“Yes, coaches are allowed. You have to stay behind the walls during play, but you do have a reserved spot up front.”
Loni nodded.
And then a noise from the crowd caught their attention. “She’s over there!” hollered a woman’s voice. “Get her!”
Hazel glanced up in time to see the woman from the bathroom and two oversized goons struggling to break through the crowd.
Loni saw them too. Her eyes widened and she shoved Hazel forward. “We’ve gotta go, Olga. We need to get you warmed up,” she said, giving the woman at the table a nervous grin and then a little flutter of her fingers.
Suddenly, a bell went off in the room. Hazel’s heart jerked to a halt. They were about to be caught red-handed! She spun around to find an elderly man wearing a pink Hawaiian shirt and a fedora staring at her. She lowered her brows at him. “What are you looking at?”
He made a face and pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Closing time, little lady.”
“Closing time?”
He nodded and pointed a jittery finger towards the doors, which were being closed by casino workers. The black-haired woman and her cohorts were forced back into the crowd by security officials. “That’s the closing bell. They’re lockin’ the doors. If you weren’t in by the time that bell went off, well, you ain’t gettin’ in. I’m sure glad you ladies made it in time. I’ve got prime seats just over there. Care to join me?”
Relief washed over Hazel’s thin shoulders. She was going to get to play after all! “Beat it, buster. I’ve got table seats! It can’t get any better than that!”
Marlo Stephanopoulos popped his white collar up higher around his neck, then shot a covert glance across the table at Hazel.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t move a single muscle to give him any indication of her hand. She was as cool as a cucumber.
Marlo leaned back in his seat and ran a set of ringed fingers through his thinning hair. Little beads of sweat glistened across his brow. The television camera zoomed in tight on him as he peeked at the two cards lying in front of him again.
Hazel didn’t even have to watch him sweat. She trained her eyes on the giant stack of poker chips she’d accumulated and held her breath. This was the final hand. And she knew she had him. She’d read his mind. He had an ace and a deuce. She had a pair of jacks, and the dealer had just thrown down the jack of diamonds. The only thing Marlo could make with the table’s cards was a pair of deuces. She just had to wait for him to spit out the decision he’d made minutes ago. He was folding, but he was drawing it out in an attempt to make Hazel sweat in the off chance that he could get her to buy a bluff.
But it wouldn’t work. Hazel was unflappable.
Finally, Marlo threw his cards across the line, folding. The crowd went wild! A huge smile crossed Hazel’s face as a deep voice announced that Olga Sokolov was the winner of the ten-million-dollar pot!
Hazel grabbed her cane and pushed herself to her feet as the crowd began to chant, “Olga! Olga!” She rushed to the blockade behind her.
“You won, Hazel! You won ten million dollars!” cheered Loni.
“Excellent work, Hazel,” said Ed. “Very impressive. Very impressive indeed!”
Hazel’s mind raced. She was excited, but she only had one thing on her mind. She had to get to her winnings before the real Olga Sokolov got to them! She pushed open the gate. A big uniformed guard stared down at her. “Where do I collect my winnings?”
“They can help you with that in the main lobby,” he said, pointing in the direction they’d come from.
Hazel glanced over her shoulder at Loni. “Both Gwyn and Olga and her goons are out that door.”
“Just keep your head down,” advised Ed.
The bell in the room went off again and the doors swung open. The woman in the black wig, her two oversized body guards, and a handful of security guards were the first to enter the room.
“They’re over here!” shouted the woman, pointing directly at Hazel.
Olga’s two goons were halfway to Hazel and Loni when Hazel held up her cane, aiming the end of it at them. “Take this, you oversized apes,” she said, firing an electrical current at them and bowling them backwards.
Loni’s eyes widened. “Haze! You got your cane fixed!”
“I told you it just needed a good cleaning,” she laughed.
The green electrical current had stunned Olga’s men, but the security guards and Olga were still coming. Hazel tried to fire her stick again. This time it jammed up. She shook it harder, but nothing came out.
“Fire, you blasted thing!” she cursed, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. She looked up at the guards coming right up at her, her body frozen.
And suddenly, everything in the room froze. The music. The voice over the loud speaker. The slot machine noises. The steady buzz of voices and laughter. The people. Everything stopped.
Hazel looked around. “What in the world…?”
Loni grinned. “An old trick the girls and I picked up while we attended the Institute. You’re welcome.”
“Brav-o, Loni,” said Ed. Standing in the tote sack with his arms extended, he gave her a slow clap.
Loni grabbed the handle of the suitcase. “This freezing spell won’t last long. We’ve got to get out of here before they unfreeze!”
Ed frowned. “Well, if it won’t last long, then you’re going to have to do something else. They’ll only keep chasing us!”
Then, as if a lightbulb had gone off over her head, Hazel poked a finger into the air. “By golly, I know exactly what to do!” she said with a gold-toothed smile. She pointed at the suitcase with her cane. “Loni. Open that bag!”
“Haze, we don’t have time for new disguises!” said Loni.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Loni. Didn’t anyone ever tell you to mind your elders?” Hazel swatted at her with her cane and then bent over to unzip the bag herself.
Grabbing her now sore leg, Loni squatted down to help her.
Hazel pointed at the contents of the bag. “Put the passports and the diamonds in that envelope.” As Loni did as she instructed, Hazel tugged the lanyard off and used the little clip holding the ID badge to secure it to the envelope. Hazel hobbled over to a security officer with big, muscular arms. He had one hand raised midway in the air. Hazel hung the lanyard over his arm. “There, then when they unfreeze, they can figure out exactly what Olga Sokolov was doing with all of those fake passports and the diamonds! That ought to give us a little time to get back to the airport.”
Ed winked at Hazel. “I like the way you think, Ms. Prescott. If I were a few years younger, and you were a cat…”
Hazel held up a hand. “Get in line, Ed, get in line.”
Loni grinned. “Are you two finished? The spell is going to wear off any second. We’ve gotta get outta here!”
Gripping her purse tightly to her side, Hazel nodded and led Loni and Ed past Olga Sokolov and into the hallway just as the spell wore off. From the hallway, they heard the music resume and gradually all the people began to move.
“Now where?” asked Loni.
Hazel pointed towards the lobby. “To get my ten mil!”
They began to rush towards the lobby when all of a sudden, Loni froze. “Wait, Hazel. How are we supposed to claim your prize if you gave the ID badge back to Olga?”
Hazel’s jaw dropped. She hadn’t thought of that. “Oh no!” she gasped. “We’ve got to get back in there and grab it!” Her head swiveled back to the direction they’d just come from to see a conflict breaking out in the room between Olga’s goons and the security officers.
“We can’t go back in there!” said Ed.
Loni pointed towards the lobby. “Well, we can’t go to the lobby anyway. Look!”
Hazel followed Loni’s finger to see Gwyn, Phyllis, and Char chatting up a storm with the other women from the conference in the lobby.
As Hazel’s mind reeled, trying to figure out how to get her money, Ed called to them. “Oh, ladies!” he
sang. “You might want to see what’s on television right now!” He shoved a paw into the air, pointing at a flat screen on the wall.
Loni and Hazel turned to see Hazel sitting at the poker table. Even with the brunette wig, the fake tooth, and the glasses, it was Hazel. The blood drained from her face. She gasped. “Oh, for the love of Bryant Gumbel. Can we not get a break here?”
Loni swooped a hand over Hazel’s head and batted the wig off. “We’ve gotta get rid of the evidence!” She threw it in a garbage can. “Now, I hate to do this to you, Haze, because I know you want that money, but we gotta get outta here. I’m startin’ to feel the pinch.”
Hazel sighed. Leaving early was the last thing she wanted to do. What she wanted to do was claim her ten-million-dollar prize! “But my money…”
“Maybe Gwyn was right. Maybe using magic to profit is wrong after all. Maybe this was the universe’s way of making you a better person.”
Hazel frowned. “What are you trying to say? That I’m not a good person?”
Loni swatted at her friend playfully. “I know you’re a good person, Haze. We turned in a jewel thief. So what if you have to give up the ten-million-dollar prize? I think our work here is done, don’t you?”
Ed nodded. “Loni’s right. You caught a criminal! That’s exceptionally aboveboard.”
Hazel slumped forward with a scowl. “I suppose you’re right.” Then a slow smile crept over her face. “Hey, think they’re offering any reward money for catching the jewel thief?”
Chapter 7
“I heard a car door!” hissed Loni, pointing towards her front door. She leapt off her seat and pushed her nose through the slit in the curtains. “It’s Gwynnie!”
“She’s back already?” asked Hazel as she rushed to the chair in Loni’s front room.
They’d just gotten in. Loni had only put the broomstick away a few minutes ago. Ed had run off to find a patch of grass, and Hazel had just grabbed a Twinkie from the snack bag.
There was a banging at the door. “Mom? Loni? Are you in there?”
Loni walked to the front door. “Geez. What’s got into her? She sounds mad.” She opened the front door.
Gwyn burst inside, her face beet red. “Mom! You’re here!”
Hazel looked around as if nothing had happened. “Gwynnie? You came home early? You musta missed me!”
“Have you been here this whole time?” asked Gwyn.
Hazel and Loni looked at each other innocently. “Well, of course we’ve been here. Where else would we have been?” asked Loni.
Gwyn’s brows lifted as she stared at her mother. “I don’t know. Vegas?”
“Vegas?!” they cried in unison.
“So you weren’t just in Vegas?” asked Gwyn, shaking her head slowly.
Hazel shook her head. “You feelin’ alright, Gwynnie?”
“But I…”
“But you what?” asked Loni.
“I saw Mom on the monitors around the casino. She won the jackpot!”
Hazel lowered her brows. “You really think if I won a jackpot in Vegas, I’d be sitting here? With her?” She pointed at Loni.
“Well, it’s just that I…”
“You…?”
“I saw you!”
“I don’t know what you saw, Gwynnie, but Loni and I have been sitting here watching poker on the boob tube all day. Right, Lon?”
Loni nodded. “Yup. All day.”
“It must’ve been my evil twin you saw in Vegas.”
Gwynnie swished her lips to the side. “Hmm. I must have. I can’t believe it! I came all the way back. Why wouldn’t either of you answer your phones?”
Hazel looked at her purse, sitting across the room. “Oh, did you try calling? My phone’s in my purse. I haven’t checked it. Why didn’t you try calling Loni?”
“I did try calling Loni!” said Gwyn. “Her line was busy all day!”
Loni made a face. “Hmm. Sometimes the cats play with the cord in the kitchen and knock it off the receiver.” She wagged a finger at the first cat she saw. “Naughty kitty.”
Gwyn groaned and fell onto the chair nearest the door. “Ugh! I was so worried! I’m so thankful you’re both alright!”
“We’re just fine. It’s just been a quiet day around here. No excitement at all!” sighed Hazel as she pulled open her Twinkie wrapper.
Just then Ed came tearing around the corner on two paws. “What a day, girls! We should do that again soon! Vegas! Vegas! Vegas!” he chanted, paw pumping the air.
Gwyn’s eyes grew huge. “Mom!”
A wicked smile spread slowly across Hazel’s face, her forgotten gold tooth shining like the lights of Las Vegas. “Busted!”
Harkin and the Snake’s Servant
Molly Milligan
Chapter 1
“Tell Tom Tildrum that Tom Toldrum is dead.”
When you’re the local healer, like I am, you get used to being woken at odd hours of the night. At least, I think I’d be used to it, if only I got woken up in an otherwise normal way - you know, a shake of the shoulder, someone calling my name, the smell of coffee brewing, that kind of thing.
What I don’t think I’ll ever get used to is the sudden slamming of a raggedy cat right onto my chest, his fuzzy face pressed up against mine, breathing his fish-breath into my mouth.
“Ahh! Harkin!” I sat upright and he tumbled off my chest and into my lap, clinging to my pyjamas with his claws. He was unrepentant as I squeaked in protest. He got back onto his feet and continued to stare at me.
My bedroom was all tones of grey. I slept with my curtains open, and there were no street lights to colour my view. Light pollution isn’t much of a problem in rural Wales. I could see Harkin as a dark grey shape in the light grey room, and his eyes were grey, pale and intense.
“What?” I demanded.
I need to point out that I am not psychic and nor is my cat. He can’t speak to me through some mysterious telepathic waves. As for me, half the time I generally don’t understand what people really mean, even when they speak out loud to me, in actual words and everything. However, my cat can send images, impressions and rough feelings to me. Mostly it’s a feeling of “my belly is empty and I haven’t been fed for an hour and you must hate me and I am going to leave home” but sometimes it’s something important.
This time, it was important.
I was sent an impression of darkness, and something - no, someone - who was lost. There was a slithering, and a hint of dry scaliness. Wings beat in the no-place between the worlds. A man called out.
He was dead, and that wasn’t the problem right now. It had been his time to die.
So he was dead, but his soul had not moved on.
I raced downstairs in bare feet, and stumbled through the kitchen. There was a small utility room on the back of the kitchen which housed sick animals, wellington boots, large jackets, random boxes, a washing machine, a bag consisting of nothing but other plastic bags, and - at the moment - a bucket with a creepy broken doll in it. That last item was probably one of my mad Aunt Dilys’s projects.
I plunged my feet into the least-spider-filled boots that I could find, and went outside to the garden. Already the sun was lightening the sky though it would not appear over the horizon for a little while longer. I headed to my willow cave.
And here I guess I ought to explain a few things.
There are many types of witch. It would be cool if I had grown up into one of those witches who shoots sparkly power from her hands, like on the fancy greetings cards you can buy in hippy shops. I am not sure they exist, but come on, wouldn’t it be great? Unfortunately the Fates decided I’d be best as a Hedge Witch, which is low on the whole shooty-sparkly-power thing, and really pretty high on “let’s sit alone in a cold damp cave and do battle on an unearthly plane with actual dead things.” No one will ever see, out here in the real world, what I do.
I just look like a nutter.
There’s no use moaning about it. I had a job to do. I reach
ed the little cave I’d crafted out of living willow withies. It was guarded by a hawthorn and rested right in the broken-down part of a stone wall that separated my garden from the wild hills beyond. Hedge witchery is all about boundaries, edges, hedges and crossings. I slipped into the cave and sat down, cross-legged, and immediately the cold dampness of the earth seeped through my night wear. Harkin jumped into my lap and nudged my chin.
He was no longer panicking.
He purred.
The sky lightened further.
The call of the soul in distress had faded.
I was too late, this time.
Chapter 2
My early-morning dash through the house had woken Maddie, my American cousin who had been living with us for a few months now. She was a notoriously early riser, anyway. Her Californian upbringing had given her some strange ideas about healthy lifestyles - i.e., that you should try to have one - and she was dressed in running gear and drinking something that was thick, green and gloopy.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Dilys came in as I began my explanation. Unlike Maddie, who was exuding bright cheeriness, my aunt was layered in black clothing, set off by accents of black, and complemented by a general blackness, with carefully chosen black accessories. She eased onto a chair and sighed and groaned until I made her a cup of tea. I told them both what had happened.
“Sounds like a soul can’t progress,” Dilys said to me confidently.
I had said that in my explanation. I had literally said that, more than once, in those exact words. She had heard me. But she was old, and also could do curses really well, so I agreed with her remarkable insight. I set the cup of tea down and she began to complain about the lack of disgusting saturated fats in her diet so I was just about to fry up some bacon when someone knocked at the back door, and opened it, calling out a welcome as they came in.
That’s normal. People just wander in and out of other people’s houses here, generally. I once came downstairs to find the postman sitting at the table reading The Cambrian News.
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