by R K Dreaming
Magic & Mayhem
Percy Prince Book 3
R.K. DREAMING
Copyright © 2019 by .R.K. Dreaming
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author. The people, places and situations in this book are products of the author’s imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.
Magic & Mayhem
By R.K. DREAMING
Join Percy and her friends on another rollicking murder mystery adventure.
Percy finally has her life back under control but then her flamboyant witch mother arrives home and brings along all her usual mayhem. Percy is worried by the arrival of a secret guest, a fugitive who is on the run from the authorities following a murder.
Percy’s frustration at being unable to enjoy the school holidays with her friends turns to unease when she discovers that her fugitive houseguest is being chased by two dangerous wizards. Her home and family are in danger but Percy’s mum is too busy having fun to see the looming threat. Percy is going to have to risk playing detective again — but will it be enough to stop fun from turning into disaster?
1. Home For Halloween
“Darling, aren’t you pleased to see me?” said Gwendolyn Prince, holding her arms wide open for her daughter Percy to walk into.
Percy was sitting at the dining room table with her friends, having just finished an enormous celebratory dinner. She and her friends had just put a would-be serial killer in prison after all.
Percy stared at her mother in shock. Gwendolyn Prince was really home. She had been away a year but had not changed a bit.
She had paused a few feet from Percy, and had a beaming smile fixed on her face. She’d thrown her extravagant floor-length travelling cloak over one shoulder, no doubt to better reveal her spangly dress and hourglass figure.
She looked gratified at the way Percy’s new friends Shara and Felix were gaping at her, clearly having recognized who she was.
She was none other than Gwendolyn Prince after all, the famous and fabulously beautiful witch. And here she was in front of them, looking larger than life with her flame red hair in a bouncy halo of waves framing her perfect face, her lips a scarlet pout, her emerald eyes twinkling with the sort of mischief that made Percy’s stomach lurch with dread.
“Well darling, aren’t you going to give your mother a kiss?” Gwendolyn said.
Percy’s brain was still trying to deal with the shock. Her mother was here? She couldn’t be here! Percy closed her eyes in dismay, thinking her mother could not have chosen a worse moment to appear.
Percy would have much preferred for her mother to slink in quietly during the middle of the night, after having given Percy a month’s notice of her arrival. But Gwendolyn Prince did not work like that. She went wherever her whimsical mood carried her. And it was just typical of her to arrive when Percy was throwing the first ever dinner party she had hosted for her friends.
It wasn’t that Gwendolyn would disapprove. No – she would very much approve of her loner daughter Percy having made friends for once. It was just that she had a tendency to take things over in a wild style.
Worse than that, Percy had taken just one look at her mother’s face and known her mother was hiding something. Percy glanced back at the dining room doorway from where Gwendolyn had appeared. The doorway was empty. Nobody else was there.
And yet Gwendolyn was trying very hard not to bounce with excitement. Whatever made Gwendolyn bounce with excitement was never good. In fact, it was probably going to be very bad indeed. Percy just knew it.
The friends sitting around the dinner table with Percy were Nan Gooding, Shara Greyshale and Felix Fiori. The latter two had never met Percy’s mother before, and Percy had hoped to go a good long while before they did.
Felix and Shara looked towards Percy hopefully, clearly wanting her to make the introductions, but Percy had just put a little pink bonbon into her mouth. This innocuous looking sweet was a Strawberry Frothsplosion. She could feel it fizzing in there dangerously and she dared not open her lips to speak.
“Darling,” persisted her mother. “Aren’t you going to say anything? Aren’t you surprised? Aren’t you going to ask which special person I’ve brought to meet you?”
Gwendolyn swooped towards Percy and gathered her up into her arms, crushing a still-sitting Percy into the bosom of her extremely expensive pinkmink cloak.
The Strawberry Frothsplosion in Percy’s mouth exploded. Percy kept her mouth shut. Pink foam gushed into her throat and threatened to bubble out of her nostrils. Unable to help it, she gasped for air and the froth splattered out of her mouth and onto her mother’s precious pinkmink.
“Waargh!” came Percy’s horrified mumble.
Gwendolyn seized Percy’s cheeks and pushed back her face with a cry of, “Let me look at you!”
Her beaming smile vanished as she spotted the state of her once pristine cloak.
“Well, darling,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning down, “you’re up to your old tricks already I see.”
Percy grimaced, and swallowed down the creamy strawberry liquid now fizzing in her mouth with a hasty gulp. “Sorry, mum.”
“Mother, darling, or mama,” Gwendolyn chided. “Or even Gwendolyn, if you must. But you know I don’t like the sound of mum!”
With a wave of her wand Gwendolyn Prince cleaned up the mess Percy had made of her clothing.
“Yes, mum,” said Percy.
Gwendolyn frowned. She did not extend her magical wand-wave towards Percy’s face. Percy grabbed a handful of napkins to wipe up her still dripping chin, and hoped that she had left no smears. Her mother hated smears.
“My, how you’ve grown!” remarked Gwendolyn. “Do stand up. “Oh, yes, lovely. You’ve some height at least, if not… well… Never mind that.”
If not magic, thought Percy sourly. She knew full well what her mother had been about to say.
Gwendolyn was eyeing up Percy’s tall, thin figure with a frown. As Percy was now fifteen and had not seen her mother in a whole year, since last Halloween in fact, she supposed she probably had changed.
“It really wouldn’t hurt you to eat a little more.” Gwendolyn was shaking her head. “And that hair. Will you finally let me do something about that hair?”
“No!” said Percy quickly as her mother lifted her wand towards Percy’s long and wild, dark green hair.
Gwendolyn lowered her wand with a sigh. “Still the same old Percy.” She said this regrettably, as if she’d nurtured a secret hope that in her absence Percy might have magically turned into the perfect daughter that she had always wanted.
And that was the problem really. Magic. Because being the daughter of such a famous and powerful witch, everyone, especially Gwendolyn herself, had been horribly disappointed to find out that Percy was a Meek. That she had no wand-magic to speak of. Percy had long since stopped hoping for it. It seemed Gwendolyn had not.
“Did you say you’d brought someone home?” said Percy.
Gwendolyn waved a hand as if this was unimportant. She was now passing her expert eye over the other teens sitting around the dining table. Her eyes lit up. She beamed again and clapped her hands together in delight. “Oh, darling. Isn’t it lovely that you’ve made friends!”
That last word was shrieked with such incredulity that Percy glared. “Thanks for not embarrassing me,” she muttered.
Percy’s friends on the other hand were all beaming. All but Nanette Gooding, that was. Nan had known Percy’s mum since she was tiny.
“Nan, darling,” said Gwendolyn, going over to pinch Nan’s cheek.
“Hello, Mrs Prince,” said Nan primly, offe
ring her a small smile.
“Mrs Prince?” said Gwendolyn in mock outrage. “But darling, you used to call me Auntie Gwen-wen! And you were always so pleased with my tricks!”
She waved her wand as if she might do one, but refrained when Nan’s eyes widened in alarm.
“Sweetie, you still look like an absolute Cherub!” declared Gwendolyn.
This was true. Nan was still short and plump, with rosy cheeks and blue eyes and golden ringlets.
Gwendolyn plucked one of those ringlets now and beamed when it bounced back. “Still as chubby as ever,” she cooed.
“Mum!” admonished Percy, shooting Nan a helpless look.
Nan shrugged. She was used to Gwendolyn’s ways.
“Are you two friends again?” continued Gwendolyn. “How lovely. I’m so glad. I wasn’t sure what to think when Percy wrote to me in that letter that she was going to high school now of all things! Throwing aside all those years of home schooling, and firing poor Nanny Nora. But if she must go to that wretched school, at least it is with you. Remember how Percy used to call you, Cherub? And what was that horrible name you used to call her? What was it…? Ah, yes, De—“
“Nothing!” said Percy and Nan quickly.
Demonling was what Nan had used to call Percy. After a recent car crash both girls had remembered that in their former lives their names had indeed been Demonling and Cherub, which had been apt because Percy had been a daughter of a Lord of Hell, and Nan had been her cherub.
Just then the family poltergeist Jeeves swept into the room with a large silver tray on which was loaded a heavy tea set. He caught one look at Gwendolyn and his eyes went wide.
“Madam!” he screeched in delight.
He swept to the table, dropped the tea tray with an enormous clatter, floated across to Gwendolyn Prince and took a deep bow.
“Oh madam! Oh what a happy day!” he cried. “Bramble didn’t say you were coming. I was hoping you might come for Halloween. Hoping and hoping, and here you are!”
He was babbling, and quivering with joy, his ghostly hands fluttering as if he could not contain himself.
Gwendolyn Prince gave him one of her sparkling smiles. If he had been still alive, she might have pinched his cheek. Instead she blew him a little kiss and said fondly, “Darling Jeevsey. Oh how I’ve missed you. But I always come home for Halloween. How can you not have expected me?”
“Not always,” muttered Percy darkly under her breath.
“But it’s a week away, madam, and you’ve never come this early!” said Jeeves.
“Is that tea?” said Gwendolyn. “How very prompt of you. I’m parched. Do pour me a cup at once.”
Jeeves floated over to the table to fulfil her command. He had used the plain tea set, since Percy was apt to break things. He looked most regretful to have not used the best china now that his beloved mistress was home.
“Bramble will have been sorry to miss you,” said Jeeves. “I took him some pudding. He’s already gone off to bed. You know how tired the little fellow gets the moment it gets dark.”
He said this rather fondly. Mr Bramble was the heg who lived at the bottom of Percy’s garden, and who was considered practically one of the family.
“Never mind. He can come and see me tomorrow,” said Gwendolyn. “I’m going to stay until at least Halloween, and maybe even a little longer.”
She gave them all a mischievous look.
“Or until our little problem has been sorted,” she added mysteriously.
Percy almost groaned out loud. “What problem?” she demanded.
Gwendolyn tapped her nose and gave Percy a wink.
She had followed Jeeves to the table and accepted her cup of steaming tea from him. This had brought her within touching distance of Felix, who was looking at her still with wide eyes.
Gwendolyn Prince was a celebrity in the witching world after all, more for being an outrageous socialite than for anything substantial. Felix, a half-angelus, had clearly heard of her.
So had Shara, who was one of the finfolk, and was still gazing at Gwendolyn with equally wide eyes, too agog to say anything.
Gwendolyn cooed as she examined Felix’s rather handsome face up close. “Goodness,” she exclaimed. “Aren’t you a delight? Percy, darling, you didn’t say you had a boyfriend!”
“Mum!” Percy groaned. “Felix is not my boyfriend. He’s just a friend. Why are you always saying outrageous things?”
Felix was blushing. Percy had never seen Felix blush before. He was always so cool and calm about everything. He was gazing at Gwendolyn like he wouldn’t mind being her boyfriend, Percy thought with annoyance.
Since Gwendolyn had not bothered to greet Shara, Percy glared at her, and added, “This is Shara. She’s a school friend too.”
Gwendolyn gave Shara’s hand a perfunctory shake, and gave her greyish skin a considering look. “Finfolk, aren’t you, dear? I know a few of your people. Are you acquainted with Leviathan Poseidon?”
Shara’s eyes boggled. “Erm, n-no,” she stuttered.
Percy rolled her eyes. “Of course she’s not acquainted with the king of the finfolk,” she said scathingly. Gwendolyn was always dropping names of somebodies like they were nobodies.
Gwendolyn pretended not to have heard. She had already dropped Shara’s hand.
“Speaking of outrageous things,” she said, “if you all promise to keep a secret, there is someone I would like you to meet.”
She looked at them expectantly, until they had all nodded their heads. She raised an admonishing finger at Jeeves.
“Especially you Jeevesy. I know how you like to talk. But this is a top, top secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not until it is all over, anyway.”
Jeeves agreed. He had many friends and was a notorious gossip, but Jeeves would never break a promise he had made to Gwendolyn Prince.
Gwendolyn rubbed her hands together in glee. “Can you guess?” she asked in a bright voice, her eyes darting across all of their faces. “Go on, take a guess!”
Percy and her friends all looked at each other. Given that they had just been discussing Percy’s long lost father, a man who she had never met, Percy knew what they were all thinking.
“My father?” said Percy.
Gwendolyn’s eyes flashed angrily and she looked extremely put out. She recovered quickly however. With a stiff smile, she patted Percy’s head.
“Of course not, dear,” she said in a tone of voice that made it clear to Percy that she had better not mention her father again.
As if Percy had let her down, Gwendolyn looked at all of the others, “Go on, guess!” she encouraged.
When they said nothing, seeming baffled, she added, “Shall I give you a clue? Oh, yes. I’ll give you a clue. It’s someone you would have all heard of, and who’s been all over the news lately. It’s so exciting.”
Percy frowned. She didn’t read the witching news much, and was only aware of one thing which had been all over it recently. A gobsmacking murder, and much talk of the whereabouts of the victim’s missing spouse. Nan and all the eldritch kids at school had been talking about it all week. Jeeves had been obsessing over it too.
Even Percy had found herself wishing the murder had happened closer to home, because wouldn’t it have been amazing to trip over some vital clue to solve it and be able to rub Octavia Smythe-Smith’s face in it?
Percy and Nan looked at each other. It could not be Juliet Jolie that Gwendolyn was talking about. Surely not?
Juliet Jolie was the famous actress whose equally famous husband had been horribly murdered by two escaped convicts. She was a hunted woman whose life was in mortal danger, and who had gone on the run.
Percy groaned. The moment that she thought it, she knew it had to be true. It was just the sort of thing that her mother would get herself tangled up in.
She opened her mouth to say it. Gwendolyn seemed to realize that Percy was about to spoil her announcement, and quickly pressed her finger over Percy’s mouth.
She swept out of the room.
Shara immediately turned to Percy and whispered in stunned tones, “Do you really know Leviathan Poseidon?”
Percy shrugged. “Not me. Mum. She says I met him when I was little, but I don’t remember.”
Felix had turned to Percy too, a look of great excitement on his face. “Forget Poseidon. Was your mum talking about who I think she was talking about? It can’t be!”
Before Percy could answer, Gwendolyn came back in. She was leading someone by the hand. It was a woman who was heavily shrouded in the velvet hood of a glamorous midnight black cloak. She had muffled herself so that not even a single inch of her face could be seen.
A hushed expectancy fell over the room as the woman raised her slim hands to her hood. She let it drop back a few inches to reveal a face that had been on the front pages of all of the eldritch and witching newspapers this past week. It had been over the Humble news too, since she was a Hollywood superstar.
The woman’s gleaming brunette hair framed a perfectly oval face with soaring cheekbones. She looked out at them all nervously from within her hood, and despite the fact that much of her face was still obscured by a huge pair of sunglasses, they all knew who she was. There was no mistaking her.
“Ta da!” said Gwendolyn Prince. “May I present to you, the lovely Juliet Jolie!”
2. The Fugitive Superstar
Missing Hollywood superstar Juliet Jolie, who the entire witching and eldritch and Humble worlds were searching for and many feared dead, tottered a couple of steps into the room on her slender heels.
She looked very fragile and tired indeed. In fact, she looked alarmed to see several strangers and one poltergeist all staring at her. She shot Gwendolyn a frightened look, as if she had not expected her arrival here to have been announced in this manner. She did a double-take when she saw Percy’s green hair, and took a little step back.