Cici and the Curator Read online

  Cici and the Curator

  A delightful interstellar adventure featuring a museum of mysterious artifacts and a magical heroine.

  Accident? Self-defense? Or murder?

  Cici Wainwright loves her job working at the ticket counter of the famed Guanyasar Collection, a museum of mysterious artifacts from around the galaxy. But customer service jobs always have one big drawback: the customers. When Cici’s attempt to help an unpleasant guest goes horribly wrong, she’s left trying to conceal the evidence.

  Unfortunately, the evidence is alive.

  Also carnivorous, poisonous, and capable of teleporting.

  Also cute.

  With fluffy tails.

  Cici knows she ought to vaporize the two monster dogs. After all, they ate their owner. They’re clearly dangerous. But she just doesn’t have it in her. Instead she hides them, turning her one little mistake into one big disaster. Will she survive? And more importantly, will she lose her job?

  Cici and the Curator

  S. J. Wynde

  Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Sharp

  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 written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cici and the Curator is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is coincidental.

  Published by Rozelle Press

  independent publisher of unexpected fiction

  rozellepress.com

  Cover design by Wendy Sharp. Stock photo by Jozef Klopacka, Adobe Stock.

  Created with Vellum

  For my dad, Werner Sharp,

  For a thousand reasons, most of which start with

  ‘for being there when…’

  Love you!

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also by S. J. Wynde

  Books and Stories by Sarah Wynde

  Chapter 1

  Cici Wainwright loved her job.

  For six months, she’d been a concierge, selling tickets and tour guides, and offering advice and directions, for the hottest exhibit on Tirquilk, the famed Guanyasar Collection. The best part — aside from the paycheck, which was decidedly high-end for a job a drone could do most of the time — was that every day brought a different experience into her life.

  Of course, some of those experiences were better than others. The main drawback of a customer service job was always the customers.

  Exhibit A: the woman standing in front of her, holding the leashes of two giant, slavering creatures. Cici had a security button under her counter, but she prided herself on never having used it. Would today be the day to break her streak?

  “I shall enter now.” The woman had a slight, but noticeable accent, as if her own language used more slithery sounds. “My dogs enter with me.”

  Dogs? Were those creatures dogs? Maybe. Cici wasn’t familiar with any dog breeds that grew four feet tall at the shoulder, had fur that rippled like ocean waves, and slobbered green drool that sizzled when it hit the ground, burning tiny holes into the tile, but hey, it was a big universe and she was no dog expert.

  “I’m afraid the rules are clear,” Cici said. Before the woman could do more than draw herself up to a not-inconsiderable height, she added, “But perhaps there is an exception that would apply to your situation.”

  The woman looked down her nose at Cici. “Indeed.”

  Cici slipped off her stool and came around to the side of the counter. Away from her security button, but that wouldn’t be a problem. This close she could smell the creatures, a not unpleasant aroma that reminded her of cilantro, slightly bitter but herbal. Or was that the woman?

  She eyed the creatures. The one on the left was the bigger. Its dark eyes intent on Cici, it gave a tiny whimper, a squeak of anxious indecision. Food? Meat?

  Neither, little brother, she told it firmly, inserting the thought into its head as the woman yanked its leash, wrapping the strap tighter around her gloved hand.

  “Are these service animals?” she asked the woman.

  Hungry, the creature thought. Hungry. It dropped back onto its haunches. The flow of green drool dripping out of its mouth increased.

  Cici frowned. Hungry wasn’t good. What was the woman thinking, to neglect her pets in such a way?

  “They serve me, yes,” the woman responded, her voice haughty.

  “In one of the approved support categories?”

  “Approved categories? And these are…?”

  “Are you visually impaired?” Cici asked. “Do your animals guide you?”

  “Certainly not.” The woman’s lips pursed as if tasting something unpleasant.

  “Hearing impaired?”

  “No.” A bite in the woman’s voice said the questions were offensive, as if her sheer perfection should be obvious to any observer.

  The dog on the right, the smaller one, quivered. Eat now? Eat now?

  What do you eat? Cici asked it. Maybe they were vegetarians. A nice plaza across the street had an ample supply of plant life. Maybe they’d like to graze over there while their keeper visited the exhibit.

  Meat. Flesh. Prey. MEAT. Cici winced as the dogs flooded her with images of the food that would delight them. Predators and scavengers. She should have figured that out from the bigger dog’s anticipatory look at her, not to mention the drool.

  But ick. How revolting.

  “Do you suffer from a medical condition, such as epilepsy, for which these creatures provide warning or assistance?” she asked.

  “Absolutely not.” The slither in the woman’s accent was more pronounced, her T sounds becoming more like S sounds as she grew annoyed with Cici’s line of questioning.

  “What about emotional support?” Cici suggested. “Do you need to keep your creatures with you for your psychological well-being?”

  The woman’s skin darkened, the blue deepening to a nice shade of navy. “Os cos noss!”

  Cici had to think for a moment to interpret her words as, “Of course not.”

  “How do your animals serve you then?” Cici asked.

  Couldn’t the woman see that Cici was trying to be helpful? One polite lie establishing a societally-approved need for the dogs and Cici would wave her through the doorway into the exhibit with pleasure.

  But no, the woman had to be difficult.

  Not to mention not a very good pet-owner, she thought as the bigger dog sent a disconsolate sensation of a growling stomach her way.

  “They guard me. They kill my enemies,” the woman said with careful enunciation. She loosened her grip on the leashes, letting the dogs inch closer to Cici, and added, “And they destroy anything that impedes me. Or anyone.”

  Cici sighed. “You don’t feed them enough.”

  “They serve me better when they are hungry.” The gleam in the woman’s orange eye was more predatory than those in the dogs’ eyes.

  Hungry, the bigger dog thought again. Hungry, the smaller dog agreed.
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  “I see.” Cici returned to her side of the counter. She typed a quick note onto the search function of her screen. Guard dogs? The data appeared immediately.

  Not approved for admission.

  Not a surprise.

  Do you serve the woman willingly, little brother, little sister? Cici asked the animals without looking at them, typing a few more words into the search bar.

  Food. FOOD, the dogs thought.

  That sounded more like a yes than a no. Setting them free… well, that was probably beyond the scope of her job responsibilities. The woman would make even more of a scene, a crowd would gather, the dogs might attack someone… yeah, no, releasing the dogs was a bad idea.

  But she’d found something she’d thought she remembered in the rules. “Aha,” she said with delight. “Small animals are allowed. Small enough to be carried.” She gave the woman a bright smile. “Is that an option for you?”

  The woman stared at her, her nostrils flaring with disgust. “I have stated my position. I will see the collection with my guards and I will see it now. If you will not assist me, get out of my way.”

  “But I will assist you,” Cici said. “Because that’s my job.”

  She let her eyes narrow to a squint, almost closed, and took a deep breath, drawing power out of the air. She gulped more air, expanding her chest deeper and deeper, another inhale and another and another until her lungs felt as full as they could possibly be and the power surged in her veins like adrenaline, and then she let it all out, flowing in a tangled web of netted air and power to settle over the bigger dog.

  Small, she thought to it. The dog began to shrink. Slowly at first, the waving fur compressing to its sides and then the head and body condensing. It lost an inch or two, and then three, five, eight, until it was smaller than the other, and still shrinking.

  She watched it with a critical eye as she drew in another deep breath. Air, air, more air, and power with it, so much power.

  She loved working at the Guanyasar Collection. The museum of artifacts was so rich with magical energies that it exuded into the surroundings, just waiting to be gathered by those with the ability to do so. Of course, that might be why the woman in front of her was so insistent on entering. She was probably a magic-user, too, hoping to gain strength from the emanations.

  The dog was down to three feet tall now and the woman finally noticed, her smug expression disappearing. “Whass do you?” she squawked, before her face hardened into wrath. Dropping the dogs’ leashes, she hissed a command.

  Kill? Kill! KILL! The dogs’ thoughts went from uncertain surprise to eager anticipation to furious hostility in no time at all.

  Eep.

  In a moment of panic, Cici tried to do three things at once: speed the shrinking of the big dog, throw a barrier around the counter, and toss her second gathered net of energy onto the other dog, so it would grow smaller, too.

  She succeeded in two of the three.

  Both dogs bounced off the barrier, the former big one sliding down it to turn in confused circles on the floor, a three-inch tall, yapping mini-monster, while the smaller one, still closer to a solid five feet and three hundred fifty pounds, bounced off it in a recoil that caused a growl of pain. But the net landed on the woman.

  She started shrinking. Cici’s panic had given the spell enough extra energy that it went fast.

  Really fast.

  Within seconds the woman was barely a foot high. Before Cici could do anything, before she could even fill her empty lungs again, the dogs spotted the woman.

  Prey? Prey! They agreed.

  The little one didn’t understand its new size. It wound up skidding along the floor, nose to the ground when its leap took it nowhere, but the other one was just as adept a killer as it appeared. The crack as it broke the woman’s neck was as audible as the growls of satisfaction as it tore her body apart and gobbled the pieces down.

  Cici swallowed. Oh, dear. Maybe she should have hit the security button after all. Gently, she crafted a third net of power and tossed it over the big dog, still eagerly crunching away.

  Small, she whispered. Small.

  Chapter 2

  Cici peered over the edge of the counter at the two small dogs scurrying around the floor.

  The good news: the entrance to the exhibit hall was tiled, not carpeted, and the dogs were licking up every speck of blood and trace of flesh.

  More good news: they apparently had no problem digesting clothing and metal and bones, or at least the bigger one hadn’t hesitated to chow down every last piece of its former owner, down to the shoes she’d been wearing and the bag she’d been carrying. Any evidence that the woman had been at the exhibit was rapidly disappearing into her dogs’ bellies.

  Cici sank back onto her stool, brain scrambling to come up with more good news, working very hard to not acknowledge the seriously bad news.

  Dead customers were not good for business.

  Dead customers were also not good for the person who killed them.

  Her stomach twisted into a knot as she tried to picture herself explaining to the police what had happened.

  Accident? Self-defense?

  Clearly, she could argue self-defense. The woman had ordered the dogs to attack, Cici had been afraid for her life, she’d responded without an intent to kill…

  But somehow she suspected the police would take a dim view of magically shrinking a woman such that she became vulnerable to an attack by her own dogs.

  Not to mention the dogs’ complete consumption of their owner. They’d destroyed the evidence and maybe that wasn’t such good news as it had seemed.

  If the dogs had left some remains, she could have removed the magical nets, returned everything to its expected size and claimed the dogs had gone crazy. The outcome might not have been good for the dogs, but she might have been able to get away with it.

  Good, good, good. The dogs were murmuring in their contentment. Good, good, good.

  Bad, bad, bad, Cici thought, although not loudly enough that the dogs would hear her.

  Self-defense was out.

  In fact, going to the police was out.

  Tirquilk, the planet where the Guanyasar Collection was currently located, was one of those in-between sorts of planets. The place was a minor galactic hub; travelers from twenty or thirty different planets routinely visited and several established trade routes stopped at the spaceport. But it was at the wing of the galaxy where magic was minimal, bordering on the edges of the dead zone where magic was non-existent. The authorities were skeptical about magic, to say the least.

  Normally, Cici didn’t mind that at all. But then normally she wasn’t trying to explain to them how she really hadn’t killed someone whose body was completely gone.

  So, no police.

  She leaned over the edge of the counter again. One dog was roaming, sniffing its way along the base of the counter. The other had already curled itself into a tight circle on the spot where its owner had met her demise. While Cici watched, the dog yawned, long tongue licking its muzzle, drops of green drool dripping off of its teeth, and then buried its head into its flank and closed its eyes.

  Great. The next customer to the exhibit would probably step on it. Squashed dog, upset customer, more explanations — nope, that was best avoided, too.

  The other dog sat back on its haunches and looked up at her. More? It whispered in her head, sounding plaintive.

  That must have been the dog she’d transformed first. It might have gotten a few bites in, but its buddy had gobbled down most of their owner before Cici’s magic had kicked in and shrunk it, too.

  Cici sighed. Coming around the side of the counter again, she crouched down next to the tiny dogs. They were about the size of mice now, or maybe small rats, but still built on the same sturdy lines as when they’d been monsters.

  Gently, she reached out and touched the sleeping dog. It didn’t stir. Gingerly — very gingerly — she scooped it up. She didn’t want the green drool dripp
ing out of the sides of its mouth eating into her skin and she really didn’t want it to wake up and bite her. Even tiny, those teeth looked sharp.

  She stood and reached over the counter to set it next to her screen. It gave a huff of breath and wiggled, but its eyes didn’t open.

  The other dog eagerly padded up to her nearest foot and snuffled along the edge of her shoe, then tried licking it.

  “None of that now.” Cici crouched down again and tapped its nose with a single finger. “No eating my shoes. No eating me.”

  Hungry, the dog replied with overtones of a mournful regret. Not eat.

  “Come on then.” Cici put her palm flat on the floor next to the dog. “We’ll find you something more.”

  The dog sniffed its way along her palm, then stopped, giving a single confused wag of its surprisingly fluffy tail. Food? No food.

  “Climb on.” Cici tilted her fingers up in a beckoning gesture, then let them rest on the floor again.

  The dog obviously had no idea what she meant. It made a nervous rumble in its throat. When it was huge that rumble might have been terrifying. But mouse-sized, Cici found it charming, like the chitter of a friendly squirrel or the semi-silent purr of a contented cat.

  She brought her other hand to the back end of the dog and pushed it forward. It stumbled onto her palm and she cupped her hand around it, then lifted it to the countertop. She set it down next to its sleeping friend.

  What was she going to do with them?

  They were evidence, possibly the only remaining evidence of a serious crime. The smart thing to do would be to dispose of them somehow.