The Infiniti Investigates
Pearl Goodfellow
Copyright © 2017 by Pearl Goodfellow
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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This is for all wannabe magicians and witches out there. For the souls who believe that magic exists, and who find ways to use it to improve their lives and those of loved ones.
Magic is everywhere. Most of us have simply forgotten.
Pearl
Xo
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Contents
1. Filthy Witch and Dead Famous
2. The Violet Countercharm
3. The Witch of Bohemia
4. The Black Diamond Curse
5. A Spell In Mag Mell
Also by Pearl Goodfellow
Map of the Coven Isles
Sneak Peek of Book 6: The Chimera Charm
Afterword
About the Author
Filthy Witch and Dead Famous
Even before I found the body, I was dreading the trip up to the Gorth Spires. Not that I had a really hard time getting there. Grandma Chimera’s old broom had been in the family for three centuries. But the old broomstick was just as steady as when my however-many-times-great-grandmother used her for a ride across the night sky. Still, some were less convinced than others as to the broom’s integrity. Like my cat, Fraidy.
“Are you sure this thing won’t fall apart?” Fraidy asked from his riding spot on the straw, his whiny voice cutting through the air flying past us like a buzz saw through Mainland imitation wood. The trees beneath zipped along as though we were passengers on a mini-jetpack.
“Fraidy, brother,” my other cat, Shade, admonished while he clutched the straw right alongside his less courageous sibling. “How are you ever going to earn another name if you can’t handle a simple broom ride?”
“But, I’m just saying,” Fraidy replied, as my broom tilted upward toward the right mountain. “What if something happens?”
“Here’s what’s likely going to happen,” I said, finally losing patience. “I’m going to land on Nebula Dreddock’s ridiculous eyesore of a helipad in a few minutes. She is going to imperiously summon us into her presence. She’s then going to waste a lot of our time complaining about how an actress her age—who, by the way, still looks like she’s twenty and who also has a hit play—has it so hard. When she’s done enough complaining, she’s going to make us hump these supplies to her dressing room; we get paid, and we can go home. So please…let me have a few last moments of peace before I have to deal with another effort at world-championship whining, okay?!”
I love all of my eight cats dearly, but this was one of those days. Of course, it wasn’t until shortly after that conversation that I realized just how much of one of those days it was.
Like the true prima donna she was, Nebula’s mansion — more like a castle — was situated close to the top of the Spires. The only reasons she hadn’t decided to rest it firmly at the apex was because the oxygen was too thin that high, and she was too cheap to either fix the air or take off that much rock. But, still, Giddy Heights was still the loftiest residence in the area and the only house on the whole expanse of the Spires. Nebula indeed held the pride of place here. From the gardens of her mansion, sweeping views of the Gorthland Humps, and the Gorthland Swamps were visible below. Forbidding, inhospitable realms where only members of the Awakened dared to live. A little further afield, and on a clear day, you might spy the Gorthland Vale, the only truly beautiful geographic anomaly in the Gorthlands proper. Nebula’s private helicopter rested in its usual spot as I took the broom over the lip of the helipad. But something was wrong. I could feel it the moment I set my besom down on the pad proper.
What got my attention were the lights. Usually, when I came to make a delivery here, the whole mansion was lit up like Nebula was expecting to fly in every major Tinseltown celebrity from the Mainland for a party. But this time, the house was dark. And, pretty foreboding, if I say so myself. If I were an Unawakened, I’d have chalked it up to something innocent, like the power being out or Nebula having a splitting headache that the lights would have made worse. But I am a witch from a long line of them; much as I sometimes wish I wasn’t. We know trouble when we feel it.
I glanced down at Fraidy, who was a trembling ball of black fur at my feet. No surprises there.
“What was that about everything going the way it was supposed to?” he asked, his eyes wide and pleading.
Shade, on the other hand, just ran straight for the door, which was slightly ajar for some reason.
“Hey!” I called out.
“Chillax, Hattie,” Shade called out. “Just going to do a little recon before you head in.”
The second he touched the shadows, he vanished from sight. It’s a pretty easy trick, considering that his body is a sheer black like all the rest of his siblings, including Fraidy. Well, if he thought I was going to just stand there frozen, while he got to do all the investigating, he could think again.
“What are you doing, Hattie?” Fraidy asked when I reached for the delivery pouch from the basket on my broom. “Shade said—“
“And I’m saying that I’ve got a delivery to make and a schedule to keep,” I responded, still feeling a little impatient with his fearful act. “You want to stay with the broom; that’s up to you.”
I then shook him off my leg, so I could walk unimpeded by a whining, fully dangling cat. Fraidy gave a muffled whine of despair as he darted after me, and into the home of the immensely wealthy, and fabulously famous, Nebula Dreddock.
Maybe it’s because I was raised by a very traditional witch. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been so rich that my worst problems are the ones I made up for myself. Whatever…I always considered Nebula’s house to be in gaudy, bad taste. Artifacts and trophies from both the Mainland and parts unknown to the Unawakened that could have been used to found at least five museums, hung from the walls, or laid out in elaborate arrays in display cases. Hideous color schemes incorporating deep purples, fuchsia, pastels and other less identifiable colors covered every inch of the place but the floors, which were a mercifully simple teakwood. Rugs made out of every known predator in the world, curtains of rich brocades, silk pillows, velvet chairs, and various tubing systems of neon lighting rounded out the overpowering, decorative package. The whole place looked like a cross between a Vegas penthouse and the inside of an LSD casualty’s head. If anything, all the lights being off made the place less offensive to the eye.
“Psst!” Shade hissed from the kitchen door as Fraidy and I were passing it.
“Gaaaah!” Fraidy choked, really digging in his claws as he clutched my leg for dear life. “Don’t do that, Shade!” He stuttered.
“Simply trying to get your attention, Bro.” Shade remarked, his eyes going from jet black to sunbeam yellow so we could see him.
“What’d you find, Shade?” I asked, doing my best to ignore the shooting pain in my leg.
“The cook,” he said. “Check her … er … it .. out.”
“Oh no, the cook’s dead, isn’t she?” Fraidy asked, his head abruptly turning in the opposite direction from Nebula’s servant, as he dangled from my pant leg.
“The cook’s a golem, silly,” I said. “They don�
�t die that easy. And, will you please let go of my leg now?” Fraidy reluctantly retracted his claws, and now stood quivering on the floor, one paw firmly planted on my foot. I sighed and shook my head.
“Oh no, you mean something that could kill a golem was here?” Fraidy enquired of his less fearful brother.
I gritted my teeth. No point trying to talk him down, it would take mere seconds for the screwed-up logic in his head to find a new reason to be afraid.
The cook looked like a sturdy-looking woman in her mid-to-late thirties, standing stock-still over a pot of water which was now boiling over. Some of the stinging hot water fell on Fraidy, causing him to finally step off my foot and scarper at full speed to the nearest corner.
“Shade, can you—“ I started to say as I moved the pot off the eye and turned off the stove.
“Not that many places in here to hide, boss lady,” Shade assured me. “Say, any reason why a clay pot like this would be wearing perfume?”
“Perfume?” I asked, pushing back the hair on her forehead.
“Well, I’m not sure what it is exactly,” Shade admitted. “But she smells a little bit like lilac. Or is it lavender.? I always confuse the two.”
I waved Shade’s confusion aside as I gazed deeper at the golem cook's forehead and pushed aside the hair. Golems weren’t human, but until the Mainland got around to producing realistic AI robots, golems were the finest imitations of any person in existence today. A product of Cabalistic tradition, they are clay creatures given life by magic first perfected by rabbis of times past. But if this was a traditional model, this particular golem had a weak spot that had likely been exploited.
Just as I thought, the magical writing which kept her operational had been defaced. In place of the Hebrew characters for the word “emet” (which means “truth”), somebody had taken the first letter out and made it “met” (which means “death”…not that I was about to tell Fraidy that).
“So…she’s dead?” Fraidy called out from his unseen hiding place.
“No, Fraidy, just the golem equivalent of unconscious,” I told my cowardly cat while I let go of the golem’s hair. “All we have to do is replace the letter someone took out, and she’ll be fine.”
“So, where’s the lady of the house while we’re doing our prowling thing?” Shade asked, his tone turning unexpectedly grave.
It was a fair question. On a hunch, I decided to go to her bedroom/dressing room. As vain a woman as Nebula was, it would be the first place I’d have expected to find her.
And, that’s where we did find her, but not in any condition to receive us. Nebula was sitting in front of her three mirror vanity, her usual array of cosmetics scattered across the surface. She had a death rictus on her face as she slumped back. There was no movement in her chest to indicate that she was breathing. This room was to the back of the mansion, so we couldn’t see it as we flew in, but all the lights were still ablaze in this chamber. I felt a chill that I hadn’t felt since my parents died.
Her porcelain skin seemed a shade paler in death; a side effect from the years of Wraithsgourd treatments she’d been taking since well before I was her supplier. There was some sort of claw mark on her left arm. I could spot the gray roots of her dyed black hair; the one detail Wraithsgourd could do nothing about. Her almost solid black irises stared up at the ceiling as if she’d just discovered the secrets of the universe. Her perfectly manicured hands hung limply at her side, the nails only partially colored. I spotted the nail color bottle and brush, on the plush rug, under her left and right hand respectively.
I took a look for my cats. No surprise to find Fraidy hiding behind the doorway, quaking in silent terror at the sight of our dead client. For once, I couldn’t blame him. Shade, on the other hand, gave the scene a slow and casual look-over, being careful not to step on any of the evidence. He hummed and asked, “Hey, Hattie, you remember that Scrye spell Onyx wanted you to practice last week?”
I gave my cat a look. “You’re dancing on quicksand, Shade. Don’t tango to that beat too long.”
Yeah, I’m a witch. Yeah, I do a few things on a daily basis to make my life easier; like make my flying broom look like a bird whenever I’m in the air. But I mostly stick to my herbs — which also happen to be my full-time job — for a reason.
“Just saying, boss,” Shade said patiently. “I think it’d be a good idea to try that one now.”
“Why you gotta make her see something horrible at a time like this?” Fraidy asked from the doorway.
“C’mon, brother,” Shade said back. “You know why. By the way, who was it who kept an eye on our dear human while she was practicing?”
They argued back and forth a bit more, but I was too busy looking at the vanity mirrors in front of me. Having three around the same spot would make the spell easier, I’ll admit. But still…I knew that the Scrye spell wouldn’t turn up anything pretty. I was vaguely wondering if Fraidy could handle it, when I quickly realized that he’d have his eyes squeezed shut, anyway.
I drew a breath, made a pentagram with my finger in front of the mirror and said, “Tsap, wohs tahw sah emoc erofeb.”
My vision whited out…
I was sitting in front of the vanity. Well, it wasn’t ME exactly. It was Nebula Dreddock’s reflection I saw in the mirror, and she was applying her daily round of cosmetics. I was just an invisible passenger inside Nebula’s image; just along for the ride in her skin.
I guessed that she had already applied the Wraithsgourd, as she was busy fussing over her hair and lipstick. She was humming a tune that it took me a few seconds to recognize. It was from “Fallen Angel,” the play she had been headlining since she came back to the Coven Isles about two months ago. The play was making the rounds on all the civilized portions of the Isles, which gave her an excuse to stay here; her original home before she became famous. The house at the top of the Gorth Spires.
I felt a sense of unease as she began doing her nails. At first, I thought it was just in anticipation of what I knew was coming. Then I realized that my—that is, Nebula’s—skin was starting to burn. Faster than a sports car can go from zero to sixty, the pain under the skin went from dull to sharp, making her look away from the mirrors and drop the nail supplies. She started clawing at her skin to get the pain out. It was in vain; the fiery pain remained constant, no matter how much counter-input her nails were doing. I could feel a scream try to bubble up from Nebula’s throat as she slumped backward in her chair. Her vision was fading away when a figure walked over to look down at her from behind. But I couldn’t make out any features…
I came out of the vision with a sharp jolt. I breathed in deeply to confirm that I was actually more alive than the corpse I’d just been sightseeing with.
“See, Fraidy?” Shade said with his usual confidence. “Boss lady came out of that just fine.”
“Fine?!” Fraidy shrieked from the door. “First she spots that golem in the kitchen who is supposedly just out cold. Then she finds the corpse in the vanity chair. And then—“
“Fraidy,” I admonished as I drew the pentagram in reverse to formally close out the spell. “One, I’m right here and can speak for myself. Two, I’m pretty sure I have as good or better an idea of what I’ve just been through than you have.”
Fraidy gave out another frightened whimper. “We really need to find a phone.”
“Finally,” Shade said. “Something sensible comes out of your panicky mouth.”
“There’s one in the front parlor,” I said, walking towards the door. “We can call the GIPPD from there.”
“What a waste of a life,” Shade said in a morose tone as we walked to the parlor. “I mean, she was so worried about looking good until the end of her days. Now the end’s come and gone and what good did it do her?”
“This from the immortal ladykiller?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, spotting the phone out of the corner of my eye.
“Hey, I’m vain, not stupid,” Shade said defensively. “I know nothing’
s forever (well, except my siblings and me). Nebula Dreddock didn’t want to look that one in the eye. Now she’s got no choice.”
Fraidy had no comment of his own. He just hid under the nearest couch as I dialed the police station in Gless Inlet.
I got my second surprise of the day when the constables arrived. David Trew, the chief of police for Glessie Isle Para Police Department, was along for the ride. Looking at him, it was hard to believe that a) he wasn’t a romance cover model and b) that he wasn’t in his mid-twenties instead of the edge of thirty-five. He deemphasized his good looks with John Lennon style eyeglasses (which had a charm to adjust to the available lighting), black hair, cropped just a little longer than military grade and an official dress uniform that swallowed up most of his toned physique he spent four times a week maintaining. Still, considering we’d been best friends since we were kids, I marveled at how I could still be attracted to him after all these years. All these years of nothing whatsoever ever happening between us, that is.
“David,” I said as soon as the constables started combing the house. “I know that we’re old friends but why—“
“Actually,” David said with a sigh, his modulated announcer’s voice sounding tired. “I’m afraid you have nothing to do with why I’m here with my officers.”
Leading me back out to the helipad, he explained, “I got a call from the powers-that-be on Talisman about five minutes after you reported the crime scene.”
“They found out about it that fast?” I asked, seeing Fraidy taking his place close to my ankles, and wondering where Shade went off to.
“Scuttlebutt is that they keep some sort of stock ticker to keep them apprised of what all is going on in my department,” David noted with disgust. “Doesn’t matter…the fact is that I’m here to provide political cover for one of our most prominent—“
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