Hired Luck

by Mel Todd

  I sat and worked on the turnover. I had a habit of peeling them apart. They lasted longer that way and it gave me something to do with my hands. It took another minute, but Niall sat down and nodded at me with another half-smile.

  Okay, have I entered the twilight zone? This is starting to creep me out.

  "I owe everyone an apology, and especially Cori," Alixant stated. His voice was matter of fact, but you could tell he was forcing himself to say the words. The question was why.

  Regardless of the reason, all of us snapped our attention to him. Part of me wanted to watch the others to see if they had expected this, but I couldn't pull my eyes off of him. His shoulders hunched slightly and his hands in his trouser pockets ruined the line of his suit. He reminded me of a boy having to apologize for something.

  "As my agents know, we'd just come off a hard case with a Fire Wizard. All of us had offered up more than usual. We'd seen too many people die and needed a break. They called me in because I'm one of the few merlins in the FBI with any experience with murders."

  All of this was new to me. Somehow, I'd thought there were hundreds running around but if I thought about how merlins there were, why would you waste them all in law enforcement?

  "I went because I figured it would give me a chance to visit my kid sister. She was distraught because her best friend was missing." I felt the coffee in my stomach start to churn. "Jane Tanner." He sighed and sat down. "I hadn't recognized her from the pictures because of the damage and the fact that I had only met her a few times. My sister Rebecca is eight years younger than me, and it had been at least two or three years since I'd seen Jane. Plus, you add in the fact that her fingerprints had been removed, well until they told me the name, I didn't realize it was the same case."

  He took a swig of coffee and I continued to crumble my turnover into small pieces, unable to work up the energy to put any in my mouth.

  "What all of this means is I've been a bit of an ass lately. Between the stress here, my sister and her grief, and then you, the unexpected magic user who seemed somehow involved yet you weren't." He grimaced like this hurt but continued. "I was less than professional about this entire thing, especially to you, Cori. I was so sure it involved you, you not being involved made it worse. I should not have treated you the way I did, and I've had a talk with the team. I think they have a better understanding of my fears and why I wanted you here. Granted, at first it was to keep an eye on you, but you aren't a suspect. You just seem to end up in the worst possible place, at the worst or best possible moment depending on how you look at it."

  Alixant cleared his throat and took another drink, then looked at me. "I promise more professionalism and a better understanding of each other."

  All the decisions I'd made all weekend rose up. It would be so easy to just give in, duck my head, and be a good little girl. So very easy.

  I grabbed onto the resolutions I'd made. "Thank you. I was having issues with all this. But none of that changes the fact that I am useless here. I get that as a mage, I have rules I have to follow, including education and the draft, but I haven't started yet and I don't know anything. Not really. So why am I here? And why did I have to give up my job?" That last statement may have been a bit plaintive. I saw Carelian lift his head and look at me, then tuck it back into his paws.

  Alixant rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "Because I wanted to punish you, since I didn't have anyone else to lash out at."

  His brutal honestly took me aback, and from the tiny squeak from Siab, I got the feeling she was just as surprised.

  "I don't think I can get your job back and when this asshole strikes again, I will need you. I hoped the pay was enough to at least make up a little bit for all of this."

  "Oh, it helps. But still, once this is over, I have at least four months until school starts and I don't have a family supporting me. I really don't want to take out loans. The Mage Draft only covers tuition and housing, not food, clothes, etc. Heck, even after school starts, and for the next few years, I'm going to need to be able to work just so I can feed myself."

  "Point. I'll see what I can do. But until then, will you help us? Work with us?"

  Like I could say no. What? I'm going to let some insane lunatic run around killing people and not try to help?

  I didn't say that, but I did say the other part. "That’s fine, but I don't know what I'm doing. I know nothing about how to use my abilities. I don't have any magic that is going to help you find him."

  "No, but you can help with the planes and stop them from ripping and pouring into the world. We are seeing a spike already. If it happens again, we may start getting repeat emergences." He looked like he was about to say something else but flicked his hand as if tossing it away. "I'll see about getting you some training on the planes. A head start on schooling, if you will."

  Before I could reply, Chris spoke up. "With that said, we think we have a lead on who the perp is."

  The reaction was like an electric current going through the room as we all snapped our attention to Chris, who had a little self-satisfied smirk on his face.

  "Spill." The polite voice was gone, the hard, demanding man I knew was back.

  "I spent all day Sunday with your sister Rebecca going over Jane's planner, her emails, and her phone bill. Her phone is still missing but we have her phone bill. Unfortunately, like most users, she did everything via her apps. We can see data usage, but not much else. The only text messages were between her and Rebecca."

  He typed and images appeared on screen. "Per Rebecca, she had headed down to Savannah for a long weekend before coming back to Atlanta. It was just a break from everything as her mage draft assignment began September 1st. She'd talked to Jane on the drive down and had mentioned maybe going out that weekend but nothing specific. She received two texts from Jane while she was in Savannah, way less than normal, but they seemed like things she would say."

  Up on the screen an image resolved of a phone text message screen. "The green is Rebecca, the gray, Jane."

  Green: Got in, talk tomorrow.

  Gray: Hey, busy day today, will be out of pocket – ttfn

  Green: still out running around?

  Gray: sorry, have a date later. Truby's tonight.

  Green: I know him?

  Gray: Tell you all about later – ta

  Chris started up after we had time to absorb the words. "The problem is, we figure Jane was killed about two hours after Rebecca hung up with her. She said she didn't remember Jane mentioning meeting anyone, just heading out for dinner, but not a date. The text messages here were all sent after Jane had been dead for a day or more."

  The way he said it made my spine crawl.

  "He used her phone to send texts?" I asked. I knew the answer, but that level of creepiness was more disturbing than any body I'd found. Even if you added crabs.

  "Yes. We got pings off of towers for those messages, but they were both in places where the MARTA goes by, so there isn't much we can glean from there."

  Alixant seemed to sag as he glowered at Chris. "Then how is this a lead? Other than we know he has, or at least had, her phone."

  The smile that crossed Chris's face made him look like a wolf who has cornered his prey. "Because I went through every person Jane had mentioned to Rebecca in the past year and scrutinized all her social media. Then I pulled up everything about the people on the boat. Jane was probably the first, but if it’s the same killer, then they should have something in common. And we found it." This created a repeat of the electricity that went through the room.

  Another image appeared on the wall. A man in his late twenties, nice enough looking I guessed, but he seemed a bit nerdy and even in this picture, taken by the OMO for his ID, he seemed desperate.

  "Who is he?" Alixant asked. He wasn't asking the name, which was clear on the ID that had appeared next to the picture, but what mattered. Who was this person?

  "Meet Paul Goins. He is a Fire wizard, age twenty-eight, just finished his d
raft service about six months ago, where he was assigned to the fire jumpers emergency response squad." I blinked and looked at the man. It might be biased, but most fire jumpers I'd seen interviewed were people who got a kick out of an adrenalin rush. This guy, with his skinny frame, pale complexion, and down turned mouth, didn't look like he'd want to do anything that required physical effort.

  "How was he assigned that?" Alixant must have had the same reaction I did.

  "Reading through the notes in the file, sheer need. His reviews all had the same phrase 'Does exactly what is required' and I can't find that he made any friends while there."

  "Four years is a long time to stay at a job you're where ill-suited." Alixant mused, his brow furrowed.

  "Well, the last year they got another mage, and moved him over to the R&D people doing vulcanology experiments. From what I can intuit, he hated it there as much as he had at the jumper school, but what was interesting was what happened there."

  Chapter 36

  The draft is usually regarded as a good thing, but not all personalities or choices work well. But then, that can be said of any profession. In the end, you get out of it what you put into it, both good and bad. ~ OMO Interview

  Chris drew out his words out like an expert storyteller, and even recognizing that, I leaned forward a bit, wanting to hear the rest. "They were in Hawaii, studying the erupting volcano Kīlauea. Now, Paul is not an Earth mage. The best volcanologists are merlins with both Fire and Earth, though they're rare."

  My mind flashed to Shay. I knew he was Earth, but what was his second? It took me a second before I remembered it was Time. So the odds were, he wouldn't have known Paul but I still couldn't get away from the idea of pinging Shay about this guy. I pulled out my phone and made a note, then turned my attention back to Chris.

  "He was supposed to warn them when lava started moving so they could get people and equipment moved out in time. From the notes in the file, the volcano had an unexpected mini eruption that caught everyone off guard and lava trapped three team members. They couldn't get to them. From all accounts it was a slow death as they were cooked alive. A side note mentioned that three planar rips appeared, small but real, though no one took much notice of them. The rips collapsed soon after the three died. There was a strange burst of energy that emerged right before the rips collapsed that cooled the lava to stone, but not in time. They had a Psychic that spent most of her time between screaming and sobbing as she felt them die." His tone had lost the storyteller vibe, instead had a grimness to it that made my heart ache. "His service debt ended three months later. What caught my attention was this note in his file." Another image appeared on the screen of a report with big red letters stamped across the top - "Service Fulfilled".

  It felt strange to see the personal details of another person's draft service, but then I knew intimate details of many people at this point, so maybe it was just the way it was.

  "This was what his supervisor noted as he left," Chris said, then read aloud the comment, which helped as the supervisor’s handwriting was atrocious. "Paul did an adequate job, and the findings of the investigation into the volcano accident verified he had no prior knowledge. I still find it odd however, that in the last few months he has been more energetic and been more willing to make offerings to help our mission than before. If anything, he seemed gleeful after the tragedy. This disturbs me but I can't find anything else in his actions to indicate anything untoward besides an idiosyncratic reaction to the deaths of his coworkers."

  Chris looked up at us, and I knew he'd made the same conclusions I had. "It is my belief that Paul Goins had a second emergence in the presence of the planar rips that boosted his power and he is seeking to replicate it."

  I followed the logic and it made my blood crawl in my veins.

  "He realized the slow death of mages would rip the planes. He tried first with Jane, but her solo death wasn't enough. He then tried again with three and what? It didn't work? He wanted more power? Then he jumped to nine?"

  "Do they record planar rips anywhere?" I asked, suddenly curious.

  Siab tilted her head. "I don't know. The only stable ones are the ones at Area 51. The OMO monitors them 24 hours a day. But I've never heard of anything that can detect or monitor rips in real time or even after the fact." She had already started typing before she finished speaking.

  "What if it did work?" I asked and managed not to flinch when Alixant looked at me.

  "What do you mean? If it did work, why would he still be trying to replicate it? I could feel the magic pouring out of those people, but they were all hedgies." His voice caught and he cussed. "Anyone drafted would be a magician or higher. Chris, what were the ranks of the three people that died?"

  It took Chris a minute, and while he looked, I went to see if I could find contact information for Shay. I didn't have any but I shot Laurel Amosen a note, asking her if she could ask him to call or text me. I was positive she had his info.

  "Got it. Two were archmages, the third was a wizard."

  "Relatively high ranking. But if it is the amount of power that matters, he may have originally played with ritual to see about amplifying the amount of power, then decided to go with volume over ritual. We already know it works but what happened at the park?" Alixant looked at me. "Did the rips occur there?"

  I started to snap back with a retort, but I paused and thought back, comparing the sensations between the oddness at the park that day and the scene at the convention.

  "No. They were there, but they didn't tear. They felt"—I struggled to come up with an explanation of what I had felt now that I had something to compare it with—“like balloons that were being filled with water and about to burst, but they weren't there yet. At the convention they hit it and exploded, but I didn't really notice until after going over what happened." I hated to admit it, but him making us sit down that Tuesday and write out every detail, what we felt or sensed, even if we weren't sure, had helped.

  He nodded. He had a faraway look in his eyes as he obviously wasn't seeing us. "Let's make a lot of assumptions. Three mages, two arch and one wiz, were enough to create planar rips. One hedge wasn't. Chris, the nine on the boat, were they related to Paul? How?"

  "That took a bit, but it turns out they were all members of the same society at college. Not noted as friends but they were all there." Chris raised his hand before Alixant could say anything. "And before you ask, some were, some weren't. Three hedges, four non-magic, two wizards."

  "Huh." Alixant leaned back. "We don't know if that worked or not, but the supposition is not. So he went for quantity, but why target specifically hedges? Did we ever figure out how?"

  "Yes," Siab said with a grin. "A contest and a lot more than just the twenty-seven showed up but only those were pulled into the illusion. The rest kept looking for the contest. We got the notifications off a few phones. Fingerprint access really makes hacking phones easy." She shrugged. "As to the hedges, apparently that was what the contest was geared towards."

  "Most hedges don't flaunt their magic. And they might not have enough power to stop him. Maybe it was easier to get them than an archmage, remembering they needed to die slowly," I pointed out, even as icy prickles ran up my spine at how easily I talked about people dying slowly.

  "True. I guess that part doesn't really matter. We know twenty-seven hedgies wasn't enough, but the number in the ballroom was."

  I tugged at my hair, thinking as he talked.

  "That means he might try again as we're pretty sure only Cori emerged at that event. But it may have triggered more people to emerge. Siab, can you make sure to get a memo to the OMO with all our recordings and information and point out that planar rips can encourage emergences. That’s their problem, not mine, and I'm not wasting my time tracking that down." She nodded as he kept talking, scribbling a note to herself. "Okay, next step?"

  "We’re waiting for the warrant to toss his place,” Niall said, flipping through information. “I put in for it this mo
rning once I received the final bit of information. I'm hoping to get it approved by sometime after lunch. The judge has been prepped by Detective Stone. He has a team on standby to go with us. They have techs to tear the place apart."

  I wrinkled my nose at the name. Detective Stone hadn't impressed me.

  "Excellent. Then we have a plan and a suspect. Keep double checking, just in case it’s someone else, but right now we have a good path forward."

  An aura of suffused excitement filled the room, but I felt strangely excluded by it. I had nothing to do with tossing this guy's place, and I hated feeling like a dead weight. I turned my gaze on Alixant and waited.

  He must have felt my eyes on him as he looked up and half smirked. It made me wonder how many women fell for that self-deprecating look. Even I softened a bit, but not enough to go away. No longer would I be passive in my own life.

  He got up and dropped into the seat next to me.

  "So what now, Alixant? The warrant isn't anything that involves me and I'm spinning my wheels here."

  I expected attitude, but he'd apparently been sincere in his statement. "You can call me Steve or Steven, you know."

  I mutely shook my head. Stupid, but I still had issues calling anyone that. With luck I'd never really care or get involved with anyone named that. It would be uncomfortable.

  "Ah, I see. Very well. You're right, I don't want you anywhere near that apartment, but I do need you to think about planar rips and how to seal them."

  "Which would be how?" I didn't keep the stress or exasperation out of my voice, didn't even try.

  "Well by closing them. But I'm well aware that is easier said than done, so I've asked someone in to help."

  I shrugged. "Okay. But you know I haven't heard anything about how to catch this guy. He sounds dangerous but how do we catch him."

  "People have patterns and go to what they know unconsciously. If we are lucky, we'll find something that will give us a clue. Otherwise"—his jaw clenched as he gave me a level stare—"we wait until people start dropping, then react. Which is why I must ask, even if I am being an ass, please don't kill your phone again. We have the police on alert to grab team members as soon as we have an idea. So please stay relatively available. As to the rest of what you mentioned. I'll remove the waiver on you as soon as we catch this guy. I'll warn you, trying to work while going to school is difficult, especially as a mage. It's why the government covers so much and expects the families to fill in the rest. Don't you have any support?"