Whoops! We're In Big Trouble Now

by Adele Abbott

  “Of course I will, but you’d better move this thing.”

  “Thing?”

  “Sorry, I meant her. When Amelia realises Pretty is missing, she’s bound to come looking here first.”

  “You’re right. I can’t leave her in the apartment.”

  “What are you going to do with it—err—her, then?”

  “I’ll take her to work with me.”

  ***

  “I hear you’re leaving us, Suzy.” Dougal Andrews stepped out in front of Susan.

  “Not true. It seems your sources are as unreliable as ever.”

  “I heard that Flynn had offered you a job with him.”

  “If he has, that would be precisely none of your business.”

  “I doubt that New Edge will entertain your proclivity for weird paranormal stories.”

  “Proclivity? Have you been chewing the dictionary again, Dougal?”

  “Are you seriously going to write an article about werewolf sightings?” He scoffed.

  “What I do or do not write has nothing to do with you. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, some of us have work to do.”

  Dougal went over to join Bob Bragg by the watercooler. As Susan made her way to her office, she heard them howl, first like a wolf, and then with laughter.

  “I’m so sorry, Susan,” Stella said. “I was doing a little more research on the wolf story, just in case you needed it. I didn’t even realise Dougal was looking over my shoulder until he laughed.”

  “Don’t worry about it. The man is a moron.”

  “I gave him a right mouthful, I can tell you.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Did you talk to the Hares and the Masons?”

  “I did, and their stories are remarkably similar.”

  Susan brought Stella up to speed with what the two couples had told her.

  “What do you make of it, Susan?”

  “I wish I knew. Part of me was hoping that they’d be nutters who were clearly making it all up, but that wasn’t the case. I definitely believe they saw something. I’m just not sure what that something was.”

  “Shall I dig further back in the archives?”

  “Yes, please. Go back as far as ten years, and see if you turn up any similar stories.” She glanced across the main office. “I’m going to see Flynn.”

  “Have you made your mind up about the job?”

  “Not yet. I’m going to ask him for Monday off. I’m ready for a bit of a break, and a long weekend should do the trick.”

  ***

  “These are great.” Dorothy was looking at one of the flyers they’d collected from the copy shop. “I love the logo thingy.”

  “Pamela came up with the idea of the bottle of blood on wheels.”

  “We’ll have to get that printed on the side of the van.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s okay to use on the flyers because we’re only going to hand them to vampires, but if we put it on the van, it’ll attract a lot of unwanted attention. From rogue retrievers for example.”

  “Of course. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “We’ll have to get someone to put T & D Supplies on there.”

  “Actually, I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we leave it as it is?”

  “You must be joking.” Tilly looked appalled at the idea. “I’m not driving around in a van with Lovely Lumps written all over it.”

  “Think about it. If we don’t want to get busted, we have to fly under the radar. No one is going to suspect that a van with Lovely Lumps on the side, is delivering blood, are they?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Plus, it will save us a bit of cash. The customers won’t care what it says on the van, as long as we deliver the goods on time, and at the right price.”

  “I hate to admit it, but I think you’re right.”

  “What’s the plan now, then?” Dorothy was keen to get started. “Where are we going to hand these out?”

  “I thought I could take the main bus terminal—that’s always busy. And you could head down the high street.”

  “I thought we’d be doing this together?”

  “There’s no point in both of us being at the same location. We’ll get the word out much quicker if we split up.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Don’t forget what we discussed, Dorothy. You have to make sure you only hand these out to vampires.”

  “Duh! I’m not stupid.”

  “Sorry, but we can’t be too careful. If one of these flyers gets into the wrong hands, we could be closed down before we’ve even begun.”

  “I know. I’ll be careful.”

  “And whatever you do, keep your eyes peeled for rogue retrievers. If you spot one, leg it out of there.”

  “Will do.”

  “Okay. Let’s meet back at my place at five.”

  ***

  “Charlie? Where have you—?” Andy stopped midsentence when she saw what he was carrying. “What’s that?”

  “My cat, Pretty.”

  “I didn’t know she’d died. I’m so—”

  “She isn’t dead.”

  “She looks pretty dead to me. Whoops, sorry for the horrible pun.”

  “She’s not dead. That witch, Amelia, did this to her.”

  “It looks like she’s been stuffed.”

  “I know that’s what it looks like, but it’s actually just a magic spell.”

  “Are you sure?” Andy touched the cat.

  “Positive. Well, almost. Neil reckons it’s been done with magic.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “He’s trying to find a way to reverse the spell.”

  “Why did you bring her into work with you?”

  “I daren’t leave her in the apartment because that’s the first place Amelia will look when she realises Pretty’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone from where?”

  “I kind of broke into her apartment.”

  “This gets worse and worse.”

  “Is Draycott on the warpath?”

  “He was until I told him that it was your day off.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “I know that, but when you didn’t show up, I switched the rota around. You’ll have to work my day off next week now.”

  “No problem. I really thought I was going to get the boot this time. Thanks, Andy.”

  “Charlie?” Draycott appeared in the doorway of the staffroom. “I thought you were off today?” His expression changed when he noticed what Charlie was holding. “What’s that doing in here?”

  “This is my cat, Pretty. I’m taking her to the vet.”

  “You’d better hurry. She doesn’t look at all well.”

  ***

  “Flynn, do you have a minute?”

  “Come in, Susan. I wanted to speak to you anyway.”

  “Oh?”

  “You go first.”

  “I was wondering if I could take Monday off. I have some leave owing.”

  “No problem. Do you have something planned?”

  “Not really. I fancy a long weekend.”

  “Look, I know I said that you could take as long as you needed to decide if you want to join me at New Edge, but I’m afraid the owners want my team in place as soon after I start as possible. That means if you aren’t going to come with me, they’ll have to start advertising for someone more or less straight away.”

  “When do you need to know?”

  “By next Friday, I’m afraid.”

  “Gosh.”

  “I really am sorry about this, but it’s out of my hands this time. I hope you’ll say yes, but I’ll understand if you don’t.”

  “I guess that gives me plenty to think about over the weekend.”

  ***

  This was much harder than Dorothy had expected. She’d never handed out flyers before, and she hadn’t realised what a thankless task it could be. She ought to have done because whenever someone tried to push a leaflet into her hand, she could be quite offha
nded, and even rude.

  Her task was made all the more difficult because she could only give the flyers out to vampires. A few humans and other sups had shown an interest, but she’d waved them away. And of course, she had to be constantly vigilant for rogue retrievers. If one of them caught her, it would be game over.

  “Excuse me, Sir.” She held out one of the flyers to a young male vampire.

  “What are you selling?”

  “We’re starting a blood delivery service in Washbridge.”

  “Interesting.” He took the leaflet. “It’s not synthetic, is it? I can get that anywhere.”

  “No, this is the real thing.”

  “Great. I’ve been getting mine from the local off-licence, but they were shut down recently. When do you start?”

  That was a good question. She and Tilly hadn’t discussed a start date, and Dorothy had no idea when the first batch of blood would arrive. “Err—Monday.”

  “Fantastic. And you can deliver to my office, I assume?”

  “Of course.” As soon as he’d walked away, Dorothy got on the phone. “Tilly, it’s me. What? Yeah, it’s going okay so far. Look, someone just asked when we can start taking orders, and I had no idea what to tell him. I said Monday—I hope that’s okay? Thank goodness for that. And I assume we can deliver to offices? Great. Okay, I’ll crack on, then.”

  The more flyers she handed out, the more encouraged Dorothy became by the feedback she received. Most of the vampires said they might be interested in the service, and almost half of them said they would place orders within the next week or two. At this rate, she and Tilly would be millionaires within a year. And when she was stinking rich, she’d get an apartment of her own, so she didn’t have to put up with the human or Neil. She’d miss Charlie, though.

  “What are those, love?” The taller of the three teenage humans said.

  “Nothing you’d be interested in.”

  “How do you know? Give us a look.”

  “Go home and play with your toys.”

  “Cheeky cow! Think you’re too good for us, do you?” He tried to snatch the pile of flyers, causing her to drop several onto the ground.

  Dorothy saw red. “Get lost!” She screamed at them.

  Her reaction was so violent that the three boys ran off.

  Only when they’d gone did she realise that several of the flyers were blowing down the street. Panic stricken, she chased after them. It took her a few minutes, but she managed to collect them all.

  Or so she thought.

  Chapter 15

  Neil was determined to help Charlie. Initially, his plan had been to contact Jill Gooder, the witch who worked as a P.I. in Washbridge. She had helped them before, but this time when he called her office, her receptionist informed him that Jill was away on holiday for a couple of weeks and couldn’t be contacted. He’d briefly considered asking Jill’s grandmother to help, but had quickly dismissed that idea—that woman was altogether too scary.

  That left only the witches and wizards in his personal contacts book. He decided there would be no point in contacting any of the witches because he’d dated all of them, and in most cases, it hadn’t ended well.

  He’d spent the best part of an hour calling every wizard on the list, and although most said they would have been happy to help, none of them recognised the spell he’d described. Only one name remained on his list: Liam Lomas.

  Neil and Liam had once been close friends, but they’d fallen out over a witch by the name of Zoe. Liam had been dating her for months, but then she’d dumped him and gone out with Neil for a while. Liam had taken it badly and they’d barely spoken since.

  “Liam? It’s Neil.”

  “Wow! I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “It’s going very well. What do you want?”

  “I—err—just thought it was time we buried the hatchet.”

  “Really? So, you don’t want anything, then?”

  “Look, about what happened with Zoe. She and I didn’t get together until after she’d dumped—err—until after you’d stopped seeing one another.”

  “Whatever. You did me a favour as it happens. After you took Zoe off my hands, I met Lydia. We’re married now, and we’re expecting our first child in a month’s time.”

  “Congratulations. Seeing as how I did you a favour, I was just wondering—”

  “Same old Neil. What are you after?”

  He told Liam what had happened to Pretty, and asked if he could help.

  “I have seen something like that, but it was some years ago now.”

  “Do you know how to reverse it?”

  “Not off the top of my head, no. I’d have to do a bit of research.”

  “Would you do that for me? It’s really important.”

  “I’m not at home at the moment. We’re having a few days at the seaside. I’ll be back on Sunday. I can check my old journals then, and give you a call if I come up with anything.”

  “Is there any chance you could do something before then?”

  “Don’t push your luck, Neil. Most guys would have told you to sling your hook after what you did.”

  “Fair enough, but you’ll call me on Sunday?”

  “If I find anything, yes.”

  “Cheers, mate. You’re a diamond.”

  ***

  Susan had been looking forward to the prospect of a long weekend, but then Flynn had dropped his bombshell. She still had no idea whether she should stay put at The Bugle or make the move back down to London. The job with New Edge would certainly look good on her CV, and no doubt open many more doors in the future, but the prospect of going back to the daily commute in and out of the city filled her with dread.

  It would have been nice to be able to discuss it with someone, but there was no point in talking to her family because any job in journalism meant signing over your soul to the devil—at least according to her father. Nor could she see herself having that conversation with her flatmates. Neil and Charlie were nice enough, but she doubted they’d have any great insights on the subject. And as for Dorothy, Susan already knew what her advice would be. Dorothy would probably offer to pack her suitcase for her.

  The sound of the phone ringing came as a welcome distraction, particularly when she recognised Greg’s number.

  “Hi.”

  “Susan, what are you doing after work?”

  “I don’t have anything planned. Why?”

  “Something important has come up.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “I’d prefer not to over the phone. Could we meet up for drinks or dinner? There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  “Okay. Either is fine by me.”

  “Why don’t we do both? How about six o’clock at Reggie’s?”

  “Is that the place next to the visitor information centre?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Okay. See you. Bye.”

  Drinks and dinner sounded like a great way to kick off the long weekend. Although she was intrigued to find out what Greg had to show her, she knew him well enough by now to realise that he could get carried away over nothing much at all. While she was with him, she’d ask his opinion on what she should do career-wise. Part of her hoped he’d say he wanted her to stay in Washbridge.

  She’d no sooner finished on the call than her phone rang again; this time it was Caroline Day.

  “Hi, Dreams.”

  “Hey, Susan. I have big news and I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve dumped Ryan.”

  “Really? For good this time?”

  “Definitely. He’s been cheating on me.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I should have given him the bullet ages ago.”

  “Have you told Jess?”

  “I tried to ring her, but her calls are going to voicemail. Apparently, she’s on holiday in Spain
somewhere. I was hoping you and I might be able to meet up for a drink.”

  “Sure. How about Saturday?”

  “I’m actually going out with some friends from work on Saturday night, but I could make it at lunchtime if that’s any good.”

  “That would be great.”

  ***

  After they’d finished handing out flyers for the day, Tilly and Dorothy met back at Tilly’s flat.

  “I didn’t realise handing out flyers would be such hard work.” Tilly poured them both a glass of lemonade. “I must have given out a couple of hundred. What about you?”

  “The same, I’d guess.”

  “What kind of feedback did you get?”

  “On the whole, very positive. Most of the people who read them seemed interested, and a lot of them said they would definitely be placing orders as soon as we were open for business.”

  “Yeah, pretty much the same for me. I’m getting good vibes about this.” Tilly downed her drink. “I did have to deal with a few idiots, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, a couple of wizards thought it would be funny to try to grab the flyers off me, but I flashed my fangs at them, and they ran off.”

  “A similar thing happened to me, but this was some teenagers.”

  “Sups?”

  “No, humans.”

  “I assume you cleared them off.”

  “Err—” Dorothy hesitated a fraction too long. “Yeah, I did.”

  “Dorothy? What happened?”

  “It was nothing. The ringleader tried to grab my flyers.”

  “He didn’t get any, did he?”

  “No.” She could feel Tilly’s gaze burning into her. “I did drop a few, though.”

  “What?”

  “It’s okay. I picked them all up before anyone else could.”

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Thank goodness for that.”

  “What happens next?”

  “We’ll try and hand out a few more flyers over the weekend, and then on Monday, we open for business.”

  “I can’t believe it.”