Matt nodded. A fatal accident – or a murder – in school was bad enough, but having a second incident that involved the law within days of the first one was potentially disastrous. According to the NYPD file, a sixteen-year-old student, one Gavin Harrison, had been arrested and remanded in custody for assaulting his Football Coach on school grounds. As far as anyone could tell, it was an open-and-shut case, with plenty of witnesses and physical evidence, apart from the minor fact that the case was lacking a motive. The Coach had been reprimanding young Mr. Harrison at the time, but the witnesses had claimed that he did that to everyone. Harrison claimed that his hands and legs had just moved of their own accord. It hadn’t convinced anyone to believe him.
“I think that your reputation would be served by allowing us to get to the bottom of things as quickly as possible,” he said, finally. “The NYPD feels that the case should be investigated thoroughly.”
“I must warn you that these files are covered under various laws,” the secretary said, as she logged on to a computer and started bringing up the school’s records. “If you want copies, I am obliged to note which ones you copy and seek assurances that they are kept under strict security.”
“I understand,” Matt said. There were laws against leaking files concerning schoolchildren to the world. No one would want to wake up one morning and discover that their children’s file had suddenly become public. “I won’t let anyone see them who isn't already part of the investigation.”
Moe Levisohn, Ian Murray and Andy Montgomery had been fairly normal schoolchildren, according to the records. All three of them had low grades, but they made up for it on the sports field. They’d probably been warned that they couldn't get into college unless they could win a football scholarship or something else sporty, as their grades suggested that they were barely scraping through. Not that it really mattered; Matt recalled his own schooling well enough to know that one could graduate without learning anything of value.
There were notes relating to an arrest a year ago on suspicion of drug abuse. The NYPD had raided a dance club and arrested a number of youngsters, but the suppliers had managed to make their escape and the perpetrators had gotten off with a caution. Judging from some of the other records, the arrest hadn't scared any of them straight. There were a long list of disciplinary problems noted by their tutors, none of which seemed to have been tackled properly. But then, it was illegal to thrash schoolchildren – even teenagers – to within an inch of their lives.
“Curious,” he said, out loud. Moe seemed to have had a habit of picking on people, the weak and nerdy in particular. He knew the type well, the kids who kept growing worse and worse until they discovered that the bad habits they picked up at school didn't help them in the real world. Most of them ended up going into jail. “How many enemies did this guy have?”
The reports weren't very detailed, he noted. In fact, as time passed, the reports had actually become less detailed, as if the people writing them had stopped bothering to write out all the details. It was an impulse he fully understood – a large part of working as a policeman was paperwork, which took up valuable time he could be using patrolling the streets – and if no one bothered to actually do anything about the reports, people would eventually stop writing them. But it was frustrating. Moe might have been killed by magic, his killer either unaware of what he had done...or intending to do worse.
Might? He asked himself. Ever since Golem had explained how the first burst of magic could be dangerously uncontrolled, there had been no doubt in Matt’s mind that the whole affair was caused by magic. The only real questions were who, and why. If Moe had been half the asshole the report painted him as, it would be hard to blame his victim for lashing back at him with magic. But why hadn't he come forward?
Matt snorted a moment later. Of course the killer hadn't come forward. Who would have believed him, at first? Later, now that the President had acknowledged magic’s existence, he would wonder if he would be charged with murder. Matt had seen enough incidents in schools to know that the bullied often felt as if the whole world was against them. The killer probably knew that he would be blamed, no matter how badly Moe had acted. Most school shooters started out as people who were alienated from the world, mainly through bullying, until they crossed the line into madness.
He skimmed through the other two files and nodded to himself. Ian Murray had been a jock, just like Moe: Andy Montgomery seemed to have nothing going for him, apart from a string of disciplinary records a mile long. A quick glance at his personal file confirmed that he had been raised in a single-parent family by his mother, who had four other kids to bring up. Like so many others, his life had been wasted right from birth. Matt shook his head sadly and, on impulse, pulled up the record for Gavin Harrison. A red note indicated that the boy had been suspended from school, pending the outcome of the court case.
The original investigators had been right, Matt decided, several minutes later. There was no discernible motive for Harrison to knock out his Football Coach. That didn't mean that he hadn't done it – witnesses and physical evidence said he had done it – but it was odd. People could and did go crazy, particularly when they had had too much to drink, or taken something that altered their frame of mind, yet still...
I’m supposed to be a Hunter, he thought, sourly. I should be able to find the killer with ease.
Golem had told him as much, but the brief period of poking and prodding the doctors had given him had found nothing. They’d had more luck monitoring Kaleen’s brainwaves as she used her magic to heal people. The doctors weren't quite sure how her powers worked – Golem had said that some people just knew instinctively how to use their abilities – but they did have ways to detect them at work now. They could sort out the fakes from the real healers.
Pushing the thought aside, he passed an FBI-issue USB stick to the secretary and asked her to copy the files over onto the device. The analysts would go through them and see if he’d missed anything, although privately Matt doubted that there was anything they could use. Maybe he’d have to interview some of Moe’s fellow students and ask if he picked on anyone in particular, except that would get around the city in no time. Someone would draw the correct conclusion – the internet already had – and parents would start holding their children back from school. How could he blame them?
Once the secretary had finished copying the files, Matt allowed her to lead him to the washroom where the murders had taken place. The NYPD had locked the room, complete with a notice warning that unauthorised access was a criminal offense, but somehow he doubted that would keep the kids out for long. Everyone would want to see the scene of the crime. He opened the door with the secretary’s key and stepped inside, trying to clear his mind as Golem had suggested. There was a faint – a very faint – sense of the fire, but nothing else. The forensic team had removed the bodies and the rest of the physical evidence; the cleaners had then scrubbed away the burn marks and painted over the rest of the damage, such as it was. Matt concentrated harder, but there was still nothing.
“You can lock it up again now,” he said, as he stepped back outside. He’d hit a dead end, unless he could find someone willing to talk. Moe’s friends had already been interviewed by the NYPD and they’d had nothing useful to say. But then, it was possible that his colleges simply hadn't asked the right questions. “Thank you for your time.”
“I hope that you do catch the person responsible,” the secretary said, her voice becoming more human as he started to leave. Previously, she’d sounded alarmingly like a female version of Golem! “Those kids didn't deserve to die like that.”
Matt had his doubts on that score – Moe’s file had told the tale of a boy who was out of control – but he kept his peace. Instead, he walked out of the school and back to where he’d parked the FBI car. It was funny, he realised, just how quickly he'd come to terms with the whole idea of magic. The rest of the world seemed to be either panicking or trying to work out how to exploit it. But p
erhaps that too was part of a Hunter’s magic.
He picked up his cell phone, reported in to Caitlyn, and then headed back to his apartment. Night was falling and he wanted to get at least one day of sleep before he returned to Washington, unless he found another way to search for the murderer. Perhaps Golem would have some ideas.
***
“My daddy says that werewolves can't come inside the door without permission,” a little girl said, as he stepped into the small eatery. Matt looked down and saw a girl who couldn't be more than five years old, wearing a white headscarf and dress that suggested that she had just come back from the mosque. “And that God protects us against all evil things.”
“Let us hope that he is right,” Matt said, gravely. He liked children; they tended to be much less complicated than adults. It was teenagers who caused the real problems. “But I thought that that was vampires.”
The girl pointed to the doorframe. Matt saw that a set of Arabic letters had been painted above the door in neat, precise script. “That will keep out all evil,” the girl assured him. “They will flee from the words of God.”
Matt concealed his amusement. There had been a sudden upsurge in all forms of protective magic, from Native American to ancient folklore from Europe. Apparently it was suddenly impossible to buy a horseshoe for less than a thousand dollars, which suggested that someone was hiking up the prices. Every magic shop in New York had sold out of all kinds of products, most of which would have been dismissed as useless ten days ago. Not to mention the man who had opened a wizard’s school years ago claiming that he was responsible for the rebirth of magic. The world was changing at terrifying speed.
“So we have always been told,” her father said. His family, who had emigrated from Pakistan years ago, ran a kebab shop. “My uncle assured me that the mullahs were saying that it would work in Pakistan.”
“Good,” Matt said, dryly. From what he’d heard, all of the major world religions were still having problems coming to terms with the existence of magic. There had been nasty incidents all over the globe, including a young boy being beaten to death by his parents after doing something supernatural. “I’d like a kebab with extra chicken.”
He took the food, paid for it, and then headed to his apartment, picking up his mail on the way. A white envelope with the NYPD logo, a handful of pieces of junk mail and a flyer advertising another wizard school. Someone else was clearly trying to cash in on the whole affair. He pocketed it, made a mental note to show it to Caitlyn so they could check to see if it was more than just another scam, before putting down the kebab and opening the NYPD letter. As he had expected, it confirmed that he had been cleared of professional misconduct and acknowledged that he was seconded to the FBI for the duration of the crisis, but his pay would still be coming from the NYPD. Matt rolled his eyes, particularly at the line offering counselling for trauma, and put the paper to one side. His kebab was getting cold.
While eating, he clicked on the television and watched the latest news directly from Washington. “Crowds of Native Americans have gathered in Washington today to protest the Presidential Directive sealing off all places of religious significance issued just after the President informed us of the return of magic,” the talking head said. “The spokesman for the protest claimed that depriving the Native Americans of access to their holy sites was a direct assault on their rights as American citizens. In a televised interview earlier this morning, Senator Bilaganna of Arizona had this to say.”
Matt leaned forward as Senator Bilaganna appeared on the screen. He didn't look particularly Native American; Matt would have bet good money that there was a white person somewhere in his family tree. On the other hand, unlike some politicians who had claimed to be one-fifth Cherokee or whatever, he actually did have Native American blood.
“We have preserved the rituals of our ancestors for centuries,” the Senator said, firmly. “My ancestors were told that our beliefs were superstition, or tools of the devil; many children were taken from the tribes and stripped of their cultural heritage because the invaders believed that they needed to learn about a different god. Now our religions are proved to be true, yet we are denied the chance to practice them. Preventing us from accessing our sacred sites violates our freedom of religion.”
The interviewer smiled. “But, so far, there have been upwards of three hundred deaths at ancient sites around the world,” she said. “None of those deaths have been easily explained. Why do you object to the President taking action in the name of public safety?”
“The action is not in the name of public safety, whatever the President may say,” the Senator countered. “He wants to study it, to tear away the spiritual world and replace it with the crass materialism that has affected most of America. We know how to use the power flowing through the land; we will be safe. It is those who show no respect for the land that have to fear.”
Matt privately doubted that that was true. Some of the reports had noted modern-day druids dropping dead at Stonehenge, people who were at least trying to respect the land. Maybe they hadn't believed in what they were doing. Golem had pointed out that intentions were more important than rituals in such places and those who had good intentions could have bungled the entire ritual – and it would still have worked, at least to some extent. That had sparked a long discussion on the nature of ritual magic that Matt had been unable to follow, except for the idea that in magic, a symbol could be the thing. It made no sense to him.
“In other news, the Governor of Louisiana has appealed for calm following a major riot in New Orleans. According to reports, a witch doctor cast a spell on a child, killing her. The child’s parents led an armed crowd to the witch doctor’s home and attacked him, before rampaging out of control and causing others to join the riot. The National Guard has been placed on alert to respond to the crisis if the city’s police force are unable to deal with it.
“In Texas, the controversial Reverend Zachariah Jenkins has been murdered by magic, apparently by his wife. Their younger daughter was not in the room at the time, but she heard an argument, followed by a crash. When she ran into the room, she saw her father dead and her mother seemingly catatonic on the floor. The child has since been taken into protective custody and...”
Matt switched off the television set, looking down at the remains of the kebab. The world seemed to be still going crazy. It was impossible to prove that magic had been used to kill someone – at least so far – and there was no way to know if the crowd in New Orleans had been justified or not. It was a city where many different traditions rubbed up against one another, along with extremes of wealth and poverty. Successive hurricanes hadn't made it any easier either. And then there was the Reverend’s wife...no doubt the Mage Force would be taking a look at her too, soon enough. Who knew what had happened there?
Standing up, he washed his face quickly and headed to bed. It was surprising how much he missed Caitlyn, even though he couldn't even say that they were together. Perhaps they’d just been pushed together by events and now they needed each other. Or perhaps she was grateful that she had her apartment to herself. Shaking his head, Matt closed his eyes and went to sleep. God alone knew what crisis would blow up tomorrow.
Chapter Fourteen
Austin, Texas
Day 13
The Reverend Zachariah Jenkins hadn't deserved to die.
Senator Thaddeus Whitehall sat in the front pew of the Church of New Hope and listened silently as the pastor honoured his dead friend. Jenkins had been a committed Christian, a man who had saved souls and led moral crusades to hold back the tidal waves of liberalism that threatened to overwhelm the country, a staunch supporter of a person’s right to live and follow the religion of Jesus Christ. And he’d been there when Thaddeus had lost his first wife, comforting him with the knowledge that his wife was waiting in Heaven for when he joined her. Thaddeus, like so many others, had found comfort in religion, a solace against the ever-changing world.
And the wor
ld was always changing. When he’d been young, few people would have seriously considered an abortion, nor would they have had easy access to doctors willing to perform the procedure. Now, countless babies had been murdered before they ever drew their first breath, all slaughtered in the name of progress. How could anyone, Thaddeus had asked himself despairingly, peacefully tolerate mass slaughter? And it was mass slaughter; it could hardly be anything else.
It grew worse. Liberalism had taken great strides towards wrecking the modern household, towards allowing men and women to seek divorce for the merest provocation. Thaddeus would have happily admitted that some marriages were made in Hell, rather than Heaven, but smashing a holy union for minor reasons was evil. And even if matters had moved beyond recovery, what about the children? He’d seen fathers lose their right to visit their children, even though they were forced to spend most of their wages making support payments, depriving their children of a strong male presence in their lives. That too was a result of liberalism.
And then there was the filth in the papers, the endless barrage of sexual content on the internet and television, the reluctance to stand up for the values that made America great, or to stand up to flag-burning fanatics who blamed the United States for their woes...how could anyone steer a course through the swamp that had engulfed the nation? And for those who tried, such as Thaddeus, the media tore them apart. Conservatives were expected to be whiter than white – and then attacked for being white – while liberals got a free pass from the mainstream media. He opposed annual gay pride marches through major cities, purely because they created yet another dependent group, and the media told the world that he was a bigot. Thankfully, the good folk of Texas disagreed.
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