by Tess Lake
“Is my crowbar back there?” Aunt Cass said.
“It’s a family crowbar,” Aunt Freya said.
“Yeah, it’s a family crowbar,” Molly repeated, obviously still feeling stung about the whole beeswax thing. Molly had the small crowbar resting across her lap, lightly holding it with her hands, and it seemed like she wasn’t going to let it go no matter what.
“No, it’s my crowbar,” Aunt Cass said. We careened around another corner, getting pressed against the walls of the van like we were on some kind of violent ride at the fair.
“It doesn’t have your name… okay, it does, but doesn’t mean it’s yours,” Molly said.
“I’m going to be the lookout,” Adams said from the corner. He seemed unperturbed by the violent motion of the van.
“That’s right, Adams, you’re going to be the lookout,” Aunt Ro said.
“Do we need to go over the plan again?” Aunt Freya asked.
“No, I think we got it,” I said.
The plan was straightforward, but perhaps not simple. Thankfully the goddess had smiled upon us and we discovered that tonight there was an under-the-sea-themed dance happening at Sunny Days Manor. It was out in the large gymnasium that sat around back of the manor. What we hoped that meant was that most the residents would be there and that the manor itself would be relatively empty except for the most elderly of residents.
We still had all the cameras to contend with, and although we intended to steal every recording we could possibly find, we still had to make sure that none of us showed up on any of them, despite the fact that we were wearing disguises. Somehow we felt that seven figures dressed in all black, who would probably very quickly be identified as women, sneaking along with a little black cat, would lead back to us. So we were going to take part in a tag-team concealment spell. It was two witches at a time, mother and daughter, casting a concealment spell over all of us except for Adams, who was free to wander as he wished. Aunt Cass was our roving seventh, there to add help whenever she could. When two witches got tired, we’d switch to the next two and keep rotating through mother/daughter pairs while we searched through the manor and hopefully located a room where they kept all of the recordings. As I said, straightforward, but perhaps not simple.
“I still think getting Sheriff Hardy involved might have been a good idea,” Molly said.
Luce pulled a pair of goggles out from the box at her feet.
“Are these night vision goggles? What are you doing with these?”
“I use them for when I want to see at night, duh, obviously,” Aunt Cass said.
“We’ll turn them in after we’ve found some evidence and possibly solved this,” Aunt Ro said.
We finally began to slow as we approached Sunny Days Manor. We parked down the street, pulled on our balaclavas, and then it was time to go. There was a brief moment of struggle as Molly tried to hold on to the family crowbar, but Aunt Cass won. To save face, Molly quickly rummaged around in some boxes and found a short black stick with a button on it.
“Fine, I’m taking this, then,” she said.
We each picked up large black duffel bags, slinging them over our shoulders.
Aunt Freya and Luce were up first, so they cast the concealment spell and we heaved the door open and jogged up to the manor. I could feel the spell over us, moderately strong but still quickly draining away. We were within range of the cameras now, and anyone who might be looking out the front windows. As we entered the front gates, the faint sound of 1950s music rose up, coming from over the back of the manor.
By the time we reached the front door, Aunt Freya and Luce tapped out, and then it was Aunt Ro and Molly. They took over the concealment spell, a seamless transition, and I felt the magic shift around me. Although I was buzzing as though I’d gulped down too many coffees, there was something comforting about being surrounded by my family and the embrace of magic. Molly’s was fresh pine, the smell of leaves and freshly turned earth. Aunt Ro’s was a scent like butterscotch but probably with a thousand more calories. We reached the front door, expecting it to be locked, but surprisingly it was open, so in we went. This was the first test—the reception desk which we knew had a staff member sitting at it twenty-four hours a day.
“There’s no one there,” Molly said.
The light was on behind the reception desk, but she was right. It was empty.
“I’ll see if there’s a map,” Aunt Cass said.
This is where our plan had to become a little improvised. We had no idea where the recordings might be stored, so at worst our plan was to rush down every corridor on every floor and open every locked room marked for staff only until we found something. The reception being empty was a good turn of events for us.
We hustled over and then me and Mom were up. We took over the concealment spell, and I let out a breath as the weight of it hit me. It felt like I was carrying two heavy cement bags on my shoulders. Mom was helping, probably taking more of the load than she should, taking long slow breaths. The rest of the family quickly searched the reception station.
“Aha!” Aunt Cass said. She’d used the family crowbar to pry open a locked drawer rather than use her magic. In amongst some random papers was the evacuation map in case of a fire. On the next floor down was a small room marked “Security.”
“Let’s hustle, people. Black Cat Number One, can you stay here on the lookout?” Aunt Cass said.
“No one will get by me,” Adams said and saluted her with his paw.
We left the reception and headed down the corridor, passing many empty rooms on both sides. It appeared the goddess had truly smiled upon us, because it seemed the entire manor was empty, with all the residents at the gymnasium out back, dancing or perhaps nodding along to the hits of the 1950s.
We reached a corner and then came to a halt at the sound of two voices. It was an old man and a woman, and they were talking in low tones and then the woman giggled. We pressed ourselves up against the wall as they came closer and then around the corner. He must have been ninety if he was a day, but he still had a thick shock of black hair which he’d slicked back. He was wearing jeans and a college-style jacket as though he was a 1950s teenager out on a date. The woman was dressed in a long swing skirt and a tight blouse and had a polka dot bow in her hair. As they passed us, she took a swig out of a silver flask and then handed it back to the man, who took a drink himself and then slipped it into a hidden pocket of his jacket.
“But what if we get caught?” the woman said, smiling at the man.
He looked her up and down as they passed us by, the weight of the concealment spell pressing down on me and Mom.
“For those legs it’s worth it,” he said and gave her a very devilish wink. She laughed as he pulled her into one of the empty rooms and closed the door.
“Drinking at their age,” Luce said with a smirk.
“Wait till their parents find out,” Molly added.
“These kids of today,” I said, although it came out slightly grunty because of the weight of the spell. We continued on our way around the corner and down the stairs to the floor below. As with many of the homes and businesses around Harlot Bay, there were multiple stories up and down, and I had no doubt there were probably plenty of hidden tunnels and secret rooms around the place that had been very useful for hiding out from the pirates and also hiding barrels of alcohol during Prohibition. Thankfully there was no one on the lower floor. It was just endless rows of closed doors of a utilitarian nature, a janitor’s closet, cleaning products, a laundry, and the like. We soon reached security. Aunt Cass waved her hand to open the door and we slipped inside, closing it behind us. As we did, the weight of the concealment spell lifted away almost entirely.
“No cameras in here,” Mom said and let go of the spell with relief.
While the rest of the Sunny Days Manor was somewhat old and obviously starting to wear down, the security room was state-of-the-art. There were banks of monitors and small computer hard drives everywhere
, plugged in to record all of the feeds. Against the wall was a large cabinet stacked with portable hard drives. They were arranged into months, and there were six per month going back for the last couple of years.
“Into the plastic bag, tie it and then into the big bags,” Aunt Cass instructed.
We got to work, operating so smoothly you would think we actually were a crack team of, say, international diamond thieves who had long experience in committing crimes. One mother held open a bag while the daughter dropped in security tapes from a particular month until the bag was full. Then we tied the bag and put it into our duffel bag. It only took a few minutes before we’d managed to empty the entire cabinet. Meanwhile, Aunt Cass had disconnected every hard drive that was still recording and stuffed them into a separate duffel bag.
“We’ve got them all, let’s go,” Luce urged. But Aunt Cass was leaning over the bank of monitors, frowning at what she saw. There were three men dressed in all black wearing balaclavas. They had just crept past the empty reception and were coming down the corridor.
“This doesn’t look good,” I said. I saw Adams on one of the monitors. He abruptly disappeared off the side of the feed and then stepped out of the darkness at my feet.
“Bad men are coming and they smell like fuel,” he said.
The truth hit me like an avalanche. Clearly going to see Merilee Rosenthal had produced some sort of action on her part, and as good as it had felt for me and Carter to mock Coldwell in the street, it had obviously moved up his plans for the Sunny Days Manor. It was no coincidence that these three men were here. And smelling of fuel? Burning part of the place down so he could get it at literally fire sale prices was exactly the kind of thing Coldwell would do. It was hard to know whether it was an impulse thing or planned in advance, considering virtually the entire manor was empty and everyone was out at the under-the-sea-themed dance.
“They’re probably here to burn it down or something like that,” I said.
“How is everyone feeling, magically?” Aunt Cass said, looking us over.
“Pretty tired, but I can probably do something,” I said. The rest of the family murmured similar sentiments. Breaking and entering was obviously one thing, and we were certainly happy to do that, but suddenly confronting three men, intent on mayhem, sounded a lot more dangerous.
“Give me that stick,” Aunt Cass said to Molly, passing her the family crowbar. Molly handed over the black stick, which Aunt Cass expertly flicked out until it was a long rod. Then she hit the button and the stick crackled with electricity.
“What are you planning to do with that?” Molly asked. Aunt Cass didn’t answer but rather turned and shoved the stick into the bank of monitors and expensive computer equipment. There was a burst of sparks, and then all the monitors shorted out as the computers blew their fuses. There must have been a circuit breaker, because the lights in the room stayed on but now the security feeds were all gone.
“Let’s go stop these bad guys. Ro, you call the fuzz,” Aunt Cass instructed. We left the room, Molly, Luce and I lugging the heavy duffel bags. The three moms were in front of us, and on point was Aunt Cass, the black stick in her hand, small sparks of electricity occasionally traveling down it. Just before she’d blown the monitors, we’d seen the men coming down the stairs, which meant they were going to be on the same floor as us. We reached a corner and heard the sound of stealthy footsteps approaching.
“Conceal,” Aunt Cass whispered to us. Luce, Molly and I put down the duffel bags and cast a concealment spell over us. We all pressed ourselves against the walls and waited. With the security system shorted out, the concealment spell wasn’t as hard as last time, although I still felt it pulling on me. Adams sat at my feet, calmly licking a paw as the footsteps approached.
“We’ll wreck the security room and then go back up and start the fire there,” one of the men said.
“Can I light it this time?” a second man said.
“Sure, why not?” the first man replied, as though this was something they did often, and why not have a little bit of fun with it?
The three of them stepped around the corner, and the burden of the concealment spell hit us like a ton of earth. Aunt Cass lunged forward and hit the front man directly in the chest with the stick. There was a huge jolt of electricity that knocked him off his feet and into the other two. The concealment spell broke then, too much for the three of us to sustain, and the other two men jumped back in shock, as it must have seemed seven figures dressed in all black had materialized out of the very walls themselves.
Mom hit one of the men with the same spell Molly had used yesterday on the man in the forest, knocking him into unconsciousness. Aunt Ro grabbed for the third man, but he was faster than the other two, and suddenly he had a gun in his hand. We must have all acted as one in a burst of fear, hitting him with seven spells at once. The man froze, paralyzed, and then was flung backward, landing on the hard floor and skidding to a stop, his arm outstretched, the gun pointing at the ceiling. Aunt Cass, wild-eyed and furious, went up and kicked him in the ribs before brandishing the stun gun at him.
“Playing with guns will get you hurt,” she said before shocking him. She pulled the gun out of his hand, expertly emptying the bullets before throwing them in one direction and the gun in the other.
“Lamont is here and he brought his men,” Aunt Ro suddenly said.
“Let’s go, go, go,” Mom said.
We grabbed the duffel bags and then we ran, sprinting up the corridor and up the stairs. We could hear the sound of police calling out as they crossed the reception area of the Sunny Days Manor. There was no way we’d be able to conceal ourselves from so many people, not even with all seven of us working together, so we went in the opposite direction, up the stairs, down the corridor and out the back.
We burst out into the night and saw the gymnasium behind us was bedecked with lights. Most of the residents were inside. We didn’t have time to waste, so we ducked around the side of the manor and ran as fast as we could heading for some trees and the fence. There was a moment when we suddenly burst into a small clearing to catch a very elderly man and woman in the process of putting their clothes back on. We had no time to cast a concealment spell, and so all they saw was seven black figures carrying heavy duffel bags slow for a moment and then continue barreling on, disappearing into the bushes, followed by a cat. We hit the fence and helped each other over, carefully handing over the bags so we didn’t damage what we’d come to collect. The front of Sunny Days Manor was now surrounded by police cars. It seemed that every law officer in the town had been called in.
Our all-black van hidden down the street was certainly a welcome sight. We ran down to it and jumped inside, and then Aunt Cass got behind the wheel. Adams leaped in behind me and I slammed the door shut. All seven of us were panting, flushed with that peculiar mix of fear and adrenaline, and a kind of manic joy. Aunt Cass started the van and turned us around, and we crept off down the street. Once we’d turned a few corners, she hit the accelerator and we were gone into the night, heading back to the Torrent Mansion.
At some point, the shocked silence in the back of the van gave way to laughter as we started recounting coming across the couples sneaking off from the dance and drinking out of a flask. I felt like I was gliding on wings of pure energy as we made our way up the hill towards the mansion. Somewhere in the duffel bags at our feet would be evidence, something that would hopefully help us find Hilda, and it certainly looked like we’d prevented some other crime tonight as well.
“For those legs it’s worth it,” Luce said, imitating the old man. The seven of us cracked up as we drove home flush with success.
Chapter 23
“Oh, look at this, she had one hundred eggs delivered. Isn’t that fascinating, Adams?” I said to my little black cat, who was having a bath on the sofa.
“No,” he replied through a mouthful of fur. I was taking a break from the endless hours of watching footage that we’d stolen from the Sunny
Days Manor and reading carefully through every page of Juliet Stern’s journal. Three days had passed since our successful breaking and entering, and all I’d done was watch endless hours of staff members and residents walking around, and nothing mysterious or supernatural happening at all. That initial high of success at thinking that we now had the goods, that we’d gotten away with it, had quickly been replaced with the reality that we’d stolen some two years’ worth of security recordings.
Even with all of us working together, it would probably take a solid couple of months to go through them all. So we were stuck in a predicament where we thought we had what we needed, but to find it simply meant sitting around watching footage, hoping to spot something.
At least one thing had turned out reasonably well. The sheriff and his men had found the three men in the basement, still groggy. All three of them had been armed, which meant immediate weapons charges, and of course they were questioned as to what exactly they were doing down there. Their nearby van was found to hold containers of fuel and other objects that looked like the complete arsonist starter toolkit. Sheriff Hardy hadn’t been able to tell us much about it, but thus far the three men were still in custody, and from what we’d heard they were still keeping their mouths shut.
Carter had sent me a message, practically beside himself with the news that three men had been caught possibly on the path to burn down the Sunny Days Manor. The Harlot Bay Times was running articles all week digging into the Sunny Days Manor, Coldwell, and the history of fires and other nefarious activity in Harlot Bay. I didn’t send much back except for general words of support because, as I’d said to Carter, I was no longer a journalist. Although I was certainly very happy to see that something might come out of his publishing, and if one of the men talked, perhaps Coldwell would finally be called to account for at least one of the probable many probable crimes he’d committed. Already, there were rumblings that his proposed mall project would be delayed until this whole mess was sorted out, according to one of the councilmembers.