Sweet Magic

by Connie Shelton

  Scott looked at Kelly with the question in his eyes. She shook her head.

  “Well, thanks anyway, Ben. What you’ve said is most appreciated.” He tapped the button to end the call.

  “So I guess my translator app isn’t going to work on this one,” Kelly said.

  She put a smile on it so he wouldn’t think he needed to follow up further. His colleague’s information had probably been exactly right. Somewhere in that book there was most likely an answer key of some kind. She couldn’t wait to get home and look further.

  Chapter 38

  Beau rubbed his itchy eyes and sighed. It was nearly seven p.m. and he’d intended to get out of the office by six. Not a smooth-running day, for sure. The traffic accident this morning had involved a fatality, which dramatically increased the time and paperwork to process everything, not to mention his having to visit a family out in Talpa and deliver the news that their teenage daughter wouldn’t be coming home.

  Rico had been in a mood after taking the theft report from an elderly Tewa woman who ran a little trading post-slash-curio shop out on the highway. He’d spent two hours taking details on what amounted to less than a hundred dollars’ worth of stolen tourist junk. The foul mood came about because he couldn’t call it like he saw it and could only advise the lady to report the loss to her insurance company, when no doubt she didn’t carry insurance.

  Sam had called to say he’d better grab something to eat for himself—she was tied up at the bakery and Jen would bring her a sandwich or something. She hadn’t sounded exactly chipper either.

  So, he was sitting at his desk now, staring once again at the sorry collection of evidence in the shooting of Tony Robards. What he wanted to tell the grieving parents was that the FBI had taken over tracking the lead suspect, so they could call them instead of him. But of course, whatever he said would have to be couched in the most polite of terms.

  When his phone rang and he saw that it was Rick Gonzales, he had a feeling he knew what was coming—in the politest of terms, of course.

  “Sorry, Beau, HQ has spoken. The higher-ups have decided it’s a waste of manpower to keep 24-hour surveillance on Marcus Fitch. The man hasn’t deviated from routine or made a suspicious move in more than two weeks. The case will remain open but they’ve called off the team.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know. But it’s not like we have a database of snipers for hire or that they all belong to some social club or something. If we could have caught Fitch meeting with someone or paying them off … but that was probably done well before the shooting ever happened.”

  “It’s just been that kind of day all around,” Beau said. “Okay, Rick, thanks for at least doing this much.”

  Gonzales offered to buy him a drink next time Beau was in Albuquerque, and they promised to let each other know if there were any new developments in the case. Beau hung up, feeling the weight of it all on his shoulders.

  There was no doubt in his mind that Sam was still in danger from this guy. If he thought Fitch was only after the stupid wooden box, he’d set the damn thing out on the porch and just let him steal it. Hell, he’d pack it up and mail it to him. But somehow it went a lot further than that; other lives would be in danger if Fitch got away with this.

  He was on his own to protect his family until he could figure out a way to take Marcus Fitch down.

  Chapter 39

  The blonde runner wasn’t on the path this morning, Marcus noticed. He sharpened his lookout for someone else. Maybe she was on vacation. Or the Feds could have switched the whole team so he’d have to look for new faces everywhere, dammit. Or … he might have gotten lucky.

  He skipped coffee at Starbucks and went straight to the bookstore. With a magazine and a coffee from the bistro there, he parked himself at a table where he had an overview of the entire store. For ninety minutes, people came and went, buying books, browsing and leaving, having a pastry and leaving. No one paid him any mind and no one hung around very long.

  He followed his usual path to the elevator and parking garage, then slipped through the doorway that led to the OSM building. He went to the section of the computer room and to the machine he’d been using to encrypt his logon and access the recordings he’d set up to happen anytime Isobel St. Clair’s or Sheriff Cardwell’s phones rang. The time stamp showed Cardwell had received a call after nine o’clock last night, 7:14 New Mexico time.

  Marcus fast-forwarded to that one. Sorry, Beau, HQ has spoken.

  That sounded promising. He listened to the entire phone call, backed up and listened again. It explained the absence of the tail this morning. Unless … could they have any idea he was listening to their calls? He went back and listened to all of Beau Cardwell’s calls for the day. No, the sheriff wasn’t on the verge of a breakthrough in the case. He’d sounded discouraged all day and by evening wasn’t surprised when the FBI called.

  Marcus drummed his fingers on the desk. He would break with routine, get out and about, be visible, for one more day. If he didn’t spot a tail in that time, he knew what he would do.

  Chapter 40

  All the way home Kelly thought about what Scott’s colleague had said about the made-up language used in the old leather-bound book. It made perfect sense that there would be an answer key somewhere, and she would find it. She was on a mission.

  They made coffee and turned the TV on to a sitcom, but within a half hour of sitting down Scott was dozing again.

  “Hey, why don’t you go ahead and hit it early?” she asked.

  “I never remember jetlag hitting me quite so hard,” he said. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “A little, but I think I’ll read for a while.”

  He gave her a kiss and went to brush his teeth. By the time he went into the bedroom, she was digging into her secret storage space in the kitchen cupboards and came out with the carved box and the old book.

  “If I have a prayer of staying awake long enough to look through the book, I’d better help myself to some extra energy,” she mumbled.

  Remembering Sam’s cautions about not overdoing the box’s influence, she carried the box to the living room and sat in her favorite corner of the sofa. On her lap, the artifact began to change color, going from its normal dark, muddy brown to a light honey color. She laid her hands flat against the top and the warmth grew. She wanted to hold onto it, to soak up more energy, but reminded herself she was new at this. She set the box aside.

  It was true—she felt more alert already. She picked up the book and felt the soft leather cover.

  “Okay, if there’s a key to the code, it would probably be on a loose page.” She held the book up by the covers, letting the pages hang downward. Nothing fell out. She riffled them but no loose page showed up. “Maybe in the back …”

  But if she expected some kind of chart, such as A=B, it wasn’t apparent. She set the book on her lap, allowing it to fall open to a random page. When she looked down, she found that she could read the page perfectly. One page written in English when the rest was in code? Odd.

  She turned to the first page, the one where she had traced characters for the linguist to look at.

  There exist three boxes, created by an Irish woodcarver, made from the wood of an alder tree that was struck by lightning. These boxes have enormous power. Great care must be taken when accessing this power.

  Kelly blinked. There was nothing code-like about the words she saw on the page. And yet …

  “Whoa. Okay, weird.”

  She flipped to look at the inside of the front cover. Property of Maria Obrenivici. Only the chosen shall receive this text.

  “Chosen.” A chill ran up her arms. Isn’t that what Bertha said to Mom? She turned back to the first full page of text.

  The woodcarver named the boxes, in order to describe and also to warn. They are:

  Virtu, who conveys good powers and is helpful to the possessor.

  Facinor, the bad one. Beware should this box come to any person with evil inte
nt.

  Manichee, whose powers are neutral and changeable. Manichee takes on the intentions of the holder. A good person will achieve good things. An evil person will achieve his intents as well.

  Now behold this~~

  When the boxes come together in the same place, be warned!

  Virtu and Manichee together will accomplish great things

  Facinor will turn Manichee to his own purposes and the two will overcome Virtu. This evil influence will become very powerful.

  To you who possess this book, bear in mind the power you have to bring powerful changes to the world. For good or for evil—the choice is yours.

  Kelly slammed the book shut, her heart racing. Choosing between good and evil, of course she would choose for the good every time. But what if it was not in her power to choose? What if the boxes exerted so much influence that she might be helpless. The feeling of being struck unconscious, as if by lightning, only yesterday. She could relate to feeling helpless.

  Her hands began to shake uncontrollably. She stood and her knees felt weak.

  Not again!

  But when she gripped the back of a chair for a minute the feeling passed. She made her way to the kitchen table where she’d left her phone.

  “Mom, you aren’t going to believe this.”

  Chapter 41

  One of the best perks of being associated with OSM was the virtually unlimited funding at his disposal. The organization had members worldwide, but most had no idea that the money they sent ‘for the furtherance of scientific research’ actually went into a huge fund that the board of directors used at their own whim.

  Marcus’s private meeting with the director had not gone well, even though he played the recording which revealed the FBI had stopped looking for him. Elias Swift was every bit as hungry for the power of the three boxes as Marcus himself, but the old man wanted credit for obtaining it, and he wanted the three boxes under his own control. Marcus persisted in his argument that he alone should make the journey to New Mexico. Eventually his request for a chartered plane was approved. A car would be waiting when he arrived in Colorado Springs, but his name would be nowhere on the lease. No one would connect this trip with a flight to Albuquerque last month, that trip also under a different name.

  He stood in the bedroom of his Georgetown condo, pondering what to take. Although accommodation for baggage wasn’t as restricted on the private plane as on a commercial flight, he must be careful. His disappearance could not appear to have been planned in advance. He needed time to accomplish his mission, including his escape to the west coast and a last-minute flight, paid in cash, to a destination unknown. One suitcase for clothing, a carry-on bag containing the valuables—this must look like a casual trip of a few days.

  He pulled a few shirts from the closet and tossed them on the bed. Shoes, sports gear, and luggage were pushed aside and Marcus reached for a certain board on the closet floor. He’d rigged it so a push in the right place would raise it gently, leaving no scratches or gaps to reveal the existence of the hidden compartment he’d created.

  Shining a flashlight into the space, he brought out a Smith & Wesson .45 handgun in a lockable case, three rubber banded stacks of cash, and a rectangular parcel wrapped in a black cloth pouch.

  “Thank you, Maurilio,” he whispered. It paid to have a cousin who’d achieved a high position in the Vatican, even if the man didn’t have a clue that influence from OSM had gotten him there—and quite by design, into a position at the Vatican archives.

  He carried the items to the bed, where he placed the cash and pistol into his waiting carry-on bag. From the black cloth he withdrew a carved wooden box, sat down, and set the box on his lap. As he stroked the wood finish, the color became darker and darker, turning to a shining black within a few moments. Small colored stones of red, green, and blue glinted like the eyes of mysterious creatures hidden deep in the wood surface. He lifted the lid.

  A name carved there—Facinor—intrigued him.

  When they had met in Ireland last month, he had asked Maurilio what the name meant, but his cousin shrank away from the artifact. “This should have remained in the Vatican archives, deep in that niche. I should never have brought it out into the open.”

  Warning vibes told Marcus not to reveal anything more to his cousin. Just because they looked nearly identical, as children enough so to switch places in school sometimes, didn’t mean the two of them had turned out anything alike. Maurilio was the ‘good boy’ and his place among men of piety, wearing the collar of the Church, was exactly where he should be.

  In retrospect, it was amazing Marcus had been able to convince the wimp to switch places one more time, to take his flight to Rome and then swap their passports and tickets so Marcus could fly to Ireland and back to New York, foiling the authorities’ attempts to prove he’d been in New Mexico.

  Well, this time it wouldn’t matter. By the time he finished his visit to Taos, he would be in possession of all three boxes, and if the legends were true he knew what that meant. Virtually unlimited power. Not even the vast OSM or the powerful Vongraf Foundation could stop him from having anything he wanted.

  His eyes gleamed as he put the box back into its black pouch and stowed it beneath the gun case and cash in his travel bag. He hastily tossed the clothing and his shaving kit into the larger suitcase, rearranged the closet items neatly, and gave a final farewell to his condo before he was out the door. He had a plane to catch.

  Chapter 42

  Sam spent the morning at the chocolate factory, going through and revising her cost spreadsheets, putting new numbers into the equations based on what she’d learned at the meetings in New York. Seeing the cruise line’s massive warehouse and methods for supplying each ship gave her a whole new perspective on the intricacies of packing and shipping her delicate product.

  By eleven o’clock, she’d been at it for hours and was developing a throbbing headache. When her phone rang and she saw it was Kelly, she gladly picked up the call and closed her eyes.

  “Hey, sweetie, what’s up?”

  “I hate to interrupt, Mom, but I’ve discovered the most amazing thing about the book Bobul gave me. I can read it!”

  Sam sat up straighter.

  “If there’s some point in the day when you can take a break and come by … well, I’d love to see if you can do it too.”

  Why would I be able to …? Had Kelly figured out some kind of invisible ink trick or something? “Tell you what. Let me finish a few calculations on these spreadsheets, and I’ll come by in a half hour or so. We can take a break and have some lunch.”

  Sam hung up, her mind suddenly whirling. This was more than a parlor trick. If they could read the book, they might learn all kinds of things Bobul had hinted at. She looked at her computer screen. What the hell. Spreadsheets could wait.

  She picked up her phone and bag and told Benjie she would be gone a couple of hours. Out in her truck, she remembered she’d intended to ask Beau if he had purposely left the barn door open—she’d noticed when she left home this morning. If not, she could offer to drive out there now and close it. She thumbed his number as she backed out of her parking spot.

  No answer. It went straight to voicemail. She left a message. At the corner where she would either turn left to go home or right for Kelly’s place, she paused. For all she knew, Beau might have remembered the door and gone home himself. Eager to see what Kelly had to show her, she turned right.

  An unfamiliar car sat in the driveway. Hm. Someone must have arrived in the last few minutes or Kelly would have said something. Sam stuffed her phone into the pocket of her slacks and locked her bag in the truck. Kelly’s back door was unlocked, so she walked into the service porch and then tapped lightly on the kitchen door as she opened it.

  “Kel, it’s me,” she called out.

  “Mom—no!” The shout was interrupted by a smacking sound and a thud.

  Sam ran through the kitchen to find Kelly sprawled on the living room floor. She h
urried forward when she caught movement to her left.

  Marcus Fitch stepped behind her, blocking her exit, pointing a gun directly at her face. Sam knew him from the photos Beau had shown her. She spun toward him, ready to lash out.

  “Don’t do it, Ms. Sweet. Even with magical power, you can’t move faster than a bullet.” He seemed to find humor in this, in a you’re-no-Superman kind of way.

  He looked at Kelly, keeping the gun aimed at Sam. From his back pocket his left hand pulled a fistful of plastic ties, the kind used to strap things together, the same type Beau’s men used in criminal apprehensions when handcuffs weren’t practical.

  “Tie her wrists and ankles,” he ordered. He tossed the plastic strips on the floor beside Kelly, motioning with the gun that he wanted Sam to do the work.

  Frantic thoughts raced through her head, but she couldn’t see a way to defy him without one or both of them being hurt. She knelt and looped a tie around one of Kelly’s wrists.

  “Huh-uh. Not in the front,” he said “Hands behind the back.”

  There went her first idea. But she complied, leaving the tie cinched loosely. Same with the ankles after Kelly sat with her back against a wingback chair. Marcus was no fool—he waved Sam aside and stepped in to give a firm tug to each of the ties, adding another one to strap her ankles to the chair leg as well.

  “Ow! That’s tight,” Kelly said.

  “Too bad.” He edged his way to the coffee table and picked up Kelly’s carved box, tucking it under his arm.

  “Don’t let him, Mom. If he gets both—”

  He quieted her with a sharp kick to her hip. “I can send a stronger message. If you’re not crazy about your ribs or that cute face of yours.” His icy blue eyes narrowed to evil slits, his words coming in a rasp.