The Vanity Case (Sondra Blake Book 1) Read online

  The Vanity Case

  A Sondra Blake Mystery

  By Niall Teasdale

  Copyright 2018 Niall Teasdale

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  Contents

  Part One: Sondra

  Part Two: The Newbie

  Part Three: Spotlight

  Part Four: Fairies and Orcs and Demons, Oh My!

  Part Five: Vanity

  Part Six: CYA

  Part One: Sondra

  New York, NY, 3rd February 2017.

  The sun had set not long ago and the canyons of New York City were swimming in the last of the light. Sondra pulled the collar of her coat up and walked down 1st Avenue past the Starbucks on the corner of East 13th Street and then across to the small supermarket which took up the ground floor of her apartment block.

  ‘Hey, Georgie,’ she called out as she walked in.

  Behind the counter, George Wickerman smiled and gave Sondra a wave. ‘Sondra. Hi.’ He was a small man with grey in his hair, and he was dressed in the blue apron he always seemed to wear. Sondra had entertained the notion that he slept in the thing. ‘How’s the weather?’

  ‘It’s colder than a witch’s tit out there.’

  ‘Ha! You’d know.’

  Walking behind a display to get to the racks of vegetables, Sondra shuddered as the warmer air of the shop began to soak into her. ‘Yeah, I need a thicker coat.’ Picking up a cabbage, she pressed it lightly with her fingers. ‘Or a warming charm.’

  ‘Got some with the other weather–’

  Sondra frowned as Wickerman’s voice cut off. In the silence she could just hear heavy footfalls on the linoleum floor over the rush-hour traffic noise. Her shoulders sagged as a sinking feeling began to seep in. The sound of a voice from the counter area just confirmed what she had suspected.

  ‘Stupid tikuguk, open the till or we fold him in half.’ The voice was not only thick and brutish, but the vowels were murdered by the pair of tusks sticking out of the mouth that formed them. Orcs were not actually stupid, but they sounded as though they were. Well, orcs were no more stupid than your average human, but there were always exceptions.

  Stepping around a shelving unit laden with tinned goods, Sondra put a smile on her face and checked out the scene. Two orcs, one over seven feet in height, the other a few inches shorter, were standing in front of the counter and a cowering Wickerman. Both had greenish skin – orcs ranged from grey to dull green – and their tusks suggested they were likely late teens, not quite at full length. The colours they were wearing suggested they were from the Red Skulls, one of the newer gangs out of Orctown. They were big, heavily muscled, and thuggish.

  Sondra absently tossed the cabbage she was holding into the air and caught it. ‘You boys have got to be kidding.’ Spreading her legs a little, she cocked her hip and rested her free hand on it, once again tossing and catching the cabbage. ‘Do you have even the smallest notion of how much trouble you’re in?’

  The orcs turned and glared at her. The taller one looked pleased with what he was seeing, but the shorter one developed a look of horror and switched to the guttural sounds of Orcish. ‘Leo, that’s Sondra Blake. We should–’

  ‘We’re never going to get anywhere in the gang if we can’t even rob a market!’ the taller one replied. ‘KonTash doesn’t want a couple of konChakVa with him. Who the snUf is Sondra Blake?’

  ‘NYPD,’ Sondra said. ‘Arcane Crimes Unit. I have plans for tonight, boys. Please don’t make me do the paperwork.’

  ‘We’re not using magic,’ the taller one said.

  ‘The operative part was “NYPD.” If you’re going to try to rob a store right in front of any cop… Well, you’re just living up to stereotypes and we don’t want that, do we?’

  ‘Back off, tikuguk, or–’ He cut off as Sondra threw the cabbage at his head. The vegetable hit home, snapping the orc’s head back before bouncing away. A shred of cabbage leaf was left stuck on the man’s left tusk and blood began to leak out of his nose.

  There was a brief instant where the bigger orc seemed to be having trouble figuring out what had just happened. Then he let out a roar of anger and stepped toward Sondra, but she had not expected thrown produce to do more than surprise him and she was ready. His swung punch whisked over her head as she pulled something from her pocket and crushed it against his chest. He let out a strangled squawk of a noise and Sondra had to dodge out of the way as his weight carried him forward to land in the aisle beside the tinned goods.

  Sondra looked around at the second orc. ‘Don’t,’ she began, and he bolted for the door. Sondra’s shoulders sagged. ‘Run,’ she finished and, giving a weary look to Wickerman, she jogged out onto the street to see the orc rushing north up 1st, stupidly trying to run toward home. He was smashing people aside as he ran and causing no end of disruption.

  Sighing, Sondra pulled her revolver from under her coat, cracked it open, and pulled one of the bullets out, dropping it into a pocket. Another bullet was drawn from an inside pocket and slotted in place. ‘Police!’ she yelled as she took aim. ‘Stop, or I shoot.’ He was still running and she squeezed the trigger, the bullet clipping his side and probably doing no real damage given his thick skin. That did not matter, however, as the bullet delivered the same spell she had used on his friend. He twisted as the paralysis charm took hold, slamming into the sidewalk with his right shoulder and then just lying there, unmoving.

  ‘Stupid orcs,’ she muttered under her breath and then ducked back into the shop. ‘Call the precinct, Georgie. Tell them I’m here. I need to go take care of the other one.’

  ‘What about…’ Wickerman waved at the fallen body in the aisles.

  ‘Oh, he’ll be lying there for another thirty minutes or so. Plenty of time.’ She turned to walk down the street and watch over the second orc, muttering as she did so. ‘Damn waste of a Friday night this is going to be.’

  ~~~

  It was nine by the time she got all the paperwork wrapped with the 9th Precinct team who came to pick up the orcs. Sondra could have gone home again immediately, but she knew she would have to see her boss about the arrests at some point and, if he was still in, it might as well be now.

  So, she walked out of the precinct building, turning left and then walking in through the doors of the Arcane Crimes Unit. Spell detection charms set over the doors shone red, but they were ignored as the sergeant at the reception desk saw who it was. Everyone in Arcane knew Sondra.

  ‘Dickerson still here?’ she asked.

  ‘In his office.’

  ‘Thanks, Moynihan.’ Sondra walked through as he buzzed the door open for her, and then turned right to the elevator. Captain Clement Dickerson’s office was up on the top floor and she did not feel like walking. As she rode up, she pulled a new cherry-flavoured lollipop from her coat pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. The doors opened and she marched out, turning right toward Dickerson’s office.

  Thankfully, there was no sign of Dickerson’s secretary in the outer office; the woman seemed to have a solid dislike of Sondra for reasons the detective preferred never to discover. The lights were off, but there was a pool of illumination coming out under the inner door. Walking across to it, Sondra knocked twice.

  ‘Come in, Sondra,’ came through the door and she stepped inside. Dickerson had a voice to go with his build: solid. He was a barrel-chested man in his late forties with a few grey hairs showing amid the brown, regulation cut. His jaw was solid and his skin still tight except where the worry lines showed across his brow and around his eyes. He rode a desk these days, but he had been a good cop before his promotion. His grey eyes lifted to look at her and then back to the paperw
ork he was going over.

  ‘You heard about the orcs?’ she asked, coming to a stop in front of his desk in a sort of lackadaisical parade rest.

  ‘Got a call from next door about thirty minutes ago. You just happened to be there? It’s not an Arcane case.’

  ‘They decided to rob the store at the bottom of my building,’ Sondra said, letting her exasperation colour her tone on purpose. ‘While I was in it. Two Red Skulls newbies trying to prove themselves. Neither of them was very bright, but still.’

  Dickerson gave a grunt. It was hard to tell if it was acknowledgement of stupidity or displeasure at something. ‘The orc gangs are getting overconfident. We may be dragged into some operation to beat them down if this continues.’

  ‘That’s not what Arcane was created for. We’re not equipped to–’ She cut herself off. She was preaching to the converted. ‘Sorry, sir. Shit like that annoys me.’

  ‘Welcome to my life.’ His gaze lifted and he scanned his eyes up her body. ‘You might as well go home and try to get whatever you can out of your Friday night.’

  Sondra worked her lollipop over to the other side of her mouth. ‘You should do the same. You’ve got a wife to go home to.’

  ‘Madelaine knows how it is,’ Dickerson said on a sigh. ‘I promised her she’d get me tomorrow. All day. No interruptions.’ He pointed his pen at the detective. ‘So, don’t uncover anything I have to be interrupted for.’

  ‘Me? I’m going to spend all day in bed.’

  4th February.

  She did not, in fact, spend the day in bed. Having got a good night’s sleep – not a sure thing when you were a cop – under her belt, Sondra had decided to check her charms and potions, and had then spent most of the day in her workroom making things she thought she was getting short on.

  Her apartment was not huge, but it had a lounge, small kitchen, moderate bathroom, and two bedrooms. She had converted the smaller bedroom into her workroom not long after moving into the place in November of 1975. It hummed with the magic worked in it for four decades, which made it easier to work more magic in it. The whole of the East Village was attuned to magic now, having become the hub of magical life in Manhattan in the sixties, but the workroom was her space, attuned to her energy. She felt comfortable working there.

  Emerging after finishing up her enchantments, she discovered that the sun was setting and she had missed lunch. Her stomach announced that, now that she was no longer focused on the routine intricacies of common magic, it wanted to be fed, so she set to work in the kitchen.

  She had basically missed the entire day, but that did not bother her. She enjoyed the work. Her job was often paperwork intermixed with sudden moments of danger, but making charms was something routine which constantly tested her skills, and required precise action and concentration. When policework was not chasing down orcs or capturing rogue magicians, it tended to be mind-numbingly boring. And she had managed to get around to making a warming charm. Still, she had spent the entire day in one room. Tonight, she would go out.

  She washed the dishes before leaving the kitchen. Sondra was not the best of cooks; she had learned through experimentation to make potions that did not taste of old socks and ashes, but she had never managed to turn the ability into especially palatable food. She had made mac and cheese tonight, and she always produced something edible and even pleasing when she did, but she also always ended up with burnt cheese sauce on the pan. It took a little effort to get it off, but there were some things she refused to use magic for.

  With that done, she headed back to her bedroom, past the workroom and bathroom, to decide on her outfit for the night. The T-shirt and worn jeans she had been wearing all day were discarded before she began leafing through her wardrobe for something which was sexy, but not overly so; she was going out to a pub she liked, not a dance club. Something that would work for her if she needed it to: you never knew who you might meet on a night out.

  Objectively, Sondra had plenty to work with. She was quite tall at five-feet-eleven, but then her father had been a giant of a man and her mother had been far from short. Her skin was the colour of dark mahogany, smooth as silk, and stretched over a firmly muscled, fit, curvy body. She had inherited her mother’s smoothly curved, pointed, double-D breasts, though not her long, delicate fingers, which had vaguely annoyed the younger Sondra. Her face was sort of a heart shape with high cheekbones and a pointed chin. Her nose was quite broad, but it was also quite petite and rather cute, and she had full lips with a vague tendency toward pouting. High, arched brows sat over eyes which were more amber than hazel. She kept her hair short in a sort of pixy cut which was longer on the right, covering her ear and straying over her eyes when not controlled. She was beautiful – people who had not been trying to ingratiate themselves to her had said so – and she knew she was, but she only allowed it to really show when she was off-duty.

  Selecting a bronze shift-dress which complemented her skin well and showed off her long legs, she stripped off her bra and put it on. There were some matching high-heeled sandals which would make her legs longer and push her to over six feet. It was not exactly the most appropriate of outfits for the weather, but she had her new warming charm waiting. With that on she would be comfortable at well below freezing, even without a coat.

  Fully dressed and with makeup applied, she checked herself out in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door and nodded to herself. Good enough. Stopping off in her workroom to invoke and put on the warming charm – attached to a charm bracelet she habitually wore – and knock back the strawberry-flavoured contraceptive potion she had brewed, Sondra set out for a night on the town.

  ~~~

  Heady Brew was not exactly a family-run pub. The interior theme was dark woods and booths with bench seats packed in tightly, but there was also a long, saloon-style bar which was where Sondra preferred to sit when she was drinking alone. The rear of the place was a microbrewery and, in keeping with the area, it made a number of different beers with names based around witches or magic.

  Walking in, Sondra felt the heat of the place soak into her and considered taking off her charm, but the coat would go first. Unbuttoning it, she slipped it off her shoulders and wrapped it over her arm. Then she set off for the bar, hips swinging, and her eyes pointedly not going anywhere near the appreciative looks she got from various other patrons. There was laughter coming from the back somewhere, but she ignored that too.

  Behind the polished bar, Walt Simons looked up and then followed her motion toward him, a slight smile on his face. Walt owned the place, but he worked behind the bar most nights. He was a little shorter than Sondra, with dark hair and brown eyes, and a comfortably handsome sort of face. He was a witch, and Sondra had a suspicion that some of his ‘special’ brews were made with special ingredients and the odd ritual, but there was nothing illegal about that so long as it was kept within bounds. He also had a habit of hiring blonde, leggy wait staff, but after a couple of years of coming to the place, Sondra had decided he was not even aware that he did it.

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ Walt asked as Sondra lifted herself onto a stool.

  She jangled the charm on her wrist. ‘Made it this afternoon. It’ll keep me toasty all week. Maybe things’ll be a little warmer by then.’

  ‘Some chance. Usual?’ Sondra nodded a reply, opening her clutch purse for cash, and Walt reached for a glass. A second later he was drawing out a pint of wheat beer from a pump with a little sign on the front that had a sexy witch in a red dress and red pointy hat on it. The beer was called Cherry Witch. It sort of made sense. ‘Heard about the orcs yesterday,’ Walt said as he put her drink down in front of her.

  ‘Huh. I’d have been here last night if they hadn’t butted in.’

  ‘You should thank them. They did your liver a favour.’

  ‘Har de har har. I hate paperwork.’

  ‘Probably shouldn’t have become a cop then.’

  Sondra just gave a grunt of a reply and her
attention turned to a tall man who was walking up to stand at the bar not far from her. He was big, thickly muscled, and broad in the chest. The tight red T-shirt he was wearing looked like he had needed a shoehorn to get into it. His head was bald, but that looked good on him, and his dark skin shone in the overhead lights. His eyes flicked to her and a smile shifted over his face before he remembered why he was there and turned to Walt.

  ‘Can we get another two pitchers?’ the man asked, holding out a handful of bills.

  ‘Coming right up,’ Walt replied, turning to fill the order.

  The man turned back to Sondra, his smile returning. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello to you,’ Sondra replied, returning his smile.

  ‘Uh, I’m Grant. Grant Henderson.’

  ‘Sondra.’ She held out a hand and he took it. Her fingers seemed to vanish into his as he shook with a gentleness she thought was probably forced. He was strong, powerful, and used to people wincing when he gripped their hand too hard.

  His eyes narrowed and his lips quirked as his smile turned quizzical. ‘Sondra Blake?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Oh, man. That’s amazing. You have got to come over and meet the others. I mean, all the notes I’ve read on you and ACU.’

  Sondra frowned. ‘Notes?’

  ‘We’re here doing a movie. Uh, the new Dillan Archer movie. He’s playing an ACU detective hunting down a coven of demon summoners. I just do stunts, but they needed a few more extras in the bullpen scenes, so I got to read the briefing notes.’

  ‘Right.’ Sondra recalled reading something about a film crew working street scenes in various locations for the next few weeks. ‘Yeah, I read something about that. But the first thing you should know is that we don’t call it ACU. It’s the Arcane Crimes Unit, or just Arcane.’

  Grant’s face fell a little. ‘Oh. That wasn’t in the notes.’

  Sondra grinned at him. ‘Don’t think your average action movie audience member is going to care.’

  ‘Maybe not. The others would love to meet you.’