“I’ll tell you what I can, but not with twenty cops and half a dozen government agents outside our doors.”
His gut said she was right, and that she was telling the truth so far.
Trusting that for now, he decided to give a little, and see what he could get in return.
“An adept is a highly-skilled user of magic. Someone who can affect the material world with magic.”
He heard her indrawn breath of surprise.
“I’m an Enforcer Adept. Part of a network that serves the Light–the good side.” No need to tell her just how powerful you had to be to get the title Enforcer Adept. “We protect the people who no longer believe in the bogeyman from being eaten by the bogeyman. I protect DC Metro. This building is shielded because I live here. But something was within those shields tonight, without me knowing it. That should be impossible.”
There was a long, highly charged pause.
“So there’s a bogeyman,” she finally responded.
“Yep.”
“Nightmares and magic.”
“Yep. Now,” he said firmly. “I’ve told you something, you tell me something.”
There was silence from her end then. “That’s fair. What do you want to know?”
Tit for tat.
“Are you human?”
A burst of laughter took him off guard. “Hell, yes, I’m human.” She continued to chuckle. “That’s the last thing I expected you to ask.”
“Glad I could amuse, you,” he said dryly.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Do you know what happened next door? Did you feel it?” he shot back, deeply hoping she would say she hadn’t, because if she had and he hadn’t, something of that magnitude, inside his shields? Bad.
“I didn’t feel a thing, and my sensors…well, let’s just say I should have known something. I don’t have magic. Hell I didn’t know…what you showed me? That’s Hollywood stuff, right? That was,” she paused. “Impressive.
“Here’s the thing,” she continued briskly. “That was no quick kill. If nothing else we should have heard something, screams. The rods going into the walls. Something.”
Grimacing, he agreed. “No. It wasn’t quick. The question is, how could it have been shielded to the equivalent of a bunker, temple or sanctuary, within my building.”
A nasty thought occurred to him. Maybe it wasn’t about trusting his gut. Maybe, for once, it was about what was in front of him.
Facts. Evidence. All the things he’d ignored in Atlanta.
“You’re shielded that way,” he finally said to her. It was a gamble. A risk. Let’s see what she has to say.
The pause after his words was long, and deep.
“I don’t have shields,” she said, finally. “Not like what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
Another long pause.
“Well, fuck.”
“Did you say—”
“Fuck? Yes, I did.”
* * *
Cait paced around the apartment, furiously trying to wrap her mind around magic while continuing to think about the situation they were in.
Unfortunately, her brain kept saying Magic, Magic, Magic like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.
The idea that the senator’s apartment might have displayed shields like she used was terrifying. That meant alien tech.
“My shields—if I understand what you’re implying—are mechanical,” she told him. “I have devices, jammers. They block electronic bugs, covert listening devices, or long-range scanning microphones, that sort of thing.”
“They block magic.”
Her two-year-old popped back up with another round of Magic-Magic-Magic!
“That’s just weird,” she said as a stalling tactic. Ignoring the whole magic thing, she came right back to what she’d been considering as her worst-case scenario.
An alien hit.
“But back to the topic,” she continued when Aiden stayed silent. “Think about it. If that apartment was blocked, that implies a shielded kill. In a shielded building, or so you say. I didn’t know the building had protections. I just thought it was old and well-insulated. I never considered what you…uh…what you do.”
“What I do?”
“Magic.”
“It’s not a bad word,” he said, his tone wry. “The building’s housed DC’s magical adept for nearly a century. A lot of time and work went into the shields—it should feel insulated.”
“I guess so.” The thought of magic being around in DC for nearly a century made her knees wobble.
Focus on the problem that’s in front of you, Mystic.
“Regardless, one of us should have registered what happened, either…uh, magically, or mechanically.” She hesitated before continuing. She didn’t know if she could trust him, but he was her only source of information. But…magic? Real magic? For more than a century?
Couldn’t be worse than aliens.
At least she hoped not.
“Let’s presume for a minute that I totally buy real magic as a real thing and that it can produce that kind of shields.”
His chuckle had a dark edge, but she felt her gut loosen a little. At least he had a sense of humor. She hadn’t really been sure after the whole glowy sign thing.
“Could something magical have done that? What happened in Three-A?”
“Possible,” he replied, but she heard the doubt.
“Great. That eliminates nothing.”
Another dry chuckle. “Unfortunately you’re right.”
Cait thought for a moment about the alien species who claimed to do magic. It had been a longstanding joke with the Kith that unlike some other humanoids in the Alliance, humans had no magic and very little psi ability.
Cait had agreed with them—assumed they were right—because they’d been the only ones who’d ever explained her crazy hunches. Her intuition. They’d labeled it as psi ability, introduced her to the Seers, and voila! it had made perfect sense. Not magic. Just extra keen perception.
What would happen when they were proved wrong about humans having magic? What would the Sh’Aitan think then?
Magic was a hell of a commodity.
Did she have an obligation to tell them?
Problem for another day. Get through this first.
“Magic might be the only way it could happen,” Aiden continued, thankfully oblivious to her racing thoughts. “Especially since a human would have a hard time killing four people without leaving a trace of psychic residue or letting something escape.”
“I didn’t hear anything until Mrs. Potts started screaming.”
“Neither did I and I should have.” He paused. “There hasn’t been a non-human, spectacle kill of this kind, of this magnitude, in DC in about a hundred and twenty years.”
“There’s a comfort,” she said sarcastically. “Not much activity here?”
“Not magically. It’s virtually null. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Hmmmm.” She wasn’t about to reveal that she couldn’t tell anything about the area, not that way. “My work doesn’t bring me to DC much.”
“Despite leasing a place here?”
“Exactly.”
“Tell me about that work.”
“There’s not much I’m at liberty to say, and I’m not going to do it by phone, even on a secured line.”
“If you can’t talk on the phone, we need to meet,” he insisted. “Maybe a Starbucks somewhere.”
Cait hesitated. Did she need his help?
Yes, probably. But would that put her in a position where she had to reveal who and what she was?
Also probably.
“Is this your cell number?” she hedged. “We’ll have to play it by ear. I have a lot of ass-covering to do.”
“We need to meet,” he insisted.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
“Okay,” she finally agreed. “But finding a time might be dicey.” If she couldn’t get out of agreeing, she needed to leave i
t open-ended so she could make an excuse to avoid sitting down with him. She had a Ty-Op to catch and needed room to maneuver. Then, if she found out what alien was involved in this mess, and why, she might be able—possibly—to help in regards to the murder.
The murder wasn’t her mission, however. Until she was told otherwise, she couldn’t get boxed into a corner. The Ty-Op was Job *****1.
Besides, she didn’t know this guy. Didn’t trust him. Couldn’t trust him, even if she wanted to. And if she were honest, the desire to trust—to open up—to another human was almost overwhelming.
Not the time, Cait.
Lance and the Second Kith for Science were already planting deeper memories at the university she’d supposedly attended and developing deeper levels of paperwork in Turkey and in the US. They’d told her there were already major background searches ongoing for everyone in the building by more than one agency.
The kicker was, neither Lance nor the Second Kith had any news on the what, who or why of the murders.
“The next few days are going to suck,” Aiden muttered, and she realized that he, too, was ruminating on what he’d have to reschedule and deal with. “Biggest pain is going to be the media.”
“Press corps is already stationed outside the building. I’ve seen Dave on-screen on three channels.”
“Greaaaaaat,” Aiden drawled.
“He played it cool. He didn’t name names, just said important people had been injured. Won’t be long though, before the names and some of what happened gets out.”
“Once the word gets out, Dave’ll be a source.”
“I can’t afford this,” Cait groused. “Not the press, not the attention.”
“Water quality’s that important?” Aiden said, obviously fishing for an answer.
“Deeply,” she joked, and he got it. His laugh was rich and full.
“Back to your work again,” he said, and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. She’d let him in a little by joking with him, dammit, and that was an error in judgment.
“It’s a delicate balance.”
His sigh was frustrated, gusting through the phone. “It isn’t going to get easier, not talking about it.”
“I know. Thank you for trusting me with your secret.”
There was a long silence. “I hope I did the right thing.”
It was her time to sigh. “You did. We’ll work this out. Somehow.”
“I hope so. It’s nice to hear your voice.”
The shift to the personal took Cait by surprise. Here they were with mayhem and secrets between them and he was flirting with her? What was she supposed to do with that?
“Yours too,” she admitted.
She hung up before she could say something even more inane and stupid.
Chapter Twelve
Persistent knocking woke Cait before five thirty a.m. She’d managed to drop off to sleep just after she hung up with Aiden around four, but only through sheer willpower. Her mind had buzzed with questions and scenarios. An hour of sleep was not enough to restore her somewhat underutilized sweet and gentle traits. It was enough to make her Bitchy Marine side the stronger part of her personality.
“Wait a damn minute,” she growled.
“Dr. Brennan?” A male voice called through the wood.
“Hold on.” She raised her voice to be heard.
Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she stalked to the door. Her sensors said the being on the other side of the door was human. Wrenching open the door, she glared at the man standing on the other side. “What?”
“Dr. Brennan? I’m Agent Dekowizc.” He flipped open a black wallet to display FBI credentials. Before he could say anything else, she took it, and scrutinized it. For lack of anything better to do while she perused it, he continued. “I’m to escort you to headquarters for additional questioning. If you’d come with me?”
“I’ll come with you when I’m dressed. Not a minute sooner.” She closed the door in his face.
It was going to be hard enough to deal with this, dancing around the truths and half-truths and web of myth that was Dr. Cait Brennan. She was sure as hell not going to do it without proper armor.
She turned the shower on full. The steam rose, and she stepped into the spray. It beat down on her, reviving her brain a couple of notches.
Any way she looked at it, it was FUBAR. Nothing could be more fucked-up-beyond-all-recognition than this.
Given her training, both military and Sh’Aitan, she could elude the press and the cops, but that would simply raise more questions and attract more attention. Collecting the Ty-Op was going to have to wait for a few days at least. Anyone catching sight of her with a seven-plus-foot, greenish, pinkish, transparent squid/octopus hybrid would be tipped off that she wasn’t doing a normal geologist’s job.
Ya think?
And what the hell had she been thinking last night, contemplating telling Aiden Bayliss, wizard-adept-thingie-person, what she was and what she was doing? It had to have been the situation and her sleep-deprived, undersexed, over-freaked-out brain that made that convoluted move, because ST Cait Patten, currently known as Dr. Cait Brennan, had not survived this long by making stupid decisions of ginormous proportions.
Then again, she was going to have to tell him something. He would push her till she did.
Really, wasn’t her world weird enough without this?
Finished with the shower, Cait dressed, did makeup and hair, then assessed. She looked the sober, innocent scientist. The brown hair and eyes made a plain wrapper for going into the lion’s den.
She fastened on earrings and worked the clasp of a necklace. She found a pearl lapel pin to match the other pieces.
The look was classically attractive with discreet touches of prosperity. Her skirt, turtleneck and boots were chocolate brown, the jacket a subdued mix of cream, brown and black. Pinning the pearl on her lapel, she tripped the switch on its back which would let her say a keyword and record her conversation. The Kith could then cover any background details she made up during the interrogation.
She slipped a slim, padmitia-metal laser weapon into her purse. It looked like a silver-backed hairbrush. It wouldn’t set off any earthly metal detectors, but she wouldn’t be going unarmed into the enemy’s lair either.
The last thing she did was make the bed. Her marine training had her tucking in the sheets, smoothing the spread. The idea of coming back to a sloppy, messy room was just untenable.
Setting her tell-tales to be sure her things weren’t disturbed, Cait picked up her purse. She stepped into the hall and pulled the door closed behind her, double locking it, and setting an electronic block on the door.
The bodies and the crime scene techs were gone. Yellow tape and a lone guard were all that marked the scene of the tragedy.
The guard they’d left on Three-A was nodding off in a chair as they descended the stairs. The lobby was empty, the security desk vacant. The agent spoke into a small walkie-talkie, pausing long enough to get an answer.
Down the driveway, beyond the glass double front doors, Cait saw bystanders, including camera operators, reporters and microphone-wielding interviewers. Even at this early hour, they hovered, waiting for a story. Metro police maintained firm lines at barricades. Officers at the bottom of both ends of the circular drive kept the curious at bay.
She’d activated one of the other functions on her PDA. It would blur her entire image for the cameras, giving them no footage they could use of either her or the car.
Dekowizc whisked her down the stairs and out the front doors to where a dark sedan waited. As they pulled down the drive, a crowd of reporters at the entrance called questions.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? What’s your name, ma’am? Did you see what happened?” The clamor of questions and the volume with which they were shouted grew louder and more intense as some reports broke through the line trying to get to the sedan as it passed.
“What did you see last night, Ma’am?”
“Did you
know Senator Hathaway, Miss? What about Mrs. Paxton?”
“Are you a witness?”
They pulled away from the building with the reporters and cameramen hurrying alongside as they passed the blockade. The shouted questions faded as they turned toward downtown.
* * *
Fury rose in Aiden to do war with the worry as he pulled up the schedule for flights to and from Chicago on yet another airline.
Cait was missing, and another senator was dead.
Three flights had left Reagan National between four and six this morning and arrived in Chicago before eight. Time enough to get to the Chicago suburbs for another kill.
Cait could have done it.
She could have hung up with him, flown to Chicago, and gotten there easily in time to murder the second senator.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It was nearly four in the afternoon. Cait wasn’t answering the special cell number she’d given him.
She’d been gone when he got up. She hadn’t answered any of his calls. He’d tried from three different numbers. The morning desk guard hadn’t seen her leave. Since Dave was at home, sedated and sleeping off the whole event, there’d been nobody on the desk from one a.m. until after eight. The agents on the hall refused to answer his questions. He’d even called Tank, who’d said he wasn’t aware of any of the building’s tenants being questioned at present by any law enforcement agency.
Anyone leaving the building had to run the gauntlet of the media, and the news hounds had been on them like white on rice. It had all been on screen. No sign of Cait.
Nobody had seen Dr. Cait Brennan since she’d left his condo the night before.
Part of him worried that she’d been hurt, been taken. She’d worked for the government, or so she’d said.
Maybe whatever took out the senator had taken her, too.
What if she’d been the real target and the senator had been a mistake?
Could she be lying in her apartment, dead, right not?
He took a moment, centered himself, and sent out a magical probe, poking at the shields around her apartment for the twentieth time that day.
Nothing. He still couldn’t get through.
The scenarios, as bizarre and outlandish as they seemed, could all be real.
Modern Magic Page 101
