“Well, I know everyone says that you’re not the best at spells, but I have to say that was one smooth broom ride over.”
I could practically feel Sara grinning over at me. “It was always the one thing I was good at when we were at the Academy. I love being on a broom. It feels so natural to me, in a way that the spells don’t. When I’m on a broom, I feel like I could do anything.”
“I love that you have that passion for it,” I replied. “I don’t really have that with anything. Although, I suppose there’s a chance I’ll find something in the magical world that I love as much as you love broom riding.”
“I assume I’m not the first one here?” I heard Ellie’s voice say a moment later.
“Over here,” Sara’s voice replied a moment later.
“Oh Jupiter, she cannot be seen, although she is here, make this woman reappear.”
A second later Sara appeared, as though out of nowhere.
“Where are you, Tina?”
“Right here,” I said, with Ellie repeating the spell. As soon as the last of the words left her mouth, my whole body became visible once more.
“Now that’s a cool spell,” I said, as Ellie repeated it a third time on herself. She cast a slightly different version to make our brooms reappear as well.
“It is pretty handy,” Ellie said with a grin. “It’s not particularly difficult, but the witches don’t teach it until you turn sixteen. I guess they think that kids using it would get into too much trouble.”
“I think they have a point,” I said with a smile. I could only imagine the kind of trouble I would have gotten into as a kid if I had been able to turn myself invisible at will.
“Well, I was able to do this spell by the time I was eight, and I never got into any trouble,” Amy’s voice said out of nowhere. Apparently, she had gotten here as well.
“Yeah, but you don’t count because of that whole child prodigy thing,” Ellie replied as Amy reappeared without speaking a word. “All the cool spells were wasted on you; you were far too much of a goodie-two-shoes to really take advantage of being able to do the spells earlier than the rest of us.”
“Perhaps that is why the instructors trusted me with that kind of knowledge earlier than you,” Amy said as we made our way towards the roof entrance of the hospital.
I tried the door, but unsurprisingly, it was locked.
“This is an excellent opportunity to train functional magic, instead of simply theoretical, Amy said. “Let me teach you the spell.”
“Are you insane? We are absolutely not holding a lesson in the middle of committing a felony,” Sara replied. “Just open the door.”
“Fine,” Amy said.
“Are you sure we should be visible?” I asked. “What about security cameras, or that sort of thing?”
“This is the paranormal world. We don’t really need security cameras. Generally, wards and other security spells do the trick,” Ellie explained. “This is where Amy comes in handy.”
I watched as Amy pointed her wand towards the door. She began muttering a rhyme under her breath, and I didn’t quite catch the words, except for ‘Jupiter’, ‘ward’, and ‘show’. A second later, the door glowed green.
“It’s a simple ward,” Amy announced happily. “I don’t know who the hospital hired to do their security, but this is child’s play to get past.”
“Great,” Sara smiled. “Now get us past it.”
It took Amy less than a minute to cast a spell to break the ward, and a second later the three of us slipped into the hospital.
“Caranthir’s office is on this top floor, right?” I asked. “That means we shouldn’t really run into anybody.”
“Exactly,” Sara nodded. “All of the administrative staff will have gone home for the night.”
The door to the top floor opened up into the office of the administrative section, and the three of us hurried down toward Caranthir’s office.
“Time to do your magic again,” Ellie whispered to Amy, looking furtively down the hall as though someone might appear any second.
Amy repeated the same spell as before, and once again the door glowed green. After repeating the second spell once more, Amy opened the door, and the three of us were in.
Closing the door quietly behind us, I noticed the room was almost pitch black. The only light came from the light of the moon passing through the window. Ellie immediately strode over there, pulling closed the blinds.
“This time, you know the spell,” Amy said to me. I pulled out my wand, and gulped. This was actually a lot more nerve-racking than doing it in the kitchen, when there was absolutely no consequence whatsoever. Here there was a real-life need for the light.
I took a deep breath to center myself as I imagined my energy passing through to my wand, which I had pulled out of my pants pocket. I really had to find a better spot for it.
“Jupiter, with all your might, I beseech you to fill this room with light.”
To my surprise, this time, my wand lit up with more light than it ever had before. It certainly wasn’t blinding the way Amy’s had been, but I was certainly approaching the same amount of light as a small table lamp would have given off.
My three friends began clapping quietly, grins on all their faces.
“You’re definitely getting the hang of this pretty quickly,” Ellie said.
“Absolutely, it’s awesome to see,” Sara added.
Amy nodded in satisfaction, then told me that I had to continue holding onto the wand or the connection would break and the spell would end.
I made my way towards a cabinet against the far wall, while Sara sat down at Caranthir’s desk, Amy made her way towards a matching cabinet against the other wall, and Ellie joined me.
I pulled out a stack of papers, careful to keep them all in order, as I didn’t know much about elves, but I had the distinct impression that Caranthir at least was extremely organized, and would probably notice if it turned out all of his papers were out of order when he showed up at work the next day.
“Has anyone found personnel files of any sort?” Amy asked a couple of minutes later.
I shook my head. “I only have invoices here. And oh boy does this hospital spend a lot of money. Paramedical Inc, Heliosupplies Ltd, Magical Medical Imagery, Western Paranormal Laboratories… there are a ton of suppliers here.”
“Yeah, that’s the medical business for you,” Amy muttered.
“I have the files here,” Sara said, pulling out a stack of papers. “I haven’t found Philip’s though.”
The rest of us put what we had been working on away, and made our way to Sara, who split up her sheets of paper four ways.
I thumbed through all of the sheets, looking at names I didn’t recognize, when suddenly Ellie let out a small cry of triumph.
“Got it!”
The three of us huddled around her, with me placing my wand just above the sheet of paper to shed the most light on it. Most of the information was simply clerical: hiring date, firing date, general duties, that sort of thing. It was noted that Philip had never been considered for a raise. However, at the very bottom of the form was a section about the end of employment. In the section beneath, a reason for termination was listed: fired for theft.
The four of us looked at each other. “Was that where he got the money from?” I asked. “After all, he was seen at the bar that night buying rounds and spending up.”
“Yeah, but that was a few days after he was fired. I would have expected someone like Philip to have virtually no impulse control. If he had stolen the money, he would have spent it that night, not after being fired,” Amy replied.
“That’s a good point,” Sara nodded. “I wish this had more details. No wonder Caranthir didn’t want to tell us why Philip was let go. It doesn’t reflect well on the hospital when one of the employees is stealing.”
“Well, at least now we have our answer,” Ellie said. “Now we just need to figure out what Philip stole. I’d be willing to bet
that if it was something important, it could have gotten him killed.”
“Drugs, maybe?” Sara offered, and Amy nodded.
“That seems most likely.”
Suddenly, I heard footsteps coming down the hall. “Shh!” I said, and the four of us froze. My eyes widened as I realized they were coming towards here.
“Hide,” Sara hissed, and the four of us scattered. Ellie and I immediately hid behind the desk, while Amy threw herself behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains and Sara crouched her small frame behind a couch leaning against the side wall.
At the last second, I remembered to drop my wand, immediately breaking the spell and sending the room into complete darkness. Moments later, the footsteps stopped in front of the door, and it creaked open. A second later, the light flashed on overhead. I didn’t dare glance to see who it was. It didn’t matter. We were caught. Somehow, someone had found us, and now we were all in huge trouble.
I didn’t even dare breathe as the person came into the room. When the small trash can next to me was picked up, I almost let out a squeal of fear.
“God I love elves,” the person muttered to themselves. “I wish the shifters made as little mess as the elves do.”
It was the janitor! This wasn’t a security guard. It was a guy emptying the trash.
As every second passed I was sure he was going to notice at least one of us. When the man put the trash can back in its spot, he placed it less than six inches from my foot. And yet, a few seconds later, he left the room, turning off the light and closing the door behind him.
None of us moved for at least two minutes.
“Sweet Jupiter,” Sara sighed eventually. “That was close.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Amy said, immediately lighting her wand. Her face was as white as a ghost; I imagined this must have been the closest she had ever come to getting into trouble in her whole life.
“Should we do the invisibility spell first, before we get out of here?” Ellie suggested, and we all nodded in agreement.
“Absolutely.”
Sara took me by the hand. “Don’t let go, that way we won’t get separated when we get back to the brooms.”
The next few minutes flew by – and then I was flying, much more literally – back through the air and back home. As soon as we were all safely back in the house, having been magically re-appeared thanks to Amy, who arrived a few minutes after Sara and I, we opened another bottle of wine.
“To freedom, and not being arrested,” Ellie toasted, and the four of us laughed in a mixture of relief and insanity.
“See? I told you I would have come in handy,” Mr. Meowgi sulked.
“At least it wasn’t a waste of a trip,” Sara said. “We found out that Philip Vulcan was fired for stealing.”
“Yeah, but stealing what?” I asked. “We know Caranthir knows, that was his name on the bottom of the form, but he won’t tell us.”
“We should find out from Patricia,” Ellie suggested, pulling out her phone. “I wonder if she’s at the bar right now. After all, it’s only just after ten. Let me text a friend I know who works there.”
It looked like our night of adventure wasn’t quite over just yet.
Chapter 17
“Why can’t I come this time?” Mr. Meowgi whined as I changed into some of the witch clothes I’d bought that morning to go to the bar.
“Because you’re not twenty-one, for one thing.”
“I am if you count up the ages of all my previous lives.”
I didn’t know if Mr. Meowgi was joking or not, and to be honest, I was kind of on magical information overload right now, so a part of me didn’t even want to know.
“Plus, even in the magical world there have got to be health and safety regulations. I’m pretty sure that even here I’m not allowed to bring a cat into a bar.”
“Please, I’m cleaner than most witches,” my familiar replied, reaching up and licking a paw as though proving a point.
“Tell it to the health regulation people, not me,” I said, giving him a quick pat on the head as I leaned down to slip my shoes on. I was actually starting to enjoy Mr. Meowgi’s snarky company. He was a good cat.
The Magic Mule was only about four blocks away from the house, and so the four of us decided to walk there. I was definitely pleased with this new development; one ride on a broomstick was enough for one night, although a part of me was looking forward to future lessons with Sara.
The pub was deep-set in an old, dark building. A rickety old sign above the door announced the bar, and to get to it, we had to pass through an old wrought-iron gate and past a garden patio that honestly looked like it would be amazing to drink at when it was daylight out. With cute little tables and pillow-covered chairs, this was definitely going to be my new ground zero for patio season.
The four of us walked in, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked around. This was basically exactly what I would have expected a small-town pub in England to look like. A large, dark mahogany bar took up the entire far wall, with a cute little fairy who looked to be around twenty fluttering from end to end with a rag, cleaning up. Plush, dark green carpet specked with gold dots lined the floor, and the rest of the floor space was devoted to round tables surrounded by balloon-backed chairs. Large, comfortable-looking booths lined each of the other walls, and Edison bulbs hung from the ceiling, casting a warm glow on everything.
Randy and a tall, heavyset man who I assumed was Eric sat at a table, each one of them nursing a beer. They were obviously in deep conversation. There were about half a dozen other patrons in the bar, none of whom I recognized, but who all looked like witches and wizards.
“Do non-witches and wizards just not drink?” I asked.
“They do, but not at a witches bar,” Ellie explained. “This is where all the witches and wizards drink, the vampires all hang out at The Bloody Mary, that sort of thing.”
“This place really is segregated, isn’t it?” I asked. “Why can’t everyone just drink at the same place?”
Amy’s look of horror told me that this was something she had never considered. “That just… doesn’t happen here,” she replied. “Everyone prefers to mingle with their own kind.”
I shrugged. Personally, I would have no problems sharing a bar with vampires, or shifters, or fairies, or whoever. But, apparently I was in the minority. As I glanced over at the bar however, my mind immediately shifted to the task at hand.
Patricia sat at the bar, alone, nursing what looked like a whiskey on the rocks. Her slumped shoulders and the worried looks the bartending fairy kept shooting her told me she was not having a good night.
I motioned towards her to the others.
“We don’t want to scare her off,” Ellie suggested. “Amy, come with me. Let Sara and Tina talk to her.”
Amy nodded, and the four of us split up, with Ellie and Amy making their way towards one of the booths on the right. Sara and I approached the bar and took the two seats immediately next to Patricia.
“Hey, Patricia, how are you doing?” Sara asked gently, and the Assistant looked up at us. Her eyes were bloodshot, and I was pretty sure it was from crying, since going by the amount of condensation on the glass and table, she’d been nursing that one drink for a while.
“Not great. I’ve just learned Philip’s funeral is tomorrow. He really was a good guy.”
“We heard he was fired from the hospital for stealing.” Sara definitely got straight to the point. Patricia looked up suddenly from her drink.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, it’s just a rumor going around,” Sara replied nonchalantly.
Patricia shook her head vehemently. “Not a chance. I knew Philip. And sure, he had his faults. He could be a little bit of a snoop, and he did drink too much, but he was a good guy. He was honest. He wouldn’t have stolen anything.”
“So he didn’t tell you anything about it?” I asked.
“There was definitely nothing to tell. I can guarant
ee you that Philip did not steal from the hospital.”
“We heard he was having money issues, though,” Sara said.
Patricia nodded. “Sure. After all, it’s not like being a general maintenance person for the hospital pays a whole bunch. Plus, Myrtle never worked if she could help it, so between the two of them they were definitely usually having money issues. But just because someone is poor doesn’t mean they steal.”
“No, of course not,” I said quietly. “Do you know why he was fired from the hospital, if not for stealing?”
Patricia frowned. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. To be honest, I didn’t really speak with Philip in the past week. I did see him in the bar that night, and I thanked him when he bought the bar a round of drinks, but he seemed distracted somehow.”
“Any idea why?”
Patricia shook her head. “No. I wish I did know. I wish he had confided in me. Then maybe we would know why he had been murdered. But, I really have no idea. All I can tell you is that on the night he was murdered, Philip was in good spirits. He was happy.”
“Thanks,” Sara said quietly.
“Not a problem, anything I can do to help. But you have to believe me, Philip was no thief. He was a good man, he was an honest man. Now, I think this is probably my cue to go home. I managed to get tomorrow off so I could go to the funeral, and I’d like to get some rest before it starts.”
Patricia settled up her tab, and I made my way back to the booths where the other two girls were sitting while Sara ordered drinks for all of us.
I repeated to Amy and Ellie what we had heard from Patricia.
“So she really has no idea what he could have stolen?” Amy said dejectedly when I finished.
“No, but I mean, what kind of guy is going to tell his friends that he was caught stealing at work and that’s why he was fired? I kind of can’t blame him for keeping that a secret.”
Sara slipped into the booth as well, telling us that the waitress would be by shortly with our drinks.
“Someone else can drink mine, I have to get back to coven headquarters,” Amy said.
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