Shifty Magic

by Judy Teel

  The receptionist stared at me in dismay, and then scurried for the small receptionist desk to the left of the lobby. She poked a series of keys on her laptop console and after a moment, breathed a sigh of relief. "He's not answering. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

  "Search it is," Cooper said, heading for the elevators next to her station. Mousy dashed from behind the desk and slapped her hand over the call panel. "You can't go up! No one...except registered students are allowed on the upper floors. Classes are in session."

  "Where is he?" Cooper asked, gently moving her hand and pressing the up button.

  "Last...oh, dear. It's his lunch time, you see."

  He leveled a hard look at her—the kind he gave Stillman when she crossed the line.

  "Second floor...on the left...down the hall," she whispered.

  We stepped onto the elevator and I jabbed the button for the second floor. Cooper looked at the panel and grinned.

  "What?" I asked, wondering why he was suddenly so amused.

  "She's not as omega as she lets on," he said, a touch of admiration in his voice. "More likely his Beta. Based on what I've seen so far, Tasson will be on the top floor, the king of all he surveys." He reached around me and pressed the six on the control panel.

  "I don't speak werewolf, but I think you're saying the receptionist takes her job as first line of defense seriously and lied to us."

  "She's in love with him."

  "Yeah, I wondered about that." I recalled the way her eyes had lit up with admiration when she mentioned her boss was working on a book. "He must be something else."

  The elevator stopped at the second floor and the doors slid open. We peered out at a white-painted hall with cheap fluorescent lights tracking down the ceiling for the length of it—about sixty feet.

  A subdued bustle of people swam through the narrow space going about their business of getting to class. They seemed to be all ages and trailed unhappily from one open room to another in small groups. A few glanced our way, curiosity brightening their eyes for a moment at the sight of Cooper. Most of them ignored us.

  "Notice anything odd?" I murmured to him.

  "They're all women." He pressed his thumb on the close door button, and we were off.

  When the doors opened again, my eyes widened. Where the reception area looked like a New Age nightmare, the upper lobby was something from a gaudy Arabian nights sex fantasy. Metallic gold paint covered the walls. Gauzy material echoing the dazzling colors of the lobby draped in even scallops around the ceiling.

  Six women with dull, unhappy expressions and barely-there costumes that ranged across every stereotypical male fantasy lounged on sofas and divans and even an old bean bag chair. They talked quietly, slept, or just sat there looking stoned. The only exception was the slave girl Princess Leia in the corner who was studying a fat textbook entitled Professor Tasson's Guide to Finding Your Inner Practitioner.

  We stepped off the elevator and the women looked up. Time held its breath as shock registered on a few faces.

  "Haven't seen that for a while," the harem girl said in a smoky voice. "You're a guy."

  "He's had them before," the school girl sitting next to her on an overstuffed sofa said. "Usually likes them without quite so many muscles though." She took a sip from the Styrofoam coffee cup in her hand, and her gaze moved up and down Cooper.

  "Great costume," Harem Girl said to me. "That gun looks real."

  "Steady," Cooper said, and I reluctantly took my hand away from the Browning.

  "What are you playing?" School Girl asked, her eyes only for him. "A detective? Big T's been getting into authority figures this week."

  "Ladies." Cooper's smile swept over the women in the room as he held up his iC badge, careful to include all of them. "FBI." Everyone with their eyes open froze.

  "Huh. That's new," School Girl commented after a moment.

  "Where can we find the professor?" he asked.

  The few women who didn't look stoned out of their minds glanced at each other. Hope skated over their faces and my shoulders tensed. What was this Professor Tasson jerk playing at?

  Some unspoken agreement passed between the harem girl and the school chick. Harem Girl nodded behind her toward a door draped heavily in purple and silver gauze. "In there." A smile played over her full, red mouth. "If you hurry, you might be able to arrest him."

  * * *

  Tasson's office was exactly what I expected after seeing his waiting room. That is, a pathetic attempt to look like a hot player's bedroom. Tasson, however, was not what I expected.

  For one thing, he was short and fat. I estimated him to be about five-six and at least two hundred pounds, though it was hard to tell in his currently reclined position on the giant bed in the center of his "office". For another, he was old, the muscles of his barrel-like chest and arms flaccid, unimpressive things. His head was a shiny, bald dome. He had a large, hawk-like nose and a thick-lipped, greedy mouth slashing across underneath it.

  As the door shut, his average blue eyes darted frantically between us and the girl sitting beside him, casually buttoning up her Halloween store cop uniform. Her short hair was dyed in a rainbow pattern and shagged around her face, emphasizing the soft roundness of cheeks that told me she probably wasn't even seventeen. My blood started a slow, outraged boil.

  Cooper aimed his badge at the man and kept his expression a blank mask. "Xander Tasson, we need you to come with us."

  "I haven't done anything! I have signed contracts," Tasson squealed, clutching the covers in his fists and scrambling up until his back was to the padded, black satin-covered headboard.

  Glancing at the badge, the girl reached over to the bedside table and picked up a dropper. She released a drop of clear liquid onto her tongue and in seconds, her grimace softened, and her expression relaxed into lines of contentment.

  "He's a freaking dealer too?" I snarled, stepping toward the bed. Cooper grabbed my arm before I got anywhere.

  The girl released a slow sigh and languidly climbed from under the covers. Her shirt came to just below her butt, giving her some coverage for which I was grateful. Padding over to a chair in the corner, she retrieved the pair of short-shorts that matched her costume and pulled them on.

  "Block the door," Cooper said in the same steady tone he used when he was angry but needed to remain professional. "No one leaves unless I say so."

  "What!" Tasson protested. "You have no right to do this! We're consenting adults!"

  The girl wandered toward me, her wide, curious gaze taking in every inch of my outfit.

  "You'll be surprised to learn that hooking students on V isn't remotely legal," Cooper said to Tasson. An edge of disgust slid into his calm voice. "And I doubt you're both adults."

  A cagey expression settled over the other man's fat, saggy face. "They can't be here if they aren't eighteen. And if they're drug addicts, that's no business of mine."

  The girl stared at my Browning. "I wanted a gun, but Xanny said it would only get in the way. Is it real?"

  "Tell me your real birthday, and I'll show it to you," I answered.

  She smiled, twirling a lock of green hair in her fingers. "October 9th, 2017."

  "How about that," Cooper said. "Sixteen makes you a child molester."

  "She's lying!" Tasson shouted from the bed.

  The girl leaned closer and whispered, "A lot of us lie on our applications."

  "I noticed," I said, thinking of the girls in the lobby and struggling to keep from drawing my gun and shooting Tasson where he most needed it.

  "You'll be a big hit in jail," Cooper added.

  Alarm stretched across Tasson's features. "I'm old. I won't last. I didn't know! Her records said she was eighteen!"

  I flipped the security strap off my holster and pulled my gun out, after all a promise was a promise. If I happened to accidentally aim the barrel at the scum freak on the bed, no one could prove it.

  The girl's eyes widened with admiration at the sight o
f the Browning. "Can I touch it?" she asked.

  "No."

  Cooper grabbed the black satin robe at the foot of the bed and tossed it at Tasson. "I'm shutting you down professor. How long you stay in prison depends on how cooperative you are in the next five minutes."

  "You can't do this," he protested. "I'm human. I have rights."

  "It's your laws I'm following. If they were my clan's rules, you'd already be dead."

  I didn't think the old turd's eyes could get any bigger, but they did, nearly bugging out of his face.

  "That's right," Cooper said, leaning down until his face was about four inches from Tasson's monstrous nose. "I'm Were. I can smell every perverted inch of you, and I'll know if you lie to me."

  My trigger finger started itching, so I holstered my gun. See? I can be mature. "I don't recommend you lie to him, Xanny."

  "This is harassment. Police brutality," he sputtered.

  "Not yet, it isn't." I rested my palm against the handle of my gun. "I suggest you cooperate."

  Giving a last, longing look at my Browning, the girl wandered over to a snack table in the corner and started picking over the food.

  "I want to know about a former student of yours," Cooper said. "Gregory Frost."

  Tasson's gaze slid to the side. "I don't remember anyone with that name."

  "Did you fall asleep during the part where I mentioned I didn't like being lied to?"

  "We already know you enroll mostly female students," I added, disgust curling around in my stomach now that I knew why. "You know exactly who we're talking about."

  Tasson's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed noisily. "Yeah, okay. It's coming back to me. A skinny kid. Dark hair."

  Cooper held up his iC with a picture of Frost displayed. "This the guy?"

  Tasson glanced at the photo and looked away. "Yeah."

  "Why was he here?"

  "Why are any of them?" he said, turning back and giving Cooper a belligerent look. "To bring out their magical talents."

  "I did a scan of the girls in your waiting room," Cooper said. "They're all human."

  The Police Girl picked up a chocolate cookie from a tray. "No, we're not. Xanny knows how to make a scanner more sensitive. We're yellow-purple. That means suppressed practitioners."

  "Special invention of yours?" I asked.

  He glared at me. "All humans have magical potential," he answered indignantly. "I have dozens of successes to prove it. People the covens unfairly shunned. After a year or two at my school, they can work the subtle energies like a pro."

  Tasson risked a glance at Cooper and the color drained from his broad, flabby face. "We have a stellar record," he finished, a defensive note in his voice.

  People like him made me sick. It wasn't hard to convince desperate people with tricks and technology when they wanted something to be true. Like all the snake oil shysters before him, Tasson had shamelessly taken advantage of that weakness.

  "You have a nice little setup here, don't you, Tasson?" Cooper said as he straightened up.

  "We're working off our loans," Police Girl chirped. She popped a grape into her mouth, avidly watching the drama unfolding in front of her.

  I could almost see Cooper's hackles bristle up and was impressed that none of his anger showed through. "Know any of these other people?" he asked, holding his iC up.

  "Nope....Nope,..." Tasson said, watching pictures flash by. "No—wait. Go back." He squinted at the screen and Cooper straightened his arm to bring the device closer.

  "The girl that got away," he said, sounding surprised. "What'd she do?"

  Cooper flashed the front of the iC at me. Marla's ID picture filled the screen. "How do you know her?"

  "Tagged along with her friend to check out the school almost two years ago. I was willing to give them a discount if they came as a package, but she backed out. Never caught her name."

  "And the other one?" I asked.

  He got a dreamy look on his face. "Crazy weird. But worth it."

  "Her name," I ground out. "What was her name?"

  His focus snapped back to me. "Carly, Crystal, Susie, how the hell should I know?" he said irritably. "I don't memorize the names of all the girls who come through here."

  "You really are a pig, you know that?" I said.

  "When was Gregory Frost here?" Cooper asked.

  "About the same time."

  "And?"

  Tasson scowled, obviously hating having to give away so much to save his skin. "He signed up for the three-year curriculum. Worked hard. Was willing to do anything to bring out his magical powers."

  "He's legendary," Police Girl threw in, and Tasson scowled at her.

  "Anything unusual about him? Strange habits? Friends or family we could contact?" Cooper asked.

  "Palled around with a few of the girls I think, but mostly kept to himself. He'd show up when I summoned him and left when I told him to."

  I ignored the nausea this guy inspired and tried to focus on the case. I had a feeling that if we could understand what kind of person Gregory was, we could figure out who our current murderer might be. "Was he easy-going? Moody? Crazy?"

  "You really have no idea what I have going here, do you?" Tasson said. "Let me spell it out for you. I. Don't. Care. It's. All. About. Me."

  My right palm started itching again. "I'm a good enough shot to just graze him," I offered to Cooper.

  He eyed the smarm bag with distaste. "I'll let you know."

  "I heard about that Gregory guy from Donna," Police Girl piped up. "She's the harem girl. We don't get a lot of boys, so when we do they kind of stand out. Plus, they were sort of an item when she was first here."

  "Shut up, Becky," Tasson growled, "or I'll make you shut up."

  Cooper flexed his right hand into a fist and his knuckles cracked. Closing his nasty mouth, Tasson slouched deeper into the padded headboard and glared at the girl.

  "Anything you can tell us might help," I said to Becky.

  "Well, he was kind of quiet at first. Real serious, you know? But ambitious. Then toward the end, he started having a lot of trouble. Lost his temper in meditation class when the instructor told him he wasn't breathing right and smashed up the room."

  The delight that only top-level gossip can give sparkled in her eyes. "Donna said that night he talked about getting his powers and how he'd get revenge on everyone who'd ever treated him bad. Two days later, he was gone and the instructor had hanged himself. Legendary," she finished.

  "We'll need to see all your student records," Cooper said.

  Tasson smirked at him. "I lost them."

  A cat-like smile of satisfaction touched Becky's mouth, echoing the expressions on the faces of the girls in the lobby. "There's a safe behind that painting of Dionysus and the nymphs."

  "Jesus Christ!" Tasson burst out, sitting straight up. "I haven't treated you that bad, have I? You like the V. I feed you. Thanks for turning on me, you ungrateful c—"

  "Enough," Cooper said. He didn't raise his voice, but something in it slashed out with an authority that even got through to Tasson.

  "Got incriminating pictures in that safe, Xanny? Or maybe those lost records?" I asked in my best overly sweet, threatening tone.

  His mouth tightened up, and he reached for his robe.

  "You recommended Frost to speak at a practitioners' conference in New York," Cooper added. "Why?"

  "I got nothing else to say to you people."

  "He passed all his tests the day before he left. He was a full practitioner," Becky piped up.

  "This betrayal is giving me chest pains," Tasson complained. "Arrest me and deal with my lawyer, would you?"

  "Glad to." Cooper put his iC to his ear and sauntered to the far side of the room.

  "Now what?" Becky asked.

  I shrugged. "Raleigh police, FBI, search warrants, court, prison. How many other underage girls has Tasson slept with?"

  "A couple here and there, but it's hard to say. If you have a fake ID
, you generally don't shout it around, you know?"

  Cooper marched past me and headed for the door. "I'm going to talk to Donna."

  "Bet you aren't," Becky said, casually picking up another cookie.

  He opened the door to a deserted lobby and let out a long-suffering breath. I couldn't say I was surprised.

  "After eighteen, the cops classify this sort of thing as unlicensed solicitation. Something I'm sure this butt-ugly jerk also used to blackmail them," I commented.

  "Hey!" Tasson protested, in the process of shrugging into his satin robe—not a pretty sight, let me tell you. "My butt is not ugly."

  Cooper shot him a look sharp enough to cut through steel and got back on his iC.

  * * *

  By the time we pulled up in front of the Magical Gardens apartments, dusk was creeping across the city, turning the air a velvety dark blue. Our badges got us in without an argument and in no time we were in front of 303.

  "FBI, we need to speak with you, Ms. Beaufort," Cooper called, knocking on the door for the third time.

  "Looks like we missed her," I said. "Do we break the door down now?"

  A look of pain crossed his face. "This isn't a cheesy cop show. Innocent until proven guilty ring a bell?"

  "Doesn't seem very efficient to me."

  Cooper pounded on the door. "Open up, Ms. Beaufort. We need to ask you a few questions."

  "She's not home," a timid, elderly voice said behind us.

  I jumped and spun around.

  A round, dumpling of a woman with a full head of snow white hair looked at me from the doorway of the apartment across the hall. "My stars, I've never seen anything like that before. Where did you get it?"

  The cool weight of my gun in my hand crawled into my awareness. I straightened up, my face heating. "Sorry," I muttered, holstering the weapon.

  "That's all right, dear. It's the most exciting thing that's happened to me in years." Her watery blue eyes sparkled with humor that turned to appreciation as she took in Cooper's broad shoulders and long legs. "He's quite nice, too," she added.

  I rolled my eyes. "What is this magical pull you have with females?" I asked him.

  "Animal magnetism." He winked at me and then turned a seriously charming smile onto Marla's neighbor. "You don't happen to know where she is, do you ma'am?"