The sunken room was huge and a hub of activity. Desks filled most of the space, with frosted-glass offices and conference rooms lining the walls. Ryerson led me to a conference room and waited until I took a seat. Then he set a folder in front of me.
“Sign these,” he said and disappeared.
I opened the folder and read the forms. All nondisclosures. I signed them all and then waited. And then waited some more. Just when I was beginning to suspect they’d forgotten about me, the door opened. Four people filed into the room. Agent Ryerson took the seat next to mine. Across from us sat an old woman with reddish skin and dark hair. She wore brightly colored bangles, nails tipped in black polish, eyeliner swept well past her eyes, and purple streaks in her otherwise iron-gray hair. Her clothes were more subdued—a silky black t-shirt tucked into gray pants—and made me suspect the CIA employee handbook was written by a man with strict opinions on the dress code, but who’d completely forgotten to restrict makeup and accessories.
Next to the aging punk rocker sat a young guy, maybe twenty-five, with light-brown hair, cheek dimples, and a cocky expression. He wore khaki pants, a button-down shirt, and a tie loosely knotted a few inches below his neck. He met my assessing gaze and grinned, like he’d caught me checking him out. The old woman next to him glared at him. He caught it and shrugged. Then the last man walked into the room, sucking attention to him like paper clips to a magnet. His stride held the careless confidence of a man who had spent half a century enjoying both good looks and power. Time had begun to thicken his jowls and deepen the creases at his eyes, but his steely gray hair was full and lush, his jaw firm, and his body toned and muscular, as if he refused to give age the satisfaction of even an inch of complacent fat.
He stood at the head of the table, and his hard gray eyes found mine.
“Ainsley Winters, welcome to the CIA’s Magical Protection Division. I’m Director Abrams. You’ve already met Agent Ryerson, and this,” he waved a hand at the old woman and the young guy next to her, “is Dahlia Davis, our technical coordinator, and that’s Andersen Guthrie, our resident mage. I’m glad you agreed to join us.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice.”
Director Abrams’s eyes flicked to Ryerson.
“She was … reluctant,” Ryerson said. “I told her if she refused, we would turn her over to the FBI for violating the Magical Protection Act of 1997.”
“Ah,” said Director Abrams. To me, he said, “I’m afraid there is no such law.”
I knew it! I turned a glare on Ryerson who shrugged, unapologetic. Now that I knew I wouldn’t be arrested if I walked out of here, I strongly considered it. But Director Abrams was still talking, and I was a little curious. I decided to hear him out. Maybe ask him about Alec. Then I’d leave.
“I want you to understand that asking a civilian to assist in a national security matter is unorthodox, but we feel we have no choice. Dahlia, if you please?”
The old woman seated across the table tapped a few keys on her laptop, and a grainy image popped up on a screen behind the director.
“This is the only photo we have of a dark mage known only as Merrick. Our intelligence leads us to believe he is attempting an invisibility spell on a scale we’ve never seen before. If successful, this spell would allow him to cloak ballistic missiles from even our most advanced tracking and defense systems. A service our intel indicates he is willing to sell to an enemy nation.”
I blinked. I’m not sure what I expected, but a dark mage cloaking intercontinental ballistic missiles wasn’t it. What if he succeeded? Would we really be defenseless against the highest bidder?
Freaking myself out wasn’t helpful, so I forced myself to think. A spell like that would require some really dark magic. If it was even possible.
“Where did he even find a spell like that?”
Andersen’s eyes lit up. “There’s this grimoire—”
Director Abrams silenced him with a look. Then he said, “That’s classified. But I can tell you that we know it’s a three-part spell: sacrifice a witch, obtain an artifact imbued with cloaking properties, and perform the spell itself. Unfortunately, he’s already completed step one.”
Ryerson stiffened beside me, and I remembered what he’d said about the witch who had died. Was that her? Had this Merrick guy killed her?
Dahlia’s wrinkled fingers flew across her keyboard, and a photo of a palace popped up on the main screen. Its architecture was different from anything I’d ever seen in DC. Layered roofs swept upward, pagoda style, like something out of China Town. Ryerson had said we’d be going out of town. Maybe New York?
The director nodded at the image. “We believe the artifact Merrick needs to complete the spell is inside this building. The artifact is usually kept in a vault, but in three days a gala will be held, and the artifact will be on display. Ms. Winters, you and Agent Ryerson will pose as married diplomats, retrieve the artifact, and return home. According to our intel, it is the only artifact in the world that holds enough cloaking power to allow Merrick to complete his spell.”
“Where’s the building located?”
“North Korea.”
I blinked at him. When he didn’t correct himself, I said slowly, “Like, the country?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that, like, hard to get into?”
He ignored the question. “The North Korean premier’s birthday is this week, and a birthday celebration is scheduled at a palace in Pyongyang. The North Korean elite like to flaunt their wealth and the gifts they’ve received from other nations, and we believe one of those items to be the artifact Merrick needs. Now, the US of course has a tumultuous relationship with North Korea. But the premier is close friends with the North Korean ambassador to Poland. The ambassador and his wife are scheduled to attend.
“You and Agent Ryerson will pose as the ambassador and his wife, fly to North Korea, and attend the party. While there, you will obtain the artifact. You will then claim to be ill and return to Poland on the same chartered flight, where our extraction team will be waiting. If you are caught, the CIA will of course disavow all knowledge of you and your mission.”
There were so many problems with this plan, I didn’t know where to start. No wait, I did. “I’m blonde.”
“We can fix that.”
I glanced at Ryerson, all six foot two-ish inches of him. He raised an eyebrow.
“Won’t the premier know what his friend and his friend’s wife look like?”
“Let us worry about that,” Director Abrams said.
He sounded confident that a little hair dye would make me look like a North Korean diplomat. I had my doubts, but they didn’t matter. There was no way I was doing this. But I wanted to know one other thing before I turned down the mission.
“Why do you need me?”
“The artifact you’re looking for. We don’t know what it looks like.”
Ah. “And you need a witch who can sense the magical potential of objects.”
“Exactly.”
“But why me? There are loads of witches more powerful than me, even in DC.”
“You are the right witch for the job” was his vague, unhelpful response.
“When would we leave?” Maybe I had some time to think about this.
“Three hours.”
“What?” I squeaked. “But I thought you said the party isn’t for three days!”
“You and Agent Ryerson have a stop to make first.” The director glanced at his cell phone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Actually,” I said, “I haven’t agreed to do anything yet.”
Director Abrams frowned, Ryerson tensed, and Dahlia looked at me like I’d finally done something interesting.
“Ms. Winters, why are you here if you don’t plan to assist my team?”
Here was my chance to ask what had happened to Alec. But before I could open my mouth, Director Abrams’s steely stare broke from mine.
“Give us the room,” he said
to the others.
Ryerson stood and followed Dahlia and Andersen out the door. He closed the door behind them, leaving me alone with Director Abrams.
“Now, Ms. Winters, what is it the CIA can do for you?”
His question was heavy with sarcasm, but I pushed through it. “I had a friend who worked for the CIA. He died seven months ago. I want to see his file.”
The director raised an eyebrow. “We are not in the habit of sharing classified information.”
It was exactly what I thought he’d say. I rubbed the leather at my wrist. “Fine. Then I just want to know how he died.”
The director watched me for a long moment. Finally, he said, “And you will do this mission in return?”
What were the answers worth to me? My life? It was the question I’d spent most of the night tossing and turning over. I deflated. “No.”
“That’s too bad.” He waited a beat and then added, “I hear your friend Zoe Lashley has applied to the CIA.”
My head snapped up. How had he—right. Freaking spies.
Still, I almost asked him how he knew that and then remembered I wasn’t supposed to know that. “It would be a shame if she ended up in a rough assignment.”
I stared at him, my heart pumping faster. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I knew what he meant, but I was having a hard time believing it.
He lifted a shoulder. “Just that the CIA can be a dangerous place to work. More so, depending on where you’re assigned. Like a deep-cover op in a hot zone, like Syria.”
I swallowed hard. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“That depends. Are you in need of blackmailing?”
Could I talk Zoe out of joining the CIA? But even if I broke the seventeen nondisclosure agreements I’d just signed, I’d also have to tell her I was witch. And even then, she might not believe me. Or she might do it anyway.
I stared at him some more, panic and anger starting to blacken the edges of my vision. I had blacked out twice before when I was angry and magic had flooded into me, overtaking my system. It was the thought of what happened those times that pulled me back from the edge now. I closed my eyes and willed my magic back, not caring what the director thought of me.
When the magic had ebbed enough that it wasn’t overwhelming, I opened my eyes. The director was staring at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured.
I ignored him. “If I do this,” I said slowly, “you’ll see that Zoe gets accepted into the CIA and stationed somewhere safe?” I felt a niggling sense of guilt that maybe Zoe didn’t want me interfering, but I pushed it aside.
He nodded.
“And you’ll tell me how Alec died.” This was non-negotiable. He could threaten me all he wanted to, but this was what I wanted. What I needed.
He watched me a long moment. “Yes. Do this mission and you’ll find out what happened to your friend.”
Director Abrams looked at his watch impatiently. He clearly had someplace else to be, and by now we both knew I was doing this, but I had one more question.
“Why me?”
“You work within the building so you’ve already been vetted, and we don’t have time to recruit anyone else. Now if you don’t mind, I’m late. Do we have a deal?”
I didn’t believe him for a second, but he clearly wasn’t going to give me a better answer. I pulled in a deep breath and looked him square in the eye. “Deal.”
6
“Good.” Director Abrams opened the conference room door and stuck his head out. “Ryerson!” he barked.
Seconds later, Ryerson strode into the room.
“Give Ainsley the one-cent tour,” Director Abrams said, and he left.
“Isn’t it supposed to be ‘the fifty-cent tour’?” I asked.
Ryerson swept me out the door ahead of him. “You won’t be seeing that much.”
He was right. I followed him down a curved hall lined with offices on the left and the central activity hub on the right. We rounded a corner and Ryerson walked into a large office. I stopped in the doorway, trying to make sense of the room.
The right side was so different from the left that at first I thought it was actually two rooms. But there was no wall or divider, unless you counted the bank of flat-screen monitors facing right and a desk piled high with musty leather books, waxy candles, and even a small cauldron facing the left. Just one room then, evenly split, with a sleek glass work station, computers, and other high-tech gadgetry on one side and what looked like Marie Laveau’s voodoo lair on the other.
On the left side, Andersen and Dahlia huddled over an old book opened on a table cluttered with jars of herbs and dried flowers, arguing. Ryerson had stopped in the middle of the tech side of the room, and now he was looking at me. “Coming in?”
Dahlia and Andersen glanced up, so engrossed in whatever they were bickering about that they hadn’t even noticed us. Andersen’s face split into a wide grin. Dahlia rolled her eyes and straightened, wincing as something loud cracked in her back.
My gaze swept the magical side of the room. “What is all this?” I asked her.
Her eyes narrowed and she jerked a thumb at Andersen. “Ask him. He’s the mage. I’m just tech support.” And with that, the old woman hobbled to the other side of the room and dropped into a roller chair behind the bank of computer monitors.
Ryerson gestured at Andersen. “Andersen will get you set up with whatever you need.” Then he turned his back to look at something Dahlia was pointing to on one of the monitors.
“With you in a sec, Vicky,” Andersen said and hunched over his book again.
“It’s Ainsley,” I muttered as I stepped into the left side of the room, letting my hand drift across the arm of a worn old couch pushed against the wall. Its seat cushions were sunken and shiny where the leather had worn away, as though someone spent a lot of time sleeping there. A few wooden tables peppered the space, all of them covered with little glass bottles of herbs and minerals and a few flasks of colored liquids. One of the flasks bubbled against its stopper, jumping erratically in its support stand, although there was no heat source I could see. Another unstoppered flask coughed little clouds of red smoke into the air. I gave that one a wide berth as I ventured farther into the room.
A six-burner rangetop stove was set into one of the tables, and a black pot bubbled away with some spell that smelled faintly of lavender. The walls were lined with industrial shelves and glass-fronted cabinets locked with keypads and filled with more jars and wooden boxes and books and antique knickknacks. I doubted the locks were the only protection against would-be thieves. Curious, I stopped in front of a glass-fronted cabinet, raised my hand to the glass, and pushed. Lightly, just enough to feel the buzz of a ward humming through the glass. Most witches and mages worth their salt could cast a protection ward. How effective that ward was depended on the strength of the magic that went into it. Once, when Josh and I were small, Aunt Belinda had warded a tray of cookies she’d set on the kitchen counter to cool before her coven’s Sabbat celebration. Josh stuck a hand straight through the ward, and it tickled him for three minutes straight. He had the giggles the rest of the afternoon. The wards Aunt Belinda had placed around her store were professional grade. She’d once told me that they were strong enough to fry a trespasser like an egg, so basically a high-powered, invisible electric fence.
I wondered what CIA wards would do if tested and took a healthy step back.
Straight into Andersen.
I yelped, and he steadied me with a hand to my hip. He reached an arm around me to point at the first four bottles in the cabinet, filled with soft-looking white sand, as though they, not the wards, had caught my interest.
“Powdered femur bones, clavicle, patella, and sternum,” he explained.
Oh, ick.
I grimaced and jerked away from both him and the cabinet, and my hip bumped the table behind me. A flask wobbled and started to tip. Andersen cursed and snatched it up before it spilled. He breathed
a sigh of relief and then set it carefully back down. Then he cocked an eyebrow at me.
“What? You don’t powder your bones?” he asked.
“I don’t do many spells.”
Most witches are spellcasters. Some of us, like me, aren’t all that great at spellcasting and our magic manifests itself in other ways.
“Ah. What kind of witch are you then?”
“A rune witch.”
His eyes lit up with interest. “No kidding?”
I waved a hand at the shelves. “Did you ward them yourself?”
He hitched a hip on the table and folded his arms. “Nah, security does that.”
I glanced at the table covered with potions in progress. “Are you a spellcaster?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m good at a lot of things, including spellcasting. But technically, I’m an aura reader.”
An aura reader. Interesting. Witches and mages who could see auras were rare. In fact, I’d never met one. I had so many questions for him. Questions Aunt Belinda would love to know the answers to. Only … I couldn’t tell her. Curse it.
I looked back at Andersen. His head was cocked and he was dragging his eyes over my body. Again.
“What are you doing?”
“Imagining how much trouble I’ll get in if I read your aura again and thinking it’ll be worth it.”
I frowned. My aura? What the hex was he talking about? What would make an aura interesting? “Is my aura dirty or something?”
Andersen’s face split into a wide grin. “Oh, Vicky.”
Now he was just pissing me off. I opened my mouth to tell him that, but Dahlia beat me to it.
“Knock it off, Andy,” she said over her shoulder.
He sighed like he’d been denied the last cookie in the cauldron and said, “One of the many jobs here that I’m over-qualified and underpaid to do is to read auras of people the CIA wants to know more about. Auras tell me whether someone has any magical ability, whether they’re hiding something, if they’re feeling a particularly strong emotion, that sort of thing. But aura reading is also a little like having x-ray vision. I can see through the body and into the soul, sure, but I can also see through light veils.”
License to Spell: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Undercover Witch Book 1) Page 5
