by T S Paul
Legal Matters
Copyright © 2017 T S Paul, All Rights Reserved
Reproduction of any kind is strictly prohibited unless written permission is granted by the editor of the anthology and the individual author.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Editing by Diane Velasquez, Dorene Johnson, and Kat Lind.
Dedications
Special thanks to my wife Heather who keeps me grounded and to Merlin the Cat. We are his minions.
Table of Contents
Night of the Living Turkeys
Author Notes
Acknowledgements
Author - T.S. Paul
Night of the Living Turkeys
by TS Paul
“I hate holidays. Thanksgiving is just another day as far as I’m concerned. That is pretty much my opinion for all the other holidays as well. Don’t get me wrong. I love my family but the Alpha that rules our Pack is a bit of a tool. And not a good one either. The last time I tried to come home without asking he nearly killed me. Well, not him. His goons did that for him. You’re better off little dude. At least Agatha and her grandmother love you.” I looked down at Fergus while I spoke. He was just a bit unhappy that they were going home to Maine in a few minutes.
“I can’t stay here with you? Agatha let me do it last time.” Fergus hopped over an errant pencil on my desk as he trotted back and forth.
Pursing my lips, I tried to let the little guy down gently. “That was at the Academy. I’m sort of working this weekend. My boss is a real taskmaster.”
“And she will be really pissed if you spend all of it watching football and eating pizza!”
Turning I could see Agatha, the boss in question, standing in the doorway. She smiled as she walked into the room. It was the first time in several months I’d seen her in civilian clothes. Not a suit jacket in sight. She still wore her shoulder holster and badge though. FBI regulations stated we had to have them on our bodies at all times. As a Witch, she didn’t need a gun, not really, but rules were rules. It was the same way for me. Three-inch claws could take care of most issues.
“I was just telling the little dude I was busy. He really doesn’t like turkey does he?” I asked.
Agatha snorted. “No, he doesn’t. When I was ten, he accidentally had a run in with a rogue Tom.”
I could feel my face scrunch up. “Tom?”
Agatha laughed. “Male turkeys are called ‘Toms.’ Grandmother took us to a neighbor’s farm to pick out ingredients for an upcoming Thanksgiving meal she was organizing for the Coven. While she and the farmer talked, Fergus and I explored.”
“A big farm?” I asked.
“The biggest. While grandmother has the biggest vegetable garden, Mr. Tommy raises the best chickens, turkeys, and ducks in Maine. You might say his place has a bit of a fowl smell about it.”
I shook my head. Someone has been teaching Agatha how to make really bad puns. I suspect it might be Cat.
“Gotcha there. We poked around the barns and had a few run-ins with geese and ducks. Some of those things are mean. If a goose is mad at you for trying to pick up a couple of chicks, run. Those wings alone can break your arm. Especially if you are still a child.” Agatha sat down in the chair opposite mine.
“Fergus didn’t want to have anything to do with the geese. To him, they’re feathers with feet. He wanted to play with the goslings. He’s the one that got me in trouble with the geese, to begin with.”
“No. Really? Fergus is a real pain in the ass sometimes.” I laughed as I said it to her.
Agatha smiled. “Yeah, well, he does it to himself. So there we are peeking into sheds and barns when Fergus falls into a goose nest. He’s yelling for help surrounded by about a dozen baby chicks. They’re all pecking at him, and he’s running around in circles inside the nest.”
“Isn’t he impervious to harm?” I could just about see it too.
“He is, but all those baby birds freaked him out. I reached into the nest and started trying to catch him. That is, of course, when Mama goose came home.”
I winced at the picture of a mad momma goose. “Ouch.”
“Ouch is right. First, she hissed at me. I had my hands full of baby chicks and Fergus… Fergus was still running around the nest making those little balls of fluff all scream for mama! I was setting the chicks down when she charged me.” Agatha rubbed her leg as if it hurt.
“She attacked me in the legs with her beak. I tried to move away, but the goose was relentless. Beak down, charging at top speed, she kept slamming into my legs. Then came the wings. The goose would get a running start and flap right at me. Those wings hurt when they hit you!”
I tried not to laugh at her. “Why didn’t you move? She obviously wanted you gone.”
“Fergus. He was still in the nest scaring the chicks, and I didn’t want to lose him. I managed to grab him, but the goose was still attacking me. In her rage, she couldn’t tell the difference between Fergus and one of her babies.”
“What did you do?” As stories go, this one was getting good.
Agatha smiled. “I tossed him and ran for it.”
“You tossed him?”
“Yup. Just as hard as I could. He was like Superdude for about ten seconds, and then the fun really started.” Agatha tilted her head and stared at Fergus on the table in front of me. He was standing stock still with the strangest expression on his small face.
“He landed on the back of a full grown Tom turkey.”
“The males are those great big ones with all the feathers, right?” I asked.
Agatha nodded. “They are. Fergus landed with a plop, and the Tom took off running! He must have thought a rock hit him or something, but that turkey was running like it was the race for its life.”
“And Fergus?”
“Holding on for dear life! If he had only let go he would have been fine, but he had a mouthful of feathers and was riding it like a bucking bronco,” Agatha continued.
“Did he stay on longer than eight seconds?” I asked.
“I think so. Why?” Agatha asked.
“It’s the requirement for bronco riding. They score you after that time. Maybe Duke Berry should give his buckle to Fergus. I bet a wild turkey is wilder than a real bull.” I told her.
“Meaner too. If you think the goose was mean, you should have seen the turkey. It just added another chapter to his life. If Unicorn’s had resumes, Fergus’s would be like a phone book.”
I laughed and looked down at the Unicorn in question. “Sorry, buddy. You have to go with her this time.”
Fergus turned and swished his tail at me. Which caused me to laugh even harder. It was pretty funny when he ‘gave me the tail.’
“Fergus, you know Grams is making your favorite. Why are you trying to stay here?” Agatha looked over at her oldest friend.
The tiny Unicorn sniffed at the Witch and walked over to the television program guide. Using either his feet or Magick, he got the pages to turn. “Right there. It’s the Pony Play Holiday Special. Can we take a TV with us?”
Agatha dropped her head forward and started laughing. I just gave her a funny look and stared. After a moment she raised her head and spoke. “Grams doesn’t have a TV in the house. She says it rots the brain.” Looking at Fergus, she shook her head. “We can tape it for you, you know?”
Fergus jumped up and down a couple of times. “You can?”
“Of course we can. But let me do it, OK? I’ll save it on the DVR. Tape is a bit too old school fo
r me.” I remarked.
“Well if you have to. I’ll take my tape and leave then.” Agatha laughed.
“Can I help it if I’m a techie?” I laughed with her. “Seriously though. Do you know how long you will be gone?”
Agatha replied. “I told the director it would be three or four days. She offered to fly me up in the Lear.”
“That’s pretty cool. You’re going, right?”
“I am. It will help me to get back faster. I’m leaving Cat in charge while I’m gone, but it will just be you and her. Bill’s got a family thing in California and Ana is busy doing, well, you know. So if you run into any trouble, you will have to use the regular FBI guys as backup. Try not to kill any of them. It won’t look good on my AAR reports. Understand?” Agatha pointed out.
I snorted. “The FBI runs on paperwork. Have a good time, boss. After the year we’ve had you deserve a few days off. It should be pretty quiet around here.”
“And now you’ve jinxed it.” A new voice echoed from the doorway.
I looked past Agatha into the smiling face of Catherine Moore. Cat to her friends. Like Agatha, she was a senior Agent and the Alpha of our Pack. “Hi, Cat.”
“As soon as she leaves, we’ll get buried in Magickal requests, and it will be all your fault for even mentioning it. Just you wait.” The blond and blue-eyed Agent commented as she stepped into the room.
Agatha stood and gave her a big hug. “I’m only going for a couple of days. What could happen?”
“And there you go too! Bad luck is going to follow us around now. Have a safe trip, Aggy. You too Fergus. Try to stay away from the Mexican food this time.” Cat waved her hand in front of her face suggestively.
Agatha chuckled. “Beans and cheese don’t really agree with him. You two hold the fort. I’ll see you next week.”
She scooped up Fergus and left the room.
I looked down at my monitor, Fergus had somehow typed ‘Unicorns rule and cats drool’ on my keyboard when I wasn’t looking. Pointing, I told Cat, “Do you see this? I had no idea he could read.”
Cat peeked over my shoulder and smiled. “He has depths we never knew about.”
“And farts we do,” I replied. “Poor Agatha. She gets to ride with him.”
Cat laughed and gave me a friendly nudge. I liked Cat. She has become so much more than the Alpha that kicked my ass and forced me to submit. My father and brothers asked me once if I was dating her. I remember laughing and telling them she would kill and eat me whole if I even tried that. She was one of a kind and woe be the man that approached her the wrong way.
“So, any orders part-time boss?” I asked.
“Just finish compiling the reports on the Florida mission. Did you see the local FBI report on the Pacific Northwest case?”
I nodded.
“Make sure you update it with all that research you did last month. The extra background is always a good thing if another one of those things pops up. Agatha added one of our special tracking codes to the file on that girl. Something is off about her. Agatha says she’s not quite what she seems to be. For now, we will watch and learn. Better that way actually.”
Scratching my head, I turned to stare at Cat. “Are you sure? We can have the local office pick her up. I thought Magick users couldn’t help the government?”
“In a way, she’s not. Only the local police which is splitting hairs. We don’t need to see her. Not yet. Better to keep her off the Council’s radar too. Just update the file.” Cat gave me a pat as she left. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
It boggled my mind that one man used to do all of this alone. And a human no less. In my eyes, Jack Dalton is a god among men or at least the FBI.
<<<>>>
Things were quiet in Virginia, but little did we know that Georgia was heating up.
“What do you mean we have to cook a hundred and fifty turkeys?”
The man asking was Peter Baker, the one and only butcher in the tiny town of Shade Pine, Georgia.
The woman in front of him thrust a wad of paper at him. “This says you have to do it. Don’t you remember signing this last year?”
Taking the papers, Peter quickly ruffled them. They had last year's date as well as his signature on them. “Where did you get these?”
“Your desk. They were stuffed into that top drawer you call a pen storage. Isn’t that your signature?” The woman was Dorothy Wood, the shop’s one and only full-time employee.
Peter blinked a few times at the papers in his hand. Last year. What was he doing in… He looked down at the date. September?
Thinking back he could only remember one instance he would have signed this, and it wasn’t a good thing. His biggest client last year, in September, was the local voodoo mambo.
The wedding was the largest one in the county. Dr. Hangbo was pretty famous around here. He ran a small clinic on the very edge of the county line but was also known as a voodoo priest.
“The food was most excellent Mr. Baker. I will be having a celebration of sorts for the members of my church next year. Would you be interested in providing the meat?” Hangbo asked.
To Peter’s ears, the priest’s accent was British. No one in town knew where the small man had come from, only that it was the Empire. He didn’t sound Canadian.
“What do you need?” Peter asked.
The little man looked up at the sky for a moment. “One hundred and fifty turkeys. Cooked and ready to serve. Can you do that? I will pay you handsomely if you are able.”
Peter’s mind was going a mile a minute. How would he cook that many turkeys in time for a single order? And keep them hot. “I think I can do it. It will cost though. When would you need them?”
The small man smiled. Peter shuddered when he realized his teeth were both sharpened and gold capped. “I believe you call it Thanksgiving here in the States. I will have a contract prepared. Understand that the penalty clause will be harsh. Is this satisfactory for you?”
“I think I can do it.” Peter held out his hand to shake on it.
Hangbo only stared at him. “You must be sure, Mr. Baker. Can you do this or not? You must be very clear about things.”
Peter hesitated. Then he nodded and held out his hand again. This time the priest took it.
“Excellent.” Hangbo made a strange hand motion. One of the wedding ushers appeared next to him with a wad of paper.
“Charles here has the contract already prepared.”
Peter took the paperwork and read the terms. He was excited by the part that read he could charge anything he liked. ‘Within reason’ is what it actually said. It was the penalty that tripped him up. “What is this part right here?”
Without actually touching the paper, Hangbo looked down at it. “Ah, the penalty. It means what it says, Mr. Baker. The penalty will be the most appropriate one available. I would advise you to meet the terms.”
“That doesn’t tell me anything. Does it mean you will bill me or something?” Peter scratched his head in thought.
“No money will be asked for if you fail. My promise you have on that, Mr. Baker.”
“OK then. I’ll sign it.” Peter replied.
Hangbo smiled. “Excellent.” He nodded to Charles, who still stood beside him.
Charles held out a pen to Peter and offered a clipboard to sign upon.
“You first, if you please, Mr. Baker,” Hangbo asked.
Peter snatched the pen out of Charles' hand and signed quickly. As he dropped the pen, it somehow bit him. “Ouch!”
Looking at his hand, Peter could see a small drop of blood. “That thing bit me!” He held his hand against his mouth instinctively.
“Ah, Americans. There are times I dislike this modern world of yours. Who I can deal with, who I can curse, who I have to report to, all of that nuisance. Things were so much easier when all we had was the crossroads.” Hangbo signed the contract quickly.
“Now the deal is complete Peter. As a bonus, I will double your business.
Call it a kindness if you like. Remember our deal though. One hundred and fifty turkeys. Fully cooked and ready to eat on November twenty-fifth. You have a full year on which to figure out the details. Have a nice day.” Hangbo tipped his hat and walked back toward the party. Peter tried to stop him but was prevented by Charles.
“Do we have enough in the freezer?”
Dorothy’s question snapped Peter out of his memories. He had taken his story to the bartender at the Lazy Rest. Everyone there told him how much of an idiot he was. Peter wasn’t a big fan of history or anything non-meat or football related. How was he to know making a deal at the crossroads was a deal with the devil? Or at least one of his servants. He got drunk staggered home. A copy of the contract was on his desk in the morning.
“Check the backup freezer. I placed a big order back in July. There should be enough to cover it.” Peter mused as he kept flashing back to that day.
“How are you going to thaw them out and cook them in time?” Dorothy asked.
“Uh, what?” Peter asked.
“Thaw and cook. Like the contract says.”
Peter’s eyes got huge, and he flipped to the front of the contract. “Crap”
Dorothy gave him a look like his mother used to and walked away.
Looking down at the paper Peter grimaced. What’s the worst he can do to me, anyway? Maybe this was a good time to get drunk.
<<<>>>
So far I hadn’t seen any sign of cursing the holiday by talking about it. Cops are funny. We are like athletes in that we get superstitious about things. The guys in the lab used to never, ever, mention Anastasia’s name out loud. It was a sure-fire way to make her appear and pile on more work. I glanced in the direction of her tiny room. It would be nice to get her back, someday.
“You just had to open your mouth didn’t you?” Cat yelled as she climbed on board the team’s bus.
“About what? Don’t tell me we have an assignment?” I asked.
“We do. It’s in Northern Georgia. How fast can we get there?” She asked.
“Where in Georgia? That is a big State.” I quickly pulled up the navigation system.