Happy Endings Read online

  Happy Endings

  Alice Winters

  Happy Endings © 2017 by Alice Winters. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Cate Ashwood Designs

  Edited by Lori Parks

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Alice Winters

  Visit my website at www.alicewintersauthor.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: Dec 2017

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  My day’s been going pretty smoothly. I haven’t had any interruptions, and I just picked up a really good book on the various ways people have failed at summoning demons. It’s always fun to laugh at the failures of others.

  Or at least it was going smoothly until I sense someone heading toward my store who I’ve never met before. Which probably means that I don’t want to meet them. With my finger, I draw the sign of Illusion on my left hand and then on my right, and with just a thought, I throw an illusion on myself. The illusion allows me to disguise my actual features and make me appear to be something different to the viewer. No longer do I look like the twenty-six-year-old man I am with dark brown hair, longer on the top, and dark blue eyes, instead, I now appear to be a person a little more appropriate for screwing with someone.

  An eighty-four-year-old woman.

  People automatically react to an older woman much differently than they would to a guy in their twenties, so I feel like it’s an appropriate illusion.

  The door dings as it is pushed open, and two men walk in, instantly looking around. One is a man in his thirties, who appears to be Latino with dark hair that’s cut short. His dark brown eyes turn right to me as I watch him. The man next to him is older, with light brown hair and blue eyes and seems much more confident in the way he moves up to the desk. They reek of cop long before they pull their badges out.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” the older man says. See? Instant respect. “My name is Detective Ian Smith.”

  “Detective Sam Diaz,” the younger one says as they both show me their badges. “We are looking for a man named… what was that name again?”

  Ian pulls out a paper. “Milliant Sh… Sha… Shiv… voldeshve?” he asks, completely butchering the name.

  “Milliant Shavoldeshve?” I ask, pronouncing it correctly.

  “Yes,” he says. “Can we speak with him?”

  I shake my head and realize that an even better idea is being a half-deaf older lady. “Who? Millie’s gotta shave?” I ask, pretending that I didn’t just correctly pronounce the name a moment ago.

  “You just said his name correctly for us.”

  “Who?”

  “Milliant. We’re here to show him a message.”

  “A massage! Oh! Yes!” I say, and realize that I am too bored to not have fun with these guys. “You’re here for a massage?”

  “No, we need to speak to Milliant Shavoldeshve,” Sam says sternly.

  I shake my head. “Hmm… no, no. We give massages. We don’t give Milliants. Just massages.”

  “We were told to find him here. Could you tell us who he is?” Ian asks.

  “What? Could I tell you about what? About the massage? Normal massage… OH!” I make my eyes super wide. “I know what you young’uns want. Happy endings!” I declare eagerly.

  “Is there prostitution going on here?” Sam asks as he looks at me in alarm.

  “No! No! No one’s getting prosecuted! Just massages! Massages and happy endings,” I say.

  “Yes, ‘happy ending’ is an act of prostitution,” Sam says. “And it’s illegal. So, unless you want us to report you, you’ll need to tell us who the man we are looking for is.”

  “No, of course not! There are no prosthetics!” I wave at my chest where my breasts hang low. “Alllllll real!” I say. “Wanna feel?”

  “Prostitution. A happy ending is…”

  Ian then proceeds to mimic someone getting jerked off, and I have to try my hardest not to laugh.

  I mimic the motion. “What? You boys and your lingo! I’ll cut you a deal. Twenty dollars. Happy ending is forty.”

  “She claims it’s not prostitution but continues to try to sell it to us!” Ian says to Sam. They are both watching me in exasperation, and I’m loving every moment of it. It’s not often I get to screw around with people like this.

  “Hmm… hold please!” I hold up a finger in front of their faces to emphasize that I want them to wait a moment, then I pull open the door behind me. “Yoko-chan! Yoko-chan!”

  Yoko walks through the door, looks at me and then at the two men as she raises an eyebrow. She’s clearly confused but is smart enough to figure out that the person behind the illusion is me.

  “Police officer. Happy ending,” I say.

  “Me?” she asks pointing at herself. Yoko is a gorgeous Japanese woman in her mid-twenties. To help pay for her schooling as a witch, she has been working for me for two years. Her long black hair falls around her face, her pale skin highlighting her rich brown eyes. She’s wearing dark blue skinny jeans and an oversized t-shirt from a band she went to see a week ago. She is supposed to be in uniform while working with the customers, but she seems to think that everything in her wardrobe is uniform material.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “No!” the officer says, alarmed.

  “He want you,” Yoko says, quickly picking up a horrid accent, even though she was born and raised right here.

  “No. Silly little lass. Strip,” I order with a very stern voice. I roll up a magazine and jab it at her for emphasis.

  “For my family!” she cries as she picks up her shirt and starts pulling it off.

  “No! Stop! Please. We are just looking for a man named Milliant Shavoldeshve,” Sam says, sounding very exasperated.

  “Strip, whore, strip!” I say as I begin beating her with the magazine. “She likes it! I promise!”

  “Please, no!” Sam says as he looks at Ian in alarm

  “Virgin,” I say to the detectives who are losing their minds. “Unless you want someone more experienced!” I cup a hand over my mouth and lean into him. “I have lots of experience.” Sam is trying to calm Yoko, and Ian is trying to get her to put her shirt back on while Yoko cries.

  I pull out my phone and snap a picture of him with his hands on her shirt and Yoko wearing just a bra. “Souvenir!”

  “Oh god. No. Delete that,” Sam says, now flustered.

  I pull my phone back before he can grab it.

  “Delete that picture,” he says.

  “No. If you leave, the picture will be deleted. If you come back, the picture will ruin your lives,” I threaten.

  “We’re leaving,” Ian says as he hurriedly backs to the door before slipping through it. Sam quickly follows while mutterin
g something about me being crazy.

  “Yay! Happy ending!” I say.

  Yoko bursts out laughing as she pulls her shirt down. “What the hell was that?”

  “That, my sweetheart, is how you get people to leave,” I say as I drop the illusion on myself and pick my book back up.

  She laughs harder as she shakes her head. “What happens when they come with a warrant for your arrest?”

  “And when they walk through and see it’s a coffee shop, what are they going to do?”

  “That’s true,” she says. “I better get paid overtime for that.”

  “Just take it out of all the money you owe me for ‘borrowing’ supplies and never returning them.”

  “Why do you have such a good memory?”

  “A gift, my dear,” I say as I pick my book up and continue reading.

  ***

  You have to be kidding. They’re coming back? Maybe they’re masochists. That could be the only reason, right?

  I throw on an illusion of a super busty, blonde female who barely looks legal. The door dings as the two men and Ravera, a competitor in the charms department, walks in.

  That bitch sold me out. I should have guessed it was her.

  “Happy, happy endings!” I shout as they walk in.

  Of course she told them. She’d sell out her own children to get the law on her side so when she does shitty things, they’ll look the other way. No wonder why they’re sniffing around here. I should’ve known she was the one behind this.

  “Massage?” I ask. “New special! Happy, happy ending!”

  “You sure this is the place?” Sam asks desperately.

  “Yes. Can we talk to Milliant?” she asks.

  “Ahh! Yes, yes! One moment, please!” I say.

  I walk through the door into the café where people are enjoying their beverages in peace. It is a small café tucked back, out of sight and out of mind, just how I like it. The tables are full enough just by word of mouth.

  Right inside the door, a woman is sitting at a table working on a novel she has been writing for years. I just pray she doesn’t force me to read it like the last one she wrote. I had to spell my eyes open just to stay awake. But it’s the cat curled up on the table that I’m more interested in.

  “Hey, it’s Miles. Can I borrow your familiar?” I ask since I still have the illusion on.

  The witch looks up at me in surprise. “Hey, Miles… um… what for?”

  The cat in question opens his eyes and looks at me curiously as I try to think of how to explain the situation. “I would like to scare a rat.”

  She looks at me in confusion, but she knows I wouldn’t harm the creature, so she nods slowly. The hesitation probably has to do with me being a mage who could incinerate a rat with just a glance.

  I pick him up, and cradling him in my arm, I carry him into the front room and set him on the desk. “Milliant!”

  They all stare at the cat as they try to figure out if it’s really the “Milliant” they’re searching for. He stands up, stretches, and then meows rather loudly. I’m sure it is some kind of complaint since his sleep has been interrupted.

  The back door opens, and a large man comes in from the café. Seeing an escape, the cat jumps off the counter and slips through the open door. “Hey…” He looks between me and the others, then to the cat disappearing into the café. “Uh…” Baron is easily six foot six and stocky. He doesn’t have an ounce of fat on him, and I swear his muscles have muscles. He looks like he could snap a man in half, but he is easily the nicest person I know. I still can’t fathom how he became alpha of a nearby werewolf pack. I can’t see him fighting for any position. He probably won it by using the power of kindness.

  “These people want you to give them a happy ending,” I say.

  “Like…” he points to his groin. “Happy ending?”

  “Yes. Happy ending.”

  “No, we don’t. We are looking for a man named Milliant,” Ian says.

  “Who the heck is Milliant?” he asks as he looks at me in confusion. Poor simple Baron. “Is that even a name? Who would name their child that?”

  My mother.

  “Milliant, this isn’t funny. We know he’s here. Are you him?” Ravera asks as she eyes Baron skeptically.

  “You don’t know what he looks like?” Sam asks Ravera.

  “He’s a mage. He can use an illusion. I’m sure he sensed us coming miles away and put on an illusion, but I’ll show you the sure-fire way to find out,” Ravera says as she comes over to my side of the table.

  She walks up to Baron and looks him in the eye and then walks over to me. I’m not quite sure what she thinks she’s doing, since there’s no way for anyone to see through my illusion, but she walks up very close and looks at me. Then goes to knee me in the crotch. I jerk back and cup my groin instinctively.

  “This is him. No woman is so quick to protect her crotch,” she says.

  I laugh. “Ravera, Ravera, why?” I ask.

  “Because they told me they’d look the other way with my little…project if I sold you out,” she says.

  “Of course you did,” I say.

  “Drop that illusion, I don’t like being the second prettiest in the room,” she says.

  “Even if I drop it, you still are,” I joke. “We can clearly see that the title goes to Baron.”

  “Huh?” Baron asks as he looks at me.

  I ignore him and turn back to Ravera. “So, what do you guys want so badly?”

  “Wait… you were the older lady yesterday?” Ian asks.

  “I was,” I say as I shift my illusion to her.

  “Why couldn’t you just help us?” Sam asks.

  “Honestly, I want nothing to do with either of you,” I admit as I drop all illusions.

  They look at me in even more surprise than before. “What?” I ask.

  “You’re a lot younger than I expected. With all the prestige your name has riding on it, I assumed you were older,” Sam says.

  “Don’t let him fool you, he’s older than he lets anyone believe,” Ravera says.

  “Uh… boss, I had a customer ask for some Vil Greens in their tea,” Baron says, remembering that he is supposed to be in the kitchen.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  “Terrance.”

  “Uh… yeah, teaspoon, no more,” I say.

  “Thanks,” he says as he passes through the door.

  “So, what’s up?” I ask, knowing that I might as well relent and give them what they want so they can be on their way.

  “We need a document read, and Ravera believes that only you can read it,” Sam says as he hands it to me. It’s an old, yellowed letter written in a foreign language. I take it carefully, curious if it would crumble to ashes if I moved it too quickly.

  I scan over the paper as everyone watches me. “Oh… oh my god…” My eyes continue to move over it. “Oh... Eh! No! NO!”

  “What does it say?” Ian asks eagerly. Everyone leans forward, and Ravera looks down at the document expectantly.

  I look up at him. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I ask. “I mean… this could change everything.”

  “Please, just tell us what it says,” Sam requests.

  “I don’t know, I can’t read it,” I admit.

  “What? You mean we went through all of this, and you can’t even read it?” Sam asks sounding irritated.

  “Correct,” I reply as I pass the paper back to him.

  “I’m sure you have a way to decrypt it,” Ravera says stubbornly.

  I look at her expectantly. “Why? Things like this are sometimes best left alone. So why should I worry about it? I need a reason.”

  The detectives look at each other for a moment and think about it.

  “You have no reason not to tell him,” Ravera says. “You can trust him.”

  “A man named Ether West was killed two days ago, and this note was left on his chest. The key to figuring out his murder could be written in that document.
”

  “Ether West was killed nine days ago,” I say as I watch them closely. This may go deeper than I thought or want to deal with.

  “What are you talking about? His body was found two days ago, and his autopsy report states that he died that day,” Sam says. “And how do you know about his death? Nothing has been made public.”

  I shrug. Clearly, he doesn’t understand my position in this city. “I know everything that goes on in this city. A familiar told me that Ether West was killed nine days ago. The body most likely appears to have died only two days ago to hide the tracks of the killer. A simple spell really, to preserve the dead.”

  “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

  I shrug. “Why draw suspicion onto myself? He was already dead. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I kind of like staying under the radar.”

  “This was not the first murder. There were fifteen deaths in various districts at the same time.”

  Now, that isn’t what I was expecting to hear. Maybe I should stick my nose into this a bit. “Intriguing. You have spiked my interest. Do you have a list of the deceased?”

  “I do,” Sam says as he pulls the paper out and hands it to me.

  “This is completely confidential,” Ian informs me before Sam lets go of the paper.

  “Understood.” I set it on the desk and read through the list of deceased. I recognize all the names, but I don’t know them very well. “This is quite interesting.”

  “You know any of them?” Sam asks.

  “I know all of them, though not well,” I say. “Just in passing or by name.”

  “Can you think of anything that connects them? Or think of why they were targeted?”

  “Let’s figure out what this letter says. Where exactly did it come from? You said you found it on Ether West, but where?”

  “It was folded up inside his pocket.”

  “Interesting,” I say. “Alright, come along.”

  I pull open the door and step into the café that I run. It’s mostly open to people with abilities or half-humans. There are some regular humans who show up, but they have to be fine with everyone because in here, no one has to hide who they are. Along the walls are shelves with books, charms, and potions that I also sell. Some of which I made, some that Yoko made. The two detectives look around curiously, and Ravera immediately tries touching a locket that’s sitting on a shelf.