by J L Collins
“Okay,” I said awkwardly. “And I’ve got a girl’s night to get to.” As if he even cared. He wasn’t flirting, he was just trying to get me to move out of the way.
He nodded with a smile. “See you around.”
Prince rang me up and tried to make the usual small talk, but I was so anxious to hop back into my truck that I could hardly respond.
Nope. Now is not the time to get all wound up over some random guy. And really, there was no need to mention any of this to the girls.
I stared down into my empty tub of cinnamon and nutmeg snow cream and frowned. “That didn’t last nearly long enough.”
Fatima finished up her second glass of wine and chuckled. “Tell me about it. He really ought to make larger containers of them.”
Goldie snorted. “You two and your sugar highs. I’ll never understand it.”
Fatima and I shared a giggle as I grabbed my own glass of wine. “And I’ll never understand lemmings, but here we are.”
She spread out her large white wings and fluttered them at us.
Two cheesy eighties movies later, I was satisfied with both my sugar and alcohol intake. I laid my head back, utterly relaxed for the first time in weeks. “I really needed this.”
“Aw, we like you too,” Fatima said with a nudge. “Aren’t you glad that I suggested it? It’s as though I’m a wise woods hag.”
“You’re the best woods hag, honestly,” I laughed. I had to give it to Fatima—her ‘wise’ suggestions always seemed to work.
“Is it just me, or is it chillier in here than normal? What happened to the fire?” Goldie asked, preening her feathers.
The flames in the fireplace had died out, until the logs were barely alight.
Fatima, who was closest to the fireplace, folded her arms across her chest with a sly grin. “Indie, why don’t you try it out?”
To be honest, I knew my face was flushed thanks to the wine, but I wasn’t going to back down from a magic challenge.
I closed my eyes and felt around inside me for the right thread of energy, then let the tingle roll out from my fingertips in the direction of the fire. The flames rose higher so easily that I thought Fatima was messing with me. But she was still sitting back, her arms tucked under one another.
“Whoa, cool,” I said under my breath. The flames were strong and tall but not tall enough to be a potential danger to everything else. Which was a nice change.
“And there you go. Did you notice something?” She finally said as I let the magic go.
“Notice what?”
“You reached right in and found the magic. There wasn’t as much focus because you're relaxed. But you knew you could do it, so you did.”
I raised a brow at her. “Are you saying doing magic is easier when you’re drinking?”
She winked at me. “I wouldn’t spread the word around, but yeah. At least it is for someone like you, just learning how to use it. It’s all about easing in and knowing you can do it. Believing is always the first step.”
Again with the sage advice. Fatima never failed to deliver.
I had to admit that letting everything else fall by the wayside instead of spending yet another night in a row worrying over notes and missing clues, felt amazing.
There was always a little whisper in the back of my head, reminding me that I was still determined to get out of Charming Springs no matter what. Any time I thought about Nan, I could barely take how much I missed her. It was miserable thinking about my life back home.
But having my new friends to hold me over until I hopefully made it out of here, made all the difference.
12
Clouded Judgment
It took some doing, but I got in the groove of balancing things at the Gazette and working on our side projects, as Goldie aptly dubbed them.
“They’re going to get suspicious if I keep showing up at the college as neither a student nor a teacher,” I said, fixing my hair in the mirror. It was getting longer, and I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to do something about it. If I did let it grow out, I was going to have to use more blue hair dye and my supply was running out…
“Then it’s better that we knock out talking to the three of them all at once. It’ll look less odd,” Goldie said, meeting my eyes through my reflection in the mirror.
“Good point. So I guess I’ll go for the student look. I can get away with early twenties, right? If you don’t look too hard?” I asked. I squinted at myself. Maybe if I didn’t move my facial muscles and show off the few fine lines creeping in around my eyes.
“Sure. We’ll go with that.”
I pulled on my most inconspicuous outfit and coat and the both of us got inside Big Ben. Goldie was not a fan of riding in the cab with me, but the warmth was enough to entice her.
Thanks to Goldie’s sleuthing, we knew where to find Breeze Petalshine, Cosmo Greyclover, and Lionel Gard—students who attended Helio’s party and came in contact with him that night. While Breeze and Lionel lived in the dorms, Cosmo was part of Lunar Kappa Delta and lived in the frat house with Helio. We had no idea what they’d told the police, so it was going to be a little more difficult to get what we needed from them.
“I’ll talk to Lionel, you talk to Breeze, and we’ll meet back in front of the frat house before heading in to talk to Cosmo together,” I told Goldie.
“Why does this feel like we’re playing good cop, bad cop?”
I shrugged. “It works on TV.”
Tracking down Lionel proved to be a little trickier than Goldie had made it sound. His dorm room was empty, though I was able to talk to the guys in the next room over. Apparently, Lionel and his roommate were eating lunch in the main cafeteria. When I got there and started asking around, I found his roommate but not Lionel.
“He just went back to catch up on homework,” he said, not at all interested in why someone was looking for his friend.
“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes as I booked it back toward their dorm room. What I hadn’t intended on was a wild goose chase.
Luckily talking to Lionel was illuminating; that is, once he got over me offending him.
“Oh, you’re a wolf shifter? That’s pretty ironic,” I’d chuckled.
He hadn’t been very amused by it.
But he opened up anyway, though not for the reason I’d thought.
“He seemed normal to me. But then again… he and Cosmo got into it just before I left the party with my brother.”
“Got into it? Like a fight?”
He’d nodded. “Yeah. Well, they came close to throwing down but it got broken up. I didn’t see the whole thing, but with Cosmo it could’ve been anything,” Lionel said. “He’s a total hothead. I’ve seen him pick fights with the cafeteria staff for not having his favorite protein shake on tap.”
There was clearly no love lost there.
“Oh, and uh, when we left, I saw him sneaking off campus.” He leaned in, his eyes narrowing. “In the direction of the clock-tower.”
“Uh-huh. Okay, thanks for the tip.” And with that, I was out of there, satisfied enough with his answers to put together another piece of the scene. It didn’t help much when it came to the sick fairies, but it definitely added to Helio’s story.
Goldie got the same impression from Breeze Petalshine. “Cosmo dumped her out of nowhere, she said. So her take on the night was pretty similar. She was invited to the party and saw Helio at the door. Not much going on there past that. But when she got to the almost-fight between Helio and Cosmo, it was like watching a rabid animal start frothing at the mouth. She did tell me that the main issue between them was that Cosmo had not-so-secretly started dating Helio’s little sister. And she had some choice words about that.”
I nodded. “They both have it out for Cosmo, in other words. Fantastic. I really hope that didn’t cloud their judgment.” The sarcasm was real.
Which left the obvious. We needed to talk to Cosmo.
The fraternity was crowded with its members going in a
nd out, and no one seemed to even care that a woman and a bird just appeared in the foyer.
“This is not my idea of a fun Saturday,” Goldie muttered under her breath. “Where do you think we should look first?”
“Yo!” The deep roar echoed through the room, and half of the guys whipped around to face the huge guy coming from around the corner. His wings were dwarfed by the sheer size of his muscles, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he was currently going through a ‘roid rage.
“Which one of you little plebes had the cajones to drink my beer? Do you know how hard it is to score beer around here?”
Goldie and I exchanged glances and watched as guys scattered like rats in a sewer. When I heard a few of them whisper Cosmo, I knew we found our guy.
Which was just awesome, considering the huge vein pulsing at his temple.
“This is going to be fun,” I whispered to Goldie, shaking my head. “He seems like a real charmer.”
No one wanted to claim the vanished beer, and that only left Cosmo in a worse mood. As he slipped back into the other room pots and pans could be heard banging around in what must have been the kitchen.
“Come on,” Goldie said, nudging me. “Let’s get this over with.”
Sure enough, we turned the corner and stepped into a huge kitchen that smelled like something had been badly burned and then covered in Axe body spray.
Just your average frat house, I guess. But Cosmo was the only one present, busy leaning over and sifting through the refrigerator.
I cleared my throat.
He looked over his shoulder at me, his demeanor relaxing some as he stood back up. “Who are you?”
Such a gentleman, truly. I bit back my first response and pasted a smile on my face. “I’m Indie, and this is my friend Goldie.”
“Uh huh.”
Goldie went to perch on the counter, taking point. “Listen Cosmo, we have an issue.”
He scoffed. “What does that have to do with me?”
Shrugging, she took a few more steps toward him. “I heard you might have the same issue.”
This seemed to catch his interest, though I didn’t know where she was going with it. A rogue agent… I could respect that.
“And what’s that?”
“Everyone’s out there moping over Helio Rumpleroot while my friend is lying in the hospital unable to wake up. This guy who thought he was top dog tried to swindle me out of my money. I was putting down some serious cash on the races, but then he went and died and now I can’t get that money back.” She shrugged again. “Maybe you can relate?”
I had no doubt that he was sizing her up but even I might have fallen for her performance if I didn’t already know better. She topped it off with a huff.
“Never mind. You’re probably just like the rest of them, fawning all over him.”
“Wait,” Cosmo said, shoving the refrigerator door closed. “You got problems with him, too?”
“That’s right. The little snake acting like an idiot, getting himself killed and we know there’s no way the fairies are winning now. I had my money on you guys. We all know no one’s faster.”
Well, that was debatable, coming from what I’ve observed. There were plenty of fast beings in Charming Springs.
“People keep talking about him getting himself knocked off, but I know better,” Cosmo said with a sneer. “He’s too stupid for anyone to bother killing him. More likely, he was on that clock-tower showing off for some girl and fell off.”
I walked over to Goldie and leaned against the counter, an idea springing up. “Do you think he was the one who made those other fairies sick? It’s a little suspect if you ask me.”
“I don’t know. I mean… he’s a doofus. Even his own sister thinks so,” he said, cutting himself off. “I don’t know.”
“We were on the other side of the house for the party that night when we heard there was a fight breaking out. Wasn’t that you and Helio?” Goldie asked, pointing between the two of us.
He barked out a laugh that raised the feathers on the back of her neck. “Hardly. He was too much of a wuss as always. He 'accidentally' spilled his drink on me,” he said with air quotations, “in front of everyone. He thought he was so funny, but he didn’t laugh when I cracked his favorite pool cue in half. He wanted to step to me, but bro is like a head shorter. Whatever.”
“Of course he dissed you,” I said, egging him on. “Why am I not even surprised?”
“Right? Stupid mother… anyway. He’s just mad because I got with his sister. Moira’s always going on about how much crap he talks about me. He thinks I don’t know, but she tells me about all of it,” he said with a wicked smile. “I went to Moira’s room right after he tried to pull that crap with me and, well…”
Gross. Nothing like a guy bragging about his conquest with another guy’s sister. I did my best to step around that pile. “We had to go in and talk to the Chief of Police after everything happened. Did he make you come in too? I bet he did.”
“Oh yeah, that guy came through here too. I told him what happened, maybe skipped the part of sleepin' with Moira, but I told him how I passed out that night there in her room. She was worried because I didn’t wake up until the next night and her parents were coming back home,” he said, flexing his huge muscles under his shirt. “He thought he had something on me because some nerds told him I went to the clock tower that night. But I was just going that way because Moira lives a block away from it.”
Well, it corroborated with what the other two had told us. The fight breaking out. Cosmo slipping out and heading in the direction of the clock tower. I believed him about that because I couldn’t see him bragging about something like that if it didn’t happen. He was truly proud of himself, like the gross boy he was.
Goldie folded her wings out in front of her. “You said you were really tired that night. You didn’t catch that sickness, did you?” she asked, sounding suspicious of him.
Cosmo scratched his head. “Nah. And if I did have it, it couldn’t put this guy down.” He flexed his biceps and wiggled his eyebrows so hard that I thought for sure he was joking.
He was not.
“Cosmo!” Someone shouted from the other room before popping their head around the corner. “You coming or what, man?”
Cosmo swore under his breath and yanked the fridge door open again. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.” He grabbed a six-pack of possibly someone else’s beer.
He paused to look at Goldie and gave her a quick nod. “Sorry Helio basically stiffed you. Good luck trying to get your money back or whatever.”
I waited until he was nearly out of earshot and groaned. “I would like to get out of here and never come back, thanks. I’ve had enough frat bros to last me a lifetime. But you!” I added, nudging and winking at Goldie. “One could say you did a good job winging it.”
She blinked. “No. Just no.”
“No?”
“Most definitely not.”
“You sure?”
Goldie flew out of the room to leave me there with the pots and pans swinging back and forth hanging from the pot rack.
“Rude.”
13
The Truth About Ash
Stepping into the library and kicking off my boots still felt pretty normal, considering I hadn’t stayed here in two months. “Ash? You here? I need to do some research…”
If you build it, they will come. Or in Ash’s case, if you mention the ‘r’ word, he will appear out of thin air.
“Research on what?”
His dark hair was sticking up in the back and him running his hand through it did absolutely nothing to help. He’d clearly just gotten out of bed, hence the disheveled appearance. And the pajamas, which funnily enough, I’d never seen him wear before.
“On the End of Summer Triathlon. I think that’s what it’s called, anyway. Do you have something on it?”
“The triathlon? Are you developing a sudden interest in athletics?”
“Oh yeah, didn’t I tell you? I started kickboxing and now I’m ready to take on the world of competitive sports.” I rolled my eyes. “These races might play a big part in the cases.”
Of course we had to keep Ash in the loop. He pretty much knew everything anyway, and he never failed to make that known.
There was a noticeable twitch of his mouth. He loved getting under my skin. “Ah. It’s funny you should say that. Follow me. I have something to show you.” He was already walking away before I had the chance to move.
“Okay then…”
I joined him in the library kitchen and took a seat at the small table pushed to the side. I had eaten many a meal at the table, griping over being stuck in Charming Springs and finding out that not only was I a witch, but a freak of a witch with more than one elemental power. For all his brooding, Ash was a very good listener.
He was facing the sink, banging something metal around inside of it when I realized I had never seen him look so relaxed.
His gray sweatpants slung right at his hips, and I couldn’t decide whether I was amused at how different he looked out of his usual sweater get-up, or whether I was maybe staring a little too hard.
I pretended like I hadn’t been eyeing his choice in clothing when he turned back around with what looked like a medical instrument tray. I had to do a double-take and cringed. “Rough day? Please tell me you aren’t planning to torture someone with that stuff.”
He rolled his eyes. “You should be thanking me, really. I took it upon myself to do a little digging on your behalf.” He pulled out a plastic bag containing a semi-crushed plastic red cup and held it up with a triumphant look on his face.
“Digging in someone’s trash can?”
He ignored my comment and brought the tray over. It wasn’t quite as bad as all that, and the instruments on the tray weren’t as torture-y looking as he set it down in front of me. In fact, it looked more like a science experiment than anything.