Mismatched Pair

by J. L. Ray

  Azeem looked puzzled. “The Geas’s spell was never meant to work across Realms. It was meant to be contained to Mundania. Its only purpose was to protect the Mundanes from extreme magical malice, and that only to keep from generating a war between magic and mundane weapons. Assessing intent at point of entry to filter out the worst of the worst is the only effect the Geas is meant to have in Fairie. Even the lowered mpsi levels in Supers on this side of the Divide only come from the natural effect of Mundania itself.” He thought for a moment. “The power shifts happened when the Geas first activated?”

  Phil answered, “According to Naamah, only a few fae felt the effect of the Geas as it triggered, but I have not asked her if further changes occurred after the initial activation of that spell.” His voice dry, he added, “We were pursuing other issues at the time.”

  Baz, who had been carefully quiet, holding his considerable temper with both big hands, said, “Magic-wielders are very different from magic-holders.” His voice as neutral as he could keep it, he continued, “Wielders use magic for good or ill, but they don’t always anticipate the consequences of the spells they create. This could be a consequence of the Geas’ magic pattern.”

  “Huh?” Cal asked. “Can you explain that for a mere magic-holder like me?”

  Baz shrugged and nodded at Phil and Azeem, “I also am a mere holder. Perhaps they can.”

  Azeem looked at Phil, who said hesitantly, “Magic generates power, not just the power of the spell, but also residual energy from the spell. Like...like...” he looked at the ceiling trying to think of an analogy and smiled at the light fixture. “Like those old incandescent light bulbs. They created light, but generated heat in doing so. The heat was a byproduct.”

  “Like my Suzy Homemaker Easybake Oven!” Cal waxed enthusiastic. “I loved that thing. I could make little cakes and pies just from the heat of the light bulb in the...oven...” He petered out as he saw everyone staring. “What? I liked to cook when I was little! I couldn’t use it for long—my hands got too big.” When no one spoke, he added nervously, “I liked icing the cakes and—”

  Azeem reached over to the box with the last cupcake and knocked it toward Cal. “Here. I can’t stand to see it sitting there anymore. Just eat it.”

  “Thanks, boss.” Cal tried to take two dainty bites to eat the cupcake, but his mouth just wasn’t made for dainty.

  Azeem turned to Tony. “Not one word to Berthell. That’s an order.”

  Phil nodded and added emphatically while staring at Baz, “Calling his true love should not lead to bad consequences.”

  Everyone turned to look at Phil after the non sequitur, but then Cal winked at Tony as he finished inhaling the cupcake. As he chewed he asked, “So the weirdness in Fairie is some kind of magical byproduct of the Geas? Could that be how the smugglers are getting past the Geas?”

  “The Geas measures intent, on either side, at the restricted portals. No one goes through without being screened. The Geas shouldn’t miss something as obvious as the evil intent inherent in trafficking in Changeling slaves!” Azeem lashed his tail. “Presumably, the Tempos used by the smugglers upset the Geas’ signature magic and somehow circumvent the basic spell that reads intent.” He added, “Mephistopheles has connections in Fairie that could help us identify members of the Fairie ring. I believe, however, that there are two rings operating out of the Fairie Realms. The first one deals in minor items, but this new ring moves far more dreadful items and brings in smuggled Beings who are exploited on this side of the crossing, just short of a level to involve the Geas.” He frowned. “They must be stopped.”

  Tony interrupted the pause that followed Azeem’s comment. “Are we in a holding pattern until the contact I met calls me?”

  “Yes and no,” Azeem said. He turned to Cal. “I am sorry to pull you off of your leave for this, but I want you and Mephistopheles to go to Fairie and question several Supers there. The PTB have agreed to this and have given me a list.”

  Cal reached for the list, but Tony interrupted, “Wait a minute. You know that Phil is limited to twenty-four hour periods in Fairie, right? You should send me with Cal.”

  Azeem frowned at her aggressive tone. “I am well aware of his restrictions in the Fairie Realm. That period of time should suffice.”

  For a moment, Phil had hoped that her reaction stemmed from worry over his welfare. That hope died a swift death when he heard her reason for concern.

  “Regardless of that, I should go with Cal, not a civilian,” Tony said. She glared at Phil.

  “No.” Azeem responded smoothly. “We need you here to take the call from our contact of last night and to meet with him, if that happens. As you pointed out, Baz doesn’t sound as authentic as Mickey as you do as Maybelle, and talking to Baz may frighten the suspect away. And I need Mephistopheles himself in Fairie. Some of the potential suspects will not talk to Calvin unless he has Mephistopheles with him. Besides, you know it could be dangerous to expose you to Fairie again so soon.” He gave her a pointed look.

  She pursed her lips and looked away, completely unable to argue with his reasons but quite certain that she needed to be in on the questioning.

  “So I’m just stuck here waiting.”

  “As am I,” Baz added, glancing at Phil so casually that anyone but Phil wouldn’t have noticed. Phil took it for exactly what it was, a challenge. Baz continued, “We will review the old case files connected to this and see what more we can discover about the smugglers until we hear from our contact.” He smiled. “Then we shall go and see if we can end this, wife.”

  Tony rolled her eyes. The détente had been too good to be true.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tooley finished prying the top off of the first wooden crate. It was full of packaging straw, protecting the item within.

  “Well, go on. Finish it.” Crystal’s voice broke over him, the anger in it making him cringe. He had an overwhelming urge to lisp out “Yeth, mathter,” having played the role of Renfield recently in a production of Dracula. Somehow he thought she’d be less than amused given that she already had a lisping sidekick in Theo, so he set the crowbar down and lifted double handfuls of packaging straw out of the box.

  In the middle of the box was another box, the size indicating it held a necklace, its delicate cream porcelain covered in runes the color of honey.

  “Open it!” his captor commanded, and unable to naysay her, he did, hoping that what was within wouldn’t kill him.

  Inside lay a pendant, silver, but tarnished, which had several of the same runes as the box that contained it molded to its surface. The artifact seemed dormant, as he could sense latent power but no movement in its spell.

  “What is it?” he asked Crystal, reluctant to show even curiosity to her when the emotion came from his true self and not the lust designed to dominate him.

  “It is an Ounce of Prevention!” she told him cheerily, as if that explained it all. But Tooley had lived more of his life in Mundania than Fairie, and he had never heard of it. His confusion showed on his face and immediately made his captor angry again. “Stupid little pet! I try to give you a perfectly wonderful gift and you’re too ignorant to even know what it is or how precious it is!”

  Before he could stop himself, he knelt at her feet and begged, “I am sorry. Forgive me.” He looked at her with tears in his eyes, tears generated by the fear that she might reject him, even though his true self wanted nothing more than to be free of her. The conflict caused a twitch to roll across his face, so he hid it from her, allowing her to draw her own conclusions about his bowed head.

  He could hear the self-satisfied smile in her voice as she told him, “Well, well, I suppose your ignorance has been handy, for me, anyway,” and she giggled her exciting, excruciating giggle. She said, “This is an amulet that allows the wearer to stop spells aimed at him that would otherwise kill him. It is powerful enough to stop almost anything!” She did not add the caveat that it didn’t include spells originating from the
Geas or any of those created by the PTB or the GOOENs. No need to remind him of something he probably knew anyway. Regardless, if all went according to plan, before the week was out, her little pet would be a murderer. She smiled at him as she thought this and saw a shiver roll across his body. She, of course, assumed a very different meaning than the true one—that the look in her eyes had actually made his skin crawl.

  “How wonderful,” he told her, as he wondered why she would put such a tool in his hands. He could only assume that she must not plan to kill him any time soon. He tried to feel some reassurance in that, but found only cold comfort.

  Cal, Tony, and Baz went out to their desks while the lieutenant went over the list with Mephistopheles. Cal called Berthell to come and get Newman. She wasn’t thrilled that he had to go on a work trip in the middle of what was supposed to be family leave, but she’d known what she was getting into when she married a cop.

  Cal finished his conversation and sat back in Fluffy, reaching over to check on Newman, who had finally gone down for a nap. His little ogre snores were rattling the Golden Ball carriage.

  Tony got up to come look. “What a doll,” she whispered, looking down at the fuzzy-faced baby with his mounds of orange baby hair. “He looks like a big puppy.”

  “Yeah,” Cal said, loudly enough that Tony made a shushing noise and pointed at Newman. “Oh, no, don’t worry about that. He’s a heavy sleeper. We could roll him down to the shooting range and he wouldn’t stir.”

  “Nice!” She grinned.

  “Oh, yeah. Makes it easy for us to get stuff done around the house when he’s finally napping.” Cal shook his head. “Trouble is, he fights those naps like his life depends on staying awake, and they never last long enough. Little ogres need their sleep!”

  “Yeah, little Natties, too. Fred used to do that when he was a toddler, run around the house just to keep himself awake. It was funny to me, but I didn’t have to deal with the aftermath. Mama did.” Tony grinned, but when Phil walked out of the lieutenant’s office and toward them, her grin died. She turned back to her desk, ignoring him.

  Baz, who was going through the records with his view screen, saw all of this out of the corner of his eye and smiled to himself.

  Phil noticed Tony’s reaction and tried not to be too hurt. If she knew the whole story, she would feel bad about all of this, of that he had no doubt. In the meantime, he knew he looked like a villain to her, and since that role had been the mainstay of his repertoire for most of his three thousand years, he could not blame her for assuming the worst. With him, the worst had usually been true. He would simply have to hope that he would be able to make her understand before it was too late for them. Having de Groot there, working at the same branch of SCIB, had been a piece of bad luck for him.

  “Calvin, we are leaving soon. Have you someone to stay with Newman?”

  “Berthell is on her way. As soon as she gets here, we can go.”

  Phil looked at Tony and turned back to Cal. “You could not leave him with Tony?”

  “Tony might have to leave suddenly if our contact calls,” Cal told him as Tony stared back at Phil and lifted a brow.

  “Ah. Indeed.” Phil nodded. He looked over at Baz and then said rather pointedly and loudly to Cal, “So you have called your true love and she is coming to your rescue, I take it?”

  Cal cocked his big head to one side and then put a hand on Phil’s forehead. “You feelin’ okay, buddy?”

  “I do not know what you mean,” Phil said, ducking away from Cal’s temperature check.

  “You got true love on the brain there,” Cal said, then glanced over at Tony and made a face. “Uhm…well. Right.” He turned back to his desk and mouthed “Sorry!” at Tony, who shook her head.

  “Tony, I want you to take a look at these files,” Baz called from his desk.

  Tony started over, but put a hand on Cal’s arm as she left and said, “Hey, don’t leave without letting me know you’re taking off, okay?”

  “Sure, gorgeous, you got it!”

  Tony went on to Baz’s desk and looked over his shoulder at the display. Because of Baz’s height, her face was nearly at the same level as his when he sat, so without thinking about it, she ended up leaning one hand on his shoulder while she pointed at the display, her hair brushing his shoulder every time she leaned in to look closer.

  Phil suddenly noticed that he was grinding his teeth.

  “Hey, Phil.” Calvin gave him the gentlest pat on the back that he could manage. “Earth to Phil. We should go over our plans while we wait for Sweet B to come get Mannie, am I right?”

  “Yes.” Phil nodded, his eyes still on Tony and on Baz, who was apparently too thick to get any hint that Phil could possibly send his way through the compulsion he was under. He couldn’t tell Baz to call for his true love—the compulsion would not allow a direct action. And yet if Baz would just decide to call on his true love, the compulsion would end and Phil would be able to tell him everything! Stupid Bear. Phil sighed. “You are right.”

  Berthell had just returned home from taking her eldest spawn to high school and sitting through an hour-long awards assembly there. She had headed straight to her bedroom to get a nap before Cal came back with Newman when her f-light pinged, interrupting her plan. She frowned at the contact listing. “Dindle the Dwarf, Monster-Mate? Hmmm.” She answered the call, but audio only. “Hello?”

  “Hello, madam. My name is Dindle. I work for Director Mephistopheles at Monster-Mate. I wondered if I might have a few moments of your time.” Dindle was using his best service industry voice for this call.

  Berthell smiled sourly. After rushing around the apartment for an hour, trying to find Angel’s favorite jeans, Norah’s lacrosse stick, and Junior’s science project, and then realizing that she had to go to school with Angel because of an assembly the silly girl hadn’t mentioned, a moment of her time seemed like a precious commodity. However, from what Cal had told her this morning before he set out to visit the Bureau with Newman in tow, Mephistopheles and Tony were having some major early relationship problems. And Berthell had a feeling about those two. She was a magic-holder, not a wielder, but she trusted her gut, and it said that those two needed to be together.

  “You got it, Dindle. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, madam, I wondered if you might know why the boss got back early from his date last night with Detective Tony and also why he seems to be in such a foul mood this morning?”

  Berthell smiled. “Yeah, actually, I think I do. Why do you want to know?”

  Dindle sighed and got real. “M’brother and I have worked with Monster-Mate from the day the Geas triggered. We have seen a lot o’ couples match up through this service, even back in the early days, before it went on the old Internet. Ye get an instinct for good matches, ye see. Every Ned has his Nan, and we think Mr. Phil and Detective Tony are meant to be.”

  “Keep talking. I like what you’re saying,” Berthell told him.

  “Well, something happened last night, didn’t it? The boss has been a bloody-minded arsehole, beggin’ your pardon, all day. We reckon that there’s been a real cock up in the smooth path of true love. We want to fix it.”

  “You know it’s stupid to get involved, right?” Berthell told him dryly, since she had every intention of getting involved herself.

  “Yeah, yeah. Wouldn’t be our first time, then, would it?” Dindle matched her tone. “But to have some success with this, we need some information...and some help, don’t we?”

  “I guess you do.” She paused a moment, then said, “Here’s what I do know. Apparently, Phil got upset because Tony’s working on a case instead of taking time off. Since Cal is still on family leave, she’s working with another Super, Baz de Groot, and apparently there’s some animosity between him and Mephistopheles over a woman. I don’t have all the details because that’s about all Phil told Tony. All I know is Phil pushed the wrong buttons with Tony by trying to get her to leave the case. She doesn’t like t
o be told what to do and she doesn’t quit stuff, ever. He won’t tell her why he wants her off the case, so she’s pissed. So, right now, they are a no-go.”

  “And are you satisfied with that?”

  “Uh...no. Cal and I are gonna try to help those two, but we gotta be careful. With Tony, it could backfire. I just wish I knew what the story is with de Groot.”

  “I believe I could find out for you, if that might help,” Dindle told her.

  Berthell thought for a minute. On the one hand, Tony was miserable. Cal could tell that last night. And Berthel had seen the way Tony and Mephistopheles had been looking at each other when she visited Tony at the hospital. Every time she went, the demon was in Tony’s room, supposedly to be on hand in case of a relapse. Well, there weren’t any relapses, but he was pretty hands-on while he was there. She noticed that he seemed to be touching Tony almost constantly during each of the visits, and Tony wasn’t that big on public displays of affection. She and Cal embarrassed Tony all the time when they went out on the town. Berthell grinned. Yeah, Tony had it bad for the demon. She was sure he had it bad for Tony, too.

  But there was the other hand, the one where Tony didn’t like to be told what to do, the one where she was more stubborn than a royal troll, the one where being manipulated got her mad, when not much else did. Berthell had seen Tony mad over something her dad had pulled, right after she got into Super detective training with Cal. At the time, her parents had thought they could still change her mind about working in SCIB. Her dad pulled some strings to get her into the FBI, which she had considered before deciding on SCIB. She got the call close to the finish of Super training, while she was at their apartment eating dinner one night. One minute she was happy and chatty, and then after the f-light signal and a quiet conversation, she shut down. Tony left early that night, but months later she told them what had happened. She had been offered a chance to go to Quantico basically because her father collected on several favors. Even if she hadn’t already invested in being an SCIB detective, that wasn’t the way she wanted to get into the FBI. By the time she told Cal and Berthell about her dad’s “help,” she had just worked things out with him and was speaking to him again. As far as Berthell knew, Anthony Newman hadn’t attempted another shenanigan like that with Tony, but that had been less than a year ago, and since then she had cut the amount of time she spent with her parents just to avoid the annoyance. Of course, little Newman might have put an end to all of that crap. Berthell smiled.