Mind Magic

by Eileen Wilks

  Ruben froze. After a moment he sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. Being around you—or being so near the mantles you carry—reinforces instincts I’m not yet accustomed to. My apologies. You were unable to discuss it with me and felt there was enough risk that you wanted to go ahead, and you do have the authority for that.”

  It was harder than it should have been to lean back and let go of the need to defend himself. Rule did it anyway. Long experience let him keep the difficulty from his voice. “You don’t agree with my decision.”

  “It seems unnecessary. Unit Twelve has investigated a number of cases in which practitioners tried to shift money into their accounts magically. Often the mere use of magic on electronic records either shuts down the bank’s computers or causes multiple glitches without making the change the thief desires. Sometimes funds do magically appear in the thief’s account, but not in the amount intended, or the funds are withdrawn instead of deposited. On the rare occasions when the thief gets the result he’s after, the tampering is easy to spot and quickly rectified. Finding sufficient evidence for prosecution can take time, but the problem itself is fixed quickly.”

  Rule shrugged. “Perhaps that’s true with most practitioners, but if Cullen can undetectably alter electronic records in a manner that is not ‘easy to spot and quickly rectified,’ someone else might be able to.”

  Ruben’s eyebrows shot up. “He’s done this?”

  “Yes.” Two years after the fact, Visa still didn’t know why the credit card they’d issued to one Cullen Seabourne had gone overnight from a thousand-dollar limit to none while the minimum payment remained twelve dollars a month.

  “Ah. I see why you considered this more of a threat than I did. I still don’t see how it’s possible. Any use of magic to ward an account should set off the same problems an attempt at tampering would.”

  “I can’t explain what I don’t understand, but apparently using sympathetic magic makes a difference. The ward isn’t installed on the bank’s computers, but on a symbolic representation of them.”

  Ruben considered that a moment. “He put these protections on Nokolai’s accounts two months ago, you said?”

  “Yes. There have been no problems.”

  “I see. Or rather, I don’t see how it works, but if you and Cullen say it does, I’ll take your word for it. It would be inconvenient to have our funds suddenly disappear.”

  “That it would.” Surreptitiously Rule checked his watch. Five minutes until six. Whatever Lily was needed for in Whistle, she should encounter it soon, if she hadn’t already. Such a large word, “whatever.” He tried not to think about how many grim possibilities it covered and carefully did not check for her. The utter wrongness of the distorted mate sense seemed to reach him at a deeper level than it did Lily.

  If Ruben noticed Rule’s preoccupation with the time, he didn’t comment on it. “Before we discuss the communications problem, I’d like to brief you on a few situations. Two of them involve Shadow agents. The other one is a case Unit Twelve is investigating that could become of interest to the Shadow Unit, depending on how things develop.”

  And so they left the legal part of the discussion for murkier regions.

  The Shadow Unit had three great strengths any clandestine organization would envy. First was the instant, untraceable communication the dragons provided. Wars have been won or lost due to communication. Their second strength was Ruben’s position as head of Unit 12, which gave him access to the vast information-gathering resources of the FBI. It was, of course, illegal for him to use those resources that way, which underscored the need for secure communications.

  Their third strength was Ruben himself.

  Precognition wasn’t well understood. Many dismissed it as useless because it was so often wrong. Precogs whose Gift manifested only in dreams or visions couldn’t be tested in a laboratory—but most precogs were hunchers, like Ruben. The experts had derived a test for them. It involved randomly generated three-digit numbers and was scored based on statistical models that accounted for sequencing and partially correct answers.

  Using that weighted scoring system, most precogs tested between twenty and thirty percent—well above pure chance, but nothing anyone would want to bet the farm on. A few of the strongest ones had hit in the forties.

  Ruben had tested at seventy percent.

  Tests are not real life, of course. In real life, Rule had never known Ruben to be wrong. That was partly due to the strength of Ruben’s gift, but just as important was that he knew when he had a hunch.

  Ruben had told Rule once that being a strong precognitive was like having background music on all the time . . . music made by a couple dozen different bands, each playing a different tune. Fast or slow, faint or loud, familiar or eerily alien, the songs all had one thing in common: they were instrumentals. No vocalist, Ruben had said wryly, ever added a spoken refrain to explain things. It was a music composed of feelings, not notes. That’s why precogs often mistook their own unconscious fears or fantasies for the prompting of their Gifts.

  Ruben didn’t. For him, it was like the difference between listening to music and humming a song himself. He couldn’t mistake one for the other. That accounted for much of his uncanny accuracy: he knew when he didn’t know.

  “. . . mystifying and potentially connected to her, given the nature of the cult,” Ruben finished. “I’ve had trouble deciding who to send. Suggestions?”

  “That’s Ybirra territory. Is there some reason you don’t want a couple of Manuel’s people checking them out?”

  “Nothing concrete, but I suspect that whoever I send will need good spellcasting abilities.”

  “You’ve thought of Cullen.”

  “Not him.” Ruben was certain. “Someone I haven’t yet considered.”

  “You must have considered all the usual active Ghosts.” Rule glanced at his watch again. Six ten. He wanted badly to call Lily. That would be stupid, potentially interrupting her at a key moment, so he didn’t do it. But he wanted to. “Arjenie isn’t active. She is skilled, but bear in mind that if you send her, Benedict will go, too.” Benedict would never let his Chosen go into danger by herself the way Rule had been forced to do.

  “Not Arjenie, but . . . ah, that’s it. Someone connected to her.” Ruben nodded briskly, pleased. “Her cousin. He’s done some off-the-books work for Unit Twelve and I’ve been considering recruiting him for the Shadows. This is the right time and the right job.”

  “I don’t know anything about him.”

  They discussed the man briefly, then moved on to the meat of their discussion. With Mika gone, the Shadow Unit effectively lacked two of their three strengths. Ruben couldn’t lead effectively without quick, clear communications. “The solution,” Ruben said, “is obvious. While Mika is absent, I need to leave D.C. for another dragon’s territory. With you here—”

  Something happened.

  When it finished happening, Rule was on his feet. His chair lay on its side behind him. His entire being seemed to vibrate like a gong a second after being struck—the sound had passed, but the reverberations continued.

  He felt settled. At peace.

  Ruben clearly did not. He was on his feet, too—his shoulders hunched, his head lowered, his eyes fixed on Rule. The posture of a wolf prepared to attack. “No?” he said very low.

  Rule smiled at him. “My apologies. I take it I reacted very suddenly?”

  Ruben’s posture didn’t change. “You don’t remember?”

  That would strike Ruben as deeply suspicious. “No, but it’s all right. It was the Lady.”

  Ruben’s posture eased slightly, but he still looked ready to attack or defend. “The Lady spoke to you?”

  “Not precisely. Not in words.” But he would need to find words to express her message, or the man across from him would think he’d been possessed or placed under compulsion or some such. “She . . . agrees with me. Or approves of my instinctive response, or . . .” He shrugged. �
�You know how you feel on full moon night, when you open completely to her song? Just before the pain hits, when there’s nothing but her song . . . it was like that.”

  Silence, except for the distant sounds of birds, a car with its radio on driving along the street in front of the house, a dog a couple houses away, Deborah humming in the kitchen . . . and the elevated heartbeat of the man across from him. Who gradually relaxed the rest of the way. “What did the Lady agree with you about?” he asked dryly.

  “I can’t be trapped here.” There was more . . . the warm glow of her approval, the sense that she regretted something . . . and the utter certainty that his instincts were correct.

  “My going to Wythe Clanhome would make you feel trapped?”

  “I have to be free to go to Lily if she needs me.”

  Ruben spoke slowly, as if unsure of Rule’s ability to understand language. “You agreed not to go with her.”

  “Yes. I didn’t agree not to go to her.”

  “I don’t understand why my leaving traps you here.”

  Rule opened his mouth to explain . . . and closed it again. He couldn’t explain. He didn’t have a reason.

  “I feel that you’re needed here,” Ruben went on. “Sam believes you should stay here. But that’s true whether I’m here or not.”

  “When will I be needed here?”

  Ruben’s eyebrows lifted. “I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps I’m needed now but won’t be later. I don’t know. I can’t explain. But I have to be free to go to her. If you leave—”

  “If you—” Ruben’s phone buzzed. He took it from his pocket. “It’s Lily.” And touched the screen. “This is Ruben. Rule’s with me.”

  Ruben hadn’t put his phone on speaker. He didn’t have to. Rule heard Lily clearly. “Good. I’m at the park outside Whistle. So are a couple of deputies and a body. The deceased is male . . .”

  It was good to hear her voice. He listened closely as she described the body she’d found. “. . . jeans and a T-shirt. Barefoot. His shoes were next to his sleeping bag. Age between . . .”

  His own phone dinged. He grimaced and checked to see who it was. Cecily Alvarez. Cecily handled Rule’s website, social media, and public e-mail account. She had excellent PR instincts. She knew how to respond to most e-mails and posts and when to ask for guidance, but she texted, she didn’t call. Whatever the problem was, she must consider it urgent. He accepted the call. “This is Rule.”

  It was, as he’d suspected, bad news, but nothing major. He’d have to put in a call to one or two of the reporters he’d cultivated. Rule caught snatches of Ruben’s talk with Lily while listening to Cecily’s explanation, which was more technical and detailed than he required.

  “. . . discern the type of magic?” Ruben asked.

  “That’s the weird thing,” Lily told him. “I’m pretty sure—”

  “—want me to do other than the post I already made?” Cecily asked.

  “No,” Rule said, pulling his attention back to the problem at hand. “I’ll deal with it. Let Isen know right away, then find out how it was done . . . I understand, but there must be consultants who can. Contact Arjenie Fox. If she doesn’t already know, she’ll be able to find out. Yes. Thank you for letting me know right away.”

  Rule disconnected, frowning. Someone had tampered with his Facebook page, posting a number of pornographic photos as if they came from him. That could be dealt with, but the sophistication of the attack was worrying. Cecily didn’t know how the hacker had gotten in. Rule used a random-generated password, and Facebook’s software should have shut down the account before a brute force attack was able to hit on the right combination.

  He turned his attention back to Ruben’s conversation with Lily. Ruben was asking if she’d spotted the weapon.

  “No,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, given how high the brush and grass is. I figure that search should be left to CSI.”

  “That’s logical. The deputies arrived very quickly after you found the body.”

  “Within minutes,” she said.

  “How timely of them.”

  “Yeah. I’m betting they received a tip, but I wanted to speak with you before I question them about it. I took control of the scene, but I don’t know if you want me to handle the investigation.”

  “Hmm. Give me a moment.” Ruben fell silent. His eyes went unfocused. After a long moment his gaze sharpened again. “Very well. It’s your case. Consider yourself restored to active duty. I’ll see that Ida sends you the contact information you wanted. Felix Thompson has a strong TK Gift and manages a chat room for others with that Gift, so he’s quite knowledgeable. He’s wary of speaking about his Gift to those he sees as outsiders, however. You’ll need to be sure he knows I referred you to him. Is there more?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Report when there is.” He disconnected, tapped the screen a couple times, and looked at Rule without putting his phone down. “I heard very little of your conversation, but I gather there’s been a security breach?”

  “Nothing earthshaking. My Facebook account was breached and the hacker posted some unpleasant pictures.” He waved that away. “Lily found a body. Homicide? And I gather magic was involved.”

  “Yes—in, as she said, a weird way. The . . . Ida, I’m sorry to interrupt your Sunday. I need you to send Lily Yu contact information for Felix Thompson. Yes. Thank you.” This time Ruben put his phone in his shirt pocket when he finished the call. “The victim’s appearance suggests he was homeless. His throat was cut very deeply. The nature of the wound is such that, had Lily not been sent to that park, no one would have suspected that magic was involved.”

  Which was why Ruben had put Lily back on active status. Rule had mixed feelings about that. He didn’t voice them. “Sam doesn’t ordinarily take an interest in the death of a single human.”

  “No, clearly this is significant in some way. Perhaps the means of death is the important element. Lily believes it possible that no physical weapon was used.”

  Rule’s eyebrows lifted. He remembered another time when someone had killed at a distance, using magic rather than a conventional weapon. An ancient artifact had been involved. “Did she find death magic?”

  “No, she found TK.”

  Rule’s eyebrows shot up. “Telekinesis?”

  “Or a magic with a similar feel. She detected some difference between what was on the body and what she has felt in the past when she touched that Gift. She isn’t sure what that difference means.”

  “Using a sword with your mind instead of your hand is an odd way to kill, but still involves a weapon.”

  “Perhaps not. Because of the way the magic was concentrated at the wound itself, she thinks the killer may have magically removed an extremely narrow slice of the victim’s neck.”

  Rule’s eyebrows flew up. “Is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Lily’s right. That is weird.” Rule paused, shifting gears. “Are you going to go to Wythe Clanhome?”

  Ruben looked at him steadily. Too steadily, given the way his mantle pushed at Rule’s, but Rule had his head straight again. He didn’t react. When Ruben spoke, his voice was mild enough. “What will you do if I say yes?”

  He smiled. “Leave. Immediately.”

  Ruben sighed faintly. “I suppose I’d best stay here, then. For now.”

  TWELVE

  THE dark-haired young man with a military bearing closed the door carefully before speaking. “Sir, we’ve got a situation. I’d like you to listen to the intercept we just picked up from Target Prime.”

  The round little man paused with his hamburger in one hand. A big glop of shredded lettuce and mayonnaise oozed out from under the bun and fell on the paper towel he’d spread on his desk in lieu of a plate. That desk was large and cluttered, all but overwhelmed by its piles—of paper, folders, and tech paraphernalia. “Target Prime?”

  “Yes, sir. I just sent you the au
dio file.”

  “Very well.” Smith put down his lunch, wiped his hands carefully on a paper napkin, and tapped at his keyboard. A moment later, Ruben Brooks’s voice came over the speaker. The two men listened intently. The one behind the desk cursed briefly when Lily Yu reported that she’d claimed the scene, but didn’t speak again until the audio file reached its end.

  “Damnation,” he muttered. “How in the hell did she turn up there?”

  The other man shook his head. “I don’t know. Unless there’s a leak—”

  “If anyone who knew anything was leaking information, we’d already be under arrest.”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” the younger man persisted. “Target Tres has been on sick leave. Now suddenly she’s in Ohio, stumbling across the remains from the last training exercise.”

  “Target Prime specializes in inexplicable coincidences. He’s a precog. Clearly, he had a hunch that Target Tres needed to be in Ohio.” The smaller man drummed his fingers briefly on the stack of folders to his left. “Still, the possibility, however unlikely, has to be checked out. Put Roberts on that. I want you to activate the Humboldt identity.”

  “Yes, sir. Who’s going to be using it?”

  A cold smile. “Time to wrap up loose ends, Rudy. The body was found by someone we very much didn’t want to find it, but we can make that work for us. The dead man will assume the Humboldt identity.”

  Revelation dawned. “Of course. You want to go after the girl.”

  “The terrorist,” he corrected his subordinate. “A deranged young woman with a terrible Gift. Agent Humboldt has been pursuing her for weeks now, but she must have realized he was on her trail and killed him. Tragic, really.”

  THIRTEEN

  THE deputy who’d recognized Lily was named Gwen Orlander. The one who’d drawn his weapon on her was Rick Savage. Lily had learned that much about them before she called Ruben. She’d also shaken their hands—an obvious ploy, maybe, but she wanted to know if either of them had a Gift.