Moggies, Magic and Murder

by Pearl Goodfellow

  My shoulders slumped.

  “Satisfied with that immense jolt of power?” I asked with a sour tone.

  “What are you expecting to happen?” Gloom hissed. “A bank vault of money to fall on the farmer’s shoulders?”

  “Sister, I believe you should temper your discourse,” Onyx warned.

  “Well, is she really this stupid?” Gloom countered, arguing over my head with her academic brother. “She thinks her power should present itself at her beck and call?”

  “Who’s ‘she,' the cat’s mother?” I said, my voice glum.

  “Ha, ha, nice one, boss, nice one,” Shade chortled.

  I shook my head. I didn’t understand what Gloom was getting at about wanting to see results immediately. I mean, wasn’t it my grumpy cat who expected to be fed straight away, even if it meant it was three a.m. in the morning, and I was fast asleep? Pot meet kettle, much?

  We didn’t have the luxury of discussing my impotent talents, however.

  Jet interrupted our magic-making in a fit of startled statements.

  “Oh, dear, yep, he went under. The chief went under, yep. He’s not coming up, nope.”

  My catnip-addicted cat bounded from rock to rock, hunching down low so he could get a clearer view through the turbulent lagoon.

  I jumped up. “Can you see him, Jet? Can you see David? Where is he?” Each of my words becoming more high-pitched and hysterical as they fell from my mouth.

  “I see him,” Dilwyn shouted, already wading into the tempest of gushing water.

  I threw off my shoes, and ran into the pool to help the farmer, ignoring the icy grip around my heart. I waded in until the water was up to my chest; until I could see David’s limp body, pinned down under the force of the falls. I tried, as best as I could to swim against the raging torrent, but the immense pressure of the falls kept me treading water in one place. I saw Dilwyn was experiencing the same hold-up. Oh, Goddess, no. Oh, Goddess, no.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw a host of small, black shapes moving in a line through the water. My cats. My beloved cats, cutting a line toward David’s still body. They arranged themselves in formation before me and synchronized their efforts until Gloom dived under the chief’s chin and arched her back to push my friend’s face up from the water. Shade and Onyx each dipped below the liquid until they were beneath David’s arms. Their soaking wet faces bobbed to the surface, their eyes wide in alarm. Fraidy joined Gloom at the chief’s chin, his face scrunched up in abject terror. David’s head popped further above the water line, but his features were still.

  Carbon and Eclipse circled the back of my friend. They nudged his legs upward until he floated in a front crawl swimming position. Midnight took the chief’s midriff. Like this, they pushed my friend forward to the shallow edges of the violent liquid. Dilwyn and I did the rest. We heaved David from the dangerous current, and lay him on his side. The cats dragged themselves up to the gravel shore, coughing, spluttering, shaking off the offensive wetness.

  Jet raced deftly over the slippery rocks to join his brethren. “Oh, wow, yep. That was something else, guys, yep. Is he okay? Trew-Love’s okay?” He said, pacing like a cat on a hot tin roof close to David’s head.

  “Emergency kneading?” Eclipse suggested to his brothers and sister. They didn’t answer. Instead, all of them jumped on David’s prone frame and began kneading on his chest, head, legs, arms. It was a peculiar sight. Dilwyn and I could only look while holding our breath.

  Fraidy was going full-tilt massaging the chief’s chest, and I watched in morbid fascination as my scaredy-cat circled and pummeled, circled and pummeled around David’s heart.

  My friend responded. The Chief hacked a watery cough and then heaved in a gulp of air. His eyes flew open. And I bawled. I bawled. I literally sobbed until my body racked with violent tremors. Luckily, the moisture in the air, and the crashing sound the falls made as they tumbled blocked out my show of weakness.

  I dared to peek at David Trew, the man I loved with every fiber of my being.

  My friend’s eyes cleared, and he sat up, still coughing up alarming amounts of fluid. His eyes searched for me.

  “Hat?” His voice gurgled with wetness. “I’m okay.” Entirely out of breath; he couldn’t say any more than that. He just needed to look for me and let me know that he was alright. I was his priority. His head fell back to the rock with a weighty thunk.

  I said nothing. I would say nothing.

  I needed to distance myself from my friend’s well-being from now on. I knew this. My steely resolve just kicked up a notch, as I realized that there was every likelihood that I was going to lose David Trew from my life; and soon.

  I wasn’t going to have my heart toyed with like this. It was already in tatters.

  But, is now the time to get ‘hard,' Hattie? The man you love is lying half-drowned on a rock in front of you. Is getting ‘flinty’ the right thing to do in this situation?

  I ignored that persistent voice, of course. I beckoned my cats and sat down on a rock while I let my friend come to his senses. Fraidy let me scoop him up. “Sweetie, you did good work just then,” I said, nuzzling his cheek. Fraidy’s eyes were black and alert, but he rubbed his face against my chin. I nuzzled the top of his head. “For someone who’s scared of his own shadow, you sure do rise up to a challenge,” I said.

  I looked down at the other members of my beloved furry family. “You all did good work there, my friends. I … I don’t know how to than--” I couldn’t finish because the hitching of tears welled in my chest again. A sea of fuzzy heads nudged into me, and although the cats remained silent, they purred their contentment around me.

  Jet was the first to notice we had a spectator. “Look!” His face trained on the highest part of the waterfall. I swung my head to follow where my zippy cat was looking. I just made out the rock grumlins’ short and stocky form behind the watery curtain. The creature popped his head out the side of the cascade and peered down at us.

  “Dilwyn!” I shouted to our friend. “Can you sign him from down here?”

  Werelamb nodded. He let David’s head slip gently from his lap where he’d been supporting the chief’s neck. He stood, and motioned in a series of snipping, slicing hand-motions at the grumlin above.

  Ordinarily, we’d hear a swoosh, click, swoosh, click noise from the grumlin’s spiky fingers. But the falls were too loud to hear the subtler points of the creature’s language. We just watched as the rock-cutter signed his native ‘tongue’ to a receptive and perceptive Dilwyn Werelamb.

  “What’s he sayin’? What’s he sayin’?” Shade tapped Dilwyn on the leg, hoping for immediate answers.

  “He’s saying they’re trapped in there. Governor Shields won’t let them out.”

  “I knew it,” I stomped my foot from the rock-seat I was perched on. “Ask them if they’re still mining the diamonds. Ask them if Shields has them working from dawn ‘til night,”

  Dilwyn’s hands sliced at the air as he presented my questions to the strange little beast on the rocky ledge.

  “No, apparently the mining has stopped,” Werelamb explained. “All work came to an end last week. Their sacred cave is nothing more than rubble. And it’s also their prison,” he said, his nose wrinkling in apparent disgust at this soul-crushing truth.

  I stood up. “Well, at least that’s something,” I said. “Maybe there’s a soft-spot to Shields after all? He worked the grumlins until they destroyed their own hallowed ground, but at least he’s giving them a break now.”

  Gloom’s mouth hung open at me. She looked positively aghast.

  But it was David that spoke.

  “It’s not good, Hat,” he managed from his prone position on the gravel. “It means ….it means Shields …”

  “...Already has what he needs,” Eclipse finished for my friend, piercing me with his inscrutable gaze.

  “What? What does that mean?” I challenged. “What does that mean that Shields has what he needs? What are you talking
about?” My voice became strident. On the verge of tipping over into hysteria, if I’m to be honest. I could hear the pitchy squeal to my words, and it made me feel sick, but I couldn’t help but squawk like a petulant child.

  “Hattie,” Onyx said with a calm that did nothing to assuage my frayed nerves. “If Shields is no longer mining the diamonds, then it means he doesn’t need the money derived from these gems anymore. And, if he doesn’t need the money, then it means his ‘project,' whatever his assignment might have been, is complete.”

  I raked my fingers through my hair and tugged back on my locks with a fierce yank. My eyes bulged at my soaking wet audience.

  “Oh, my Goddess! Can someone please tell me what the dickens is going on??” I screeched.

  Yep, I’d totally lost it.

  “Who is the bad guy here? Who’s making the dragon? The Unseelies? The Warlocks? Shields? Is one helping the other? Are they an alliance? What? What?!”

  “There are no answers, human,” said Gloom.

  “Our sister is correct,” Onyx opined. “The answers will reveal themselves much as the Wyrmrig will reveal himself. When the time is right.” The rest of the kitties nodded respectfully at my furry commander-in-chief.

  I felt like I was about to explode. My brain was rushed by a high-pitched whine that was almost as high as my voice. All my anger, fear, and frustration threatened to blow the top of my skull out.

  A weak voice jolted me out of my frenzy. “Dilwyn? Ask … ask if they can stymie the flow of the waterfall. Tell them we need to get in there. We need to get to the dragon-heart.” David’s eyelids fluttered. It looked like he was about to lose consciousness again. Shade and Midnight resumed massaging the chief’s head, while Werelamb signed David’s request to the craggy faced critter behind the waterfall. “He says it can be done. But, they’ll need time. They’re going to need to dig through some rock layers within the peak.”

  “Okay … sounds hopeful,” David said. “How much … time do they need? How thick is the rock they need to bore through?”

  Dilwyn lifted his eyes again, as he snipped ribbons of the grumlin language from the moisture-laden air.

  “At least a few meters thick, so they’ll need...ah, wait … sorry, I got that wrong. It’s a few miles thick, not meters.”

  Miles?

  It felt as if the weight of all that stone in question had been dropped onto our heads. Dilwyn’s news crushed our voices, our questions. Our spirits.

  “They’ll need some time.” The farmer hung his head, his words barely a whisper.

  Time. How casually plentiful that word sounded when uttered by mouth. But in reality, its meaning was cruelly tight and compact.

  A whoomping sound overhead interrupted our bout of quiet desperation.

  The grumlin on the ledge dived for cover within the bowels of the rock face as the noisy vibration got closer.

  “We need to get out of here,” Dilwyn said, picking up the three broomsticks, and snatching up David’s personal belongings. “It’s their overhead patrol. If we can leave this place before they see it, then they won’t suspect anything out of the ordinary with this waterfall. They’ll most likely bypass it and not think anything of it,” he said, tossing my ride over the expanse of gravel. I caught my besom with one hand.

  “Here,” Dilwyn said, sitting David up. “Hattie, you and I will ride your broom. We’ll put CPI Trew between us.”

  With kind eyes, he looked at my kitties. “Think you crazy cats can manage four-a-piece on each of these?” He presented the remaining two broomsticks to my eight cats.

  Jet’s eyes widened in unbridled excitement. “Yep, yep, I’ll drive this one,” he pattered, already jumping at the front of the stick.

  Onyx didn’t say anything. He just trotted to the front of the other stick and took up his captain position.

  “I-I’m not going with him,” Fraidy said, cocking his head over his shoulder at Jet, while climbing on the broom behind Onyx.

  The remainder of my kitties jumped into action. All at the same time. Seven bodies crammed in behind Onyx.

  Jet looked perplexed at first. But the realization that he had the broom to himself soon dawned, and he bounced with a newfound joy. “Suit yourselves, yep. I’m gonna have some fun, fun, fun!” With that, Jet’s broom lurched into the sky, and at helter skelter angles, he zig-zagged up into the clouds.

  “Yeeehaaawwwww, yee-Eee eep!”

  We followed my recklessly speedy cat upward in a sharp ascent, just as Shields’ helicopter surveillance team nosed their way over the ridge of the waterfall below us.

  With an almost unconscious David between us and the feline broom riders to our sides, we made our way back to Glessie Isle.

  CHAPTER 8

  The atmosphere at the Moon was lively. A bustling lunchtime crowd threw back goblets of white wine as if the beverage were going out of fashion. David pointed to a quieter section of the restaurant. I stormed across to the vacant table he was referring to, still angry that we were at the Fingernail Moon and not Howling Mercy Hospital where my friend should be.

  I dropped into my seat like a sullen teenager and folded my arms across my body.

  “Hat, you're not still mad at me, are you?” David's eyes looked like chipped ice as they settled on my face. “I'm telling you, Dilwyn’s medicine really helped. See?”

  The chief held up a hand to demonstrate how unwavering it had become since landing back on Glessie.

  “Dilwyn gave you a homemade honey lozenge, David, not a Nobel prize-winning antidote,” I said sourly.

  Drop it, Hattie, Drop it. Remember your resolution?

  David looked helpless. “I feel fine, Hat, I swear.” He crossed his heart. Like a five-year-old. His silliness got a grin out of me.

  “I’ll take a griffin’s beak,” I said, waving him off. He gave me a grateful smile and walked to the bar to order our drinks.

  Goddess, why was I so angry? I was as tight and compressed as a coiled spring, held down by a crushing force. Honestly, I felt if I could just go … well, Boing! I’d feel a whole lot better.

  I sighed and combed my hair with my fingers. No doubt I looked a sight from the gusty broom ride on the way over. Dilwyn had made sure the kitties had gotten back to The Angel okay after he had dropped CPI Trew and me off here at the inn.

  I swiveled my neck around and scanned the room, smiling when I heard Horace’s booming voice greet David at the bar.

  I clocked Zinnie Kramp sitting alone at a four-person table near the window. She had her head in a book. Some trashy romance novel, by a quick glimpse of the cover.

  Well, well, well, we’re in luck, I thought. I hadn’t really expected to see Zinnie at the Moon. Us meeting her here had been more wishful thinking than anything. But, here she was, ready and waiting for someone to come along and rudely interrupt her romantic quietude.

  I bent backward over my chair to get a view of the bar. Horace was engrossed in telling David one of his time-tested jokes. The burly bartender erupted in booming laughter while my man merely looked puzzled. I’ve always found it cute to see David in a state of bafflement.

  Making sure Zinnie wasn’t looking, I waved my hands over my head at David and pointed to the lone widow.

  He looked over at Kramp’s wife, and then back at me and nodded.

  I slumped back into my seat and waited.

  “Mrs. Kramp?” I heard my friend say. “Chief Para Inspector Trew. We met briefly before. Before, uh, your husband was arrested?”

  Silence.

  “Mrs. Kramp?” David pressed again.

  “Sit. If you must.” Zinnie Kramp’s voice was tight.

  “This isn’t protocol, and you’re free to say ‘no,’ but I have my friend here. She’s helping me investigate your husband’s death. Is it okay if she joins us?” David swept an arm out toward where I sat. Zinnie’s head popped out to get a look at me. She gave a curt nod.

  I grabbed my bag and slid in next to David at the table with the widow Kramp.r />
  “Mrs. Kramp,” I said, my face sincere. “I want you to know how sorry I am for your loss. This must be a tremendously difficult time for you, so we’re very grateful for you answering just a few questions.”

  The woman blinked at me but said nothing.

  “Mrs. Kramp, can you tell us where you were at 15:00 hours on October Sixth?” David began, already scribbling in his notebook.

  “I was with Ulrich Darkmore,” she said. “Concluding a business transaction.”

  The signing in the courthouse?

  “Ulrich Darkmore?” I said. “Of Shadow Supplies?”

  “That’s right.”

  Goddess, this woman’s lips were tight.

  “Can we ask what business you had with Mr. Darkmore?” I went through all the nastiest, ‘killer’ herbs in my head. Wolfsbane, Hemlock, Nightshade.

  “No. You may not,” Zinnie said. “My business with Ulrich has nothing whatsoever to do with my husband being blown to pieces.”

  I flinched. I think David did too.

  “Can you verify where and when your business transaction with Darkmore took place?” David asked, not looking up from his notes.

  “Inside Ulrichs’s Jaguar XJS in the parking lot of the court, from approximately two-forty-five p.m. until roughly three-fifteen p.m.,”

  The chief scribbled. “Mr. Darkmore can confirm this?”

  “I damned well hope so, he was the only other person in the car.”

  David nodded. “Can you tell us your relationship to Ulrich Darkmore?”

  Zinnie stiffened. “Chief Para Inspector, I thought the purpose of this conversation was to find more information as to why my husband’s police vehicle was bombed?”

  “Just trying to leave no stone unturned, Mrs. Kramp,” David explained, leaning back in his chair. His hair was still tousled from the ride, the white streak laying in unmanicured tufts around his temple.