid databases out there. You can make use of them while you are here.”

  I was tempted, but . . . “I’m only going to be here for twenty minutes or so while I get the basics,” I said, taking my pen and notepad out as Damon led me to a desk and gestured for me to take a seat.

  Why was this desk empty? It was the only one that wasn’t occupied that morning. I counted the rest of the staff. Five, not including Damon, who was a little more casually dressed that day. In fact, they all were. I wondered if it was casual Friday—but today was Monday.

  “Was this Mikhalia’s desk?” I asked a little uneasily as I took a seat.

  “Sure. Don’t let that put you off, though. It’s yours now.”

  I shot him a look. “Very funny. I am being serious, Damon. I work out of my own office, during my own hours. I know you’ve got some sort of factory farm for detectives set up here, but I am my own free agent.” I started scribbling in my notepad—just so I seemed busy and on top of things and like I knew what I was doing.

  “You know, you could work really well here,” Damon said. “I think you’d fit right in.”

  “Fat chance,” I said and kept taking notes, for real this time. I asked him about Mikhalia, and about what time she had been to the lake the Thursday evening before. It may have felt slightly creepy being in Mikhalia’s chair, but at least I was getting a chance to be in her shoes a little bit. I could have a look through her desk for any indication that someone might have wanted to hurt her. I wanted to solve this case as quickly as possible to prove to Damon—I mean, myself—that I was the better detective.

  I didn’t need The Agency. The Agency needed me.

  “So. Mikhalia Bryce. Did she move here at the same time as the rest of you?”

  Damon nodded. “We all arrived in town about two and a half weeks ago.”

  “I am going to need more specific dates than that.”

  Damon nodded and got out his phone to give me the exact dates that he and the other six had moved to Swift Valley. “We all packed up our lives to take a chance on this town,” he said, sounding wistful for a second.

  “So Mikhalia was a part of your team up in Sydney, right?” I asked, scribbling down the details of the dates. Nothing seemed unusual there.

  Damon shook his head. “No. She was a new recruit that I had recently found and brought on board with the rest of the gang. The only person on this team that hadn’t been an existing part of the company.”

  I stopped writing.

  I was reading between the lines.

  “Do you think this might be an inside job?” I tried to keep my voice steady and any hint of glee out of my eyes. The Agency weren’t so great and powerful after all, were they? They had such big problems that one of them may have killed another one.

  And they weren’t even capable of solving it themselves.

  “That’s why you wanted to hire me,” I said, feeling a smirk forming on my lips. “That’s why you needed an objective person on the case.”

  Damon lowered his voice so that no one else could hear us. A woman with spiky blonde hair kept casting us wary looks from a desk ten feet away. “Fine, yes. I have a suspicion.”

  Looked like I was going to have to spend more time inside this place. A lot more time than I would have preferred.

  It was almost dusk, but not quite, when I stopped my car in front of the address that Damon had given me and stepped out.

  A white building, two levels high, stood in front of me. I glanced up and felt a shiver go down my spine. Once again, I was following in Mikhalia’s footsteps.

  The apartment that Mikhalia had been renting. Very short term, it turned out. She’d lived on the ground floor, which gave easy access.

  At least, I hoped it would.

  I was working as a solo agent without Vicky, who was trying to teach Warren how to disappear in one place and reappear in another, but that was okay. For a while there, I’d thought I would be working as a single agent full-time—until fortune had turned in my favor a little.

  If only I could find my way into this apartment.

  I nosed around and tried the doors and windows. It isn’t breaking and entering if you just happen to find a door open, and you just happen to wander inside it. Or a window, if you just happen to fall through it. Happens all the time.

  But this apartment was locked down like a fortress, so there was no chance of just stumbling through. Deadbolts were on every door, and there were shutters on the windows.

  I frowned. I could see the door and windows of the apartment directly above Mikhalia’s, and it didn’t have either, so the security measures probably weren’t something that the apartments were automatically fitted with. It seemed like a customization just for Mikhalia.

  There was a security camera at the corner, but I saw that it wasn’t properly hooked up. Damon had already told me there was no footage from the night that Mikhalia had been killed. The camera looked new. Maybe she’d planned to hook it up, but she hadn’t gotten to it. And now, it was too late.

  A neighbor with blonde curls was hanging his head through the window, and he glanced over and stuck his nose up at me. “Can I help you?” he called out. Not in a very friendly manner, though. More like he was accusing me of being up to something. Which, I supposed, I was.

  I called out that I was fine and that I was a part of the police investigation, so he didn’t need to worry himself about what I was up to. Well, it was half true, wasn’t it? I was a part of the investigation. And as per usual, taking on the cases that the cops were unable to solve themselves. Damon was right. If we wanted a case solved properly, then we had to do it ourselves. Blondie took his head back inside, but I could still feel his eyes on me, even when he pulled the curtains shut.

  I tried not to let it faze me.

  One last Hail Mary—I pulled on the outer clasps of the shutters and hoped that they had been shoddily made and might spring open. No such luck, though.

  I stepped back onto the lawn, stared at the locked-down apartment, and knew what I needed to do.

  I needed to use magic.

  But not with that suspicious set of eyes still on me coming from next door. We’d come back under the light of the full moon.

  “This will be the perfect time for Warren to prove himself,” Vicky said as she placed him on the ground so that he was on the corner of the apartment block, with a good view in either direction. He could see the street from there but also the walkway on the side of the block. Her plan was to use Warren as our lookout while we transported ourselves inside the apartment.

  “How is he going to look if his head is buried inside his shell?” I asked.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Vicky said. “He can see from inside there. In fact, he is the perfect lookout for that very reason. No one will suspect a thing, or even notice him. They’ll think he’s a rock.”

  Hmm. She might actually have a point there. Maybe Warren was the perfect familiar after all. Everything we’d claimed were his weaknesses might actually be strengths.

  “Good boy, Warren,” Vicky said and moved him just slightly so that he had a better view of the street. I thought it was a little strange, considering that he could technically walk and move himself if he needed to.

  “Does he ever answer back?” I asked her. Familiars were meant to be able to talk to witches, but I still h
adn’t heard a peep out of Warren. I assumed it was because he was shy, but I’d know him for almost three weeks and still hadn’t heard him speak. And Vicky had been a bit furtive about the whole thing.

  “We don’t communicate through spoken language, not exactly,” Vicky said as we made our way to the side of the apartment. “We have more of a silent communication style.”

  “Right . . . so that’s a no.”

  “Look. Warren gets me, and I get him, okay? We’re cool.”

  I shrugged and glanced up at the task in front of us. At that moment, I was more concerned with us getting inside the apartment than I was with figuring out which language a turtle was speaking. Or not speaking.

  Transportation in general was not my strong point when it came to the art of witchcraft. In fact, I had no clue which spell to use to get through solid brick, not to mention those steel shutters that lined half the outside. I was worried I might sort of “mash” myself if I tried. Not a good look.

  Vicky was a bit of a funny one when it came to witchcraft. Let’s just say, well . . . she had her problems getting spells to work correctly as well. Even though she had known she was a witch her whole life and thus been practicing since she was a child, she still managed to mangle half the spells. Most of the time, they ended up doing the opposite of what they were supposed to do. But transportation was one of her strong skills. She was awesome at flying a broomstick—and I trusted her when she said she could get us inside in one piece.

  I glanced around and made sure that the next-door neighbor’s lights were off. It was one a.m. and Wednesday morning, so most of the town was sleeping. But the moon was wide awake. Whenever magic was performed under a full moon, it had extra potency.

  Vicky told me to take hold of her hand tightly, so that the power of the spell that she was using on herself would take me along with her to the other side. “I’m glad you didn’t have to fire me,” she said with a grin as she squeezed my hand quickly. “And I’m glad that we’re finally using magic on a case!”