by Tegan Maher
By the time we got to the town hall, Sara was already waiting for us, a broom at her side.
“What’s going on?”
The three of us made our way inside to get out of the cold, then Amy and I explained to Sara what we had discovered.
“Well, obviously that’s completely understandable,” Sara said.
“We were hoping you’d come in and tell Chief Enforcer King what happened along with us,” I said. “We don’t want Audrey to be punished too harshly, and if the person who’s been most negatively affected by the theft is alright with leniency, we’re hoping Chief Enforcer King will be, too.”
“Good thinking,” Sara said. “Let’s do this.”
The three of us made our way to Chief Enforcer King’s office, and walked in, ready to tell her everything.
Epilogue
In the end, the spirit of Christmas won out. Chief Enforcer King decided that since Audrey had come forward, and because in the end no one was really hurt by the theft and Sara was fine with it, no charges would be filed.
In thanks, Audrey made a hefty donation to a number of local charities, and by Christmas day the orb shone high and bright on top of the Western Woods Christmas tree once more.
“To the holidays,” Ellie toasted on Wednesday morning as the sun rose over a white Christmas in Western Woods. The turkey was in the oven, and we were enjoying a freshly-baked batch of cinnamon buns while sitting in front of the fire in the living room. Mr. Meowgi was sleeping so close to the fire my eyes darted over to him from time to time to make sure he hadn’t combusted.
“To eggnog at nine in the morning,” I replied, holding up my glass a second time.
“To friends who will do anything for you,” Sara added.
“And to the Healers,” Amy finished off. “I’ve heard from Audrey, and Danielle’s surgery went very well. They’re confident they got all of the cancer, and they’re hopeful that she’ll be able to make a complete recovery.
“Well, now my toast was completely out of line with the rest of all yours,” I replied with a laugh. “Still, I’m sticking with it.”
“That’s the rum talking,” Sara said with a grin as she took a sip herself. “What a lovely day. I hope you’re enjoying your first Christmas here in Western Woods, Tina.”
“I am,” I said with a smile, looking at the faces around me. We might not have been related – heck, we weren’t even from the same coven – but as far as I was concerned, these witches were my family.
There was a knock at the front door, and I stood up to get it. “That’s going to be Kyran.” We had invited him over for Christmas, and I was looking forward to spending the day with him.
He looked like he was a bit cold as he stood on the stoop, so I dragged him in and gave him a long kiss. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you too,” he said with a grin when I pulled away. “Hey, I have good news.”
“Ooh, do tell.”
“Let’s go into the living room. I’m pretty sure everyone’s going to want to hear this.”
Kyran made his way into the room, settling close to the fire while I grabbed him a cinnamon bun and egg nog from the kitchen. I was making my way back over to the living room as he made his announcement.
“Normordira went into labor last night, and she gave birth to a healthy female elf a couple of hours ago.”
Cheers rang through the room as we all celebrated the first birth of an elf in town in hundreds of years.
“Looks like luck might have been in the air after all,” Kyran said. “No one was expecting the elf to be a girl. Seeing as ninety-five percent of elves are male, the odds were definitely against it, but there’s now a new little elven girl in Western Woods. I think that brings the total female population of elves here up to seven.”
“I’m so heavily into the Christmas spirit I even hope Estelle manages to get into the Healer program,” Ellie announced. “Good luck for everyone! And hopefully it keeps for Sara. You know, she’s going to be crowned world champion in the broom competition in a few months. I just know it.”
I smiled as I took another sip of egg nog. The reality was, it was me. I was the luckiest person in Western Woods, and there wasn’t a day that I wouldn’t be grateful for it.
Thank you for reading this short story. I really hope you had as much fun reading this book as I did writing it. If you enjoyed it, I invite you to check out the full Western Woods series, beginning with Back to Spell One. Click here to read Back to Spell One now.
You can also sign up for my newsletter to find out about new releases here: http://www.samanthasilverwrites.com/newsletter
About the Author
Samantha Silver lives in British Columbia, Canada, along with her husband and a little old doggie named Terra.
When she's not writing mysteries Samantha loves traveling (she's most recently been to Egypt and Jordan), skiing, eating Dairy Queen and complaining about how hard running is.
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The Case of the Criminal Christmas Party
Nikki Haverstock
The Case of the Criminal Christmas Party
An evening of security detail for a Christmas party should be easy for Ella, especially with her magical mentor, Bear, at her side. But when she arrives at the abandoned casino where it’s taking place, she discovers all the guests are in disguise—and none of them are willing to reveal their identities to anyone, including Ella and Bear. Weird, but okay--until one of them dies. Now Ella has to solve the case without knowing who any of the suspects really are.
Chapter One
I was ready to tear the map in half and go home, but then I would have no excuse as to why I was missing Vanessa’s family Christmas party. I did not want to spend the evening watching Tiffany hang all over Vin or explain to all of Vanessa’s very distant relatives why I didn’t have a husband. This job had seemed like a blessing when Bear offered the security detail to me, but I hadn’t expected the directions to be so complicated. And like most mage-related things, it was needlessly complicated.
I was pretty sure I had misread the instructions again when the defunct casino finally came into view. It was a pretty well-known historical site, so I didn’t understand the need for a billion U-turns, but such was the mage way.
I parked the car next to a line of nondescript cars. I tried to identify them, but my eyes kept sliding off the sides, unable to follow the outline, and they were all the same gray color. Another sign of enchantment. I rolled my eyes at the paranoia and poked my enormous black familiar.
“Patagonia, we’re here.”
She turned her enormous teal eyes on me and yawned. After stretching every inch of her feline body, she finally sat up and meowed that she was ready for duty. I gave her a scratch behind the ear, which she enjoyed right up to the moment she bit my hand.
I snatched my fingers back. She hadn’t broken the surface, so I knew it was a love nip. I sighed and got out of the car. The temperature had dropped during my trip, and it had to be close to freezing. Christmas was still a week away, but winter had definitely arrived in the Nevada desert. Rambler weather was closer to Las Vegas weather than Reno weather, even if we were at the midpoint between them. We got snow but nothing that stuck around.
I shivered and opened Patagonia’s door. She sat on the seat, staring at me. She wanted to make sure I understood she would leave when she was ready. As a familiar, she could pop in anywhere, anytime, so letting her out was mostly about politeness on my part rather than necessity.
I pulled my heavy black trench coat tighter. “If you’re going to be a pill, I won’t bother.”
I was about to slam the door when she slowly exited the car and oozed to the ground. She moved as slow as felinely possible, pausing for a handful of seconds with each step. With only one step left, she stopped to clean off a paw then finally jumped down.
I rolled my eyes as I closed the door and headed for the abandoned casino. It was nothing compared to the Avenue, the
massive behemoth downtown, but it had its own charm. It had a speakeasy vibe to it, and I could clearly believe the rumors that it had been a major mage mafia headquarters back in the day.
Before I could reach the massive golden door, it swung open, revealing Bear. He was dressed in all black just as I was. But he looked like security, despite his older age, while I felt like a server at a cheesy Italian steakhouse.
“Come in, but don’t get too comfortable. Whoever hired us apparently didn’t tell the rest of the group, and they are ‘discussing’ it now.” He gestured to a second set of doors before sitting on one of two large ornate purple-and-gold chairs that could have easily passed for thrones.
I looked around the golden-lit room, where matching chairs were positioned in little clusters. Inhaling deeply, I smelled that the room was old but not musty, with the slightest hint of cigar smoke and single-malt Scotch.
I walked around, running a finger over the top of the chairs, expecting dust but finding everything clean. I suddenly lost my footing as Patagonia wove between my feet, catching my back leg as I stepped forward. I hadn’t been going quickly, but I wasn’t able to catch my balance before hitting the floor.
“You okay over there?” Bear called.
“Fine. I swear, Patagonia.” I muttered threats under my breath that I would never even dream of carrying out. As I crawled onto my knees, I noticed that one of the doors to the room Bear had gestured to was slightly ajar, and I could see in.
An eerie sensation rolled over my stomach, and I could sense a dark, magical aura. Without thinking, I crawled over to the gap to look inside.
Six figures in long capes and matching brightly colored masks stood in a circle of light facing each other. Everything else beyond them was dark as they stood on a stage giving a performance, which was only enhanced by how they were dressed, in either red, orange, yellow, green, blue, or violet.
The cloaks wrapped around their shapes, and the masks hid every feature in their faces except the eyes, but I could still guess at their gender through height, body language, and shape plus glimpses of a forearm here and there. But the magic hid all other details of them, and I knew that I would be unable to pick them out of a lineup because of the magic hiding their identities.
I edged in closer, ignoring Bear’s increasingly urgent gestures for me to step away.
I was only able to catch the voice, the magic giving each person the same monotone speech. I only knew who was talking based on their tendency to gesture as they spoke.
Red pointed at the group. “Stop! It is my turn to organize the spelling, and I did as I saw fit. Tonight is important. If we fail, the past fifty years will be for nothing. I hired security for that reason.”
Violet held up a hand to gain the group’s attention. “But why now? We have always been fine.”
Red shook her head and pulled something from under her cloak. “I assumed all of you got one like this.”
Green puffed up his chest. “We don’t speak of what happens outside.”
Red shook the thick parchment. “And yet someone or several of you perhaps knows who the others are—unless I’m the only one who got this.”
Yellow shook her head, the feather on the top of her mask swaying dramatically with the motion. “I did as well.”
“No,” cried Green. “Don’t discuss things on the outside!”
Red reared around to face Green. “My life was threatened. At least two of us got the letter, so someone here already knows who I am. If you didn’t receive the letter, then you are safe, but you can’t doubt that I am concerned.”
Blue pulled out a letter from under his cloak. “I did also.”
Violet joined in. “As did I, although I didn’t bring it.”
The group turned to Orange, who nodded. “I did too.”
Green let out a sigh. “I admit, I did as well. But how?”
Red shook her head. “I do not know, but it has become too dangerous. Someone on the outside has discovered our secret. That is why I hired security.”
There was a raise of muttering, though it was difficult to pinpoint who was against the idea because of the masks.
Yellow stepped forward. “I think security is a good idea. And I recognize that man from a few events I have been at. Lou Freeman of Freeman Security has a great reputation.”
While I thought of him as my mentor, Bear, I had to remind myself that no one outside my social circle used that nickname, and they thought of him only as Lou.
Green, apparently the group skeptic, pushed back. “But he could be in—”
Violet held up a hand. “Enough! I want security too. Freeman Security has a wonderful reputation. I trust him and the Monza more than I trust most of you. You know it is far more likely that the letter sender is in this room, right?”
I didn’t catch any more as Bear stepped in to block my view. I crawled away from the door and stood up, waving a hand to indicate I wanted to talk to him.
When we were far enough away, I asked the question that was foremost on my mind. “Did we get paid already?”
“Of course. Not in full but enough to make it worth our while should we be stiffed.” He grumbled under his breath about it not being his first time on the job. After several minutes of silence, he spoke again. “Did you hear anything useful?”
“They don’t know each other, at least not outside of here. It’s supposed to be a secret. They are all in colored robes and masks. It sounded like the person in red hired us. What do you know about them? Why did you take this job?”
He blew a raspberry. “Typical mage subterfuge. If I rejected every job from a mysterious client with an unknown agenda, it would cut our workload in half. This wasn’t so weird. A scroll was left on my doorstep, and if I accepted the job, I was to put a red flag in the window at midnight. Then a bag of gold and a map were delivered by white raven. Most of that is pretty standard.”
I rolled my eyes. Having grown up believing I was a human gave me real perspective on the absurdity of the mage lifestyle. “So you don’t know anything about them?”
“I might know a little something. Mostly about this casino we’re in. Whoever hired me forgot that all the magical maps in the world won’t stump me if I recognize the location. There’s not that many abandoned casinos in the area that look like this.”
“Where are we?”
He went over to a wall and gestured to a picture of a black-and-white photo of a middle-aged, handsome man. “The old Malone place. He was known for being incredibly lucky.”
“I know that at a casino the house always wins, but why would people gamble at a place where the owner was extra lucky? Seems like a surefire way to go home empty-handed.”
“You are thinking too literally. Good luck, in this case, isn’t about everything going your way. It can be that things work out long term. One of Malone’s more infamous stories was the night some guy from Hollywood came and won a huge amount of money. Malone treated him very well despite him putting a real dent in the profits. That guy went back home and was able to finance a movie he starred in. Ever hear of Down the River?”
“Of course, it’s a classic, and Rex Peterson was such a star. Wait, are you saying that Rex Peterson, one of the most famous actors and directors of the fifties, was the guy that won all the money?”
He chuckled and sat back in the chair and gestured to one opposite him. “I won’t have brought it up otherwise. Rex always raved about his favorite casino in Rambler, and within a few years, the place was crawling with celebrities.”
“And they all won money and invited more people?” I guessed.
“No, you’re still not getting a handle on this.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not an expert on luck.”
“A few won money but nothing out of the normal. But Rex kept coming because he married Malone’s business manager, who was also his sister. Rex’s friends would bring their friends, and those friends had good luck, though not so many winnings this time. They would meet their tru
e love or run into another director or writer and have a wildly successful collaboration. It was just a great place where good things happened.”
“Then why did it close?”
“No one knows. One day in the eighties, it shut down. Everyone was given a good bonus, and Malone disappeared. There were rumors that he had run afoul of the human gaming commission, and most figured that he packed up to move to a new location. I heard some weird rumors, but nothing came of any of it.”
“But this clandestine meeting in his abandoned casino isn’t a particularly great sign, is it?”
“Probably not. Keep an eye out because—yes, it appears our employer is ready for us.”
I turned to see the inner door slowly opening.
Chapter Two
The six cloaked figures came in then fanned into a line to face us.
Red nodded her head at me. “Greetings, Monza Patagonia. I did not realize you would be coming, but we are glad to have you.” They used formal greetings, which combined my Monza title with the name of my familiar.
I stuck my hand out then dropped it awkwardly when no one moved to shake it. “Please, call me Ella.”
There was no protest at my appearance, so apparently whatever concerns they had about security had been settled.
Red turned to Bear. “We are about ready to start our… gathering. We ask that you wear these cloaks.” She gestured to two black cloaks hanging on hooks on the wall, very appropriate for skulking around.
I walked over to the hooks and handed one to Bear before putting the other around my shoulders. Patagonia, who had been taking a very slow tour of the room, came over to sniff the hem before growling and attacking it ferociously. She grabbed the edge in her mouth and front paws before kicking at it with her back legs. Before I could stop her, she ripped off a swatch.