“I don’t know. What do you want to do with them?” he answered.
Isabella wandered up and scrutinized them for a couple of minutes. “Wake them up, and let them go,” she said. “Make them walk out through the park and tell them that’s what the statue’s magic does.”
Miika and I exchanged looks.
“I can’t do that,” I said. “That spell didn’t involve the statue.”
“It was a blood-magic spell, wasn’t it?” she asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“Then tell them that the spell was blood magic, and the jaguar statue is a blood-magic artifact. If they still want the statue, then they’re too stupid to live and we’ll deal with them accordingly.”
Miika gave me a questioning look and I said, “Works for me.”
He chanted a short spell, sketched a rune, then said a Word. The two mages stirred, and then sat up. They stared at us through the fence, looked around at their bamboo prison, then back at us.
As close as I was to them, I was able to read their magic. There was both a qualitative and quantitative difference between witches and mages. Those guys had mage magic, but they weren’t much stronger than I was.
“You’re looking for a jaguar statue,” I said. “We don’t have it, and don’t know where it is. It’s a blood-magic tool, and you shouldn’t want it either. Now, if you fight your way through the bamboo in that direction,” I pointed, “you’ll get a chance to see some blood magic first hand. If you decide that you like that sort of thing, and come back here seeking the statue again, you’ll leave next time wearing a funeral shroud.”
We watched them go, fighting their way through the thick bamboo along the fence line. Beyond the grove, we saw them emerge into what was left of the park. The expressions on their faces as they viewed the devastation were priceless.
One of them turned back to us and asked, “What in the hell happened?”
“An attack by a blood mage,” I answered. Pointing to the bamboo, I said, “I set a ward around you to keep you out of our hair. I really didn’t intend it to keep you safe, it just worked out that way. I think you can see what happened to everything outside that ward.”
The other mage was watching all the emergency personnel and vehicles. A helicopter flew low overhead. He shook his head. “Did anyone die?” he asked in a shaky voice.
“Yes. Thirteen Humans, I think,” Miika said. “That was the last count I heard. Plus, a number of the Fae, the little people. Birds, squirrels, all the insects.”
We watched them make their way out of the park. Two cops stopped them when they got to the sidewalk. A couple more cops were called. The last I saw of the mages was when they got into an FBI car.
Torbert showed up around midnight. Isabella came into my bedroom and woke Karen and me up so that I could let him through the wards.
No one had ever stayed at the cottage with me before I met Isabella. With four of us there, it was very tight. Karen was such a tiny thing that she shared my bed while Miika slept on the couch and Isabella on the rug by the front door. It would have been far more comfortable at my place in Georgetown.
“What in the hell has been going on here?” Torbert asked as I sat him at the kitchen table, started a pot of coffee brewing, and put some food in the oven.
Karen filled him in on the PCU end of things, then Miika told him about Bronski’s attack in the park. By the time they were done, the coffee was ready, as was a loaf of fresh, hot, fruit bread.
“I can’t believe they would kill Lord Campbell,” Torbert said. “He’s the ICAA ambassador to the U.S. government.”
“And Nieminen is head of the ICAA,” Isabella countered, “or at least he used to be. The chaos the statue has engendered is exactly why I was afraid of it.”
“But, how did Bronski take control of the PCU?” Torbert asked.
“With you gone, Jim and George in the hospital, he just stepped in and took charge,” Karen said. “He has a large number of agents who think he knows what he’s doing—staving off a takeover by the alien-Godless non-Humans. After all, we’re the Paranormal Crimes Unit, and there are obviously a lot of paranormal crimes being committed. I spoke with a friend there last night…” she trailed off, then said, “I guess it’s still last night, isn’t it? Anyway, Bronski managed to convince upper management at the Bureau that the unit is under assault and that he’s working to prevent another Arlington. Then this thing in the park happened, and everyone’s running scared.”
“Well, I’m back now, so he’s not in charge anymore,” Torbert said.
“And if he knows you’re back, you’ll be in the hospital or the morgue,” Miika said.
“It’s sheer luck that Jim and George survived,” Karen said. “If they had taken me out, you would still be on vacation and wouldn’t even know about all this.”
“But why?” Torbert asked. “Why is Bronski doing all of this?
Isabella spoke up. “Kellana and I have discussed this, and we think it’s all for distraction. The PCU was hunting Nieminen. The ICAA was hunting him. Kellana and I found him once and were on his trail again. We think Bronski is working for Nieminen. He’s disrupted the PCU and taken Lord Campbell out of the equation. He’s tried to kill us twice. The big question is, where is Aleksi Nieminen and what is he planning?”
Chapter 22
Once the sun rose, Torbert got on the phone and started calling the top people at the FBI. After an hour, he came into the kitchen and flopped down in a chair.
“This is unbelievable. Damn near everyone who can make a decision is either sick, otherwise indisposed, or just plain missing.”
“What about at the Department of Justice?” Karen asked. DOJ was the FBI’s parent organization.
“I can’t get hold of anyone who knows anything. They keep referring me back to the Bureau.”
“Don’t you have friends and colleagues who will listen to you rather than Bronski?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, probably.”
“Then I suggest that you forget about the bureaucracy, which as far as I can tell is barely functional at the best of times, and take charge.” I put a cup of coffee on the table in front of him. “The major thing we need to do is find Aleksi Nieminen. Bronski is a minor problem.”
Torbert looked out the window and gestured at the devastated park. “You consider that a minor problem?”
“Okay, find Bronski,” Miika said. “If I can get within five hundred yards of him, I’ll solve that problem.”
The PCU agent shook his head. “I can’t sanction murder. He needs to be arrested and tried for his crimes.”
“Agent Torbert,” I said, “have you ever been in a war before? I guarantee you’re in one now. People like Bronski and Nieminen count on people like you having scruples. Take a lesson from Agent Wen-li and don’t hesitate when someone is trying to kill you.”
“When were you in a war?” Torbert asked, his tone disdainful.
“The last time? Germany, nineteen forty-five. The Germans, Americans, British, and Russians all tried to kill me.” I pointed at the park. “Believe me, that’s what war looks like.”
I was so angry I wanted to slap him. Instead, I set my coffee cup down and walked out the door. When they carried the bodies of the men Miika and I killed out of the park, it had triggered some really bad old memories. The blackened trees and blasted bushes brought back strong images of a park in Dresden after the allied firebombs. There was a time that I thought I would never escape the smell of burning flesh.
Fred’s head popped up from behind a row of irises, so I wandered over to talk to him. Among the little folk that lived in the area, he paid little attention to territorial boundaries, and the fence meant nothing to him and Kate since they traveled underground into the park whenever they wanted.
He was freaked out about what had happened, and told me that in spite of heavy losses, most of the Pixies were okay. The problem was that in early summer they had little in the way of stored food. They couldn’t stay w
here they were, but they didn’t have any place to go. Most of the DC area had seen constant battles for territory after the veils fell. The band of Pixies in the park had staked their claim and successfully defended it. Now their home was a wasteland, their food supply destroyed.
Of course, Humans gave no thought to beings they rarely saw and most probably didn’t believe in. I couldn’t simply invite them into the nursery. Pixies and Fairies were natural rivals, and Queen Rhoslyn would never agree to share her territory.
I asked Fred to tell the Pixies to get ready to move, and I would find a place for them. Unfortunately, I thought as I watched him sink into the ground, I had no idea where that would be.
I walked among the flowers and trees, running the past few days through my mind. Isabella and I had tried to figure out what was going on. We thought the attention from both Bronski and the others interested in the statue was fostered by Nieminen, who was trying to interrupt our hunt for him. But why? He had plenty of opportunity to move out of the area, but he obviously hadn’t. Why not?
But Bronski was doing more than simply trying to kill us. He was sowing chaos throughout the DC area and especially targeting its only law enforcement organization that focused solely on magic users and non-Humans.
My thoughts bounced around in a dozen different directions. I wondered if the White House grounds had Pixies or Fairies. I knew the National Arboretum had the largest tribe of Fairies in the city, but I’d never been to the White house. I’d probably need to truck the Pixies out of the city and try to find a place none of the Fae had yet settled.
After a while, my anger at Torbert bled away, and I wandered back to the cottage. I met Isabella coming out of the door.
“We need to rescue the Pixies,” I said.
She stared at me as though I’d spoken in Elvish. “Okay,” she said slowly. “What do you need me to do?”
I enlisted Miika to help me unload everything out of a van, and asked Isabella to use her computer skills to find organic fruit and vegetable farms within a hundred miles of DC. By the time the van was emptied, Isabella had a list of about a dozen places.
By calling each one and asking about their farming practices, and especially about their pest control programs, I was able to determine three possible candidates. Since Pixies eat insects as well as vegetative food, and are also excellent pollinators, it was easy to figure out which farms had either Pixies or Fairies. I chose a large operation in southern Pennsylvania whose owner confessed that he was having difficulties with his insect control.
Miika cast a spell that created a tunnel of clean air from the nursery to the Pixie’s underground village. We watched them fly over their scorched home, carrying their babies and everything they owned, and into the back of the van. Half an hour later, Miika and I were on the road, heading north.
We drove through Baltimore and out into the beautiful country north of there. I had to lay some ground rules for the Pixies. No more than a dozen at a time up front in the driver’s section, and no crawling or sitting on the driver. None of them had ever ridden in a vehicle before, and it was a new experience. Half a dozen Pixies sat on the dashboard, and more hung from Miika’s hair or sat on his shoulders. A constant reshuffling had Pixies trading places from the back of the van to the front. If they had anything in the way of material goods, I probably could have sold tickets.
When we reached the farm, I drove past and down a side road bordering the property. I stopped and we rolled down our windows. The band’s chief and a couple of dozen other Pixies flew out and scouted the area. Over a period of an hour, they gradually returned, excited and happy. The chief told me that I was the most wonderful Elf who had ever lived, and I opened the back doors of the van.
Ten minutes later, Miika and I were on the road back to DC. It was a rather bittersweet moment, as I doubted I would ever see any of them again. The average lifespan of a Pixie was about five years, barring accident or predation. Winters were hard on the older ones, and the Pennsylvania climate was harsher than that of DC.
“The President has declared a state of emergency,” Isabella said when we pulled into the nursery that evening.
“What does that mean?” I asked, having no idea what she was talking about.
“Come see.” She wheeled about and led me into the sitting room where her laptop sat on the coffee table. Turning the screen toward me, she pointed at it. I sat down and read it, but the only thing I really understood was that some lawyer in the government had appointed Alan Bronski as head of the PCU.
Torbert was in the kitchen talking to someone on the phone. Karen hovered near him, pacing and obviously distraught.
I turned to Miika, who had been reading over my shoulder. “Do you understand what’s going on?”
“The U.S. government has essentially declared war on non-Humans. All of us. Their President has called all their senators and congressmen to meet with him Thursday night. Something about a plot to take over the government.” He shook his head. “You’ve lived here longer than I have. Don’t you know how this government of theirs works?”
“No. I pay as little attention to it all as I can.”
We both looked to Isabella, whose face was very grim.
“It looks as though they plan to declare martial law. That means the military taking control and rounding up all the non-Humans they can find. They’ll lock us up.”
“Good luck with that,” Miika said. He was a realm walker, and I knew of no spell that could hold him, as long as he was breathing and conscious.
“Where is this meeting?” I asked.
“At the Capitol,” Isabella said, and I saw her face clear as she worked things through in her mind. “The whole government—all the people in charge of everything—will all be in one place.”
It hit me then. “Nieminen. The statue. He can take the entire government out at once. That is why he’s staying in this area.”
She nodded. “What I don’t understand is what the end game is. What does he do after that? How does it benefit him?”
“And how does this war on non-Humans fit in?” I asked.
“Nieminen hates non-Humans,” Miika said. “He has always chafed at what he considers prejudice against magic users. He thinks mages are superior beings and should rule over the non-gifted. But when the veils fell and all the non-Humans, especially beings such as Elves, the Aesir, and Angels, came through, he felt threatened. He is the major reason the ICAA admits only Human mages. An Elven or Aesirian mage would laugh at the idea of a Human mage being superior. Aleksi will use Humans’ fears of demons and shifters to try and exterminate all of us.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“He’s my cousin. My mother is his grandfather’s sister. I met him the first time I came to this realm, and it didn’t go well. He called me an abomination.” Miika barked a short laugh. “He thought I should be ashamed of my heritage, but it was the opposite side of my lineage that the Elves of Midgard thought I should be ashamed of. I’ve run into him a couple of times since then.” He captured my eyes with his own. “You shocked me.”
“I could tell. I almost fell back into the mindset of Midgard, but I’m not the woman who left there.”
“No, you’re not,” he said, reaching out and taking my hand. He squeezed it and then let go.
“So, what do we do?” Isabella said. “We have to stop him.”
“First, we have to find him,” I said. “We have a clue, though. My bet is that he’ll be within eighteen hundred and twenty-four yards of the Capitol.”
Chapter 23
Torbert made the statement, “I wish to hell I knew exactly what information the President has. I’d like to know what he’s thinking.”
I couldn’t help with the last part, but, “Suppose someone could get into the White House. How would someone find what you want?” I asked. “I mean, you want to know what Bronski and that dimwitted lawyer guy are telling him, right?”
“I think the Attorney General is acting un
der compulsion,” Miika said.
“Whatever,” I brushed him off, still looking at Torbert, who explained what he thought was a fantasy. It helped that he had been in the White House several times.
The nursery was under observation from both the police and the FBI, so we couldn’t drive without being followed. Miika, Torbert, and I went over the fence early Monday morning via one of the oak trees. Torbert didn’t seem to have any tree-climbing skill, so Miika carried him up and dropped him to me on the other side. He weighed less than Isabella in spite of being six inches taller than she was.
Humans’ security systems had not caught up with the capabilities of non-Humans. That may have been in part because they refused to acknowledge intelligence in anything that didn’t look exactly like a Human. Even with Werewolves and Werecats, Humans tended to think of them as only semi-intelligent, even when the Weres wore their Human forms.
Although Miika was a mage, he wasn’t an Elf and didn’t have an inherent ability to change size. He, Dave Torbert, and I walked along Pennsylvania Avenue until we crossed Fifteenth Street. Dave and Miika turned right due to the security barricades. I shrunk, donned a glamour, and walked right by the security guards.
Once I was inside the fence, I ran the rest of the way to the building. Torbert told me that infrared sensors were the only mechanical or electronic intruder detection system. Masking my body heat was easy. Otherwise, I simply had to escape notice by the guards and other people on the property and get through doors that had badge and keypad entries. That meant I just had to find people going in or out.
I had been in a few palaces and castles in Europe as a tourist, and the White House was comparably impressive inside, made all the more so since I was seeing it while less than one-sixth of my normal height.
Torbert had gone to the Internet and printed the President’s schedule for the day. It showed who he met with, when, and where. It shocked me that it was that easy. Since I also had a map of the building, arriving on time at the Oval Office for his meeting with Attorney General Adair and Alan Bronski wasn’t a problem. I stood by the office door next to two guards dressed in suits and waited for the door to open.
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