by Tina Gower
“Oh my goddess! Le Fay’s ketchup!” Ali squeals like a teenager who sees her favorite pop star at the booth across the restaurant. She jumps to the ground and picks up a used ketchup packet and holds it out for me to see.
I bat her arm away. “That’s trash, Ali.”
“No. It’s heaven. And the secret ingredient in my college lasagna recipe.” She cradles the spent package in her palm, a little tear forming in the corner of each eye. “I’d given up on reproducing it. And the stores around here stopped stocking it. I forgot they had the little packets at the student union.”
“Stay with me.” I turn to swipe a corner of the coffee table in one of the lounge areas. “We have to get all these samples and I can’t do it alone.”
“Fine.” She grabs a sack and heads over to the opposite side to take a few swipes.
It’s quiet for about ten minutes.
Ali taps me on the shoulder. “Let’s play hooky. This blows.” She drops her wipe cloths into the cart. “Swiping each and every surface of the school is tedious.”
“There has to be a reason she’s assigned us the task.” I diligently begin wiping the next quadrant on a map in the cart.
Looks like Kitman had highlighted the area she’s already finished. I count the areas we have left. Six. Excellent. We have enough highlighter colors to color coordinate. I’ll impress Kitman with my organizational skills. I highlight each of the bags in the cart with the color Michelle used to outline her section. I choose a new color for the next area. This way when we get results returned we can narrow down what room we got it from much quicker.
Ali grips the cart in both hands and flashes me a dirty look. “You got to be shitting me right now. Kitman is benching you. She’s not teaching you a thing, she’s got you doing work that is beneath you, and you’re letting her.”
I shake my head, not allowing Ali’s devil-over-the-left-shoulder talk sway me. She doesn’t understand our profession. How sensitive and precise it can be.
Ali keeps on me. “She’s got you working her back-up plan while she goes after the main prize. When she needs you for your connections, she’ll pull you out of her toy chest and play with you.”
I finish the labels in the next batch and give the cart a little tug to shake her off it.
She follows behind me, not letting up. “Come on, Kate. You said this math thing was competitive. Show Kitman you’re smarter than her by getting the scoop. And bonus, we don’t waste our time doing her dirty work when we could be out finding the witch who’s providing forecasts for Wyrd.”
Her point about competition gets to me. I didn’t impress Kitman at the bar last night, so she might not believe I’m capable.
Ali must see some change in my body language because she rubs her hands together, going for the kill. “And what do you know, but Emmanuel Brazil teaches a MED class every morning. There was a reason I suggested this time to Kitman. I was going to tell her, but then she did the bitch and ditch.”
“Emmanuel Brazil? He’s on our list.”
Ali nods. “And I’ve got a lead on Becky Williams, too, but we have to talk to Emmanuel first to see if it’s legit.”
Shit. Becky, overachiever, oracle and witch training at the same time and top of her class, except she’d burned out and nobody had heard from her. No records. And Brazil’s profile was interesting. He’d been tagged with oracle abilities, but refused training. His parents were skilled neurological chemistry witches and he wanted to follow in their footsteps. And Becker had been trapped in an MED while we were attempting to rescue an oracle from the compound during our first case. Not to mention the little visceral illusion that caused Beatrix Morrison to believe she’d been having a heart attack? Also created with neurological chemical magic.
Don’t get me wrong, each witch on our list had enough suspicion for us to want to talk to them, but this guy made my neck hairs tingle. Talking to him in person would benefit our case. I wish Becker were here, too.
I hold a packet of cloth wipes in each hand as though I’m Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess that judged souls on a scale. All right, do I toss this assignment aside? Risk angering my hero who could teach me a textbook’s worth of stellar investigative actuary techniques? Or do I go with Ali and possibly impress her?
Ali hits my arm. “Watch the master.” She waves some teen over. “Hey, you, freshman.”
The boy, more legs and arms than body, creeps over to us with a suspicious eye, a red-and-white checkered cardboard tray with a half-eaten hot dog balanced on his forearm.
“You want to make money?” my cousin asks him.
He narrows his eyes, analyzing us both. “What’s the catch?”
“No catch.” Ali tosses him a baggie of cloth wipes. “You swipe down surfaces with these clothes, following whatever instructions my colleague explains to you and when we get back in an hour I pay you twenty bucks.”
He twiddles the baggie between his fingers, considering.
Ali’s eyes widen as though she’s thought of the perfect bargaining chip that will set this deal over the edge. She digs out her wallet and pulls out a card with mini mug symbols all around the outside of it. Everyone is punched out. “A free drink at Miranda’s Cafe. If you come by tonight around five, I’ll spike it.”
“Spike it with what?” He looks unconvinced. He makes a point of sizing Ali up, as if he’s already decided she can’t deliver.
“You tell me. What do you want?”
“An attraction potion.”
She smirks. “So you can date-rape some unsuspecting innocent.”
“That’s not what—”
“How about I give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re not some creep and mix you a notice-me instead? He or she will have the chance to veto if they take note and then don’t like what they see.” She holds the free drink in between her fingers and waves it around.
“That’s fine,” he grumbles, snatching it from her. “And I’m not a creep.”
“We’ll see.” She grabs his unused ketchup packets and pockets them. “And I get to keep these.”
I run over the basic idea to the teen, how to swipe, bag, and label. Ali tugs me away and we rush off to catch Emmanuel Brazil before his class is over.
Emmanuel listens pensively as I explain the MED Becker and I experienced a few months ago while working on the Jack Robert’s case. Jack had a death notice and we’d gone to check on his roommate who made the prediction, only to have her swept away by Liza, her keeper and our eventual perp, soon after we got there. We pursued on foot, but the oracle shoved Becker into a MED trap to save him. She insisted if we were caught by Liza we’d all die.
Scratching at the black stubble on his chin, Emmanuel leans back in his chair while hugging his knee when I’m done explaining. He stares at the florescent lights in the closet-sized classroom.
I used the MED as a possible connection to this blood fever outbreak as an opening.
His lips flatten and he rubs his palm along his jaw. “Are you sure this witch is the same one who might cause the outbreak at the school?”
“I think there’s a connection. Yes.”
He looks confused. “It’s highly unlikely, but give me a moment to think about it.”
So far he’s polite, helpful. Not evading questions. The model of a perfect citizen.
Behind us Ali snickers. Her surgical mask dangles around her neck like a scarf. She’s sitting on a desk with one of the textbooks open, reading the incantation graffiti from the students. Apparently some kid has scribbled the wrong runes and this is extremely entertaining to her.
Emmanuel’s smile flickers at the corner of his lips. “Not the brightest bunch.”
Ali turns the book around and points at the latest infraction. “We at least could make our insults magically correct.”
“Kids these days.” He shakes his head and pops forward, fingers interlaced. His attention is back to me. “So let me get this straight. You encountered an MED on the oracle compound a few months ago. What grade was i
t? Did they use a ward? Was it an herb? An object?”
It’s the animal or mineral question among witches. “I don’t really know. We didn’t look.” I hang my head, not meeting his gaze that will undoubtedly have a look of disappointment. Or relief. I sneak a peek at him. He doesn’t look either.
“It had to have an object of some kind to link the potion to. A well-balanced, stable MED will have a ward, a spell, and a potion to hold it together.” He slides a book from the pitifully empty shelf of spell books and thumbs through it. “The more powerful ones are linked to emotionally saturated objects. I’m wondering if the one you encountered was generic. It would explain how you pried it open so easily. Amateurs.”
Emmanuel is helpful. But is he too helpful? I keep my skepticism on the outskirts of my mind while I circle around to glance over his shoulder.
“We also encountered a similar type of spell the other day with a visceral or illusion magic. It was set up a lot like an MED, but instead it had a specific target and had been triggered as soon as the target stepped outside of a building. She thought she was having a heart attack.”
“Sounds a little more powerful. Maybe your witch learned a new trick and wanted to test it out?” he offers.
Ali slams the textbook shut. “Shouldn’t the question be how a human with no mage training or druid or a drop of supernatural blood was able to open a spell like it was an eggshell?”
“If the ward on the MED wasn’t a strong enough object. I think we just concluded that.” He quirks an eyebrow, but his eyes, still skimming the spell book, don’t meet hers. “And, well, she has you.”
Ali crosses her arms and gives him a tight nod, then glances at me. “True.” Except she doesn’t buy it. Not entirely.
I wonder what Ali is getting at and why she’s never shared her concern about the ease with which I disabled those MEDs with me. Also, she lets Emmanuel flatter her and lets him believe her conceited act will pacify her. Ali’s too smart for that. Her biting humor and self-confidence is a hard shell to keep out the people who aren’t strong enough to stick.
“It sounds like it did its job to slow you and your partner down.”
Is that admiration in his voice? Smugness? Or is he merely stating a possibility? An explanation? Damn, we need Becker here.
Except dragging a stressed Becker into a school of witchcraft when he could barely handle one-on-one with Ali would be playing with fire.
I adjust my mask. Breathing in my own muggy air is getting annoying.
Emmanuel finds the section he’s looking for. “Here.” He points with his finger, backing away to give me space to move closer. “It would have been a simple spell. Nothing sophisticated. Nothing requiring blood for the binding of the magic. Easy to break. Pair that with a flimsy ward and you’ve got an MED with no backbone.” He watches Ali pacing the room. “The chances this witch is the same one causing our blood fever problem is a long shot. Not a lot of witches would use blood magic against destiny. Too many consequences. If you’d gotten the ward, you could have known for sure. We could have analyzed it here at the school and given you a magical thumbprint.”
I read over the section. He’s right. And why would a witch of any skill attempt a sloppy MED? It couldn’t have been Emmanuel’s work. I’m not sure about him, but the tilt in his chin and the spark in his eyes when he talks about his specialty leads me to believe he’s too proud to produce anything but stellar product.
I watch him while he watches Ali. No redness in his eyes. No sores on his skin. He’s not practicing anti-fate blood magic. At least not with the regularity we suspect. And the witch we’re searching for would be showing some signs by now if they’ve tampered with as many cases as we’re finding.
I’d confirmed two more tampered cases this morning in the retired accounts Kyle found.
Ali grabs her purse she’d thrown on a desk when we entered the room. “Well, we should let you get going.” She makes like she’s going to leave and I reluctantly push the spell book away. I’m not ready to leave yet. I have more questions.
“Say hello to your wife for me.” Ali pauses, fingers lightly touching the handle, door ajar.
“I don’t have a wife.” He delivers the news with no indication of falseness, or misdirection.
Ali presses. “You’re not with Becky Williams anymore? I was a freshman her senior year. We had a hex class together. I just put it together. Remembered where I’d heard of you before. Weren’t you two a thing? I guess I just assumed.”
So that was Ali’s lead on Becky. Old school gossip. I narrow my eyes at her. She could have warned me. I’d rather have asked about the connection in a professional way, rather than spring it on him like some reality drama show.
“I don’t have a wife,” he repeats. “Becky is doing great though. She’s out by the old lavender fields. Expecting her third.”
“Her third what?” The handle slips from her grip and the door clicks lightly shut.
“Baby.”
“Her third baby.” Now Ali repeats herself.
“Yep.” He smiles. “Great for her, right? Maybe you should go out there and see how she’s doing. Since you were friends, of course.”
She swallows, returning a tight-lipped grin. “Of course.”
The awkwardness thickens the air. That’s my cue. I place one of my business cards on his desk. “Well, Emmanuel, thank you for your time. I’ll be in touch.”
He gives me a polite handshake. “You know where to find me, Ms. Hale.”
Ali and I leave, Ali with a little spring in her step and her face slightly pale. We’re halfway across campus when she breaks her silence. “Seven hells, Kate. Becky is pregnant. With her third baby. Fuck.”
“I don’t understand.” Okay, I can’t take it anymore. I jerk off my mask.
“A witch is never more powerful than when she reproduces. And three? That’s the sacred number. The lavender fields? She’s a hop, skip and a jump from the safe house.”
“That’s only a problem if she’s our witch.”
“One of your witches.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean”—she snags my elbow and stops me—“you can’t seriously believe that Emmanuel had no idea who set that MED.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“But there’s not a lot of witches that can even attempt the kind of illusion magic that was used on Beatrix Morrison yesterday. She thought she was having a heart attack and the wards were set up so as soon as she stepped out of the TV station she’d set off the spell. That’s a glorified MED. For someone who’s the leading expert on MEDs, don’t you think Brazil was a little too…flippant?”
“He’s not off my suspect list, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m not asking.” She lowers her voice. “I’ve been thinking about the lack of witches displaying symptoms. I’ve asked around about the witches on your list and people are saying they’re not acting off; nobody has signs of misuse or scarring from manipulating the fates. This blood fever outbreak is another clue. They’re dispersing the magic.”
“How does that work?”
“If you get three witches working each other’s spells, you can hold off the side effects for much longer. You get a pregnant witch in the mix, and boom. You’re unstoppable.” She tugs us both to a walkway surrounded by shrubs where we can’t be spied on. “Problem is the people around them will start to show signs. One of our witches is definitely on campus regularly. How else can we explain the blood fever outbreak? And one is pregnant, which explains how they’re able to get a huge boost of power. We just need to find our third.”
We hadn’t interviewed Becky, Anastis, or Talia and I’m completely convinced that Emmanuel’s not our witch, although I agree with Ali that he’s hiding something. He might be working with the witch we want?
“And all that ridiculousness about not having a wife?” Ali paces, rubbing her arms and staring off in the distance. She’s lost in her own game of clue. “That was a big av
oid-the-question if I ever saw one.”
I massage my temples, trying to decide what to do next. It’s too much new information to take in. First we were looking for one witch, now we had to consider the possibility of three? But what Ali is saying does make sense. We haven’t found or heard of a witch displaying the symptoms we’ve been looking for. “Let’s get Becker in on this. We can at least swing by the apothecary district and see if we can catch Anastis in her shop. Then we can see if we can get an appointment to see Talia.” Ian would be able to handle one witch at a time. Hopefully?
Ali’s gaze shifts around the courtyard. “Right, we’ve got to find the third.”
We spy on our teen Ali paid to finish our homework for us, I mean, collect samples. Meanwhile, I fret over Becker.
I twist the hem of my sleeve, biting my lip.
Ali takes one look at me and knows something’s up. “Spill.”
“It’s Becker. He’s not doing great. I’m not talking about the cookies. He’s still…distant. I think there’s something he’s not telling me.”
“Did you ask him?”
“He’s evasive.”
“Keep asking him.” She waves off my concern, distracted over something she sees inside. “Crap.”
I peek in the same direction. Michelle Kitman’s heels tap along the main hall, as she glances around every corner. She sees the teen and calls him over, and then her head swivels around on her neck. She’s searching for us. She knows we’ve got some teen in there doing our work. My stomach cramps. My cheeks burn. It’s like getting caught cheating on a test, but worse.
Ali slap-pushes me into the building. “Go. Go look smart or something.”
I tug on her arm. “Come with me. Don’t make me face her alone.”
“I’m not a math person. And she’s mean.” She ducks behind a bush. “I have to go to work in fifteen anyway. And find those ketchup packets at the Student Union. I’ll text Lipski.” She fumbles for her phone, frantically tapping. “I’m busy. Go.”
“It was your idea!”
Ali slinks farther into the bush.
Okay, whatever. I walk, head high—might as well look confident.
