Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Allies

by Lydia Sherrer

  “That is an accurate summation, yes.”

  “You’re crazy.” Richard said without animosity, just pure amazement.

  Lily smiled. “There are advantages to being crazy, you know. And Sebastian killed no one. John Faust did. I can prove it to you.”

  “Really?” Richard said skeptically.

  “Yes. We have the incident on video camera and a witness who will testify to Sebastian’s innocence, in return for full immunity, of course.”

  “The girl who called 911 I assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, Lily, I can understand wanting to get your…associate…out of jail. But a woman was murdered and there were only two people on the scene. If Mr. Blackwell didn’t do it, then his friend did, and I can’t promise—”

  “You’re forgetting about magic, Agent Grant,” Lily said, slowly, patiently.

  “Yeah, right. Your friend said the woman’s necklace came alive and choked her. Like that would hold up in court.”

  “You don’t believe him?”

  “Of course I don’t, Lily. I respect your beliefs in this magic, thing. Seriously, you’re free to follow whatever path you choose. The world takes all kinds. But you can’t expect me to believe in it, too, and you certainly can’t expect me to think it relevant to a murder investigation.” He said all this so calmly, almost bored, that Lily wanted to slap him.

  “The name is Miss Singer,” she said through gritted teeth, “and if you don’t believe in magic then surely you won’t mind conducting a little experiment.”

  Having prepared for this eventuality, she stepped up to Richard, presenting a strip of paper on which she’d already drawn a line of dimmu runes in aluminum-laced ink. She reached up, attempting to put the piece of paper around his neck and tape the ends together to form a collar.

  “Whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute,” he protested, holding up his hands and leaning back. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She smiled to herself. The violence of his reaction proved he wasn’t quite as disbelieving as he tried to pretend. “Showing you the spell John Faust used on the necklace that killed that woman. I’m not sure how he got the dimmu runes on the necklace, since the chain links would be too small to engrave, but the spell itself is straightforward enough. Perhaps experiencing it will convince you.”

  “So you’re going to try and strangle me with a piece of paper?”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Yes, Agent Grant, I’m attempting to murder you with a strip of paper—no, of course not! Good heavens. It’s paper. It will rip when it contracts. You’ll be fine. You don’t believe in magic, remember? So why not let me put this on your neck? Don’t tell me you’re afraid?”

  Richard frowned at the jibe, but it was still several long moments before he let his arms fall and allowed her to tape the piece of paper snugly around his neck.

  “Good.” Lily stepped back, observing her handiwork. “Now, if it becomes uncomfortable, simply reach up and rip the paper, alright?”

  He nodded. For someone who didn’t believe in magic, he looked inordinately nervous.

  Once again calming herself, she summoned the Source and spoke a command. Though Richard wouldn’t have noticed anything, in her magical sight the dimmu runes on the paper glowed briefly, absorbing the energy and its accompanying parameters. Then, she stepped back.

  “I assume Sebastian told you the necklace started choking the woman when she said my father’s alias?” Sebastian hadn’t told her that, of course. He’d barely told her anything. But she’d worked it out from Tina’s description of events.

  Richard nodded, looking even more nervous.

  “Good. I’ve spelled the paper to react to my father’s alias, first name only, voice-activated. It’s an uncommon enough name, which is probably another reason he chose it. Go ahead, say the name.”

  He hesitated, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. “Are you sure this is safe?” he asked.

  “Come now, are you honestly afraid of a piece of paper?”

  The FBI agent gulped, then said, “Rex.”

  Immediately, the paper began to crinkle and contract, tightening on Richard’s neck. With a cry of alarm he scrabbled at it, fingernails digging under the edge and ripping it off with frantic haste. He jumped up off the couch and threw it away, backing up when it only went a foot or so and fluttered down to the floor where it continued to contract until it was a tightly wadded ball of paper. He glared at it.

  Lily simply shrugged. “I told you so.”

  “Okay, okay,” Richard grumbled, rubbing his neck. In his haste to get it off, he’d managed to give himself a paper cut. “How did you do that, anyway?”

  “I told you, energy manipulation, the same way everything else in the world works. Just because we call it magic doesn’t make it unreal—though, to be fair, there are plenty of charlatans or just plain idiots out there who give magic a bad name. You know, if you think about it, people in the Middle Ages would have burned you at the stake for talking on your phone, listening to the radio, and even driving your car. They would have said you were in league with the devil and had demon-possessed objects that gave you unholy power. We fear that which we don’t understand.” She shrugged again.

  “Hmm.” Richard made a noncommittal noise, still glaring at the ball as if it were going to jump up and attack him should he get too close. He looked up at Lily. “Even if I believe you, there’s no way the court is going to accept this. Even if you show them, they’d…”

  “Lock me in a padded room. I know.”

  “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “But you were thinking it,” she insisted with a sad smile.

  “Perhaps. The point is, this doesn’t help get your associate out of jail.”

  “Yes, it does, because the only person I need to convince is you. I don’t want to prove Sebastian is innocent to the court, because I want you to drop all charges and release Sebastian without a trial. You’ve seen yourself what magic can do. You can talk to the witness and see the video recording. Sebastian has no motive and no prior record. If you get him out of jail, we can work together to capture the real culprit. It’s the same kind of deal you cut with petty criminals every day to catch the bigger fish.”

  “Well…” he hesitated.

  Lily’s gut tightened. She’d come too far to fail now. “Don’t tell me you can’t because you’re not in charge or you don’t know the right people. You’re the FBI; figure it out.”

  He laughed, “No, actually, the irony of it is that I do have the power. I’m in charge of the LeFay investigation. Through a series of…well, how is not important, but I got stuck with this investigation because nobody else wanted it and it had already ruined two other agents’ careers. So I got the job and thought for sure I was sunk. But then, well, things started happening, and, um, you showed up. As crazy as it sounds, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for…I just wish it had come in a more, er…”

  “Believable package?” Lily offered, her smile ironic.

  “Something like that.” He nodded, pursing his lips in thought. “Look, I can’t promise anything until I’ve talked to the girl and seen the videotape. But…if everything adds up like you say…I think I might, might, mind you, be able to get the charges dropped. I just have no idea how I’m supposed to explain all this to my superiors, much less write the report.” He ran a restless hand through his close-cropped hair.

  “That’s the point. You don’t try to explain it, you find a way to ignore it. We have a lawyer who can help you. Not, officially, of course, but off the books, you might say. She’s, um, trained in explaining away unexplainable things.”

  “That might help,” he said absentmindedly, then shook himself. “Let’s say Mr. Blackwell does get out of jail, then what?” His question sounded oddly casual, and Lily sighed, knowing what was coming.

  “Then you wait,” she said. “We need Sebastian to help find my father. Once we find him, we’ll neutralize him, try to hide the, um, mag
ic part of the equation, then call in your team to take him away.”

  Richard gave her an uncomfortable look. “You can’t seriously expect me to let you walk into a situation like that by yourself? You’re…I’m sorry, I don’t mean this to be offensive, but you’re not in any position to protect yourself.”

  Lily’s eyes glinted dangerously, unsurprised but still stung by Richard’s words. “First of all, I won’t be alone. I told you, I have allies. Second, I can take care of myself.” Feeling reckless, she turned and spoke a word, concentrating all her frustration and anger on the crumpled ball of paper lying on the floor. It burst into brilliant, white-hot flame which lasted only a second before disappearing, leaving a crumbling pile of ash and a singed spot on her living room rug. She knew she would regret the spot later, but right now the look of fear on Richard’s face made it worth it.

  “I retract my statement,” he said shakily, not a shred of disbelief left in his face. There was, however, still plenty of concern.

  “Yes, well,” Lily said, straightening her suit and smoothing down her constantly frizzing hair, “now that we are on the same page, might I suggest the time for words is over? I can arrange a meeting with the witness as soon as you can produce some kind of guarantee of immunity—a paper or something—for me to show her. Otherwise, she won’t talk.”

  “I can cobble something together by tomorrow,” he said, rubbing his forehead, then murmured as if to himself. “It’s going to be hellish trying to explain all this away…”

  Lily sighed. “Keep it simple. The fewer people to ask questions, the better. For your sake. Because”—she gave him a hard look—“I promise you, Richard Grant, that if rumors leak out and reporters start showing up at my doorstep, I will deny every single thing I’ve said and claim you made it all up.”

  He chuckled, though the sound held no mirth. “Don’t worry, Miss Singer. No one would believe me if I told them.”

  “Yes,” she mused, “a fact which has kept wizards safe on countless occasions.”

  They agreed on a time and place to meet with Tina—Lily insisted on her house over Richard’s office, as she knew Tina would refuse to show up at FBI headquarters—and he left, giving Sir Kipling a scratch on the ears as he went.

  Lily watched him go with mixed feelings. Mostly relief that the ordeal was over, but also apprehension. Would he betray them? Would he keep the secret? She could only hope, and take things one step at a time.

  “He’ll be good,” Sir Kipling commented by her feet, staring with her after the FBI agent. As usual, he seemed to read her mind. “I have him fully under my feline sway.”

  “Since when do you have a feline sway?” Lily asked, fighting to keep the grin from her face as she closed the front door.

  “Since I was born, of course,” her cat informed her, as if it were obvious.

  “I see,” Lily said, and left it at that. She had plenty to do and no time to argue about her cat’s overinflated opinion of his “feline sway.”

  Things moved quickly after her talk with Richard. Meeting with Tina the next day went smoothly enough, if you ignored the part where Percy gave Richard a wedgie. Having threatened the poltergeist with metaphysical harm should he break a single thing in her house, she considered a minor thing like a wedgie a victory of the highest order. The only hitch was explaining how Sebastian had used fae glamour to appear as John Faust.

  Thankfully, after Tina had finished her statement and left, leaving the videotape in Richard’s keeping, the agent took the opportunity to discuss in full what the FBI actually suspected John Faust, aka Rex Morganson, of doing, bringing Lily up to speed and enabling them to compare notes. She told him a modified-to-sound-less-insane version of John Faust’s plan to “make” more wizards and instigate an age of benevolent dictatorship.

  Based on the FBI’s report, it looked as if John Faust had used the Rex Morganson alias for all his illegal activities related to the kidnappings and his schemes to raise funds, as well as the theft of multiple artifacts and antiques that Lily suspected were magical in nature.

  With all the information on the table, Lily tried to paint a coherent picture for herself of what John Faust was up to. As best she could guess, he’d discovered some way to find children of wizard heritage, perhaps through ancestry records or maybe some device he’d invented to detect the “magical” gene he was researching. So he was kidnapping wizard children, raising funds, and stealing magical artifacts to do…what? Build an army? The idea made her sick, and even more grateful to her mother for all she’d gone through over the years to keep her away from that horrible man.

  Of course, her father wouldn’t see it as sick. He would say he was “rescuing” children from a life of ignobility, deprived of their heritage by the ignorance of mundanes. It was all a matter of perspective to him, and the greater good as he saw it. Lily suspected his ego had as much to do with it as anything altruistic. While she considered what had happened to all those children, she realized with a jolt that she might have already met one, possibly two of them: The young wizard who had attacked Madam Barrington at Allen’s house, and maybe even the ninja-like fighter who had tried to neutralize her. Why John Faust would keep around a mundane child she had no idea, seeing as how he looked down on mundanes as almost sub-human.

  At least between Tina, the videotape, and what both of them knew, Richard was finally and thoroughly convinced. The problem was, they could prove very little.

  “In the end, though, it won’t matter,” Lily assured him, hoping she was right. “Once we find him and stop him, that will lead us to wherever he’s keeping these children, not to mention his personal records and effects. I promise, it will all be yours. Well, except anything inexplicably magical. Some things will need to conveniently disappear. Once all is said and done, though, this will simply look like some sort of cult fanatic who went off the deep end. The children will be rescued, you’ll have your culprit, and probably a promotion to boot.” She smiled at him.

  He smiled back, though he still looked green around the edges. “Maybe. I’ll tell you this for sure: the paperwork will be a nightmare.”

  Lily shrugged sympathetically. “Just be grateful you’re not the one who will be storming the castle, so to speak.”

  “Oh, believe me, I’d much rather be doing that,” he said with feeling, to which Lily raised an eyebrow. He looked away, probably remembering that little pile of ash on her living room floor. “Alright, so maybe not. But still, I feel like I got the short end of the stick on this one.”

  Lily could only shake her head in disbelief. She would rather be sitting at a desk, filling out paperwork any day. If she could have given her powers to Richard and hidden from the whole mess, she would. But she couldn’t, no more than she could stop being John Faust’s daughter. Life didn’t let you pick your hand. All you got to do was choose how to play it.

  In the end, Richard did finally agree to get the charges against Sebastian dropped, though he insisted she owed him about a hundred chess pies for all the work it would take. His half-hopeful, half-disgruntled look made Lily laugh.

  “You’ll have me baking until my fingers fall off, at this rate,” she accused him.

  “That’s the idea,” he gave her a mock glare. “I figure, if you have no fingers you’ll get into less trouble.”

  She started to smile at his teasing, then stopped, remembering they were supposed to be acting professional. Molding her face into a polite expression, she simply nodded.

  He picked up on her coolness, and his own smile faded. He sighed, and Lily sympathized. Richard was an easy man to like. It was too bad she’d decided not to. All it took to strengthen her resolve, however, was remembering that stab of pain she’d felt at the sight of a pile of surveillance bugs on her floor. Yes, he was easy to like, and probably a good man, too. But he was an FBI agent, first and foremost.

  Sensing that the time for games was over, Richard assured her Sebastian would be out of jail within twenty-four hours, and they parted
ways. He hesitated when saying goodbye, as if he wanted to say more. But Lily kept her expression neutral and he, finding no encouragement in her gaze, let the words go unsaid. If his shoulders sagged a bit and his expression looked defeated, Lily chose not to dwell on it. She’d done what she needed to do, and now things were finally looking up.

  She only hoped they could find Allen, and that he would still be alive when they did.

  That night, she gave Sebastian a brief update. Worried about the guard’s notice, she kept things short, saying only that she’d worked out a deal with the FBI to have the charges dropped. He tried to question her, but she put him off, saying she’d explain it all once he was safely out of the clutches of the United States Federal Penitentiary. She instructed him to call her as soon as he got out, so she could pick him up and give him a ride to wherever they’d been holding his car for evidence.

  “Sure, sure,” he whispered, sounding a bit distant as if he were checking the hall for guards. Then the sound of his voice drew nearer again. “So you pick me up from jail, we get my car, and then what? What’s been going on? Do we know where Mr. Fancypants’s lair is yet?”

  “Ms. B is working on that. We’ve got some ideas, but I was hoping we could try Grimmold first. He worked so well finding Allen, maybe he could do the same with John Faust, or even follow Allen’s scent to wherever John Faust has taken him.”

  “It’s worth a try,” he agreed, “though you should know he doesn’t always get it right. And sometimes he just refuses. He’s a finicky little bugger.”

  Lily’s heart sank. She’d been depending on Grimmold’s tracking skills, as their other plan was tenuous at best. But it was what it was.

  “Well, hopefully you can convince him,” she said.

  A little sigh came from the photograph. “Yeah, hopefully. So…I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”