Of Murders and Mages Read online

  “Here.” Greg grabbed the bag and went through a door then returned with a key. “Here. There’s a safety pin to secure inside your brassiere. Have fun!”

  I secured the key then trotted into the hallway toward the elevator. Tapping my foot as I stood next to Vin, I avoided eye contact then rushed in when the doors opened.

  Vin followed and pressed a button as the two cats darted through the closing doors and chased each other around the elevator.

  Reflected in the polished chrome trim, Vin opened his mouth then closed it without saying anything as we rose until the elevator lurched to a stop. “Patagonia, Aristotle, go home.”

  The doors opened to the floor above the main casino floor. Though it was similarly appointed in an ancient Egyptian theme, here, everything felt a bit nicer. The carpet was brighter, cleaner, and was more comfortable underfoot. The metal surfaces were smoother and held a better polish. The tiles that designated the walkways shone like glass and appeared to be a natural stone.

  My kitten heels clicked along, and a quick glance at my ankles revealed that the two black cats had disappeared. I suddenly felt far more alone, even as crowds of people pressed around the tables.

  “I’ll get you checked in, then you can start reading the room. I’ll stay to keep an eye out for you but I’ll be at the back of the room.”

  Without making eye contact, I nodded. “Okay.” My voice was harsher than I expected.

  “Are you pissed again? What did I do this… Oh! This is because I didn’t fawn all over your pretty red hair.” Amusement rolled off him.

  “What! No. I just… You were really rude!” The room was filled with the noise of hundred-dollar slots singing their song of bells and whistles, and cheers from the various tables of craps and roulette. The lower tables were five-hundred-dollar minimum and went up from there.

  He smirked. “You’re mad because I didn’t compliment you. You’re used to every man falling all over you because you’re beautiful. You expect them—”

  “You think I’m beautiful?” The words tumbled out in shock.

  His stride faltered ever so slightly.

  My cheeks flared red, and I changed the subject. “Everyone played here?” I used a stage whisper that would hopefully carry to only his ears.

  “Yes.” He cut across the room toward a wall and stopped a dozen feet from a bar. He looked around for anyone within eavesdropping distance before continuing. “Victim one, Michael, often came here when he worked in his mother’s restaurant. Joe, the poker player, was in a tournament over there.”

  He pointed to a glass-enclosed room with serious players around tables.

  “Roberta, who was here with a convention, came with some friends. She didn’t gamble or stay long. Tony was a blackjack dealer here in the room, and Ethel won a couple thousand at a slot machine and came up here right before she died. They were all here at some point.”

  A waitress in the same outfit as me came by. “Hey, Vin, you working today?”

  “Hey, Natasha. Yep, some security. Can you grab Ella here a Shirley Temple, extra syrup, please?”

  She smiled at me, and I was dazzled by her white teeth and clear eyes. Instantly, I wanted to be her best friend, and all the tension in my neck disappeared.

  She turned to me. “Hi, Ella. We’re going to work together today. I’ll be right back with your drink.” She left and headed for the bar.

  “Did you feel that?” Vin leaned over to whisper.

  I was still staring at her, wondering if I had ever met anyone nicer. “What?”

  “She turned on the charm. That was her magic, or some of it, at least.”

  “Oh! She’s really good. I wanted to be her new best friend forever.”

  “You should. She’s really nice and very talented. But you need to pay better attention. When suddenly you have overwhelming emotions like that, you need to assume something magical is happening. I’ll tell Mom to help you with some mental boundaries as soon as possible, but for now, just be suspicious.”

  “Why did you order me a Shirley Temple? I’m not five.” I took a few deep breaths and started looking around the room, seeing what I could pick up. As soon as I paid attention, there was a muffled dull sensation.

  “Sugar. I don’t carry a purse full of candy like my mom. You’re going to shadow Natasha until you get enough of an idea of the job to fake it on your own. Try not to do too much reading around her. She’ll know what you are doing. She’s very good.”

  “If I was pretty and talented like her, I’d do something more interesting than waitressing, regardless of the pay.”

  “Don’t you worry about her. She’s just doing this between jobs. She was the wacky neighbor on some sitcom that was just cancelled. Her family owns a couple of casinos, but she said she prefers to be out from under their heel.”

  I squinted my eyes at her before turning back to Vin. When I pictured her with a crazy haircut, an oversized floral jacket, hunched over, and wearing heavy-framed glasses, I could hear her catchphrase from the television show, which had been on every Thursday. ‘“I’m gonna have a cow!’”

  Melodic laughter sounded behind me, and Natasha came around to hand me a drink. “That’s me. It was such a fun show, but the LA traffic is brutal. Got a place at the beach, thinking I would spend my evenings digging my toes into the sand and watching the sunset, but instead it was a place I crashed for a few hours in the dark. If there was an accident on any freeway, I would just get a hotel room near the studio. Are you new to town?”

  “Uh.” I was star struck, and it took a few beats for my brain to catch up. “Sort of. Been here for a bit but haven’t really got out much. I—”

  “Ella?” Vin raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh. I should get to work.”

  Natasha flashed her perfectly shaped white teeth in another smile. “Of course. Did they tell you to keep an eye out for physical magic? Security has an eye out all the time, and there is the magic buffer you can feel that tamps down the cheating, but the hustlers are always trying something new.”

  “Physical magic?”

  “Yeah, pushing on the roulette ball or nudging the dice at the craps table. But don’t worry. A little charming magic is allowed except in the poker room, but they have normal waitresses.” She crinkled up her nose. “The poker room is a total dead zone for magic. So gross. Anyways, I’ll show you how to take orders and get them from the bar. This job is super easy. Come on. Tips are waiting.”

  Vin put a hand on my shoulder and leaned over. “If you see anything, let me know. I’ll be in the corner.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Time flew as I raced around the floor, first tailing Natasha to learn the job then on my own. She was right. The job was pretty straightforward, plus it wasn’t too crowded. We were the only two waitresses, and I had offered to take the half of the room farthest from the bar so I had an excuse to canvas the whole room and see what I could find.

  She had encouraged me to keep moving. Otherwise, I was a target for drunk men looking to take home more than just some winnings. The balls of my feet had gone numb from the heels and constantly walking, but still I hadn’t found anything to point to the killer.

  The atmosphere of the room varied from table to table and over time. The craps table at one point had a great run of luck. The cheering and excitement rolling off the table was strong enough to make me feel drunk when I went by too closely. The poker room, on the other hand, was deadened from the magic, and I stifled a yawn as I passed to deliver a tray of drinks to a blackjack table.

  The lack of magic meant that all the emotions I felt were also gone. It was quiet and calm, and I instantly wanted to take a nap. But once I moved past the poker room, energy of the gamblers filled me. I caught Vin’s eye, and he jerked his head, indicating I should come over.

  I nodded in return, showing that I would go over as soon as I was done. The drinks were complimentary to the gamblers as the casino wanted to keep everyone in good spirits of all kinds. As I d
elivered the orders to the customers, they slipped chips onto my tray. I scooped up a variety of ten-dollar— and even one fifty-dollar—chips into the attached purse that pulled down under the weight of my tips. I’d emptied the pouch once already since I had started the shift. The tips would quickly outpace the fee they were paying me for my part of the investigation.

  I weaved through the tables toward Vin, doing one last reading. The general room had peaks and lows of emotions like anticipation, excitement, joy, and frustration, but one roulette table felt different. There was a buzz that I couldn’t place, like the noise of a high-voltage power line, while whispers of fear were tinting the edge of the investigation.

  As I passed the roulette table, an older gentleman leaned back in his chair. “Pardon me, miss.” His grey felt cowboy hat matched his grey handlebar mustache perfectly.

  “Yes, sir?” I halted and gave him a big smile.

  His energy was warm and woodsy, as I had always imagined a grandfather should have. It reminded me of smoke from an old-fashioned pipe. Unlike so many men in the room, his eyes never strayed from my face. “I’d like to get a beer for me and my wife.”

  He gestured to his side, where a lovely older woman’s eyes were glued to the table in front of her. Her slender fingers flipped a hundred-dollar chip across the back of her finger. When her husband nudged her, she turned to face him, and the crow’s feet at each eye crinkled as she smiled at him with her whole face.

  Their love was apparent and basked me in the warm emotion. Instantly, I was hit with a wave of sadness of my own that I had no one that looked at me that way or made me feel the love that radiated off them. Just as quickly, I shoved down my jealousy and tried to just enjoy the way it felt to be in their presence. I listed off the beers we had while only sneaking a few glances at the cheat sheet on my tray and took their order.

  I was turning to leave when the woman’s cool hand gently brushed my forearm. Her smooth fingertips sent a vibration of magic up my arm that was cool and crisp like inhaling wintergreen. “Dear, I have a vision for you.” Her voice was a whisper that cut through the noise around us.

  She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, the magic around her gathering like storm clouds rolling in from the ocean. When they reopened, they were all white, even the irises and pupils, though the weight of her stare pinned me in place.

  “The bear and badger you seek will find you. Trust them.” She lowered her head and blinked hard. When her gaze returned to my face, her irises were back to a watery blue, and the pupils dilated before returning to a normal size. She smiled.

  My breath caught in my throat. Bear and Badger were the names of the men that my father had mentioned in the note. The ones that were supposed to train me. Though I hadn’t started my search, I had thought of them often and tried to formulate a plan on how to search for them once we found the killer and my time was my own again.

  “Where are they? Where should I look? What do you know?” The questions fell out of my mouth quickly, one after another.

  She waved a hand. “Oh, I don’t understand the messages. I just pass them on. Can I get a lime for my beer?” She squeezed my forearm and turned back to the table to spread chips over it for the next roll of the roulette wheel.

  I stepped back on shaky feet, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I gulped then raced over to Vin, twisting my ankle a little as I tripped over my feet.

  “What happened? Is the murderer here?” Vin reached out and grabbed my arms to steady me as I stumbled. He looked over my shoulder, eyes narrowed and scanning the crowd.

  “No… Maybe… I don’t know.” I gulped and swallowed hard. Could they be involved in the deaths? I had felt love from them then a surge of magic. It was scary and intimidating but nothing evil or dark. Though there was something in the room. “Hold on.”

  I scanned and was able to identify a growing emotion of anxiety that emanated from the roulette table. “Who are the older couple at that roulette table, the third table from the end?

  “Oh!” he said with deep understanding. “Did one of them give you a prediction?”

  I nodded.

  He dropped his arms. “That can be unsettling. They’re our seers, Gertrude and Ralph. They’re married and work for the casino. They’re excellent advisors all the time and often have predictions. The visions aren’t predictable and are not always what we want to know, but they end up being what we need to know.”

  “She said—”

  “No,” he cut me off. “Don’t tell me. You need to start training, or you’re really going to step in it. Never tell someone a vision meant for only you. If you do, things get weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  “Just weird, and I don’t want to be all mixed up in it. Unless it has to do with— Never mind. I don’t want to know regardless.”

  “Could they be mixed up in the murders?” I cast a furtive glance over my shoulder.

  “Possible but unlikely, at least not them. They do what they want, how they want, and they know enough of the future that we never would suspect them if it was them.”

  “And we don’t suspect them, so maybe they’re the ideal suspects.” The adrenaline was wearing off, and I was safe by Vin’s side, so I no longer shook.

  “Why do you suspect them at all?”

  I turned to face the table. “Something’s going on over there.”

  “What?” He looked over to a far corner and signaled a large security man over.

  “I’m not sure.” I bit my lower lip as I tried to find the words to describe it.

  “That’s super helpful.” He stepped over and whispered to the man before returning. “He’s going to check things. Can you try to describe what you’re sensing?”

  I scrunched up my face. There was anticipation, anxiety, and a hint of naughtiness. I relaxed and tried to let the word I was looking for come to mind. When it did, I opened my eyes. “Sneaky. It feels sneaky.”

  “Evil? Like that curse on the horse. Is that what you mean?”

  “No, not like that at all. It’s a new feeling. Someone is up to something, but it doesn’t… I don’t know, but it definitely feels sneaky.”

  He blew out a sigh and mumbled under his breath, “Amateur.”

  “I heard that.”

  “You were supposed to. Go find an excuse to go over there and see if you can’t nail it down a bit more.”

  I spun away and glided over to the bar to pick up the beers the seers had ordered. Gertrude and Ralph. What kind of names were those for people who could see into the future? And the information she had given me was helpful, even hopeful. I had been so focused on this investigation that I hadn’t had time to think about what to do next. Had my dad left more clues? Why had he been so secretive? Why hadn’t he told me about his and my abilities?

  Maybe it wasn’t that I had been so busy. Maybe it was that I wasn’t ready to unpack all my emotions about his death by investigating his life. Losing him had devastated me and left me an orphan in a cruel world. I sniffed away a tear and pushed away the thoughts. If I thought any more about his loss in my life, I would break down crying.

  The bartender pushed over the two beers along with a lime in a shot glass that I moved to my tray. Slapping a smile on my face, I turned to deliver them and immediately stumbled over a furry body. Once I regained my balance, tray still full, I stared down at Patagonia.

  “Shoo. Not now.”

  She blinked at me before bending over to gnaw at the tiny gold buckle on my shoe.

  I looked for Vin and pointed at Patagonia.

  He shrugged and gestured toward the roulette table. Cat or no cat, I had a job to do.

  I shook Patagonia off my shoe and strode across the room, eyes darting to take in everything while I paid attention to all the emotions.

  As I approached the table, I slowed down and was able to slowly trace the emotions back to the source, like sniffing out a hidden smell. The reason I had struggled before became apparent when I realized the emotions w
ere emanating from three men spaced evenly around the table. They all had the same sneaky feeling—a mix of anticipation, anxiety, and devious intentions. I would need to get closer and see if I could figure out more.

  I lifted a drink and stepped toward Gertrude to hand her the beer, when suddenly I was hurtling forward, my foot caught on something. The tray slid forward and crashed through the space between the two seers and landed among the piles of chips comprising the bets for this spin.

  The beer in my right hand flew out and landed in the roulette wheel as it spun. A spray of beer flung out in a circle, spraying everywhere and everyone.

  I fell, twisting around to avoiding hitting anyone, and my momentum rolled me across the floor. When I stopped rolling, Patagonia raced to my face to lick the beer off my nose then gently bat at my ear.

  I took a few deep breaths as the rest of the casino erupted into noise, but even above the din, something had changed. I ran a hand over my limbs and pressed my outfit down to cover as much of my body as it could as I got up. I had carpet burns on one knee and elbow that were already stinging, and my back was feeling dodgy, but that wasn’t all.

  The people at the roulette table were shouting or wiping beer off their clothing. Or at least most of them were. What was missing was the sneaky emotion I had been feeling and the three men at the table. There were three noticeably empty chairs, one right where I had tripped. He had stuck out his foot to trip me!

  Vin was running up to the table, his entire face a mask of anger.

  “Vin, those guys.” I jabbed at the empty chairs, my voice breaking in excitement.

  He slowed up, and the anger transformed to confusion. “Who?”

  I grabbed his arm and pressed myself up against him to talk into his ear. “The thing I was feeling was from those three guys, but they’re gone. I think one of them tripped me.” The words were all jammed together into one long string of sounds. I pressed a hand to my bun, which was sloppily hanging over one ear and starting to unravel.