Flipping the Bird (Shift Creek #1) - Carrie Pulkinen Page 0,6
lifting its paws, its mouth open to reveal massive teeth made from… Wait a minute…
“You said you were going to return the trap to the farm.” Alice lifted a brow accusingly. “We don’t make art from stolen goods.”
“I did return it.” She traced a finger along the metal teeth. “I disassembled it before leaving it by the chicken coop, but all the parts were there. I can’t help it if Farmer Tucker is too bird-brained to put it back together.”
“Watch it, trash panda. There’s nothing diminutive about a bird’s brain.”
Megan lifted her hands. “Sorry. Anyway, he threw it out, which made it fair game. Just like your new necklace.”
Alice gripped the pendant she’d plucked from Mr. Hottie’s trash can last night. “Well, if you promise he’d discarded it…” Who was she to judge?
The amulet consisted of a two-inch cylindrical green crystal. One end was nestled inside a beat-up, dark gray metal hood, which hung from a long, tarnished chain, and the other end had a chunk missing from the stone as if it had been carelessly dropped on the concrete.
She’d cleaned it up, attempting to polish the metal, but whatever it was made of, it refused to shine. The wealthy Mr. Drake probably thought it clashed with his pristine aesthetic, so he tossed it. Alice, on the other hand, found beauty in imperfection, and this clunky piece of jewelry called to her.
The tinkling of bells signaled a customer had entered, and Megan turned to her. “What do we sell?”
“Functional, quirky home aesthetics and gifts.” Because actually calling their art art either made people scoff or feel like they couldn’t appreciate it. “Let’s sell some A-R-T.”
Donovan Drake settled into a wrought-iron chair on the coffee shop sidewalk. After setting his iced latté on the table, he situated his tan leather satchel on the chair next to him and gazed out into the square.
Shift Creek was a quaint town, charming with its little shops and their cheerfully painted storefronts. An old-timey general store occupied the space next to the coffee shop, and an eclectic art gallery stood across the square. He’d passed an elementary school on his way into town with a well-kept wooden playground surrounded by a fence. It was the perfect place to raise a functional family. Functional being the keyword there.
He could understand why his father had chosen to move. To be taken seriously in black-market magic, warlocks had to make a name for themselves in large cities. But why the man had kept this place secret from Donovan and his brothers, he wasn’t sure. A magical creek ran through the town. A creek with supernatural healing properties…a possible way to fix his broken magic…yet his father never spoke of it. It was like the man didn’t want Donovan to be a warlock.
He didn’t, you bastard. He didn’t even want you. His jaw clenched at the thought. His father was dead now, so it didn’t matter what Marcus Rainecourt wanted.
As he unlocked the satchel and folded back the flap, a cloud of funk that smelled like a cross between hard-boiled eggs and microwaved broccoli assaulted his senses. He leaned back, wrinkling his nose and fanning the air as his familiar poked his head from the bag.
“For Christ’s sake, Martin, are you trying to kill yourself? Next time, wait until you have some ventilation before you let one rip.” Donovan had just given the mongoose a bath last night, after a crow took revenge on him for his attack. Now his fur would smell like fart for at least the next six hours.
“What?” The mongoose lifted his nose, sniffing the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
Donovan shook his head and pulled a journal from the satchel, fanning it to the side to remove the stench before setting it on the table. “Maybe another trip to the vet is in order? This much gas can’t be normal.”
“You’re joking, right?” Marty climbed onto the table, sitting upright and wiping his face with his paws. “Last time I went to the vet, they poked a plastic stick up my ass for no reason.”
“They were checking you for worms, Martin.” He opened the journal and unfolded a yellowing sheet of paper, gazing at the script handwriting. A family tree dating back to the early eighteen-hundreds cascaded down the page. It was left to him along with the deed to the manor here. Why, he had no clue.
“I don’t have worms.” Marty inched toward him, resting his paws on the journal. “And you only call me