by D. R. Rosier
Feeling a bit more centered and ready for trouble tonight, I opened my eyes and looked out the window.
We had taken one of the luxury BMWs which were used for high profile VIP protection. Besides being fully loaded with all the latest tech toys, it was also warded with protections to an extent that a hellfire missile probably wouldn’t scratch the paint job.
Harold Moffett lived outside the city proper in a small mansion, where it was just him and a few servants from what I knew. His company wasn’t diverse like Walker security services was, which was the reason he had to hire out for bodyguards, but he was cutting edge in the world of wards, and other experimental spells. The bad guys were constantly trying to find a way around the latest protections, and the security company mages were always improving to stay ahead of the curve.
It was remarkably like computer security software, constant upgrades to stay a step ahead of most hackers. No magic or ward was foolproof, even my unique magic as a siren could be countered, although luckily the solution to that wasn’t widely known. Hell, I didn’t even know how Brent was doing it.
Chad pulled off the road in front of a large cast iron gate, rolled down the window and hit the intercom.
The intercom crackled and a pleasant female voice said, “Can I help you?”
Chad replied, “Walker security services ma’am, we’re here to escort and guard Mr. Moffett to the courthouse.”
The crackle cut out, and the gate swung open. The driveway was twisty, and long. The mansion was a good size, but not too big, maybe eight thousand square feet. It was made of brick, and had large windows making it look modern. When Chad pulled the car into the circle driveway, I could feel the magic of the wards already, and they were very strong. I gritted my teeth and got out of the car.
It felt like the magic was feeling me up, so I was rather annoyed when I reached the door and hit the bell.
I heard the woman’s voice again, “I.D. please.”
I sighed, and grabbed my work and government contractor identification, and held it up to the camera above the door. I tried to reign in my temper, this guy’s wards were unbelievable, he must have a lot of enemies.
The door opened and the mage stepped out. His presence was… underwhelming to say the least. He was in dark brown robes that he looked like he’d slept in last night and his light brown eyes looked a little unfocused, as if his mind was a million miles away. He wasn’t bad looking, kind of cute actually, but his dress and demeanor didn’t do his mostly average looks any favors. This was one of the most powerful and brilliant mages in Dallas?
“Mr. Moffett,” I said in a professional voice and bowed my head briefly in greeting. I preferred not to shake hands, the less my magic interacted with the men around me the better.
He seemed to come to himself and then started to stare at me with a furrowed brow. His eyes roved slowly down my curves, and he actually scratched his head. I stood there in bewildered disbelief as he slowly circled me, and caressed the other half of my body with his eyes.
What the fuck?
He said in a confused voice, “What are you?”
I growled as I looked over my shoulder, “Whatever I am, it’s not written on my ass.”
His eyes popped off said body part like I’d burned him and he looked me guiltily in the eyes. He blushed like a schoolboy caught wanking to a nudie mag and seemed entirely speechless for a moment.
He cleared his throat, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t. It was your aura I was studying not… Not that your body isn’t worth look… I mean…” he waved his arm helplessly at my figure.
He trailed off and blushed even harder.
I sighed and took pity on him. He obviously didn’t get out much, and it was actually kind of cute in a clueless way, “I’m a siren Mr. Moffett.”
He frowned, “I don’t think so, I’ve met some of them before on a research expedition to the Caribbean. Their aura was different. And please, call me Harold.”
I shrugged, “Could that have anything to do with me not owning sex slaves? The ones you met were probably constantly feeding sexual energy and power off of their harems.”
He shook his head and looked dubious, “I see similarities, but no… I really don’t think so.”
I frowned, it wasn’t like I could prove it. My mother was a siren, I’d tracked that down, she’d died in childbirth, which is why I was abandoned to the system, because there was no father on record. It never occurred to me the father hadn’t been human. I also didn’t have any ability outside of siren norms, so it didn’t really matter anyway, did it? Either way, I was uncomfortable talking about it, and didn’t want to tell this awkward stranger, and my mission for the day, any more about my personal business.
But I was curious about one thing, “How’d you ever get off the island, surely…”
Harold smiled, it changed his whole face and his hazel eyes warmed, “I know the secret to blocking a siren’s influence.”
I grunted, curious but sure he wouldn’t tell me, it was also interesting to know I’d mesmerized him with my ass alone earlier, he’d been staring a little too long for that aura comment to be entirely true.
“We should go if we’re to make it on time?”
He nodded absently and walked over to the car without a word. Yup, no social skills to speak of.
He circled the car once as if inspecting it, a lot like he’d done with me actually, and then muttered adequate under his breath and got into the back seat. I closed the door and took a look around before slipping back into the passenger seat.
“Harold, this is Chad. Chad, Harold prefers first names.”
Chad grunted and ignored the mage, who was clearly examining Chad’s aura now.
Did he do that to everyone he met? Or maybe he was reading our reliability somehow, or intentions from our aura? After all, he was putting his life in our hands and he’d never met us before. Still, he was being creepily obvious about it, and it reminded me of dogs going around sniffing butts in greeting, and I smiled as the humor of the situation finally caught up to my annoyance. It helped that I was out of those wards near the house.
“Do you know how long it will take Harold?”
He turned away from Chad and looked at me curiously, maybe he was still trying to figure out what I was, “It shouldn’t take long. I expect I’ll be done with the preparations before dinner, and it will take about another hour after that, when we get back they should have the building cleared for us. It will take me about forty-five minutes to disassemble the old wards, and then fifteen or so to cast and power the new ones.”
I nodded and turned around. I could feel his gaze on the back of my neck, but managed to ignore it. I don’t know why, but I’ve always had more patience with clients than the people I work with. Maybe because I expect clients to be annoying, whereas I’d prefer my co-workers not to be.
As anyone who lives in the Dallas area knows, it took about a half an hour to get there, everything in Dallas, no matter what my destination, always seemed to be twenty to thirty minutes away. It was a large sprawling city.
I kept watch out the windows, and was aware of the cars around us, but it didn’t appear any of Harold’s enemies were following us, much less planning an attack. At least, not on the road.
My money was on the idea that if an attack happened, it would be tonight when he was most vulnerable, their signal to attack would be when the old wards came down. At least, that’s how I’d do it. Still, hitting us on the way there would have been a good surprise, assumptions or not, I kept alert and watchful.
We pulled into the parking lot filled with cars and I closed my eyes as we moved to a spot. I could hear the songs of the beings walking around outside, and even faint echoes from inside the building. All of the ones outside were on the move, none lay in wait inside cars, or were loitering. When the car stopped, I got out and took a look around, I was already sure we were good, but a visual check doesn’t hurt, and then I waited for a nod from Chad. Sure or not, we both ne
eded to sign off that the scene was secure before letting Harold out from under the protections of the car.
When he gave me the go ahead, I opened Harold’s door, and we flanked him as we walked toward the entrance. In a perfect world, the guard would acknowledge us and ask for identification, having already been apprised of our purpose and expected arrival time. For the most part, the building security guards were the only ones allowed to go armed, contractors like Chad and I were the exceptions to that rule but only when expected on a job.
Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, and the government was a plodding bureaucracy whose left hand didn’t know what the right was doing. So of course, the guard took one wide eyed look at my tactical gear, and then at Chad who had more weapons than god, and hit the big red panic button on his desk before we reached the door, which locked down the building.
Fuck. Maybe we should have called first from the car.
I muttered, “Hey boss, you monitoring this cluster fuck?”
Dead air, of course he wasn’t listening this time. Chad chuckled, but I didn’t see what was so funny. I could hear the songs of the swat team snipers taking a position on the roof, while the lobby was flooded with most likely every guard in the damned building.
I pulled out my cell and dialed the boss, while I dug out my identification and tapped it against the glass, and held it there.
“Walker security services, this is Brent Walker’s office, how may I assist you today,” Pricilla said in a bored tone.
Just great, as if more couldn’t go wrong.
“Is Brent around Cilla? It doesn’t look like the court house was expecting us, and they’ve locked down, and… is he there?”
I tried to be nice, Pricilla said back waspishly, “Mr. Walker is not in the office, but I’ll let him know you’re in a situation.”
One of the guards came forward and looked at the identification. I couldn’t hear him, but he called back to the security desk and red button guy picked up a phone. Well, at least they weren’t shooting at us. Yet.
I cleared my throat, “Thanks, our package is a little exposed right now, so I’d appreciate it.”
She clucked her tongue at me and hung up. Sure, it was a little heavy handed, but I knew the bitch would hang me out to dry. A little reminder our client and Chad were out in the wind as well would make her move faster.
Harold asked a little nervously, “Does this happen a lot?”
I shook my head, “No actually, Stuart is usually better at this. Then again we only come here once a year, so even just this once makes it a twenty percent failure rate.”
He chuckled, “So… I’m a package?”
I frowned and said deadpan, “Yup, we need to keep you right side up at all times, and prevent breakage.”
Chad looked at me in disbelief, but Harold laughed, “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.”
I wouldn’t have said something like that to most of the people I’ve guarded, but I hadn’t met one as laid back and… scatterbrained as Harold before. Besides, he’d looked really nervous, and laughter always helps with that. The guy behind the desk hung up the phone, and hit another button which released the building from lockdown.
Crisis averted.
The next couple of hours were kind of boring in comparison. Once we were signed in, we were escorted around by a sheepish and apologetic guard to the four corners in the lowest level of the building, and also to the four corners of the roof. They were the ward anchor points, and their limits. About the only interesting thing is Harold had what looked like a stylus for a tablet.
It looked kind of fragile, but he used it to carve all the symbols, that I had no idea what they meant, in the cement of the foundation, and the brick of the roof. He took about fifteen minutes at each site, which meant it took almost two and a half hours, the other half hour was for walking. That doesn’t seem like very long, but the whole time I had to be alert and aware of my surroundings, he was exposed the whole time.
On the way out, we reminded them we’d be back around or before seven to finish up, after the building was cleared of traffic. That gave us about an hour and a half for dinner, so we drove to a Longhorns and got some steak. Because we were still on duty, I let Chad eat first while I kept watch. Shifters can eat a lot in a very short period of time. Ten minutes and two porterhouse steaks later, and I was enjoying a nice rare ribeye of my own.
Harold was starting to grow on me a bit at this point. Maybe it was simply because he didn’t defer to me because of my pheromones, or magic aura. It was kind of fun relating to a man like I was just a normal person for once, even if he was a bit odd.
Chapter 6
I was a bit tense, when we pulled back into the parking lot it was pretty much empty, minus a number of cars for the security guards. I opened myself up to the songs around me, outside of the of the groups of people by the doors, who I assumed were the guards, there was nothing in my range. That didn’t mean all that much, I could only listen so far, and things like buildings and walls interfered.
My magic depended on a being’s melody, everyone was different to a certain extent, but some things were similar by race. I could also get a general sense of a person’s health, age, and ability based on their song. I could even tell if they were sleeping, tired, or even dreaming as their songs changed.
Which was pretty much how my magic worked, when I sang with intent, my magic reached out and changed some of the notes in a being’s song. Some things were universal, like putting them to sleep or dumping their memories. Confusion as well, was simply inserting disharmony into the notes that governed thinking.
Other things were not universal, like increasing a person’s rate of healing was different from person to person, and I’d have to listen before I could affect any change. The reason was, I didn’t change those notes, I had to… increase the speed of the tempo, and the volume so to speak, while matching the original notes exactly.
What I didn’t get from a person’s song was what they were feeling, or thinking, that was beyond what I could do, or understand.
Which meant my assumption about the guards being gathered at the doors was just that, an assumption. All I could really tell by listening was that there were a great number of gathered humans. The odds were on my side of course, but they could be ambushers.
I highly doubted it though.
When Chad and I gave each other the all clear, I opened the door for Harold, and we headed back toward the building. My assumptions bore out and the guards nodded to us as we walked past.
The one behind the desk said, “Mr. Moffett, the building is cleared, we’ll clear out and keep guard on the doors.”
Harold nodded rather awkwardly, “Good, we’ll let you know when we’re done.”
We followed Harold into the elevator as he took us to the center most point of the building, which happened to be a courtroom. The place felt… empty. From what I understood, the old wards needed to be taken down, and the new ones put up, from that spot.
Harold cleared his throat, and handed us both a token.
He said in a serious voice, “Hold on to these, they’re ward keys. The wards can be a little unstable when being taken down or put up, so whatever you do, don’t drop them. They’ll make even unstable wards believe you’re a part of itself.”
I nodded and slipped it in my pocket. Wards were similar to complicated Boolean computer code. A simple example, if the person isn’t a guard, and is being violent, suppress the violence. When the wards are broken down, that last part might just go off without the parts in the beginning being true. Making us appear as part of the wards, meant that we were non-entities to the magic.
That’s also why the other guards were now guarding the building’s entrances from the outside.
I took a look around the room. The good news was it was one of the smaller sized courtrooms. Maybe thirty by forty feet. It had two entrances, one out to the public hallway, the other one led to the judge’s chambers. Unfortunately, the judge�
��s chambers had a secondary exit to a back hallway, which would give any attackers two routes of ingress.
Harold looked like he was going to say something else, but changed his mind, and moved to the exact center point which was right in front of the judge’s bench. Then he straightened up, and looked at least two inches taller, and started to speak in a sonorous and masterfully confident voice. It was such a huge difference in demeanor that I stared at him in dumbfounded amazement.
It kind of turned me on a little bit, and I knew magic or my nature wasn’t involved in that.
I looked away feeling a bit self-conscious, and felt the urge to punch Chad in the face at the knowing look he gave me. Damned werewolf noses.
Chad ordered in an officious tone, “Listen, we each need to take a door. If anyone comes, that’ll be the choke points. I want you to take the door to the judge’s chambers and I’ll cover the hallway.”
I felt a surge of annoyance go through me, of course he was right, if a lot of them attacked, our only chance would be the doors. Otherwise one or two could distract us, leaving Harold open to an attack. Still, he was taking the most dangerous door, which is what annoyed me, that and being told what to do. Sure, he’s the senior agent, but he could have asked for my opinion or input, I wasn’t just a fucking lackey.
I considered the fact I’d never work with Lisa again, or even have a job if I punched him, so I nodded shortly, and moved over to the judge’s door. It was an okay plan, but it also meant we wouldn’t be able to support each other very well. I had some throwing knives and my guns of course, and if the shit really hit the fan I’d use my magic, although only as a last resort. Either way, if they ignored the entrance I was at, I still couldn’t leave it in case the attack in front turned out to be a feint.
I tried to keep alert with my mind, and magic, while relaxing my muscles. Most of the fatigue from being so alert for long periods of time came from the body tensing up along with the mind. I wasn’t the best at splitting the two, but I did okay.
