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  Michelle’s Case Files

  A Collection of Short Stories

  N. E. Conneely

  Copyright © 2016 N. E. Conneely

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or author. Requests for permission to copy part of this work for use in an educational environment may be directed to the author.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. References to historical events, real people, or real locales are made fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  This one is for everyone who loves Michelle’s crazy cases.

  Contents

  Trouble in the Neighborhood

  Leather and Fire

  Vacation Magic

  Also by N. E. Conneely

  New Release Newsletter

  About the Author

  Trouble in the Neighborhood

  The doorbell cover sitting on my desk was a pretty thing, with a bronze dragon curled around the button. That didn’t stop me from stripping the spell from it and tossing it in a bin that was headed for the crusher. One down and an entire days’ worth of disenchanting to go.

  Being a witch gave me the ability to use magic, but that didn’t mean it was all fun and games. I worked as a consultant for the police in north Georgia when they needed magical help. Sometimes that meant rescuing homeowners from unruly spells and other times that meant going through boxes of problem items, stripping off the spells, and sending them on to their next life.

  Stretching my neck and shoulders, I eyed the pile to my right. There were ten boxes of magical items waiting for my attention. Some of those boxes were from a stockpile up in Union County, but the rest were overflow from my hometown and the surrounding area. Lately the area had been flooded with illegal magical items, most of which didn’t function properly. While I was concerned about the source, likely a new black market ring, I was grateful for the work. Not only did it pay the bills, but it was nice to have office work during the winter.

  I pulled a lightly used pair of athletic shoes out of the box in front of me. A stomach-churning stench hit me and I quickly activated an odor-neutralizing charm. It wouldn’t last long, but I shouldn’t need much time to figure out a permanent solution. According to the tag, these shoes infected the wearer with a magically enhanced toe fungus. I had a feeling someone had spelled them before returning them to a former significant other.

  My phone rang, saving me from having to work on the shoes for the moment. Caller ID informed me that it was Rodriguez, a hedge-practitioner with the local police, officially known as the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office.

  “Oaks,” I answered.

  “Michelle, could you come down to my office this morning?”

  “What for?”

  “I found an interesting collection of reports about a suspected magical creature on my desk when I came in. Until I do more research I won’t know what it is, but I think I could use your help on this one.”

  “Sure. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up and set the shoes back in the box, then made a mental note to thank Rodriguez for saving me from them. Now that I knew what I was getting into, I could set up a couple of spells to help with the smell before I started on the shoes.

  A few minutes later I was in my car and headed to the police station. I didn’t even try to speculate about the creature. If he didn’t know, there was nothing to be gained. My only hope was that most of our investigation could be done from the warmth of his office or car. The radio cheerfully informed me that it would be sunny today with a light wind, the high hovering at freezing. At the moment, freezing temperatures would be an upgrade.

  Maybe the cold weather was keeping people home, because there wasn’t much traffic on the drive. When I pulled into the parking lot, it was emptier than usual. Bracing myself for the cold, I grabbed my gear and hurried inside.

  I waved at familiar faces as I walked through a room filled with workstations and made my way over to Rodriguez. I set down my bags and dropped into the chair in front of his desk. “Good morning.”

  He nodded curtly. “Thanks for coming.”

  With his caramel skin, black hair, and dashing smile, he usually charmed every woman around, even when there was something serious to discuss. But today his brow was furrowed and the corners of his mouth were pinched.

  “That bad?” I sighed. “Did you figure out what kind of creature we’re after?”

  He picked up a piece of paper. “I’ve got one adult and several children saying they saw ‘a bear that smelled terrible with fur the color of blood.’ A couple of the kids go on to describe it as having glowing yellow eyes. Two of the children have been hospitalized after having horrible nightmares.”

  “A bugbear?” I glanced at the calendar. “Are you sure this isn’t a trick cooked up by kids who’ve been inside too much this winter?” Bugbears were only native to the British Isles and they were almost extinct. They sought out children to scare them, often causing night terrors that lasted until the child reached adulthood. To make matters worse, a bugbear could feed off a child’s fear every time they had a night terror. There were even reports of children being killed by the night terrors, if not the bugbears themselves.

  “The last report was pretty convincing.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you in the car.” He grabbed keys off his desk and stood up.

  “I’m listening,” I said as I followed him to the parking lot.

  “I’ve gotten four reports from two subdivisions a few miles away.”

  I nodded and tossed my bags in the trunk of his car and we hit the road.

  “All the reports are from the past three days. It seems to me the bugbear was set loose in town and found a place to call home. Those subdivisions are near a primary school. Yesterday, it scared a couple of kids along a walking path in the neighborhood. They were able to escape without any lasting damage from the encounter, and gave me a good description, so we have a place to start.” Rodriguez rubbed the back of his neck. “I would try to find it alone, but my tracking spells aren’t as good as yours.”

  “I should be able to track it, though if we get close enough, we’ll be able to smell it.” I couldn’t remember if there was a specific spell for tracking bugbears, but I was sure I could cobble something together. “I haven’t encountered a bugbear before, but my understanding is that they have some magic that can make them difficult to track. But I have a spell in mind that can search for magical bearlike creatures. It should work as long as there aren’t any similar beasties in the area.”

  “That particular ability is why I called you. I doubt I could track it. ” He sighed. “What else do you know about them?”

  “If I remember correctly, not only can bugbears avoid tracking spells, they’re able to warp magic. My textbooks and teachers weren’t overly specific in the mechanics of that ability.” Right now I really wished they’d been more thorough.

  Rodriguez’s voice was dry. “Delightful.”

  While I agreed with him, another issue had captured my attention. How had a bugbear gotten here? Who would go to the effort of importing one just to set it free in north Georgia? And why? There was only one answer that made sense to me, but I had to see if Rodriguez agreed. “Could the bugbear have been brought into town by the same people who are supplying the magical items?”

  He paled. “I sincerely hope not. It’s bad enough that we have a black market ring pumping illegal items into the area. We don’t need illegal creatures, too.”

  “Agreed,” I said, my voice soft.

  We were both silent for several miles. Rodriguez turned the car into a subdivision full of big houses with stone entries, windows spanning two stories, and brick mailboxes. We weaved through the subdivision until we found ourselves in a cul-de-sac lined with parking spots. The playground was far from full but there were still a number of children. Young humans, elves, and dwarves crawled over the playset. In the grass, a group of shifters, alternating between forms, were playing soccer with two unicorns, a satyr, and a centaur.

  Rodriguez got a rifle out of the trunk. I left my kit in the car. Extra spell components weren’t going to help me here. Once I tracked down the bugbear, Rodriguez’s rifle would be more than able to kill it. Parents looked on with a combination of concerned and approving looks as we walked past the playground to a gravel trail.

  Just past the playground, the trail forked. “Which way?” I asked.

  He pointed to the right. “The last report refers to an area a short way down there.”

  Taking a second look at the playground, I debated the wisdom of leaving the kids outside with a bugbear in the neighborhood. In one way we were lucky: as cold as it was, there weren’t many people outside. If this had been a Saturday in spring or summer, there would’ve been a lot more potential targets. The downside was that the bugbear would make a beeline for the few targets it did sense. That could put these children in more danger, but with an adult for almost every kid, I suspected the bugbear would steer clear. With that decided, I motioned for Rodriguez to lead the way.

  We walked down
a paved path wide enough for three abreast. It looped around the playground before winding behind the homes. Groves of trees provided sporadic shade, but with homes visible in every direction, it wasn’t what I would consider a fun nature walk.

  As we walked, I opened myself up, searching for any traces of magic that would help me find the bugbear. There were a few traces of magic here and there, but nothing definitive. I carefully sorted through them. Some were remnants of spells and others were marks left behind when magical beings like elves were in the area. However, nothing I found could be positively identified as related to the bugbear.

  Ahead of us the path sloped down a small hill and entered a stand of trees. Rodriguez slowed, scanning the area. “This is the last known location of the bugbear.”

  “Could you refresh my memory? I only scanned the reports.”

  “In that patch of trees there’s a small footbridge going over a drainage ditch. The kids were on the bridge when they saw the bugbear down in the ditch.”

  Going over that information, I made a plan. “Let me sweep the area from here, and then I’ll move in for a closer look.”

  Rodriguez nodded.

  I let my magic trail down the slope, over the grass, and up the trees, searching for anything of interest. In one spot inside the stand of trees, I honed in on a very small piece of magic. Shaping my power to collect more information, I tried to figure out what it was but I couldn’t discern any details. “There’s some type of magical residue up there, but I’ll have to get closer to be more specific.”

  Rodriguez nodded and we continued down the path. Twisting my wrist, I summoned my wand, and it dropped into my hand. Thanks to a wooden bracelet, a storage box at my apartment, and some magic I didn’t understand, I was able to conjure it whenever I needed to be armed and dismiss it when it was unneeded. This was a time where I thought it would be better to have my wand in hand in case that magic was more than residue. Personally, I wasn’t expecting much. Bugbears avoided adults so we were likely to have a hunt on our hands.

  When we got to the bottom of the slope, I could see the bridge Rodriguez had mentioned. It was small, about six feet across and four feet off the ground. As we neared, I tried to determine what the residue was, but it was such a small thing that I was having trouble identifying it.

  When we were several feet away from the bridge, I said, “Let me do another magical search before we go exploring.”

  Rodriguez stopped. “Sure.”

  Widening my stance, I let my power wash over the area. There wasn’t much. The path had a faint sizzle of magic, but that was from the myriad magical beings walking through the area. Off to the side, near a large white pine, was a smudge of something else that was faintly magical and repelling. Since it didn’t want to be noticed, I walked over and took a look.

  The closer I got to the tree, the stronger the push was to go away. I ignored it. When I reached the tree, I saw what was causing the sensation—a clump of red hairs caught on the bark.

  “Found something,” I called out. Rodriguez walked over and I pointed to the hairs.

  “Good job.” He pulled a pen, tweezers, and a small evidence bag out of his pocket. He carefully placed the hairs in the bag, sealed it, and labeled it. “Do you think you can track it?”

  “Only one way to find out.” I held out my hand.

  If these really were from the pest, I should be able to track the bugbear, and we should be on its trail in minutes. I probed the hairs, trying to find something that would confirm they were from the bugbear. The repelling sensation grew stronger with every moment my magic touched them; it was the best indicator I could find. I couldn’t think of any local creatures that had a similar aura.

  I quickly crafted a spell that would allow the hair to act as a lodestone. The spell was simple: it revived the connection between the hairs and the whole and would guide us to the bugbear. I used the spell fairly frequently in my work with the police. When I finished, the bag of hair was pulling in my hand, wanting to go back the way we’d come.

  “That way.” I tilted my head back down the path.

  “Are you sure?”

  Shrugging, I said, “As sure as I can be. It’s where the hair wants to go.”

  “Good enough. Do you want to look around some more? I didn’t find anything.”

  “This was the only thing that caught my attention. If it doesn’t help us locate the bugbear, I’ll try a different spell.” The wind cut through my woven gloves, and I tucked the hand that wasn’t holding the bag of hair back in my jacket pocket.

  “You know,” Rodriguez said as we headed back the way we came, “we passed that playground, and there are plenty of yards.”

  “What’s your point?”

  He broke into a jog. “I don’t want another child ensnared by it.”

  I quickly caught up with him. “Me either.”

  I’d only seen bugbears on videos or in pictures, and they were disturbing enough from a distance, especially the yellow eyes. To a young child who was vulnerable to its powers, the bugbear was a horror. I’d do whatever I could to prevent another child from falling victim to this bugbear.

  With the tracking spell pulling in the direction of the playground, I questioned my previous confidence in the children’s safety. As we rounded the last bend and caught sight of the happy children and their calm parents, I breathed a sigh of relief. The kids were still playing, and there wasn’t a monster in sight.

  Rodriguez glanced at the bag of hair. “Where to?”

  “I don’t know. It wants to go . . . that way.” I pointed along the road, but it wasn’t much help because it curved, and the path the hair wanted to travel was a straight line that went through a decorative rose garden and a couple of houses. “Maybe we should take the car. I thought we were close, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Car it is.” Rodriguez stowed the rifle in the trunk and we got in the car and headed down the street.

  “Take a right,” I said, hoping this road went in the correct direction long enough for us to find the source.

  No such luck. It curved again, taking us away from the direction the hair wanted to go. We ended up back on the subdivision’s main street. Rodriguez looked at my hand to see which direction the hair was pulling it. Then he took the next right, and then the right after that. We were going in mostly the correct direction until the road ended in a cul-de-sac. He backtracked until he could take a left.

  “Are we still going the correct way?”

  “Good enough,” I answered, hoping we were getting close. Somewhere the bugbear was looking for a child and here we were, lost in suburbia.

  We came to a T in the road and he looked at me. I shrugged. “It’s pulling straight. I think it’s stronger than it was, but the connection has come and gone so many times I can’t be sure."

  He made a disgusted sound. “This is pointless. Let’s go on foot. We’ve got better odds of following the line that way.”

  “Agreed.”

  Rodriguez parked on the curb. It had warmed up enough that I left my jacket behind when we bailed out of the car. He retrieved his rifle, and we set off at a brisk walk. A couple of steps down the road I stopped. Frowning, I turned to the right and then to the left. The bag of hair wobbled between two directions.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure.” I turned until I found the direction the hair wanted to go, but it wasn’t the same direction that it had been before. When we were stopped at the intersection, the pull had been directly ahead. Now it was at an angle, but down the road seemed like a better approach. As I pondered the situation, the ideal direction shifted again.

  “It’s on the move,” I said.

  “Which way?”

  “Straight ahead. I’ll let you know if it changes again.” As we walked, I wondered if the bugbear had been on the move the entire time. If so, that would explain why we were having such a hard time finding it. Bad enough to be stuck on twisting subdivision roads, but if the target was moving, the odds were not in our favor.