by C. C. Mahon
Lola gave me a look of reproach. “What do you think I am? Of course, I do. Since Chloe is a minor, I tried to contact her parents. I couldn’t reach them, and I left messages.” She took her cell phone out of her pocket and shook her head. “They didn’t call me back.”
“What do we do now?”
“Maybe she overdosed on her own merchandise,” said Lola. Her tone made it clear that she didn’t believe that. She continued, “In which case, this poor child may be in danger right now. I have to intervene.”
With a wink, she drew her weapon and used the butt to hit one of the French windows. The glass took the impact with a thumping noise but did not even split.
“Burglar-resistant glass,” grumbled Lola.
“Let me do it.” I grabbed my sword, which sent an electric shock into my arm.
“I’m not a can opener,” said the sword.
“You’re afraid of failing,” I answered.
In response, the weapon caught fire. I repressed a smile and applied the tip of the blade against the reinforced glass. A simple pressure and it broke into a myriad of tiny opaque fragments. After that, it was exactly like opening a tin can.
“You will pay for this,” grumbled the sword.
“I will make it up to you,” I said silently.
I stepped through the bay window and entered a large room. White marble on the floor, ivory sofas, matching decoration. Even with all the curtains drawn in front of the windows, the whole thing was bright. And in an unspeakable disorder.
Clothes lay on the ground and the furniture, fast food packaging sat next to empty cans, and the air smelled like old fries.
“It looks like my ex’s apartment,” commented Lola.
“Was she kidnapped?” I asked.
Lola slowly walked through the living room into the dining room. There, everything seemed to be in order; the chairs were carefully arranged around a large glass table, in the middle of which an old bouquet finished withering.
“It seems like no one has been cleaning for some time,” said Lola. With a quicker step, she reached the front door. “No sign of forced entry. Someone closed the locks on the way out. Let’s check the upper floor.”
At the top of the stairs, the master bedroom suite was easy to recognize: vast, neat, beige. The bed was made.
“Someone helped themselves…” Lola said. She was standing near a chest of drawers. On top of it, a jewelry box had regurgitated a jumble of rings, necklaces, and earrings.
“Mrs. Garcia has good taste,” I commented. “The stones are real, the settings delicate…”
“I didn’t know you were a jewelry connoisseur.”
“That’s what happens when you live a few years with a collector.”
Apart from the jewelry box, the rest of the room was perfectly neat, and the adjoining bathroom—also made of marble—shone with cleanliness.
The same could not be said of the second bedroom.
“Chloe likes black,” said Lola.
“Your powers of deduction will always impress me.”
I turned the switch on, because here too the curtains were drawn.
The carpet was black but thick and soft; the wallpaper covering the walls was also black, but baroque patterns of a brilliant black subtly stood out on the matte background. A tornado had obviously crossed the bed then rushed into the dressing room. Black clothes were strewn all over the black carpet, making them difficult to spot until my feet caught them.
“This is not where she plays with her chemistry set,” I said.
“If she doesn’t want her parents to get involved, she’ll have moved elsewhere. Let’s see the garden shed and the pool room.”
Before leaving the floor, I went to the bathroom next to Chloe’s room. The place was as dirty as I expected. A hairbrush was lying abandoned near the sink. The mass of purple hair tangled between the brush bristles said enough about whom the object belonged to.
“Tsk tsk.” I brandished my discovery. “That’s how you recognize a beginner witch…”
“Are you going to make a voodoo doll out of Chloe’s hair?”
“No, but Britannicus can do a locating spell for us.”
“Before that,” Lola said, “let’s check the garden shed.”
The “shed” was a real guest house at the back of the property.
Lola entered first. “Ah, now we’re talking!”
The living room looked like a picture from Witches Magazine; furniture and carpets had been pushed back along the walls. On the hardwood floor, a circle, a pentagram, and a bunch of signs I didn’t recognize had been drawn with a large-tip marker.
I took a picture of the circle and sent it to Britannicus.
A little further on a chest of drawers, I identified an altar. A profusion of candles had happily melted on the furniture and even on the different crystals scattered between them. A little further on, I noticed a lectern but no book on it. I took a picture of the whole thing and sent it to Britannicus as well.
“I found her lab,” Lola announced.
She pointed to the kitchenette. On the table were the perfect little chemist kit, a box of glitter, and supply of tiny plastic bags.
“No pills,” said Lola. “She probably left to supply her resellers.”
“Shit!”
Lola nodded. “We’ll make her spit out their names, and we’ll take this horror off of the streets.”
“Before another kid destroys their brains?”
“That’s the plan.”
The rest of the house taught us nothing more. Chloe didn’t live there; she obviously only used it for her extracurricular activities.
I brandished the hairbrush. “Let’s put our Britannicus on the case.”
A security company car was waiting for us outside the house. A uniformed guard pointed his gun at us. “Freeze! The police are on their way!”
“I am the police,” replied Lola in a neutral tone. “My badge is in my pocket. Do you mind?”
The guard nodded briefly, and Lola grabbed her badge. As soon as he saw it, the guard relaxed and put his gun down.
“We are trying to reach the owners,” Lola said, pointing to the house behind us. “Have you talked to them recently?”
“No, ma’am. I called their cell phones along the way, but they didn’t answer. That’s why I was nervous to see you there.”
“Someone broke a window on the terrace,” Lola pointed out as if we had nothing to do with it. “Other than that, we didn’t notice anything.”
We let the guard make his observations and left as if nothing had happened.
While we were searching Chloe’s home, the magic weather had gotten even worse. I felt my hair was standing on my head. A glance at my bare arms confirmed that my hair was indeed at attention. A series of multicolored sparks ran along the blade of my sword, and for a moment, the smell of ozone mixed with the disgusting scent of raw magic.
I looked up; the sky looked like a giant, black and purple hematoma. On the other side of town, the geyser was still pouring its raw magic. But the column of light was now surrounded by a vortex of black and opaque clouds. I swore.
“What’s the matter?” Lola said.
“Don’t you see that?” I pointed to the geyser.
She shook her head.
“What about the sky?” I asked.
She, in turn, looked up to the sky. “What about the sky? The weather is fine. Even though I feel like there’s electricity in the air.”
Unbelievable. Lola didn’t see anything about the magic storm that was about to hit us.
“And the smells?” I said. “Don’t you smell anything?”
I remembered that Lola could smell Britannicus’s magic. It was for this reason that she nicknamed him my “Ginger Brit.”
She sniffed and grimaced. “It smells like a cave or a wet cellar. Do you think it’s going to rain?”
Near the geyser, a lightning bolt tore the black wormhole, and sparks danced around me.
“I
think the sky is gonna fall on our heads,” I said.
28
BACK IN MY loft, Lizzie and Britannicus had finished their calculations. From the looks on their faces, they didn’t like the result.
When I crossed the threshold, Lola on my heels, Britannicus seemed busy pacing in my living room, his hands joined behind his back, his eyes focused on the ground.
Lizzie stood in the corner of the room closest to the geyser, her face raised towards the sky.
“Brit!” I called. “I need you!” I brandish the hairbrush under his nose. “I need a location spell, presto.”
Britannicus shot me a grave look. “In view of the situation…”
“The situation is that we have a magic drug dealer on our hands, and her glittery pills have already killed one person,” I said.
“Magic drug?” said Lizzie.
I had forgotten to show them the “horn” pill. I retrieved it from the bottom of my pocket.
Lizzie grabbed it gently, examined it for a moment, and passed it on to Britannicus.
“Telepathy?” he asked.
“To cheat on exams,” I said.
“And someone died?” asked Lizzie.
“The kid couldn’t take all these voices anymore,” said Lola. “He stuck an iron bar in his ears…all the way to his brain.”
Lizzie frowned and took the pill from Britannicus’s palm. Suddenly, the witch’s face changed. “Chloe did this!” she breathed, her eyes wide open.
“That’s why we have to find her,” I said. “Brit, please?”
I handed him the brush, and this time he took it without arguing.
He retrieved his usual doctor’s bag from a corner of the living room, cleared the coffee table of the papers that covered it, and set to work. Meanwhile, Lizzie was still watching the pill in her palm, as if the object was the strangest of insects.
“She did not take into account the increased charge,” she said.
“Excuse me?” said Lola.
“Chloe,” replied Lizzie. “When she created this drug, she dosed the spell according to the desired effect. But she had not anticipated that the ambient magic charge would reach such high levels. That’s why this kid couldn’t handle the effects.”
“That was this morning,” I said. “Since then, the charge has…”
“…multiplied tenfold,” said Lizzie.
“In fact,” Britannicus intervened, “it was multiplied by…11.53.”
He had unfolded a map of Las Vegas on the table and was studying it intensely.
Lizzie shrugged and gave me the pill back. “The important thing is if someone takes this now, they’ll definitely lose their mind.”
“I found her!” cried Britannicus. “There.”
Lizzie, Lola, and I rushed around him. He had his finger on a point on the map. His spell had superimposed on the drawing a 3D hologram of the exact state of the terrain. Thanks to the accuracy of the readings, it was easy to recognize the location. Chloe was on the Strip, as close as possible to the crater and the magic geyser that sprang from it.
“Why did the kid go near the crater?” asked Lola. “There’s nothing there.”
The two wizards stared at her.
“She doesn’t see magic,” I said.
“Of course,” Lizzie whispered. “I always forget.”
Lola crossed her arms and glared at us. “Can someone explain this to me?”
I described the geyser, the clouds gathered under the Customs protection dome, and the vortex of black clouds that now encircled the energy column. Lola’s gaze went back and forth between the glass ceiling and my face. Then she turned to Britannicus and Lizzie. “You see it as Erica does?”
“Same,” said Lizzie.
“In every respect,” Britannicus added. “But you must at least feel the accumulation of electricity in the atmosphere?”
“Like before a storm,” Lola confirmed.
“A hurricane,” announced Britannicus.
“And that idiot Chloe is in the middle of it,” groaned Lizzie. “I have to go get her. What the hell is that kid up to now?”
“Probably an appointment with buyers,” said Lola. “The site is closed to the public, making it a quiet and private place.”
“Not with this geyser of energy!”
Lola took a new look at the crater. She didn’t seem convinced by what I had described to her.
Britannicus spoke again, like a professor at Oxford. “For Chloe, the place is an almost unlimited source of energy. If she approached it, it is because she plans to use it for a spell…”
“Or a ritual,” Lizzie added mechanically. The witch seemed more and more concerned. “If only I knew what was on her mind…” she continued.
“Do you want to see her altar?” I asked.
I didn’t know much about witchcraft, but I knew that an altar was an intimate space that could reveal many things to an informed eye. Lizzie’s reaction confirmed my idea.
“Where is it?”
I took out my phone and displayed the two pictures taken at Chloe’s house.
Lizzie pointed at the empty lectern. “Where is her grimoire?”
“I didn’t see it anywhere,” I said.
“By the Goddess! She wouldn’t dare…?”
Lizzie started circling me like a lioness in a cage.
“Dare what?” I asked.
“Dare what?” Lola asked in echo.
“What are you thinking about?” added Britannicus.
Lizzie didn’t answer. She didn’t even seem to have heard us. I finally grabbed her shoulders and forced her to stop pacing. “What’s the matter?” I said. “What’s with the book?”
“This is Harriet Gladys Williams’ grimoire,” Lizzie replied.
“Who?”
“One of the most powerful witches in the history of Las Vegas,” said Lizzie.
“One of the Founding Mothers?” asked Britannicus.
Lizzie shook her head. “Harriet was briefly part of their group. But she quickly broke away from it. She and the rest of the witches disagreed on…just about everything, from what I understand. The group of witches created Customs, and it is they who are called the ‘Founding Mothers,’ but no one knows exactly what happened to Harriet.”
“She was as powerful as the Mothers?” said Britannicus.
Lizzie nodded.
“What is this about Mothers?” asked Lola.
“Customs manage the magical balance of Las Vegas,” I said. “Customs was founded by a group of witches during the magic rush, just before the foundation of the human city.”
“So this grimoire belonged to a powerful witch?” summed up Lola. “And that’s why it’s dangerous?”
Lizzie and Britannicus nodded.
“If so, why did you leave it in the hands of such a misguided teenager?”
“I couldn’t confiscate it from her!” said Lizzie.
“Why not?” asked Lola.
“It’s her legacy. Chloe’s mother never wanted to practice. She gave up her powers. Chloe is, therefore, the legitimate owner of the grimoire. If I wanted to confiscate it from her…the book wouldn’t have let it happen.”
“Ladies,” Britannicus intervened, “we’ve talked long enough. It’s time to go and see what this young girl has in mind.”
29
THE NIGHT SHROUDED Las Vegas. Street lighting had given up, the neon signs were on strike, and the changing glow of the magical geyser was the only light on the Strip. The sparks were poking at my skin. My sword was in a bad mood, and so was I.
The crater was more than a hundred yards away. But already I had to fight against the wind howling in my ears. The greasy papers were still not sensitive to it, but next to me, Lola looked funny.
“Is everything all right?” I shouted to cover the sound of the wind.
Lola shook her head as if to chase away an unwelcome insect. “I don’t know. I feel like…I just hit the wall. So tired suddenly.”
“You can stay back,” I said
. “It’s not a police matter anymore.”
“Like that’s likely! I’m just a little out of shape, that’s all.”
“It’s the magic storm!” shouted Britannicus. “The geyser emits a stream of magic that pushes us back…”
“I still can’t see anything,” grunted Lola.
“This does not prevent you from feeling the effects,” Britannicus insisted.
Lola shrugged.
We had abandoned our vehicles further up the Strip to approach the crater on foot. We didn’t especially want to be discreet; the engines had refused to get closer to the geyser. Britannicus had been ecstatic about the phenomenon and had begun to list possible explanations. For the first time since I knew her, Lizzie hadn’t gotten into the game. Silent, she kept her eyes fixed on the geyser; sometimes her jaw tightened, as if in reaction to conflicting thoughts.
“Have you known her for a long time?” I asked.
“A few years,” Lizzie replied. She didn’t have to ask who I was talking about. “She’s the one who came to me. She wanted to learn how to become a witch.” Lizzie cracked a bitter smile. “I did the best I could. I knew this grimoire could cause her problems. I tried to teach her rigor, caution…”
“That wasn’t what she came for,” I said.
Lizzie nodded. “I lost her. And to find her now, like this…”
“What do you think she’s trying to do here?”
“If only I knew. What do people always want from magic? Wealth, power… Your guess is as good as mine. What I would like to know is where Customs has gone. The area should be quarantined…”
We arrived next to a rental van, also abandoned on the road. The back doors were open. I took a look inside. There was dirt on the floor and narrow wheel marks, probably from a mover’s cart.
“Bad day to move in,” Lola said.
An enormous thunderclap startled me. Lola flinched.
“Did you hear that?” I said.
“I’m not deaf.”
I turned to Britannicus, who glanced at the sky with a worried look on his face.
“Does that mean it’s not magic?” I said.
“It is the magnetic energy released by the friction of magic in the atmosphere. Until now, it has created interference in telephone communications. I’m afraid we’ve taken a new step.”
