Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set

by Sheryl Steines

  “Milo will be here soon. He’s helping evacuate stragglers and the rest of the Wizard Guard. I’m glad everyone’s here.” Annie summoned a stack of folders and lay them on the table; her phone beeped. After reading the message, she typed a reply and continued sorting through the files of evidence collected since they had started working with the French Wizard Guard.

  “Everything okay?” Ryan asked as he watched his goddaughter prepare for the emergency meeting.

  “Yeah. Just getting the rest of the team together. I want Roscoe and Minka from lab services to join us. They’ve been securing the basement with Spencer and Gibbs,” Annie said. With a deep breath, she finally sat. Her hands shook from adrenaline.

  It was something that had never happened: an attack on Wizard Hall. The best-trained wizard guards always assumed their safety precautions worked. This time, something had gone very wrong.

  It was that damn memory modification spell.

  Annie couldn’t stop the images that replayed in her head. She saw Amelie as a vampire rolling around in the dirty alley, Queen Catriona taking her last breath, poisoning the man in the forest so that he could die in peace, the memory modification spell, the explosion. Her stomach roiled at the pictures; she wished to have that moment back.

  The memory modification spell! Why have video cameras if you don’t do something about what you see? Or doesn’t Marielle need to worry about it?

  Annie glanced at Bucky as he typed. His fingers flew across the keyboard rapidly, rarely stopping, never backtracking or starting again.

  “Annie, is something wrong?” Ryan asked.

  “Bucky, does France have any computer department at all? Marielle and Fabien claimed they didn’t.”

  “What are you looking for exactly?” Ryan asked.

  “We saw what Marielle did. You were on the security tapes along with everything you did in France. Either she didn’t realize there were video recorders or there’s no one in France who holds them accountable,” Bucky commented. He pulled up the French security and computer system. “Why have security cameras if you don’t monitor what’s recorded?” he asked.

  He stopped for a moment, and read the window that popped up. “They have a security team made up of five members. That doesn’t seem like full coverage for an entire Wizard Hall.” Bucky scrolled through the list of employees, broken into departments. “Okay. They do have a computer lab with… huh. One employee. A man named… Remy St. James.”

  As Bucky typed, windows popped up on the screen with new information. He maximized some windows and minimized others as he organized the data. He stopped when he found what he was looking for and turned the computer monitor. Remy’s employee file filled the screen.

  “There’s not much on him. It looks like your Chicago Police Department file that we found in Rebekah Stoner’s house last year,” he quipped and offered a feeble smile.

  “Is it real?” Annie asked. All wizard guards had fabricated police employee files placed on the Chicago Police Department servers, a safeguard should their credentials be questioned. Only recently, they had learned how Annie’s police file was sorely lacking key information and needed updating.

  Is it real or is it like mine?

  “It looks real.” Bucky closed one window and opened a second. Code scrolled quickly; Annie, watching from behind him, couldn’t keep up.

  Remy’s personal information and driver’s license identification appeared on the screen. Bucky printed the file on his portable printer, then pulled up another window until he finally found what he was looking for.

  “I think this Remy is a little like me. All this here.” Bucky pointed to dates and times. “He set up the system, but after this date here”—he pointed again— “he hasn’t signed in. Not at work or at home. It’s like he’s not really working for them even though he’s in here.”

  “So the French Wizard Hall hired him to set the system up but doesn’t use it?” Ryan asked perplexed. “That would give culpability to the Wizard Council if it was done with a purpose.”

  “Or it was done by Marielle for appearances. He was paid—is he still being paid? That would explain why they had all those security tapes and why no one is being held accountable for all the memory modification spells and whatever else she’s doing,” Annie said. “Was he paid a lump sum or is he getting a salary?”

  “Already looking for it,” Bucky said. Annie continued to watch as the screen updated and scrolled.

  How does he do this?

  Remy’s bank account appeared before them. “He gets paid roughly ten grand once a year in bonuses and a small salary equivalent to thirty grand a year. Not much, just enough to make it seem like he’s actually getting paid,” Bucky informed them.

  “When did he start?” Ryan asked as a stream of footsteps entered the conference room. Annie glanced behind her and saw Milo, Spencer, Gibbs, Roscoe, Minka, and Emerson flow in and quietly take their seats.

  Bucky continued to type and pulled up the employee file. “Five months ago.”

  “How long ago did Amelie start her spree on Van Alton family members?” Annie asked, summoning her files.

  Although he hadn’t heard the entire conversation, Gibbs had heard enough to pull open his bag and begin sorting through his own notes and folders.

  “I pulled for the last eight months but the murders we were looking at started…”

  “Six months ago,” Gibbs said.

  Annie paced behind Bucky.

  “Marielle Beauchamp, member of the Van Alton family, meets her cousin Louis Van Alton and finds him with the princess turned vampire. An idea forms. She’ll use the vampire to kill family members for money and property. I found letters and a contract stating she had an uncle and aunt turn over their property to her.” She summoned the folder and held it for Ryan. “So let’s say the vampire killings are piling up, and she needs to make sure that no one learns of the connection to her family. She hires Remy to mess with the computer system, freeing her up to do what she wants—in other words, to safely perform memory modifications every time a murder occurs. Therefore, no one in the Hall is tracking vampire deaths.” Annie took a deep breath.

  “Do we know if she had money problems? That speaks to motive,” Gibbs said as Cham entered the room, taking a place at the table.

  Bucky pulled up Marielle’s bank account, and a grin broke across his face. He printed the screen shot. “She has an equivalent to $66 in her bank account.” He pulled up her employee file. “She’s a wizard guard. She should make enough if they pay them in France like they do here. Maybe she has a spending problem or a gambling problem. Either way, if she has no money in this account…” He continued to type, searching for any other account linked to Marielle Beauchamp. “It would be an intriguing plan. The Van Altons still have plenty of property and very little family left.” Bucky summoned his own stack of folders and pulled out a sheet of paper. “I found this. It looks like her partner is named Armand Lefebvre.”

  Annie exchanged glances with Cham, Gibbs, and Spencer.

  “He’s equivalent to the vice president of criminal justice for the French Wizard Council.” Annie choked as she remembered his incompetence, as he let emotions get the better of him when he stormed off and ordered his people to offer no assistance to the Americans.

  “Fabien Arnault is the manager of the Wizard Guard. Armand is his boss,” Spencer reiterated.

  Ryan until now had listened intently and said very little. Now he stood. “This is all good and well. I say we have enough information against Marielle Beauchamp. If Bucky has proof she was working with someone, we can go after both. We have proof Marielle sent the package to me. As I see it, a member of the French Wizard Guard clearly planned an attack on the U.S. Wizard Guard. Call in the law department. If I’m up on who’s who in there, Samantha Chamsky handles international law. Yes?”

  “Yeah, she does. Give me a second.” Annie typed a short text, asking Samantha and anyone else with international law knowledge to join them.
A reply came immediately.

  “She’s on her way. Actually, Kathy is also an expert in international law.” Annie said, though she knew Ryan knew what his wife specialized in. “They’re coming now.”

  “This is grounds for an international tribunal,” Graham said. “There’s plenty evidence with what we’ve already discovered.”

  “We’ll deal with that soon enough. This meeting actually is about securing Wizard Hall so we can get back to business. I assume the gas masks worked well enough. No one grew a tail or horns. Everyone okay?” Milo asked.

  All wizard guards held up their hands for examination.

  “Fabulous. We need a clean-up team. Which in this case will be headed by maintenance with Lab services, the VAU and the Wizard Guard to assist. Set up access points to enter and exit the hall safely.”

  “Assess the damage to the lab, make sure that white mist, whatever it is, is gone. Test what you can so we know what we’re dealing with,” Milo ordered. “Emerson, grab Mrs. Cuttlebrink and work with the test team. Cham, did you let the hospital know there might be casualties?”

  The door to the room squeaked open. Kathy and Samantha walked in, offered smiles, and took seats.

  “Yeah. They’re aware,” Cham said.

  Milo nodded. “Annie, you and Spencer will work with law—though, Annie, when the lab is deemed safe, go back and help figure out what happened since you and Cham were there with Perkins. We need to figure out what the hell that spell was that exploded the building. Gibbs go with them. Since most of us weren’t there, Annie, please explain?”

  “Perkins set us up in the gym. We laid the pin sent to Ryan on the table. It was a simple magic collection using a brand new crystal. I ran it over the pin, which already seemed different than the other pin I took from France. It buzzed and hummed much more.” Annie shuddered as she remembered the moments just before the crystal exploded. “The crystal collected the magical trace and glowed, first white and then every color you could imagine. I dropped the crystal and we ran for the morgue. It exploded just as the door was slammed shut. There was so much energy that the blast knocked us off of our feet. Perkins slid into the incinerator tube, Cham flew into a cabinet, I slid into a table.” Annie took a long, deep breath and rubbed the bump on the top of her head.

  Milo glanced at Roscoe and Minka. “And these crystals—you said it was new. But Roscoe, Minka, do you know where the crystals came from? When they were purchased? Is the supplier to be trusted?”

  “I would have to go back through our records to verify when they were purchased, but we always use the same supplier. The rocks always come in clean, no magic,” Minka stated.

  “Just to be sure, when you clean up the gym, do a test on the remaining crystals if they haven’t been destroyed. I don’t want there to be any reason for doubt,” Milo said.

  “Do you all think there’s enough for an international tribunal?” Ryan asked.

  Kathy and Samantha exchanged glances and reviewed the notes Kathy had already taken the night before, showing it to Samantha. “We’ll review the rest of the evidence, and have an answer for you this afternoon,” Kathy said after a moment. “If there’s a case, we’ll put together the presentation.”

  “Cham, Annie, Milo, this is yours,” Ryan said.

  “After Annie gives the case to the law department, I think we should move forward and present the case in front of the Wizard Council,” Cham agreed.

  “Ryan, Marielle, and Armand were definitely the most difficult to work with. Looking back on their behavior now, I can see they felt they might get caught. So the attack on us… yes, we should move forward. I think it will be a very interesting moment in time when the rest of the French Wizard Council learns what they did to their own people,” Spencer added.

  “We’ll need to do something with the spell I performed before we do. But I think we’ve got enough on Marielle to move forward,” Annie said.

  “Then we all know what to do,” Ryan said, dismissing the group.

  Chapter 36

  Annie handed the last folder to Samantha and Kathy.

  “You gave us all we need. You don’t need to sit with us. We’ll write up the tribunal lawsuits. One against Marielle Beauchamp, one against Armand Lefebvre, and one against the French Wizard Guard for performing the memory modification spells against their own people. With what you and the team gathered, we have more than enough to go after them. The bomb is the final evidence. You go. We’ll be fine,” Kathy reiterated.

  “What we did… the memory modification spell. I knew we shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have done it.” Annie sighed and sat in a chair beside her godmother. Kathy reached around Annie’s shoulder, holding her tightly.

  “How much will that hurt the case?” Annie rested her head on Kathy’s shoulder and shuddered.

  “Graham and his department will take care of it. We have so much more against them that I think we can sweep away what you and the team did while there. Don’t worry about it, okay?” Kathy removed a stray hair from Annie’s face, placing it behind her ear.

  “I screwed up. Really badly. This is all my fault. If I only knew Amelie was a vampire,” Annie said through tears.

  Samantha shifted and hugged Annie from behind. “Annie. Stop beating yourself up. Marielle would have found a way to do what she did without Amelie. The princess was convenient,” Samantha said, offering Kathy a worried glance.

  Annie cried harder, her body heaving and shaking in their embraces. “This is all my fault!” she hiccoughed.

  “No, dear. It’s not,” Kathy whispered in her ear.

  “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t fight this fight; it never gets better. It just gets deeper and darker. I’m supposed to be resting. I’m still injured. My head hurts, my arm is weak and tired. Amelie was buried eight months ago, and she came back. The Black Market died. And now this. It doesn’t end,” Annie sobbed. “I caused this. I couldn’t let it go.”

  Annie cried against Kathy’s shoulder until she had nothing left. Still held by Samantha and Kathy, she finally pulled away. With the tears done, Annie wiped her eyes and cheeks, blew her nose, and sat back against the chair.

  “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, embarrassed by her outburst, even in the presence of only family.

  “You never have to apologize around us,” Samantha said and kissed her wet cheek. “You’re right though. It’s a lot. Amelie’s murder, the Black Market falling. You’re tired. It will get better.”

  Annie bent forward. Her head fell into her hands as her elbows rested on her knees. “I’m so tired,” she admitted as her phone buzzed in her pocket. She glanced at the screen and sighed. Wiping her eyes again, she said, “I have to go. They think they’ve found something in the lab. Something about the mist.”

  Samantha squeezed her sister’s shoulder and kissed her cheek again. “Be careful. And don’t come back here. We’re good.”

  Annie nodded, kissed her godmother and left them alone in the unused classroom as she headed to the lab.

  *

  The mist had cleared, leaving behind a white film coating everything in the basement and the first floor of Wizard Hall. No one without clearance was permitted inside.

  Sitting inside a makeshift office just outside the entrance to Wizard Hall, Manny Ramirez sat at his temporary security counter and watched over the sign in form on his desk. “Hey, Annie.” He pushed the form to her. She bent over and scrawled her name on the form and held out her Wizard Guard ID. “It’s a mess in there,” Manny commented as he initialed the spot beside her name.

  “Yeah. Hopefully cleanup won’t be horrible. This is a little cramped in here,” she added as she glanced around the small trailer.

  “Not so bad. Just sign back out when you leave. The first room is the changing room; you’ll get the coverings before you enter. When you exit, there’s a shower room leading to the incinerators. If you need anything, let me know,” Manny said with a warm smile.

  “Thanks.” She waved as sh
e entered the first changing room and found her protective suit and headgear. When she was completely covered, she entered the front hallway and met Lial, who was already geared up.

  “Annie. Milo wanted me to escort you. If you have an issue, let him know,” Lial said.

  “Overly cautious. Just lead the way,” she said and followed him down the front hallway into the larger office space where rows and rows of cubicles were covered in thick powder. It covered everything that had been out: chairs, computers, printers. It looked as though a snow storm had rolled through Wizard Hall.

  Annie and Lial followed the trail entering the stairwell, where the powder had settled in the cracks in the walls and in the stairs. The handrails were covered with the substance.

  The library was the first room when exiting the stairs. The doors had been open when the explosion occurred. Hundreds of books had been shaken from their shelves and had fallen in haphazard piles in the stacks. Mrs. Cuttlebrink, the head of library services and the longtime librarian, had recently completed a sophisticated cleaning of the centuries old library, and now it was covered with something possibly dangerous.

  “What a mess,” Annie said as they passed the library and turned down the hallway toward the lab.

  The cafeteria, the maintenance office, and the records chambers had all been rocked by the explosion. Food, folders, and equipment lay in piles on the floor, all covered in the white substance.

  “It’s gonna be a mess for a while,” Lial said as they entered the morgue.

  Several wizard guards were traversing the gym, assessing the damage and collecting evidence. The middle table was covered by several samples in evidence bags, pieces of the crystal that exploded, and the melted pin. With the thick gloves covering her hands, Annie had difficulty picking up the bag with the pin. When she finally grasped it, she held it close, but it was difficult to examine while she was under the hood. What she was able to see was a melted, burnt piece of metal. If she didn’t know what it had been, she would never had guessed what it was.