The Christmas Crisis: An Enchanted Coast Christmas Mystery by Maher Tegan

Author:Maher, Tegan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magical Words Publishing
Published: 2021-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

4

The bar was absolute chaos. Dozens of elves in various states of undress and inebriation had taken over the place. Two were drinking straight from the taps while three more were swinging from the ceiling fans. Dimitri was slinging spells as quickly as he could, knocking one off the bar and zapping a bottle of peppermint schnapps from another.

Blake was doing his best, too, but there were just too many of them. Poor Lola was huddled under the bar, her arms covering her head.

"Stop!" I yelled, and blasted the whole room with magic. Everything froze in place, and it was then that I noticed Kris standing by the bar with his hands out like he was trying to help, panic etched across his face.

His martini glass hovered midair, a lone olive suspended above it. I touched Colin, Bob, and Jolene, unfreezing them. Since Tempest was sort of an extension of me, she hadn't frozen when everybody else did.

I picked my way around suspended food, liquor bottles, and articles of clothing to first Dimitri, then Blake.

"What in the name of blue blazes is going on here?" I demanded as soon as I touched Blake. He about fell over when I unfroze him. "What's up with all the elves?"

"They got here about two hours ago," Dimitri said, breathing hard. "Everything was fine for half an hour or so, but then they started doing shots of peppermint schnapps and chocolate liqueur. Things got out of hand before I realized they were lightweights. One threw a candy cane at another, and that was all she wrote—all hell broke loose."

"Who are they?" Bob asked, plucking beer glasses from the air so they wouldn’t crash to the ground when I unfroze everybody.

"The EOS party you told me about," the green-haired faerie replied. "Elves on Shelves."

"Oh, no," I said, tapping Lola on the shoulder to unfreeze her. "That can't be good."

Since I'd always found the whole elf-on-a-shelf thing a little creepy, I'd never gotten into it, but I understood the gist. Still, I couldn't understand why our bar looked like a set for an episode of "Elves Gone Wild."

Blake glanced around at all the elves hovering in various forms of obnoxiousness. "Wow, why didn't I think to do that?" he asked, and I shrugged. He did tend to be a bit myopic, so I wasn't surprised that he’d tried to deal with them one on one rather than as a whole.

Bob narrowed his eyes at Kris. "Unfreeze him, and he better have a danged good explanation for all this." He waved a hand toward the hot mess that was our bar.

"What about him?" Lola asked, pointing to one lone, miserable-looking elf who was sitting at a table near the back of the bar, a cup of cocoa in front of him.

"Good catch," I said, heading toward him. I touched him on the shoulder, and he startled when he unfroze.

I held out my hands, palms open. "It's okay. My name's Destiny. I work here. What's your name?"

"P-Pepper," he stuttered.

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