Magical Intentions

by Jaliza A. Burwell

  “I’m in the west? How the fuck am I in the west?”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry, Davies. This shouldn’t have happened. I don’t even understand how it happened.”

  He was quiet a little too long for my liking, but when he spoke again, he sounded understanding. “Babe, don’t worry about it. I’ll survive and be home soon to kick your ass for this. You can prostrate yourself then. Unfortunately, this means we have to put off our date.”

  I chuckled at his words. Silly man. People prostrated themselves for me, not the other way around.

  “Come see me when you get back,” I said.

  “Definitely, how else can I yell at you? You need to be in the room for that.”

  I laughed as he hung up on me.

  “Better?” Elliot asked, and I startled, forgetting he was there.

  I nodded, smiling. “Yeah, much better.”

  “Good, now come on. I’m to assist you for the rest of the day.”

  “Then to Henzie we go. I need his help.”

  Chapter 20

  I didn’t like incubi. They were manipulative, messing with your emotions to get the outcome they wanted. Henzie wasn’t much different. He wasn’t pushy, but he was powerful, and pheromones oozed out of him.

  I fidgeted with the little charm in my hand, glad Elliot was with me. I kept the charm on me at all times to counteract anyone who tried to manipulate my thoughts or emotions. I learned as a kid to have something like it. Some foster parents would try to influence the kids into complacency to make things easier on themselves. They didn’t want to be hassled any more than they already were.

  A shiver crawled down my back at a distant memory of a particular man who enjoyed controlling others. I shook my head and focused on the moment. On Henzie.

  He leaned against the counter, his lean frame trying to beckon us closer. I felt a small attraction, small enough to be easily ignored. I would always feel that little bit of attraction. He was an incubus after all.

  “So, what are we doing?” Henzie asked, cocking an eyebrow. He looked so damn smug.

  “A sneaky little pixie created a device capable of stripping down wards and sold it to a baddie. We need to find a way to counteract that device. Since it seems magic won’t work, we’ll need your help.”

  I lifted up the small device I’d created to show Henzie.

  Henzie’s lime green eyes flashed with curiosity as he stared at the device. “This is just a little prototype I put together after studying and thinking about what the original device was able to do. It latches onto the magic itself and leeches it, stripping the ward away.”

  “And you want to come up with a piece of tech that will be able to alert us if this device is in use?”

  I nodded. “Exactly. My wards to my lab didn’t go off when this was used and the other two labbies had the same experience. We didn’t know anything happened until we came and discovered our labs were broken into.”

  “The device doesn’t set the wards off.”

  I nodded. “I think we can create something that will go off though.”

  I handed the small device over to Henzie, watching him. His handsome face turned contemplative. I couldn’t help but enjoy the way his curly dark brown hair framed his masculine face, the harsh lines that only made him more intense. He had dark creamy skin with an underlying glow that only the supernatural had.

  “Dr. Porter?” Henzie asked, his voice extra smooth.

  “Huh?” I looked up to meet his eyes.

  “Did you hear me?” His lips turned up into a self-satisfied smirk.

  Elliot let out a cough I knew he used to cover a chuckle. I sent a glower his way.

  “Just because I don’t want to bang him doesn’t mean I’m blind,” I said with a shrug, owning up to my little slip. I shoved my hand into my jean pockets and allowed the little charm to ground me.

  Henzie laughed, the sound like twinkling bells. Everything about him was created to attract the opposite sex. Everything he did, every movement, every sound, every shift was designed to lure women to him. And he was damn good at doing it.

  Did I mention I didn’t like incubi? They were cheaters in my eyes. Not having to do any real work to get what they wanted out of someone.

  “All right, I have a couple of ideas. I’ve been playing around with the idea of cameras being sensitized to disrupted magic. Magic is—”

  “Free flowing,” I finished for him as I made the connections.

  “Yes,” he answered, grinning. “It’s all around us, that’s why mages are able to pull it in to do their stuff and why people like you are able to recharge so easily. We have the ability to track magic because we are so sensitive, but humans can’t. That’s why it’s easier to get away with using it around them. They don’t even know what’s happening to them. I want to create a way for our human employees to know when something is brewing nearby. It’ll increase their chances of staying out of trouble.”

  None of us said anything because of how true his statement was. Last month, we’d lost one of the humans because of a magical attack. It had hit everyone hard.

  Death was a big possibility in our business. I learned the first week I worked here about the loss of two people who were on an assignment gone hugely wrong. A huge portion of employees played bodyguard, but that meant their job was to put themselves between their client and the baddie. And sometimes when they did that, they didn’t survive.

  The fact that Henzie was trying to find a way to help prevent this said a lot about him. He cared. He really did. He was more than just a walking sex machine.

  “So you can do this.”

  “If it keeps others from getting hurt, yes I can.” He leaned back and smiled. “We wouldn’t want to lose one of our precious dragons, now would we?”

  “I think they would crucify us for it. And the company would turn into a laughing stock for getting a dragon killed when the dragon is capable of eating a small village in a matter of moments.”

  “You guys are being a little dramatic,” Elliot said.

  Henzie and I shared a look before Henzie said, “You really just don’t understand, man. The pressure us labbies are under is similar to deactivating a nuclear bomb.”

  I snickered when Elliot’s eyes narrowed onto Henzie. But I couldn’t say Henzie was wrong. In a way, our jobs were hard. No, we didn’t have to face murderers, guns, bombs, magical death—wait, we did risk magical death. We also faced possibilities. We had to get our prototypes right, because if we did something wrong with them, one small miscalculation, then the meatheads were sure to die when they tried to use them.

  People would try to console us, say it wasn’t our faults, but if our creations didn’t work, then yeah, it was our fault. We didn’t get it right and someone who should be alive would be dead.

  And to make it worse, the others wouldn’t trust our products, and we would become obsolete. Our jobs were to create tools to help the other employees do their jobs and the pressure to get it right would crush even the strongest of us. The turnover rate for a BMS labbie was at about seventy percent. People didn’t last long.

  “All right, Henzie, I’m going to leave this to you. If you need me for anything, please let me know. We need to get this up and going soon. The dragon comes Friday evening, leaves late Sunday morning.”

  “I’ll have something for you tomorrow. I’ve already got a program set up for security to download into their system, it’ll give the cameras an extra boost to see more than they normally can.”

  I nodded. “Perfect.” One thing off my plate.

  We left Henzie to do his job and worked our way to my next destination.

  “Where to?” Elliot asked.

  “To look at the trap Davies activated. I’ll need to adjust it so we don’t send anyone else to the west.”

  Elliot followed quietly as we walked to the third floor office Davies had managed to sneak into. I had three traps for this room. One by the window, one by the door, and another by the small closet d
oor.

  “How did the magic transport him so far away?”

  “I don’t know,” I confessed, wincing at the admission. No magic user liked admitting to not understanding why magic didn’t work the way it should have. Everything went right, everything felt right, but the magic just decided otherwise. What was worse was if the magic didn’t work. It was supposed to fizz out, not send someone across the continent. Apparently, I didn’t fit in the normal mold if my magic sent others to the west.

  “Magic is fickle on most days. I know I get it right most of the time, but once in a while, the magic decides to play its own tune. I think that’s what happened here. It’s impossible to do a transport spell like this and send them to a place you’ve never been. I shouldn’t be able to send someone west since I’d never been there. I’ve never gone beyond the Mississippi River. I don’t have a proper image to instill into the magic.”

  “So, what? The magic just decided to send him out west?”

  “Yes.” I grabbed the pocket knife tucked in my bag and flipped it open, crouching down to the base of the wall. I pushed it into a crack and popped the panel, revealing a small hidey hole I created, just big enough to slip my fingers in. I touched the tiny device I had inserted and closed my eyes.

  “Please give me some space,” I said.

  I felt more than heard Elliot step back before I began the process. First, I had to release the current magic on the trap and then redo it to what I wanted. I imagined the small closet space, where it should have sent Davies in the first place. When the magic took hold, I released my grip and leaned back.

  I looked over at Elliot. “Ready to test it out?” I asked.

  He eyes widened, and he swallowed hard.

  “I promise it won’t send you out west. And besides, the griffins are already on their way. You would at least be able to keep Davies company.” I laughed hard at his expression. He looked like he bit into a rotten apple.

  After a few more minutes of talking, I finally convinced him to give my trap a try.

  It worked. We were back on track. Now to make sure everything moved smoothly together as one conducive machine, with all the gears well-oiled and fitting perfectly.

  Chapter 21

  I couldn’t stop grinning as I stared at the bracelet in my hand. The earthy beadwork was stunning and there was a gorgeous pop of reds and blues. For a guy at risk of becoming a barbeque dinner, Davies sure came back with some nice souvenirs.

  He’d returned the night before, and I stayed at the office until he came to see me. I let him vent his frustrations and fears. It was the least I could do. He was sweet, and righteously angry. I had put his life at risk.

  But what really warmed me up was the fact that he didn’t blame me for any of it. He was just a man given a scare and needed someone to yell around while he released his fears. Even if he didn’t blame me, I still did. I just had to make sure not to do it again. I refused to be the reason someone got hurt, especially if it was something I could have prevented. I didn’t need that kind of weight on my shoulders.

  “Dr. Porter, we are all set,” Alijah said, standing in my lab’s doorway.

  I straightened up from the lab bench and walked over to him, smiling. “Great, let’s get this show on the road.”

  He nodded and led the way up to the security room. I cocked an eyebrow, impressed with the scene. I’d been in here a handful of times and it had never looked like this. Henzie had managed to remodel the room overnight. There were more people, more screens, and more technology. A big machine stood off to the side, printing off magic and energy levels throughout BMS with someone glancing at them and talking with another techie person about the results.

  Everyone had a task and they knew exactly what they needed to do and how to do it. Efficient. I was seeing teamwork at its finest. I wasn’t familiar with teamwork, never really had to deal with it, so to see such an efficient group was beautiful. It was like watching a dance, no one stepping on any toes, everyone understanding their place and how important they were in the whole machine.

  Less than four days to iron everything out. It was going to be a close call.

  “Here you go.” Henzie strutted over and handed over a touch screen device.

  On the screen stood Rhett Gayle, standing outside the gates and ready to go.

  “He’s back?” I asked.

  “So you’re the one who sicced him on a child abductor,” Lombardi said, strolling into the room. He didn’t walk as smoothly as Henzie, but he walked with a confidence not many had, and that drew eyes. I doubted he ever walked into a roomful of people and didn’t draw attention to himself. The way he held himself, he practically demanded it.

  I shrugged. “He didn’t need me to get him to take on that case.”

  “No, but you gave him a key clue.”

  “He went after the sprites.” I narrowed my eyes and looked at him through the screen. As if sensing my anger, he lifted his face to the camera, his expression blank. Elliot stood next to him, filling him in on what we needed him to accomplish. We were going to treat it like a real break-in. Something Elliot said drew Rhett’s attention back to him.

  “He talked to them and they led him to a lonely nymph. The children are back with their families.”

  I smiled at that. I knew Rhett was the perfect man for the job. Despite his warring emotions, with six hundred years of life experience, he would have handled it like a true diplomat.

  “All right, let’s get this show on the road,” I spoke up, demanding attention from everyone in the room. They all focused on me and I continued, refusing to falter because of so much attention. “Rhett Gayle is going to break his way through. Our job is to find him and capture him with all the resources we have. Do not go easy on him. He’s going to find our weakness and try to exploit it. If he gets up to the fifth floor and into the guest suite, we lose. Do you understand?”

  Everyone confirmed they knew what to do, and someone signaled Elliot to give Rhett the go ahead.

  Before Elliot had even finished talking to him, Rhett disappeared.

  He was perfect for this job. Even I didn’t know how he planned to get through the wards, but he was a very powerful vampire. I believed it had been mentioned that he was master level. I didn’t understand exactly what that meant, but if master was put in front of anyone’s name, then they had to be taken seriously. Just like putting doctor in front of my name. And being labeled a slayer made him all the more dangerous. That title wasn’t handed out to just anyone. Rhett had earned it when he’d killed his master, the same vampire who murdered his family. That made his full title Master Slayer—not a vampire to mess with.

  Rhett knew what he was doing, and since he hadn’t been around to help me set everything up, he didn’t know what to expect.

  “Find him,” I said out loud as I flipped through cameras, knowing none of them would see him.

  “Looking,” someone called out.

  “How’s the ward?” I asked no one in particular.

  “Still secure,” a new voice responded.

  “Dr. Porter, a window on the second floor has been opened,” a guard called out. So much for the ward working. I’d have to ask Rhett how he got through.

  “Send out team one, sweep the floor, keep bodies in the stairwells.”

  He relayed those orders as I began looking through cameras on the second and third floor, focusing more on the third. Instinct told me, he was already getting close to the fourth floor.

  “Third floor,” I called out, seeing a door cracked open that should have been shut all the way. Messy. I would have to tease him about it later after we captured him. “This room is?”

  “A storage room.”

  “Send guards up to the fourth floor, covering all points of entry and in the room above this one.”

  “Already setting up.”

  “Spotted!” someone yelled through the talkie. “Shit, he’s fast.”

  “He’s a vampire, of course he’s fast,” I whispered.<
br />
  “Use the net I created,” I reminded them.

  “Shit,” the word crackled through the talkie. “Level 4, Sector C.”

  “On it,” someone else replied.

  I flipped through the cameras until I could see all the action. The guards were all on the fourth floor, working their way down a hallway.

  “Herd him toward Sector B,” I said and grinned.

  “What’s in Sector B?” Alijah asked.

  I turned and smirked at him. A little surprise that I didn’t think he could make through.

  And I was right. We caught Rhett. To avoid the guards, he had to change his trajectory and ended up in the men’s bathroom, where he set off one of my favorite traps. Before he understood what was happening, he was drenched with freezing cold water and stuck in one of our rooms.

  “Everyone regroup, and we’ll discuss before sending someone else through,” I said into one of the talkies.

  Chapter 22

  The rest of the week continued just like that. We ran drills—a whole lot of drills—and after each one, we talked about what went right, what went wrong, and how to improve. We shifted security procedures to account for weaknesses we were able to ferret out.

  The work was exhausting, but it was uplifting to see people work together so perfectly to solve a problem. Teamwork. Something I’d never had to think about. I realized over those couple of days how lonely it was to be a team of one.

  By Friday evening with only an hour before showtime, I was reduced to a pile of nervous paranoia. Questions kept going through my head. What could I have done differently? What if I didn’t think of everything? What if nothing I did worked or was good enough?

  What if I got a dragon killed? The world would hunt me down, crucify me, make me an example of what failure looked like. I despised failure.

  “Enough, Dr. Porter!” a harsh voice snapped, and I whipped my head up from the maps to look at Lombardi. His deep frown showed his frustration as he walked into the security room. “Enough,” he said, his voice softer. “No matter what happens this weekend, I’ll stand by you. This company stands by you.”