This Spells Doom

by Stacey Alabaster

  “Don’t get too used to it,” I warned her. “This was a special exception.”

  Vicky muttered the magic words, and I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure why I always did that when a spell was performed. It was like the part of me that had been nothing but a human woman for a very long time was still trying to protect and shield herself. In a way, witchcraft was like the sun. I didn’t want to look too closely at it, in case I went blind.

  All of a sudden, I could tell that we were standing on different material. The outside had been hard concrete, and now plush carpet was underneath our feet.

  “We’re inside,” Vicky whispered. “You can relax now.”

  But I did a quick check.

  Yep. All my limbs still intact. No mashing appeared to have taken place. Perfect.

  The apartment was still mostly empty, aside from the furniture that must have come with it. It had the look of a furnished apartment, sort of motel-like with generic IKEA-style furniture. There were still unpacked boxes in the corners of the rooms and lining the hallway. Vicky took off for the bedroom while I carefully surveyed the living area.

  “Wow! They really do have a uniform down at The Agency, don’t they?” Vicky asked as she riffled through Mikhalia’s wardrobe in the other room “All these outfits look identical.” Vicky held one up. “It’s like you have to be a clone to work there.”

  I wandered into the bedroom and took a look. I shrugged a little. “Damon was wearing a navy suit when I was in the office,” I said. “And a few of the others were dressed almost casually when I went in.” I was thinking of the sole other woman I had seen, a woman named Justine who had short blonde, spiky hair. She’d been wearing sneakers with her dark jeans when I’d been there.

  Vicky shrugged. “Well, I guess Mikhalia just liked really dark clothes, then. Maybe it was her thing.”

  She seemed to like dark everything. The sheets were a charcoal grey, as were the pillow covers and the shoes that had been discarded near the bed. And Mikhalia herself had had jet black hair in the photos I’d seen of her.

  I picked up a strange-looking item on the nightstand. It was black as well.

  “What is this?” I asked, turning it around in my hands.

  At first, I thought we had stumbled upon one of her phones, but it didn’t look like any smartphone I had ever seen. It was far too thin, and it was made of material that looked heavy but felt incredibly light when I picked it up. I held it closer to my ear for some reason. It seemed to have some sort of microphone in there at the base of it. There was a slight buzzing sound coming out of it.

  Well. Damon had told me that The Agency had superior surveillance equipment. But, I mean, this was really high tech. So high tech that I didn’t even know exactly what it did. I’d never seen anything like it. When I’d graduated from my private investigator course, we had taken a trip into the store in the city where licensed PIs could buy gear. There had been nothing in the shop that had looked this futuristic.

  “It looks like something out of a spy movie,” Vicky commented.

  “But The Agency aren’t spies. They are detectives,” I said, looking straight at her.

  Vicky had a strange look in her eyes. “Unless Mikhalia wasn’t one of them. Maybe she was working on her own. What was her background, again?”

  I cleared my throat. “Damon told me that she had only just joined The Agency three weeks ago.” My eyes grew wide. “But he never told me what she was doing before that . . .”

  Vicky looked like she had it all figured out. “No, I bet he didn’t.”

  I went to grab the device again, wanting to have another look at it. “I’m going to search through the drawers, see if there’s anything—”

  Vicky held up a hand. “Wait,” she said, shushing me. “Warren says that we need to get out of here. Immediately.”

  4

  The Onyx Coffeehouse.

  Damon waltzed in like he owned the place. He asked Akiro for almond milk in his coffee, and then walked smugly over to the table where I was sitting. He unbuttoned his three-thousand-dollar suit before he sat down, as he looked around derisively at the rest of the plebs in the coffeehouse who were drinking milk that came from cows. I bet he thought he could buy and sell the whole town if he wanted. Well, he couldn’t. His detective agency wasn’t that successful.

  “You know, this is a dairy town,” I commented as his coffee arrived. “That’s how we survive. The dairy industry is the reason that you have a job here at all.”

  He nodded over to my own drink and asked me why I hadn’t ordered milk, then. I told him I usually did, and so I felt no guilt or hypocrisy. Though I did feel a little uncomfortable that he had called me out like that.

  But I was sticking to tea that afternoon. Herbal tea, no milk. Not my usual thing, but Vicky had been telling me the benefits of these boiled herbs and how too much caffeine could be bad for my heart and my adrenal system, interfering with my ability to perform magic even, if I consumed too much of it. So, I was giving tea a real try.

  Ugh. Tasted like grass.

  “Why did you hire Mikhalia?” I asked him, trying not to show my disgust with the tea as I picked the mug back up and went for a second mouthful.

  He shrugged. “Because she was most qualified for the job.”

  I nodded. “And what made her so qualified?” I asked, watching him carefully.

  Damon took a very long time stirring his almond milk latte, and an even longer time lifting it up to take a sip. “Oh, you know, she had worked in the industry before this. Well, an adjacent industry.” He wasn’t quite meeting my eyes. “I don’t see that her exact role before is relevant to her death.”

  He didn’t see how Mikhalia being some sort of secret government spy could have made her a target and might have played into her death somewhat? Either he was actually a lousy detective, or he was just toying with me. Maybe even teasing me for some reason.

  “Oh, come on, Damon, you had to know that if I went digging on this case, then the truth was going to come out eventually.” I put my mug down. “Or did you really think I was such a crummy detective that I wouldn’t figure any of this out?” I narrowed my eyes at him. Maybe this was all a game to him from the beginning, and he’d never really thought that I’d be able to crack any of it. Yet my first day on the case, I had gotten inside Mikhalia’s place and seen her weird spy gear. I mean, sure, I’d used witchcraft to do that. But Damon didn’t need to know that completely irrelevant detail.

  Damon bristled. “How did you find out . . . what . . .” He was still trying to avoid saying it, almost stuttering as it half came out, and so I just remained silent until he came clean. “Okay. Mikhalia’s background is top-secret stuff. Quite literally. She worked in a covert operations team in Canberra for the last five years before coming to work for me.” He kept his voice low and fast, and he seemed irritated that he even had to discuss any of this with me.

  “So, she was a spy.”

  “An investigator.” He seemed to think the distinction was important. He leaned back and gave an annoyed sigh, like this was a waste of his time.

  I nodded. “Sounds like she was a good fit for The Agency, then. You must have been looking for someone who had some more . . . dynamic experience,” I said to him, trying to read his facial expressions. He just looked at me blankly.

  He leaned in just a little, his hands clasped in front of him. “Look. I don’t know precisely what she did before. No one does. That is kind of the point. National security and all that. All I know is that she wanted to get out of that life and have a safer existence, while still putting her talents to good use.”

  “Didn’t work out that well for her, did it?” I asked him. “The safer life bit, I mean.”

  He shook his head, a shadow falling over his face. “No. I suppose not.” He looked a little guilty. “I was the one who convinced her that moving out here to this sleepy little town was a good idea . . .” He stared down into his almond milk for a moment, the knuckles of his hands
turning white.

  I frowned. His story didn’t add up, and I was starting to wonder if this Damon fellow was being honest with me about anything. “But you told me yourself that you had heard the rumors about this place. That it’s not so sleepy at all.”

  “Yeah.” He scoffed. “I just didn’t believe that they were true.”

  He looked worried. Maybe he was genuine after all. For the first time, I had him on the back foot a little. He didn’t like not being the one who held all the cards.

  “This is a line of inquiry I am going to have to follow up, Damon.”

  He looked at me sharply.

  “Look,” he said. “None of the other guys in the office know about Mikhalia’s past. And I would like to keep it that way. Another promise that I made to her before she moved out here.”

  So. Another reason he had wanted someone from the outside looking into this case. And possibly a reason he didn’t trust the police to do a proper job of it. It looked like maybe he didn’t want them digging too closely into this.

  Just how covert an operation was this?

  Maybe his intentions were good. And maybe they weren’t. I paid for my tea and told him I would do my best to keep Mikhalia’s past under wraps.

  “But this is my investigation, Damon,” I said. “And I’ll have to do what I have to do.”

  Shu’s face was screwed up as she looked at the turtle crawling into the kitchen where she was basting a chicken “Do you know how much bacteria turtles carry around with them?”

  “Oh, he’s fine.” Vicky scooped Warren up and began to rock him back and forth like a newborn baby while Shu glared at them both.

  I glanced over at Shu. “No more bacteria than raw chicken,” I commented as Vicky and I left the kitchen and went into the living room, away from the food. Vicky had a tank set up for him in the nook between the living room and the dining room. She told me in a low voice that Shu wanted Warren out of the house and in the yard, at the very least. If not back to the pet shop. She and Shu had not been getting along thanks to the issue.

  Warren poked his head out and looked up at the two of us, almost as though he knew that we were talking about him.

  “Oh yeah, and he has been pooping in places that he isn’t supposed to,” Vicky said, groaning. She slumped down and closed her eyes. She looked exhausted. Apparently, she hadn’t been practicing guitar, nor witchcraft, because she had been spending all her time and energy trying to turn Warren into the perfect little familiar. She told me that this, along with the heat and humidity, meant she had only been getting a couple of hours’ sleep each night.

  “Just a suggestion,” I said, keeping my voice gentle. “But aren’t familiars supposed to make your life easier? Not harder?”

  She opened her eyes to give me a look. “And is Indy always such a perfect angel?”

  “No. I suppose not. But she always comes through when I need her.”

  “And Warren always comes through right when I need him!”

  She sounded defensive, and I knew what a sore point this was for her, so I didn’t say anything else. I figured I’d better be supportive of her choice to keep Warren, considering that she had always been supportive of me. Not to mention that no one else was on her and Warren’s side, and so it felt like the responsibility was left to me.

  “So, do you want to come and talk to the cops with me?” I asked her. But her eyes were already droopy, and she was asleep before I’d finished asking the question.

  I picked up my jacket and waved goodbye to Warren.

  Looked like I was on my own again.

  Swift Valley Police Station.

  I was working off a hunch. Okay, maybe it was a little more than a hunch. When I had picked up that strange device in Mikhalia’s department, I had gotten a little psychic vibe from it that at first, I had ignored. I usually didn’t like to let my witchy powers interfere with cases at all, but in this instance, I had to make an exception. Besides, it wasn’t like I was trying to use my powers. The thought, or the vibe, had sort of just come to me when I had heard that buzzing in my ear two days earlier.

  The word I had heard was stalker.

  Mikhalia had known she was in danger before she was killed at the lake. She must have. It would explain why her apartment had been locked up like it was a castle. And even two days later, the word “stalker” kept coming to me. There may have been someone following her. Or at least, she had been afraid there was. Maybe she was just paranoid due to her spy background. That would also explain the shutters and the security camera.

  The camera that had never actually been linked up.

  But my hunch was, if Mikhalia believed that she had a stalker in Swift Valley, she would have gone to the police to make a complaint about it. It was too much of a small town not to inform the authorities. The local cops would know the local creeps and predators and would have been able to help her feel safer.

  So, I was going to bluff my way into getting some information.

  Damon would probably be proud of me.

  Ahem. Not that it even mattered.

  I walked into the station and asked for the constable on duty.

  Constable Blue.

  His face drooped when he saw it was me. Looked like the humidity was getting to him as well—he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt as part of his uniform, and he looked red and flustered.

  We’d had a couple of run-ins previously, but this time he just walked over and shook his head. “Looking for a job here?” he asked me strangely. “Because my guess is that you’re struggling for work with those new boys in town.”

  I frowned. “You know about The Agency?”

  “Yeah, who doesn’t?” he said with a sigh. He leaned against the desk and raised an eyebrow. “Been making our lives difficult.”

  I nodded and wondered how I could use this information to my advantage. It had to be a good thing that he loathed The Agency as much as I did. “What can you tell me about the Mikhalia Bryce case?” I asked boldly.

  He almost did a double-take before scoffing. “Nothin’ that concerns you,” he said, looking tired of this conversation and like he was about to turn his back on me.

  “We are on the same side here,” I said. “We’re both not huge fans of The Agency. And we both want to see this killer caught.”

  He turned back and frowned at me. “Who are you working for, then? If you are investigating this case, who’s paying?”

  I opened my mouth and nothing came out for a second. I had to think quickly. “No one. Myself. I’m just interested in catching this killer.” When he didn’t seem to quite believe me, I added, “It’s like you said, there’s not a lot of work at the moment. We may as well work together. That way we can both show The Agency who is really in charge of solving crimes in this town. Right?”

  He stood still and pondered my suggestion.

  Blue was almost won over, I could tell, but he still hesitated. He lowered his voice. “We don’t go giving out information to just anyone, even if they are trying to help solve a case.”

  “But she filed a complaint.” I stared at him. “Didn’t she?”

  A hunch. But a correct one.

  He paused. But once he knew that I already knew something, his resistance lowered a little bit. “She was having some problems settling in here.”

  I nodded. “Well, that is understandable in a new town. I’m sure that she was worried about nothing,” I said, trying some reverse psychology.

  It worked.

  “Not at all,” he said gruffly. “She had perfectly good reason to be concerned. There was a guy out there who said that he would hurt her if she didn’t back off and leave our town for good.”

  “Back off on what?” I asked him.

  He shrugged. “Beats me. It wasn’t like she told me what she was investigating.” He looked slightly bitter. “If you ask me, she thought she was above us when she came in and made the complaint, like she was slumming it by having to interact with these lowly cops. What was so spec
ial about what she did? She was just a PI.” He shot me a look, which I ignored.

  So, she had received threats. Real threats. “How come these threats were never followed up on?” I asked Blue. “Mikhalia might still be alive if they had been.”

  I hadn’t meant to accuse him. I had truly thought that we might be able to work together. But he took it as an attack, and as his cue to leave and throw me out.

  “We are done here.”

  Damon was calling me. I picked up and asked him what he wanted. “It better be important, as I am in the middle of investigating your case.” Well, I was technically in the middle of getting coffee, but I was using my phone to look at news articles in the past five years about any stalkers in the Swift Valley area.

  “I was expecting you in here at nine a.m.,” he said. “It’s now after ten.”

  “I am working from my own office today,” I said and hung up.

  I coughed as the paint fumes hit my face when I opened the door. It was stuffy and dusty inside, and the place hadn’t been aired for several days, so the paint fumes were extra pungent. I checked my messages and emails, but there was nothing important. The Agency were still accepting cases, and so their monopoly on Swift Valley mysteries remained intact. This was the one case I had. I’d better make it worth my while.

  I stared around at the empty office and wondered what my future held as I placed my bag on my desk. When this case was over, was I going to be able to get another one on my own?

  Or was I going to have to go and work for The Agency?

  No. I would never do that.

  Blue had given me some idea who might have wanted to hurt Mikhalia, so at least I had something to work off.

  But who had Mikhalia’s stalker been? Whoever it was, they were the most likely suspect in her murder—but if it was someone from her spy days, then I was going to have trouble tracking them down. I mean, what if the person stalking her was some sort of international spy? I didn’t have the training for that.