“Got it all covered, mostly. I’m going to do all I can to make sure my officers avoid you at all costs until I’m sure they can be trusted. I’ll try to convince the ones I’m closest to about what’s really going on, but for now keep in contact with just me if you can. If you can, text me of anyone you help out of this ‘spirit’.” the Sheriff notified through the speaker of Chak’s phone as they regrouped back at their homebase.
“We’ll try. It seems that only we can tell when it happens.” Chak replied, “But is Bell still secure?”
“Yes, and he’s apparently not let up in his fussing. It's so sad to see. But I’m making it clear that he is to not leave under any circumstances.” the Sheriff replied.
“He shot two people, he better not just walk out of that…” Shida mumbled to Chak’s other side, her own phone at her ear, although she now let it sink down with a disappointed noise. “Dagon’s not picking up. I hope he’s just busy with his honey, but I’m starting to get worried.”
Glancing down at the phone again, she briefly opened the contacts after hanging up the previous call.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she thought as she pressed on the number of Dagon’s assistant that had so handily been saved for her. Chances were low that the blonde witch knew any more than she did, but they weren’t zero. At least that workhorse would probably pick up an official call.
After a few rings the other end picked up, though there was an audible sigh before the voice spoke up.
“Hello, is this regarding parade business?” the assistant’s voice spoke up in thinly veiled annoyance and even a hint of anger.
“Yes,” Shida replied, equally annoyed, also because of the still pulsing pain in her arm. “I need to talk to Dagon, but he’s not picking up. It’s urgent. Any idea where he went? He just told us that he would go see Mary and-”
Even as she spoke, Shida suddenly looked up and turned to Chak. Pressing a hand onto the microphone to muffle the line, she leaned in and quietly asked,
“Mary’s not also at the station, is she?”
Chak leaned away and quietly relayed the question to make sure the Sheriff heard.
“Mary D’Light? She wasn’t being held, but as far as I know she’s been waiting there for Bell to be released.” the Sheriff answered.
Looking to Shida, Chak nodded even though she knew the feline heard.
Indignant comments from Shida’s phone mumbled.
“-ello? I’m directing everything until he’s back. Called saying he was going to find his fiance and take her to her folks place. But now he’s not answering my calls. That woman has been nothing but a hindrance to everything he’s built and I bet right she’s going to cry to him for hours about her problems after running around all day to who knows where instead of helping him run this darn business! She can go to therapy for that! The insurance covers it!” she ranted.
“Lady, you’re preaching to the choir here,” Shida returned after taking her hand off the phone again. “Anyway, Mary’s apparently at the precinct, but Dagon’s hasn’t shown up there yet, so he’s not with her. I’ll probably check her parent’s house out to see if he looked for her there. If you have any other ideas, I’d appreciate it if you could check in with them and either let me know or tell him to let me know should you find him. I’ll do the same, of course. And as a bonus, you’ll be the first person I call should those two break it off, how does that sound? Thank you~”
Without waiting for a reply, Shida hung up.
“Mary’s parent’s house,” she announced and stood up, before inspecting Chak with slight worry. “I know that place freaks you out, so if you don’t want to come I understand.”
Chak stared up at Shida with a smile.
“Thank you for your support, Sheriff. We will be heading to the D’Lights residence. If you don’t hear from us, you’ll know where we went.” she notified before hanging up her phone.
“Mmmmmmmmnnn… give me a second… that migraine medicine is actually helping…” the disguised Manarian spoke with kitty cartoon bandages peppering his face.
Shida lifted a hand contemplatively.
“We still need a way to get there anyway. The sleigh is still out as an option and Dagon is currently who knows where,” she mumbled as she mentally checked through their options. They could of course walk, but if they did that for every destination they needed to get to, the five days would be over before they even knew. They would need a better option than that.
Lost in thought she remembered how easy this would be if this had been a modern Earth. Calling a car there to your destination was absolute child’s play.
Maybe that service had already started during this time? It was worth a try…but how would she figure that out? Maybe the phone?
On a whim, she put “how to rent a ride” into the search engine that the rudimentary browser provided to her. Apparently, the engine was slightly confused about what exactly she wanted to hear from it, however the first results looked somewhat promising. A bit of tweaking and adjusting of the exact terms of her search later, Shida had finally found what she was looking for. Actually, there appeared to be a number of options when it came to getting driven around by somebody else. Now she only had to find one they could certainly pay for with this ‘credit card’ they had been given. Hopefully any of these information sides would state what form of payments they accepted, as apparently, even something as simple as that had not yet been unified in these primitive times they found themselves in.
“Of course,” Shida thought to herself. “Obviously it is much easier to have ten ways of paying, only three of which are accepted at a single place at a time. It makes things much simpler.”
She grumbled slightly to herself. However, at least it seemed like a good number of services would accept credit card. Actually, had she not seen one of these symbols on this phone before?
Minimizing the browser for a second, she checked the applications on the phone’s home screen again.
Yes. There it was. Apparently, the ability to summon a driver came pre-installed here. How fortuitous.
Now there was only left to hope that a total nutcase wouldn’t roll up here. Or well, even if they did, Shida was still armed. She should probably refresh her disguise again, though. Hopefully it wouldn’t also re-melt her clothes and skin in the process.
Chak peeked over Shida’s shoulder watching her figure out the method of travel. Having nothing to particularly add to help she glanced down at her friend’s arm.
“I almost feel the need to ask if we should try using the magic to heal wounds but… being so reliant on it makes me feel too uneasy to even try. Even as a last resort…” she said, feeling terrible that Shida had to bear that burn with the limited medical capability of the area.
Zithra sat up from the floor, a hand covering his eyes.
“I’d take a bad burn over the maddening screams and blaring in my head. At the very least I’m still in my right mind, rather than dead.” he grumbled before dragging his hand up over his forehead and through his hair, “This magic is the real harm.”
Chak slightly shrugged before standing up, and starting to move towards the attic door.
“I should retrieve Doodle. Hopefully he’s feeling better.” she said before freezing in sudden thought, turning to the rest of the two she lowered her voice to a whisper, “Doodle so far has been very forthcoming, and cooperative in his service to ‘Santa’... but now that I’m thinking about it… is it wise to have someone literally made of the magic influencing us around so closely?” she asked the room in hesitancy.
Shida shrugged as she was still ordering the ride.
“I mean, apparently there’s the…uhm, well not ‘good’ magic, but the…’Santa’ magic, which Doodle is part of, and then there’s the ‘Krampus’ magic, which is whatever happened in the diner. I’m not any more worried about that elf now than I’ve always been personally, but if you don’t want him around, we’re not taking him. If it comes to it, I can apparently always summon him anyway,” she mumbled as she got a verification of a certain driver coming to pick them up.
The photo was kind of grane-y and hard to make out, but at least he seemed to be getting good reviews by other patrons.
Chak stood in place considering the options, with her own self identity in jeopardy she couldn’t help but feel paranoid. Doodle may have been a simple product of the magic, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it the general aura he gave was a comforting one to her. However, was that ‘aura’ a literal thing that just made her more compliant to the magic’s influence?
“I think… We will call him when he’s needed.” Chak affirmed, turning herself to lean against the closest wall, “You know what’s strange…? I would have thought that the ‘Krampus’ would’ve felt more… evil? Like in a classical kind of way, opposite the bright pleasant ‘happy’ feeling the Santa magic brings. But every time I felt it, and as scary as it presented itself… I don’t know… it didn’t necessarily feel malicious? Rather… I suppose the best word I could apply to the concept is ‘consequence’. Though I’m uncertain if that’s how I feel, or if that’s the Rudolph taking hold of me.” the Princess pondered aloud, unsure as to what her point was, but it felt like something she just had to air.
“Well that thing has a grip on me, and I feel it’s being pretty malicious towards me…” Zithra countered in a grumble that would normally thrum his chest, if it wasn’t for his human disguise, “By the way, I’m pretty sure it was trying to compel me to restrain you two back there… if uh… you know… I go full blown mad, then do what’cha gotta do. No grudge or whining on my end.” he notified before walking back towards the bathroom, “But I can live with bad headaches for a while so Krampus is gonna have to try a whole lot harder next time.”
“Well I can’t comment on the topic. The only thing I felt was burning,” Shida mumbled, sort of wondering why as the one with the most magic of them all she was also somehow the one that just didn’t seem to feel its effects directly.
However, according to the application, their driver wasn’t all too far away from them, so she couldn’t think about it for too long here. Looking down at her arm, she turned to her companions.
“I should probably wrap this up before trying the disguise again, just in case it decides to give me something tight again,” she said and lifted the red and malformed patch of skin for everyone to see. “One of you mind giving me a hand?”
“Of course!” Chak spoke up without hesitation as she ran to grab fresh bandages and burn ointment, returning to Shida’s side quickly.
Taking her hand into one of her own the princess does her best to not make a face over the sight of the wound. Not wanting to agitate the patch of red too much, the disguised Cali applied the ointment onto the bandage before carefully wrapping with Shida’s guidance. The burn was bad enough that more than that would have to be done to actually properly treat it, but there isn’t much choice in their current situation.
After the bandages were applied, Chak lowered a hand down onto Shida’s knee.
“I know the magic influenced your reasoning… but I need you to make a promise to me, okay? We both make it out, or neither of us do. Your life is just as important to me as mine is to you, and I’d rather not sabotage our mutual efforts by us trying to only save the other first. Because I won’t let you just save me. Alright? I, Chakalata’Motaas, refuse to leave you here.” she said sternly.
Shida lifted her injured arm, bringing it around Chak’s back.
“Fine,” she said in a jokingly petulant manner, although in reality, she felt both immensely worried and immensely relieved at her friend’s reassurance and determination. It was good to see her so…herself. And it gave her some hope that they could actually do it. Or, at the very least, it gave her the necessary energy to try a lot harder. “But I’m warning you. If we fail, and I end up stuck here as Santa while you get to lose your mind and be rid of it all and leave me alone with ‘Rudolf’, I’m blaming you.”
Then, without waiting for an addition or counter, she pulled Chak in, wrapping her arms around her tightly. Her body apparently using the moment of not being forced into an apeish shape, her chest started to release a low, even purring that went right into Chak’s ear.
Chak squeezed her feline friend with the same output, thankful for the promise. They needed to work together for the same goal if they had any hope to beat this corrupting, tricky, deceitful magic they found themselves steeped in.
“That’s okay with me. My backup plan is to become your Ms. Claus anyway.” she joked in a whisper, though saying it aloud made her start to consider that course of action if they were to not succeed, “I am a helpless flirt around pretty ladies afterall.”
-
The car pulled up in the shoveled driveway, kicking up darkened snow up as it came to a stop. Shida’s phone lit up in a notification to declare the arrival, though it wasn’t necessary as Chak eyed it from the window.
“The ride is here…” she mumbled to muster herself up.
Looking back down at her phone she couldn’t help but worry. She had attempted to contact Dagon several more times to no avail.
“Are you dressed?” She called back towards Shida.
“Yyyyep! Hope that Dagon guy doesn’t mind loaning these cargo pants.” The disguised Manarian intercepted in answer as he walked to the front door to greet the vehicle driver and inform them that the rest were coming. Probably making an interesting first impression from the small pink bandaids peppering his face.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“I have no idea how to actually do this,” Shida mumbled, stepping out from the bathroom with both hands behind her head, as they tried to somehow wrangle her wavy hair into a ponytail that stuck out from underneath the cap the magic had supplied her with this time. Her natural hair was neither this long nor this loosely attached to her head, so just how much of it she could pull together and just where she had to put this darn rubber-thingy was an absolute mystery to her. Maybe she should do it like James’ sister instead and just weave it into braids, but she doubted they’d have time for that now. “But yes, I’m dressed. And human.”
Picking the phone back up from the table, she quickly deposited it behind her collar once again, before glancing over at Chak.
“Anything else we need to take? Got your gun?” she called over while also scooping up the keys to the borrowed house.
“Gun stowed away.” Chak confirmed before her brow squeezed together, “Oh… uhm… your ponytail is… uhm.. Here.” hurrying up behind Shida she reached up and quickly corrected the tied up head fur, “There we are! I don’t think there’s anything else… Unless we bring Doodle,.. but he hasn’t left his space in the attic so I’m doubtful he even would want to go.” she reported before slipping her phone away.
“Okay, next time you pull my hair, you better be ready to follow up on it!” Shida warned jokingly while carefully inspecting the hairband with her hands, before shaking her head. “And I think we just leave him alone for now. I mean, best would probably be for someone to stay around and try to cheer him up and or offer support, but we don’t have time for that. So giving him space is the next best thing.”
With that, she also stepped outside and saw Zithra leaning against an opened window of a large, dark-blue car.
“...no big deal, man. Folks around here usually have all the urgency of two snails pushing three snails, so I’m used to people not being ready right on time,” the driver, a twenty to thirty something human male with very short hair and quite dark skin was currently informing the disguised Manarian. “Mostly seniors and suburb people living here, who don’t even know what the word ‘hurrying’ means. That’s, of course, unless I’m the late one for once. Then they’re suddenly the most punctual people in the world.”
“Tell me about it… I once ran a delivery job back in Idaho. Same deal. You know some people have the audacity to file complaints if you arrive too early? Like, come on, got your box a whole five minutes too soon and suddenly your entire day is ruined? Some people…” Zithra small talked before glancing at the two disguised women stepping out and locking the front door, “Ah, there they are! Promise I’ll make sure to leave a stellar review for your patience my guy.” he bantered before lightly tapping his hand on the opened window door and moving around to open the back door for the others to climb on in.
Shida nodded at the driver briefly before crawling across the back seats to allow for Chak to get in behind her.
“Don’t believe a word that guy says, I’m the one with the app,” she informed the driver, before leaning hear arm onto the passenger seat and sticking her head towards the front. “Speaking of which, how much do I have to pay extra to make a brief stop at the precinct on the way?...Can I pay extra with this thing?”
She gave the phone a quick glance, realizing that she had no idea how that’d work through this method of payment.
The driver just chuckled and leaned back his head as the turned to point at her screen.
“Well, officially, the answer to that is no. However, there’s a tipping option after the ride, and if you leave a generous one, I won’t tell if you don’t;” he laughed, to which Shida nodded understandingly.
“Sounds like a plan,” she said, fully aware that this wasn’t her money she was spending here. She would find a way to make up the difference somehow, they were acting against a higher power here, so she couldn’t be stingy. “In that case, let’s briefly stop by there first, before heading over.”
The driver turned to look forwards again, while waiting for everyone else to get into the car as well.
“So,” he asked after a moment, “You got business with the Lights? I ain’t never seen you around here, and I figure I’d probably have if you were family, so what brings you to a place like this?”
Shida exhaled, quickly thinking of the best story to tell here.
“Yeah, we uh…right we’re working with Mary,” she lied with a sweet laugh. “Part of the whole Holiday parade thing, you know? But we’re not going on business. Since we’re from out of town, her parents apparently insisted on inviting us over for some holiday feelings.”
The man laughed. Although genuinely at first, it turned a bit sour at the end.
“Yeah, that sounds like the Lights alright,” he announced, although his expression turned a bit concerned as he scanned over the faces of his passengers, his eyes narrowing in appraisal. “Just, uh, just be mindful, y’all. The Lights are, well how do I put this…they’re old folk, you know? Like OLD old folk. Y’all seem like a modern bunch to me, you know? You’re all with the times by the look of y’all. The Lights, they ain’t, if you get what I mean. I’d suggest just laughing and smiling and getting it over with, if you really have to go.”
Shida blinked twice at the strange revelation, however after a brief reading of the room, she nodded.
“Thanks,” she said earnestly. “We’ll keep it in mind.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine, I’ve been told I have an old soul myself. Worst case I’ll bear the brunt of the conversation for the ladies here.” Zithra commented as he looked outside his window, “Comes with being well traveled I suppose.”
Chak shifted in her seat, trying to not look as uncomfortable as she felt.
“Yes, we’ve already met them once. They are… certainly… much.” she said, recalling the feeling she had while there last time. She still didn’t quite understand what it was exactly, but ‘safe’ was far from a synonym to it.
“My man, you’ve got green hair, I’m the most worried about you,” the driver laughed at Zithra for a moment, before focussing his attention on the road. “Alright, buckle up everyone. I know you’re not used to it, but it actually matters when I’m drivin’, and I’m not looking to get into trouble so close to Christmas, especially if we’re drivin’ to the station already.”
Following his instruction, Shida fell back into her seat and clipped the seatbelt into its proper place. After a moment of wait, the car started to move.
“I went to school with Mary, ya’know?” the driver then continued his conversational tone once he had found his way into traffic. “She still a huge airhead?”
Shida scoffed disdainfully and looked out the window.
“That’s putting it lightly,” she mumbled, to which their driver immediately exhaled sharply.
“Yeeesh,” he said with an awkward chuckle. “She giving you much trouble at work?”
Shida shook her head.
“We are not the ones she needs to worry about,” she replied slightly dismissively, and although he seemed very curious, the man seemed to get the hint.
Zithra had been brushing a hand through his hair seemingly caught between his pride being hit in two different directions.
“At least green is festive, not like it was my choice. But at least it’s not suggestive, that’s something to rejoice.” he mumbled to himself before leaning his head back into his seat’s headrest.
Chak then started to look at her own head fur as well, grabbing at a bit from under her ear. Granted, terrans dyed their furs in all manners of colors back home, but around here the only ones with white were the elderly. Thankfully no one has got close enough to comment on her red irises, though she believes there are Terran conditions that could possibly explain that. Surely the magic wouldn’t disguise her as a Terran that had impossible features? Perhaps she should do some research in case she was questioned on it?
Pulling out her phone Chak quickly hurried to research the topic, initially forgetting to use the term ‘human’ instead of Terran.
In order to bring the mood around a bit, and also match the jovial tone of the driver so he wouldn’t start asking any questions that were harder to answer, Shida reached a hand over and patted along Chak’s shoulders.
“Guess that means you’ll have to hold back for the time being. Pretend like your fiance’s in the room and contain your raging crush on me, at least until the time the dinner’s over,” she overtly joked, although obviously, Simone being in the room had not once kept Chak and her from flirting. It usually just added an extra element of teasing.
Thankfully, the town of Flakeville wasn’t all too large, and therefore their drive didn’t take all too long until they reached to town center and with it the police station.
“I’ll go,” Shida announced to everyone and unbuckled herself, already hurrying out the car door. “This’ll just be a minute, don’t worry.”
In seconds, she was out of the car and crossing the street, walking up through the boxy building’s tiny parking lot an approaching the front entrance.
She poked her head in and looked around.
Initially inside was a front desk with two windowed doors on either side leading back into what looked like an open office space where officers walked to and fro in a busy manner. Some passed blank sheets of paper off at certain desks while others mindlessly typed away at computers to file reports. The walls were a beige color and smelled faintly of mildew. The white noise patterned carpeted floor looked ancient, and a similarly colored rug seemed to rest in an odd place almost completely covering an old long forgotten stain.
Impatiently waiting beside a few others on a line of wall seats in this room sat a distressed Mary. Her head rested in her hands as her foot tapped at the floor impatiently, jingling up against her purse. Since the last time Shida saw her, he no longer wore a dark business uniform. Instead now wearing a very casual Christmas branded sweater, snowflake earrings and her makeup was now much more rosy.
In her lap was a cheap Santa hat that still had a store tag by the end white puff. Her eyes were locked between the front desk and the closest door to the main part of the station. Plotting and intent building up in her expression.
“If you are planning what I think you are planning, I will personally put you in the dirt, just so you know, Mary D. Light,” Shida announced as she fully stepped inside the building and intently walked over towards the woman, who looked up to her in slight surprise. Obviously, Mary could not recognize her, having never seen her in her disguise so far, and therefore her eyes were understandably unsure. “So, instead of sitting here all day and getting bad ideas, how about you do anything else. Like your job for example. Do you have any idea how much work you are making for everyone else?”
After crossing the room in record time, Shida halted in front of the woman, her arms crossed with serious disapproval on her face, while her foot impatiently tapped the ground.
“I’m sorry? Do I know you?” Mary responded incredulously, her hands moving to tightly grip the hat in her lap, “If Dagon’s assistant sent you, you can tell her that I’m dealing with an emergency right now. My… friend is illegally being held and I’m not going to leave until our company lawyer gets here…. Which is going to be a while apparently because he’s meeting with the mayor about complaints over the ‘holiday’ parade. Well, maybe we should just keep it as a Christmas parade!? Maybe attacking good people’s beliefs isn’t the best way to show what the parade is really about!?” crossing her arms Mary eyed the ‘stranger’ with a lifted eyebrow as if she made the point of the century.
Had they not been in a police station right now, Shida would’ve slapped the woman right then and there.
“Are you even listening to yourself?” she instead asked while glaring down at the woman in disbelieving anger. “First of all, the holiday parade is final. If you wanted input on that, you should’ve actually done your job and have been around when that was decided on. Some of the floats are being changed up as we speak.”
She then crossed her arms, mostly so that the impulse to hit the woman would be easier to suppress while she leaned forward to look her into the eyes more closely.
“Second of all, your ‘friend’ shot two people. There is nothing illegal about him being held in custody for a while. Not even if it should turn out that it was justified, which it wasn’t. And if you think for two seconds, I’m pretty sure your company lawyer handling civil complaints is, in fact, not a criminal lawyer that could do anything for your personal affair, who is additionally not at all associated with the company said lawyer is paid to represent. None of what you just said has made any sense,” she berated the woman further, before giving her a very dark look. “And Dagon, your fiance by the way, has not only not complained once about you completely abandoning him with all the work, he is also worried sick about you after hearing of the fire and the shootings, and he has been searching for you for hours. And guess what? Not so much as a call out of you. A peep. A little HINT that you’re not currently freezing to death with smoke poisoning somewhere in the darn woods, after your boytoy has managed to set them on fire!”
She exhaled slowly through her teeth, making a hissing noise as the air was cut apart by the sharp bones.
“If there is a decent bone left somewhere inside of you, then I am begging you, get out of here, get your head straight, and don’t make things worse than they are already,” she then added, pulling back her anger so she could make something vaguely akin to a compassionate plea.
Quite frankly alarmed at being so directly confronted, Mary stammered as if in a school play that had its lines changed up the last minute without her knowing. Shida began to see the sparkles around the woman’s silhouette flicker off of her frame.
“N-no he shot the alie- the kidnapper. He s-saved those kids. He’s saving Christmas. And it’s… i-it’s Christmas so the lawyer would be willing to help. And Dagon doesn’t even like Christmas, he has to lie to my parents all the time. He’s too busy with the- to care about- I caught his assistant adjusting his tie, the way they looked, it’s only reasonable to think- He wouldn’t be-” she ranted on before the feline then noticed a long ghostly hand appear from behind the woman. The clawed fingers had one extra joint as it curled over Mary’s head, pulling it up to face Shida’s directly, “Bell said that this would happen, people would be lying! He said they would try to cover up what’s really going on! You’re lying! Bell has been a little odd but he has been kind, accommodating and he can take care of me. He loves Christmas so much, and he reminded me of where I’m from and what Christmas means.”
…Naughty…
Shida’s eyes twinkled as her lips twitched upwards.
“You wanna play?” she growled, before her hand immediately shot down. Covered by an ethereal glow that seemed to emerge out of nothing, she reached out lightning fast, gripping through the mystifying nothing that surrounded it and taking tight hold of the hand, her fingers wrapping around its wrist right behind Mary’s head. The woman flinched and shrieked, as she apparently thought that Shida’s attack had been meant for her, however as soon as Shida had gotten a grip on it, the hand was either forced or so surprised that it simply let go of the woman, before shaking around aggressively trying to throw Shida off.
As it shook left to right with immense strength, its fingers finally managed to curl around, and Shida felt a cutting pain as the claws made contact with her skin.
Now also force to let go to avoid serious damage, Shida too pulled her hand back, and blood that came gushing from the claw marks that now ran across it sprayed tiny speckles at the white wall and all over Mary, who was still shrieking her lungs out and pulling the attention of the entire station onto them.
Once again clutching her arm in pain, although it was the other one this time, Shida watched as the ghostly hand retreated away, back into the wall.
“If you think I’m making it that easy on you, then-” Shida yelled after it, but was quickly stopped when a bunch of previously busy officers came hurrying over towards them. Not wanting to escalate the situation, she lifted her hands, although she took the liberty of keeping her wounds pressed shut so she wouldn’t bleed out in the meantime. Looking over at Mary, she wondered briefly, and quickly added, “Listen to me. Yes Dagon’s assistant has the hots for him, but ever since we arrived, he’s only ever thought of you! Bell is being manipulated and so are you! Go to your parents house! Ask Dagon!”
Then, she was already taken aside by some officers.
Her tone shifting immediately, she jovially greeted them.
“Hey guys. One of you wouldn’t happen to have a first aid kid around, do you?” she said and lifted her still very much bleeding arm.
“First aid!” the first officer called back for another to call as he used a bunch of tissues from the front desk to help control the bleeding, “Miss Light do this?” he asked softly as he eyed the woman now shakily standing from her seat as if she witnessed a horrific car crash. Her hands clutched and felt around at the back of her head, sending the santa hat down to be discarded on the floor. The sparkles around her now rained down into gallons of ash.
“Nah, wasn’t her,” Shida answered with a shake of her head. “So far, she’s done nothing wrong.”
She made sure to put a lot of emphasis on the ‘so far’ part of that, as she gave the woman one last look before being led away entirely.
“Right… Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask who did- Hey Ms. Light!” he called after as the woman frantically bolted outside, leaving her purse behind, “Shit… someone bring her back!” he requested as he was handed a small first aid kit.
“You heard this lady, Light didn’t do it. Besides, she’s under a lot of stress with the parade business and Bell losing a gasket. She’ll probably be right back after some fresh air.” the other officer dismissed with a hand wave.
The initial officer who was now tending to Shida’s arm with disinfectant and bandages gave the other a ‘are you insane!?’ look.
To which the dismissive officer shrugged.
“Come on man, it’s Christmas.” he mumbled before turning back through the back door.
“Sheriff is gonna hear about this Davison!” the tending officer warned in disbelief before giving the Shida an apologetic look, “Sorry, ma’am. I can help you file a report if you need. The bandages feel alright?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Shida said with a nod before looking after Mary. “Just do what you have to to not get in trouble, I’ll play along. But Mary really didn’t do this. I mean, you probably have surveillance around here or something right?”
She then briefly sighted and rummaged for her phone in her shirt, making the officer turn his eyes away in slight embarrassment.
“Mind if I make a call really quick?”