Thrift Store Trolls, page 12
part #1 of Flea Market Magic Series
Nick slowly shook his head in frustration. “The Wizard’s Guild prefers to sweep the matter under the rug unless there’s a possibility that the humans might see the supernatural world.”
“Guess a bunch of dead tourists in front of the zmee’s shack wasn’t enough,” I said.
“No, it’s not unfortunately, but you don’t have to face this alone. Brenna and I are willing to help however we can.”
“As much as I distrust spellcasters, I appreciate your help,” Thorn said.
I hid a grin. My mate could be congenial when necessary.
“So, we can’t track him and he’s constantly moving. Do you know if he can be trapped or killed?” Thorn added.
“He’s a demigod capable of opening doors to another realm and he subsists on power from other magical beings—which means we should be able to weaken him and force him back on the fairy path.”
“Can he be killed?” Thorn asked again slowly.
Nick pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’s lived through multiple world wars into the modern age. I wouldn’t want to try to kill him, but I’m assuming yes.”
This wasn’t the time to assume anything, and we all knew what was said about people who assume things.
I tried to swallow, but my throat was far too dry. We had yet to see what powers the Basilisk King had beyond controlling his minions and summoning their gateways.
“I say we wait for him to come to us,” Thorn suggested, “then we drive him back north to the fairy path. If he refuses, we kill him.”
Nick’s nod seemed reluctant and the confidence I’d felt facing the zmee withered. Instead of hunting the Basilisk King, we had to wait for him to come to us. We were sitting ducks.
I wanted to fall deeper into my thoughts, but my phone rang. The name on the Caller ID elicited a groan.
“Who is it?” asked Thorn.
“Bill.” I rubbed my forehead. “And I have a feeling he’s not happy. I might’ve started a neighborhood flea market war.”
Chapter 17
Thorn and Aggie offered to stand guard with my dad. At first, Dad declined their offer, but I doubt anybody could pry Aggie from the goodies at the Stravinsky household.
“I need your family to adopt me,” she gushed as I left.
When I was younger, Grandma loved to spoil my cousins and me. She’d wait for our parents to look away and then she’d dart into her pocket to retrieve snacks and sweets.
“We need to keep your belly full and your claws sharp for the next hunt, Little Ones,” she’d say.
Can’t hunt on an empty stomach.
I smiled at the memory, but the glow from those pleasant memories dulled as I pulled into The Bends parking lot. The first sign that I’d messed up was the torn-up front lawn. It was as if a gigantic hand clawed through the grass, leaving clumps tossed about here and there. Also, the dumpster beside the building had been turned over and the rancid contents funked up the parking lot.
Lovely.
Would it be honest to admit I took my time to go inside? Yep. Somebody needed to pick up the minuscule pieces of trash in my backseat. While I was tidying up though, I was surprised to see Rex pull into the parking lot. He never came here unless absolutely necessary. Alarm circled my chest—was something wrong with Grandma? No, someone would’ve texted me in an emergency. So why was he here?
Not long after he picked a spot near the building, Erica came out and walked up to his car. Rex rolled down his window and waved to her. Interesting. The particulars of their chat didn’t jump over the four cars to mine, but I wondered what those two would talk about. From my perspective to the far left of them, I couldn’t see Erica’s face. I only caught Rex’s smug grin and the way he gestured out the window as if they had a casual conversation.
Suddenly, my phone rang. It was Bill again. Time to go inside. I bought ten minutes before my doom. Today, I didn’t have to clock in for my afternoon shift until lunchtime, but Bill’s first phone call tugged me in by the scruff of my neck.
During the call, all he’d said was, “I know what you took from Kramkar. I want to see you. Now.” Click.
Bill rarely called me, and if he hung up early, a bomb had dropped in the back office. Soon I’d be mopping up the victims from the aisles.
I hurried inside to face the goblin. My boss sat at his desk with an expression you could either call furious or absolutely enraged. If he frowned any deeper, the wrinkles along his forehead would’ve filled his face.
And, even worse, his glasses were on the desk.
Bill never took off his glasses.
“Hey.” I edged toward him. “I can explain everything.”
His right eyebrow rose. “You’re looking for the Basilisk King and you made a stupid bargain with the zmee for information.”
“How did you know?”
“The fairy folk talk. Now they’re running their damn mouths about how you broke into Kramkar’s business and stole his property.”
“I didn’t steal it. I left the payment.”
He scoffed. “Does it matter? Can you break into McDonald’s, steal a couple shakes, and then kindly leave some cash on the counter?”
I didn’t reply to avoid digging myself a deeper hole.
Bill wasn’t done griping. “Why don’t we march on down to Archie’s after hours, fire up the grill, and make a late-night snack? Sounds great, huh? As long as we pay.”
I lowered my head.
“Kramkar was at my doorstep the minute you broke his wards,” Bill said, his voice low and deadly. “He wants compensation.”
“How much—”
“Don’t say a word.” Breathtaking magic with the scent of red pepper flared from the goblin and I fought the urge to cower. “I’m speaking right now.”
I bit my upper lip.
“Back in the Dark Ages, a troublemaker like you would’ve had their hands chopped off, but since for your sake that’s illegal now, you’ll have to pay up through other means.”
Fear crept into my backbone. How deep did I jump into a shit pit this time? “I don’t have much, but if Kramkar is reasonable, I’ll do what I can.”
Long ago, I learned to never tell the fairy folk I’d do anything. Idiots with big mouths ended up on a brownie chain gang working in mines.
Bill said, “Kramkar doesn’t want monetary compensation. He wants you to work for him for a week.” He picked up his glasses and wiped off the lenses with a tiny silk cloth. “With no pay.”
Fuck. My face fell.
Damn, I wanted to ask for time off to protect Grandma. Now I had to work—for free, no less—at the troll thrift mart. Today catapulted from horrible to catastrophic.
I turned to leave, but Bill had additional words for me.
“Not sure if you don’t know this already, but you should be careful out there. The fairy folk also told me one of the shapeshifter delivery men at the Bashful Brownies Bakery Company was killed last night.”
“How? A basilisk attack?”
“Nope. No claw marks or other signs of an attack.” Bill’s expression darkened again. “The Basilisk King killed him. The shapeshifter’s life-force was drained and all the fairies found was a dried-out husk.”
Chapter 18
With orders to report to work at Huldrefolk Collectibles on Saturday morning, I returned home. Why bother working at The Bends today when I had to endure a week at a new job? On the way home, I clutched the steering wheel hard enough to dent it. My breath hitched and mind raced. I’d visited that troll’s shop twice and that was more than enough. The show room floor had dust and cobwebs everywhere. They stole the flowers from the local nunnery. Kramkar probably thought excellent customer service was excellent for including subpar cursed merchandise and offering customers overcooked food covered in shiny glamours. Who knew what other problems they had?
I spent the rest of the day cleaning the cottage. Scrubbing the floors and organizing my fridge twice didn’t help. The Stravinsky clan planned to meet again at my parents’ house to make arrangements to protect Grandma and I dreaded facing my family.
For past few days, I didn’t feel like a powerful alpha female. Matter of fact, I had yet to find the Basilisk King and now I had to work for Kramkar. How much lowlier could an alpha female get?
To cheer me up, and perhaps fill me with even more dread, Aggie asked about baking a cake for tonight.
“You know I never miss a meal with the Stravinsky clan,” she said softly.
I slumped on a kitchen chair. “Is now really the time to bake our problems away?”
“Now is always a good time to stuff our faces. Food is the universal language of caring. You give a frozen lasagna to families after they pop out a kid. During birthdays, you cook barbecue and serve cake to everyone. I really believe food makes people happy.”
I smiled. Aggie did have a way with words.
To waste perfectly valuable time, I watched Aggie gather the ingredients on the counter.
“What the hell are you making that needs canned rhubarb and fresh raspberries?”
Her grin lit up her whole face. “I’m making a raspberry and rhubarb drizzle custard Bundt cake.”
Uh, did I even have a Bundt pan? “Seriously? Where did you learn the recipe?”
Aggie didn’t have a great history of cooking well.
She hummed. “I’ve been watching The Great British Bake Off… Food porn at its best. I get off every time somebody says biscuit in an English accent.” She drew out the S in biscuit.
“Lovely.” I grabbed one of my leadership books, not Bill’s hot mess title, and read while she worked. Might as well witness her grand baking skills and throw support in her direction. Her last masterpiece, a pineapple upside-down cake, had a lovely presentation. No one got a chance to eat though after the cake fell off the table at my parents’ place. It turned into a pineapple-oh-hell-no cake.
Perhaps this cake had a better shot at greatness.
Aggie searched through the cabinets, pausing here and there as if deep in thought. For a moment, I felt like it was old times back at my previous home. The Long Island Pack had lurked nearby, but we’d gabbed and pretended the outside world didn’t want to hurt us.
“What did Bill have to say?” she asked as she gathered sugar and pistachios. She added butter, eggs, milk, and cream to the counter, too. She surveyed the ingredients with a warm smile as if they were her children.
I told her what went down with the goblin.
“Ugh, one week with Kramkar, huh?” She flashed me a thumbs-up. “You got this! You’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be fine,” I repeated sourly.
I’d be fine or I’d leap out the window and see how far I could run down the Parkway screaming.
“You’ve been through a lot,” she added, “and you’re stronger now.”
I opened my mouth to voice all the things that run through my head at the most inconvenient moments. The things my OCD made me fixate on from the moment I woke up until I slept, but Dr. Frank had taught me many coping mechanisms. It was time to put them into play. Change was good for the soul. Too bad my soul was perfectly content with my life as it was.
Aggie set the oven to preheat. With her back turned to me, I couldn’t spy on her, but her soft humming relaxed me.
“How you holding up?” I asked.
“This dish is coming along nicely.”
“I don’t mean the food, Aggie.”
She paused. “Yeah, I know. And thanks for waiting a while before you asked me that,” she whispered as she combined the cake’s ingredients into a bowl.
I nodded. She couldn’t see the gesture, but the intention mattered. I waited, always patient when she usually wasn’t.
“I’m doing the best I can,” she finally said. “Like I always do. Will’s trying to help me adjust, even if I don’t want his help right now.”
“I’m sure he is.”
She glanced at me over her shoulder. “I’m not interested in a relationship right now and Will respects that.”
“I was wondering what happened between you two.”
She sighed. “He’s not happy about my decision, but he understands I need time after what happened with my dad and Victor.”
“Has your dad reached out to you yet?” I asked softly.
“He’s not that dumb,” she said flatly. “Desmond McClure’s time is coming. We will be having a little talk about what he did to me.”
I wanted to tell her to let him go. To forget about him. But I was talking to Agatha McClure here. Alpha females like Aggie didn’t forget. They remembered, and if the opportunity arose, they settled the score.
“If you need a backup quarterback to throw the pass, I’ll be there for you,” I said instead.
“You can’t throw a ball worth shit,” she said with a snort.
“Yeah, how about a backup goalie?”
“When we were kids at that camp, you sucked at sports, Nat.”
I stuck out my tongue at her.
“Saw that.” She put down her mixing spoon. “I miss camping. We had a good time at Camp Harold, didn’t we?”
“I didn’t have a good time, at first, but after I met you, it was so much more fun.”
“Same.”
Back when we were kids—troubled youth was the polite way of putting it—our parents sent us off to a werewolf camp. I was awkward and weird while Aggie’s rich parents were hoping sunshine and the backwoods would keep their kid from overeating. Little did they know that Aggie needed more than therapy. She needed friends. She needed someone to appreciate her instead of throwing too many obligations her way. And I just needed someone who understood. We made the perfect pair.
Aggie put something in the oven, but she blocked my view the whole time. What did she put in there?
I peered around her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“Baking pure happiness.” She quickly shut the oven door and pushed me to sit. “Get back to reading and get a real leadership book that would apply to werewolves. Like Wildlife Behavior 101 or something. Those self-help books don’t apply to packs, by the way.”
“Packs are like corporations. Kind of.”
She gave a short laugh. “Before I came here, I used to work at a corp. You don’t challenge the CEO to a fight to lead the company.”
She had a valid point there.
“Not every leader has the same style.” She tapped the table with her finger for emphasis. “I’ve seen asshole bosses who make billions of dollars to nice guys who get run over. No matter your personality you must find what motivates your people. You adapt and learn to run at the speed of your pack.”
I caught myself wanting to rub my face to ease the growing tension. “I have doubts.”
“We all do. It’s how you deal with doubt that matters.” She scratched her head and accidentally streaked batter in her curls. I opened my mouth to say something, but she spoke again. “I need to get off my ass and see if Barney’s has any openings.”
“Craving their sizable pickles or the sandwiches?” I flashed her a grin.
“Oh, stop it. I actually liked working there. The owner believed in me and my employment was based on my merits, not my background.”
When Aggie arrived on my doorstep last year, I had no idea what she’d experienced with her dad, only that she’d planned to eventually move on. Like a stubborn flea, she attached to me and settled into life in South Toms River, and her job at Barney’s allowed her to thrive.
Which meant she could thrive again.
“Need me to write you a letter of recommendation?” I asked.
“No need. I already sent my old boss a text to check up on him and let him know I’m in the area. Apparently, he needs help training the new high school and college students he’s hired.”
The rich scents of Aggie’s cake filled the kitchen with a divine, fruity fragrance. That was a good sign she wouldn’t kill us.
Forty minutes later, the oven timer dinged and I glanced up from my book. Aggie had left the room, but I offered a hand and fetched my Santa’s Little Helper oven mitt.
After I opened the oven, my mouth dropped open. “That’s not a Bundt cake.”
Aggie had used a Christmas C-shaped pan, and unfortunately, the pan was far too small to hold the expanding cake. Sticky sweet batter spilled over the bottom of the oven, and the fruit bubbled under a layer of char.
That was gonna be fun to clean up.
The resourceful baker hurried into the kitchen and gushed over my shoulder. “Isn’t she pretty? You didn’t have a Bundt pan so I got creative.”
With the shake of my head and a chuckle, I removed the cake from the oven and left it on the stove to cool.
“Don’t worry about the oven. I know how to clean them out,” she added then sat next to me at the kitchen table. “In a couple of hours, I shall wow you with my festive Raspberry and Rhubarb Drizzle Custard Christmas Cake.”
I laughed. Her bright smile made a bad day much brighter.
Once evening approached, we headed to the Stravinsky family meeting. Thorn had stayed with them all day, so we met him there.
“Any problems?” I asked him.
He shook his head and drew me into a long hug. Relief flooded me and I rested my head against his chest, not caring if my family was close. Once this was all over, I was going to book that fly fishing trip sooner rather than later. Maybe some sunshine and time for us to snuggle in a hammock would make this madness go away.
“No problems,” he said against the top of my head. “From the Basilisk King, that is.”
The boisterous noise from my uncles watching a freestyle diving competition from Norway filled the room and I let go of Thorn. What the heck was so exciting to them about dudes in Speedos hitting the water? I read the text at the bottom of the television screen. The World Championship of Death Diving, huh? Yeah, participating in that kind of foolishness would be a hard pass from me.
Their laughter after each painful-looking dive made it difficult to hear conversations. If Grandma wasn’t hard of hearing at times, they would’ve lowered the volume, but she was engrossed, taking in every detail.
