Maybe I could also do elemental-themed bars: reds, oranges, and yellows for fire covens like Mars, blues for the water covens, greens and browns for the earth covens, and silver and black for the thunder covens.
My mind raced with possibilities. After all, the colored-cocoa butter chocolates looked so incredibly delicious! When my orders were finished, I made my way around town, delivering to the local vendors who were nice enough to support me and my new business.
By the time I was finished, I was just starting to wonder if I shouldn’t give Ashley a call to see if she had discovered anything when my phone rang and her name popped up on the screen. Perfect timing.
“Hey,” I said, answering the phone. “How’s it going?”
“Yeah, good,” Ashley replied. “Listen, I’ve asked around and put out some feelers on members of Las Brujas who are named Alan and might be based around Spellford. I got you an answer: Alan Terr. He lives in Spellford, and I have an address for you.”
“Great, thanks so much, Ash,” I said, holding my phone against my shoulder while I grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the address she gave me.
“You’re not going to go see him on your own, are you?” she asked warningly.
“Well, I was planning on it, yeah,” I replied. “But don’t worry. I’ll be careful. And I won’t confront him at home; I’ll wait until he’s out in public.”
“Ok, that should be better,” Ashley said, but she still didn’t sound convinced.
“I promise I’ll be careful, Ash,” I said. “But this guy might be able to tell us about Mom and Dad; I need to be able to talk to him.”
“Fine. Let me know if you need anything. And I’m serious: if anything starts to feel off about this guy at all, I want you to get out of there. If you feel like you’re in any sort of danger, get out of there. Proving Mom and Dad are innocent won’t mean much if you’re dead.”
“Yeah,” I said, gulping hard. I knew deep down Ashley was right. Las Brujas was a gang of witches and wizards, and they were dangerous. But I also wasn’t going to sit by and watch my parents rot in jail for something they didn’t do. “I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Good. Take care of yourself. I love you,” Ashley told me, and I felt tears welling in my eyes. I forced them back; I didn’t want emotion to take over like this.
“I love you too.”
I hung up the phone and took a deep breath to steady my nerves. It was going to be fine. I was going to be careful, but I was also going to get the information I needed.
Making my way through the portal and back to Spellford, I looked at the address Ashley had given me. It was that of a house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town. Apparently the gangster life paid pretty well in the paranormal world. Or maybe Alan was higher up in the gang than I had expected.
I cast an invisibility spell on myself as soon as I was out of sight of anybody, just in case. After all, safety first.
The street Alan lived on was wide—at least ten people could ride abreast on brooms, despite the housing density being so low I couldn’t imagine that many people ever being on this street at once—and lined with gorgeous cherry trees whose blossoms were just starting to flower. His house was a gorgeous old Victorian painted a kind of pastel yellow that probably would have looked lame on any other street, but seeing as all the other houses around were of the same style, all with rather daring color schemes, overall the house didn’t seem out of place at all.
I hopped over the low fence at the front of the house, not wanting to alert any snoopy neighbors of my presence by opening and closing the gate while I was invisible, and made my way up to the front stoop. I pressed my face against the frosted glass of the front door window but couldn’t make anything out inside. Instead, I peered over the side of the wrought-iron gate next to the house and looked into the living room window.
It looked like any other wizard’s living room, but with much nicer furnishings. A couch, a huge flat-screen TV wall-mounted above the fireplace, and a lamp that probably cost more than an entire semester’s tuition at Spellford. The rooms in these Victorian houses were rather on the small side; open-plan was definitely not something the architects had been aware of. Unfortunately, that meant that while I could confirm there was no one in the living room, I couldn’t see into the rest of the house.
I didn’t even know if Alan lived here by himself. For all I knew, this was a place where a handful of gang members all lived together. What if even one of them were home?
Suddenly, the front door opened and I jumped about two feet in the air. I had about half a second to press myself against the side rail and breathe in as a man who had to be Alan slipped past me. He looked exactly like Kelly had described him: tall, with blond hair.
He rushed past me, obviously in a hurry. Perfect. Hopefully he had a meeting set up with more members of Las Brujas.
I went to follow him, but suddenly stopped in a panic. Alan was going to fly wherever he was going, and unlike him, I didn’t have a broom. I had seen his broom propped up next to one of the cherry trees outside the house. I had to think fast.
I pointed my wand in the direction of the broom and cast a quick invisibility spell. I could only mutter the words, not wanting to be heard, and I could barely see the broom from where I was; it was leaning against the far side of the tree a couple yards down the road. In a couple of seconds Alan would get to where he had left it, and then I’d know if my spell had worked.
“Aw, stupid teenagers,” I heard him cry out a second later. “What’s the point of living in a nice neighborhood when you can’t even leave your broom lying around for ten minutes?”
I smiled to myself and watched as Alan looked around, apparently trying to see if his broom had only wandered away a few feet, then gave up and began walking. I jogged slightly to catch up with him, grabbing his broom on my way past. After all, if he had another one lined up, I wasn’t going to find myself unable to follow a second time.
Sure enough, Alan made his way to a neighbor’s home and grabbed another broom, this one leaning against the inside of the low fence. Brooms were so common in the paranormal world no one ever really bothered to lock them up. He hopped onto his broom and I did the same, following after him as this gang member rode through the streets of Spellford, hopefully eventually leading me to more members of the gang, and possibly information on my parents.
Chapter 17
By the time we stopped our trip through town, we were definitely not in Spellford Heights anymore. The wide streets and restored Victorians were replaced with narrow paths that had obviously not been restored in years, possibly decades, and the gorgeous houses had been replaced with low-rise warehouses and factories. This was the industrial part of town, and I had to admit, I did not know my way around here. I had never had any reason to come to this part of Spellford, and the deeper we got into it, the deeper my apprehension grew.
But then, so did my curiosity.
Alan stopped in front of a plain gray warehouse. It was smaller than most, maybe two stories high and about a thousand square feet inside. It honestly looked fairly abandoned. Glancing around, this entire neighborhood didn’t exactly seem to be a high-traffic area. As soon as Alan walked into the warehouse, though, I heard his voice.
“What in the name of Mercury are you doing here?” Alan asked. So he was from the coven of Mercury, a water coven. I snuck up closer to the warehouse, wanting to see who it was who had surprised him so easily. I peered through one of the dirty, dusty windows at the side of the building and gasped.
It was Alex.
He was standing in the middle of the warehouse floor, like he had just been waiting for Alan. The walls were lined with unlabeled boxes that I could only assume were filled with substances that were illegal in some form. Toward the back of the building was a small office, with a closed door, that I assumed was empty.
“Alan Terr, if I’m not mistaken?” Alex asked in reply.
“Who wants to know?” Alan replied
. “This is private property; you’re not welcome here.”
Alex pulled out his badge and flashed it at the gangster, whose face immediately went white. “Enforcing Investigator Alexandre Desroches from the IPIU. I’m investigating the murder of Olivia Stone in this town a few days ago and I have some questions to ask you.”
“What makes you think I knew the witch?” Alan asked.
“Well, for one thing, you were in her home and in the kitchen when the potion she was making was poisoned,” Alex replied. “And I suspect you were involved in the blackmailing of Olivia in which she was forced to sell potions for the gang.”
“If you could prove any of that you would have an arrest warrant,” Alan said, crossing his arms. “Besides, this is private property. You’re not allowed here at all.”
“I’m not a simple Enforcer; I’m an IPIU enforcing investigator, which means I can go wherever I want to get the information I want and to question suspects in my investigations. And that means you.”
“Well, buddy, you’re barking up the wrong tree with this one. I had absolutely nothing to do with Olivia Stone’s murder, and nothing to do with whatever this blackmail you’re talking about is. I run a legitimate business here in town that distributes textbooks to students. I was in Olivia’s home the other day to drop off an order she had placed. She was studying to be a Healer, which is, I’m sure you know, a difficult topic to study and one that requires a lot of reading material.”
“So if I were to go through all of these boxes here, all I would find would be simple textbooks?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow as he motioned around the room.
“Of course,” Alan replied. “I don’t like having you here on my private property, but if it means proving my innocence to one of our esteemed law enforcement officials, then by all means, feel free to look around.”
Alex kept a careful eye on Alan as he moved toward the far wall and a small stack of boxes. He cast a spell, I assumed designed to check for wards and booby-traps, and a moment later, the boxes flashed green for a second. It was all clear. Alex opened up one of the boxes and pulled out a textbook that I recognized from one of my potions classes. He flipped through it and, apparently satisfied that it was just a book and nothing else, closed the box and made his way over to a second set of boxes.
Repeating the process, Alex confirmed there were no spells cast on the boxes and opened them up as well. However, this time, as soon as Alex took his eyes off of Alan and moved his gaze to the cardboard, Alan whipped out his wand and cast a spell.
I didn’t even have time to shout a warning to Alex about what was happening before the pile of boxes next to him began to topple over. A huge cardboard box full of textbooks landed on Alex, causing him to shout in surprise and drop his wand.
Alan immediately jumped on the opportunity to attack.
“Mercury, messenger of the gods, restrain this wizard for me.”
Ropes flew out from Alan’s wand and wrapped themselves around Alex. He struggled to get away, but there was no getting around it: he was trapped.
My mouth went dry. I had to help Alex, I knew that much. I ran around the side of the building and made my way through the door, entering the main part of the room. I knew I was still invisible, which was my biggest advantage: Alan had no idea that I even existed, let alone was actually here. I pulled out my wand and had it at the ready while I watched what was going to happen next.
“So, Investigating Enforcer,” Alan said. “I bet you thought you were safe. I bet you thought the gang has never killed anybody from your unit before. But you would be wrong. We are very good at making our murders look like suicides. All of those enforcing investigators that you thought had succumbed to the stress of the job? No. It wasn’t stress—it was us. And now, you’re going to join their ranks. Any last words?”
Alex smiled. “If you thought I was going to come in here and let my guard down against someone like you, you’re completely wrong.”
“You smile, and yet you’re the one who’s about to die,” Alan said.
“Not today,” Alex replied, and that was when I realized he had pulled out another wand from somewhere and was holding it in his hand that was still tied up behind him. Spinning around, Alex cast a quick spell. I didn’t catch the words, but it blew Alan clean across the room and he hit the wall with a thud, collapsing to the ground and dropping his wand.
Alex struggled to point the wand at the ropes that were holding him tight just as Alan began to stir. Great. I had to make a choice. I could help Alex and reveal my presence here, or I could let him do this himself and risk that Alan would kill him.
“Mars help me, I had better not get in trouble for doing this,” I muttered as I pointed my wand toward Alex.
“Mars, god of war, release this wizard from the bonds that hold him.”
As if an invisible sword had sliced through the ropes, they fell away from Alex’s body, and he moved his arms around, looking to see where his mysterious rescuer was.
“Thanks, Megan,” he replied just as Alan grabbed his wand off the ground. The two wizards cast a couple of spells simultaneously, but Alex was better. He had decided to cast a shield spell that protected him from whatever Alan had tried to do, then immediately cast another spell at Alan that froze the wizard, paralyzing him from the neck down.
Making his way over to Alan, Alex plucked the wand from his hand and looked the criminal up and down. “Alright. Now I think we’re in a better spot to have a little bit of a chat about what exactly happened to Olivia Stone. Megan, since that’s what I assume you’re here about as well, you may as well reverse your invisibility spell.”
I figured that since I had basically helped Alex get out of this situation, there was no way he could really be all that mad at me. And he had obviously recognized my voice, so it wasn’t like I could run and hide and pretend that I had never been there. I reversed the invisibility spell and made my way to where Alex and Alan were standing.
“Who are you?” Alan asked, glaring at me.
“Someone who’s looking for information,” I replied.
“Did I not tell you to stay out of this?” Alex asked, turning toward me with his arms crossed.
“I was staying out of it. Until this guy almost killed you, anyway,” I replied. “I figured you’d be a little bit more thankful.”
Alex raised an eyebrow at me, and I couldn’t help but notice just how amazingly sexy the move was. “I had it covered, although you did make things easier.”
“There we go. Therefore, I should be allowed to help out here.”
“Do you have any idea how dangerous this man is?” Alex asked, and I nodded.
“Absolutely. He’s a gang member, and the main wizard who was pressuring Olivia into selling for them.” I turned to Alan. “So what was it? Did you find out about Olivia’s plan to run away with Ryan and start a new life where you couldn’t reach them?”
Alex turned to look at me again. “How on earth do you know about that? Did you keep investigating after I specifically told you not to?”
“Are you going to question this criminal—the main suspect in a murder investigation—or are you going to keep questioning me instead?” I replied.
“Fine. But we are absolutely not finished discussing how dangerous and inappropriate it is that you’re investigating a murder.”
“Fine with me. But first, we get this piece of garbage to tell us everything he knows.”
Chapter 18
The two of us looked at Alan, whose eyes moved between us.
“So?” Alex asked him. “Are you going to answer the witch’s question? Did you find out that Olivia was planning on running away and kill her because of that?”
“No!” Alan replied. “I didn’t kill her. I swear. I did go there that day, and she was making potions, but all I did was collect the money she had gotten from selling her potions that week. I didn’t poison her. I had no idea she was planning on running away. Is that true?”
“It’s true,�
�� I replied. “You had ruined her life so badly that she was planning on starting a whole new one and creating a whole new identity.”
“Well, it’s not my fault she was creating illegal potions and selling them to her friends. I simply found out about it, saw an opportunity to get a new distributor, and convinced her it was in her best interests to help me out.”
“How did you find out she was selling illegal potions?” Alex asked. “Who was your source?”
“I’m not telling you that,” Alan replied, looking away. “I have my sources.”
“The same sources that told you about Professor Oak’s trouble?” I asked, crossing my arms. Alan gave me a sly smile.
“Hey, I’m not admitting to anything else. I’m helping you find the person who killed Olivia because that’s going to affect me and I want to see them pay, but that’s it. As far as you know, I’ve never even met Professor Oak.”
“We can lock you up for your involvement with Olivia.”
“With what proof? I’ll deny anything I’m telling you now in front of anyone else, and you don’t know that I wasn’t there to sell her books. After all, you saw the books yourself when you searched.”
“Right, and if there was absolutely no contraband in any of these boxes, you would have just let me look and then gone on with your life,” Alex replied. “You’re not going to leave here without getting arrested, and I’m going to make sure you’re going to spend time in Spellcatraz. But I also have the power to speak with the prosecuting attorneys about making a deal with you. And if you cooperate, you might just very well find yourself spending half the time you otherwise would in prison.”
I could practically see the wheels spinning in Alan’s head as he considered Alex’s words. His eyes darted to the pile of boxes at the back of the room, and I couldn’t hide a smile as I realized Alex had been one hundred percent correct: there was contraband in some of those boxes.
Chocolate Truffles and Trouble Page 9