by R K Dreaming
When he saw it was Percy his face went purple. “You! What are you doing here? How dare you come in here!”
His piggy little eyes went from Percy to Nan to Nan’s wand and they widened further. He suddenly seemed to realize that his own wand had flown out of his hand.
He gave a little squeak and looked across the room to where it had landed on the floor, a bit too far for him to reach without a risk that Nan might use hers.
“Tut, tut,” said Percy. “I’ve caught you in the act, Fabulous Floriano. Or should I can you Freddie Greezy?”
His eyes boggled. “How do you know that?” he asked squeakily.
Percy tapped her nose. “Our organization knows everything. Did you really think we weren’t watching you?”
“Watching?” His bottom lip started trembling. “It wasn’t me that started it! That wizard trader from Magicwild Market told me he could sell me the goods cheap! I would never have done it otherwise. It was entrapment!”
His eyes darted to a small crate at the edge of the room and quickly away.
“I’m not interested in your ingredient smuggling business,” said Percy.
She walked over to the crate. It was full of what looked like shriveled blackened mushrooms. She wrinkled her nose as she stared down at it. A thick and heavy cloud of doom was all around the stuff. This had to be what had caused the cloud of doom she’d seen in Mrs Delancey’s potion.
She whirled around to face him. “Except this one. This crate here. You’ve been making potions with this killer ingredient. And you’ve been selling them to schoolkids!” Her lip curled in disgust.
“It’s not killer!” Floriano protested. “It’s only toxic. It won’t kill them unless they drink gallons of the stuff. And I never sold them enough for that, I swear it.”
He was certainly a slick liar. He had an answer for everything.
“Real good citizenship there, selling hapless Humbles these toxic temptations,” Percy snarled.
“Two of the people who bought those potions have died. Supposedly committing suicide,” said Nan angrily.
Floriano was struggling to keep his eyes on Percy and on Nan’s wand at the same time.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said. “That stuff won’t make anyone kill themselves. Might make em feel a bit sick, but the potion I gave them was real enough. I only used that stuff to make the potions go off after a few days. And it made them undetectable at the school. Added bonus. It’s a business trick, you see?”
“I see,” said Percy coldly. “The potion goes off, and then they have to come back and buy some more.”
“And they always do,” he said, unable to stop a smirk, “because they know that the potion did work in the first place. And then I tell them it must be something that they did to make the first batch go off. Improper storage and that!”
Percy continued to stroll around the workshop, which had trestle tables all around the edges. The tops were piled high with various baskets and jars and bottles of ingredients.
She picked things up and inspected them as if she knew exactly what they were. Floriano flinched when she picked up a particularly delicate glass bottle. The stuff was thick and dark and oily.
“Careful!” he said, wincing as she handled it. “That costs ten golds a pop, that does!”
Percy smiled and held up the little bottle in the air, dangling it by its long and very thin neck.
“Fragile,” she observed. “Might break if I hold it like this. Might break if I put it down. Will definitely break if I drop it.”
He gasped when her hand moved suddenly as if the bottle had slipped, and he reached out as if to try and catch it even though he was too far away.
“Stop it,” he said. “I won’t be able to get much more of that anytime soon.”
Percy placed the bottle down carefully. She had seen something else that had caught her attention. She crouched to take a look beneath the bench, where two large crates had been partially blocking the view to an old cauldron.
The massive thing was lopsided and misshapen, like it had melted during a potion brewing gone bad. Inside it something grey was squirming.
It was dark under the bench, and Percy had to pull a crate away until she could see that the grey thing was a ball of little kittens. Four of them, huddled together for warmth, each as grey as Lucky kitten, with a few black markings here and there.
Percy was outraged. The little things were covered in a nasty cloud of doom.
“Have these kittens been eating that toxic crap?” Percy demanded in fury.
“Course not,” protested Floriano.
“You sure about that?”
“If they have then they’re too thick to live, aren’t they?” he said callously. “I’ve been wondering why they’re getting so sickly. Supposed to be special kittens, they are. He told me witches would pay a pretty bob for em once they were grown and came into their powers. But the stupid things have been dying! I practically had to force that idiot teacher woman to take just one of em off my hands. Paid me just a measly fiver, she did. They’ll be dead before I can sell em at this rate!”
“You fool,” said Percy. “Why would you leave helpless kittens in a room full of toxic stuff? Have you even been feeding them?”
Floriano did not answer. He had shuffled his way closer to his worktop, and Percy realized a moment before he did it what he was about to do.
“Nan!” she screamed in warning.
Floriano grabbed the handle of his cauldron and flung the boiling potion at Nan.
The only way Nan could avoid it was by rushing out the door and yanking it shut. The boiling potion hit the door instead, where it spattered and dripped down.
And now Nan was trapped outside. The lock must have automatically closed, because she was rattling the handle, trying to get back in.
“Let me in!” she screamed.
Floriano was cursing. He ran at Percy and shoved her to the ground. He landed on top, and started throttling her.
“Not so brave now are you, stupid girl!”
Percy could not breathe. His strength was brutish. He was going to break her neck.
The door blasted open with such force that splinters flew everywhere. Some shot into Floriano’s back, making him yelp.
Nan yelled something. Another blast came from her wand, sending Floriano flying off Percy.
Choking and gasping for air, Percy got to her knees and crawled away from him.
Nan ran to Percy and dragged her to her feet. A bellowing Floriano got to his. Screaming, he started throwing things at them.
A glass bottle flew past Percy’s head and shattered against the wall, sending its yellow liquid contents spattering everywhere. A jar exploded, unleashing a shower of dried beetles. And another, this one full of white powder that filled the air and choked them.
“I’d stop that if I were you,” shouted a voice in the doorway.
A flash of a silver flew through the air. The net landed over Floriano’s head, trapping him in its depths.
17. The Wrong Man
Felix came into the workshop, followed by Octavia. They worked to rapidly secure Floriano, dragging the net off him while he shouted and squirmed and thrashed. They forced him to the ground and pinned him there with their knees while Felix attached restraints to his wrists.
“It wasn’t me,” Floriano was bellowing. “I didn’t do nothing!”
“We just witnessed you trying to throttle someone,” said Felix, sounding a little angry for once.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Octavia, glaring at Percy. “Didn’t we tell you to stay away?”
“It’s a free country,” said Percy. “This is a shop. We can buy a fake potion if we want to. It’s not breaking any laws. You said so yourself.”
Octavia’s mouth twitched as if she wanted to say something horrid but couldn’t think of it. She clearly could not contradict Percy, who had spoken the truth.
Instead she said, “Ha! Well, it’s us that found out who this f
raud of a wizard really is. Is us who will break the case. You had nothing to do with it!”
“Well done,” said Percy with a small smile, and mimed tipping a hat towards Felix. He grinned, but then stopped smiling the instant that Octavia glared at him.
“You can’t be here,” Floriano bellowed. “You can’t invade my private property like this. You need a warrant!”
“We have one,” said Councilor Strickt, coming into the room.
He held a scroll in his hand, and allowed it to drop open, revealing a bunch of flowing handwriting and some official-looking seals.
Councilor Strickt was followed in by a woman and man dressed in robes and wielding wands.
“I haven’t done nuffink illegal!” Floriano shouted, but then his eyes landed on the witch and wizard and he went very pale indeed.
“Ah,” said Councilor Strickt with a smile. “You’ve noticed my associates from the Conclave of Magic.”
Floriano let out a pathetic moan that sounded like a hound in pain. As Felix and Octavia hauled him to his feet, the big man started blubbering, tears running down his ruddy face.
“It’s not fair,” he started saying over and over.
The witch and wizard had begun to inspect the various ingredients lying all over the place. The witch gasped when she picked up the slender necked bottle that Percy had been handling earlier, and said, “This is a class three restricted item!”
“What are those?” said Percy pointing at the shriveled blackened mushroom things with their cloud of doom.
The witch hurried over to inspect them, and her brow furrowed. She poked them suspiciously with her wand.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Never seen them before. Something's not right with them. Odd magic. Might be a new hybrid or illegally imported. We’ll have to examine them.”
She waved over the wizard, who carried the crate of shriveled mushroom things away.
“You can’t steal my things,” moaned Floriano. “They’re mine. I paid for em.”
“They’re evidence,” said the witch. “And from what I hear, you won’t be needing them for a very long time.”
“But I didn’t murder no one,” sobbed Floriano.
“A likely tale,” snapped Councilor Strickt. “Three of your previous business partners have died, seemingly in accidents. But now that we know you’re in the habit of killing people off, we’ll be taking a closer look at those accidents. And I don’t know how you managed to murder Mrs Jane Delancey or Mr Frank Eaton-Philips yet, but we will soon find out!”
“And he framed Percy for what happened with Delphine,” added Nan quickly. “You’ll look into that too.”
Councilor Strickt nodded grudgingly.
Percy raised her eyebrows. “What? No apology?”
“That remains to be seen,” he said tersely.
“Don’t you worry, young ladies,” said the witch, who was looking with great disgust at Floriano. “We’ll find out how he did it.”
“He looks like the type to crack with hardly any questioning,” she added, directing this bit at Councilor Strickt.
“But it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me,” moaned Floriano.
Nan picked up Floriano’s wand from the floor and handed it to the witch. “You’ll want this.”
The wizard had come back into the workshop to take away more prohibited items and evidence. Percy picked the sickly kittens out of the cauldron and put them in an empty box. She handed them to him.
“They’ve been eating that horrid black mushroom stuff,” she told him. “Floriano admitted it’s toxic. Do you think you can help them?”
“Most definitely,” said the witch, “once we find out what exactly that stuff is. Shouldn’t take a day or two.”
Percy heaved a sigh of relief. “But I want them back,” she quickly said. “The kittens, I mean. I’ll make sure they go to good homes once they’re well.”
She reluctantly took Lucky kitten out of her pocket. Lucky kitten mewled almost anxiously, but then caught sight of her siblings. She started scrabbling furiously in Percy’s hands, looking desperate to jump into the box.
Percy did not let her go. The others were unwell, and Percy didn’t want Lucky kitten getting sick again.
“This one is my kitten,” she said to the witch. “She was sick too, but I’ve managed to get her better. But do you mind checking her over too? Once you find out what the stuff is?”
“No problem,” said the witch, reaching for the kitten in a manner that made it clear she was about to drop her into the box.
Percy shook her head. She gave Lucky kitten to Felix.
“Felix will take her in. You’ll get her back to me when she is better? With the others?”
Felix nodded. He held Lucky kitten carefully as she squirmed and writhed, mewling at her siblings who meowed back weakly.
“You stop that,” admonished Percy. “You can’t go into the box with them or you might get sick again. Be good for Felix. He’s very nice.”
But Lucky kitten kept squirming and meowing until all of her siblings mewled back. Finally, satisfied that her siblings were still alive, she settled comfortably into Felix’s hands. He grinned and stroked her ears.
Percy leaned in to him and whispered in his ear, “You can get on to your Juliet Jolie case soon.”
His eyes went wide as he realized Percy must have eavesdropped in him.
She shrugged. “Don’t need magic for everything,” she joked.
Octavia was glaring at the two of them as if she suspected them of conspiring against her.
Percy and Nan left the shop shortly afterwards. Nan was looking suspiciously at Percy.
“Are you really just going to leave it at that?” she said disbelievingly.
Percy winked at Nan. “We’d better find Lucifer before he decides to charge in.”
They got out into the street, but he was not where they had left him. They looked around for him, and a few minutes later he came out of a luxury men’s clothing store, both of his arms weighed down with carrier bags. His hands were busy balancing a small tray of what looked like roasted caramel chestnuts.
He saw them, and his eyes lit up and he hurried over. Percy opened her mouth the demand to know where he had been, but he pushed a hot chestnut into it.
“You simply must try these. They are marvelous. That man over in the corner is making them in that horrid little wheelbarrow contraption he’s got, and you simply wouldn’t imagined they would taste like this.”
Percy chomped the overly sweet nut, and then demanded, “Where were you?”
“It’s not been half an hour, has it? You told me not to come in until half an hour had passed. And that wonderful three-piece tailored suit in that window over there caught my eye, so I had to go in and investigate.”
Percy shook her head. “You are terrible.”
“What if we had needed you?” Nan demanded.
“But I kept an eye out of the window. Intermittently,” he said.
He stopped speaking abruptly. The door of the magic shop had opened and Councilor Strickt and Octavia bundled the Fabulous Floriano out of the shop in handcuffs. Lucifer’s mouth dropped open.
“You missed all the action,” said Percy grinning when his face fell.
“So that’s the culprit, is it? Look at that monstrosity of a purple robe! How can he bear to wear that with so many other splendid sartorial choices in his immediate vicinity!”
“You are worse than my mum,” said Percy.
“I haven’t met her yet,” said Lucifer eagerly.
“And you’re not going to meet her anytime soon,” said Percy firmly. “She isn’t in this part of the world so don’t even think about it.”
“So the action is all over, is it?” said Lucifer, sadly watching Octavia’s attempts to bundle Floriano into the back of the Eldritch Council’s van. The big man was putting up a great resistance, as if they might give up on taking him away if he was simply able to evade the van. It was a comical sight.
&nb
sp; “Yep,” said Percy brightly. “So you might as well head home before you spend all your wages before you’ve earned them.” She looked significantly towards his bags. “Surely you can’t afford to shop there?”
He waved his arm in a shooing manner. “What’s the point of money if you can’t spend it how you want?”
“Then you should go ahead and spend it,” said Percy pushing him determinedly towards a shop that had some very nice men’s shoes displayed in the window.
“But am I forgiven now?” Lucifer demanded, digging in his heels. “Or do I need to—”
“You don’t need to do anything,” she said impatiently. “All is forgiven and forgotten.”
Forgiveness confirmed, Lucifer went without further protest.
When she had dispatched him, Percy turned to Nan with a grin. Nan was looking at her suspiciously.
“Why are you so happy? I thought you’d be furious that Octavia got her man!”
Percy looked at Nan with a twinkle in her eyes. “She didn’t get him though, did she? Because Fake Floriano over there is the wrong man!”
18. The Humble Prisoner
“What do you mean he’s the wrong man?” demanded Nan.
Percy started walking so fast along the road that she was half running.
“Slow down!” cried Nan, struggling to keep up.
“Can’t,” said Percy. “Hurry up, will you? I need to make a phone call. And I don’t want any of that lot to come looking for us.”
They went down a side alley and out of sight, where they could get some privacy. Percy turned to Nan, who was panting and out of breath.
“You have Barbie’s phone number, don’t you?”
Nan nodded. “What has Barbie got to do with any of this? And are you going to tell me what you meant by the wrong man?”
“In a minute. I can’t be sure yet. I need to speak to Barbie first. Can you call her?”
“But she won’t want to speak to you!” Nan looked baffled.
“That is why you have to call her. Tell her that we’ve nearly caught the person who tried to kill Delphine, and does she want to help us or not?”
Nan did as Percy asked. After speaking for a few minutes on her phone, it seemed Barbie must have agreed, because Nan handed over the phone to Percy.