Tipping the scales, p.1
Tipping the Scales, page 1
Contents
Title
Praise for Book One
Dedication
The Troupe Members You'll Meet
Your Entry Tickets
Prologue
1 - But There Were Omelets
2 - A Distracted Centaur
3 - Meeting Fluffy
4 - A Bitter Lunch
5 - Bear Baiting
6 - The Scent of a Unicorn
7 - Extra Credit
8 - Beware the Smoothie
9 - Parsley Revenge
10 - Angering the Centaurs, Again
11 - Taco Tuesday
12 - A Crushing Confession
13 - A Sight to Behold
14 - Insulting the Unicorn
15 - Opening Day Eve Evidence
16 - Drunken Brownies
17 - Continuing a Bad Habit
18 - A Soggy Prince
19 - A Forgotten Feeding
20 - What Fergus Witnessed
21 - Spider Attack!
22 - Centaur Cross Examination
23 - Alone with the Body
24 - Hands-Free Unicorn
25 - Fighting for Dwarf Rights
26 - A Princely Engagement
27 - Calling All Gossips
28 - Cordelia's New Look
29 - Princely Problems
30 - Stunts and Sparkles
31 - Feeling Inadequate
32 - Swan Dive
33 - That Was Our Prime Suspect!
34 - Creamy Coercion
35 - Buttered to Death
36 - A Happy Prince
37 - Troubling Evidence
38 - Even Worse Evidence
39 - Spectacular Swan's
40 - And Behind This Door...
41 - A Princely Escape
42 - Brushing Up on Clues
43 - Make Way for the Kailin
44 - Trial Time
45 - Confession Mode
46 - A Messy Defense
47 - The Fergus Show
Getting Stabby with Legends
Free Stuff!!
If You Enjoyed This….
About the Author
Keep Reading
Copyright
Tipping the Scales
A Circus of Unusual Creatures Mystery
Book 2
by Tammie Painter
PRAISE FOR BOOK ONE
What readers have to say about Hoard It All Before…
I've already read 'The Undead Mr Tenpenny' by Tammie Painter, so I was expected lots of humour, characters with depth, and a good fun romp. She didn't disappoint. This is an easy, fun read, packed with fascinating details of the new world she's created.
—Kim M. Watt, author of Baking Bad
What a truly FUN, lighthearted read, full of fantastical and lovable characters! …intricately woven with twists and kept me guessing until the very end.
—Abbie, Goodreads Reviewer
What fun!
—Sarah Angleton, author of White Man’s Graveyard
I loved the humour… I loved the way the story was written. The characters are very believable, and the way the mystery unravels is very well crafted…
—Neil, Goodreads Reviewer
What a fun circus-themed murder mystery! …I really think [Tammie] outdid herself with this book.
—Jonathan Pongratz, author of Reaper
Very funny and laughs out loud will be heard when reading it…this was so good l read it in one sitting couldn't put it down
—Ken, Goodreads Reviewer
To Mr Husband, who I have to credit for the line, "Well maybe they shouldn’t be so easily annoyed."
—xoxo—
THE TROUPE MEMBERS YOU'LL MEET
BENNY - A BEHEMOTH who enjoys a good scrub
Boris - A brownie who does things by the book
Charlie - A chimera you won’t see much of
Conrad - A centaur who likes to gossip, husband of Flora
Cordelia Quinn - A human who handles Duncan…barely
Duncan (aka "Brutus Fangwrath, Deadliest Dragon in the West") - A dragon who loves omelets, buckets of wine, and sleuthing
Ely Zinzendorf (aka "Zin") - A satyr who owns the Circus of Unusual Creatures
Finnegan Flynn - Leader of the Flying Flynns, a trapeze act full of elves who shape shift into squirrels
Fergus - A chain-smoking unicorn just looking for a good lap
Flora - A centaur who mixes herbal remedies, wife of Conrad
Greta, Gustaf, and Klaus Eisenberg - Surly dwarves who run Eisenberg’s Entertainment Alley
Gregg - A gremlin with a kitten obsession
Helga - A brownie who has a crush
Humphrey - A brownie who also has a crush, but won’t admit it
Molly - A miniature centaur who’s a real ham
Pepper - A cyclops with a penchant for gourmet cooking
OTHER PLAYERS
Ella Penn - A veela who causes trouble
Fluffy - An ill-fated iguana
Judge Judge Javert - A human with a perfect name for his profession
The Kailin - A unicorn that can get stabby if defendants don’t behave
Mr & Mrs (Furious) Farmer - Owners of a strawberry patch…and a shotgun
Prince Swan - A love-sotted fellow
Damian Ratcher - A human who’s buying up circuses
PROLOGUE
LYING FLAT OUT on my belly, I stretched my legs, then my wings. Something mooed in the distance. Okay, well, not ‘something.’ At first guess, I’d say it was a cow.
Or it could have been the human snoring next to me.
Which she had been doing all night, mind you.
CORDELIA: I don’t snore.
DUNCAN: No, of course not. It’s just the gentle murmurings of your slumber.
CORDELIA: Exactly.
DUNCAN: Murmurings that I believe were responsible for a few reports of earthquakes in the vicinity.
Still, despite the noise, it felt amazing to sprawl out as I slept, to have the stars winking at me when I opened my eyes in the middle of an early summer night, and to perform a full-body stretch first thing in the morning.
That’s not to say my caravan isn’t adequate, but in a traveling circus there’s only so much space you can provide a dragon — even a dragon who can reduce himself to the manageable size of a Clydesdale stallion.
From the direction of the mooing, a man began cursing.
And no, I don’t know why all my lovely stories have to start with a human cursing.
"Get off my bleeding strawberries, you great lump of a lizard!"
Mr Furious Farmer didn’t actually say bleeding, but I’ll leave it to you to fill in the angry swear word of your choice.
Cordelia shook herself awake.
"Wuz goin’ on?" she mumbled as bits of hay poked out from her short auburn hair.
"You best not have ruined the snarking tomatoes!" shouted Mrs Furious Farmer — again, using something a little saucier than snarking.
Cordelia got to her feet, squinting in the direction of the farmhouse. She might not have fully knocked the sleep out of her eyes, but that didn’t stop her from yelling back at the couple.
"You know, there was a time people might have been thrilled to find a dragon in their strawberry field."
Which to me sounded like the perfect song lyric for a wandering minstrel to put to a tune. But it had been at least five hundred years since minstrels wandered around singing tales of dragons in strawberry fields. A shame, really.
I thought it might be time to show Mr and Mrs Furious Farmer exactly which dragon was gracing their strawberry patch. I stretched again, then stood, increasing myself to my full show size and doing my best not to crush any strawberries as I did so.
"Holy corn cobs," muttered Mr Farmer, not loud enough for Cordelia to pick up, but one of the benefits of being a dragon is having a keen sense of hearing. "Is that—?"
At the sight of full-size me — imagine a winged reptile as tall as a giraffe with the bulk of a gorilla — Mrs Farmer’s jaw had fallen open. It worked itself a few times, as if not quite sure closing was appropriate in the circumstances.
Finally, she got her gob shut, swallowed hard, then said, "Brutus Fangwrath," in a tone of such awe it brought a delighted smile to my lips and sent tingles along the spines that run the length of my back.
Mrs Farmer might have been in awe, but Mr Farmer was reaching for something stashed behind a rocking chair on the porch.
Knowing how much humans love things that go Boom!, I had a sneaking suspicion of what he was reaching for. Unfortunately, as a dragon, I’m not supposed to speak to humans, and shouting "Run!" would have broken the No Speaking Rule of 1274.
Doubly unfortunate? Before her first gallon of coffee, Cordelia’s brain isn’t exactly lightning quick at grasping the severity of certain situations.
"Um, Cordelia," I said, doing my best not to move my lips, "maybe now’s a good time to tell them we aren’t here to eat them."
"Oh, right." To Mr Farmer, who had been trying to tell his star-struck wife to get inside, Cordelia shouted, "It’s okay. I’m his handler. He’s under my control." Out of the side of her mouth she whispered, "Maybe not being the size of an African elephant would help."
"Good point," I replied while maintaining my grin.
"And stop smiling. The sight of your fangs is doing nothing to keep his trigger finger from blasting us into last week."
As I pulled myself back down to my smaller size, Cordelia flourished he
"See? Perfectly tame under my power." I groaned at her showman’s boast. "Did you want to pet him?"
"Seriously?" I grumbled under my breath. "I’m not part of the petting zoo."
"Shush."
Mrs Farmer started forward, but Mr Farmer snatched her hand and pulled her back. Warily, he said, "We’re good. Thanks for showing him to us, but you best move along." With the barrel of his shotgun he indicated the road in the distance.
"Where’s Zin setting up the circus?" Mrs Farmer asked eagerly.
"Just a few miles down the main road. If you tell him you’re friends of Cordelia Quinn, he’ll let you in for free."
"Oh, Zin’s just going to love that," I whispered. Cordelia elbowed me.
"Golly, that would be a real treat. Did you hear that, John? Free tickets to Zinzendorf’s Circus—"
"Yeah, yeah, of Unusual Creatures. Lord knows I hear you going on enough about that damn show. Suppose I gotta buy you popcorn and you’ll want to play…"
Even I didn’t catch the rest of Furious Farmer John’s griping as he steered his wife back into the house. Before he closed the door, she turned around and waved at us enthusiastically, then called out, "And take as many strawberries as you like."
To which her husband barked that her dragon fancy was going to bankrupt them both.
The door slammed shut. It was time for me and Cordelia to join up with the rest of the troupe.
After a strawberry breakfast, of course.
1 - BUT THERE WERE OMELETS
"I STILL DON’T know how you convinced Zin to let me walk to our next show," I said after Cordelia had scrubbed strawberry stains from her face under a hand-pumped water spout at the edge of Farmer John’s strawberry field.
Due to a few fang-filled events in my past, I’ve never been allowed to wander the countryside as Zin’s circus traveled from one town to the next. And once we arrive to a show spot, my movements are hemmed in by the barrier Zin magically erects around the perimeter of the grounds.
My troublesome reputation has improved in the year or so since Zin acquired me for his circus from an auction bargain bin. Still, my dragon license the Pacific Animal Welfare folks issued to Zin came with a lengthy list of strict rules and restrictions. If I break any of these, especially the one about harming another being, I’ll be sent straight to the Pits — a work camp where dragon poo is ‘mined’ and processed for the region’s energy production, and where many humans and dragons die within three months of entering.
And if someone dies because of my actions, even if it’s an accident, well, let’s just say the Pits will seem a rose-tinted dream compared to what will happen to me.
But somehow, despite these regulations, my new handler, Cordelia Quinn, had convinced Zin it would be healthy for me to walk between shows. Walk. Freely. Like I was your average dragon without a criminal record. It made me like Cordelia all the more.
I must say, though, the three days of walking from Sherwood to Salem had resulted in some serious calluses on my feet. And don’t get me started on how tattered my claws had become.
CORDELIA: Oh, the price of freedom you had to endure.
DUNCAN: Hey, if you knew how hard it is to find someone willing to do a dragon manicure, you’d be a bit more sympathetic.
"Well," Cordelia said with that wicked little grin she gets when she’s up to no good, "your brief taste of freedom might have something to do with this…" I started to object, but Cordelia whipped out the word before I could speak. "Sit!"
My backside, fully out of my own control, dropped to the ground. Which would be embarrassing and undignified on its own, but we’d been making our way to the main road along the farm’s slim furrows. And Cordelia’s command came just as I was carefully stepping around a row of leeks. The crunch of crushed stalks was followed by the vegetable’s pungent scent.
It was also followed by Mr Furious Farmer’s shouting complaints.
While Cordelia got a good laugh, I stood, gave her my best evil-dragon snarl, then brushed myself off. An action which only spread the oniony odor.
"We really need to talk about how it is you can do that," I said.
"I’m your handler."
"I’ve had other handlers. Some of them didn’t survive the job." I tried to sound threatening, but I liked Cordelia too much to pull it off.
Plus, the moment I spoke the words, I felt a pang just under my firebox. My previous handler had died recently. There’d been such a whirlwind of activity after his death, I’d barely had time to accept he was gone. So, every now and then, the grief hit me like an unexpected centaur kick to the gut.
Cordelia, despite being a human, understood dragons and sensed my shift in mood. She remained silent as we strode the final few miles to meet up with the rest of the troupe.
———
"Where have you been?" Zin bellowed the moment Cordelia and I stepped through the entry gates. And I do mean the very moment we stepped through. You’d almost think he’d been watching for us.
I glanced around. The only human in the vicinity was Cordelia, but I kept my voice low when I replied, "Walking."
Cordelia snorted a laugh. Zin shot her a look that made her bite her lip. Still, her restrained laughter looked about ready to burst out at any second.
"It’s not funny, Quinn. I trusted you to stay close behind us. Then I wake up one morning and you two are nowhere to be seen. You do know if Duncan goes on a rampage, gets lost, or just wanders off, I’m liable for him. I’m not losing my circus because you two lollygaggers can’t keep up."
"Lollygaggers?" Cordelia snickered. I poked her in the back of the thigh with my tail. Now was not the time to rile up Zin any further by making fun of his word choices. Silly as they may be.
"It’s not her fault," I told him. Although, technically, I suppose it was. After all, my handler could have told me to sit, jog, or put down that fork at any time. "We…" I trailed off and nibbled at my lower lip as my raggedly clawed toes fidgeted.
In hindsight, I guess it was a bad move not to tell Zin about the roadside distraction we’d found.
"Yes?" the satyr asked impatiently, one of his hoofed feet drumming against the grassy ground.
"Well," I began, "you told us to stick to side roads, right? So, I don’t know, maybe somewhere around Dayton, we were passing the cutest little bungalow and we came across this gnome, Pierre, who was guarding a patch of geraniums. Prize ones, apparently." Zin was now giving me that hurry-the-story-along-or-I’ll-kick-you-in-the-shins look. "Anyway, he told us about this omelet restaurant not too far down the road."
"Omelets," Zin said flatly, and I wasn’t quite sure if he was asking a question or making a statement.
"Yes. Omelets. Folded egg things with stuff inside them."
"I know what an omelet is," Zin exploded, drawing the attention of everyone nearby. Thankfully, this only included a couple centaurs lingering over their oat milk in the Cantina, a few brownies returning from a night of cleaning, and Pepper, who’d been wiping down her order counter. Eyebrows were raised, but everyone was used to Zin’s gruff demeanor and occasional tirades, and soon went back to what they were doing. Through a very tight jaw, he asked, "Why exactly did an omelet put you an entire day behind us? I’ve had to bribe the centaurs to do the heavy lifting you normally do for the set up."
"Oh, you know they enjoyed showing off their muscles," said Cordelia.
"Well, yes, they did. But they also insisted I give them five bonus credits in their dukie books for the extra work." Zin jutted his finger toward the centaurs in the Cantina to emphasize his point. "So, again, how did one omelet take you an entire day to eat?"
"It wasn’t just one," Cordelia said quietly, then looked up to me to explain.
"Seriously, Zin, you have got to go to this place. It’s called Egg-Centricity, and they make twenty-four different kinds of omelets. Twenty-four." I caught Pepper watching us. I’m not sure how good cyclops’s hearing is, but I didn’t want to risk her finding out I was enjoying another chef’s omelets — she could be a bit possessive in that regard. I dropped my voice even further. "Twenty-four. And all amazing."
