The room was quiet again for a while. I didn’t mind. I was starting to find the long patches of silence soothing. I had not been lying about that headache.
Finally, Ghost let out a long sigh of resignation. “Very well. I will release you. As you say, I no longer have the legal right to detain you.”
He stepped forward, so he stood directly in front of me. He bent over, putting his big head right in my face. If he was trying to intimidate me, he was barking up the wrong tree. I was too pissed to be intimidated.
“But know this: This is not over,” Ghost said. “I do not know if you know where Millennium is or how to locate him. But I do know you know about magic. I suspect you can point me in the right direction as to how to find Millennium, or at least give me the name of someone who can. We Heroes take our obligations to use our powers for the benefit of the public very seriously. Or at least most of us do. What Millennium has done is a black stain on the rest of us. I will find him, and I will bring him to justice. No matter what it takes to do it. There is simply no way I am going to let a lead to his whereabouts—no matter how tenuous—slip through my hands simply because you are an accomplished liar and play the role of innocent victim well. From this moment on, I’ll be watching you. If you don’t want me as your shadow, you’d be wise to help me find Millennium.”
Even when he was still, Ghost’s presence was like a force of nature. The fervent way Ghost spoke of Millennium and his crimes made me see Ghost for what he was. He was a fanatic for justice. I had dealt with fanatics before. Religious fanatics, political fanatics, sex fanatics (Bigfoot again—he was insatiable), sports fanatics . . . I could go on. They were all the same—single-minded, dogged, and stubborn. I knew Ghost would do whatever he had to do to bring Millennium to justice. Including trampling all over the civil rights of little ol’ me.
The truth of the matter was that I could probably point Ghost in the right direction. Though I was not particularly skilled at location magic, I knew people who were. A sorcerer as powerful as Millennium shouldn’t be allowed to run around scot-free if he was guilty of the crimes Ghost said he was. Would it kill me to help Ghost track him down?
Yes, it literally might if the Conclave found out I helped a mundane find a magician. Snitches got stitches. I was in enough trouble with the Conclave as it was without adding fuel to the fire. If I knew what was good for me, I needed to mind my own business.
So I said, “Now you listen to me, Javert. You can chase this Millennium character until your cape falls off for all I care. Just leave me out of it. And if I ever catch you following me, I’ll have you arrested for stalking. Despite what you seem to think, Heroes aren’t above the law. I’ve got my rights.”
“Javert?” Ghost stood up straight, taken aback. “The police inspector obsessed with the pursuit and punishment of the convict Jen Valjean in Hugo’s Les Misérables? You surprise me, Ms. Hawthorne. I would not have thought you a reader of the classics.”
“I’m chockful of surprises.” I had never read the book, and only knew the reference because I’d seen the musical on TV. I wasn’t about to admit that to this smug know-it-all. “Now are you going to let me out of here, or not? And again, where is here, anyway?” I still had no clue why my magic was mostly depleted.
“That information is classified.” He pulled a piece of cloth from his utility belt. “Hence the blindfold.” Ghost sounded annoyed I wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know. He could join the annoyed club I was the founder of.
I did not struggle as Ghost blindfolded me. Weak and bound, struggling would have been futile. Besides, I was just happy to finally get out of here.
Once blindfolded, I was as blind as a bat with glaucoma. Ghost unstrapped me from the chair and had me stand up. Then he cuffed my hands behind me. Even blindfolded, I knew handcuffs when I felt them. Men had cuffed me before, and not in a sexy fun way.
Ghost led me out of the room. Based on the echoing of our footsteps, we went down a narrow hall. Ghost’s massive hand was on my shoulder, guiding me as he walked alongside me.
Then the echoing stopped even though we still walked. I surmised we were in a much larger area now. I heard the faint murmur of others’ conversations.
Burning curiosity finally got the better of me. I just had to know where I was and why my magic was so depleted.
I dug deep, tapping into the dregs of magic that my body was still absorbing from my surroundings. I tried to open my Third Eye. Normally opening it was as easy as whistling. Now, though, it was hard, like picking up a dumbbell far heavier than the one you were used to.
It was like waking a stubbornly drowsy bear in the middle of its winter hibernation. Finally, though, my Third Eye opened. I went from not being able to see anything at all to being able to see everything around me, after a fashion.
The last time I had opened my Third Eye, at the Institute of Peace, multicolored swirls of magical current had been all around me. Here, things were dramatically different. The magic I saw was faint and almost unsubstantial, manifesting as dull flashes of light in the air, like an empty canvas had been dabbed at by a mostly dry paintbrush.
There was little magic in this environment. That explained why I had so little magic to draw from. It did not explain why there was so little magic in the first place.
Ghost’s form was a glowing form next to me, his strong life force making his body distinct. As I had guessed from the low hum of conversations, others were in the area we walked through. No more than a dozen total, the glowing forms of the people stood either alone or in small groups. Black shadows of varying shapes were all around us, including the floor, indicating inorganic material. A wall of shadow was on the left, curving around all of us for as far as I could see.
I stopped walking and ducked my shoulders down, feigning a sneeze. Ghost’s firm grip left my shoulder for a moment. A moment was all I needed now that I could see well enough to maneuver without losing my balance.
I stepped to the side, planted a foot, raised the other leg, and pivoted sharply. Even with my super strength gone, my roundhouse kick slammed into Ghost’s midsection like an ax biting into a tree. The air whooshed out of him with a loud grunt, and he doubled over. It served the big galoot right. Kidnapping me, tying me up, and taking my blood to see if I was a Meta? Maybe it was legal like he said, but it wasn't right.
Before Ghost could recover, I darted toward the wall of blackness that surrounded us all. My arms being bound behind me made the sprint awkward.
I tripped over something in the black murkiness of the floor. I went sprawling.
I struggled to my knees. I rubbed the side of my face against the edge of the blocky black shape next to me. My blindfold peeled partially off, freeing my eyes. I closed my Third Eye. The magical world—what there was of it here—faded away, replaced by the mundane one.
The thing I had rubbed my face against was a brown couch, rumpled and well-used. Other couches and chairs were haphazardly arranged in the area, reminding me of what I might see in a heavily patronized clubhouse or a college dorm. Costumed men and women were scattered around the area, some masked, some not. I recognized a few: Dynamite Dan based in Los Angeles, Myth from Astor City, and Astonishing Woman from Chicago. All Heroes. The Heroes looked at me like I had escaped from an asylum for the criminally insane.
The most striking feature of the area, though, was the massive curved window that was before me and that all the seats were arranged in front of. Or maybe it was a crystal clear viewscreen. It didn’t matter. What mattered was what it displayed: The entire Earth, with green land and blue water and white clouds. The glittering orb was so beautiful that it made my throat tighten looking at it. The void of space surrounded it, serving as an inky black backdrop that made our planet even more gorgeous by comparison.
Holy celestial bodies! I was in space. For the first time in my life, I was not surrounded by teeming humanity and its combined life force that generated pools of magic. No wonder I was as magically weak as a newbor
n Sphinx kitten.
Movement and a deep-voiced curse behind me roused me from my gawking. Before I could react, I felt an explosive pain in my chest again. I looked down to see Ghost’s well-muscled, translucent arm sticking through my chest like a stake through a vampire. This was the sequel to a movie I’d seen before.
My eyes closed as my body slumped to the floor. My last thought was of how sick I was of Ghost shoving his hulking limbs through me.
I wished I had kicked him harder.
CHAPTER 7
I opened my eyes, and immediately regretted it. My chest hurt. My head throbbed, like the drumline of a historically black college was really going to town inside my skull.
My vision, blurry at first, slowly came into focus. I sat with my legs sprawled in front of me. My back was against a hard wall. The air was warm, humid, and fetid. Trash surrounded me like a play fort built by the Garbage Pail Kids. Tall buildings rose around me. It was almost night. The moon was bright overhead.
I recognized my surroundings. I was in the alley the wererats had attacked me in. I blinked, confused. Had the wererats knocked me out? Had I been sitting here comatose for hours? Had Ghost abducting and somehow taking me into space all been a dream caused by having my bell rung?
I looked down. A folded piece of paper was pinned to the front of my shirt, like the note a preschool teacher might send home pinned to a kid. The thick glob of red wax that sealed the note shut had the imprint of a masked man on it, like a signet ring with that shape on the face of it had been pressed into the wax when it had still been warm and pliable.
I pulled the note off me and opened it. In bold handwriting, it read: If you change your mind about helping me, give me a call. And remember, I’ll be watching you. A telephone number was printed underneath. The note was signed Javert.
That cheeky Heroic schmuck.
The note was certainly not a dream. I really had been kidnapped by Ghost and spirited away (hah!) to some sort of space ship or space station with a bunch of Heroes on it.
I got shakily to my feet. My legs were as unsteady as a newborn foal’s. A loafer was missing, baring my left foot. It hurt. I didn’t even remember hurting my foot. Correction: I didn’t remember hurting my foot today. My other foot still ached a little from when I’d dropped the snake gargoyle’s stone jaw on it.
My blouse and jeans looked like someone messy had used them as a napkin. Where the wererat had raked my arm was still bandaged, and the rest of my arms were bruised. They looked like they would be mottled black and blue by tomorrow. I smelled like week-old fish.
I had started the day off with sorceress chic and was ending it with sorceress shabby.
Despite not feeling the best physically, I was enormously relieved to feel that my magic was back. I had lived with its presence most of my life, like music that was always quietly playing in the background. It was as much of a part of who I was as my eyes or my arms. Being mostly without it in space had been like looking in a mirror and seeing an unfamiliar face stare back at me. It had been both unsettling and more than a little frightening. I did not know how mundanes walked around feeling so weak and vulnerable all the time.
My knapsack was on the ground next to me. How thoughtful. Maybe Ghost had left two months’ salary inside it, along with a polite but firm note asking muggers to not molest me or steal my stuff while I was comatose.
I pulled my cell phone from the bag and checked the date and time. It was the same day Oscar had suspended me. How in the world—or off the world, as the case was here—had Ghost taken me off planet and back in a few hours? I had seen him fly, toss wererats around like they were pieces of cheddar, and become intangible like the spirit whose name he shared. Could Ghost teleport too? I knew of a few powerful magicians who could.
A sudden dark suspicion overcame me. Maybe that big jerk had invisibility in his power set too. I opened my Third Eye and took a careful look around. There were no ghosts of either the Heroic or spiritual variety.
Fortunately, my wallet was still in my knapsack, as was my Metro farecard. I slowly walked out of the alley and made my way to the bus stop again. This time no little old ladies set traps for me. Things were looking up. Besides, I had learned my lesson. If a little old lady was attacked by the entire cast of The Sopranos tonight, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help.
I boarded the bus that was eastbound toward Fort Totten. I was relieved to find when I scanned my farecard that I had enough money to make it to my apartment. If I had been forced to walk the three miles to my apartment, my aching feet’s little piggy toes would not cry Wee! Wee! Wee! all the way home.
Though the bus was crowded, the well-dressed young passengers who looked like they had just left work parted like the Red Sea as I pushed my way to the back of the bus. Between my dirty clothes, my smell, and the pissed-off look on my face, no one wanted to mess with me.
I was pretty angry, and I got more so as I stewed about things while the bus swayed and lurched around me. Not only was I suspended from the job that I liked and desperately needed, but the Conclave would soon knock on my door asking uncomfortable questions about First Rule violations, someone had sicced a bunch of wererats on me, and I was under the microscope of a Hero who had a hard-on for someone in the magical world.
The whole thing was a mess, no doubt about it. Why did everything always happen to me? If I were watching shooting stars in a crowd of people, I’d be the one to have a meteorite cave in my skull.
I felt like punching something. Instead, I fished my Elven wine flask out of my bag and took a long pull from it. The potent, magic-laced brew quickly spread through my system and washed my aches and cares away. I smacked my lips with satisfaction. Whoever said laughter was the best medicine had never tried Elven wine.
A woman standing nearby frowned in disapproval. She looked pointedly from me to the no food and beverage sign. I stuck my tongue out at her. I have always been the very soul of maturity.
I transferred buses, getting on a new one heading north on 7th Street. Farther north, 7th Street turned into Georgia Avenue, the street I lived off of. The people on this bus were different than the ones on the first bus. Those on the first bus had all looked like white-collar workers and had been mostly white with a sprinkling of blacks and Asians. The people on this bus were a mix of white-collar, blue-collar and the no-collar poor, and every race was represented. The demographics reflected the neighborhoods this bus serviced. The D.C. of my youth had been majority black, just as it had been for decades before my birth. Though there were still plenty of black people, they no longer made up a majority of the city now. The District’s longtime nickname of Chocolate City was no longer accurate. I guess Rainbow Swirl City did not sound as good.
I giggled at the thought. By now, the wine had hit my system like a nuclear bomb, blowing most of my worries to bits. I felt better about things. I was in a mess all right, but I’d muddle through somehow. I always did.
I would start by gathering some intel.
I opened the National Inquiry’s news app on my phone. The National Inquiry was a supermarket tabloid headquartered here in D.C. It was known for headlines like Severed Arm Claws Its Way To Hospital; Horse With Human Head Found, Says “Nay” When Asked For Comment; Giant Woman Uses Washington Monument As Toothpick; I Kissed A Girl Bigfoot (And I Liked It); JFK Faked Own Death: Lives in Cuba With Marilyn Monroe; and God Converts To Atheism, Saying “I No Longer Believe in Myself.” No one in the mundane world took the National Inquiry seriously. They thought it was parody or satire. Some of what appeared in the newspaper’s pages was indeed fictional—the John F. Kennedy and God stories were completely made up, for example. The other stories and so many others which sounded outlandish were in fact one hundred percent true.
The National Inquiry was the paper of record for the magical world, at least in this country. Its stories were slanted to seem preposterously ludicrous so mundanes would not catch on to the magical world’s existence. Mundanes read it because it was funny. Tho
se of us in the magical world read between the lines of it to get the news.
Its publisher Devin Copeland was a big muckety-muck with a seat on the Conclave’s Inner Circle, which was how he got away with his paper’s constant First Rule violations. In the magical world, as in the mundane, people with money and power were held to a different standard. I interned in Devin’s office before Dad died, and Devin had told me then that he had started National Inquiry to acclimate mundanes to the idea of magic and magical creatures, so that one day the magical world could operate in the open. Devin also owned the District’s professional basketball franchise, and him getting mundanes used to the idea of magic was also why he had changed the team’s name from the Washington Bullets to their current name, the Washington Wizards.
Devin had grabbed my boob one morning during my internship. I broke his finger. It had seemed a fair exchange until someone from human resources visited me that afternoon. She said I was insubordinate. Since I was fifteen, I told her Devin was a child-molesting creep. I lost my internship, yet Copeland was still humming merrily along as the National Inquiry’s publisher. I was a trailblazer for the #MeToo movement.
I skimmed National Inquiry’s articles on my phone as the bus rumbled around me. I looked for any news about increased wererat activity or the gargoyle attack on the Institute of Peace. I found an item in the Wizard’s Whisperings gossip column that penetrated the numbing effects of the Elven wine:
A certain naughty sorceress is in hot water after publicly destroying three of Chocolate City's most iconic gargoyles without so much as a "What's a nice goyle like you doing in a place like this?" I won't name names because of pesky libel laws, but the sorceress shares the name of an herb and an author, so let's call her Dill Twain. She's under investigation by Those Who Must Not Be Named, so Dill might soon land in the soup. Those Who Must Not Be Named have already made a preliminary determination of a First Rule violation. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of the Animated) has condemned Dill's actions as well. Dill really is in a pickle.
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