“The cat is a liar, big surprise,” Clark sang as he drifted down from one of the beams in the ceiling. The bird, aptly named Clark since he was a Clark’s Nutcracker, was a light gray color that was almost white, except for his black wings. He was also not even slightly a fan of Buster, not since the cat had snatched him out of the air for fun.
They were mortal enemies now. Which was more humorous than anything else.
“I’m not a liar,” Buster shouted, his gravelly voice taking on an angry hiss. “Mark my words, that mouse will be the death of us all.”
I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing. Turning my face away, I tried to hide my gasps for breath between laughs, but I did a poor job. It didn’t help that Carol took one look at me and started laughing too. The mouse, named Python, was tiny, white, and absolutely harmless. Who in the world would think he was dangerous?
“Idiot human,” Buster cried and scampered up the stairs.
“It’s just, he’s a mouse,” I yelled after him, but my words were broken by more laughter. I couldn't help myself.
The look Buster shot at me, well, I was pretty sure he wanted to flip me off.
Turning to Beth, I managed, “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. He’ll get over it. Besides, it doesn’t hurt for someone to take him down a peg every so often. He’s been stalking Python lately. He thinks I haven't noticed." She scoffed. "As if the mouse is plotting to take over the world and Buster wants to catch him in the act. I do need to see to the animals' needs. I know the plan for today after this, but do you think you can go over the cases we have to address? They’re on our desk.”
“Absolutely,” I said, glad I’d gotten the giggles under control, even though Carol was still wiping away tears of laughter from her eyes.
Beth took off to feed all her friends and clean up their areas. Even if they didn’t necessarily need it yet. No one cared for their pets better than Beth did. I mean, Clark’s instincts were to store food everywhere. Even though Beth knew the little bird wasn’t eating all her seeds every night but had caches of food all over the house, she refilled her seeds every day. While none of her pets were heavy, they weren’t exactly thin either.
“Work time, I guess,” I told Carol.
She smiled at me as I made my way to the big desk in the center of the room. We tried to keep this main area professional-looking and clean. If anyone came in, it looked like a legitimate PI establishment. The kitchen was its own room, so we could have a little more fun with that space, separate from the public. This main area held a huge desk with two chairs in front of it, a small desk tucked off to one side, filing cabinets in the corner, and a few chairs around the room like it was a waiting area. Behind that, we had the most beautiful backyard, with a garden that looked well-loved, because it was.
Deva had started to grow more herbs in the garden. She’d been running out of space at Carol’s house. Who knew she could have that many plants?
I sat at the big desk, Carol sat in front of me, and I picked up the agenda for the day. “Mia Davis has a child that she believes is a changeling. The child is never happy, and not at all like either of the child’s parents.” I put the paper down. “A changeling?”
To my surprise, Carol looked serious. “Changelings are uncommon, but they do exist.” She looked around as if nervous. “There are dark fairies who we know very little about except that they'll come to our world and exchange human babies for fairy babies. No one knows what they do with the human babies, but the fairy children grow to be very dangerous. They usually create chaos in our world before disappearing back to wherever they came from.”
A chill rolled down my spine. “What will we do if Mia’s baby is a changeling? Is there anything we can do to help?”
“For witches?” she shrugged her shoulders. “We couldn’t do a lot other than try to find the human baby if they hadn’t taken it too far yet. For Karma? You might have powerful enough magic to set everything right.”
Right. Yeah. That was what Karma did.
For some reason, I didn’t like that case one bit, maybe because I didn’t like the idea of someone stealing a baby and replacing it, but I looked at the next item on our agenda. “Regmun Bheldrus believes his workers are stealing from him and wants us to find out which one and deliver the power of Karma onto the thief.” I glanced at Carol. “Isn’t that what the police are for?” This seemed insignificant to use my powers on, not that I thought helping someone was ever insignificant, I was just surprised Beth had taken this case.
Carol shook her head. “Regmun is the leader of the dwarves. His people are one of the many sources of wealth in Mystic Hollow. He and his people have permission to mine eighty percent of the areas outside of the town. They're required to share a percentage of what they find with the owners of those properties. They have land of their own, which they get one hundred percent from, but they’ve mostly moved to greener pastures.”
“Dwarves?” Okay, I’d seen some shorter people around town, people who often came from the woods, but I’d never even imagined they were real. There were a lot of things I should open my mind to now.
She grinned. “Also, dwarves are known for their loyalty and honesty. If it got out that one of them was stealing, it could lead to fighting among all the supernaturals in Mystic Hollow. People who've always trusted the dwarves to give them their percentages would start to think they were being cheated, and, well, you can imagine how the vampires, mermaids, and shifters might handle that.”
Well, it was a situation for Karma. If someone was stealing and that theft would impact the entire supernatural community? Yeah. I needed to get involved.
“Nespos Bunnyhop,” I paused at the name and grinned, before looking at Carol.
“He’s a gnome,” she said, flashing me a smile.
“Gnomes? Like the ones in my neighbors’ gardens?” I asked, shocked.
She nodded. “Not all of them are real living beings, but a surprising number are.”
“I’ve never seen them move or anything.” Ugh, I was so stupid. Every time I thought I was beginning to understand the supernatural world, I realized I didn’t know anything.
“They’re very careful. After today, after meeting them, they’ll realize you’re one of us, and you’ll see them moving more.”
