“So, just in case you need protection,” Love continued, “we want you to meet a few people on the MERC force. You have time now, yah?”
“I guess.”
“Good. Come on this way.”
He stood, filling the free space in the room, and I stood too because even with the door propped open, the room suddenly felt much too small for the three of us. I stepped aside so Mr. Island Warmth could walk past me, and then grabbed my coat and exited the room right behind him. Payne followed, a blade of dark shadow on our heels.
Love led us through the maze of cubicles again, and the tightness in my chest squeezed harder. Getting out of that room hadn’t done much good for my claustrophobia. Even here it seemed too small for so many people, and so many desks, and so many walls. There wasn’t enough air.
I gritted my teeth and thought calm thoughts about big open fields and big open oceans and big open skies, where there was plenty of room and plenty of open and plenty of me breathing slowly and smoothly and not hyperventilating like a moron.
Then we were out into the lobby, into high ceilings and echoes and room to breathe, and no more hyperventilation. A hall to the left took us to another door that was card-locked and also had a hell of a Diversion glyph on it. Most people probably wouldn’t even see the door with that big of a Diversion operating. Behind the door was a stairwell. We went down at least two flights, the only sound the squeak of Love’s right sneaker, the clomping of my boots, and the ghostly hush of Payne’s sensible loafers.
Love stopped on a landing and turned toward a wall with a peeling paint job. It smelled strange here, a weird blend of hot epoxy and dill. Love pulled a card out of his pocket and held it waist high-as if there were some sort of scanner embedded in the flaking paint.
And look at that, there was.
A laser read his card, and then he fingered the motions to a glyph, which I couldn’t see since he was wide enough to block his hand and most of the stairwell from my view. He unlocked the Diversion glyph, and the wall with a crappy paint job became a wall with a door.
“Buckle up, Beckstrom,” he said as he stepped through the open door. “You must be this tall to ride the ride.”
I strolled into the room. Payne stepped in and locked the door behind us. I smelled the burnt epoxy stink of the Diversion spell snapping back into place as the door closed. Someone was doing a lot to keep this room beneath people’s notice.
For good reason. The room was large, windowless, and crammed full of so much magic and magical equipment, I literally felt it like a punch to the gut. An ant-bite rashy tingle washed over my skin and made me want to scratch every inch of my body.
As if that weren’t enough, magic twisted inside me, pushing against my bones, my muscles, my skin. My ears started ringing and the edges of my vision shaded. I took a deep breath and cleared my mind of the panic that was coming on fast. Panic was bad. Panic would make me lose control of the magic inside me.
That is, if I didn’t burn the whole place down first.
“You okay?” Love asked.
“Good,” I lied. I even put on a smile. It must have been close to convincing. He nodded. Magic inside me twisted, pushed to get out, to be used, licking hot along the whorls of color from my shoulder to my fingertips, cooling each band on my left hand and arm. It begged to be used. It would be so easy to draw on magic and cast it-not that I even knew what I’d cast it for. And then I’d pay the price.
No way.
Magic turned again, pushed at my skin. I did nothing. Nothing. And magic slowly ebbed.
Go, me.
“So here’s where a lot of it takes place.” Love waved his hand, gesturing at the room as a whole. I had no idea what he was talking about.
He did not step forward. The room stretched back farther than I could see, but as though I were looking through a fishbowl, I could not focus enough to actually make out the back wall. They had heavy Diversions in the room, probably some Glamour or Illusion, keeping my eyes believing what they wanted me to believe.
There could be an entire three-ring circus back there, elephants and all, and I wouldn’t see it through those spells. It was the most effective magical version of a one-way mirror I’d ever seen.
“All what takes place?” I asked.
Love pointed to my left. “Watching the city for magical crimes. Over there we have surveillance equipment in the most heavily populated areas of the city.” He pointed to my right. “Over there we have a magic-blocked holding cell, and back there”-he pointed at the fuzzy end of the room-“are restrooms.” He smiled.
Restrooms. Right.
“Okay, so you’re equipped to detect magic and crimes dealing with magic. Why show me?”
“Because, Ms. Beckstrom,” a new but familiar voice said from the fuzzy side of the room, “we need your permission to let us keep you safe.”
Paul Stotts, my bus buddy, appeared like, you know… magic, out of a thick fog that was the other side of the room. Well, well. He really was a cop. Let the show begin.
From Love and Payne’s body language, I figured he must be the boss here and maybe not a very well-liked man. Something about him made them uncomfortable. Something I just wasn’t getting.
Three people walked up behind him. Of the two men, one looked like an aging hippie gone bald with a pigtail of hair at the nape of his neck, and the other was about four feet tall and sandy-haired. He gave off a clean- cut accountant vibe. The woman was heavy and looked like she’d just come in from working as both fry cook and bouncer at a truck stop. They were all dressed in street clothes. Like everything else in the room, their scents were overpowered by the strong smell of magic.
“This is part of the team from Magical Enforcement Response Corps,” Stotts went on. “Officers Garnet”- the hippie nodded-“Julian”-the accountant smiled-“and Richards.” The woman held up one hand. “They have all been specially trained in magical abuse investigation, control, and regulation.”
“Nice to meet you all.”
Stotts walked forward. The rest of the MERC team went back to the fuzzier side of the room, chatting quietly amongst themselves where I could not hear what they said.
“I asked Detectives Love and Payne to bring you here after you gave your statement so you would better understand the lengths we will go to make sure you are safe.”
There it was again, people thinking I was in danger. “Are you telling me I need you to look after me?” I did not like people telling me I couldn’t handle myself or my life. Hells, I’d been mauled by my father’s ghost just this morning and managed to come out of that okay.
“Not at all,” he said smooth and nice-like. “I am asking for your help.”
Well. I had not expected that. My witty retort about not needing bodyguards or babysitters died on my lips.
“Excuse me?”
“We’d like to hire you to Hound a case we’re working on.”
“Why me?”
“It involves magic.”
If he had said it involved juggling ostriches, I wouldn’t have been more confused. All Hounding jobs involved magic. He wasn’t smiling, but I could tell he was enjoying himself. I gave him a dirty look and tried again. “Why not hire Martin Pike or one of the other Hounds who contract with the police?”
“We think you would be the best person for the job.”
Okay, there was more behind that. They wanted to either keep an eye on me, keep me in the city, or what? Maybe all the other Hounds were busy. Maybe I was being called in for a second opinion. That happened a lot-using several Hounds on one job to make sure the results were the same.
