Black & White Croakies

by Sam Cheever

  Grym patted him on the back. “Not your fault. You didn’t know about the no eating thing. It was a fluke that they figured it out before they were poisoned too.”

  “Well, thank goodness they did,” Aunt Bee said. She frowned. “About Opie…”

  I shook my head. “He was never real. He was just a figment. A hologram. “

  She shook her head, sighing. “I always knew there was something wrong with that boy.”

  I patted her arm. “Yeah, he definitely seemed a bit off.” I didn’t tell her I’d begun to suspect the boy when he’d showed up at the diner and talked about electricity. Then, when I’d gotten that radio message in the hut, the realization had hit me how right the young boy was. Electricity ran the world. It was invisible. Deadly. Saturating the very air around us. Energy was electrical. Magical too. It was at the heart of everything.

  He’d been taunting us with the message. Far too clever for a small child. But not for an arrogant entity.

  I looked at my friends. “We need to get out of here,” I told them “That snake can fight its way back.”

  “Any ideas how to do that?” Rustin asked.

  I nodded. “Where’s my purse?”

  Sebille lifted her eyebrows. “Your purse? Since when do you carry a purse?”

  Grym handed me the sparkly clutch. “Since this answered my call,” I told her.

  The sprite ogled the purse. “Is that another one of those endless stuff bags?” Sebille and I had come across an endless stuff artifact when we’d gone to the Plex dimension to save Hobs and Slimy. Long story… Suffice it to say it was a handy type of artifact to have around. But it required a little creativity to use.

  “Better. This is a variation on the burlap sack. Apparently, it carries only the things you’re going to need for any given task. I just had to figure out how to use them.”

  I reached inside and pulled out the key, holding it up. “This is the only thing in here I haven’t used.”

  My friends all looked around for a door.

  I shook my head. “It’s over here.” I worked my way through the crowd of the artifact’s victims, not difficult because they pretty much split apart and let us through.

  I headed for the strip of rocky wall where my keeper magics disappeared when I sent them looking for SB and the sword. My rationale was that the entire goal and purpose of the artifact was to create and maintain artificial worlds. The biggest part of that was hiding reality.

  Every “presentation” the artifact provided was a facade, with reality sitting behind it. Like the Behind the Scenes area where Dugan and the rebels had held out while trying to beat the artifact.

  As if my thought had pulled him forward, Dugan stepped out of the crowd and, with a wide smile and a nod of his head, he fell in beside me as I headed for the wall.

  I stopped in front of the spot where I thought the door would be and held out the key.

  Nothing happened for a beat. And then another. I was starting to second-guess myself when I noticed that the “rock” at the center of the space looked smeared, its color slowly changing from gray stone to warm wood. A moment later, we were all looking at a door.

  A cheer rose up behind me. Dugan clapped me on the shoulder. Grym, Sebille, Rustin, and Lea moved up behind me for moral support.

  Taking a deep breath, I inserted the key into the lock on the door.

  Silence throbbed as I reached for the knob, clasped it, and started to turn.

  A blood-curdling scream sounded at the back of the cavern.

  I jerked around to see the snake rising from the dust near the passage entrance, its slanted silver gaze narrowing on me. Without warning, the monster shot forward, spearing through the crowd directly at me.

  “Naida!” Grym screamed.

  People leaped out of the striking snake’s way, a few of them slammed into the floor by the violence of its passing. Screams reverberated through the underground space, echoing off the walls and slashing back to slice painfully at my eardrums.

  I stared into the snake’s irate gaze, an odd calm sliding over me.

  And opened the door.

  I smiled.

  With a final glance over my shoulder, I reached inside.

  The snake’s enormous form left the ground, its coils snapping straight to give it distance, and its venomous maw opened wide.

  I wrapped my fingers around the fist-sized plug in the wall before me and tugged.

  The green lights of the cavern flickered and died.

  The snake struck, fangs dripping, and the musky scent of reptile filled my senses as the enormous snake enclosed me in its maw.

  And then flashed into nothing on a burst of eerie green light.

  I blinked, halfway shocked I was still alive.

  The silence broke on a wild cheer as everyone realized the danger was over.

  And even better. We were all going home.

  As the last victim stepped through the door, disappearing into the gray mist that would take them to their own homes, I glanced over at my friends. Most of them had stayed with me, waiting until everyone else was safely away before we left the artifact.

  Because of what Sindra and Dolfo had told us, I had a strong suspicion that once I left the artifact it would be destroyed. And I didn’t want to risk leaving anybody behind if that happened.

  So, I’d waited to the end to leave.

  Dugan had left once and stuck his head back through to give us the happy news that Enchanted waited on the other end of the gray mist. Then he’d promptly disappeared, after declaring he was off digital entertainment forever. From that point on, he told us, he was only going to deal with things he could hold in his hands. Like books.

  I wisely refrained from telling him about the book artifacts I had at Croakies that could suck a person into the world of the book and keep them there.

  I’d leave him with his false sense of security. At least until or if he started collecting old and rare books. Then I might need to warn him.

  “Okay, you guys,” I told my friends. “Your turn.”

  “Thank the goddess,” Sebille said, tugging on her weird skirt, which I was amused to see she’d never changed out of. “I can’t wait to get into my real clothes. No more being the fashionable laughing stock in the neighborhood.”

  Lea and I shared a wide grin at that statement, but all I said was, “Yep, tall striped socks are virtual wallflower garb.”

  Sebille eyed me as if trying to decide if I was making fun of her and then seemed to decide it didn’t matter. She slipped past me and disappeared into the mist. Rustin and Lea, who was carrying Hex, were right behind her. Hobs rushed through with a war-whoop, Slimy bug-eyed and croaking in his long-fingered grip.

  A warm softness wound around my ankles. I looked down at Mr. Wicked and smiled. Scooping him up, I hugged him close, kissing him between the ears. “Ready to go home, buddy?”

  “Yes,” said a gruff voice beside me. I looked up in surprise, finding Grym grinning at me, wearing only his bare chest and too-tight pants.

  It was a good look for him. A very good look. And I had to clamp my lips together to keep from telling him so.

  “Your turn,” I told the gargoyle.

  He shook his head. “We’re going through together. If anything else jumps up to try to stop you at the last minute…”

  “We haven’t been attacked by a giant rabid butterfly yet,” I told him, frowning thoughtfully.

  Grinning, Grym looped his arm through mine. “I wouldn’t even be surprised. Hanging around with you is always an adventure Naida.”

  My grin faded. “Is that a bad thing?”

  Grym didn’t respond. His eyes twinkling mischievously, he tugged me into the mist, wrapping himself around me.

  Before we stepped out into Croakies, I felt the soft, warm press of his lips against mine. The kiss was brief, so brief I thought for a moment that I’d imagined it. But it had been nice.

  Really nice.

  Magical even.

 
The End

  Read More Enchanting Inquiries

  If you enjoyed Black & White Croakies, you might want to check out the rest of the series. Please enjoy Chapter One of Unbaked Croakies, the PREQUEL for the Enchanting Inquiries as my gift to you!

  * * *

  How in the name of the goddess’s favorite sports bra am I going to do this Magical Librarian job?

  * * *

  I have no idea what I’m doing. And the woman who’s supposed to be training me is…well, let’s just say she’s distracted and leave it at that. I guess I’ll bumble through. It’s become something of a trademark move for me. Holy Bat boogers! I could really use a cat and a frog. Too bad I don’t have either!

  Unbaked Croakies - Prequel

  CHAPTER ONE

  Oy, Pudsy. How’s things?

  I stood on the street outside the bookstore, frowning up at the ugly wood sign with the picture of a spotted frog on it. The yellowed white paint was chipped and scarred, and there was a black blotch near the frog’s mouth that looked like a fly.

  I kept expecting the frog’s tongue to snake out and snap it up.

  It was an ugly sign. World-class ugly. But it was oddly suited given the store’s strange name.

  Croakies.

  I mean. What kind of name was that for a bookstore?

  Soft footsteps came up behind me and I resisted turning.

  “Are you ready?”

  At just under six feet, the man was only a few inches taller than I was. I guessed he was about middle age. For a sorcerer that would put him in his eighties or nineties. He had piercing blue eyes that were a little darker than mine and longish, curly brown hair. He also had a truly forgettable face. I mean that literally. From one moment to the next I would often forget what the man looked like. In fact, the few times I’d seen him, I’d only been able to identify him because of the sorcerer’s garb he wore.

  The thought made me frown.

  I always remembered the piercing blue gaze. And the hair. But that was all that stuck in my mind.

  I knew him only as Agent A.P. from the Société of Dire Magic. A formidable group whose moniker seemed to strike fear into the hearts of everyone I spoke to about them. Supernormals, at least. Since I’d been raised by a non-magical grandmother, I didn’t really know that many supernormals. But the few I’d met since A.P. had knocked on my door a couple of weeks earlier, had seemed more than half afraid of him.

  I had no idea what it was that scared them about the man. He seemed harmless enough to me.

  I turned to look at the agent. He was less intimidating in his street clothes than he’d been in his robes. I’d only met him a handful of times. But each time we’d met previous to when he’d come to fetch me from my grandmother’s home a little while ago, he’d looked just like a fairytale sorcerer in his long purple and black robes. All that had been missing was the pointy hat.

  And the wand.

  When I’d jokingly asked him where those two items were, he’d very earnestly explained that they were only for special ceremonies.

  I hadn’t known him long enough to recognize if he was joking.

  I chose to believe he was.

  Otherwise, it would just be too weird.

  But back to his question. Was I ready?

  Taking a deep, bracing breath, I nodded. I was as ready as I was ever going to be. With a feeling that my life was about to change in ways I couldn’t imagine and might not like, I reached for the door to Croakies and opened it.

  A mangy black cat galloped toward the door as it opened, yowling as if he were being chased by an army of slavering canines. The feline’s headlong flight was accompanied by a prolonged shriek.

  “Banshee Botox!” a woman caterwauled from deep inside the store. “Close the door! Don’t let him out.”

  I quickly slammed the door behind me, cutting the agent behind me off in mid-stride.

  A.P. yelped in pain from the wrong side of the entrance.

  A woman came scurrying out of the stacks, rushing over to grab the cat, who was almost as big as a full-sized dachshund and sported only one and a half ears.

  The feline’s longish black fur was matted and sparse in spots, making him look like he’d spent the better part his life on the streets. White fur speckled the big cat’s cheeks and chin, marking him as a feline of the older variety. His large, expressive eyes were a silvery-green and probably the prettiest thing about him.

  Which wasn’t saying much.

  “Fenwald, you naughty boy,” the woman said, her accent strident and British.

  She looked at me through a pair of large tortoiseshell glasses, shoving them up a pug nose and peering at me as if I were a particularly nasty bug. “What is it, then? Do ya need a book?”

  The door behind me opened, and A.P. came inside the store, rubbing his decidedly red nose. He glared at the woman behind the square glasses. “Alice. That cat is a menace.”

  I expected her to buckle under his severe disappointment. Instead, she grinned.

  “Oy, Pudsy. How’s things? You’re looking a bit pinkish about the old snout there, eh?” Her laughter was a series of odd snorts that vibrated the glasses down her nose. She reached up and poked them back into place with a bandaged finger covered in black ink. “Ah,” she said, her smallish brown eyes rolling back to me. “So, this is my new apprentice, then?” She looked me over with a critical eye. “She’ll do.” The woman offered me a work-roughened hand. “I’m Alice, Keeper of the Artifacts. You’re Naida?”

  I nodded, struck dumb by the reality in front of me. In my mind, I’d pictured a tall, powerful woman with a calm, no-nonsense manner as Keeper. Alice wasn’t any of those things.

  Jerking her head toward the side, Alice said. “Come on, then. I’ll make us a spot of tea.” She carried the big cat with her as she slouched toward a nook across from the sales counter. The space sported a miniature stove and a short counter, which was covered in tea-making things. The oven door was open, and a comfortable warmth oozed from its interior. The cat immediately sprawled in front of it and began to bathe, clearly enjoying the heat.

  With a jolt, I realized Alice was using the ancient appliance to warm the bookstore. “Is the heater broken?” I asked, pulling my coat closer as I shivered. I wasn’t looking forward to spending a winter shivering and sniffling day and night.

  Alice flipped a dismissive hand. “It’s just having a fit. It’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  I sent A.P. a worried glance, and he shook his head. “You need to get that fixed, Alice,” he told the woman. “It was part of your apprenticeship agreement with the Société.”

  She ignored him completely, motioning negligently toward the small, three-person table in the center of the open space at the front of the store. A high, narrow window above the tea nook showed the clear blue of an early-January sky. The bright sunshine painted a golden ribbon across the bookstore’s ratty carpet and bathed the round table in warmth. “Have a seat, sweetums.” She glanced at A.P. “You too, Pudsy. I’ll have tea ready in two shakes.”

  I looked at A.P. and smiled, mouthing, “Pudsy?”

  He shook his head dismissively.

  While the tea steeped, Alice pulled the oven door wide. Grabbing a dingy towel that was appliqued with a large black cat that looked nothing like Fenwald, she tugged a flat pan from the oven’s interior. She carefully extracted three pale, oblong biscuits from the pan, arranging them like spokes on a wheel in the center of a chipped white plate and sliding the rest back inside the oven.

  Alice placed the snack on the table between us. “Scones. My specialty.”

  Having missed breakfast that morning, I smiled in anticipation. “Thank you. They smell delicious.”

  Alice gave me a pleased smile and returned to her tea prep.

  Fenwald wandered over and sat down a few feet away from the table, staring at me through an unfathomable green gaze.

  I reached for a scone, eyeing the dark spots marking its golden surface and wondering wh
at they were. I hoped they weren’t raisins. Maybe blueberries? I thought, hopefully.

  A.P. reached out and touched my hand with a finger, shaking his head and frowning as I lifted it toward my mouth.

  Grinning, I took a bite.

  “Ow!” I said before I could stop myself.

  A.P. sat back and shook his head.

  “Watch out, sweetums. They’re hot.”

  I pulled the scone from my mouth and looked at the shallow dent my teeth had made in it. Feeling my front teeth to make sure they were still intact, I arched my brows at A.P.

  He chuckled soundlessly. Reaching for another scone, he held it above the table for a moment, glancing over at Alice, he asked, “Is that a new thriller section, Alice?”

  The Keeper lifted her head and looked into the bookstore. “Yes. Blimey, you do have a keen eye. I moved them from the back because I’ve seen new interest in thrillers of late.” Alice wandered over to the books in question and ran her hand lovingly over their perfectly arranged spines.

  While she was distracted. The Société agent slammed his scone against the edge of the table, coughing loudly to cover the noise, and broke a large chunk off the end of it. He threw the piece to Fenwald. It hit the carpet with the weight of a large marble and skittered to a spot a few inches from the cat.

  Fenwald eyed the heavy offering and then lifted a derisive gaze to A.P., as if to say, I’m not eating that. Not wasting any time considering the offering, the big cat reached out with a large paw and whacked it away.

  We watched it skitter beneath the cabinet where Alice kept her assortment of teas, out of sight.

  I wondered how many other bits of bad baking the cat had “stored” beneath the cabinet. Then I decided I probably didn’t want to know.

  “I find I’m growing fond of the genre,” Alice said, oblivious as she returned to her tea-making. She glanced over her shoulder at me. “How about you, Naida? What’s your favorite genre?”

  I flushed in embarrassment, not wanting to tell her in front of A.P. “Um, paranormal.” It wasn’t a lie…exactly…I did like some paranormal along with my romance.