The Case of the Exploding Luck Pumpkin_Casino Witch Mystery Short Story Read online

  She stood up taller. “Felicia Bleu. I do not care who you are. I am in charge here, and I will not have anyone interfering with—”

  “Felicia!” Olivia trotted over and interrupted the tirade as it was winding up. “What’s going on here? Are you bothering Felicia?” She grabbed my arm and glared at me.

  Olivia and I had always been close. We were almost twenty years apart, but she had always loved babysitting me and taking girls’ trips together. But that also meant she was as comfortable chewing me out as my mom and brother. “I was just—”

  “Sorry for the interruption, Felicia.” Olivia turned and stomped off, dragging me behind her until we were in a far corner. “What is wrong with you? Felicia is the paranormal party planner and is very particular. She sent over a huge list of requirements, and we had to hire her whole staff.”

  “Well, la-dee-da.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s not that big a deal.”

  Olivia grabbed both shoulders and shook me a little. “Yes, she is. This is her first party on the entire Western Hemisphere. No one here has even met her until now. It’s a huge deal that I got her, and if this party doesn’t go great…” She stared off into the distance and muttered under her breath. “We’ll find the pumpkin. It’s just… misplaced.”

  “Uh, Olivia, you okay? It’s just a luck pumpkin. There’ll be others.”

  “No! There will be one this year. Everything will be perfect. I have to go check and see if Vin found it yet. Get out there. Go gamble, see a show or something, but stay away from Felicia.” She turned and stumbled away.

  Her cool, professional demeanor had slipped, though she was pulling herself together as she crossed the room. By the time she reached the far side, she was standing tall and radiating confidence. She had a job to do, and she would do it.

  I sighed. Maybe if I had a job I loved, I would be that confident and pulled together instead of listless and bored all the time. Well… except right then, I actually had something to do. Nothing could stand in my way, not even a pushy party planner.

  I scanned the room, and my eyes landed on two girls pushing out trays of desserts to start placing on the frosted-glass tiered display in the center of the room. We had all studied together for a few years when we were teenagers. Despite having the ability to do magic, mages still needed to learn things like grammar, algebra, and history. Especially history, unless you wanted all your great—and beyond—grandparents berating you for not knowing all about the War of 1812.

  While magic training was usually secretive and done by your own family, mentors, or highly paid tutors—like my mom—basic education classes on non-magical subjects were taught at private schools. They were much like normal schools except for more exclusive, much fancier pranks and shorter school days since magic helped the students learn and retain the information much better. Unfortunately, no one had created a “learn everything you need to know so you can skip studying” spell, though.

  I made my way toward my two old classmates with mixed emotions. Ellen Morgan, a blonde, and Keri Morgan, a brunette, were cousins, best friends, and part of the powerful Morgan family. Not that there were many mage families that weren’t powerful. Ellen was sweet, kind, and easy to get along with. Keri was her opposite in every way. From what I had heard, they had a business in town, but I didn’t know what they did.

  “Hey, Keri. Hi, Ellen.” I strolled up behind them.

  Ellen whipped around with a big smile before closing the distance between us to wrap me in a big hug. “Vanessa! It’s so good to see you.”

  Keri turned in my direction and acknowledged me with a jerk of her head. “Hey.” She continued to set out desserts from a tray onto the display.

  I resisted to the urge to roll my eyes at Keri. We had hardly got along in school, and apparently she wasn’t ready to let that go. I turned to Ellen. “How are you doing? What a crazy morning, eh?”

  “So crazy. I hope they find the luck pumpkin. It won’t be the same without it.” She picked up a tray of dessert and extended it to me.

  I looked over the selection and grabbed a cannoli and bit through the crisp exterior into the cream filling. “Holy cannoli. That’s delicious.”

  Ellen giggled.

  “Stay away from the food. Those are for today.” Keri rolled her eyes at me. “I can’t believe the pumpkin was stolen. I would have expected better security from a big fancy place like this. Doesn’t your uncle own it?”

  “Yes, and these things happen even with the best security.” I pointedly turned to Ellen. “Did you hear what happened?”

  Ellen shrugged. “We were here last night, getting measurements on this display, until they kicked us out. We needed to know exactly what needed baking and how many of each to make.”

  Keri scoffed. “They should have had those measurements earlier.” She cast me a glance that showed her opinion of the way things were being run.

  “When we were packing up our things, they rolled the display, the luck pumpkin, and all the little decorative pumpkins and gourds away in that room.” Ellen pointed to the room that I already knew the pumpkin had been in.

  I pointed to the room next to it. “What was in there?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. From what I heard, it’s magically sealed. No idea why.”

  “Was sealed. They opened it up today to search it. And I know why it was sealed.” Keri turned her back to us and returned to stacking desserts.

  I gritted my teeth at having to ask for her help. “Why was it sealed?”

  “There was a pass-through window to another room. When they searched the room, I could see it. I wandered closer and heard a cute guy on the security team say that they had just secured the whole room magically because otherwise people could sneak in from the coat check. He was super hot.”

  Ellen nodded. “Totally. And I think Ray was into you.”

  My heart beat in my chest at Raymond’s name being mentioned. Keri and I had at one time been casual friends until a feud started over us liking the same scrawny boy. He hadn’t been interested in either of us, but any chance of a friendship had already been ruined.

  Despite the bad news, I had gotten something useful—a possible way into the guarded room where the pumpkin had been. If I could get in now, I could poke around and maybe catch something that others had missed. I couldn’t help smiling as I walked over to the display.

  Keri stood on a step stool to place mini cheesecakes on the top tier.

  “Are these all spelled?” I gestured at all the desserts.

  She continued to stack them. “You’ll have to wait until tonight to see.”

  I checked over the display. “This is a kinda stupid set up. I mean you can barely reach the top tier.”

  Keri grumbled. “Felicia knows what she is doing. I had a third cousin that attended one of her parties in Poland, and it was amazing.”

  “No, seriously, look. If I try to reach the top…” I gestured over to grab a cheesecake and flailed my arms around, unable to grab one.

  “Be careful. Who tries to get a dessert like that?”

  “Pretend I can’t reach it, and if I lean over…” I stood on my tiptoes and gestured wildly at the top tier, when I suddenly lost traction. My foot went under out from under me, and I reached out to get my balance.

  My hand closed on the back of Keri’s shirt, and I yanked her sideways toward me as I landed face-first on the display, my fall cushioned by a hundred pastries.

  Keri landed on me, shoving my face into the freezing-cold corners of the tier as we both slid to the floor. I rolled over to grab my face, my vision obscured by a lemon cream.

  I grabbed my left eye, cupping the throbbing skin where I had made contact while wiping the curd away from my right eye.

  Ellen grabbed my arm. “Are you okay?”

  Keri pushed off me, got to her feet, and gazed over the confectionary fallout zone around her. “Is she okay? I’m not! Why do you have to be such a huge mess all the time? Some of us have real jobs and don’t just li
ve off our families.” She looked at me as though she wanted to grab me by the throat and shake me like a rag doll. She stomped her foot, and her lips quivered as she looked at the side of the display covered in crushed food.

  I got to my feet with Ellen’s help.

  “Look at this!” shouted Keri, tears running down her face. “Look at this!”

  I blinked hard as the sting of my eye started throbbing in time to my pounding heart. I pressed my hand against my face and brought it away and saw that it was stained with my own blood. “I’ve got to go,” I mumbled. I started to stumble away.

  A strong hand grabbed my arm. “Come on, sis. I’ll help you.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  I peeked around the corner then ducked out of sight, grazing my swollen eye on the corner of the wall. I winced and ground my teeth. I could have used magic to get rid of the bruise and swelling, but it was more energy than I was willing to expend before the transformation spell I had planned.

  After Vin had helped me clean up and chewed me out for causing a scene and making Keri cry, I had scoped out the coat-check room that backed up to the room of interest from the banquet hall. While in Europe, Mom and I had often used a spectral transformation spell to turn into a spectral rat to explore the catacombs. We would be immune to damage from physical creatures like cats, dogs, or real rats, and we could squeeze through even the smallest space. Even mages couldn’t detect them unless they were already looking for one. It would be the perfect way to sneak through the small window.

  I had gathered up the supplies, but now I just needed the employee manning the coat check to leave. Right on cue, I heard a door close. I inspected my fingernails as the gal passed on by, on her break between shows. Once she was out of sight, I pulled the bathrobe around me and approached the door, opening it with a key card I had pickpocketed from Vin when he helped me catch my footing after my accident with the pastries.

  Not all my skills were of the magical variety.

  A twang of guilt passed through me as I thought of Keri crying. Not just her, but also all the hard work that had been spent on those desserts. Surely the casino would pay for the ruined ones, and Keri was probably being overly dramatic for attention.

  Closing the door behind me, I flipped on the light and moved past the racks, now mostly empty. There a lime-green cropped leather jacket with black fringe and shoulder pads big enough to make a linebacker jealous stood proud. No wonder it had been left behind.

  The only other item was a black cape with a pink-sequins design on the back. I swept past to the window to start the spell, when I stopped dead in my tracks. The pink sequins on the back of the cape had been laid out to resemble a shape, but my eyes must have miss-seen it.

  I grabbed one side of the black cape and lifted it to get a clear view of the image embroidered on the back. The material was silky smooth and heavy as I lifted it. There, in fleshy pink sparkles, was a fully erect penis. A cascade of shimmering clear crystal shot out of the end and trailed down the front of the cape.

  The full-body cape trailed on the floor, making the phallic image at least four feet of pink throbbing flesh. I shuddered at the image and shoved it back on the rack as a blush rose on my cheeks.

  My eyes bugged out, and I tried to hide a snicker, failing miserably. What kind of person would go out in public in such a garish spectacle? I wished I had brought my phone to take a picture, but I had left it upstairs along with everything else except what I needed for the spell.

  Moving toward the window, I pulled out the vials from my pocket to get started. Time was limited, and I didn’t want to get caught naked when the spell reversed. I uncorked the vials and carefully poured them into an empty vial then covered the opening with my thumb. I closed my eyes and gathered the magic around me, pushing it into the spell. Once it shifted in, I opened my eyes and downed the potion in one smooth motion.

  I shuddered as the taste, acrid and bitter, hit my throat a few seconds before the magic took over. I tried to relax into the sensation, but even after I’d practiced it dozens of times, it hurt. I focused on breathing in slowly and deeply then slowly exhaling, listening to the sound of my own breath as it sped up.

  In a rush, I collapsed to the ground, clothing pooling over my body. My tiny rat heart thundered in my ears, pulsing along at a fast clip. I opened my eyes and scampered out of the bathrobe. I’d worn it because I didn’t want to leave any identifying clothing around just in case, though the security card in the terry cloth pocket couldn’t be helped. I had changed into the terry cloth robe hanging in our deluxe suite on the penthouse floor of the hotel. Being family of the owner had its own benefits, especially when the hotel was already packed with uber-rich mages vying for the poshest accommodations.

  I pressed my now pointy nose into the fabric and navigated my way out of the caves and valleys of terry cloth. Once free, I twitched my nose, my delicate whiskers flicking side to slide. Lifting a delicate paw, I admired the handiwork of the spell. The industrial carpeting was almost visible through my translucent body. The fur shimmered with delicate iridescent, pastel colors. Spectral rats were truly gorgeous little rodents.

  Upon tiny feet, I raced up the wall to the tiny seam at the edge of the window. I should have thought to try and open the window a crack before transforming, but it wouldn’t matter since anything that wasn’t waterproof had enough space to squeeze through. I pressed my tiny pink nose into the crack and pressed though.

  Catching my breath on the other side, I let my rat eyes adjust to the dim room before racing down the wall to find the door leading into the storage room where the luck pumpkin had been held. A spectral rat was the size of a normal rat, though I had never taken measurements to confirm if it was a tiny country rat or one of the huge New York rats that could carry off a cat. Either way, the change in stature made it challenging to recognize things even when the area was familiar.

  I had never been in the room, and I struggled to get my bearings in a room that was bigger than a stadium to me. In the center of the room was an object covered with a piece of cloth that seemed to tower overhead but couldn’t actually be taller than a human’s knees. Racing along a wall, I found two doors. One had light and sounds leaking under it, so it must be the one leading to the large banquet hall.

  The other was dark and silent, the only other door and the one that must lead into the room I wanted. The space underneath the door was more than sufficient to sneak under with only the tiniest bit of magic. Why had the spectral rat spell ever fallen out of popularity? It was so useful and had no drawbacks.

  After squeezing under the door, I started to race around the room, taking in whatever I could. Which wasn’t much. The room was empty of almost everything. There was some balled-up trash that I ran over, my little nails clicking across the paper. Then I raced diagonally across the room to a large box.

  I crawled inside, sniffing the empty interior, when the box went flying. It flipped upside down, trapping me inside. My head spun, and I flicked my whiskers side to side to clear my head. The box suddenly disappeared, and I was looking eye to eye with a cat.

  Not just any cat, but an unmatched familiar cat named Patagonia. She was all black and hung around the casino, waiting for her mage to arrive. Perhaps her destined mage had died or was late in arriving, but either way, she was unmatched.

  She lowered herself on her front paws, her tailed whipping back and forth as she licked her lips. Familiars could appear wherever and whenever they wanted, though I had never had one come to me besides my own dear ginger-colored Bethsaida, whom I had left sleeping in my hotel room.

  I squeaked at Patagonia to go away, when she pounced, knocking me across the room with a paw. The shock of hitting the wall was equal to my surprise that Patagonia could even touch me. Maybe because familiars were believed to be partially made of magic, they could touch magical beings.

  She raced across the room and grabbed me by the leg, shaking until my furry leg popped off and I was hurled against the door that I h
ad used to enter the room. I squeezed under the door and stared at the stump of my right hind leg. Pink translucent clouds of magic swirled around the stump. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel a significant chunk of magic missing and leaking out of the wound.

  I flexed the foot on the missing leg. I could feel it move, but all I could see was the cloud of shimmering pink swirl around. Patagonia yowled from behind the door. I would need to figure out exactly what had happened later. Now, I needed to get out of the room.

  Wobbling along on three legs, I raced toward the pumpkin covered with fabric. I must have miscalculated, as it seemed much bigger now, or perhaps I was shrinking. My lungs burned with exhaustion. The missing leg didn’t hurt, but maybe it was draining my energy.

  With a pop of magic, Patagonia dropped out of the air on top of the pumpkin. A delicate chirping purr emerged from her throat as she launched herself into the air toward me. I squeaked and used all my energy to race across the room and up the wall. As I zigged and zagged, Patagonia pounced into the space I had been only a moment before.

  I tried to scream at her to stop, but all that came out of my throat were squeaks as I ran up the wall and squeezed into the slit around the window. Popping out the other side, I released the magic that had held the spell together.

  Transforming back into my body, I fell to the floor in a heap, heaving and puffing to catch my breath. I wiggled all ten toes and ran my hands over my naked form, relieved that I had two legs attached to my body.

  A puff of magic, and Patagonia landed heavily on my stomach.

  “Get off me, you weirdo. You ate my magical leg!” I snarled at her while I felt around for the robe I had left behind. “Plus, you ruined my investigation.” I didn’t have any more of the base I needed for the spell, and I had drained myself of too much magic to try that heavy-duty spell again for a few more days.

  My mage eyes adjusted to the dark. The white terry cloth robe was gone, and I was naked. I had to get out of there, but I had nothing to wear. The only things in the entire room were… With a cringe, I grabbed the penis cape and wrapped it around my body, the black fabric pooling around my toes and the heavy sequin design slapping on my back with each step.