Eine Kleine Nacht Maggie (Maggie MacKay Magical Tracker Book 9) Read online

  "Thanks," I replied. "You're too kind."

  As he walked away I leaned across the table. "You made me pretend like I was going to get a job in medical transcription."

  But Killian wasn't paying attention to me. He was staring strangely at one of the dishes. "What is that?"

  "Spam."

  "Is it meat?"

  "Not really."

  The sight of our food seemed to sap the last bit of fight out of him. He slumped back in his seat. "We did not achieve our goal today," Killian noted. "The financial burden of this meal alone shall become mighty."

  "It's a lunch. We'll figure it out," I remarked digging into the spam since he wasn't going for it. I realized Killian had probably not spent many days when he didn't have open access to the coffers of the elfin kingdom to acquire whatever he needed. Me? I had grown up on the wrong side of the border my whole life and times were always tough, so I didn't freak out too much when it was time to tighten ye olde belt down a notch. But I appreciated his mindfulness.

  He gazed up at the ceiling and sighed. "I should take that job," Killian mused.

  "The one at Little Bavaria working in the vampire tent? No, Killian, that would be dumb. Let's go get you a job at In-n-Out Burger. Great wages and health insurance. And no vampires."

  "But do you not see?" Killian asked, spreading his hands out like he suddenly figured out the big picture. "There is a reason why the job I chose was at Little Bavaria. There is a reason Trovac sent us to seek out the cuckoo clock. There are humans in danger and just because there are no official organizations anymore to handle the matter does not absolve us from our sacred duty to protect the Earth."

  "Mmmm..." I said, stabbing some of the fluffy pineapple cake trying very hard not to give credence to Killian's hypothesis.

  "Even though I can no longer feel the connections, everything is connected, down to your mother foreseeing she needed to be in that shop at that particular moment—" Killian once more held up the bag she had given him. "—and knowing I need a neckguard."

  I pointed my fork at him. "I just want to state for the record it is your idea we even consider diving back into that den of trouble."

  Killian shrugged and took a bite of my cake. "It is the job, Maggie. It is the reason why we formed The M-Team in the first place, to aid those in trouble. If we do not solve this problem now, it will balloon. And I know from working with you that if there is trouble, it will eventually gravitate towards you and then we shall have to deal with it when it becomes a world-ending prospect, as opposed to an over-attended vampire bar."

  I took a deep breath. When the elf was right, he was right. "Well, we at least have an inkling of what's going on over there. It isn't just a case of some vampires sucking some Germans dry. It's much, much bigger than that. We've got werepires and Bringers of Light and a house-sized cuckoo clock and... well... You're right. We can't turn our backs on that."

  Killian sighed. "No. We can't."

  We sat in silence together, mulling over the implications of the decision we were both arriving at. "Just think," I offered. "Perhaps in Human Studies 401 some elfin exchange student will be studying you."

  "That would be nice." A little twinkle came back to his eyes at the thought of making the history books. He then deflated again. "I wish the World Walkers were still here."

  "But they aren't."

  "We could call in your father and some of the World Walkers here on Earth....?"

  "Dad swears he's retiring. And we can't let anyone see you who might know who you are."

  "SO it is down to us then to save the world, is it?" he asked glumly, picking apart his sweet roll.

  "Again."

  Chapter Eight

  We stood at the check-in counter of the hotel, arms filled with the bags my mom had given us and some new clothes we picked up from the Target down the street.

  "Back again?" asked the merry little man. Gustav gave us a knowing smile. "Oktoberfest is always a wonderful time for Other Siders."

  "Just couldn't keep away!" I replied, trying to resist the urge to shout at him there was a vampire bloodbath going on in his Oktoberfest tent and he was a nutcase for putting Other Siders in there without warning. Except we needed his job.

  Killian squared his shoulders. "We, both of us, would be most appreciative of that opportunity for employment," Killian stated.

  Gustav's smile widened. "Both of you? You attended the Oktoberfest festivities and are still interested?" he confirmed.

  Killian took a great big breath and then spoke. "Yes. We are fully aware of the evening activities in the tent and we would be interested in acquiring positions, in refuse management or beverage disbursement."

  "Good, good... Maude and Kevin..." Gustav replied, rubbing his hands together. "I am most pleased to have such hearty souls as yourselves aboard."

  "The thing is," I added, "We're not exactly from around here and we'd love to get two rooms. Immediately. As opposed to two weeks down the road as you mentioned in the interview."

  Gustav was getting my drift. "You shall have to pay for them."

  I quickly did the math on how much money we'd be making if we could figure out how to get the cuckoo clock over to the Other Side. Maybe I could just open up a portal and drop the whole building through. But if we could get this evil dealt with in the next few days, we could possibly break even. After that, I was going to have to write this expedition off as charity. "Happy to stay for the next two weeks as regular guests," I confirmed. "Do you have an employee discount? Weekly rate?"

  He squinted at his computer monitor. The system didn't look like it had been upgraded since construction either. "We only have one room."

  "With two beds?"

  "I'm afraid that we only have a king."

  Killian could see me wavering and felt the need to drop in the statement, "A bed for a king seems fitting."

  "You're going to need a bed that size for your ego," I replied. I turned back to the little man. "Do you have a roll away?"

  "All spoken for."

  "Air mattress?"

  "You might try the Bed, Bath, and Beyond down the road."

  "Couch cushions?"

  "There are plenty of other establishments if this does not meet with your approval," he huffed, getting the slightest bit snippy at all my extravagant requests.

  "I'm a modest young thing," I replied, earning myself a good glance up and down from the proprietor.

  "We shall take the room," replied Killian, putting some gold on the counter.

  At the sight of the elfin coin, the little man's eyes lit up. "Well! In coin! I'm not sure if I have enough change in my vault for a budget room paid with elfin coin. Allow me to see if I have something better to offer you!" His fingers rapidly began running across the stained and yellowed keyboard. "Ah, yes! Here we are! It just opened up," he said, tapping the not-even-remotely-touch-screen monitor with his finger. "Two rooms in our Alpine Building."

  "Great!" I said, my smile as stiff as I knew he was stiffing us.

  Gustav passed Killian two actual, physical, metal keys on two green, plastic key chains. There were little, white mountains printed on the plastic along with our room number. "Do remember to keep your threshold intact. Management is not responsible for any damages incurred by others invited inside." He looked at Killian and me with an appraising eye. "Visit Gerta in the Swiss Costume Shop. She will fit you both for uniforms. The cost will be taken out of your paycheck. Cleaning fees are additional."

  Housing, uniform fees, all out of a minimum wage paycheck. It seemed like one step up from indentured servitude, but what's an Other Sider to do? Killian nodded and then motioned for me to follow.

  Gustav called out to Killian, though, before we left. "And if you have other friends like yourselves looking for employment, we always have positions opening up."

  The allusion to a high turnover rate did not particularly instill confidence. I just gave him a little salute to let him know I got the message loud and clear.

&
nbsp; The motel itself was eerily quiet, the silence broken by the rustle of the paper shopping bags my mom had given us. I tried to tell myself that it was just that everyone was at the beer garden. Evidently, I wasn't alone in the way the silence was causing the hairs on my arms to stand on end.

  "Where is everyone?" Killian whispered.

  "Drinking beer! Eating brats!" I tried to offer bracingly. "We just got here before the crowd, Killian."

  We both knew there was something far more sinister going on.

  We wandered up to the second story and I tossed Killian his key. The outdoor walkway looked over the cement courtyard. The railings were wood with cut out tulips. I opened the door to my room.

  This was the place that hotel furniture comes to die. The room itself had that industrial motel smell to it: harsh cleaners and stale cigarette smoke left over from 1973. The bedspread was navy with gold and pink tulips. There was a small, round, pressed-wood table in a striking faux walnut veneer that looked straight out of a thrift shop. The overhead light gave off a yellow cast and barely chased the shadows away. There was a small sink with a tiny counter. Stepping into the bathroom, the grout looked like it was supporting its own ecosystem. The tub was about as deep as my calf and didn't look like anyplace anyone should soak if they didn't want to catch something they couldn't get rid of.

  "Maggie?" Killian called.

  I stepped out and saw him standing in the doorway. He looked terrified. This from the man who had stared into the maw of the Dark Dimension.

  "Not a word, elf."

  "But I think I found a whole new level of evil beneath the bed."

  "You sleep in a forest. This should be nothing."

  "We could go home to your sister's nice, comfortable house... Stake some vampires for fun... Ignore this whim I had. Perhaps wedding the Queen of the Elves would not be so bad."

  "No, Killian, we have a job to get dressed and ready for," I replied, putting the kibosh on his fears. "Just think. This is merely a place to rest our head. And protect our head. We have ourselves a threshold and that's all that matters."

  Killian whispered, "But Gustav acted like these were the upgraded rooms. Maggie, what were the other rooms like? What have we gotten ourselves into?"

  I didn't want to think about it. I waved him away, indicating that the time for discussing this extremely idiotic idea we had mutually agreed to pursue, albeit against both our better judgments, was done and all that was left now was the crying. "We're going to get our fancy new uniforms, Killian. We're going to kill whatever things need killing. We're going to drop that cuckoo clock through a portal or smash it into teeny little pieces and fit every chunk in my dad's car's trunk. And then we're going to get the hell out of here. In that order."

  "But—"

  "NOT in ANY OTHER order, Killian." I don't think he had any idea how close I was, myself, to calling the game and I could not allow either of us to become distracted from our mission.

  We raided the goodie bags from my mom and left the hotel. Killian had switched out his tights for jeans, and the edges of his new neckguard peeked out from beneath a black turtleneck.

  I shook my head as he shut the door. "The Rock called and he would like his look back. All you're missing is a fanny pack."

  "I am undercover," he explained when I raised an eyebrow.

  "As what? The 1990s?" I asked.

  He shifted himself. "How do your menfolk operate with this sort of binding."

  "Well, if you didn't pick out the skinny jeans, this would not be a problem," I explained.

  "Options were limited and they seemed like they would be the closest to my tights. Do they not allow me the maximum range of motion?"

  "Killian, I have no idea how you survived for centuries."

  He adjusted himself again.

  "You can't do that in public," I informed him as we walked down the outdoor walkway to the stairs.

  "Why?" he asked.

  "It's not polite."

  "How does a male of your species deal with such binding issues?" he asked as he surreptitiously made another shift.

  "Now you're just playing with yourself."

  "Well, since you seem to not be interested in taking care of things."

  "Killian, if the vampires don't stake you, I'm gonna do it myself."

  We walked over to one of the open shops. The window was crammed with dirndls and lederhosen, faded cardboard cutouts of German revelers, dusty steins, and badly painted nutcrackers. The same dour looking woman from a couple days before was behind the counter, still dressed in traditional garb, blonde braids pinned to her head, still staring at us as if daring us to come inside. There was so much crap in her shop, I didn't know if we were going to make it to the counter even though we wanted to.

  "This appears to be the shop where we are supposed to acquire our work attire," Killian stated, pausing in front of the window. The woman's lips pursed and eyes squinted. "Gerta is frightening me," he confessed.

  "Come on, Killian," I said, straightening my back. "We've faced down vampires and genies and dark dimensions, hell horses, and your ex. We can handle this chick."

  He shook his head. "Do you think Gerta spent time in thrall, looped into the Dark Dimension? She looks like she might have spent some time in the Dark Dimension."

  "I doubt there is anyone coming in for a later shift. We gotta deal with her."

  "Do you have some salt available?" asked Killian. "In case we need to throw down a salt circle? We may need to throw down a salt circle."

  "The only circle we're going to be throwing down is the one around my credit card if you feel like you need to buy anything aside from the uniforms we're picking up."

  Killian sighed. "As if the situation was not dire enough, you cast me down to a whole other level of hell... No souvenirs?"

  "Not a one." I pushed open the glass door and we walked in. We had to shimmy sideways through the crammed racks and shelves piled with unordered knickknacks. Finally, we made it to the front counter.

  I greeted Gerta and motioned to Killian. "We're starting a new job in the tent and were told to come here to find something to fit us."

  The angry woman eyed Killian and me up and down and then grunted. Wordlessly, she walked over to a circular rack. It was packed to the gills with clothes. They were jammed so tight onto the bar, I would have given up in despair. I was expecting a cheesy tourist shirt with some strategically placed beer steins or something, but instead, she yanked the hangers to the side and pulled out a pair of sexy green leather lederhosen.

  "THIS is what I am discussing about, Maggie!" Killian exclaimed, reaching out to stroke the material.

  "I believe it is 'what I am talking about'?" I offered.

  "Indeed! Let us talk about the beauty of these! Why do your people not wear this all the time! No need for a belt to constrict and bind with these fetching suspenders! And the air flow is much better than the fitted blue jeans of your kind."

  The woman seemed pleased by his enthusiasm. She walked over to another rack, yanked the hangers aside again, and pulled out a white, blousy shirt. Then she picked a hat off of a tall stack and checked the side of the brim before adding it to Killian's stack.

  I was almost afraid to ask, but felt we needed to know how deep we were in for. "How much for the man-boy short pants?"

  She flipped the tag around and I just about had a heart attack. "Are you kidding me?" I asked.

  "They are authentic. Imported from Germany."

  "Maggie! We must find something for you!" Killian exclaimed pulling out a dirndl and holding it up against himself to admire in the mirror.

  "It is supposed to be a uniform for his new job," I clarified, just to make sure she understood we weren't here as tourists.

  "Indeed. We are authentic." She stared me down. "It is important to maintain the illusion. Would you suggest inauthenticity? Would you suggest breaking the illusion?"

  "Nope," I replied, backing my way out of that accusation. "No one would ever accuse yo
u guys of offering up anything but an authentic Oktoberfest in Southern California experience. Just wanted to make sure he was getting the right uniform."

  She folded up the outfit and brought it over to the counter, not even bothering to look back as she worked. "The cost will come from his pay. It is like it is free."

  "Thing is, we don't want him to have to work for the next three years to pay it off."

  "Then work harder." She licked her fingertips and opened up the plastic shopping bag. "You were not hired to work hard, though, were you?"

  "I beg your pardon?" Killian asked, putting the dress back. "I am determined to exhibit the best traits of the American work ethic in this new employment pursuit. Synergy. Oktoberfest for the 21st century. No 'I' in team. Cross-promotional opportunities for market growth." He looked at me for approval to make sure he had covered all of the business buzz words and used them correctly.

  I rubbed my forehead and tried not to make eye contact with the shop owner.

  The corners of her mouth turned up just the slightest. It wasn't particularly comforting. "You had the surgery for the ears, yes?"

  Killian's eyes got wide and his hands reached up. "Ears?"

  "Your elf ears. Did a surgeon make those for you?"

  "Ummm..."

  She waved away his concerns. "We are all Other Siders here. You were hired because you are a sexy, sexy elf." She shoved the bag into his arms. "So, get sexy."

  Killian turned to me, his spirits lightened. "See, Maggie? FINALLY an employer who realizes my natural assets can be a useful tool in business."

  I decided to save the little talk about valuing his mind over his body for later. That or admit defeat and cash in on getting him his dream job as a cocktail waitress or high-end escort.

  The woman stepped back and folded her arms in front of her. "Make sure not to get bitten until you finish paying for it, sexy elf. Blood stains increase the cleaning fee."

  Killian paled.

  "And now for you," she said, giving me the stink eye. "You were not hired to be sexy."

  I gritted my teeth and plastered the smile I had learned working in the Hollywood film system across my face. "I have no idea what I was hired for," I replied. "Maybe to pass out beverages or something. Gustav mentioned something about carrying six steins in one hand."