The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch. 11

 Chapter 11
A Crimson New Year's 

The new year was fastly approaching the world of Emeron. To celebrate, the Owner of the coffee shop had everyone gather at the roof to watch the fireworks. Or at least that was the plan. But fate had other ideas.

When Peggy arrived at the coffee shop, she spotted her boss talking to a short, stout man with a big, potato-shaped nose. Whatever they talked about seemed serious to Peggy, judging by their grim faces.

Unable to brush aside her concern, Peggy approached the men and asked, "Is everything okay?"

The Boss and the short man, a dwarf, turned at the sound of Peggy's voice.

"Oh, it's you, Peggy," said the Boss. "No, everything is not okay. This is Slate Copperland, an alchemist in charge of making the New Year fireworks."

It turned out a major water pipe accident caused the fireworks warehouse to flood earlier in the afternoon. No one was hurt, thank goodness, but all the fireworks to celebrate the new year were completely ruined. Not wanting the festivities to be canceled, Copperland and his crew scrambled to piece together some magic items that could replace the fireworks. But that only led to another problem: not enough magicians to use the items.

"The way me and the crew made 'em," said Copperland, "you need a decent amount of magic power. Each of us, me included, can maybe use one for a few shots, but that ain't nearly enough for the extravaganza that the Baron's looking for."

The Baron is the man in charge of the whole land that the town of Featherkeep, along with seven other towns and two small villages, sat on. Basically, he was a really, really important guy.

"Why not?" asked Peggy. "Can't he just make do with fewer this year?"

"As far as nobles go, our Baron's pretty reasonable, so if this was a normal year-end festival, maybe," said the Boss. "But that's not the case, is it?"

"No, it ain't," said Copperland. "You see, one of the Duke's kids took a liking to one of the Baron's kids. So, the Baron invited the whole Duke's family to watch the fireworks, hoping to  get the two families to get more friendly."

"In case you don't know, Peggy, a duke is way more important and richer than a baron," Boss explained. "I can see why this is a big problem for you, Slate."

Copperland nodded and said, "Aye. Between canceling the fireworks show or putting on a half-baked one, either way, I could lose my head."

And so, unable to turn down the dwarf's plea for help, the Boss agreed to lend a hand. Not wanting to be left behind, George begged his father to bring him along. Peggy volunteered to help as well. And so, led by a dwarf, the vampire, the werelion boy, and the young human lady hurried off into the night.

They followed the dwarf to the outskirts of town, on a grassy plain currently covered in snow, where some men and women scurried about around a few dozen metal poles capped with colorful, glowing crystals. The crystals were duct-taped to the poles. 

"Oi, Copperland," he said, using the dwarfs last name. He had a huge frown on his face from looking at the setup the dwarf's crew made.

"Yeah?" Copperland responded innocently. 

"Don't tell me those poles with the glowing stones stuck to them with TAPE are the magic tools we're using," Boss said.

"They are," said Copperland.

Boss groaned and rubbed the spots above his eyebrows, as if he just got a huge headache. 

"I'm no alchemist," he said, "but even I can tell that we'd be lucky to get even one shot out. This is the best you and your crew can do?"

"Hey, we may be alchemists, but we're only good for making fireworks," Copperland said. "Can't you do anything about it?"

"Not without help," said Boss. "And we're going to need a lot of it. What about the guys at the Magic or Alchemy Departments? Can't you get them to help out?"

"No," said Copperland. "Didn't you hear? They all got food poisoning from some bad shrimp they had at the mayor's party last week. Why do you think I came to you, a coffee shop owner of all people, for help?"

"No wonder I haven't seen the Head Magus lately," Boss muttered. He let out a tired sigh. "And I'm guessing most of the town's pro spell casters were also at the party?"

"Most of them work for the town, after all," Copperland said.

Boss groaned. 

"This is quite the pickle," he said. "Without some decent help, I don't see any way out of this mess."

"Can't you just use a magic spell or something and blast the sky with some pretty lights?" Copperland asked. 

Boss scowled and said, "For the kind of show you want to put on, you know that's impossible for me."

"But aren't you a Four-Star spell caster, Boss?" Peggy asked. "I still don't really get the whole star thing, but I thought having four stars mean you're a really powerful magic user."

"I only got four stars to my name thanks to my cleverness and magical know-how," Boss explained. "My magic power's actually not all that great. I CAN make a pretty decent fireworks show on my own, but it would take me a lot of time to get everything set up for it, time we definitely don't have now."

"Hey, I have an idea!" George cut in and announced. "If we can't get anyone from town to help us, maybe we can ask some visitors, instead."

"Visitors?" said Peggy.

"Yeah!" said George. "You know, travelers and such visiting for the festival. I'll go see if anyone wants to help out!"

And then he ran off.

"Hey!" Boss shouted. "Get back here, George! How many times do I have to tell you not to run off on your own and talk to strangers? You hear me, young man? Get back here, I said!"

But the young lion cub had already disappeared into the darkness. 

"Ugh! That boy!" Boss groaned. "Peggy, you wait here. I'll go and grab him before he gets into any real trouble."

But just as he was about to run after his son, the young lion cub showed up again and announced, "I'm back!"

That was fast, Peggy thought. But who's that with him?

George had disappeared for only the briefest of moments before coming back, but he did not come back alone. Right at the werelion's heels was a tall figure, half man and half gray-furred wolf, wearing a red, Chinese-style suit beneath a matching long, flowing cape. Over the wolfman's eyes was a pair of dainty, round glasses.

"Nihao," he said in greeting. "I was told you were having trouble here. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Peggy had never seen the wolfman before, but it looked like everyone else knew him. Every member of Copperland's crew stopped what they were doing and all together, gasped. Copperland, himself, dropped his jaw and stammered, "The-the-the-the-the-the-the-the-!" George, however, seemed just as clueless as Peggy.

"What's wrong, everyone?" he asked. 

Boss was the first to snap out of it.

"Ahem!" He coughed and paused to take a look at the wolfman, and then sighed. "I am so sorry my son dragged you here," he said to the wolfman. "I hope he didn't bother you in any way."

"Oh, no not at all," said the wolfman. "We just ran into each other. He said there was some trouble and he needed help, so I had him bring me here to see what I can do. What is all this, anyway?"

Copperland and his crew just stared at the wolfman with dropped jaws and popped-out eyes, so it fell on Boss to explain.

"We're actually in charge of the New Year's fireworks show," he said. "But I'm sure you can guess how that's going right now."

"I do," the wolfman said, nodding his furry head. He gently pushed his glasses up his snout and gave the poles with glowing rocks a quick glance. "And I really don't think it's a good idea to shoot magic into the sky with those things. With the way you stuck those poles together with the magic stones, they're more like bombs than magical tools. Actually, they're just straight up bombs."

Everyone took a few steps away from the poles as fast as they could.

The wolfman stroke his chin thoughtfully. Although his voice sounded young, the way he spoke and carried himself made him appear much older than Peggy herself.

"If you don't mind, may I tinker with these magic tools?" he asked. "I believe I have a solution to this problem of yours."

Copperland gasped. "I-i-is that alright, sir? We really don't want to bother you."

"It's no bother, I assure you," said the wolfman. "My parents taught me that we should always help others when they need it. Now, let me see here . . ."

Everyone gave the wolfman space while he knelt down to take a look at the closest pole. As he went to work, Peggy decided to ask her Boss a question burning in her mind.

"Hey, Boss," she said. "Who is that guy? It looked like everyone but George knows him. Going by how freaked out they are, is he famous?"

Boss gave Peggy a glance and said, "Since you're from Earth, it's no wonder you don't know. Yes, I know that werewolf. And yes, he's famous. Going by the style of his clothes, those power gloves that barely keep a lid on a boat-load of magic power, and, well - "

"Phew!" went the werewolf, rubbing sweat from his head with his forearm. "All done!"

All the poles had been arranged in a circle and shot out strips of red lightning that connected them to each other. At the center of the circle was a flat pool of red light that looked unmistakably like a portal to somewhere else.

"-THAT, there's no doubt about it," Boss continued. "That's the hero of the Zhao Empire, its greatest alchemist and one of its strongest fighters, famous for beating up a dragon with his bare hands and wiping out an army of monsters solo, Jing the Crimson Storm."

"Okay," said Peggy, "normally, I'd say the stories about this guy are way overblown, but there's a HUUUGE hunk of metal rising out of that red vortex thing that looks like the hand of a Megazord."

Boss blinked. "What's a Megazord?"

"A giant robot," Peggy said. "Hey, is that another vortex showing up next to the first one? And it also has a giant robot hand? Wait, and there's another one. And another one. "

All across the grassy field, disks of red light appeared with hand-shaped, giant hunks of metal rising out, as if the giants inside those red disks were reaching for the stars. They number more than twenty. 

"Hmm, this should be enough," said Jing. "I'll save the rest for another time."

"Save the rest? You have even more!? Peggy cried. This is just insane, she thought. This is easily the craziest thing she had seen since coming to this world. 

Ignoring Peggy's bafflement, Jing pulled out a pocket watch to check the time.

"Almost here," he announced. "Ready? Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . ONE!"

The werewolf threw a finger at the metal hands, and from their fingers, beams of light flew towards the sky where they bloomed into giant red roses and dandelions. Hundreds of shapes rapidly decorated the black night, disappearing as fast as they were appearing. On and on it went, as if the metal hands and their metal finger cannons had an endless supply of ammo.

All over town, everyone looked up at the sky to marvel at the loud work of art that signaled the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one.

Looking out her living room window, Mrs. Arkansas the old lamia remarked, "Copperland has really outdone himself this year."

"But still, why only red fireworks?"  the armored chief director of Paladia School wondered as he watched the show from his office.

"Maybe they didn't have enough supplies to make other colors?" Daisy guessed.

Outside, on the roof of Alan's house, he remarked to Aria, "Meh. Have to cut corners somewhere, I suppose."

Back at the grassy field, everyone watched the sky while sitting down on fancy chairs with leather cushions that Jing pulled out of one of the vortexes he created. 

"Whoa!" George cried out. "So awesome!"

Awesome was one way to describe this, Peggy thought. And she sighed.

She glanced at Boss whose face looked as tired as she was feeling. They gave each other shaky grins and then exchanged their New Year's greetings. 

"Happy New Year's, Boss."

"Happy New Year's, Peggy."

<== Chapter 10                                                                                 Chapter 12 ==>

The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch. 10

 Chapter 10
A Sleigh Ride through Town

It was the night before Christmas. And yes, Emeron has Christmas. It's called Christmas there, too.

Anyway, it was the night before Christmas. Not a single creature stirred. Or, at least, that was how it was supposed to go.

Peggy was awoken from deep slumber by a loud tapping sound. She tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, but the tapping persisted until she had no choice but to sit up, scowl all cranky-like, and go investigate.

"Bah, humbug! Just what is making that racket?" She grumbled to herself as she trudged over to the window. That was where she thought the tapping came from.

She drew open the curtains, rubbed fog off the glass and was about to take a peek when the window burst open letting a sharp cold breeze.

"Yikes!" Peggy yelped. She hurried to close the window and stop the snow from coming in. But just when she happened to look outside while doing that, she froze. Her eyes popped out and her jaw dropped, for standing outside her window was a tyrannosaurus rex wearing a Santa hat.

Peggy stared at the hulking prehistoric titan, and it stared back. And then it opened its jaws, revealing a set of huge, sharp fangs, and it yelled, "MERRY REX-MAS!"

"Huh?"

And then the tyranno threw a red sack over Peggy's head. The next instant, the bag was pulled from her head, and Peggy found herself sitting in a big ol' sleigh. She turned her head left and right, shouting, "WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHY? Wait, Boss!?"

Sitting next to her was Boss, wearing a red Santa coat over a matching necktie and vest. He gave Peggy a small salute, wore crooked, and really stress-filled smile, and said, "Hey, Peggy. Merry Christmas."

"Boss?" said Peggy.

"Yeah, Peggy?" said Boss.

"Are we riding a sleigh that's strapped to the back of a meat-eating dinosaur?" Peggy asked.

"Yes," Boss answered. "Yes, we are."

"Why?"

"Because it's Christmas," Boss replied. 

"Uh . . ."

"Come now, son," said the T-rex. "You're not going to introduce your own mother?"

"Mother!?" Peggy could not hide her surprise. 

Boss sighed.

"Well, Peggy, as you can see, this dinosaur is not really a dinosaur," he said. "This is actually one of the rare few Six-Star magicians in the world, nicknamed the Goddess of the Free-spirited and the Queen of all Vampires, my mother."

With eyes as wide as china plates, Peggy looked from her boss to the dinosaur that was stomping through down an avenue with a spring to her dino step. The young lady from Earth tried to let the words of her boss sink in, but understandably, that was hard to do. She remained at a loss for words for a great while of the dino sleigh ride, but she soon regained her voice and spoke up. 

"Okay," she said, "there is A LOT I need to unpack from that intro. But before that, I have to ask, why are you a T-rex?"

"Because I felt like it," the Queen of the Vampires replied.

"I . . . see," Peggy said. She actually did not see, but moving on . . . "What's this all about anyway? Why am I sitting in a sleigh strapped to the back of a dinosaur in the middle of a snowy night in my PJs? What are we even supposed to be?"

"I would think that was obvious," said the Vampire Queen-slash-tyranno. "You're on a sleigh. Sonny here's wearing all red. And I'm a dinosaur. What else could we be but Santa Claus?"

Peggy looked at the T-rex, perplexed. "Okay, only two of those things relates to Santa Claus."

"Hmm." The T-rex rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "You're right. You should have worn a different outfit, Son."

"She was talking about the dinosaur!" Boss shouted back. But his mother ignored his retort and moved on.

"Anywho!" went the T-rex. "That's enough chitchat. We've got a sack of presents to deliver and only one merry night to deliver them. Let's go!"

And so off, the trio went, into the night to deliver presents to all the good little boys and girls in the modest town of Featherkeep. They went from avenue to avenue, house to house, dropping off lots of toys and goodies under trees and in stockings. 

The role of each was clear. The T-rex served as the Christmas steed, carrying the sleigh and its riders through the snowy night as it stomped down roads and streets with a merry cheer to her step. Peggy, it looked like, had naturally become the little helper of this unusual sleigh ride, which displeased her slightly, since it made her feel like she was being treated like a child. As for her boss, by the grace of his mother, he had taken the starring role of Santa Claus himself, taking presents from the big, magic sack and sneaking into people's homes to deliver them.

From up above on the sleigh strapped to the dino's back, Peggy would watch her boss swiftly unlock doors with his trusty lockpicking tools, and disable magical defenses and traps with his smooth magical skills before scurrying inside like a mouse, quiet and unnoticed like a ghost. When he was done, he climbed back up the sleigh, presentless of course, and they moved on to the next house. Sometimes, he would come back with a prize of milk and cookies, which he graciously shared with the others.

While munching on cookies under the snowy night sky, Peggy had a question.

"Say, Boss?" she said.

"Yeah, Peggy?" her boss responded.

"Where'd you learn to break into people's houses like that? And WHY do you know how to break into people's houses like that?"

Her boss stuffed a cookie into his face and slowly chewed it down before swallowing it. And then he peered over the sleigh's edge and cried out, "Oh, look! We're at the next house already!" After that, he jumped off the sleigh with presents in hand, dodging the questions that burned in Peggy's mind.

After what seemed like forever, like all things, Peggy's night of exploring the snow-blanketed town and its dimly-lit streets while playing Santa's helper soon came to an end. There was just one more present to deliver, but it was a present that her boss and his mother could, and should, do themselves. And so Peggy was returned to her room, which she climbed into through the window using the T-rex's hand as a platform.

"Good night, Peggy," her boss said to her after she settled inside.

"Good night, Boss," Peggy said back. "It was an interesting, but admittedly fun night. Merry Christmas."

"I suppose it is," Boss said with a wry grin. "Merry Christmas, Peggy."

Peggy watched as mother and son disappeared into the snowy night before climbing back onto bed and drifting back into sleep. Come morning, she will wonder if the things she experienced that night was all a dream. But one look at the present left on her bedside table, where there used to be none the night before, would be all the proof she needed that it was not.

Meanwhile, mother and son were slowly trudging through the snow on their way home after returning the sleigh and present sack back to Santa Claus. Boss got to keep his costume and his mother shrank down, but remained in her dino state.

Apart from the crunching of snow beneath their feet and the gales of winter, all was quiet until Boss spoke up.

"By the way, mother," he said. "Do you mind telling me why you took Peggy from her world and brought her here?"

The mini-sized T-rex glanced sideways at her vampire son. "What makes you say that?"

"Peggy acted like she didn't know you, but you don't usually drag strangers into these field trips of yours so you two must have met somewhere before,"  Boss reasoned. "And knowing that Peggy was from another world and that you can travel to different worlds, it wasn't hard to guess HOW you two met. 

"But that begs the question, what happened? Peggy likely doesn't remember the meeting, or she would have said something about you before. Meeting you isn't really something forgettable. In fact, it's something people normally CAN'T forget. Which means whatever happened between you was so bad, you had to erase Peggy's memories. Am I wrong?"

The T-rex was visibly uncomfortable. Avoiding her son's gaze, she went, "Well . . ."

"Mother," said Boss, "what did you do?"

"I could tell you," said the Vampire Queen, "but you're not going to like it."

And she was right. The Boss did not like it.

Come Christmas morning, Peggy pulled out a card from the fancy, cream-colored envelope that came with the present. She read the card's letter out loud.

"Dear, Peggy. Merry Christmas from your boss's mom. Again, sorry about your head."

Peggy stared at the card. Her face darkened and she went, "Huh?"

<== Chapter 9                                                                                  Chapter 11 ==>

The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch.9

Chapter 9
The Last Vase

"Um, excuse me," said a hoarse voice that sounded like it belonged to an old man.

Peggy and the others looked up. 

"Did you just talk?" Peggy asked the old school house. 

"Indeed," the school house replied. 

The school was a magic one, so of course there'd be at least one talking building somewhere.

"It appears you are hunting down a vase with some really weird magic put on it," the school house said. "When the one in front of me vanished, I could sense the magic on it fly to the main administration building. That is likely where you will find your target."

"So the vase is at the admin building," said Peggy. "Thanks, Mr. School House."

"You're welcome," replied the old building. 

After a bit of running, at long last, Peggy reached her destination: the admin building where she was supposed to give cookies to one of the school's big honchos. Alan took the lead and showed the others into the building. Once they entered the circular lobby with marble flooring and decorated with glass shelves containing lots of gold trophies and medals, the gang went straight to asking around about the vase. They had no luck with most of the students and teachers passing by. But then, they came across a janitor lugging around a bucket and mop who said they spotted what looked like a walking vase at the third floor.

With that tidbit, Peggy, Alan and Aria hurried up to the third floor as fast as they could without running. They were in a school after all, and rushing up or down the stairs is dangerous. Once in the third floor, they split up to cover more ground. Aria went left while Peggy and Alan went right.

The floor they were on had a whole bunch of fancy, expensive-looking vases. But none of them had baby legs.

Alan looked around as he and Peggy walked down the hall, turning his head left and right over and over again so fast that Peggy became afraid that his head might snap off. 

"Ugh!" Frustrated, Alan groaned. "Where is it?"

"Don't worry," Peggy said. "Everything will be fine. We'll find it."

"How do you know?" Alan snapped. "For all we know, the thing could have fallen and smashed to pieces already!"

"If that did happen, we'd have heard about it," Peggy reasoned. "The fact everything's still biz as usual means that the vase is probably still okay."

"But for how much longer?" Alan asked. "We need to find it fast!"

That was when the door flew open and a man in a dull-blue Japanese kimono stepped out from one of the rooms. There was a pair of yellow cones poking out of his messy black hair, which turned out to be horns. And although a white mask covered his whole face, Peggy could tell by the sound of his voice that he was irritated.

"What is all this noise about?" the horned man demanded to know. "What are you doing out here in the hall, Young Alan?"

"Professor Kikawa!" Alan exclaimed. "Sorry, sir."

"Hmph." The man folded his arms over his chest. "While an apology is called for, that does not answer my questions."

"Well, you see . . ." Leaving out certain details that could make the masked teacher freak out, Alan explained how he and Peggy had been looking for a runaway vase. 

Professor Kikawa looked at Alan and sighed. "So that was your doing. If you're talking about that big, gaudy-looking thing with the weirdo,  creepy baby legs, I saw it running down the hall that way."

Alan glanced down the hall and then thanked the teacher before running full steam ahead. But before Peggy joined him, there was something she had to ask.

"Hey, Professor Kikawa, was it? How come you didn't do anything about the vase?"

Professor Kikawa shrugged. 

"This is a magic school and I'm too busy to deal with whatever weird thing happens every day," he said. "Why? Was that vase something important?"

"Uh . . . No?" Realizing that Alan could get in big trouble if the truth got out, Peggy lied. 

"Hmmm." Professor Kikawa rubbed his chin doubtfully. 

"A-anyway, thanks for the help, teach!"

Peggy bid the teacher farewell and bid a hasty escape. She soon caught up with Alan and together, they turned a corner.

"There!" Alan cried out. "I see it!"

He pointed to the top of a trophy case where the vase jumped and kicked. It kind of looked like it was playing Kung Fu. No surprise there since the trophy case had pictures of kids sparring fists in a ring.

Alan swung his net down, but the vase jumped aside and escaped capture. It, then, jumped off the trophy case and bounced off Alan's face. 

"Ow!" He cried out as the vase did a back flip and landed on the floor.

Rubbing his sore nose, Alan grumbled, "Why you little-!"

Alan swung his net down over and over again, but the vase dodged each and every time. And then it ran around Alan, scurrying off to who-knows-where.

"Hey!" Alan cried out. "Get back here!"

He ran after the vase and Peggy ran after him. All three passed by a door that happened to open at the same time, and out came Daisy and her crew of student helpers.

As soon as Daisy saw Peggy, she cried out, "Ah! There you are!"

Peggy didn't notice and kept on running. 

"Hey, wait!" Daisy shouted indignantly. "Come on, you guys! After her!"

The redhead human boy, the black-haired elf girl, and the orange-furred werecat girl all had looks that said, "Do we have to?" But one angry glare from Daisy answered their question. Together, they put the pedal to the metal and chased after Peggy with all their might.

It was a parade of chaos that traveled through the third floor hallway led by an expensive-looking vase that ran on human baby legs while kids and adults screamed at it and each other to stop. Peggy and Alan took turns swiping at the vase with their nets, but could not come close to catching the surprisingly nimble and bouncy thing that hopped and danced without a missing a beat.

Seriously, where in the world did that thing learn to move like that? Peggy wondered as she stopped to catch her breath. Alan still had not given up yet, but his arms were moving noticeably slower. At this rate, she thought, they were never going to catch that vase.

Just then, Peggy felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned around to see Daisy behind her, along with a group of kids, all breathless and sweating like they had just finished running a marathon (which they kind of did).

"Daisy?" Peggy exclaimed in surprise.

"Finally, I've got you!" Daisy gasped. "Now, let's hurry up and get that package delivered to Director - !"

Peggy cut her off and shouted, "Great timing! We could really use your help!"

Confused, Daisy blinked and went, "Huh?"

"We got a runaway vase, super expensive," Peggy said. "We need to catch it or there'll be big trouble!"

"Wait, what vase? What trouble?" Daisy had no idea what was going on and could only ask questions left unanswered. The kids she brought along, however, quickly snapped into action.

"There! I see it!" shouted the redhead boy. "Isn't that the vase the king gave the school?"

"I got it!" said the black-haired elf. She waved her wand and water flew out from a nearby flower put. The water soared straight towards the vase. But instead of hitting the vase, the water slammed against the floor where its feet had been. The vase had seen the water coming and jumped away just in time.

"Hey! Careful not to break it!" Peggy shouted.

"I know," said the elf. She waved her wand again and the water changed into a bird cage made of ice. The elf tried to drop the cage over the vase, but again, the vase escaped capture.

"Let me help!" the werecat volunteered.

Together, the girls threw spell after spell at the vase. But much like how Peggy and Alan's teamwork went, they failed to catch it. The vase just jumped and danced away from flashes of light, falling ice cages, and hands made of stone popping out of the floor each and every time.

After escaping the grasp of a stone hand, the vase jumped onto a railing post. But the post was capped by a ball-shaped top, so the vase slipped and fell.

"No!" Alan cried out. 

He dropped his net and dove forward. With his outstretched hands, he caught the vase. But his efforts left him hovering precariously over the stairs, barely hanging on the edge of the top step.

"Whoa! Whoa!"

The sudden weight on his arms caused him to dip further out to the bottom of the stairs. He tried to pull himself back, but all that wobbling did was buy him a little time. It was not enough to stop him from plunging head first.

Luckily for Alan, Peggy saw he was in trouble and lunged to save him. She grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him back to safety. But the force she used to pull Alan from the stairs threw her right over it, and she fell.

Oh no! She thought. I'm so gone!

In her eyes, the stairs flew right up to her face. She could hear someone scream out her name, and then -

Something roared in her ears, like a deep gust of wind. Everything around her turned black and white and she stopped falling. Instead, she just floated in the air as if someone had flipped a switch and turned off the world's gravity. 

Peggy blinked in disbelief.

"I'm saved?"

"Peggy!"

She snapped back to reality and looked up to see Alan, Daisy and three others piled atop the stairs wearing worried looks on their fhere. Alan hugged the vase close to his chest as it kicked its baby legs out furiously. Some unknown time ago, Aria also showed up and was fluttering by Alan's head.

First things first, Peggy thought. Let's get out of here.

This was her third time flying in Zero Gravity and putting her past experiences to use, she swam back to the others. Daisy and Alan reached out their hands and took hold of Peggy's as they pulled her in.

"Thanks," she said. "I'd be a goner if one of you didn't cast that magic spell."

Daisy, Alan and the others exchanged looks.

"I didn't cast that spell," said Daisy.

"Neither did I," said Aria. "I just showed up."

"My hands were full," said Alan.

The trio that tagged along with Daisy all shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

"If it was none of you, then who . . . ?" 

Peggy trailed off when she noticed something come from below the stairs. She could hear rhythmic metallic rattling get closer and closer, and then he appeared. A tall man covered from head to toe in big, bulky metal that made him appear broad-shouldered and strong. His face was also covered by the helmet he wore, but Peggy could tell the armored figure was a man by the sound of his voice.

"What are you all doing up here?" he asked. He spoke in a gentle, but also stern way, fitting his commanding appearance.

Who is he? Just as Peggy wondered that, Daisy spoke up and stammered, "Ch-chief Director Stonecrest! Y-you see . . ."

While Daisy struggled to explain herself to the armored figure, Peggy stared in amazement and thought, THAT is Stonecrest, the school's chief director? Instead of teaching kids, he looked more like he was going to war.

When Daisy was done, the armored man simply nodded and then turned to speak with Peggy.

"You are Miss Lau, correct?" he said.

Peggy nodded.

"It looks like some of my students caused you trouble," Stonecrest continued. "For that, I am deeply sorry."

Flustered at having someone bow their head to her, Peggy stammered, "Oh! It's okay. Really! It's fine!"

And then it was Alan's turn to speak with the school director. 

"That vase in you arms, is that the present from the king?" Stonecrest asked.

"I-it is," Alan said.

"I wondered where that went," said Stonecrest. 

He snapped his fingers and the vase disappeared from Alan's arms in a flash of light, only to reappear in Stonecrest's hand. And then he tossed it over his shoulder. 

"Ah!" Peggy and Alan both yelled out in dismay. After all that hard work chasing the vase and tryingtokeep it safe, they were horrified to see it chucked away like a piece of garbage. 

The vase, however, safely fell into a black hole that appeared below it and disappeared. 

"Is something wrong?" Stonecrest asked. 

"N-no, it's nothing," said Peggy.

Stonecrest went, "Hm."

"Say," whispered the redhead boy. "Was it okay to let that vase keep those creepy baby legs?"

The elf girl shrugged.

Daisy hissed, "Shush!" And then she spoke up and said, "A-anyway, Peggy, don't you have a package to give to the chief director?"

"Oh, right!" With all that chaos earlier, Peggy had nearly forgotten what she was here to do in the first place. She held up the paper bag full of cookies she had been clinging to this whole time and said, "Special delivery."

**********

"I'm back!" Peggy announced as she walked into the coffee shop.

"Welcome back," said the Boss. He was standing behind the counter wiping down a cup. "How'd it go with Stonecrest?"

"It went swell," Peggy replied. She dropped down onto a chair, sank down, and groaned. 

"Sure doesn't look like it went swell," Boss said. "Something happen?"

"Well, I kind of ended up lost and had to help some kids chase around a runaway antique," said Peggy.

"A runaway antique?" Boss raised an eyebrow.

"It's a long story," said Peggy. 

"I bet it is," said Boss. "Anyway, good work. You can clock out and take the rest of the day off. You deserve the break."

"I'll take you up on that," Peggy said.

After putting her name tag on the bar counter, she trudged to the back room to get her things. When she closed the door behind her, Boss went over and picked the name tag up. In his hand, the oval-shaped piece of wood shimmered like it was covered in colorful and sparkly glitter.

"Hmm." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Figures something would happen," he muttered to himself. Something always happen at those magic schools. That's why Boss never signed up George to learn at Paladia. "It's a good thing I made these name tags double as magical protective charms. Who knows what could have happened, otherwise?"

<== Chapter 8                                                                                     Chapter 10 ==>

The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch. 8

Chapter 8

The Magic School Adventure

There was really no other way to say it, but right this instant, Peggy Lau was floating on zero gravity in what looked like Outer Space. 

"How in the world did I get here?" she wondered aloud.

She really had no idea how she ended up here. One moment, she was following a robed lady through a garden full of magical kids to an old building to deliver cookies. And then, suddenly, everything went dark. And the moment Peggy could see again, she found herself in Outer Space.

Well, this place can't really be Outer Space, she thought calmly. For one thing, I can still breath and talk. In that case, I must still be in the school somewhere.

Since coming to this world, Peggy had been through some really crazy stuff. She's flown on magic carpets, chatted with a talking building and, most recently, hung out with actual ghosts on Halloween. Thanks to all that, she had become a little used to this stuff. There was also that advice Boss gave her before sending her on her way.

"Listen, Peggy," he had said to her. "Whatever happens over there, keep calm and don't forget that it's a magic school. As long as you remember that, you should be fine."

He had such a serious look on his face, and had such urgency in his voice that it was like he had no doubt in his mind that something was going to happen.

It felt weird, floating around in zero gravity, but thanks to her time at that ghost mansion, Peggy got used to it much faster. She did a three-sixty scan of the entire place with her eyes, clutching the bag of cookies tightly over her stomach so it wouldn't fly away as she turned and spun around. Out of the corner of her eye, something caught her attention and she turned to find a door just placed stationary at a spot in front of what looked like Jupiter.

Immediately seeing that door as her ticket out of this strange Outer Space space, Peggy kicked off and swam towards it as if she were in water while hugging the bag of cookies close to herself with her right arm. There was a brown, square mat beneath the door which Peggy thought helpful, because it allowed her to firmly plant her feet on something before opening the door. And as soon as she did that, she stepped outside and left the strange room behind her.

Out of Outer Space and into a normal (sort of) hallway, the next step for Peggy was to figure out which way to go. She looked right and left of the big hallway made of marble floor, white stone walls and silk curtains over the window that all look like they belong to a king's castle. Outside of the crystal clear windows, she could see a grassy courtyard, but it didn't look like the one she had passed by earlier. For one thing, the one she was staring at now was much smaller and with less children loitering it.

I must be somewhere deeper in the school, she thought. Well, no point sticking around here. This place is big, so there should be a map somewhere around here.

She turned and walked away. And just as she turned a corner and disappeared, the door to the Outer Space room burst open and out came Daisy, the robed lady tour guide, and the three kids whose magical, paper-mache dragon started this whole mess in the first place. 

"Curse it all!" Daisy swore. "Where is she? If it gets out that I let a visitor get lost, I'll be in trouble for sure!"

"And why're we here?" asked the black-haired elf girl.

Daisy glared at her. "Because," she said, "this is all of you guys' fault! Make no mistake! If I get in trouble, I will bring you down with me! Now think! Where do you think she's gone?"

"Well," went the werecat girl, "if she hasn't started panicking yet, she's probably gone to look for a map. Most places as big as this school have maps lying around all over so no one would get lost. I know I've needed a map to get around."

"Right, then let's go find a map," Daisy said. "Follow me, this way!"

With her taking the lead, the Paladia School search party turned and headed down the hall to the right, the complete opposite of where Peggy was going.

"Well, still no map," Peggy muttered to herself after ten minutes of exploring the building. She found a set of stairs and quickly took it down to the ground floor. It was easy enough to find the main exit, but she was reluctant to leave without first finding what she had set out to search for.

There are plenty of students in here, she noted while looking around the lobby. But being an outsider who doesn't belong in this school gave Peggy an awkward feeling and she hesitated to ask for directions. Not to mention, given the size of the school, she wasn't confident she'd even remember or understand whatever directions she was given.

"Nothing to it, I guess," she mumbled to herself. "May as well just try and go from there."

But she never got the chance. As she turned around to address some kids chatting at a corner, she heard something go pitter-patter on the ground. She looked down and saw something that made her eyes pop out. Just as she was starting to think nothing could surprise her anymore, she found a vase, a big, expensive-looking one, with human baby legs standing in front of her.

She stared at the vase, and it sort of looked like it stared back at her. And then the vase turned at its baby feet heels and took off running out of the exit.

"What. Was. That?" Peggy spoke while staring at the exit the vase used.

More pitter-patter reached her ears, but this time, they were from something harder and heavier. A red-haired human boy tumbled into the lobby from the left hall, out of breath as if he had been running a marathon. 

"Sorry . . . But . . . has anyone . . . seen a really . . . expensive vase run by here?"

Peggy and everyone else in the lobby answered by wordlessly pointing their fingers at the front door.

Realizing that the vase he was chasing had gotten outside, the boy dropped to his knees with a face of utter despair.

"Now what do I do?" he moaned. "That vase is super expensive! If anything happens to it, I'll be expelled for sure! Not only that, it'll take decades to pay back the vase! And after all that hard work my parents put to get me here!"

Peggy sighed. After hearing something like that, there was no way she could turn a blind eye.

"Hey, kid!" She called out to the boy.

The boy looked up, puzzled, and then pointed to himself.

"Yes, you," Peggy said. "I'm here to drop off something to a guy named Stonecrest. You know where is office is?"

The boy nodded.

"Great!" Peggy said. "In that case, you can show me the way and I'll help you look for that vase. Sound good?"

"Well - " went the boy, but Peggy cut him off.

"My name's Peggy," she said. "What's yours?"

"Alan," said the boy. "But-!" 

Peggy cut him off again and said, "Anyway, come on. We better hurry or it'll get away."

The boy had no time to answer and followed Peggy out of the building. 

"I think it went this way," she said. And together, they turned right and disappeared.

It was at that moment that Daisy and her entourage showed up. Daisy looked around, turning her head left and right fast like a rabid dog.

"Blast!" she shouted. "She's not here! Where is she?"

"She should still be somewhere in the building," said Alan. "Let's try that way."

And again, they went the complete opposite way of Peggy, as if today was Opposite Day or something.

Together, Peggy and Alan went east of the building. 

As they brisk-walked alongside it while keeping an eye out for the runaway vase, Peggy asked a question. 

"By the way," she said, "why'd that vase suddenly sprout legs and started running? What were you trying to do?"

"I was trying to make a clay doll move on its own," the boy explained. "But something went wrong with the spell and I accidentally hit the vase."

Just as they turned the corner, Peggy spotted the vase dancing on top of a railing post that was part of some white stone stairs that dipped down a small hill.

"There it is!" shouted Alan.

As if it could hear him, the vase suddenly jumped off the railing post, onto the grassy hill and ran down. Peggy and Alan ran after the vase and were just catching up to it, when it suddenly leaped in front of a tiny girl no bigger than one foot, with four strips of light attached to her back that looked sort of like wings. Having seen such tiny people fly around the coffee shop before, Peggy instantly knew the girl was a fairy. 

The fairy girl was fluttering in the air like a butterfly with one hand holding a book while the other waved a wand around. She had been aiming at an apple left lying on the ground, but when she flicked her wand -

ZAP!

The expensive vase with baby legs became FIVE expensive vases with baby legs and all ran in different directions. Both Peggy and Alan couldn't help but scream in horror at that.

When she saw what she had done, the fairy girl went, "Ah. Wait, wasn't that the expensive vase that was donated to the school by the King himself?"

"Which one do we go after?" Alan shouted. "Which one's the real one?"

"Hey," Peggy called out to the fairy girl. "That was your spell that made four more of those things. Can you tell which is real?"

"Uh . . ." The fairy girl hesitated before answering. "Technically, they're all real."

"What do you mean?" Peggy asked. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like the answer.

"Well, that type of cloning spell I used is one where all the clones are connected to each other," said the fairy. "So if something happens to one of the clones, the others will feel the same thing."

Peggy put the pieces together in a flash. "Are you trying to tell me that if one of those things breaks, then all of them, original included, will break too!?"

The fairy nodded.

This just gets worse and worse, Peggy thought.

"Now what do we do?" Alan moaned.

"What else?" said Peggy. "We have to find them and then catch them."

"I can help you find them," said the fairy girl. "Since my magic is what split them up, I can use a simple locator spell to figure out where they are."

"Great!" said Peggy. "But even if we know where they are, how do we catch them? They're really slippery little pests."

"In that case, might I interest you in these fine products made by yours truly?"

"Gah! Where'd you come from?" Peggy, the fairy, and Alan all jumped in surprise. None of them noticed the vampire boy walk up to them from behind, so it was as if he just suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He was older than the other kids, around mid-to-late teens, with blond hair and had eyes so narrowly opened, it looked like they were closed. 

In his hands, he held three poles, each a foot longer than he was tall. The poles all had light fabric, triangle sacks at the end. No matter how anyone looked at it, those poles this newcomer carried were butterfly nets.

"My apologies for startling you," said the vampire. "I was walking by when I noticed you three appeared to be in a PICKLE of a jam and thought I'd help out by offering you something that could help."

"And that would be some flimsy-looking butterfly nets?" Peggy said while eyeing the nets doubtfully. "Why were you carrying them around in the first place?"

"Ha ha ha," laughed the vampire. "Though they look flimsy, they are anything but. Made from the strongest materials to be found and put together by yours truly, who is a certified GENIUS alchemist, these babies can hold up to two metric tons worth of stuff. And space is not an issue because it has been enchanted to be bigger on the inside, way bigger. What do you say? Care to take these babies for a spin?"

Peggy narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

"What's the catch?" she asked.

"No catch," said the vampire boy. "Just tell me what you think of them, preferably in as much detail as possible."

"You're just trying to use us as guinea pigs, aren't you?" Peggy said.

"I wouldn't put it like that," said the vampire boy.

So, he IS trying to use us as guinea pigs, Peggy thought.

Cutting through her thoughts, the vampire spoke up again.

"You might want to hurry up and decide," he said. "It looks like that vase is about to replay Humpty Dumpty."

He pointed towards a red brick wall that surrounded and separated a short, house-like building from the rest of the school. There was a bronze sign attached to the wall, but it was too far away from Peggy to read. Sitting on top of the wall, kicking its tiny feet back and forth was one of the vase copies.

It swayed back and forth, back and forth, dipping further and further over the edge. And then, it dipped too far and started wobbling in a way that made Alan scream in horror.

"Gimme that!" yelled Peggy. With no time to waste, she snatched one of the nets from the vampire boy and ran as fast as she could while going, "Hee-hoo, hee-hoo, hee-hoo!" 

She was just a few feet away from the wall when the vase finally bent over too much and began a great fall. Desperation taking hold, Peggy jabbed the net forward like a sword fencer going for the kill. She barely made it in time for the rim of her net to meet the rim of the vase, causing the priceless artifact to bounce high. And then, with a twist of her wrist, Peggy swung the pole up and the vase was swallowed whole into the net.

After bringing the net back down, Peggy peaked inside. While doing that, Alan and the fairy rushed over.

"Miss Peggy!" Alan cried out. "Is the vase okay?"

After a brief moment of silence, Peggy looked up, grinned and flashed a thumb up. When she looked inside the net, she could clearly see the vase kicking about and rolling harmlessly around a field of white fabric. That vampire boy wasn't kidding when he said the net was way, way bigger on the inside.

"Alright, you two," Peggy said. "Grab a net and let's get going. We still have four more of those things out there."

"Right," said the fairy girl. "The closest one is this way! My name's Aria, by the way."

After being given a net by the vampire boy along with Alan, Aria the fairy girl took the lead and showed the rest of the gang the way. She led the gang down the courtyard to a large, rectangle building with a green, round roof, which turned out to be the school gym. 

They cut through the basketball court currently being used by two teams of owls, a hallway full of doors that led to small, private arenas where lots and lots of explosions could be heard from, and entered the pool area where girls and boys in ballroom dresses were waltzing on top of the blue water. At the feet of the water-walking dancers, the belly of a vase could be seen jutting out of the blue surface.

"I got it," said Aria before zipping towards the pool on her wings.

Even though she was carrying a net several times her size, she skillfully weaved around the legs of the dancers and flew after the vase that just kicked around, unnoticed, in the water. And then, in one smooth swing, the fairy scooped the vase out of the water and into the net. After that, Aria crossed over to the other side of the pool where she flashed a thumbs-up to the others. So engrossed in their dancing, the dancers still didn't notice a thing even as the gang moved on elsewhere.

As soon as Peggy closed the door behind her, Daisy and her crew barged in. They apologized to the tuxedo-wearing walrus sitting by the record player, took a brief look around and then left, going the opposite way of Peggy and company.

The next place Aria led Peggy and Alan to was the library building at the back of the school. Well, Aria and Alan called it a library building, but it was really more like a teeny-tiny storage shed kept at the backyard of a teeny-tiny house.

"THIS is a school library?" Peggy spoke up in disbelief. "It looks like a backyard storage shed! And it even looks like it's made of plastic!"

"Come on!" shouted Aria as she pulled the door open. "Quit dillydallying and get in! That vase isn't going to find itself you know!"

It turned out, much like the enchanted nets that the young vampire loaned the crew, the library was bigger on the inside. Much, much, MUCH bigger. 

It was a labyrinth of bookshelves stretching every which way as far as the eye could see, left and right, bottom to top. It was as of Peggy had stepped into a world of nothing but books. And these books could fly.

Like pigeons, books fluttered left and right above Peggy's head. And on one particularly big green book sat a vase swaying back and forth, much like a certain other vase that tried to act out the story of Humpty Dumpty. Luckily, Aria spotted the vase right away and caught it before it could fall off the book, bringing the number of vases captured to three.

The fourth vase was found at the old school house right at the very back of the school grounds. It was spotted tap dancing at the front doorstep by a huge number of people who couldn't help but cheer in awe of its lit dance skills. Everyone had such a great time watching that Alan was reluctant to catch the vase and end the fun. But just when he mustered enough courage to do just that, the vase disappeared in a flash of gold light.

"Huh? Where'd it go?" Alan wondered. He looked left and right, but Vase #4 was nowhere to be found. 

Peggy glanced at Aria for an answer, but she just shrugged her shoulders, having no clue.

And then a thought crossed Peggy's mind and she quickly looked inside her net. 

"I knew it," she muttered. "The vase i caught earlier's gone!"

"What!?" Alan cried out. 

He and Aria exchanged looks and quickly looked in their own nets. But just like Peggy, they could not see the vases they had captured. The vases had vanished without a trace.

"Seriously?" Alan moaned,  dejected. "What on Emeron happened?"

"If I had to guess," said Peggy, "that clone spell of Aria's worn off and the copies merged back with the original." 

"In that case," said a brightened up Alan, "we just have to catch the original and we can finally call it a day! So, where is it, Aria?"

"I don't know," Aria replied bluntly.

"Okay!" shouted Alan. "Then off we - Wait, what?"

Aria repeated herself and said, "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Alan shouted. "You found the other four, didn't you?"

"That was back when my spell was still in affect," Aria said. "Now that it's gone, I don't have any way of finding it! On the other hand, shouldn't YOU know where it is? You're the one who gave it those freaky baby legs in the first place. That's your own magic, so why can't you track it down yourself?"

"I don't know how!" Alan snapped.

Aria looked at him in disbelief and said, "What kind of Paladia student doesn't know how to track down their own magic spell?"

It seemed like all hope was lost. But then a voice came down from above that rekindled young Alan's hope.

<== Chapter 7                                                                                   Chapter 9 ==>

The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch. 7

 Chapter 7

A Delivery

It was close to the afternoon, on a day when people could feel the change of seasons slowly take place. 

"Feels like winter is coming," Peggy muttered to herself, commenting on the frequent bursts of cold air she felt as she arrived at the gates of a large compound of big, fancy buildings. 

Earlier, the Boss announced he was going to go on a delivery run. Business had slowed in the shop and Peggy had worked long enough to earn his trust that he felt he could leave her to look after the shop on her own while he was gone.

"I didn't know we did deliveries here," Peggy had said.

The Boss replied, "Normally, we don't. But the customer is an old friend of the last owner, and a regular. He really loved the cookies we make here, but has been so busy, he hasn't had the chance to come by lately. I thought I'd do him a solid to keep us in his good graces."

"Keep in his good graces?" Peggy raised an eyebrow. "You make it sound like he's some kind of bigshot."

"Well he is, in a way," the Boss replied. "I'll tell you more about him later."

But just then, as soon as his hand touched the door handle, music played from his pocket. He pulled out a hand mirror and looked at it with a frown.

"It's a call from George's school," he muttered. "I wonder what this could be about."

He put the mirror to his ear and said, "Hello?"

Sometimes, Peggy thought, I see this and wonder if that thing is actually a smartphone and they just call them magic mirrors here.

She was startled when the Boss suddenly shouted, "He what!?"

Whatever that call was about, it must be bad news, thought Peggy.

The Boss went, "Uh-huh. Okay. Got it," while his forehead furrowed into stress lines. And then, after promising to come by, he put the mirror back into his pocket, put a hand over his eyes and groaned.

"What's wrong, Boss?" Peggy asked out of concern. "Is George okay?"

Boss answered, "No, he's not okay, Well, he's not hurt or anything like that. But I have to get to his school ASAP. Hold on a moment and let me think."

He paused a moment to sort out his thoughts, and then made a decision.

"Alright, change of plans," he said. "Sorry, Peggy, but I'm going to need you to deliver the cookies instead while I go to George's school to sort out his mess."

"But what about the shop?" Peggy asked.

"We got no choice but to close it," the Boss said. "No sense keeping a shop open when there's no one to run it. Luckily, business is slow around this time so it shouldn't hurt us too bad. Anyway, here's where you'll be going. I'll let the customer know you're on the way."

After handing Peggy the huge, huge paper bag full of cookies and a piece of paper with notes scribbled down, Boss threw on his cape, turned around, and disappeared in a flock of bats that sprang out from his shadow. And so, using the notes Boss gave her, Peggy made her way to the customer's place, which turned out to be one of the biggest, and most expensive, schools in the town of Featherkeep.

But for a school, especially in the afternoon when lessons have only just ended, it was eerily quiet. Peggy could see beyond the gates' bars but there was no one around. Absolutely no one, except for a lone lady in bright blue robes and dress with big, round glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

As soon as she spotted Peggy, the lady gave a deep bow and said, "Welcome to the Paladia School of Advance Magic. My name is Daisy. How can I help you?"

"Uh . . ." Peggy quickly glanced at Boss's notes before replying, "Delivery for Ethan Stonecrest."

"Oh!" exclaimed Daisy. "We've been expecting you. Come right this way."

She clapped her hands twice and the gates slowly parted. As if a veil had been lifted, the once empty roads were suddenly full of schoolchildren in robes and blazer uniforms wandering around in the place in small groups, heading from one building to the next, or just loitering in the grassy courtyards. Some students headed for the gateway, but as soon as they reached the threshold, they suddenly disappeared.

Peggy jumped back, startled.

"What just happened?" she cried out.

"Oh, the gates are enchanted to send whoever crosses them straight home," Daisy explained. "They also keep people outside from spying inside as well as keep intruders out. We take safety of the children very seriously here at Paladia, so for privacy and security, the school is full of spells, enchantments, and deadly curses."

Peggy blinked.

"What was that last part again?" she asked.

But Daisy ignored her and said, "Please follow me. We shouldn't keep Chief Director Stonecrest waiting."

"Oh, sure," said Peggy. "But, seriously, what was that last part again? I thought I heard something about deadly curses."

Daisy continued to ignore and dodge Peggy's questions about deadly curses and led her into the school grounds. As soon as she set foot pass the gates, Peggy felt an intense prickling feeling against her skin. She fought through it and continued on inside, but things only got more intense from there.

First came a rush of air around her ears. Next, a stream of fire blew out in front of her face that made her stumble back in surprise.

Daisy angrily snapped at the fire-breathing boy, "Hey! No playing with fire magic in the courtyard! That sort of magic's only allowed in special training fields! Are you okay?"

Peggy, unable to say anything from the sudden shock she received after being close to barbecued, nodded. 

As she followed Daisy down the road, Peggy looked around and was treated to sights more magical than anything magical she had seen before. She spotted children floating in the air like balloons, gently hopping from the ground to building rooftops like astronauts on the moon, or racing over the roads on broomsticks. There was a girl with long, pointed ears playing a wooden flute while bright green lights shaped like butterflies fluttered around her. A young werewolf and a human boy cheered on two dolls made of rocks that wrestled each other to the ground while a few feet away, a koi fish suddenly flew out of a painting drawn by a fluffy raccoon wearing a scholar cap. Some passing teenagers called the raccoon, "Professor."

"As you can see," said Daisy, "we are a school focused on growing our students' magical talents. And we're the best in the business. In fact, most of our students can already use Three-Star magic by the time they're ten years old!"

So I'm a total noob to ten-year-olds, Peggy thought wryly. Good to know.

"Anyway, we don't have far to go," Daisy continued. "Chief Director Stonecrest's office is at the admin building, which is right in front of us. It's that mansion-looking one. Speaking of the admin building, did you know that it is actually the oldest building in the school? At two hundred years old, it's been around since the school was founded!"

While Peggy listened to Daisy's tour guide spiel, neither ladies noticed three kids closing in while wheeling a giant paper-mache dragon. The dragon was big and green, and laid on the cart on its big, fat belly. One kid, a black-haired elf girl was at the back of the dragon, pushing the cart, while another, a human boy with red hair and freckles, pulled the cart with a rope. The third kid, a werecat girl with orange fur, had her hand on the right side of the cart.

After she finished talking about the history of the admin building, Daisy turned around to ask, "So, any ques-"

And then the paper-mache dragon went, "Chomp!" on Peggy.

"-tions?"

 Daisy stared at the empty space Peggy had been, face frozen in an empty smile. And then she looked up at the dragon that made a loud gulp noise, before letting out a loud burp that echoed. Lastly, the paper-mache dragon settled down into a sleepy smile, while its tongue jutted out the side of its mouth. 

"Ah . . . AAAAAAAAAAH!" Daisy grabbed the sides of her head, screaming. "WHAT HAVE YOU BRATS DONE!? SPIT HER OUT NOW!"

"I-I'm sorry, Miss," stammered the boy. "But it's too late!"

Unable to run away in time, the three students shrank beneath Daisy's understandable rage.

"It's too late? What do you mean it's too late?" she growled. "Don't tell me she's dead!"

"What? No!" the boy cried out. "That's not it at all! Don't you remember? This fake dragon as a portal in its stomach. We made it as a fun way to get around the school during the festival last week."

"I'm the one who used puppet magic to make it move like it's alive," said the werecat. "Even the burping."

"So not important right now," Daisy snapped. "Anyway, where'd this piece of junk send her?"

The three kids all looked at one another and then shrugged their shoulders.

Daisy glared at them. "You don't know? Does that mean that you just teleported an important guest of the chief director with an important package for the chief director to some random part of the school, a school with lots and lots of places that are scary to normal people not used to magic?"

The three kids looked at one another again and then replied, "Yeah, pretty much."

<== Chapter 6                                                                                  Chapter 8 ==>

The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch. 6

 Chapter 6
Walpurgis Night 

The sun had begun to set, but the streets had become even more alive than during the day. The cause for this would be the Walpurgis Night Festival.

Walpurgis Night is a holiday in Emeron, celebrated with children roaming the streets at night in colorful costumes, visiting houses to demand treats or be tricked. It was also a time for ghost stories and spine-tingling tales. Some people even believe that it was a time when the barrier between this world and the spirit world was at its thinnest.

Basically, Walpurgis Night is the Emeronian version of Halloween. 

Other than the name, there really was no difference between the two holidays. Peggy could see that looking around her. Pumpkin Jack o' lanterns guarded every doorway, with some given the power of flight over people's heads by playful magicians. Orange and black banners that wished everyone a "spooktacular" holiday hung from lampposts. And, of course, as mentioned earlier, there were children of all shapes, sizes and ages roaming the streets in all manner of costumes. There were knights in shining armor, sword-toting musketeers, frilled up nobles, and magicians in robes and pointed hats.

Honestly though, it was kind of hard for Peggy to tell who was in costume and who was in their everyday clothes, only because Emeron was the sort of world where people walk around like that in any other day. The children, at least, must be in costume, though.

"Heeeey! Peggy, what's the hold up?"

George was a few feet ahead and down the road where two streets intersected, waving his hand over his head to Peggy to hurry up. He was dressed in a full tuxedo and bow tie, and came equipped with a tall top hat and cape. For some reason, when the Boss learned of his son's costume choice, his face became twisted in complicated feelings. The Head Magus, on the other hand, could barely stifle laughter, which was really creepy while she was in doll form.

"Come on, Peggy!" the little werelion called out. "Hurry up!"

"Hold your horses!" Peggy shouted back. "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

For this night, Peggy was dressed something like a fencer. She wore a purple jacket over a white, frilled dress shirt that she had borrowed from Mrs. Arkans. Mrs. Arkans had also lent Peggy the flat, wide-brim feathered hat. Attached to her belt was a thin scabbard used to sheath a rapier sword. Obviously, since weapons were no-no, the actual sword was missing. The bottom half of her costume, however, was taken from her regular work outfit. 

Peggy was okay just going out in her regular outfit, but Mrs. Arkans said she just HAD to dress for the occasion. 

As for why Peggy was rushing through the lively streets at night trying to keep up with a lion kid in a fancy suit, she was just paying back the favor she owed the Boss by looking after his son. Walpurgis Night always brought the shop lots of customers late at night, so the Boss could never take George trick-or-treating himself. 

George insisted that he was old enough to go by himself, but the Boss wasn't ever going to let that happen.

Speaking of the Boss . . .

"Hey, George," said Peggy.

"Yeah, Peggy?" asked George.

Together, they walked through the crowded streets while bathed in warm-colored lighting from the shops and street lamps. They went from building to building, store to store, and house to house, collecting lots of candy and other kinds of sweet treats. Some pieces of candy started leaking out from the top of their baskets as they talked.

"Any idea why your old man's so grumpy today?" Peggy asked. Since this morning, the vampire had been scowling and grimacing at anything and everything to do with the holiday. He was almost like Scrooge on Christmas Eve. Peggy wouldn’t have been surprised if he suddenly spat out a “Bah-humbug!”

"Oh, that's easy," George said. "He just hates Walpurgis Night."

"So he really is like Scrooge on Christmas Eve," Peggy muttered.

George blinked and said, "What's a Scrooge?"

"It's nothing, never mind," Peggy replied. "Anyway, so the Boss hates Walpurgis Night. Why is that? Looking around, you'd think he'd be right at home with this stuff. And I don't just mean that because he's a vampire."

"I think it had something to do with what happened to him when he was a kid," said George.

"Something happened to him? What?" Peggy asked.

George shrugged and said, "I only heard about it a little from Grandpa, but one Walpurgis Night when Dad was a little kid, he went to the wrong fun house.”

"He went to the wrong fun house? What do you mean?" said Peggy.

"Well, he was supposed to go to a fun house for kids," said George. "But the babysitter accidentally took him to a place called a Horror House instead."

Peggy went, "Oh." She could see where this was going.

George explained further and said, "Instead of lame puns made by floating bed sheet ghosts, he had to deal with screaming banshees, horribly disfigured zombies, and people going splat!"

Called it, Peggy thought. Yeah, an experience like that would definitely make one hate a holiday.

"Because of that, Dad really doesn't like anything horror or occult related," said George.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that happening to you,” said Peggy. “I’ll make sure we steer clear of any Horror Houses.”

George couldn’t help but show his disappointment.

“Aw,” went the werelion cub. “I was kind of hoping to see what one was like.”

Hearing that, Peggy thought that her boss made the right call by sticking a chaperone to his son.

After an hour or so more of their nighttime stroll, it was finally time for George to head home. When they arrived at the shop, the duo found it packed with people taking a break from the nighttime festivities. Waiters, part-timers other than Peggy were rushing to and fro to take and complete orders. The Boss, himself, was nowhere to be seen. He was likely stuck in the kitchen, cooking up light meals and snacks for the customers.

Seeing all the humbug the shop was going through, Peggy felt slightly guilty that she was not helping out. But the Boss, himself, said that everything was covered and that she should enjoy the festival. So, after dropping George off at home, Peggy went back out to explore the town and enjoy its once-a-year transformation.

Even at this hour, she could still find groups of little children huddled together and giggling as they headed for the next house. Grownups were also out and about together laughing the night away, but there was an especially lot of couples among them. Peggy tried to keep her eyes away from the romantically paired grownups and hurried along down the streets, admiring all the orange and black decorations that covered the buildings and roads to the best of her abilities. There were also lots of pumpkin lanterns with cute shapes carved out of them, like winking faces, smiling bats, and even happy puppy dogs.

Peggy’s trip eventually led her to the town square which was hosting something like an outdoor ball. Men and women in fancy weird suits and dresses, faces covered by sparkly domino masks, waltzed around each other while others sat at tables at the edges of the square and watched. It was there that Peggy noticed one small figured crouched down against a building’s wall, hugging his legs. 

He was a pretty small boy with green skin, with even darker green hair, and wore frilly clothes like a noble from a Shakespeare play.

Unable to leave the little boy alone, Peggy walked over to him to see what was wrong.

“Hey there,” she said, trying to be as gentle as can be. “Is something wrong?”

The boy didn’t seem to react. He either couldn’t hear her, or thought she might be talking to someone else. Thinking that, Peggy got a little closer to the boy and crouched down until her face was close to his.

“Hi, are you okay?”

The boy looked up, surprised.

“Miss, you can see me?” he said.

That was a weird question to ask, Peggy thought. But she dismissed it and replied, “Well, I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

Suddenly, the boy clapped his hands on Peggy’s cheeks and kneaded them as if they were cookie dough.

“It’s true!” the boy said with wide, astonished eyes. “And I can touch you too!”

“Ahem!” Peggy coughed.

Startled, the boy quickly retracted his hands and shyly shrank against the wall, looking almost like a puppy dog. 

“Anyway,” Peggy spoke up, “what are you doing here by yourself? Are you lost?”

The boy shook his head.

“Do you know your way back home?” Peggy asked.

The boy nodded.

“Do you need help getting back?”

Again, the boy nodded.

Peggy straightened back up and started putting the pieces of the puzzle together. It looked like the boy went too far from his house. But although he knew where he was, for whatever reason, he could not go back on his own. Maybe he was just too scared by himself. How he got here in the first place, though, remained a mystery.

"Miss, will you take me home?" asked the boy.

"Huh? Well . . ." Peggy straightened up and scratched the back of her head, hesitant to answer. 

She thought about getting a town guard to take the boy home instead, but before she could tell the boy that, he jumped up, grabbed Peggy's hand and pulled her to the east. His hands were super cold to the touch, as if made of ice. Peggy only noticed this for a second when she got distracted by the boy's tugging her onward. He was really strong for a small tyke.

"Okay, okay!" she said. "Quit pulling! I'll come with you!"

With no other choice, Peggy kept the boy company and journeyed with him back home. She followed the boy through every twist and turn down the streets, none of which was left unoccupied. Wherever they passed through, there were people in costume eating, drinking, and prancing around in merriment. 

But further and further down their journey, the merriment slowly faded until all was quiet at the edge of a small forest with a single entrance and pathway that looked like it led up a hill. There was the occasional chilly breeze, rustling leaves, and a lone owl hoot.

"Hey," said Peggy, peering up the creepy, dark forest path. "Your house is not up that creepy-looking hill, is it?"

The boy scowled and protested, "It's not creepy. This is the esteemed property of the esteemed Berkshire family, the esteemed landlords of this esteemed land! Esteemed!"

"The landlords?" Peggy raised an eyebrow. She thought, wasn't the Southcott family in charge of this area?

Not wanting to start an argument with the little boy, she kept that fact to herself as she was once more pulled along by the child who was, apparently, a Berkshire.

Together, they hiked up the dark, dark hill, a hike that Peggy did not enjoy in the least. Not only was the hill path spine-chilling creepy to behold, it was severely neglected with small pits, rocks and plant overgrowth that made it hard to navigate through. Peggy wasn't sure how the kid could be okay when she was having so much trouble with all these obstacles. He was just smoothly gliding up the path as if flying over everything in the way while she tripped and stumbled every few minutes.

They eventually emerged from the woods to find a ginormous house standing over them beyond a tall, black iron gate. The faintly illuminated building had around five floors and appeared to have neatly trimmed hedges lining its base. And in the spirit of Walpurgis Night, lots and lots of pumpkin Jack o' Lanterns were lined up across the front of the house and along either side of the front yard's various walkways.

It's a mansion, thought Peggy, an actual, real-life mansion like on TV.

Unable to hold back any longer, the little boy broke away from Peggy and ran to the mansion, shouting, "Mother! Father! Everyone, I'm home!"

A dark figure standing guard by the door of the mansion was taken aback in surprise. He emerged from the shadows as a middle-aged man in a black suit with coattails. 

"Young Master!" he cried out. "Is that really you, Young Master?"

"Yes, it's me, Cyrus!" said the boy. "I'm back!"

Whispers erupted all around Peggy, the boy and Cyrus and filled Peggy with faint hisses.

"He's back. He's back! The Young Master has returned!"

Peggy looked around, but spotted no one, and no thing, close by.

Up at the attic level of the mansion, a window burst open and a green lady poke her head out. She looked down at the gate and gasped. Peggy gasped herself when the lady suddenly climbed out the window and jumped. 

But instead of plummeting to the ground in a splat, the lady gently drifted down as if as light as a feather and gracefully landed on her feet. She, then, picked up the sides of her skirt and ran through the front garden while shouting, "My boy! My baby boy has come back!"

The front doors flew open and a man in a white suit came out roaring, "My son! My son has come back!"

He caught up to the lady and raced her to the gate. But thanks to her head start, the lady won by a landslide and scooped the boy up in her arms in a big hug. The man soon caught up and embraced them both from behind. 

It was a heartwarming moment; but not used to such things in real life, Peggy was left feeling a little awkward. 

Eventually, the trio broke up and, after straightening up, the man stepped forward.

"Thank you for bringing my child home," he said to Peggy. "I am Lord Berkshire, and this is my wife, Lady Berkshire. It would be my honor to invite you into my humble abode and enjoy our Walpurgis Night Party with us."

"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly-!" Peggy didn't want to impose, but the Berkshire family wouldn't listen.

Lady Berkshire took Peggy by the hand and pulled her to the mansion. 

"Right this way, right this way," she said. "Come, come!"

Lord Berkshire copied his wife and took Peggy’s other hand. The boy Berkshire pushed Peggy onward from behind.

And so, with no choice, Peggy joined the Berkshire family's party. 

They took her into the mansion where close to a hundred people in frilly suits and dresses straight out of a pirate movie suddenly swarmed her in overly friendly greeting. Lord Berkshire had to literally push everyone away and give them all a stern scolding about bothering guests. While he was doing that, the boy gave Peggy introductions.

"That's Grandpa Lloyd, he liked to go hunting in the forest. But then a bear caved his skull in. Oh, and that's Auntie Allison. She looks so hyper, even though she's supposed to be sleeping in a special bed after being really sick for a long time. And, whoa! Is that Great-great Grandpa Warren? He was a super brave knight in the Crusades! So cool! He's got his sword with him too. And that hole in his armor. I guess it was true he got skewered by a spear at that last battle."

They all came to thank Peggy for bringing their youngest back home. 

"Come! Come!" shouted an old man in a white nightgown. "As thanks, eat, drink! As lord of this house, I guarantee you will enjoy yourself!"

An old lady's head popped out of the wall and she said, "Don't by silly, Dear. Lloyd's the lord now!"

A little girl, barely older than ten, cut in to correct the old lady. 

"That is wrong, baby sister," she said. "Your grandson is the lord now."

"Don't just stand there, boy!" snapped Lloyd. "Show the lady around!"

"I was getting around to that, Father!" Lord Berkshire snapped back before giving Peggy a tour of the mansion. With his whole family following close behind, of course.

They really went all-out on the Halloween decor, Peggy thought. 

There were lots of Jack o' Lanterns lighting all the hallways. They were joined by skeletons in bow ties standing guard with their backs against the walls, while fake cobwebs hung from the ceilings with streams of bats cut out of black paper. 

As Peggy walked past one skeleton,  it held up a polished tray of crackers and said, "Appetizers?" 

Peggy stared at the plate, and looked up at the eternally grinning server.

"I'll pass, but thanks," she said. 

"So, Miss Lau," said Lady Berkshire, "tell us a little about yourself. We would all love to learn more about you."

"Yes!" said the boy. "Please? Please, please, please?"

Unable to resist the boy's imploring eyes, Peggy relented and started telling the Berkshire family about herself. She told them she was from out of town, leaving out from where, that she lived with an elderly lamia, and that she worked at a quiet little coffee shop run by a vampire. 

"A coffee shop, that sounds rather lovely," said Lady Berkshire. "It would be nice to go and visit it."

"I agree," said Lord Berkshire. "This vampire sounds like a really dandy gentleman."

The family ended their tour with a stop at the grand ballroom, a huge, glittery, golden and bright space where people danced, twirling all over the floor and waltzing in the air. Peggy ended up joining in the airborne fun when the little boy took her hand in his and flew up to the ceiling with her, as if gravity had been turned off for them. 

And then a clock chimed. It was one of many grandfather clocks stationed throughout the house. They sung in unison to signal the change of days. 

Lord Berkshire took to the stage and called out to everyone in the ballroom.

"Attention, everyone!" he said. "Midnight has arrived and Walpurgis Night had ended. It is sad, but we must now bid farewell to our guest."

"I'll see her out," the boy volunteered. 

As they headed for the door, responding to cheery goodbyes left and right, the boy took the chance to show his gratitude one last time. 

"Thank you, again, for taking me home, Miss Lau," he said. "If it weren’t for you, I would never see my family again."

That was a bit of an exaggeration, Peggy thought. But she took the boy's thanks graciously.

With a smile, she said, "You're welcome. I had a swell time."

"I wish you could stay longer, the boy said. "Why did the night have to end so fast?"

Peggy could not resist giving the boy a head pat.

"Hey, it's not like this is goodbye forever," she said. "If you want, you can come and visit me anytime at the coffee shop."

"Really?" the boy said, brightened up. 

Peggy nodded. "Yeah. You, your friends and family are more than welcome to hang out there."

"Thanks so much!" the boy said. "I'll let everyone on the Other Side know!"

"You do that," Peggy said, not knowing what the boy meant by "Other Side", yet.

Soon, they were out of the mansion and at the gate.

"Well, this is it," Peggy said. "See you around."

"Yes, let us meet again when the Veil Between Worlds is at its thinnest once more," said the boy.

With the gate closed between them, Peggy watched as the boy ran back to the mansion. Neither would stop waving goodbye to each other until the boy disappeared inside. 

Once the boy was gone, the butler, Cyrus, stepped in front of the door and gave Peggy a polite bow. And then he stepped inside and closed the door. That was when the whole mansion, its entire front garden, and all the Halloween decor disappeared right before Peggy’s eyes and was replaced with a field of grave markers, lots and lots of grave markers that all shined eerily beneath the light of the silvery moon.

Peggy stared with popped-out eyes at the graveyard through rusted iron bars, opened her mouth and let out a sound from her throat that was like a fingernail scratching a chalkboard, only really, really soft. 

**********

A few days later at the coffee shop, opening time was still a few minutes away, so it's workers were enjoying a short break. Peggy sat on a stool by the counter staring into her steaming cup while the Boss watched a news announcement on his magic mirror when she muttered some courage to speak up.

"Hey, Boss?"

The Boss went, "Yes, Peggy?" He didn't take his eyes off the hand mirror. 

"Sorry, but I think I invited ghosts to the store."

"I see," said the Boss. And then he looked up. "Say what now?"

<== Chapter 5                                                                      Chapter 7 ==>

The Vampire's Coffee Shop Ch. 5

 Chapter 5
The Shadow Civil War

"Ha ha ha! Sorry about scaring you like that," said the freckled young man who was, just a few minutes ago, literally nothing but bones. It turned out that skeleton was an intern from a magic school, working in  the office as an assistant. "Here's a donut, my treat."

Seated on the black couch, Peggy graciously accepted the chocolate-covered treat from the young man. She took a bite while glancing at the intern, wondering if it was normal for magicians to shape-shift into whatever weird thing they want.

"By the way, what brings you here?" the intern asked. 

"The Head Magus told me to stop by to do some paperwork," Peggy replied. 

"Oh! So you're the immigrant that the boss lady mentioned," said the intern. "Sorry, but you're probably going to have to wait a while. She's in the middle of an interview right now."

"An interview? For what?" asked Peggy.

The intern answered, "It's about the Shadow Civil War. A historian is writing a book about it."

Peggy blinked. "The what war?"

The intern looked at Peggy in surprise, but then slapped his forehead at realizing something.

"Oh, right," he said. "You're from out of country so it's no surprise you don't know about it. The Shadow Civil War is, like the name says, a civil war the kingdom had a long time ago."

"Okay, I understand that much," said Peggy. "But why call it the Shadow Civil War? Why not just Civil War?"

"That's because the war was mostly in the shadows of society," said the intern. "You know, like with spies and criminals. With me so far?"

"I think I get it," said Peggy. "But at the same time, I'm as confused as heck."

"Well - !" The intern was going to speak, but a lady's voice suddenly cut him off.

"Basically, the Shadow Civil War was a fight between the kingdom's ruling lords and ladies that took place in the criminal underworld, using spies and criminals in place of soldiers. Because of that, most normal folks didn't even know there was a civil war going on until it was nearly over. Well, in the end, the Shadow Civil War was really just a string of crimes that happened to connect to one another, caused by the very people ruling this country."

When Peggy looked up, she saw a lady standing at the doorway to the back room with her arms crossed. The lady wore white robes and a big, white pointed hat. 

Peggy had never seen the lady before, but the intern flew out of his chair in a panic and cried out, "H-Head Magus! D-done with your interview already?"

"Huh? Head Magus?" Peggy looked at the lady, confused. "Wait, YOU'RE that creepy doll that visits the coffee shop all the time!?"

The lady grinned and nodded.

"That's right," she said. "Now that I think about it, you never did see me in human form before, huh?"

She flashed another wry smile before turning her gaze to the intern who was visibly nervous beneath his boss's cold gaze.

"By the way, Intern," the Head Magus said, "it's good to welcome visitors and make them feel at home, but make sure you don't accidentally skip out on work, okay?"

"Y-yes, Ma'am!" The intern snapped a quick salute before rushing back to his desk to complete his work. 

"Anyway," said the Head Magus, "sorry for the wait, Peggy. Right this way to my office."

The Head Magus led Peggy into a smaller room with bookshelves covering most of the walls. Whatever space on the wall was not covered by books was used for framed pictures, newspaper clippings, and fancy certificates. Stacks of paper took over the large desk beneath the square window, and about a quarter of the room's floor too.

Oh man, that's a lot of work, Peggy thought, staring at all those paper stacks at the back corner of the room. 

As soon as Peggy was seated on a free chair, the two ladies went straight to work filling out a worksheet. The questions were all easy to answer for Peggy since they were just asking about herself, like name and age. But there were a lot of pages to the form, which made it take a really long time. The Head Magus had her own work to deal with, but still broke away from it to answer any questions that Peggy had. Other than that, though, the two ladies worked in silence, with the only things making noise were their pens scratching paper and the clock ticking away the seconds. Complete and utterly boring silence with nothing to distract the ladies. 

Well, except for when the Head Magus suddenly sprouted six extra arms and two extra heads so she could work on several papers at the same time. That sort of distracted Peggy a little. 

After a while, the Head Magus decided to break silence and spoke up.

"About the Shadow Civil War," she said, "you're probably wondering why I was being interviewed about that."

"A little," Peggy admitted.

"There's really not much for me to say," the Head Magus's first head said. Her second head continued,  "The interview was really about my father and his part in the war. I was a kid at the time."

"Your father was part of the war? Was he a spy or something?" asked Peggy.

"Ha! Nothing like that," scoffed the Head Magus's third head. "He was a knight. Solving crimes is part of a knight's job, and some of the crimes he solved were part of the Shadow Civil War. That was about it."

"But it must have been pretty scary to get mixed up in business like that," Peggy said.

"It was," the Head Magus admitted. "All those times hearing something bad happened, waiting for Father to come home late at night more and more, feeling a nervous air around the grownups . . . It was a really unpleasant time for me. But my family wasn't the only one having a hard time."

"It wasn't?" Peggy said. She was starting to get used to the three heads interchanging in the conversation. 

The Head Magus nodded. "That's right. Even though the civil war stuck mostly to the underside of the kingdom, it still had an effect on everyone else. Regular folks have gotten hurt by the war. And that caused a wave of fear from one side of the land to the next.

"Wow," went Peggy. "I've only lived in this town for a few weeks, but it's hard to imagine something like that happened here."

"All places have their dark times, Peggy," said the Head Magus. "Even right now, there are places dealing with dark times. You're just lucky to be in a time and place where such dark times had already ended."

Thinking back to her old home's dark times, Peggy said, "I guess so."

"Anyway," said the Head Magus. "How is the paperwork going? Done yet?"

"Huh? Uh, yeah. Here."

Having finished writing out what she needed to write out, Peggy handed the papers over to the Head Magus. After she finished looking them over, the Head Magus tapped them against the table to straighten them out and said, "Everything looks to be in order. We're all done here, unless . . ."

"Unless what?" asked Peggy.

The Head Magus put the papers down, propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin atop the back of her fingers as she leaned forward with a question.

"Say, have you ever thought about learning magic?"

"That's a bit sudden," Peggy said. "What brought this on?"

"Well, I heard you're from Earth where magic is pretty much extinct," the Head Magus said. "Most people on Earth don't have any magic power at all. I'm sure you must have wondered what it's like to use magic."

"A little," Peggy admitted. 

"In that case, I can have you fill out a form now and print you a license right away," said the Head Magus. "It'll only take a few minutes."

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt," Peggy said. "But then, where am I going to actually learn magic? Won't I need to go to school, or get a tutor? That'll cost money, 'specially since I'm an adult."

"That's no problem," said the Head Magus. "I can teach you myself. As the town's Head Magus, I also got a license to take apprentices."

Peggy blinked in surprise. "Really?" she said. "But aren't you busy with -?" 

She froze, suddenly realizing something.

"Head Magus," she said.

"Yes, Peggy?"

"You're not trying to make me your apprentice so I'd help you with all your extra work, are you?"

"W-w-what? N-no! Whatever gave you that idea?" asked the Head Magus.

"For starters, none of your heads are looking me in the eye anymore, you're really sweaty now even though this room's got air conditioning, and all three of your faces are all twitchy. You're not good at lying, are you?"

"ANYWAY," the Head Magus spoke up at the top of her lungs, "having a magic license comes with lots of perks. You get to learn magic, which can make life super, duper easy. And with a license, there are also a whole bunch of jobs you can choose from, like, I don't know, a stable, good-paying job here helping me with all this excess work."

Peggy sat back to think for a moment. Putting aside the Head Magus's obvious ploy to use her to reduce the office's workload, having magical powers would be like a dream come true. Who hasn't wondered what it would be like to have magical or superpowers? And with more chances to find a better job, a very grownup reason, her choice was clear.

**********

"So you decided to get a license, after all," said Boss, as he wiped a white mug with a red table cloth until it shined.

By the time Peggy had come back, the sun started to set and the coffee shop had already closed. She sat on a stool with a plastic card laid out in front of her. The card had her picture and one bronze star next to it. Beneath her picture were all the details you'd expect an I.D. card to have.

"Yeah," Peggy said.

"Well, I guess congratulations," Boss said. "But what's the plan now? Gonna get a tutor?"

"I thought about it," said Peggy, "but . . ."

Peggy trailed off without answering her boss's question. But that didn't stop the vampire coffee shop owner from making an educated guess.

"Let me guess," said the Boss. "You're too embarrassed to sign up for one because you'll be sharing classes with little kids."

Without looking her employer in the eye, Peggy nodded.

The Boss sighed. Suddenly, he pulled out a black, leatherbound book and handed it to Peggy.

"Here," the vampire said.

Peggy took the book and flipped through the pages. She could tell by the yellowing of the paper that the book must be very old.

"What is this?" she asked. "It looks like a notebook."

"That's because it is a notebook, obviously," said the Boss. "It's my old magic journal that I used when I was a kid. They're all beginner spells with easy-to-follow instructions. And most of the spells are harmless, so you can practice them on your own. Except for the fire spells. Those need to be practiced with a full-fledged magician keeping watch."

"You're just giving this to me?" Peggy said.

The Boss shrugged.

"I don't have a use for it," he said. "George is already way past whatever spells are in that book. I can take it back if you don't want it. But then you'll have to go to school with classmates one-quarter your age."

"I'll keep the book, thanks," Peggy said.

"You're welcome," said the Boss. "By the way, you were with the Head Magus for a while. Did you guys talk about anything interesting?"

"Nothing much, really," Peggy said as she stuffed both the notebook and her license card into her bag. "We just talked a little bit about the Shadow Civil War."

The Boss suddenly froze and stopped wiping the cup. His back was to Peggy, so Peggy did not see how the vampire's face went dark.

"Do you know about it, Boss?" Peggy asked innocently.

Without turning around to face Peggy, Boss resumed cleaning his cup and replied, "Of course. It was a major event of the Kingdom of Ariela. Anyone born and raised in this kingdom would know about it. My parents may have been from another country far, far away from here, but I'm an Arielan through and through. Though I still do follow some Zhaoese traditions."

"Did you know that the Head Magus's dad was mixed up in it?" asked Peggy.

"I did," the Boss. "She came from a family of knights, so it's no surprise she would have relatives connected to the war."

He finally turned his head and glanced at the clock mounted high on the back wall so it could look down on everyone in the room with its old kingly face.

"Peggy, are you okay to stick around here so late?" the Boss asked. "Weren't you planning to make dinner tonight for Mrs. Arkans?"

Peggy looked up at the clock and swore.

"That's right!" she cried out. "Thanks for the reminder, Boss. See you tomorrow!"

After bidding farewell to the vampire, Peggy grabbed her bag and ran out of the store. The Boss watched her through the window until she disappeared to the side. When she was gone, the Boss put down the table cloth and cup, and then climbed up the stairs to his office.

He sat down on a big, cushy leather armchair behind a big mahogany desk, and then raised his hand over his head. A book from the adjacent bookshelf flew out on its own into the vampire's grasp.

The Boss laid the book open on his lap and slowly flipped through the pages. In the book were photos from the Boss's past, when he was still a kid. He was suddenly in the mood to think about long ago.

The pictures in the book started with him as a boy with a bunch of friends. The Head Magus was there as well, but there was also a werewolf boy, a werelion girl, another human girl, and a human boy. A few pages later, he and those friends became teenagers, but there were fewer of them now and their smiles had become less bright. 

By himself,  full of melancholy, the present day Boss muttered, "The Shadow Civil War, huh? Sure brings back memories. Not very fond ones."

The sun set behind him, causing a shadow to shroud his whole face in darkness. 

<== Chapter 4                                                                                  Chapter 6 ==>