by J L Collins
Shoot. Of course she would know—the Special Council is the one who asked me to fill the position in the first place. Was I even really being given a choice here?
“I would like to meet your nephew first, if that’s okay,” I said slowly.
“Wonderful. I will arrange for him to come by tomorrow morning so that he may meet you ladies and get started.”
And with that, she gave a slight nod of her head and whisked past me, the fire in the hearth sputtering out behind her.
I blinked. Did that really just happen?
I heard Goldie’s voice before she called out for me to come along, and I sighed, tucking the file under my arm and heading out.
I waited until Amortencia was out of sight and sighed. “Oh man. That was not at all what I expected.”
Goldie perched on a trashcan. “And what were you expecting?”
I shrugged. “I don’t even know. Not to gain a new rando as an employee of a place I haven’t even gotten a firm grasp on myself.”
We walked back around the front of the building to where Ash was leaning against the wall, obviously having given up on the idea of secrecy.
“That didn’t take very long,” he said, pulling away and extending his arm out. “Ready to head back?”
More than you even know.
I nodded. “Yes, please.”
7
The New Guy
Sure enough, not long after our lunch break, a visitor turned up inside the newsroom with a small backpack slung over one shoulder.
He fidgeted with the backpack’s strap and cleared his throat as I waved him over to my desk. I sized him up as I stood waiting.
Short-cropped brown frizzy hair and eyes that had me do a double-take. Whoa. I’d never seen eyes that dark before. Usually when you come across someone with dark eyes they were just dark brown and there was a tinge of difference between their iris and pupil. But not his. There was white and then black, no other color.
Outside of that though, he was pretty average looking for a fairy, with a hint of nerdiness to him. Dressed in a button-up and slacks, with a space cut out for his wings of course, he reminded me of a manager of a big box store.
“You must be Amortencia’s nephew! It’s nice to meet you,” I said, sticking my hand out. “I’m Indie Warren, editor here. Your aunt told me so much about you.” Not really, but the situation was odd enough without me making awkward small talk for long. “Welcome to the Charming Springs Gazette.”
He gave my hand a quick shake. “Thanks. Quicksilver Riverdale. Nice to meet you, too. And er, sorry about my aunt. She can be pretty demanding. I doubt she gave you much choice to hire me.”
The air in the room seemed to go stale. “Oh. Well, nevertheless, we’re happy to have you here. I certainly won’t say no to a hard worker.” And here was to hoping I wouldn’t eat my words.
“Thanks. I’ll try not to get in your way or anything. Did you have anything you wanted me to get started on?” he asked softly. This kid who, okay, wasn’t really a kid was the shy type it seemed. Maybe he wouldn’t be problem after all. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting but a shy guy wearing Dockers with a belt wasn’t it.
“Oh, hi new guy! You must be Quicksilver,” Drusilla sneaked up on us in that silent vampire way, beaming her toothy smile at him.
His cheeks went red.
She pushed her long dark hair behind her ear and very obviously batted her eyes at him. “My name’s Drusilla. I don’t think we’ve met before. I can show you around if you’d like—I’ve been working here for a long time. No offense, Indie,” she quickly added, her eyes wide.
I waved them on. “By all means. But first, do you think you could call Henny in here for me? I’d like to get us all together for a quick announcement.”
She was back with Henny shortly, though Henny wasn’t pleased with the interruption judging by the sour look on her round face.
“Henny, this is our newest employee, Quicksilver Riverdale. Quicksilver, this is Henny our… Henny. Great!” I said, clapping my hands together. “With the introductions out of the way, we can get to the announcement.”
“Lay it on us, girl!” Drusilla said, the only one who showed an ounce of excitement. Quicksilver shuffled from one foot to the next and Henny was still frowning… though I wasn’t sure whether that was just how she looked or not. She was hardly around enough for me to figure it out.
“With our staff now rounded out, we can focus on not only working on in-house reporting but also going out in the field. With our new camera guy here,” I said, nodding toward a blushing Quicksilver, “we have more capability to really get out there and do some real reporting, which is pretty exciting if you ask me. I’ll be working on a larger story myself, but I’d love if you pitch some others to cover! We obviously have the usual weeklies to include, but now’s the time to speak up.”
This was met with even less enthusiasm if that was possible.
To everyone’s surprise, it was Quicksilver who spoke up first. “There’s a new magic hot spring that’s boiled up to the surface. I was interested in taking a look at it for my own research, but I could maybe take pictures for the paper, if you want.”
That had potential at least. “Sure! If you want, you can go ahead and get acquainted with the camera equipment and take the afternoon to go check it out. Your aunt said you’re pretty technically-inclined so it shouldn’t take too long.”
Drusilla’s eye flickered to him, sizing him up a bit longer than normal. “Love that idea.”
Quicksilver nodded with a small and fleeting smile. “Cool. I’ll just go do that, then. I mean, unless we’re not done here…?”
“I—you know what? Yes, I think that’s really all I wanted to say. Everyone’s free to get back to work.”
Why do I feel like I’m flailing around every time I have to put on my boss pants? Maybe because this is leagues different from managing college kids…
Everyone dispersed, Henny returning to her hidey hole while Quicksilver was scoping out his new desk across the room. Drusilla was already back to the furious click-clacking across her keyboard.
A flurry of white slipped into the room, careening through the air and landing on the edge of my desk.
“What’s up?” I asked Goldie. She was wired and looked pretty scandalized which was saying something for her.
She leaned in. “Got what we were looking for. Or at least I have it in here,” she said, pointing to her head. “Steel trap.”
“Uh-huh. So what did you find out?”
“Nothing was in his system but alcohol as far as the toxicology report goes, so that’s one less thing to worry about. I don’t know what a blood-alcohol content is or how much his was.”
I tapped the pen against my chin. “Interesting. Well, I guess he wasn’t drugged or anything like that. But if he was drunk then it wouldn’t be all that necessary to drug him anyway. That’s a big if, of course, since we don’t know if this was an accident or not yet…”
The lightning-speed click-clacking stopped.
“There was a toxicology report done on Helio Rumpleroot?” Drusilla asked, who went from looking up from her laptop to standing right over me in a split-second.
Crap.
Goldie cleared her throat before I had the chance to answer. “You know how word spreads around here.” She waved her wing around and Drusilla nodded.
“Definitely. Bats alive, why am I always the last to know things?” she huffed.
“Don’t feel bad. We’re all just trying to piece this together however we can,” I said.
“I know what the Chief of Police said about it, but maybe once we know more, this big of a case might really drive up our newspaper sales!” With that, that she turned away and bounced back to her desk.
I winced. I wasn’t sure how to explain the situation to her without completely giving away the truth.
Goldie watched her with interest and waited until she was sitting back down, “You’re not going to tell the rest of
them, are you? About our means of resources?”
“Are you crazy?” I whispered as softly as I could, hoping this time no one would hear me. You never knew with supernatural beings. “We have to be careful. Especially with what Amortencia said.”
She nodded. “Got it. And the story? You’re covering just the sleeping sickness, right?”
I sighed. It wasn’t ideal, and in a free world I could report on both, but I didn’t need to bring Chief Dummy down on Fatima with the way things were for her right now.
“That’s how we’ll have to do it, unfortunately. Not to mention that the less I have to deal with the chief the better.”
Drusilla tucked her notebook under her arm as she whipped back around for the second time, still bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“You know, he’s not my usual type but there’s something about him. Might be the shyness, I don’t know. I love a good chase,” she nodded toward Quicksilver in the corner with the camera equipment.
I dropped my head into my hand, looking up at her. “Drusilla. I don’t think that’s a smart idea. Workplace relationships aren’t ideal. Especially when they’d be half of the workforce, you know what I mean?”
She gave me what amounted to a pouty face with fangs involved. “That’s no fun.”
Who was I to tell her who to get involved with? Maybe I was just being silly over the whole thing, still reeling from having to ‘hire’ Quicksilver in the first place.
“All right, all right. I’ll turn a blind eye. But don’t let Henny know. I’m single and I plan on staying that way,” I said with a wink.
8
Holmes And Watson
I was pretty sure kickboxing would be the death of me, but I still kinda liked it anyway. It probably helped that my trainer was amusingly nuts and tended to screech in her high-pitched voice whenever I really picked up the pace. While it was like having a parrot on my shoulder, it was oddly motivating to hurry up and finish the session.
One thing I didn’t like? Having to leave the gym with wet hair after a quick shower there. I still hadn’t gotten my water power down enough to evaporate the water from my hair without potentially scalding myself.
Another day, another potentially dangerous magical power to control.
Goldie was waiting for me at the camper, perched above one of the windows. The red mess around her beak left me wondering if I was really all that hungry for a snack after all.
“Gross, Goldie. Maybe wipe your face in some snow or something after your next meal.”
She let out an indignant squawk. “Sorry to offend! I just got back from hunting a late breakfast. All that planning last night in the middle of my usual hunting time left me exhausted and I got a late start.” Swooping down from her spot, she dove into the snowbank along the sidewalk until she had cleaned her feathered face off.
I let her inside and kicked off my boots. “I’m surprised you’re back for more, honestly.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes you do. I believe your last words were ‘if I hear the word suspect one more time I’ll lose my f—”
“Fine. But the mystery won’t solve itself, will it? Anyway, I caught sight of Maverick over this way a little while ago.” She stuck out her chest, looking over toward my makeshift bedroom with her head held high.
“Was this before or after the late breakfast?”
Her eyes went wide. “Um.”
“Okay, well I’m sorry for your embarrassment there but maybe as a fellow raptor, he won’t judge you too harshly on wearing your food?” I said hopefully. Her crush on Maverick was a long-time running apparently, and I didn’t want her to feel like an idiot. Who knows how many times I’ve done something ridiculous like that in front of some guy I like?
She chittered at me as I brushed past her to take a seat. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Seriously.”
“Who said I was?
Yeah, okay. “So this mystery that won’t solve itself… or should I say mysteries?”
“Honestly it’s hard to keep up with,” she said dramatically.
I hesitated. “There’s this little voice in my head whispering that they might be connected…but no one else is saying anything about it. I must be missing something. I guess this is one of those ‘Indie getting too ahead of herself’ moments. It’s like my brain is determined to make everything a conspiracy.” My head hurt just from the constant circle I found myself going round and round in.
Grabbing the notebook I had stashed in my bookshelf, I flipped it open and reread some of the notes we came up with last night.
I hardly recalled scrawling half of them down, I was so tired. Did I really write down ‘The pizza delivery guy. Suspect?’
I’m not even sure there is a pizza delivery guy, to be honest. How late did we stay up, anyway?
“Tell me I need to stop over-analyzing. Tell me my instincts are way off,” I said, the words tumbling out faster than my self-doubt could bubble over.
Goldie covered her beak with her wing, scandalized. “A diversion. Hm. Sounds intriguing. Personally I think you should always trust your gut, even when it tends to lead you into trouble. But then again, I might just really be into the idea of a secret conspiracy to keep everyone from putting two and two together.”
I dropped my head in my hand. “Very helpful.”
I didn’t have much of a chance to second-guess myself. Someone knocked on the door, pulling me from my thoughts.
I pushed the curtain out of the way to see the top of Fatima’s head. I yanked open the door, smiling at first as she came in.
“Hey! What are you doing out this way? I didn’t accidentally forget a lunch date, did I?” I asked, wincing. I would be that person to spend the morning hyper-focused but then come home and let everything fall to the wayside.
Goldie and Fatima both fixed me with surprised stares.
“She had the interview with Chief Putnam, remember?” Goldie said, looking between us.
Oh, no. How could I have possibly forgotten about that? Somebody hand me the trophy for the world’s lamest friend, already.
I hung my head, my face surely red as a beet. “Shoot. I’m so sorry, girl. My brain’s been all over the place today and totally forgot about your interview with Chief Dummy. How did it go? He didn’t try to pull anything, did he? I swear I will go right down to the police station myself and—”
“It’s okay,” Fatima said, cutting me off from my tirade. “He hasn’t really changed his mind about me, but I just told him the truth like I did before. This time Andrew was in the interrogation room with us, so his dad wasn’t quite as heinous. Or at least he wasn’t willing to bring up the real issue he has with me.” She settled back against the bench seat, folding her arms.
Oh, there was definitely something more to that.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “What kind of delusions is he having now?”
She drew in a long breath, her mouth twisting. “Well, when I first came here to Charming Springs I immediately set up shop and spread the word about my products. It became pretty clear to me that outsiders were seen differently, and I wanted to fit in the best I could, especially since I already stick out enough as it is.” With a sigh, she tugged at her hijab. “Luckily it didn’t take very long for people to show up on my doorstep, at the very least curious about me. Chief Putnam was one of the first people who came to see me. He was looking for some kind of hair-growth potion because he was balding. I said sure, no problem, and whipped up a salve to use. There were very specific instructions to follow.”
Goldie made a noise. “And did he?”
Fatima shook her head. “No, he did not. He ended up with a bunch of hair growing everywhere but his head. Now he’s quite hirsute if you haven’t already noticed, and he seems to believe this is my fault. I think he sees this adhesive as another potential mishap on my account.”
A plume of heat spread through my chest to my cheeks. “Ugh, seriously? What will i
t take for that man to hold himself accountable for once? I’ve said it before but even if it turns out that somehow this has something to do with your adhesive, it is not your responsibility. It’s not like you’ve written on the label, ‘Possible uses: stitching, paper crafts, and sheer idiocy.’”
“Seriously,” Goldie muttered.
But all Fatima could do was shrug. “Without much in the way of what he’s calling an alibi, I don’t have two feet to stand on, so he can say whatever he likes until we have a better idea of what really happened to Helio.”
She had a point. The gears went whirring in my head and Goldie met my gaze. We both nodded and started talking at once.
“We need to see if he’s spoken with anyone else—”
“We’ll go behind him and follow-up—”
Fatima groaned. “You two. Please don’t feel like you need to save me here. I have faith that justice should prevail. They can’t actually pin this on me without the proper evidence or cause.”
“I’m sorry girl, but you’re putting that faith in the wrong cop. He’s petty as heck, and you don’t need to be caught in the crosshairs. So yes, we’re going to do what we need to do, right?” I said, looking to Goldie. She nodded.
“We’ll need to figure out a way to get our hands on that list of witnesses, not to mention their statements. I want to see if there are any inconsistencies between then and when we talk to them,” I said.
“You don’t think Chief Putnam would find out you’re sneaking around?” Fatima asked with a frown.
“Look, it’s a free country. We can talk to people and he can’t do a thing about it.”
“We just need to be pointed in the right direction, so we know who to talk to,” Goldie added, highlighting my next point.
“Exactly. See, I knew we’d be on the same page here! I think the best place to start really looking into is the college. Specifically the Lunar Kappa Delta fraternity. Do either of you know any of the students that go there? Maybe they’ll know someone in the fraternity.”