Murder Kicks the Bucket

by Diane Darcy

  “Oh, actually —”

  “Let me try. It’s my turn.” Ava, who she hadn’t seen, sprang up from behind the counter.

  Lena leaned over to see that she had been rearranging the bottom shelf of the display case. “The thing is —”

  “You’re here because,” Ava put two fingers to her temple. “You can’t wait to get started working here, and so you were coming up here, and William followed!” Ava looked triumphant.

  “Hmm, no, you see, the thing is —”

  “You need some tantalizing perfume!”

  “A book of spells!”

  Scarlett scoffed. “She doesn’t need a book of spells, ignoramus, she needs some massage oil!” she said, looking between Lena and William.

  Lena could feel heat rising in her cheeks. “The thing is,” she tried again. “We were wondering —”

  Scarlett’s eyes widened.

  “A bath bomb! Don’t you worry, we have them in all different herbs, and colors.”

  Ava leaned both elbows on the counter and cupped her chin with both palms. “Come on, you guys. You really don’t need to be shy. As we’ve established with Lena,” she shot William a sly look, “we’re among family now. Cousins don’t hold out on cousins!”

  William made a sound of disgust. “Cousins, ye say?”

  Ava batted her eyelashes at him. “Cousins. Right, Lena?”

  Lena sighed. “We’re not going to get into that right now. We’re here for something specific, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather tell you myself what it is.”

  Scarlett’s smile widened. “Tell us!”

  Now that she had their full attention, it took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Okay, here’s the thing. You know the Corvette that was won in the casino recently?”

  “Yes.” Ava shot William another sly look. “There’s been a few rumors going around. They’re saying the man died right after he hit the jackpot.” She waved a hand in the air. “The implication was the hotel didn’t want to pay out, but, much as I would like to believe you are a cheapskate, Mr. Murray, I sincerely doubt the cost of the car would break your casino.”

  “Anyway…” Lena continued. “Someone tried to break into the car. I don’t know if they were planning to drive it off, or what, but it does seem unlikely. But the fascinating part of all of this is that the person was invisible. Now, I know there is not such a thing as a spell for invisibility,” she chuckled. “But —”

  “Yes, there is.”

  Ava rolled her eyes. “Of course, there is.”

  Lena blinked at her two cousins, and then looked up at William, who seemed to be looking at her with concern. “Lass?”

  Lena could feel heat burning through her cheeks. Of course, there was a spell for invisibility. What was she thinking? Only now she felt like a kindergartner, who’d stumbled into a college class. “I see.”

  The witches nodded at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to start here before tomorrow? Maybe we could fit you into the schedule tonight?” Ava’s tone was pitying.

  “Tomorrow is soon enough,” William said darkly.

  “Anyway…” Lena stressed the word. “As to that invisibility spell, is there any chance that it was purchased here?”

  Ava and Scarlett exchanged a glance then both straightened and stood shoulder to shoulder across from them. “We need to talk to Lena alone.”

  William hesitated for a long moment, finally gave Lena a short nod, and then turned and strode back onto the center walkway of the mall.

  Scarlett looked slightly worried. “Lena, can you tell us what this is about?”

  Lena looked back over her shoulder, unsure what she could say, and what she couldn’t. “I don’t know. Things have been crazy around here lately is all I can say. Especially today.”

  Ava was leaning against the counter again. “Do tell.”

  Lena chuckled. “Are you sure you want to know?”

  “Oh, we want to know, all right.” Ava and Scarlett both moved closer at the same time, eyes wide and questioning.

  Lena couldn’t help another short laugh. “All right, well we were shot at earlier, there is another guy that seems to have fallen in love with me in a really weird way, another murder, and then this invisible man is trying to steal the Corvette, and we don’t know why. So, if you guys can give me any insight into what’s going on around here, I’d really appreciate it.”

  The two women straightened and exchanged another quick glance.

  “Someone else is in love with you?”

  Lena laughed. “Seriously? I tell you all that and all you can focus on is someone’s in love with me?”

  “Well,” the two women exchanged a glance again, an uneasy one.

  “What?”

  “Well,” Scarlett finally continued. “As you know, love potions are tricky things, and they rarely last longer than a few hours.”

  “I know that, do I?”

  Ava shot her a pitying glance. “All I can say is that it’s a good thing that you’ve joined our coven.” She was shaking her head now. “Your grandmother and mother should be ashamed of themselves, turning you out on the streets with so little knowledge.”

  Lena’s temper flared, and a sort of green mist seemed to fill the air between them.

  Both women looked startled, and both took a step away from her.

  Ava raised a hand in the air. “Now, now. I didn’t mean anything by it, did I?”

  “Back to the love potion,” Lena said between gritted teeth.

  “Well, someone did come in here looking to buy a love potion,” Scarlett said. “A vampire.”

  “And you sold it to him?”

  Scarlett batted her eyelashes. “That would be illegal, wouldn’t it?”

  “They’re illegal?”

  “Of course, they are. People do crazy things when they fall in love.” She threw a meaningful glance toward William. “Can you imagine, if everyone was going around making everyone else fall in love with them? Besides, immortal or not, when they wear off, the victim gets a terrible headache. And then they commit murder or press charges. It’s a very messy business.”

  “Did you do it? Did you make one and sell one?”

  Scarlett grinned at her cheerfully. “Two, actually. What can I say?” She raised a palm in the air and shrugged at the same time, making her look slightly bashful. “He was offering good money. He brought in a long dark hair,” her gaze flickered to Lena’s own long dark hair, “and of course, I warned him that the effects wouldn’t last long, but he paid double the asking price.” Her lashes flickered. “What was I to do?”

  Lena whipped out her phone and showed the women the picture she’d taken of Heath and Dimitri. She tapped on the phone to indicate Dimitri. “Was it this guy?”

  Scarlett squinted. “No, dear. The blond beside him.”

  Heath.

  “Did he say what he wanted it for?”

  Scarlett’s fingers flickered up. “He said it was for a girl he wanted a chance with. When I told him it would only work a short while, he bought a double batch.”

  “There’s this guy, Thorne, he’s come at me twice now, acting like a lovestruck puppy.”

  At that, both women looked around her and grinned.

  She turned around to see William standing outside in the mall, looking grim as he waited for her.

  Scarlett started to laugh. “I bet Himself didn’t like that very much, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Lena said slowly. “He didn’t like it at all.”

  “Do you think it was meant as a distraction for William?”

  Lena nodded. “That is exactly what I think.”

  “I swear I would not have sold it to him if I had known it was for you, Lena. I warned him it wouldn’t last long, but he didn’t care, and like I said, the money was hard to resist.”

  “What about the invisibility spell? Was that sold to Heath as well?”

  Scarlett waved a hand in the air. “No, not at all. It was for a woman wanting to spy on
her husband to see if he was cheating or not.”

  “Why would she try to steal the Corvette?”

  “Honey, that was simply the last invisibility spell we sold. We sell them all the time.”

  “Lass?” William was walking into the shop, apparently done with waiting. “Are ye ready?”

  She thanked the women, and turned away, eager to tell him what she found out.

  “Wait! You never told us who was murdered.”

  “The dark-haired man I showed you in the photo.”

  “A vampire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do ye know something about him?” William asked, sounding suspicious.

  Ava lifted her shoulder. “Only that he liked to purchase perfume.”

  “For himself?”

  Ava shook her head. “No, for a woman.”

  The way Ava had made the comment made Lena think there was more. “Is there anything else?”

  “Only that it was for his sister. But darling, no way, no how, was that his sister.”

  Chapter 12

  She’d told William all she’d learned and it was two o’clock in the morning before Lena made it to bed.

  Granted, that was nothing new for her as she regularly stayed up late telling fortunes to the tourists on Fremont Street but tonight she was exhausted.

  Another murder, the investigation, a crazy admirer, and a jealous werewolf were more than enough to wear her out.

  As she lay in bed, on the verge of sleep, something jumped up beside her making her jump.

  Shadow.

  She huffed out a laugh and reached out to pet the black cat. Lena still wasn’t sure how it was getting in the house, let alone into her room every night, but she was getting used to sinking her hands into its soft fur before she went to sleep.

  “Did you have a good day?”

  The cat responded with a soft meow.

  Lena chuckled. “That’s good. My day was … wild and crazy. More so than usual, I mean.”

  The cat started to purr and nuzzle into her neck, paws kneading. Comforting her? A commentary? She was still wondering which when she fell asleep.

  She was soon in a long dark hallway and it didn’t take her long to recognize that it was the tunnel. The one down in the basement between the vampire hotel, and the werewolf cages. If she remembered right, it went to all sorts of places all over town.

  Though she hadn’t walked down the stone covered floors she hadn’t been incurious about it, she just hadn’t had a chance to explore. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.

  She was floating through the dark, but that was fine, it just meant she’d get there faster — wherever there was. She had her favorite black dress on, the one with the train, that she wore when she wanted to dress up with heels and a corset.

  She hurried down the rounded corridor, following the tunnel which snaked around in an erratic fashion. Lightbulbs hung down on cords every fifty feet or so, the glow contrasting with darker areas. The floor soon turned to hard-packed earth.

  She seemed to be floating along and soon, two figures moved toward her from the opposite direction, passing under a light, but still too far away to tell if she knew them or not.

  One grunted occasionally while the other did most of the talking and she only caught the occasional word, and suddenly fearful of being found here on her own, she looked around for a place to hide.

  She hadn’t noticed before, but now she saw there were stairs, every so often, that led to arched wooden doors.

  She moved up one short staircase, reached for the doorknob, but couldn’t seem to grasp it, trying frantically to get hold of it as her hand passed through the ornate doorknob once, twice, and then a third time.

  The voices sounded closer now and, fearful of being caught, she huddled in the alcove, desperate not to be seen as fear grew, choking her.

  She knew they were paranormal creatures, didn’t know how she knew, but she did.

  They’d hear her if she so much as breathed, and she couldn’t be caught, because if she was, something really bad was going to happen, she just knew it.

  Green mist glowed around a door on the opposite side of the tunnel and down ten feet or so. She knew she needed to get over there and fast. Leaning forward she could see the two men had stopped and were facing each other. Without another thought she jumped up and ran across the corridor.

  “Hey!” A voice called out.

  She didn’t stop, just rushed up the four stairs. When she made the top and reached for the doorknob, the door opened and a man, or whatever he was, came out. She rushed past him and into the small gray space beyond.

  “What the…?”

  She heard the man’s confusion but was already rushing up the stairs, one small staircase at a time, panic nipping at her heels and making her fly. After about ten switch-backs, she reached the top.

  The door was a rich red color and once again she was unable to open it, her hand frantically swiping through the intricate gold doorknob. Knowing she was trapped, tears burned her eyes as feelings of impending disaster beat within her.

  She looked back down the stairs at the way she’d come, expecting two or three men to be pounding upward, but … no. She was alone.

  The panic started to subside, her breathing and heartbeat slowing to normal as she glanced around at gray walls, metal handrails, the steps going downward.

  She was effectively trapped.

  Fear started to rise once again and she looked at the red door, a new source of concern.

  Was it pulsing?

  She looked away, deciding she didn’t want to know if it was or not, if she was going crazy or if Edgar Allen Poe was suddenly writing the new script that was her life.

  She didn’t move, didn’t try the doorknob, knew she couldn’t go back down, but suddenly didn’t want to know what was on the other side of the door.

  What was she doing here?

  As if in answer to her question, the doorknob started to twist, the wrenching noise that accompanied the movement causing her to hold her hands over her head and hiss!

  Hiss?

  She sat up in bed, sucked in air, and as the noise from the doorknob continued to grate across her nerves, she glanced at the window about five feet away and watched as something, an arm maybe, tangled with her black, sun-blocking curtains.

  Next a shoulder appeared and, whatever it was, because it definitely wasn’t human, tried to worm its way through the small crack.

  The steel window-frame and arm combined were making the grating noise from her nightmare, and had now become her new one.

  Her heart thumped hard in her chest, she was sweating and drenched from fear, and her throat clenched as she gulped in air and watched the thing try and force her window open.

  Hissing, back arched, the cat stood on the bed between her and the thing, making a growling, yowling noise as what was now recognizable as a smallish hand waved frantically as the rest of him/it tried to force its way inside.

  But this was Vegas, so of course, she had a dowel in her window blocking would be thieves and discouraging all but the most determined, apparently.

  She threw back the covers and headed to her door to alert her mother and grandmother, to get help, when she heard it.

  Croaking.

  A sad, pitiful, frog.

  It stopped her in her tracks and made her turn back toward the window.

  She took a few careful steps forward and when the hand/arm tangled with the curtain again, and the croaking sounded again, she crept toward the curtain and wrenched it back and away.

  She stifled a scream.

  The streetlight below barely illuminated the sad expression on the little gargoyle’s face. It was whimpering, waving an arm as clutching fingers wiggled in agitation.

  It was trying to get at her.

  But not in a threatening way, more like in a needy, grasping, pathetic way, and now that she was standing before the thing, it became frantic, the grating noise from its rock-like body against
the steel frame reminding her of the doorknob from her dream once more.

  She drew in a breath, worried the thing was going to break her window, but didn’t feel like it was intent on harming her.

  Should she call William? She had no doubt he’d be willing to come out here and deal with it.

  Of course, her window would be broken by the time he arrived.

  She could get a broom handle and shove at the thing, but she was on the second floor. She didn’t want to kill the little goblin, if she even could.

  Its feet were now adding to the racket as it scrabbled against the side of the building and lunged into the small crack, whining, croaking the entire time.

  She took another breath, blew it out, and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake. Leaning forward she removed the dowel, having to wrench it out as the little monster kept up the pressure on the window.

  The glass slid open and the little beast immediately perched on the ledge, a happy croak chirping from it as it watched her from the shadows.

  The cat let out one last growl, then darted under the bed.

  She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake.

  She eased her way backward, crawled in bed, and pulled the covers up to her chin.

  It disappeared from the ledge, scrabbled across the floor and jumped up beside her, its weight depressing the mattress. As the cat started to growl again, the little gargoyle sat perfectly still. It seemed to be waiting for something, and made that croaking/chirping noise again. It almost seemed hesitant, shy.

  Lena lay tense, unsure what to think. Once again, she considered calling William, but quickly discarded the idea. She was becoming part of this new world. Slowly learning to make her way. She couldn’t be calling him for every little thing.

  Besides, she didn’t feel like she was in danger or anything.

  The cat jumped up on the bottom of her bed, landing near her feet. Its ears lay flat as it continued to growl.

  The gargoyle made another chirping, inquiring sound.

  Lena slowly relaxed as the cat crept forward and lay on one side of her, and the gargoyle settled on the other. It seemed to relax, and sink in on itself.

  She took a breath and let it out slowly. She supposed she ought to name the thing. “Shadow, meet … Kermit.”