Which Mage Moved the Cheese?

by Nikki Haverstock

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Also By

  Back Cover

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Author's Note

  Author's Bio

  Copyright

  To Kelly Lewis.

  What a blessing it is to have family that feels like friends.

  Acknowledgments

  First and foremost, thank you to my husband John, who kept me on task when emotions threated to send me off the rails.

  Thank you to Zara Keane, Lydia Rowan, Zoe York and Sadie Haller. Not only are you all great authors, but you’re an endless source of support and information.

  To Teresa Johnson, Holly Cooper, Lori Peterson, and Andrea Jane, thank you for the daily messages that keep me from being a total recluse.

  Last but not least, thank you to the people that make this book shine: development editor Jodi Henley, cover artist Rebecca Poole, and Red Adept Editing.

  Nikki Haverstock’s Amazon Author page with all her books

  https://www.amazon.com/Nikki-Haverstock/e/B014GIZH0Y

  Casino Witch Mysteries

  Of Murders and Mages

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074X8L6S9/

  Target Practice Mysteries

  Death on the Range

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014GDO5C0

  Death at the Summit

  www.amazon.com/dp/B016CX2RZO/

  Death at the Trade Show

  www.amazon.com/dp/B017HWLGNS/

  Death Indoors

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01C0NTKRI

  Death in the Casino

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EPE1KEQ

  Death from Abroad

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XZ96GM2

  Target Practice Mysteries 1-5 (includes the first 5 books in the series)

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MXEHMY8

  Reality TV Cozy Mysteries

  Lights, Camera, Murder

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GQRGDCY

  Crossover Murder

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N51U14G/

  Ella's Super Awesome Guide to Paranormal Cheese:

  1. You eat it, but there are weird side effects.

  2. The ingredients can be really gross.

  3. You don't use it to squash people.

  When the ex-president of the Paranormal Cheese Council is found dead under the world's largest wedge of cheese, Ella is on the case! Unable to admit who she really is, she goes undercover. But can she, her klutzy sidekick, and the world's most arrogant familiar escape the Booby-Trapped Queso of Doom, or stop eating the magically addictive beer-cheese fondue without giving things away to the anonymous villain?

  Watch Ella dress as a Bavarian Beer Wench, watch her familiar act all catlike, and watch her slow-burn relationship with the sexy and muscular Vin turn into cheesy goodness before she makes a public declaration that nips their developing relationship in the bloomy rind.

  If you like the idea of Sober-Up Salami, over-the-top villains, dragon spit, and siren milk, then you want a heapin' helping of Which Mage Moved the Cheese?, Book 2 of the Casino Witch Mysteries. Buy your copy today!

  CHAPTER ONE

  I pulled my rental car into the Golden Pyramid Casino’s parking garage and checked my watch. I had arrived on the last flight of the night and would take the first flight out in a few hours. Grabbing a small vial off the passenger seat, I downed the contents and said a few words to activate the spell. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but since no one was expecting me to be here, it would be good enough if some Cheese Council members passed me in the hall.

  After locking the car, I trotted through the empty parking level toward the employee door that led through the back corridors to the cheese show.

  When I had stepped down as president from the American Paranormal Cheese Council, I planned to never need the master security card I had swiped years ago. As the light on the security door switched from red to green and clicked open, I was glad I kept it.

  I slunk down the hallway toward the convention hall door and hoped that no one had changed the rule that the convention hall must be empty after midnight. I had instituted the rule a few years ago, purportedly for safety reasons.

  I just needed to find what I was looking for and get out of here. Then I could officially start the next chapter in my life in Europe. The stakes would be bigger, but I had long been ready for the challenge.

  Europe was old money, the kind built from centuries of hoarding land and gold. Generations of families holed up in their castles, building immeasurable wealth. They wouldn’t notice or care if a little went missing. They were practically asleep in their complaisance.

  From there, it was a short hop to the new wealth of Dubai and Asia. Things were booming. They didn’t even have names yet for the amount of money they had. Nations could be bought and sold with the money that was spent in a year by the young mages of the area.

  And many held to traditions that had been dropped in America, like power only going to the males or families arranging marriages for power consolidation. The females especially were looking for a distraction. The opportunities were endless.

  I held my breath as I opened the side door to the convention hall. It was pitch-black and empty. Smiling, I shut the door behind me. There would be no surveillance inside. No paranormal events allowed the security cameras to run during the duration of the events. That had been to my advantage.

  I waited a few minutes for my eyes to adjust. There was minimal light from the many power strips and electronic devices with their lighted buttons. While I waited, I centered myself and concentrated on what I was looking for. I didn’t even need a potion, since I had always had a knack for finding things. Within a minute, I set off across the room. I couldn’t see the green glow that went along with a found object, but I knew for certain the direction to head.

  I chuckled to myself. I knew it wouldn’t be in the hotel room, regardless of what the email had said. It had been a gamble to come here first to search, but like always, my gambles paid off big time. I would grab it and get out of here.

  Most of the booths were half-assembled skeletons, but by tomorrow afternoon, this whole place would be crawling with mages either selling or buying cheese. My mouth watered at the thought, but the rest of me was thrilled to be done with the job. I was on to bigger and better things.

  Turning a corner, I finally spotted the green glow of light emitted from an object in a box on the floor. Very careless. I crept over and pulled the glass object from the box and slid it into my pocket. Now that I had found what I had come for, the light dimmed, leaving me slightly blind. A phantom green light danced in front of my eyes.

  A noise pulled my attention toward the ceiling, where a triangular black mass was racing toward me. I barely had time to throw my arms over my face before everything went black.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Vin closed the door behind him. I’d known he was there before I turned around. Maybe it was his spicy, earthy scent or the way his footsteps fell or possibly the way I felt hot whenever he was within ten feet of me. He leaned against the table, supporting his weight on the tips of his fingers. Memories of him grabbing me around the waist danced in my head. Over the past six months, we had
reached an uneasy truce and were slowly inching toward a close friendship or perhaps… more? Just the thought of more made my knees shake.

  His sister, Vanessa, had created an assembly line down the center of the table to fill the cheese convention gift bags. We should have finished hours ago, but Vanessa’s method was proving less efficient than planned. I liked Vanessa, but her insistence on shortcuts was going to turn my red hair grey.

  “Are you ready?” she asked. She raised a hand, preparing to cast the spell.

  I grabbed the top flyer from each stack and slid them into a commemorative tote bag. “What if we just do it by hand? The show is closing in five minutes.”

  “Ella! Don’t wuss out now. The spell is almost perfect.”

  “If by ‘perfect’ you mean ‘hasn’t worked correctly once.’” I set another completed bag on the table. “Look, it only takes a few seconds. I bet we could be done in half an hour.”

  “Fine! Give up. But I’m no quitter. I think I’ve finally got it.” She screwed up her face in concentration.

  I shook my head and set aside another completed bag. “Auntie Ann said if we destroyed any more totes, she was going to make us spell up a hundred breath-freshening vials for the banquet as punishment.”

  “Mom will be so proud that I figured this out. Now be quiet.”

  I chuckled. In the six months we had been training together, I had learned that Vanessa loved nothing more than a shortcut and that she wasn’t particularly great at them. Even with my limited abilities and knowledge, I would often finish a task faster. Except for the times I set things on fire.

  The top flyer on each stack slowly rose into the air, then a tote from the pile rose. It quivered and shook as if it weighed a thousand pounds. At a snail’s pace, it floated across the table to scoop up each flyer.

  I grabbed flyers off the stack and stuffed three totes by the time her single one scooped up the last flyer and slowly drifted over to the pile.

  Vin grunted. “Wouldn’t it be faster to just do that by hand?”

  “I told her the same thing!”

  Vanessa closed her eyes and raised her hands. The magic in the room surged as she muttered, “I think I preferred it when you two fought all the time.”

  I grabbed another stack of flyers. Turning around to put them on the table, I nearly tripped over Patagonia, who had been batting at my shoelaces. “Go lie down.”

  The large black cat narrowed her eyes at me before twining between my ankles then sauntering off to a chair in the sun.

  Another bag rose and crept through the air.

  I stuffed four more bags before her one floating bag settled on the completed pile. I opened my mouth but snapped it shut without comment.

  “I know it’s too slow. I need to get it working correctly first.” A few beads of sweat had formed on Vanessa’s forehead from the effort.

  We were at the opposite ends of our twenties, and sometimes the age difference was more obvious than others. Watching her waste time and energy on this project was one of those times. The magic increased, and the little hairs around my face started floating. Vanessa was using far more magic than necessary.

  I kept staring at Vanessa, though I spotted from the corner of my eye that Vin looked at me briefly.

  “Cool it, sis. You’re going to blow something up.”

  “Shut! Up!” she ground out through clenched teeth.

  The totes started rising faster and smoothly picked up all the flyers before slapping into the wall and falling onto the pile ready for distribution. One by one they flew through the air in an orderly line.

  I clapped my hands. “Great job. You did it.” I was willing to admit when I was wrong. “Now we can be—”

  Vanessa threw herself onto the table. “Patagonia!”

  I gasped. Patagonia was no longer curled up napping on a chair but had crept onto the table to bat at the flying papers. She was dangling from a sheet of paper as it bounced in the air when a tote bag smoothly scooped her up.

  “My baby!” I leapt onto the table and grabbed the handle of the tote. It jerked me off my feet and pulled me behind it, my arms flailing like a broken windmill.

  Luckily Patagonia was a strong cat with weapons of her own. As she snarled and screamed, she clawed her way out, one black paw after another. I managed to help pull her free, only getting slightly scratched in the process, but something flopped over my head and started dragging me across the table.

  “Ack! Help!” I clawed at what I realized was a tote bag. I had gotten caught up in the magical assembly line. I pulled it off, and another one smacked me in the face then another. “Turn it off!”

  “I’m trying!” Vanessa’s voice held a note of distress, and her eyebrows were knitted together so tightly that she appeared to have one unibrow. She jumped up and down, flailing her arms.

  Another bag hit me in the head, and I finally thought to duck, slipping on a pile of flyers. I slid off the table and landed face-first in a tray of our breakfast leftovers. I peeled a waffle off my face then stuck my hand in a bowl of butter as I tried to get up.

  “Cut this out!” Vin bellowed.

  I crawled off the floor and peeked up around a tipped-over chair. Tote bags and paper were flying all around the room as if a tornado had snuck inside. Flyers whipped through the air and slammed into the walls. Most of the chairs had been flipped over or lay on their sides.

  “I can’t!” Vanessa’s voice held a hysterical note, and her hair flew all around her. Two chunks stuck straight up like horns. She looked like a devil, and I believed it to be true.

  Vin charged across the room and grabbed his sister’s delicate hands in his massive ones. “Let it go, sis. I got it.”

  The energy pulsating in the room shifted from Vanessa’s intense, frantic energy to Vin’s steady, powerful energy. It was something I never could have described six months ago when I started training, but now their power was as recognizable as their faces. Vin’s masculine energy tickled my skin in the same way as a physical touch.

  Slowly, the rushing air calmed. The tote bags, empty and stuffed, paused in midair then dropped straight down to cover every surface of the room.

  As Vin’s energy faded, I shivered. I had heard he was on a break from his longtime girlfriend, Tiffany. Maybe it was time to invite him over for a home-cooked meal.

  He dropped his sister’s hands and turned to face me. “You! I expected you to be smarter than this. She’s just a kid, but you’re supposed to be the mature one. A good example.”

  My vision of a date disappeared. “Me? She’s the one with all the training.”

  “But you’re older. Look at the mess you made.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not your sister’s keeper. And why is it that you always jab at me?”

  “Because you always have something to jab at,” he said.

  I was tempted to wipe that smirk right off his face. I had just opened my mouth to tell him that when the door creaked open.

  Auntie Ann gasped as she entered. “What happened?”

  We all started talking at once, with Vin smugly blaming me, me trying to explain that I thought it was a bad idea, and Vanessa babbling on about how great the spell had worked before it had all gone wrong. She was right about that, though. Whipping up a spell like that from scratch without a potion and adjusting it on the fly was pretty good. I couldn’t even keep my loft the right temperature, and that spell was centuries old and well tested.

  “Silence. I swear y’all act like kids sometimes. Vin, they’re waiting on you. Did you even tell Ella?”

  I wanted to look slick and in command as I waited for Vin to share his news, but it was ruined by Patagonia clawing her way up my jeans to rub her face aggressively on my waist.

  I ground my teeth and tried not to wince as her claws dug into my skin. Being her pincushion was a daily affair. If we’d been alone, I would have shooed her off me with some choice words.

  Vin arched an eyebrow in a barely perceptible motion that f
or him was a display of extreme emotion. “That doesn’t hurt?”

  “No, of course not. Did you have something to tell me?” I thought I had held it together well until Patagonia clawed her way the rest of the way up my frame to perch on my shoulder, lick my ears enthusiastically, then leap off onto the table. I stumbled a little, as her massive frame shoved me pretty hard. She had been fully grown when we were bonded, but I swore she was a few inches taller than when we had first met and definitely had filled out.

  A ghost of a smile crossed his mouth, and that eyebrow twitched again. “Sure, right, nothing disturbs you. I came to get you because a man passed away.”

  That did shake my demeanor. “Murder?” I had the ability to read the emotional hologram of a magical death, basically magical forensics.

  He shook his head. “Unlikely. Probably a heart attack brought on by too much cheese, but we’ll have to double-check anyway.”

  ***

  I tried to read Vin’s emotions as I followed him through the maze of corridors from the training room we had been in to the convention hall. I used to be able to pick up his emotions, but now I could get only the vaguest glimmers. I wanted to ask Auntie Ann for advice but hadn’t wanted to admit that I was trying to eavesdrop on her son’s feelings.

  He caught me looking at him. I jerked my eyes away as my cheeks heated up. From the corner of my eye, I could see his mouth curl upward.

  “We cleared the room. It’ll be just us in there, but we have to move fast. The vendors need to get back in to reset their booths for tomorrow.”

  “Got it.” Auntie Ann had decided we should keep my skill undercover. It was known to those around that I was training under her with Vanessa, but since Auntie Ann was a world-respected instructor, that was not surprising. Dad had chosen to hide me from the mage community, and until we found out why, we were being cautious.

  I followed Vin through a throng of people toward the now-closed entrance. I hadn’t gone into the convention so far this week, another attempt to keep me out of the public eye.