Croakies & Scream Read online

  Praise for Sam Cheever

  Sam Cheever creates some of the best characters you could ever find in the pages of a book.

  SensualReads.com

  Ms. Cheever writes with class, humor and lots of fun while weaving an excellent story.

  The Romance Studio

  Magical chaos, old enemies, new adversaries, and danger around every corner…I HATE this time of year!

  Okay, I’ll admit it, this is my least favorite time of year. Yeah, I understand the enchantment of the season…I get that…but most people don’t have jobs that involve wrangling magic. During the last three months of the year, magical influences run rampant. And that means a lot more work for me.

  And this year is the worst of all.

  Why you ask?

  Because I’m not only trying to wrangle the out-of-control magic artifacts flying around all over the place. This year, I also have to try to keep a magical cat and a talking frog out of trouble.

  Goddess take the wheel.

  Things are about to get really ugly.

  Croakies & Scream

  Sam Cheever

  Electric Prose Publications

  Copyright © 2019 by Sam Cheever

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  1. Dang the Sucky Parts!

  2. Portrait in Pimple

  3. Hiding a Body and other Pertinent Things

  4. Killing Casanova’s Chair

  5. Pump me Up

  6. Annoying Water Weight

  7. Predator Under Glass

  8. An Abundance of Chaos

  9. Owl in a Bubble

  10. No More Stinkin’ Artifacts

  11. A Grym Predicament

  12. A Slug Slurping Day in the Neighborhood

  13. A Solution with a New Problem

  Read More Enchanting Inquiries

  Milk & Croakies

  Also by Sam Cheever

  About the Author

  1

  Dang the Sucky Parts!

  “Watch out!”

  I ducked just in time to keep from getting hit by Nurse Ratchet’s bedpan. The nasty curve of dented and pocked metal shot past where my head had been and clanged into the wall, clattering down onto my sales counter. Behind me, Sebille leaped over the magical vacuum cleaner currently trying to suck up Mr. Slimy, and smacked the bedpan down as it tried to rise again.

  I grabbed the frog, giving him a smile that I hoped would help his eyes sink back into his head before they popped out, and hurried over to dump him into his fish tank for protection.

  “Incoming!” Rustin’s voice shouted

  I turned to find Blackbeard’s sword skimming through the air, SB the parrot riding its hilt and painting the air around him blue.

  I ducked sideways as the sword slashed toward my heart and reached out, clasping the hilt and sending SB into the air on another wave of foul language overlaid by bleeps.

  The parrot dropped onto my shoulder among a cloud of feathers, huffing out a breath as I fell backward, my knees finally giving out on me.

  “Avast ye, Lass. Tis the bleepin’ devil’s spawn stirrin’ the bubblin’ cauldron this eve. We’ll be blessed ta find the bleepin’ back end of the moon without losin’ our bloody tail feathers to a bleepin’ magical trickster.”

  I sucked air, watching as Rustin wrangled a golden theater mask that kept trying to fix itself onto his ghostly face. I knew I should go help him, but I needed a minute to gather my breath and count all my fingers and toes.

  “Time check!” I yelled, praying the response would be the right one. It had been a long eight hours, and I didn’t know how much energy I still had in me.

  The mask thwucked onto Rustin’s face, sending him reeling back to smack against a bookshelf and send several magical volumes tumbling to the floor.

  The vacuum locked onto the pile of books and took off in that direction, putting Berbie the Loving Bug to shame with its speed and maneuverability.

  With an alarmed squeal, I threw myself onto the machine just before its sucky parts glommed onto the books and inhaled them whole into its insatiable bag.

  I’d already lost two teacups, one bank deposit bag, my favorite pair of sneakers, a bagel with cream cheese and strawberry jelly, a hairbrush, and we’d almost lost Sebille’s giant bag to the machine. We would have lost it too if all three of us hadn’t jumped in to hold onto the bag and wrestle the rabid vacuum to the ground. Sebille had yanked the frayed plug from the wall at that point, and we’d all taken a deep breath in relief. She’d shoved her bag into a cabinet and closed the door on it, just as the vacuum’s cable lifted off the ground and inserted its plug back into the wall.

  It had been a downhill battle for sanity ever since.

  Rolling violently beneath me, the vacuum shoved itself off the floor, nearly managing to unseat me in the process, and fought my tightly-wrapped arms to get to the books.

  “Time?!” I shrieked, sweat pouring down my temples and my last nerve unraveling before my very eyes.

  “Ten, nine, eight…”

  I gritted my teeth and held on.

  “Seven, six, five…”

  Sebille skidded past, a dancing mop in her arms, and her red hair sticking up as if she’d snacked on a lighted bulb for dinner.

  “Four, three, two…”

  The world dipped and spun. The magic-drenched engine beneath me roared, and Sebille’s head hit the wall with a hearty, whack, whack, whack as the mop gave it everything it had and then some.

  “One!” Rustin screamed.

  Nothing changed for a moment. I was still being beaten to a pulp by the determined vacuum. Sebille’s head was still denting my wall. And Rustin continued to look out the front window through the eyes of the golden mask, which was clinging to his wispy countenance as if it had been magically glued there by Elmer the glue god himself.

  The dividing door slammed open and Wicked shot through on a yowl, Casanova’s chair hot on his heels. The chair stopped in the middle of Croakies, turned this way and that assessing its targets, and then propelled itself right at Sebille, slamming into her just as the sun rose over the horizon and everything went quiet and still.

  I dropped to my butt on the carpet, sneezing as the vacuum coughed out its last, dusty breath. Sebille collapsed under the chair’s attack on the back of her knees and sighed, momentarily glad for the chance to rest.

  It didn’t last long. She soon started shrieking and jumped to her feet as the chair no doubt molested her and then took off across the store, dancing from leg to leg in obvious pleasure of its coup.

  A final, alarming clang announced the theater mask’s landing on the table beneath the window.

  I scrubbed the back of my hand over my brow, mopping up sweat, and let the breath heave through my lungs. “I’m just going to come right out and say it. I hate Samhain.”

  Sebille shoved the mop to the floor and leaned against the wall. “Amen and amen.”

  I looked at Rustin. Around midnight, when the mystical veil that was holding magic back from the natural world had first dropped, he’d had a few minutes to enjoy being almost fully formed. I’d enjoyed seeing the look of wonder on his face as he examined his hands and looked down at his feet, which were actually touching the carpet. Unfortunately, his pleasure had been blasted away ten seconds later by a herd of ghost bison running from two spectral American Indian warriors on painted ponies.

  If I squinted, I thought I could still see the hoofprints compressing his wispy form.

  I shoved t
o my feet with a groan. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you guys in a few hours.”

  Sebille nodded. “Don’t expect to see me before three this afternoon. I’m going to need serious peanut butter and fudge ripple ice cream therapy to get over being made a sex object by that ferking chair again.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “You have ice cream?”

  She pasted a glare on her pale, freckled face. “Don’t even think about trying to beg some. It’s going to take every last spoonful of my stash to recover from last night.”

  I didn’t have it in me to fight. I headed toward the dividing door, yawning widely. “Will you check the locks and wards?”

  Sebille grunted her agreement, and I started up the stairs to my apartment. A moment later, soft footfalls behind me announced Wicked’s arrival. He shot past and slipped through the apartment door, which I’d mostly given up on closing since my cat always opened it again anyway.

  The sound of wings fluttering above my head reminded me I hadn’t returned the artifacts to their assigned spots. With a weary groan, I turned and flung out a hand, sending my seeking energy toward SB. “Take the sword with you,” I told him, my jaw cracking under another yawn.

  “Fair seas to ya, Lass.”

  I saluted him.

  A beat later, the mop and the vacuum cleaner floated through the door on a wave of green energy. Sebille trudged through after them, heading toward the spots on the shelves from which the magic had pried them loose. It occurred to me that I could follow her and see where she’d moved her stuff.

  I still didn’t know where she was living. Only that it was somewhere inside the artifact library. And that it was well-hidden because I hadn’t been able to find it.

  I hesitated, torn by warring desires to drop into bed versus finally discovering where Sebille was resting her stubborn red head.

  Eventually, weariness won out and I trudged upstairs, praying the following night would be better than the last. A prayer that wouldn’t be answered.

  The coming midnight would be Halloween eve, and the magic veil would be even thinner than what we’d just survived.

  Nothing good was gonna come from that.

  2

  Portrait in Pimple

  My sleep was restless, filled with darkness, chaos, and terrifying images. Underlying it all was a dense throbbing in my brain, like the pulse of an ominous heartbeat. I woke on a short scream, my eyes shooting open as the last of the ugliness washed through me.

  As soon as my eyes opened, I realized the pain I’d experienced in my dream was real. The bright sun beyond the window sent spikes of agony through my head before I could snap my eyes closed against the assault.

  I groaned, tugging the covers over my head in an attempt to hide from the migraine stabbing pickle forks into my brain.

  I lay there for a few minutes, my mind trying to form a coherent thought. The attempt was futile. The pain was slicing my reasoning processes into confetti, turning everything but the awareness of its existence into white noise.

  The mattress dipped beneath my shoulder, and a low rumble worked its way into my thoughts. Something dented my pillow. Warmth and ease slipped through my skull as a soft bulk pressed against me.

  A moment later, I fell back to sleep.

  When I woke up an hour later, I found Wicked lying on my pillow, his sleek gray form curled around my head like a hat.

  I yawned, stretching, and realized the headache was all but gone.

  Wicked had expunged it with his touch.

  Miracle of miracles.

  It took me another moment to realize what should have been obvious from the start, if only the migraine hadn’t overshadowed everything but its miserable touch.

  I’d gotten an artifact order!

  Something that hadn’t happened for a while.

  Maybe the Universe had reclaimed its mastery over the artifact process.

  I started to sit up and stopped as one of the images from my nightmares flared up in front of my eyes again. But when I blinked, the image disappeared.

  That was new.

  I waited another minute. When nothing further happened, I swung my legs over the edge and slipped from bed.

  I’d ask Sebille about the nightmares, the headache which Wicked was apparently able to help me beat, and the flashback that felt all too much like an artifact come to life.

  Maybe she could help me make sense of it all.

  “It was a mirror,” I told my assistant and Rustin later. “A pink one.”

  Rustin frowned. “Did you recognize it?”

  “No. Well, I’m not sure. It flashed by so quickly I didn’t really get a clear picture of what it looked like.”

  Sebille slid a book into its proper spot on the shelf. “It’s interesting that you received an order today after all this time of no orders. But I don’t think we can discount the nightmare and the flashback. Those are new developments that have to be tied to the order.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Mostly because I agreed. “So when the Universe repaired the order system, maybe it made some improvements?”

  Sebille shrugged. “Or maybe the process has been wrong since you took over the library. Maybe this is the way it should have been all along.”

  Sebille hadn’t started working at Croakies until after I’d become Keeper of the Artifacts, so she couldn’t speak to how the process was supposed to run. She and I had come up with a way to succeed under the old parameters, which had been unclear, vague, and more than a little frustrating.

  “This might be a reflection on Wicked,” Rustin said.

  Sebille and I both fixed our attention on the ghost witch. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I mean that, clearly, Wicked affects your keeper magic. He’s able to not only enhance and strengthen it, but he has definite magic of his own. The old process might have been created around a different Keeper, with different tools and strengths. You and Wicked are a unique team. The magical Universe might have adjusted its process to fit the fact that you acquired the cat.”

  It made some sense. “But then why did it suddenly change again?”

  “I have no idea,” Rustin said, shrugging.

  I sighed. “I guess we’ll just muddle through and see what happens. That seems to be my fate.”

  “It could be the season.”

  I glanced at Sebille. She slid the last book into place and brushed her hands down her bright orange dress. I grimaced as I took in her bright green and white striped socks, which made her look like a long, thin pumpkin on a striped vine.

  She saw me looking at her and frowned. “Maybe this order was a fluke because the magic veil is thin right now.”

  “I didn’t get nightmares and flashbacks last Samhain,” I told her.

  She shrugged, walking away as if she’d lost interest in the subject.

  Sighing, I pulled the Book of Pages from my pocket, resting it on my palm until it expanded to its full size. I laid my hand over the worn, leather cover and felt the covering warm and roll beneath my touch.

  The book flashed open and pages started to flip past. Empty page after seemingly empty page flickered by until it stopped suddenly, two-thirds of the way through the thick tome. A single black splotch oozed up to the surface of the page and then another, and another until lines formed and a recognizable shape materialized there.

  I wasn’t familiar with the business the book was showing me. The structure was a rectangle of glass and brick, with wide windows displaying the contents of the store to passersby.

  The sky above the building was dark, a nearly full moon hanging just above the widespread branches of a large tree to the right of the structure.

  The picture shimmied on the page for a beat and then a final rectangle appeared, its surface covered with large letters in bold, squared-off text.

  It was a sign. Bearing the words, Mirror World.

  I left Sebille minding the store and brought Rustin with me. Mr. Slimy insisted he needed to come too, so I put h
im in his little plastic basket and carried him into Mirror World. I stopped inside the door, realizing for the first time since determining I might be looking for a mirror how big a task it was going to be to find it.

  There had to be five thousand mirrors in that place.

  I stood staring at the contents of the warehouse, a hundred Naidas glaring back at me from all manner of glass and frame in every possible shape. The sight was as disconcerting as it was disheartening.

  Who needs to see a big red pimple growing on her nose in a hundred different mirrors at once? I reached up to touch the vivid ruby mountain near the tip of my nose. When had that shown up?

  Banshee blisters! As if the purple arcs under my eyes from lack of sleep weren’t bad enough. And what in the names of all the goddess’s cats was wrong with my hair? When had that little hump formed on the side of my head?

  Clearly, the previous night had done me bad.

  “Welcome to Mirror World,” a cheerful voice said. “Can I help you find something?”

  Yeah, I thought uncharitably. You can help me find a way to shroud all these mirrors before I discover a new flaw to worry about. I turned to the salesman…sales kid, really…and gave him a tight smile. “Hey.”

  He twitched, blinking hard when he looked at me. “Oh! Wow. I’m really sorry. Car accident?”

  My smile turned to a glower in the beat of a heart. “I just want to look around.”

  The kid shrugged, scratching a nail over his long, pointed nose. “Suit yourself. We’re having a Halloween sale.”

  He jabbed a skinny digit toward the back corner of the warehouse store, beneath a banner depicting a trio of ghosts and declaring it a “Boo-tiful Sale”. “Everything under that banner is fifty percent off.”