“Granner, you should have told us.” Vanessa reached over to pat Granner’s hand on the table.
She snatched her hand back. “I can take care of myself. Certainly better than old Michael could. He’s dead.”
I tugged on my lips as I thought. Granner didn’t seem too bothered, but maybe someone else had been. “Do you know if he was blackmailing anyone else?”
“How would I know that? It’s hardly the type of thing I’d bring up at the local chapter meetings.”
I stretched in my seat, catching sight of the marshal and his crew being led into convention hall by Vin. They turned from the entrance in the opposite direction. It was time for us to get out.
“Thanks, Granner. This information’s really helpful, but we need to get out of here.” Grabbing Vanessa and calling to Patagonia, I raced from the hall.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vanessa escorted me to the security room. The door was open, and inside, Raymond was studying one computer screen, and the wall beyond was covered with additional screens. One whole section of screens was blank, with just the occasional static indicating that they weren’t off completely.
Vanessa primped using the front-facing camera on her phone like a mirror and breathing in my face to check her breath.
“Mmmm, cheesy,” I teased her before knocking on the open door to get Raymond’s attention.
He jumped in the chair and spun around. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving it wild. “Are you guys alone?” He leaned over to peek into the hall behind us.
“Hey, Raymond,” Vanessa said in a sing-song tone and gave him a wave with the tips of her fingers.
I cut in before they could get their flirt on. “Just us. Vin asked us to come over and find out what you know.”
“Hey, short stuff. I like the outfit.” Raymond gave Vanessa a quick wink before focusing on me again. “Great. He told me you guys would probably stop by. Close the door, and I’ll show you what I’ve found.”
I grabbed the extra rolling chair and scooted up next to him.
Seeing Vanessa standing awkwardly, Raymond patted his knee. Vanessa hesitated, looking both thrilled and cautious.
Grabbing a stool that had been tucked under a desk, I dragged it over next to me. “No need. Here.”
Vanessa shot me a look but sat down.
I turned back to Raymond to focus. “What have you figured out?”
“A lot and not much. I edited together everything I could.” He cued up a video that started with a security camera at the entrance to the parking garage. Video clips from multiple points of view had been strung together. Once the car exited the screen, the video would cut to a new angle, and the car would instantly reappear, showing how extensive the camera coverage was.
A nondescript white four-door car pulled into the structure. I was no expert at cars and would be hard-pressed to pick out this car from a lineup. It was new and clean but boring and bland. It circled the structure before pulling into a spot. The driver fiddled around for a minute or two before exiting the car and hurrying to a door to slide inside.
I squinted and leaned closer to the screen. While the man’s face was visible in the car’s internal light, I was having a hard time seeing him. He had brown hair, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, and yet I couldn’t quite get my eyes to rest on any one feature. I would have assumed that the video quality was just awful except that I could easily see his cowboy boots, including the intricately scrolled stitching, in the black-and-white image.
When an employee whom I recognized faintly from my time in the casino passed and his features were easily identifiable, I realized more was going on than bad security equipment. “Does he have some spell on his face?”
“Oh, good. You see it too. I thought my eyes were just going bad after staring at the screen for so long. I pulled up his picture here, and when I stare at both, I can tell it’s the same guy, but it just doesn’t look right. I haven’t seen someone use this kind of spell before. Normally disguise spells set off the security spells.”
He turned a screen to show Michael’s photo. The caption showed that it was from last year’s cheese convention. Following the line of the nose and eyes, I could see how it matched up with the man in the video, but I still struggled.
I turned to get Vanessa’s opinion. She smiled at Raymond before noticing me and focusing. “The video doesn’t really show the full effect very well. If you saw it in person, you wouldn’t even notice that anything was off. He would just be another random person you pass in the street. If he had spoken to someone he knows, they would have recognized him but just thought he got a new haircut or something. The magic just keeps you from noticing him. It’s not really a disguise, so it doesn’t set off the alarms.”
That might be a useful spell for me in the future. I would need to get more information. The video continued to play until he went to a door leading inside the building, and the video ended on the closed door. “That’s it? Nothing in the convention center?”
“Nope, the cameras had already been turned off. No one wants their trade secrets to get out. Even if the cameras were running, most vendors have short-distance blockers that would prevent the camera from capturing anything.” He gestured to the black screens on the wall, where the convention hall camera feeds displayed when they were active. “No one else had gone in since they closed that night, and no one else entered until the next morning. Just Michael.”
His phone chirped. After checking it, he dove under the table and started yanking cords out the wall sockets. The cords were connected to two massive power strips. Every screen went black as he muttered curse words. “I thought we would have more time.” He raced to the door and threw it open, waving us to leave. “You guys need to get to the car now.”
“What?”
He plugged everything back into the wall, and the equipment began to hum back to life. “Vin says they are on their way over here. I unplugged the system. That will delete the last fifteen minutes, which includes all the footage of you guys in here, and the system won’t turn on for fifteen more minutes. That should give you guys enough time to get to Michael’s car and search it for clues.”
Raymond could have warned us. I had recognized where Michael had parked as being near my favorite spot, but I would have liked to double-check before Raymond literally pulled the plug on the footage.
Once again, I grabbed Vanessa and raced for the door, calling out behind me, “Thanks, Raymond!”
***
By the time we jogged from the security office to the parking structure, we were both a bit winded. I stopped to catch my breath and argue with Vanessa about which way to go.
She wandered off to the right. “He walked uphill, so we go up around this way.”
“No, he walked uphill, so we have to go downhill. If we go up, we are getting even farther away.” The parking structure had an interior path that wound upward. On the outside was a second path winding down that cars took to exit.
She stared off into space, mulling over what I had said. “Are you sure?”
Jogging down the path, I waved for her to follow. “Yes, I’m sure. Come on.” I peeked around the corner, checking for oncoming cars. “Do you have a spell to get into the car?”
“No, but I am sure I can come up with something.”
Spotting the car, I slowed down. A fine, almost invisible layer of dust had settled on the car. The filth of the city and fine dust from the desert surrounding Rambler covered anything that didn’t move. The interior was empty except for a few papers on the passenger seat.
“How are you getting us in?” I asked.
“Give me a second.” Vanessa pressed her face against the window then sneezed all down one side of it.
“Don’t touch! We don’t want the marshal to know that someone came out and was investigating the car.”
“Oops.” She looked around and spotted a water bottle, still mostly full, in a corner. She opened it and poured
part of it across the window.
“I don’t think that is helping. Just open the door, and let’s get out of here.”
“Maybe a rock through the window?”
“You’ve been training for years, and that’s your best idea?”
Vanessa huffed and stomped a foot. “What do you think my mom’s been teaching me?”
I muttered under my breath, “Nothing useful apparently.” I inspected the window. How do cops get into cars?
“If you had warned me, I could have worked something out. Maybe prespelled a key or made a potion or something. Next time, I’ll be ready.”
“Who says there will be a next time?” Time was ticking down. The area around us was empty except for a stick, something that had probably gotten stuck under someone’s car. If we could wedge the door open, maybe I could push the unlock button.
I tried prying the door out from the car with the stick, but it only snapped the end off of the stick and scraped the paint on the panel. I needed something to push the door out, but all we had was a now slightly shorter stick and a half-empty bottle of water. I certainly wasn’t going to risk my precious phone. “You know that drill your mom has us do with water. Moving it around, making it freeze and boil?”
“Totally. What are you thinking?”
I grabbed the water bottle from her and trickled the water across the seam of the door at the top and side. “What if you push the water in then freeze it? It’ll expand, and I can get the stick in to unlock the door. No one will ever know.”
“Oh, just let me blow up the window. They’ll just assume that someone robbed the car.”
“No, this is perfect. We can combine the science I learned in school with your magical training.”
She chewed on her lip.
“Unless you’re not good enough. I guess I can do the spell.”
“No! Of course I can do it.” She closed her eyes and started to chant under her breath before stopping and stepping away from the car. “Let’s just step back.”
I walked back and scooped up Patagonia, who had been pouncing on a few leaves that flitted on the ground. She let out a low growl as the magic built in the air around us. I edged back more, burying my nose my in her soft fur. The spell needed to freeze the water wasn’t this complicated, so I wondered as time ticked on.
Being so close to Patagonia, I was grounded when a huge explosion erupted and the passenger door of the car blew off and skidded around the ground like a Frisbee come to rest.
“What did you do?” I screamed at her over the beeping and honking of every car alarm for several levels above and below us.
Vanessa scrunched up her face and tugged at an ear. “What?”
I dropped Patagonia and raced to the car, grabbing the papers off the passenger seat. I leaned across the center console and popped the trunk. I faced Vanessa and overpronounced each word as I jabbed a hand at the trunk. “Check the trunk.”
I reached into the back seat and unlocked the door then peeked under each seat, checking for anything that might have rolled under there, but every cup holder, crease, pocket, and cranny was empty. The lines from a recent vacuuming indicated that not even a butt had touched most of the car.
I had just stepped out of the vehicle when Vanessa came from behind the car and screamed in my face. “Nothing back there. Am I talking loud? I feel like I’m talking loud.”
The explosion, even without cameras running, would soon draw any on-site security to the structure. “Let’s go!” I mouthed, clutching the papers from the passenger seat to my chest.
The car alarms were starting to click off, and a door slammed above us. I raced down the slanting path and peeked around a corner to make sure we weren’t about to run into anyone. Unfortunately, a heavy door slammed ahead of us. I dragged Vanessa behind me as I crouched in front of a car, in the space between the bumper and the cement wall. I frog-walked around the front bumper and slipped between the car and the van next to it.
Huffing and puffing, I shook next to Vanessa and pulled Patagonia into my lap. Heavy footsteps approached as a half dozen men ran toward the floor we had left. I grabbed Vanessa’s hand and held my breath. As I focused on being small and invisible, drawing no attention to myself, the tingle of magic and adrenaline slowed down time. My heartbeat in my ears became louder and louder until I could hear nothing beyond the thunderous drumming shaking my whole body.
My sight grew dark, the world dimming to black and white, then my peripheral vision was gone as my perception narrowed. An eternity passed until Patagonia bit me hard on the hand. With a snap, my vision returned, though the world spun around me, and I gulped in air. Patagonia fought against my grip, which had her pinned to my chest far tighter than I had intended.
Vanessa yanked her hand out of mine. “You’re breaking my hand. Come on.” This time she dragged me off my knees, which were as weak as Jell-O. I trailed her as she jogged to the door to the structure and stepped inside.
My chest hurt, my ears rang, and my skin tingled. I managed to follow her through a second door that led into the casino interior then into a lounge, where I collapsed in a chair. An Elvis impersonator crooned “Blue Suede Shoes” on the stage.
A pack of security guards raced past the bar, giving the lounge and its occupants only a passing glance.
A waitress approached, and I ordered a gin and tonic to go with Vanessa’s wine spritzer, a drink I hadn’t known existed outside cheesy romcoms. I was shaky and hoped a bit of alcohol would steady my nerves. Then I asked for a little bowl of milk for Patagonia.
Once the waitress hurried off, I leaned in to Vanessa. “What did you do to that car?”
“What did I do? You turned us invisible!”
I sat back. “What?”
She leaned closer. “It was crazy. They were looking between the cars as they ran by, and they looked right through us, every one of them. I’m not even sure we were there. I mean… I could see them, but it was like from a distance. What did you do?”
The waitress returned with our drinks and a saucer of milk that she placed on the floor. I nodded politely and picked up my drink with shaky hands. Slowly, I brought the glass to my mouth and drank most of it in one long pull on the comically tiny red straw. The sugar and alcohol hit me hard. I had used more magic than I realized, though I had no idea what I had done.
“Hey, Ella. You in there?”
I turned to face Vanessa. “I don’t know what I did! I was just so freaked out. If they caught us, then the marshal would find out and… I just wanted us to disappear! I haven’t been that scared in, like, forever. I got all lightheaded, and I think I even passed out a little. Wow! My head hurts.” I paused to rub my temples. “I don’t know that we should keep investigating.”
“Hey, hey. Relax.” She squeezed my shoulder. “We’re okay. And we can’t stop now. We took everything from the car. We have to at least look at it and pass it on to Vin.”
I shrugged.
“Weird stuff happens during your training, like when you spontaneously create fire. That happens to people all the time. But sometimes other stuff happens, usually in puberty, but I guess this is like your magical puberty.”
I couldn’t hold in a giggle. I had no desire to go through puberty again at age twenty-eight. “Just what I always wanted.” An icy chill ran down my spine. “Did you do something like this?”
“So when I was, like, thirteen, I was a real snot. Vin was home for his birthday, and Mom had made this gigantic cake with tons of cream cheese frosting. I love that frosting, but Mom didn’t save me any. I got up that night for a snack. I was always starving from all the training. I saw the cake and felt that I was owed some frosting. So I got a spoon and scooped off a thin layer. I did it again and again. Then I heard the door to the kitchen opening. I freaked, because Mom had sworn she would tan my hide if I touched that cake.” She grabbed her drink and took a long sip around her smile.
“Go on. What happened?”
She sat back, savoring the mom
ent. “I was freaking out. I needed to hide the missing frosting and meant to just use magic to, like, smooth out the area around it. But all I was really thinking about was hiding the evidence. Then poof, the cake was gone.”
“Like the section with the missing frosting?”
“No. Like the whole huge cake was gone. I turned around, and my mother was staring at me and demanding to know what I had done, but I had no clue. Then there was this terrible racket. I didn’t recognize it right away because I had only had my familiar for a few months, but it was Bethsaida howling and screeching in my room. We raced in there, and jeez o’pete, what a mess. I had transported the entire cake onto my bed, right on top of Bethsaida. She was freaking out and racing around the room, covering everything in frosting and red velvet cake. Mom made me clean it up by hand, no magic.”
Bethsaida, whom I had only met a few times, was Vanessa’s sleepy, lazy familiar. She did not like to be disturbed while resting. I had a purple line across the back of my hand from a time I had tried to pet her. Unlike Patagonia, who was with me almost all the time, many familiars preferred to stay at home and sleep. Physical distance didn’t affect their ability to connect with their mages. Why Patagonia was all over me was a mystery to Auntie Ann. She surmised that it was because it had taken so long for Patagonia to find and bond with me. I didn’t care about the reason, because I loved it.
Again I wished I had Dad here to help me through all this. My guess was that he had not told me I was a mage to protect me, but why? Maybe he had planned to tell me later but died first. Regardless, I ached when I thought of the hole left in my life by his absence. Eventually I would be able to find out who had killed him and why. If I wanted to do that, I needed to toughen up. Dad had never backed down from a challenge, and neither would I.
I pulled Patagonia into my lap, my shoulder twinging under her impressive weight. “You’re right. It’s no big deal.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that. I still don’t understand—”
“No, it’s fine. Let’s look at what we got from the car.” I pulled out the papers to flip through them.
Which Mage Moved the Cheese? Page 7
