Magical Problems. Permanent Solutions.
Most witches don’t work for police departments, but Michelle isn’t your average witch. She’s clanless, looking for a warlock who isn’t offended by her lack of family connections, and in danger of losing her job if she can’t find the eight escaped trolls before they start eating the local residents.
Trolls, angry police, and misbehaving spells are the least of her problems. Statues attacking homeowners might be problematic for your average witch, but to Michelle it’s another day at the office. Her real concern is the wizard suddenly interested in dating her and an old elf set on pestering her. When her happy family is rocked by a long kept secret her stable life falls apart faster than she can pick up the pieces.
And she still hasn’t found those trolls.
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Excerpt from Witch for Hire
Chapter One
Phone. That had to be my phone waking me up. My hand swept across the nightstand until it found the vibrating hunk of silicone. “Hello?”
“Michelle, it’s Gordon from the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office. We need you to deal with some illegally bred magical creatures.” The sound of barking and shouting followed his voice.
“What are they?”
“We don’t know. I can tell you what they look like. Henry was one of the responding, and he’s never heard of these things. I think they’re new.”
“Ugh.” I rolled out of bed to start getting dressed. Henry was an old vampire. I’m not sure how old, but old enough for me to take his word on something like this. “Gordon, tell me what these things look like.”
“I’d say someone found the stupidest Chihuahua in the city and did something to give it wings and magic.”
“Great. How do I get there?” I wrote down the address and a few directions. “That’s the mayor’s place, isn’t it?”
“Yup, and he’s not happy.” Gordon hung up without saying good-bye, police etiquette at its finest.
I dropped the phone on the bed, glancing at the clock as I stumbled to the bathroom. Illegal magical creatures harassing the mayor at three in the morning wasn’t a great start to my day.
Twenty minutes after being rudely awakened, I was rolling down the road with black tea in my mug and a bagel in my hand. I turned the radio on a pop station and sang along for most of the forty-minute drive. The combination of music and caffeine would keep me awake.
The road was suddenly lined with cops, ambulances, and fire trucks. I kept rolling until I was in the driveway. They had left a spot for me, knowing I needed my car because I had extra supplies in the trunk. I pulled the duffel out of the passenger seat and slid out of the car. Yips, barks, and growls assaulted my ears.
It wasn’t hard to spot Gordon on the manicured lawn in front of the sprawling brick house with a man who had to be the mayor—bathrobes weren’t work attire. What Gordon lacked in height he gained in width; his shoulders deserved their own zip code. He was an ideal cop, a big, strong but not overly intimidating protector. The other man was chubby, with gray hair mussed from sleep and swaddled in a large terry bathrobe.
I started over to them only to hear barking right behind me. I ducked, running forward a few steps before looking up. He hadn’t been kidding. These things really did look like big Chihuahuas with wings emerging off their withers, and this one wasn’t neutered. As I watched, the critter charged an officer who whipped up a riot shield to block it from hitting him. The air sparkled around the Chihuahua as he passed right through the shield, raking nails on the dodging officer’s neck. No wonder they needed me.
“Excuse me, gentlemen,” I politely interrupted when they didn’t see me approach, “but I’m here to help with the pest problem.”
Before Gordon had a chance to speak, the mayor demanded, “Are you the witch woman? What took you so long? These things have been here for three hours!”
“Sir, Miss Oaks was only called in sixty-eight minutes ago, and she had a forty-minute drive from her house. We weren’t called until these creatures”—he waved his hand at the circling, barking Chihuahuas—“had already failed to be rounded up by your security.”
I waited a fraction of a second before speaking, not wanting to give the rude man another chance to cause a problem. “I’m here now. I need to speak to Gordon, and then I’m going to get these things out of your way.” I stepped between the men and gently herded Gordon away, leaving the mayor looking speechless. Too bad. I couldn’t do my job with him scolding me.
“Where’s Jerry?”
Gordon rubbed his temples, looking tired and aggravated. Then again, Gordon usually looked tired and aggravated. I’d asked him once why he did the job if he hated it so much, and he had smiled, replying that the job wasn’t the problem; people were the problem.
“You’re lucky he won’t remember you, because he holds a grudge,” Gordon said.
I shrugged. In the future, I would be more careful, but he had noisier problems tonight.
“Jerry is in the ambulance over there.” He pointed to the one closest to the house. “He’s fine. You can go talk to him, but when he tried a few spells and got one into a spelled cage, it blasted its way out and he was burned.”
This was good news, though not for Jerry. The critters hadn’t removed the magic from the cage, just destroyed the object the magic was attached to and the spell as a result. I could spell the metal to prevent them from breaking the cages. If they’d undone the spells on the cages, it would have been more difficult to contain them. “How many of these pests are there?”
“Eight.”
“Send someone over with two medium cages.”
Gordon walked away to start clearing out the excess personnel and find help for me. I set down my bag before walking to the ambulance. Jerry was a sight, covered in bandages and a bit scorched. Not that Jerry was the neatest person, but normally his rumpled uniform didn’t have charred portions and holes. His thin frame and pale complexion weren’t helped by his injuries.
“Jerry, you look terrible.”
He gave half a grin. “Thanks, hon. I feel about the same.”
“Why are you still here?”
He winced as he shifted on the gurney. “’Cause I’m the only one who can tell you how those creations of Narzel are casting spells. They aren’t doing actual spells; it’s more like they’re bending things to their will. It looks like an aura of magic that helps them do what they want.”
I smothered a smile. Narzel was a trickster from human legends, known for playing tricks and making jokes that frustrated and angered most people. “Thanks, Jerry.” A lot of things had similar effects. Plants grew better when elves were in residence, and stuff didn’t clutter as much if a brownie was around. “Now, you let these paramedics take you to the hospital, okay? I’ll take care of those vermin.” I ruffled his hair, watching him relax as the paramedics closed the ambulance.
It was fortunate the road had a big grassy shoulder. Both sides of the pavement were lined with various emergency vehicles, except the part of the driveway occupied by my car. Even with the off-road space, there was only a lane and a half for traffic to pass through, but I doubted many cars would be traveling at this time of night. The entire scene suited the big colonial brick house; it looked to be holding court over a colorful herd of cars.
There were two main ways witches cast spells: I could directly manipulate the energy to set spells, or use runes. Runes were an ancient and powerful language witches used to shape magic while adding power. Directly building spells took more energy and focus, but was often faster and allowed witches to create spells without knowing how to form the construct using runes.
Back on the lawn, I pulled a fake steak and my oak wand out of the duffel. Runes would get in the way today because the spells were simple and limited in focus. I had just laid the first spell on the meat, one that wouldn’t let the critters leave a five foot area around the steak once they entered it, when Henry glided over carrying the two cages.
“I was the least likely to be injured by these things.” He flashed fangs as he smiled. “I also have the fastest reflexes of anyone here.”
“Are you sure you didn’t volunteer? You like this stuff; it’s why you became a cop.”
“I’ll never tell.”
I chuckled and started spelling the cages so creatures couldn’t get out. Then I put the last three spells on the plastic. One spell made the fake meat smell like hot cooking steak, a second spell stuck it to the ground, and the third one made it immune to harm.
Finishing the spells, I looked around, not seeing any of the little beasties. Even magically enhanced, it would take the smell a few minutes to filter around to the back of the house where I thought the barking was originating. Before long I heard a change in barking, and the entire pack charged around the side of the house. All eight of them were racing, little bodies straining with teeth snapping at each other and wings flapping furiously. Twice during their headlong race for the meat I saw the air sparkle right before one of them dropped back after being hit by magic.
“Brace yourself,” Henry warned me.
I nodded and settled in for the fight. The little things zoomed into the containment spell and went right for the meat. Henry and I rushed to action. We didn’t have long before they realized we were trapping them. All eight of them were in a wriggling group, snapping at each other and trying to drag the meat away.
I created a shield bubble around one of them and pushed it into the cage. Henry snagged one out of the air after it had been foolish enough to separate from the pack and thrust it into the other cage. Henry had just grabbed his second one when they realized what was going on and scattered. Five angry bodies rushed the containment spell. Four of them hurled themselves at it, but the last one turned to attack Henry’s back.
“No you don’t.” I slapped a shield bubble around it, rolling it into my cage. Two of mine down, two to go. I could feel the four loose critters pushing at the spell, but they weren’t even close to breaking through. I also held the shield bubbles on the two I’d put in the cage to keep them from escaping. Henry was fast enough that his wouldn’t escape, but I wasn’t going to bet on my reflexes.
Two of the beasties moved close enough together that I could grab both of them with a shield bubble and push them into the cage before dissolving all the shield bubbles and locking the cage.
“All done over here. Do you want me to take these to the car?” Henry asked.
“Sure,” I said, standing up. “These guys are ready to go.”
“I’ll have them out of here in a jiffy.” Henry scooped up one in each hand and glided off.
I unwound all the spells on the plastic meat, shoved it and my wand into my bag, and zipped it up. It struck me as odd that these things had found the mayor’s house. There weren’t a lot of houses around and certainly not homes of people who would create something like this. In fact, the nearest houses looked to be a quarter of a mile away in every direction. I sent out a pulse of energy, like a ripple in a pond, sensing nothing. Casual observation wouldn’t reveal the cause.
I tried to shake off the feeling that I might be missing something and scooped my duffel off the dew-laden grass.
“Oaks!”
I looked up to see Gordon walking over in the dark. My eyes traveled the road, now nearly empty. One ambulance, the hazardous creatures truck, two patrol cars, and my car were the only vehicles left. The woods had resumed their dark and stately appearance, shadowing the world around them.
“What was the deal with those critters?” Gordon was human and had not a drop of magical talent. He was the sergeant in charge of magical responses because he was great at problem solving and getting different races to work together.
Some things were hard to explain to humans. Just because they lived in a world where everyone else was magical didn’t mean they really understood magic. “Think of it as an aura that extended a few inches around their body that allowed them to bend things to their will. They weren’t casting spells as Jerry or I would, but they were bending things to their will.”
“What do I tell animal control?” He looked frustrated.
“You’ve got what, a few fey and some elves working there?”
“Yup.”
“Tell them they have magic and a bad temperament.” I looked him straight in the eyes.
“You’re serious?” His eyebrows climbed an inch.
“The fey can handle anything those stupid creatures dish out. We’ve sent more dangerous things to them, and they’ve been fine. I wouldn’t worry about it, but you might want better cages.”
He dropped his gaze. “You’re right. I just hate dealing with new species.” He stumbled over the last word, like he hated to apply that term to those vermin. I couldn’t blame him a bit. “I’ll see what I can find in the budget for cages. Paying the bill for an injured officer might persuade the bean counters.”
“Perhaps. I’m done here, so I’m heading out.” I did some quick math in my head. Cobb had hired me for fifty hours at the beginning of the year. “Middle-of-the-night emergency calls count for double time, so you have about six more hours of my time paid for.” I grabbed my damp duffel and headed to my car. I had other appointments to make.
“Seriously, Oaks?”
“You bet. I never joke about my business.” I slid into the car and headed off.