by Sarina Dorie
It was an insurmountable level of damage.
As she circled the school on her broom, she eyed the grounds for weak spots. When she relaxed her eyes, she could see where the gnomes had built their burrows under the ground. She couldn’t tell how many gnomes there were or if the estimates she’d been given were correct.
There weren’t too many burrows in the forest itself, but she noticed some close by the school graveyard. Vega’s heart lurched.
The tombstones were made of stone. The gnomes might have discovered the cemetery and eaten people’s grave markers.
Vega swooped down and flew low along the path to the school cemetery. Her eyes were adjusted to the dark, but without the light of the stars, she couldn’t tell whether the rustles in the brush were ordinary animals or gnomes.
The clink-clink-clink of hammers and axes made Vega’s heart thunder in her chest anew. That was the sound of hammers on stone.
She funneled her starlight into the palm of her hand, expanding the luminescence into an orb to show her more. She could see about ten feet in front of her down the path, but it wasn’t enough. As she cruised toward the cemetery, she channeled more power into the sphere, brightening the trees before her so that her surroundings were painted in silver light.
The tapping of miniature hammers momentarily ceased as Vega stumbled upon the scene. Gnomes chewing on headstones ceased their work. They stared up at the glowing sphere drifting above them. A dozen gnomes peeked out from behind trees and tombstones to gaze in awe.
Vega’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she viewed the carnage before her. Several gnomes had managed to shatter an ancient headstone she had never been able to read. It had taken her several weeks to put the pieces of that one together when she’d been a senior.
Pudgy gnomes with beards stared at the light and then resumed work with their tools. They would have been cute if they hadn’t been so evil. Four gnomes were swinging pickaxes at Ruth’s grave. They’d managed to chip away the section with mermaids.
“No!” Vega screamed.
Not Ruth’s grave! This was unforgivable.
No more Miss Nice Witch for these vile little imps.
Vega funneled more energy into the orb above their heads. Her rage at what the little monsters had done to the dead rose like a dark tide inside her. She transferred her molten fury into the ball of energy, increasing its heat. Fire swelled in its core. Golden light painted the forest.
Vega was furious—but not so much so that she forgot to ward herself with cooling magic infused with ice to protect against her own fire spell. As she exploded her wrath at the gnomes for defiling the homes of the dead, a shield of ice protected her from the inferno that swept through the forest.
Tongues of fire licked through the brush. Gnomes writhed and screamed.
Death and destruction satisfied that primal urge in her to hunt prey and crush her enemies. Vega waved a hand over the fire, forcing a sharp breeze to blow out the flames. She drew moisture out of the soil and doused the embers. Steam and smoke rose into the air, making her cough.
It took a few seconds for the horror of what she’d done to sink in.
Exterminating magical creatures was tantamount to treason against the Unseen Realm’s Fae overlords. She’d just killed pure-blooded Fae. No matter that they had the IQ of squirrels and were far more mischievous. Fae law didn’t care that they had attacked her students, defiled graves, desecrated priceless statues of antiquity, and massacred ancient tomes full of knowledge. They were still protected by unjust Fae law meant to protect anyone and anything considered “pure.”
Vega knew she should have felt remorse. She should have been afraid of the consequences, but all she felt was loathing.
Not knowing what else to do with the gnomes, Vega gathered them and buried them. It was a graveyard after all. Hopefully hiding the evidence was enough to keep her safe from Fae overlords who went around seeking justice for gnomekind. If such a thing even existed.
If it did, she was in serious trouble.
Once Vega had completed the task of burying her vermin enemies, she constructed wards of protection around the graveyard to keep other gnomes away. She would need to repair the headstones when she had better light and more stamina.
Despite all the starlight Vega had absorbed, she retired to bed, exhausted. She didn’t know whether she had made her problems better or worse with the gnomes. One dozen gnomes down, at least another ninety to go.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gnome Roundup
After breakfast on Friday, Vega researched companies that relocated unwanted magical creatures. She booked an appointment with Magical Pest Removal, but they wouldn’t be available until the following week to perform an inspection.
In the meantime, she constructed a small cage made of wards infused with the essence of starlight and plants.
During her flying lessons, two students were signed up for each hour. Always open to pragmatic solutions, Vega decided to employ more able bodies in the task of assisting her with the gnome problem.
“I can see both of you can fly on a broom adequately,” Vega said to the two teenage boys. “For that reason, I am going to make this more challenging by giving you a competition.”
Their eyes went wide with eagerness.
“We are going to play a little game I call Gnome Roundup. Two points for every gnome you catch alive.” She handed them each a sack she’d enchanted so that anything dropped inside would be transported to the cage she’d constructed. “Be careful. Gnomes bite.”
“How do we catch them?” one of the students asked.
“Plant magic is one of their weaknesses,” Vega said.
“And fire! Their flesh will melt off if I throw a fireball at them!” the other student said with an abundance of enthusiasm.
Vega didn’t want to know how he knew that. People thought she had been a morally challenged teenager, but she suspected a little pain magic and a few séances here or there was far less psychopathic than some of her students.
“You only get points for gnomes you catch alive,” Vega said.
The two teenagers managed to catch eleven gnomes, filling Vega’s little cage. She had to reinforce it between appointments and create another.
Her next lesson of the day was a teenage girl and boy.
“What’s the prize if I win?” the girl asked.
Vega considered what reward had usually appealed to students while working as an intern. “I’ll let you leave five minutes early.” It was one of those prizes that actually was a reward to herself.
“Yes!” The teenagers pumped their fists in the air and enthusiastically competed.
They weren’t nearly as successful as the first pair. They only caught six. Vega caught two herself.
During Vega’s third lesson of the day with adults, they were smarter than the students.
“This isn’t a real game. You’re just using us to clean up the school’s gnome problem!” a man with gazelle horns said.
Vega arched an eyebrow at him. “Do you want an opportunity to get out of class early or not?”
A witch in a purple cowboy hat shook her head. “How about we play this little game of yours, and you let us out of class thirty minutes early?”
Vega considered how many gnomes they could actually catch in that amount of time. “I will make a bargain with you. For every gnome you catch, I’ll let you out of class ten minutes early.”
“Yeehaw!”
Vega flew behind the students to keep score.
Orsolya beckoned to Vega from where she stood with a wheelbarrow of plants. Vega swooped down to meet her.
“I think one of your students lost a purse.” Orsolya waved a hand in the direction of the students.
“Did you find a purse?” Vega asked.
“No, I found a student looking for a purse. She came by earlier and asked if I found any lying around. She said she lost it during a flying lesson
this week.”
Vega crossed her arms, thinking of Janis snooping around the body the day before. “Was she a middle-aged woman with a flowy skirt and bangles?”
“No. She was a young woman wearing pants.”
Vega’s eyebrows lifted. Either this was someone new, or Janis was upping her game and adopting a disguise. “Did she use a lot of glamour on her face?”
“I guess. Is she one of your students?”
“Maybe.”
Vega thought of the dead body in the purse. It was possible that was the reason Janis was interested. It was also possible there was poison in the purse that Janis had slipped in to destroy her enemy, and she didn’t want it incriminating her.
Not that any of that was Vega’s problem. The only problem she needed to concern herself with was impressing Principal Gordmayer enough to consider her for a permanent position.
That meant solving the gnome problem.
Vega nodded to the students flying off without her. “So far today, we’ve caught twenty gnomes. Do you have any cold-iron cages where I can keep them until I find someone to relocate them?”
“I have one cage. I already have three gnomes in there. I might be able to squeeze another in, but it isn’t going to be able to humanely hold twenty.”
Vega waved her off. “I don’t care about humane.”
Orsolya placed a hand on her ample hip. “Weren’t you the one who chastised me for threatening to murder them?”
“That was before they damaged the graveyard, the statue of Lady of the Lake, and the school’s library books.” Now it was war. “Can you construct a cage for gnomes out of plant magic that will hold?”
Orsolya ran a hand through her bushy hair. “I guess, but it won’t be able to cage them long. It really isn’t a permanent solution.”
“No, relocation would be the permanent solution, but I have to wait until someone gives the school a reasonable estimate for doing that.” It probably would help for the DMV to pick up the corpse as well. But she didn’t want to move anything because it was all evidence.
It would make her job so much easier once the body was gone. Gnomes wouldn’t continue to gravitate toward it, and the new inspector wouldn’t think the gnomes ate corpses.
In the meantime, perhaps Vega could use their attraction to the corpse to her advantage. Gnome bait would draw them out of their hiding so they could be caught more easily.
By four o’clock, Vega and her students had caught forty-eight gnomes. Unfortunately, some had chewed through her plant-magic cage. Six escaped before she was able to contain the damage and repair it. Still, forty-two gnomes was a decent number.
If only she knew where to relocate them herself. She could choose a place at random in the Faerie Realm, but she was certain there were rules. Opening a portal to the Faerie Realm was dangerous, even if one was careful and constructed a one-way portal that ensured murderous Fae from the other side didn’t cross into the Unseen Realm. If Vega opened a portal and deposited the gnomes in the Raven Queen’s garden or dumped them in the Silver Court’s castle, she would be facing far more than a fine.
They would hunt her down and execute her.
At five p.m., a witch with short red hair wearing a business suit, marched up to Vega as she was constructing new wards around the corpse.
“Hi, I’m Dana Duncan. I’m here from the Department of Magical Violations to collect the body.”
“It’s about time,” Vega said. It was a good thing someone had come for the corpse before they closed for the week so she didn’t have to look after it all weekend.
“Sorry about the wait,” Dana said. “Things get backed up at the DMV.”
All things considered, Vega was impressed the agent from the DMV had located her so quickly. She had assumed she would be getting a message from them about the day and time they’d be coming so she could meet them in the office. Then again, it was possible they had while she’d been out teaching. Anyone flying overhead could spot the white overturned bathtub and find the body.
Dana Duncan waved at the air. “Wow, this one sure is stinky.”
“It’s the sun. It tends to do that to dead bodies.” Vega considered whether she should mention the deceased had been poisoned with arsenic.
“Are there any other personal items we should be taking as well?” the DMV agent said.
Vega waved a hand at the bathtub. “That.”
“No, I mean, were there any other items like a purse or bags. . . .” Dana glanced around. “I’m sure the family will want all her possessions.”
According to the DMV, Penelope Angelopoulos had no next of kin. It seemed like one of their employees should know that. It also seemed like their employees wouldn’t be concerned about retrieving her purse.
Vega relaxed her eyes. There was a glamour concealing the agent’s face. Many people used glamours to enhance their appearance, but it seemed a little too coincidental that this DMV agent wanted Mrs. Angelopoulos’s purse.
Dana’s glamour was properly constructed and must have taken some time to cast. Vega continued to stare and dissect the layers, but it would take her several minutes to see what was beneath the mirage. She had a hunch it would be Janis Meadowcloud.
“Did you bring the correct forms to sign?” Vega asked, trying to stall for more time.
“Forms?” the supposed DMV employee said.
Vega did what she did best: she lied. “When I spoke on the magic mirror to the DMV, Claude said I needed to fill out a B-78 form before I could release the dead body.” Vega thought that sounded like appropriate bureaucratic red tape.
“You really don’t have to. I can fill that out on my own in the office.”
Vega crossed her arms. “No, I have to fill it out. My principal requires that I bring her a copy. She’s such a stickler for rules.” Vega was able to push layers of illusion aside, revealing more details of the DMV representative’s appearance. She had brown hair and smooth skin.
“Oh, I see. Let me see if I have a form.” Dana rummaged through a tiny purse.
As Vega penetrated the glamour, she realized Dana didn’t resemble Janis Meadowcloud as she’d first thought. This was a far younger witch than Dana’s façade or Janis’s. It wasn’t unusual for women to make themselves look younger, but it was unusual to make themselves older.
Vega also couldn’t ignore the fact that “Dana” was using magic in her purse. It was subtle, but unmistakable. Her magic smelled of kaolinite and sulfur. Maybe there was some salt in there too. Probably she was an Elementia with a rock affinity.
If Vega was successfully seeing underneath this woman’s façade, and this was what she actually looked like, Vega didn’t know whether this was a friend of Janis’s who wished to remain concealed or this was Janis’s true identity.
“Here they are!” Dana extracted a paper from her purse. She handed it to Vega.
Vega scanned the paper. If she hadn’t known Dana had just used magic, she would think it was a legitimate form. At the top righthand corner was printed “B-78 Corpse Removal.”
It would have been so easy handing over the corpse so she didn’t have to deal with it anymore. She could have handed over the purse and been done with the whole mess, but Janis was almost assuredly a murderer.
Vega told herself she didn’t care.
But the problem was she did. She tried to convince herself the only reason she was hesitant to give up the purse was because her ghoulish nature craved month-old corpse that smelled of cherries. It had to be her demonic nature.
The reason had nothing to do with the fact that the idea of someone out there getting away with murder disturbed her. It most certainly did not strike a chord in her because her own sister’s murderer had gone free. She tried to rationalize that this situation was completely different. Mrs. Angelopoulos had been an annoying old woman, not an innocent child. Janis Meadowcloud was a middle-aged woman, not a Fae monster.
But it was possible she was a
Witchkin monster.
“Do you need a pen?” Janis asked.
“Sorry. I don’t think this is the right form,” Vega handed it back to her. “Claude said I need a form for flying accidents. This isn’t the one.”
Dana made no attempt to hide the twitching muscle in her jaw. “Let me assure you, this is the right form.”
Vega did the annoying thing her mother would have done when she wasn’t getting her way. “I want to talk to your supervisor.” She reached into her purse for her compact. “I’m going to call the Witchkin Council’s Nonurgent Emergency Division to report that you are a negligent employee not following proper protocol.”
Janis lifted her hands in a placating gesture. “I have the right form. I can get it for you. I’m not a negligent employee.”
Vega tried not to smile. Threatening to call the Witchkin Council had been the right card to play. This woman didn’t want to get caught stealing a corpse and impersonating a council employee.
“Come back on Monday when you have the proper forms.” Vega lifted her chin. “I’ll talk to you then.” Vega shooed her away like Dana was a pest.
“On Monday, will you bring me all her personal effects so I can pass them on to her family?” Dana asked.
Vega feigned indifference. “I’ll look around and see what I can find.”
Vega knew she couldn’t keep Janis from the body until Monday. It was only a matter of time before Janis simply stole the body from the school in order to hide the evidence of a murder. As for the purse, she would have to break through the wards of Vega’s room in order to get it, but someone with time and energy could do so.
Vega was left with two options. She could hide the body and bathtub in her own purse, or she could drop them off at the Department of Magical Violations herself.
Since she didn’t want her purse to smell like a delicious corpse, it was obvious what she had to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Elephant Gift in the Middle of the Room
Vega hated using portal magic, but there were times she couldn’t fly on a broom to a destination, especially while levitating a bathtub filled with a lamia’s corpse. Hence the reason she arrived at the DMV by creating a portal. She stepped through first and levitated the bathtub with the corpse through afterward, infusing starlight into the transformation magic to ensure it remained stable. It wasn’t as difficult as she’d thought it would be, but it still wasn’t her preferred method for travel.