Gooseberry Bluff Community College of Magic: The Thirteenth Rib

by David J. Schwartz

  The best thing she could do for him now was to find out who had killed him.

  Episode 2

  Chapter 3

  * * *

  Across the Pond and Back Again

  The sun was behind the bluff by the time Joy made it down to the St. Croix Trail. The Wisconsin side of the river was lit up like a greenery-filled stage, the glare of scattered windows shining in her eyes as she pulled in to a spot in front of the St. Goose Pier. There were six rows of a dozen slips each. About a third of them were empty, but the rest held boats ranging from little waterskiing craft to those larger than her house. Several of the latter seemed to have parties going on onboard. As Joy locked her car she noticed a group of kids wearing gear from Arthur Stag College on a nearby boat; one of them waved at her, and she waved back, wondering if it was one of the kids who had crashed her first lecture.

  She crossed the street to the row of brick buildings opposite the pier. The second building from the right had a couple of neon beer signs in the window and the inscription The Mandrake hanging below the second-floor windows.

  Once inside she saw that the second story no longer existed; the remnants of its wood floor were embedded halfway up the brick walls, now open all the way to the high rafters that supported the building’s roof. Brown faux-leather booths lined the wall to her right, with tables filling the front left side up to the point where the long, polished bar took over. The place was hung with black-and-white photos of the town — at least, Joy assumed it was the town — and people Joy had no way of recognizing, any more than she could have recognized the patrons filling most of the tables in the place.

  “Hi,” said the hostess. “Are you here for dinner?”

  “I’m meeting someone — the reservation should be under Hector Ay?”

  “Yes! Right this way.”

  The hostess’s aura belied her cheery air; she was beset with anxiety over something. But it was none of Joy’s business. There was no good way to tell a stranger that you were worried about them because you were able to see things about them that they hadn’t chosen to tell you. Joy had made a rule for herself: unless someone’s aura indicated that they were about to hurt themselves or someone else, she kept what she saw to herself.

  The hostess led Joy to a booth where Professor Ay was already sitting. He stood as she approached and shook her hand. Joy took note of his dark, tousled hair, his thick mustache, and the alternating reds and yellows of his aura. A driven man…but also a worried one.

  “Good to see you again,” she said.

  “Thank you for meeting me.” He motioned for her to have a seat and waited until she had before sitting back down himself.

  “This is an interesting spot,” she said. “I haven’t seen much of the town yet.”

  “Yes. I believe this was the offices of the local newspaper until the flood of 1965. When I first came here it was vacant, but then they shut down the culinary department at the college and Chuck decided to use his severance to open this place.”

  “Chuck?”

  “Yes. He was the head of the culinary department. They used to be in charge of the cafeteria at Gooseberry Bluff, before the state decided they could make more money by giving franchises to Subway and Pizza Hut. So now this is the place to get good food in town.”

  The waitress came by and asked if they wanted drinks, never looking up from her pad. Her aura was familiar, dominated as it was by dark gold. “Margaret?”

  Margaret May looked up. “Professor! I’m sorry, I just got on shift and I’m all — oh! Professor Ay!” The smile Margaret gave Hector was a bit more enthusiastic.

  “Hello, Margaret,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were working here.”

  “I just started this week. Can I ask you? I tried that aversion spell you talked about? From class? I put it on the door to my bedroom, and now my roommate is talking about moving out, and I’m worried that I cast it too strong, you know? I didn’t mean for that to happen. Also my cat is avoiding me, but sometimes she’s just kind of a snot, so that might be totally unrelated.”

  “Cats and aversion spells can have some bizarre interactions,” Hector said. “Sometimes they cancel each other out. Have you tried removing the aversion?”

  “I did, but we didn’t have any mustard powder, so—”

  “You used yellow mustard, didn’t you?”

  “Brown, actually.”

  “Well, I don’t know what sort of counterspell that might have turned out to be. I recommend you go back and use the correct materials.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been really busy, and you know, I wouldn’t normally substitute like that, but—”

  “Margaret.” Hector held up a hand. “This is about as harmless as magic can get; don’t worry about it. But in the future don’t substitute unless you talk to an expert first.”

  “Right. Right. So: drinks?”

  “I’ll have a Surly Furious,” Hector said.

  Joy had been so distracted by the conversation that she hadn’t even glanced at the beer list. “I’ll have a…Summit Extra Pale Ale.”

  “Great. I guess I don’t need to card you two, do I?” Margaret’s laugh was a bit nervous. When neither of them responded, she quickly said, “I’ll be right back with your drinks!” and fled to the bar.

  “Nice girl,” Hector said.

  “I’m a little worried about her,” Joy said.

  “Oh, it’s just nerve-racking, seeing teachers out of context. She probably assumed we lived in our offices.”

  “No, it’s more than that. Someone’s putting a lot of pressure on her — maybe herself.”

  Hector grunted faintly in response. “I suppose I relate to that.”

  Thoughts of Martin pressed in upon Joy in the brief silence. The only time he had ever put pressure on her was when he could sense that she wasn’t putting any on herself. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, determined to focus on the job at hand.

  Margaret returned with their beers. “Can I get you any food?” she asked.

  Joy glanced at the specials board behind the bar. “The artichoke dip sounds good.”

  “Nothing for me,” Hector said. After Margaret left, he stared toward the back of the restaurant for a moment, sipping his beer. His aura was rippling stripes of orange-red confidence in a rhythm and pattern that Joy had come to recognize as smugness.

  “So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Joy asked.

  “You taught at Kentucky State, is that right?”

  “Yes. In another lifetime. Before I went back to school to do a master’s in magical arts.”

  “The illustrious MA MA.” He laughed. “You were out of academia for part of that time, weren’t you?”

  “Briefly.”

  “Two years.”

  “You’ve done your research.”

  Hector shrugged. “I was curious. Why the break?”

  “I just wanted a little break. I’d gone from undergrad to a PhD to teaching to the master’s program. I needed to get some experience in the real world.”

  “What did you do?”

  She couldn’t tell him the real answer: studied judo. Learned elemental and stun magic. Took multiple exams on federal and departmental procedures. Trained in investigative techniques. Spent — no; she wasn’t going to think about Martin, because she was too tired and it would break her. Instead she stuck to the cover story that she and Martin had worked up.

  “I traveled a little bit. Spent time with family. Did a lot of reading.” It was all true enough to get past anyone using truth magic, although her answers to any follow-up questions would be a little more precarious. To counter that, she took some conversational initiative. “Tell me about yourself. How did you get here?”

  Margaret chose that moment to return with the artichoke dip. “Anything else?” she asked, hovering.

  “Not at the moment,” Hector said. Once Margaret was gone he leaned over the table and plucked a broccoli floret from Joy’s plate, dipped i
t into the steaming bread bowl, and popped it in his mouth. He grinned at Joy’s stare.

  “Help yourself,” she said.

  “Thanks. You were on campus this morning,” he said.

  Joy managed not to betray her surprise. “Actually I didn’t get there until about one this afternoon.” She dipped a baby carrot into the artichoke dip. It was delicious, and she realized how hungry she was.

  “No, you were there a little before four thirty a.m. Apparently you had keys for the security shells as well as the front door.” He paused. “You also had a gun.”

  “That doesn’t sound like me,” Joy said. She wanted to tell him to keep his voice down, even though he was barely speaking above a whisper.

  “Well, it doesn’t sound like the Joy Wilkins from the application paperwork that we have on file.” He leaned forward. “You’re investigating the demon trafficking, aren’t you? Who are you with, the Department of Defense? Magical Affairs? GUMP?”

  “Demon trafficking?”

  “Don’t,” Hector said. “My wards picked it up too. Look, I know that it’s been happening, but I’m damned if I can figure out how. I have eyes on every square inch of the campus, and yet every few months someone slips a few dozen major demons through the grounds.” He sat back. “If Philip didn’t tell me that you were coming, then that must mean that he wasn’t sure of me.” He took a long drink of his beer, looked at it, and then drank the rest of it. “I’m not involved,” he said. “I’m trying to do my job, but this is…I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

  Joy sighed and wiped her mouth with a napkin. She wasn’t looking forward to explaining to Flood how the consulting security magic prof had seen through her cover, but she didn’t see an alternative beyond simply lying and freezing him out. If the security was really as good as he said, he might be a valuable asset.

  “What about portals?” she asked.

  “There’s been no activity. Dennis — that’s the head of the spatial distortion department — he has everyone in the department log everything they do, and it always checks out.”

  “Always?” Joy was thinking of the jugglers she’d seen on campus the first day of classes.

  “What, you’re thinking it’s too good to be true? No. Dennis is meticulous, and he doesn’t put up with any shenanigans from his people.”

  “Shenanigans?” It was such an inappropriate word, given the stakes, that all Joy could do was laugh bitterly.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny. I could lose my job over this.”

  Joy grunted. “I suppose I relate to that,” she said, echoing Hector’s comment from earlier. She looked down: she had finished most of the dip but had barely touched her beer. “Well, Professor Ay, I hope you don’t have any further plans for this evening, because you and I are going to have to go for a drive.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. There’s a reason I wanted to meet in public.”

  “It’s not really optional.” Joy stood. “Let’s go.”

  Hector spread his hands. “Why would I go with you?”

  “Because I’m asking.”

  “This is asking? It sounds like ordering.”

  “No, ordering is three big men waiting outside your door when you get home putting a gag spell on you and tossing you into an invisivan. I’d rather not do that.”

  Hector folded his arms across his chest.

  “Look, this can work out for you,” Joy said. “If you cooperate now — and you’re clean — then we can help you. You do a lot of freelance work, don’t you? How would you like to get on a list of approved government security contractors? And if you ever decide to get out of academia, we could get you set up at one of the better firms. It’ll look a little better, though, if we don’t have to drag you kicking and screaming into a routine interview.”

  “Routine, huh?”

  “No body cavity searches, I promise.”

  Hector sighed as he stood. “Lead on, then.”

  AD Flood had a personalized gate set up on the men’s room door of a truck stop outside Hudson, Wisconsin. “After you,” she told Hector, opening the door. Hector hesitated, but he walked through, and Joy followed.

  For a moment she thought the gate hadn’t worked, but then she realized that they were in Flood’s office, not Martin’s. Flood’s office was steel where Martin’s had been dark wood, beige fabric where Martin’s had been leather. There were no personal touches except for a picture of his family on the desk.

  It hurt Joy to think that she would never be in Martin’s office again, never give him another report. Flood wasn’t about to give her a moment to reflect, though.

  “Mr. Ay, we need to debrief,” he said, motioning to another agent who stood near the door. “Agent Gray will get you started while Agent Wilkins brings me up to speed.”

  “I just wanted to know who she was working for,” Hector said.

  “Yes, well, if we’re going to bring you in on this we need to make sure that we all understand each other, OK?”

  Hector sighed. “OK.” He glanced back at Joy before following Agent Gray out of Flood’s office.

  Flood took a deep breath. “Three days in and you’ve already blown your cover.”

  “He’s in charge of security. He knew I’d been on campus this morning.” Joy failed to stifle a yawn; she covered it with the back of her hand instead. “Sorry, sir. I haven’t slept much.”

  “There’s coffee on the table,” Flood said. She was surprised by his offer, but she didn’t hesitate to pour herself a cup.

  “He must have some type of surveillance set up. He knew about the keys. He knew I had a gun.”

  Flood crossed his arms and glared at her. “I’m not done yelling at you yet.”

  “Oh. Well, it’ll keep,” Joy said.

  He was silent for a long moment, to remind her that he was in charge. He shook his head. “If he’s clean,” he said, waving toward the door Hector had followed Gray through, “then we’re OK. If not…you heard about Seoul?”

  “I know they stopped a Heartstopper attack.”

  “They didn’t so much stop it as stumble upon it. No one in custody. But they found a conjuration ritual set up in an empty storefront.”

  “Which suggests that the attacks were actually intended to animate major demons by harvesting the life force of the dead. Seven attacks in crowded public places, with at least forty-one dead in each attack. So counting the attack last night—”

  “Night before last.”

  “—seven major demons may have already been animated.”

  “Maybe not seven; we think the first couple of attacks may have been dry runs.”

  The coffee was lukewarm and bitter; Joy drank it all down just to get it over with.

  “Somehow,” she said, “that’s even worse.”

  “I agree,” said Flood.

  “Why bring it up? Have you found a connection between the Heartstoppers and the trafficking through Gooseberry Bluff?”

  He made a face. “Nothing concrete, no.”

  “Let’s compare the dates.”

  “What?”

  “The dates.” Joy poured herself another cup of coffee, suppressing a shudder at the smell. “Look, we know that last night was unusual in that it broke the pattern. It came three, four months early. What if there’s a rhythm to the timing of the Heartstoppers and our traffickers? Do you have a calendar?”

  For about half an hour that evening Joy didn’t dislike Benjamin Flood that much. They went over the reports from the Heartstopper cases — Minneapolis was the only attack they had a complete file on, but the dates for the others were easy enough to find — and compared them with the three, now four, cases of demon trafficking at Gooseberry Bluff. Once they added in the failed Heartstopper, the pattern was obvious.

  “Six weeks,” she said. “Six weeks before every Heartstopper, someone moves a shipment of nameless demons through Gooseberry Bluff.”

  Flood nodded. “For the last twenty-one months, anyway. Before t
hat they must have been moving them from somewhere else.”

  “Do we think this is connected?”

  Flood shook his head. “Well, it doesn’t look like coincidence, but that’s not saying much.” He looked up at her. “We’ll work this angle. That was good thinking.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We’re not done yet. You still fucked up with Ay.”

  “Yes, sir. Sir…it occurs to me that if AD Shil’s murder is connected to this case, I might be in danger.”

  “I don’t think you’re that important, Agent. But that occurred to me yesterday. I’ve already set you up with a security detail.”

  “You did?”

  “You didn’t notice? Good — that means they’re doing their job.” He handed her a file and tilted his head toward the door. “They’ll be in room twelve. You’d better get in there for the debrief.”

  Flood’s aura said that he resented her even more now that she had demonstrated some value. Joy left his office without another word.

  Room 12 was at the other end of the hall. She knocked, and Agent Gray opened the door for her. Hector sat at a small gray table inside the small gray room. He looked stunned. Joy tried to ask Gray a question with a glance, but he just shook his head. Despite his name, Gray bore no resemblance to the room or the table. He was blond, he wore a blue-and-gold tracksuit, and his aura was dominated by indigo. He nodded at Joy and stifled a yawn.

  “They pull you out of bed for this?” Joy asked.

  “My night to be on call,” he said in a what-can-you-do tone.

  Joy pulled a chair out and sat down adjacent to Hector. “How are you, Hector? I’m sorry this is moving fast, but we need to be sure of you right away. You understand? This is an important investigation.”

  Hector nodded. “I understand. I…just…” He sighed. “I’m going to lose my job,” he said in a whisper.

  “I don’t think that necessarily follows.” She patted him on the shoulder, aware that it was a completely false show of sincerity and solidarity but hoping he wouldn’t read it that way. “Agent Gray here is a truth-teller, OK? So just be honest, and everything should be fine. You’re not into anything you shouldn’t be, are you?”