Chapter 1

“It’s not every day we get to see a unicorn. Even on the St. Mo pier,” Kami said, twisting her torso for a stretch. She grimaced as something popped, but a smile quickly replaced it. “Ah, better.”

“That’s an original Looff mythical beast carving,” Mortimer Bluescales, St. Mo’s resident mini dragon, said in his droll British accent. He sat on a stool along the ice cream and soda fountain inside the hippodrome, presently in his cat form. “Charles Looff and his amusement company were well known for their designs of mythical beasts used on Looff Carousels across the nation.”

“Looff designed the first ever carousel at Coney Island amusement park in New York City,” said Li Hop, the old wizard of the pier, stepping into our little row of spectators. He leaned on the counter next to me and held a hand, palm up, fingers wiggling in front of me. 

I sighed and reached into my purse to get Li Hop some twizzle bits.

“Twiz, why is Elias pulling the old beasts out now?” Kami asked. She sat next to me, wearing her Beach Patrol uniform and a St. Mo Police ball cap. Her shades were propped up on the brim of the hat, half hiding the SMPD embroidery on the front of the cap. She dipped her spoon into the dish of caramel covered vanilla ice cream. Of course, she had extra sprinkles. She was a pixie, after all. We pixies need our sugar for energy. Pixies burned a lot of energy flying, popping tall, then small.

I used my spoon to point at where Elias T. Criq, St. Mo’s curator of all things historical, and his helper, Ozzy Rainwings, both bent crowbars to pry off the top of the wooden crate. Criq and I were from the same graduating class, but I always thought of him by his nickname, Cricket.

“They sure locked this one up good,” Ozzy said, rotating his head to work a kink out of his neck and shoulders. 

“Stasis spells and extra tight lock spells on the nails,” Cricket told his helper, holding up his pry bar in salute to Hoppy, before they began a methodical sweep of the crate top, removing the magic infused nails that had secured it.

Cricket was sturdy for a guy. Good build. Handsome without being rugged. Silver hair, which he’d had as a child, had never darkened. His brown eyes contrasted with the silver. He wasn’t one to avoid getting dirty, but even then, his personal grooming spells held. Brilliant white teeth flashed in his smile, and not a hair out of place on his head. He’d been on every girls’ radar for dating, but he seemed more interested in the guys once we got out of the giggling stages of play dating.

“I told them the spells on those tools needed to be reinforced,” Li Hop said with a grin. “Star and her witches on the town council wouldn’t pay me to do the enchantment. She said she’d have her Blues take care of it. Hah! I snuck in and did it for Elias last month.”

“Judging by your tone, old man,” Mort said, waving a gray paw toward the crate, “the witches in the Stellar Blues had more important things to do than reinforce tools in the historical artifacts department.”

 Kami scraped her spoon around the paper cup with the ice cream. Its white color gave a stark contrast to her dark brown skin. The sprinkles were a myriad of colors, much like our pixie wings, which were too small to be noticed when we were in our human forms. “What could be more important than tool maintenance?”

“Hmmmm… Cataloging Star Sinclair’s shoe collection,” I mused, letting a grin grow on my face. “Polishing her fleet of Italian sports cars?”

Kami smirked, then added, “Loading faerock dust into her fancy sports cars, so the demons in them are overfed, and she can belch high-quality grade 4.5 brimstones all over town.”

“Isn’t there an ordinance about faerock brimstone emissions?” Mort asked. He was the only one of us not enjoying ice cream. Instead, he had a sack of foil wrappers from his six-pack of chili-cheese-dogs piled on the counter behind him. Next to him sat a to-go cup with what smelled like root beer. That was his purchase from the soda shop here in the hippodrome.

“There is…” Kami said, drawing out the last syllable. “But even Harold won’t pull over the town council chairwoman.”

“Will any officer on SMPD?” I looked at Kami.

She shrugged. “Star pushes boundaries, right up to the edge, but I’ve never caught her even blowing a red light.”

I shook my head, thinking of my boyfriend. “Chaz and I have. Well… almost. That was the longest orange we’d ever experienced.” I referred to the second after a traffic light switches from yellow to red. “A lot of California drivers make left turns in that orange second or two because oncoming traffic used the entire yellow to get through intersections. Star must figure the orange is just a warning she needs to go faster. She always makes it before the light flips to green the other direction, though.”

“St. Mo’s traffic isn’t bad enough for most drivers to use the orange second,” Kami said with a shrug. “But Star does push the limit.”

“In other words,” Hoppy said with a big grin, “she controls the city budget, including the police budget. And the chief won’t let you risk your salaries, nor his, pulling over the council chairwoman without a flagrant violation.”

“Flagrant, yeah. That’s the word,” Kami said, rolling her eyes.

“I told the chief he should perform a spell review on all the traffic lights in town,” Hoppy added. “I notice that when Star Sinclair drives, the traffic lights stay yellow longer than normal.”

“And how did the chief respond to that?” Mort asked, tossing the last of his chili-cheese dog wrappers into the pile behind Kami.

“He laughed and said he wanted to keep his job and his budget intact.” Hoppy wiggled his finger for more licorice nibbles. I rolled my eyes but reached into my purse again.

“Oh!” Kami pointed at the wooden crate. Elias and Ozzy had unwrapped the carved wooden steed enough that we could see its head, still polished and glinting in the filtered daylight sliding through the tall windows. At least those not blocked by Mort’s model railroad.

A moment later, the beast was totally unwrapped. I glanced at Kami. She had her mouth open, and her cup of half-eaten ice cream forgotten in front of her.

Elias looked at our little gallery of spectators and waved us over. “She’s a gorgeous specimen of Looff’s artistry. Come, take a close look.”

We made our way quickly to the wooden railing surrounding the old carousel. Kami was kind enough to not rush. Instead, she matched her pace to mine as I limped with my cane due to my deformed leg. Once at the railing, I hung my cane on the green top rail and remembered to take a bite of my ice cream. Fortunately, the cups from the soda fountain had a weak chill spell on them, to keep the ice cream from melting quickly.

Up close, the unicorn was even more spectacular. Where many carousel animals are molded fiberglass or another compound, this was one of the old-school, all wooden ones. Everything was hand carved. Including the horn on the beast’s forehead. It was painted in a swirl of rainbow colors.

“Wow! Such detail, but I don’t see any tool marks.” Kami leaned over the railing as far as she could.

“Looff’s top artist spent over a year just on this one piece,” Elias said, pointing toward an almost invisible seam where the head and body joined. “I always have to look close the first time to locate the joins between the parts.”

Mort jumped his tubby gray cat form up onto the railing, morphing his paws into hybrid dragon claws to better perch there. “The preservation spells wearing off?”

“Not at all,” Elias said with a grin. “I asked Li Hop to check over the spells on all three of the animals we’re bringing out of storage.”

“All were fine,” Hoppy interjected. “Looff had good witches and artists work on his carousels.”

Kami shook her head. “Three animals? You’re not bringing out that nightmare steed, are you?”

Elias chuckled. “There never was a nightmare on this carousel. That’s an old-husband’s tale.”

“Don’t you mean old-wives-tale?” Mort asked.

Elias shook his head. “Not in this case. The nightmare story was started in the 1930s when one Dudley Scurto was walking on the pier for a late-night stroll after a few rounds at The Whale Tale. He peeked in through the windows because he thought he’d seen movement. He claimed that one of the animals on the carousel had become animated and transformed into a black horse with glowing red eyes.”

“A nightmare,” I said, my eyes going wide. “What did he do?”

“What anyone would do in that situation.” Elias grinned. “He hightailed it up the ramp to get back into town. Took him another month to get brave enough to venture back to the Whale Tale.”

“That was a good pub,” Hoppy said. 

Kami turned to look at the old wizard. “What happened to it?”

“Shut down during World War Two. The owner was drafted to be part of the US anti-demon patrols. Too many reports of activity along both coasts.”

“Did anyone ever find the nightmare?” I asked.

Hoppy shook his head. “Myron from the bar and I both went through this building inch by inch. No demonic energy at all. Myron said Dudley was a few drinks beyond rational and imagined everything.”

Mort reached into his fur and pulled a cigar out of magical storage. “What ever happened to old Myron?” 

“He retired after the war.” Hoppy shrugged. “Said he saw too many things he wanted to forget but couldn’t. He moved to Ottawa. Said it’s too cold for demons to last long up there.”

“Make way,” Officer Harold commanded from behind the carousel. “Official Election business coming in.”

“Oh, boy,” Kami muttered, then let her stoic cop expression take over. “Better go see what he’s getting into now.”

“Let’s get the pig off the deck, Ozzy,” Elias said, pointing at a generic animal on the carousel. The fiberglass cast pink animal was one I remembered as a newer addition to the ride as Elias pulled the older wooden animals off for repainting and repairs. “Be nice to have all the spots filled with Looff animals when the voters come in tomorrow.”

“You think that will help?” I asked as Elias tossed the packing blankets back over the unicorn, covering all but its tail.

“Can’t hurt to remind the voters of the historic nature of our pier, can it?” Ozzy said, then moved to steady the fiberglass pig, his buff form straining to loosen a bolt holding the pig to the brass pole. If I didn’t already have a boyfriend, I would have spent more time admiring the pixie’s physique.

He typically wore shorts over swimmer’s leggings. The type designed to help swimmers reduce drag in the water. Ozzy wore his more for the aesthetic of being covered in merfolk fish scales. Even his T-shirt, slit down the collar in front to reveal more of his chest, was printed in a scales pattern. Still, he was one buff pixie. He could give Amanda’s father, mayor of Mertown, a run for best eye candy. 

“Get over it, Twiz,” I told myself. “Ozzy isn’t your type.”

Oblivious to my gaze, Ozzy shifted positions to attack the second bolt. Yep. Muscles. He was well toned and then some.

Mort growled, peering past the activity on the carousel. “That Sinclair woman is over there. I’d better make sure that duffer doesn’t decree my railroad in the way of the voting booths. She’ll rip them out herself, given any excuse.” 

He trotted along the railing to make his way to the crowd on the far side.

I scraped the last of my ice cream from the paper cup and nudged Hoppy. “Let’s go see what Harold is up to.”

“No. I had enough Harold already,” Hoppy said. “I will go find Larry. See if he wants a date with Drucilla yet.”

“Absolutely not!” I poked a finger into Li Hop’s chest. “You let Larry and Erin figure out the dating parts by themselves. No interference from old wizards.”

“I am trying to make sure he considers all options.”

“No. If you bug Larry or Erin, I’m not giving you any more twizzle bits. You’ll have to find another supplier.”

Hoppy grinned, then nodded a deep bow of his head. “You are one tough cookie, Twizzle Twist. I know not to cross you.” 

I laughed at his overdone acquiescence. Hoppy knew just how to tweak me. “Don’t you have a tour to give?”

He glanced at his watch and nodded. “I’ll be back,” he intoned in a Chinese accent Arnold’s line from the Terminator movie.

“You’ll not be tearing anything down, you sniveling snot!” Mort’s voice slammed around the hippodrome. “That corner there has always been used for the voting area.”

I drifted around the carousel, depositing my empty cup and spoon into a waste bin on the way. Mort sat on the railing, pointing at a corner where folding chairs and tables were typically stored on rolling racks. Mort’s model railroad was fairly thin in that part of the building.

Near Officer Harold, a leprechaun in a green business suit stood. Next to him was a rolling cart laden with boxes that contained all the various bits for our voting the next day. Leaders of both covens, each a candidate to be St. Mo’s next mayor, stood near the cart.

Mort still clenched his unlit cigar and waved it again. “I’ve even deactivated old man Morris where the voting booths are normally placed.”

“All the illusions?” Mayor Beatrix Bottlegreen asked, dropping her chin to stare at the mini dragon.

“Well… I left one active in that corner for any of the nosy knitting and gossip club members that come in.”

Star laughed. “I say he can leave it there. We need this eyesore operating at its usual capacity.”