by Amie Gibbons
“We don’t have a forensics team here,” I said. “At least, not an SDF one, but all the forensics are probably magic anyway, and we have Carvi and me to test those. Kinda like us following the trails of the magics. Wait!”
I threw my hands up, jaw dropping.
How could I have forgotten?
“What about the magic Jade smuggled in?” I asked. “That’s still in the hotel and we just left it there.”
“It’s okay,” Carvi said. “It has to be small and relatively harmless to have gotten in anyway, and I put teams of witches looking for it. I’m not terribly worried.”
“Oh, okay.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
That was something off my plate at least.
“What about Jade?” I asked. “What happened to her?”
“Still trapped in her mind on the astral plane,” Carvi said. “I left her with something similar to what the Fae left for us. It’s been a while. She’s probably feeling the weight of what she did by now.”
I so did not want to know.
“Okay,” I said. “We can deal with that later. At least I can focus on the here and now.”
“Do you ever?” Carvi asked, trying a smile that fell flat.
“Do you have room to talk?” I shot back.
“I play a chess game, as you saw, so I see ten moves ahead. However, I never lose track of where I am right now. Your mind bounces all over the place.”
“About that. What was that place? The home office or whatever you called it? And who’s the boss?”
He smirked.
“Fine,” I sighed. “What did you get from him?”
“I saw the Fae magic, where it was and how small. Which is why I’m not terribly worried about it. I sent the info to my people so they could deal with it.”
“So the Fae really were banking on you gettin’ everyone out and killing them then,” I said. “And only one bomb?”
“Doesn’t sound right, does it?” Carvi asked.
“We’re missing something,” Grant said.
“They got us into the astral plane,” I said. “Into or onto? Cuz it sounds like-”
“Ryder,” Grant said.
“Right, sorry, sir. Got us onto the astral plane. Tried to stick us there, but it didn’t work. Carvi, if I wasn’t there, would you still be stuck?”
“Yes,” he said.
“How long would it have taken for you to get out?”
He shook his head slowly. “It could have taken hours to days in there, depending on how strong the block was, and that’s assuming they wouldn’t have returned. Up to a few hours out here.”
“So is it safe to assume that was their plan? To get you in there and trap you?” I asked.
“Maybe, but there’s still the rest of the vampires at the summit.”
“Set off one bomb, kill a few dozen at most, what happens?” Grant asked.
“Nothing,” Carvi said. “If I hadn’t been there, ordering them inside, they would have scattered. Some would’ve gone in, others out and around. Some would’ve tried tracking it, others would’ve run, a few would’ve helped the wounded.”
“Vamps scatter, then what?” I asked.
“Ends the summit,” Grant said.
Him and Carvi shared a look.
“It can’t possibly be that simple,” Carvi said. “That can’t be their end game. We end the summit this weekend, we just reschedule.”
“Except that’s not how politics works,” I said. “You postpone something, it takes forever to organize again. You guys are faster than human politicians sure, but this still took wrangling, right?”
“It took years to get them all to finally agree to talk,” Carvi said, “but I got the meeting set up within a week.”
“Yeah, but the wrangling took years. Say this is cancelled, those fighting it could just argue they already were here to discuss it and discussions turned up nothing, so why bother doing it again. They could kick the can down the road for years just by normal stall tactics.”
“The Fae want to come out?” Grant asked.
“Who cares?” Carvi said.
Grant nailed him with that cold look. “I do. If they want magic to stay secret, they have motive to stop the talks.”
“We already know the Fae is behind this.”
“No, we know a Fae is behind this. We don’t know it’s a political movement. Is it a conspiracy or an attack by a few?”
“Terrorists or criminals,” I said.
Carvi pressed his lips together. “Good point. We don’t know for sure.”
“It’s directed against you, that’s for sure,” I said.
“Don’t assume,” Grant said. “It could be an attack against the summit, plain and simple. Or an attack against Carvi, or both.”
“My money’s on both,” I said.
“Evidence, Ryder.”
“Carvi?” I asked. “Can you do some forensics on the magic here?”
“It’d be the same as what we were doing, tracing the magic through the astral plane,” Carvi said. “It would be fucking stupid to try that again since they could trap us just as easily, and now they have your signature and could block your powers too.”
“But I can still get my visions, right?” I asked. “My visions aren’t on the astral plane, right?”
Carvi squinted at me. “That’s exactly what they are. You go into the vision, you skim the astral plane. That’s what visions are.”
“So psychics can get into the astral plane so easily because that’s our power,” I said.
“You just put that together?” Carvi shook his head. “Thank God you’re pretty.”
“Hey!”
“Children,” Grant said, “not now.”
“Carvi, could they trap me in a vision?” I asked.
“Technically,” he said. “They would have to grab you at that exact moment though, so it’s not likely, but if you tried to get a vision off of one and they knew that’s what you were doing, they could suck you further into the astral plane and trap you then.”
I froze.
Oh, lightbulb!
“They’ll be expecting us,” I said. “But what about someone else? Someone they don’t even know exists?”
Carvi met my eyes, mouth falling open. “I take it back. You are brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Can he?”
“You’ll have to ask, but even if he can’t on his own, we can get him in with a spell, just like I get in.”
“You want me to go in there?” Grant asked, crossing his arms.
“What? No!” I said. “Pyro!”
Grant blinked quickly. “Oh.”
Pyro flew up outta Grant’s backpack and nodded.
“Can you get in there by yourself?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Will you be in any danger?”
He settled on his bottom tassels and stared at me, top tassels crossed.
“Pyro,” I said, crossing my arms too.
He pulled up his phone and quickly typed and handed it over.
“I’m from the Other Side,” I read out loud. “I can go to the in between as easily as anyone else on the wrong side of reality.” I looked at Pyro. “That’s poetic.” He bowed and I went back to reading. “I can travel through there and track the magic probably as easily as you. And since I’m from the Other Side, the odds of them having anything waiting for me aren’t good. It’s a whole different set of spells.”
“Do you mind doin’ this?” I asked, handing him back his phone.
He shook his head and flew around me, pulling me into a tight rug hug.
“What do you have to do to go in?” I asked. “Will you be dead like you are during the day?”
He let me go and nodded.
“Pyro, do you go back to the Other Side during the day, when you’re not alive over here?” I asked.
He shook his head and typed something, holding it up for us to read.
“I don’t go back there. If I ever have to, I
may not be able to get back out. Don’t know for sure. During the day, I’m not gone from this plane. I’m just asleep. I sometimes travel through the in between in my sleep, kind of like you do.”
“Does that mean you’re psychic?” I asked.
He shook his top third like a head as he cleared the message off his phone and typed again.
“I’m kind of like a ghost on the astral plane. I can fly around and see stuff with effort, even talk to others, but it’s not like psychics. You have a natural ability to just see stuff and go in and out of the veil naturally. I can do that, just like a ghost, but I have to drive myself and it takes a lot of energy. Psychics have extra help navigating. It’s like you have built in GPS making it easy for you to find stuff, and you are more efficient.”
I nodded. “Okay, I think that makes sense. So you’re kinda like Carvi? You can get in and look around, just not as easily as someone like me?”
“And we can’t pop in, skim info, and pop out like you do with your visions,” Carvi said.
“I kinda feel like the NSA, like I’m bugging the world and randomly checking for-” I slammed my palm to my forehead. “Crap! Carvi, the bugs!”
“What about them?” he asked.
“Did you ever find out who was bugging our first rooms? Grant, were we able to back trace it?”
Grant shook his head. “I forgot to tell you. Our guys called while you were recovering from the shooting. The trail cut off. They couldn’t tell how.”
“Magic,” Carvi said. “My people ran into the same problem. But they were tracking the magic last time I checked.” He drew in a long breath and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his slacks, smacking the pack into his hand hard enough to make me flinch and pulled one out. “It was the Fae, I know it.”
“How would they have known?” I asked. “Unless Jade told them… I’m betting it was Jade. Is there a way to track magic outside of going through the astral plane like we were?”
“Yes,” Carvi said, lighting up, “but that requires witches with very specific training.”
“Do you have any?” I asked.
“Not in my retinue, but I have a firm I outsource to.”
“I’m sorry, a firm?” I asked. “Of witches?”
“Yes,” he said, taking a long drag. “You think we’re the only ones who ever need to track spells?”
“So why haven’t you called them?”
“Because I only outsource if I or my people can’t do it by ourselves,” he said. “I was going to call them after the bomb and got distracted by this.”
“Okay, so call them, have them start tracking all this. We can have Pryo go on one, like the wiretap since he was there, apparently, and might be able to feel it better. Does that sound right?”
“Basically,” Carvi said, blowing out another puff of smoke.
I coughed and backed away, lungs stinging.
“Okay, so we have Pyro on that, you call your firm and put them on this, you have some of your people on the minor magic in the hotel, and we go back to the hotel to deal with the summit. Am I forgetting anything?”
“Zombie,” Grant said.
“Oh!” I turned back to Carvi. “You-”
“Have someone watching him,” Carvi said. “The magic seems to have cut off there and he hasn’t done anything since.”
“So we’re still tryin’ to figure out what the point of all this was,” I said. “We got someone bugging our rooms, a zombie, the passion spell, the gangsters involved somehow, using the gangsters as a cover for shooting me, then killing the gangsters for some reason, suggesting they did something and are actually involved in all this too, the spell in Jade to draw Carvi into the astral plane and try to trap him while they set off a bomb outside, but only one that wouldn’t have killed more than a few dozen humans even if we hadn’t been there, and the Fae over all of this, plottin’ something. Have I missed anything?”
“Sounds like you got it all,” Carvi said.
“Grant?” I asked.
He nodded slowly.
“And we got people on all that?” I asked.
“Yes,” Carvi said. “Or we will after I make this call.”
“Okay,” I said, clapping my hands. “Break!”
###
“And that is where we stand now,” Carvi said after explaining it all to the vamps at the summit.
Well, almost all.
We still weren’t lettin’ people know I was psychic. Couldn’t really trust anyone right now.
Which was another reason Carvi didn’t want to hire out. He’d said his firm was good and professional, but even professionals with a reputation to protect could and would violate a client’s trust for a higher price.
But we were kinda outta options for the moment.
We stood at the front of the conference room on the little raised stage area in front of the table, the microphones we would’ve been using if this was a normal human gathering or panel laying abandoned on the table behind us.
“I hate to say it, but the summit is hereby canceled and we will reschedule after those responsible have been caught and dealt with,” Carvi finished.
I’d been nodding along by his side and froze with that as the room exploded with a hundred vamps talking, arguing, demanding answers and gloating.
Was he kidding me with this!
I grabbed the mic behind me and switched it on, holding it up to my ear to make sure it was workin’. The buzz of electricity running through it met my ears and I put it at my mouth and cleared my throat.
“What do you mean cancel the summit? We're not canceling,” I said, loud and clear over the din of the vamps.
They quieted down, turning towards me.
“They just set off a bomb, of course we're canceling,” Carvi said.
“Like hell we are. We are having this summit. I don't give a good god damn if they have a hundred bombs. We have security around the hotel, and we all can remain vigilant, but we're doin' this.”
“Ariana, you don't under-”
“No, you don't understand. We don't bow to terrorists!”
The room was dead silent and I lowered my voice so I wasn’t shoutin’ into the mic.
“We leave, we change our plans outta fear, they win,” I said. “End of story.”
I turned to the rest of the room. “Welcome to America, ladies and gentlemen. I know a lot of you have been here a great deal longer than me, but you seem to have forgotten what we stand for. And we don't bow to terrorists!
“We do not run. We do not hide. Others run and hide from us. We don't cower. We arm up and chase the threat down.
“And we never bow to terrorists!”
I paused. Don’t know why, but for some reason I thought I’d get applause.
The vamps stared at me. Some with blank faces, far more lookin’ positively shocked. Others lookin’ pissed off.
Whatever.
“We're going to get on security,” I said. “We’re gonna take a few minutes to get things sorted out, and then we are having this summit, the talk, the vote, all of it. No questions. No leaving. No rescheduling. Pushing this back seems to be what they want. So that’s exactly what we’re not gonna do.”
I cleared my throat again. “The terrorists don't win tonight, y'all.”
Drop the mic, I thought as I clicked it off and put it on the table.
I stepped off the stage and Carvi followed me out to the hall.
“I just have to know where that came from,” he said.
“I'm thinkin' it's time to call my daddy,” I said. “Make sure he's alive cuz I'm pretty sure I was channeling him right then.”
“I have the strangest urge to say oo-rah right now.” Carvi smiled and I stared him down.
Wasn’t feeling much like smiling right now.
“Well, get on it, cuz we got security to check,” I said. “OO-RAH!”
###
“You don’t need to follow me,” I said as Carvi followed me into the ladies’ room.
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“I want to make sure no one tries anything,” he said. “I won’t follow you into the stall, unless you want me to, of course.”
“After what you did,” I said, turning on him as the door swung shut behind him, “you will never touch me with my consent again.”
He rolled his eyes. “Oh come on! Drop this already. It’s not like I-”
“Yes, you did!” I screamed, my voice bouncing off the light pink tiles in a booming echo. “You assaulted me. You got on top of me. You… dammit Carvi! You rubbed up against me like… and I was sayin’ no. How do you not realize how bad that was? Don’t tell me to drop it or let it go or whatever. That’s unforgivable.”
I walked into the last stall and hurry did my business.
Nope, didn’t even care he could hear me pee.
“I’m sorry,” Carvi said softly as I exited. “I am so sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You said earlier you did what you had to and would do it again. You’re not sorry.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“Bull crap on a basket of kittens, you didn’t.”
I washed my hands, shaking my head, and turned, leaning back against the counter to stare at him.
“You didn’t mean it like that,” I said. “I get it, I do, but you still did it. You were tryin’ to scare me, and guess what, it worked.”
He sighed. “You don’t realize what we’re up against. Getting us out of there as fast as possible was imperative. And once we got out of their trap, it was so easy to get out, you just didn’t know how without the fear to drive you.”
I tossed up my hands, sending droplets everywhere. “And I get that, I do, but that doesn’t make it right. I can’t… when you touched me earlier, all I could see was that. I felt so helpless, Carvi. I can’t touch you, I can’t look at you, without feeling that way.”
I sniffed and wiped under my eyes.
When had I started crying?
“So I guess I should say thanks,” I said, sniffing again. “Because you actually managed to cure me. I no longer want you. I don’t want you touching me, in my life, or anything. I don’t want to be with you and I don’t even want to be your friend. So thanks. I’m cured of the Carvi carnal fascination.”
He stared at me and I met his eyes.
He didn’t try pullin’ any of his vamp or whatever else he was magic.
