While I was going over my current predicament, where was my apprentice and our familiars? They should have been able to fetch me even if I was unconscious.
There was another table in the corner of the room. On it was my watch, my grimoire, wallet, knife, and hell, everything I normally carried in my leathers.
I heard footsteps. They stopped outside the door to my guest quarters.
I took a deep breath and waited to see what new foe was screwing with me.
The door opened. It was held open by a man in Air Force battle dress while four civilian-attired people came in. The flyboy closed the door after they were in.
The four, two men and two women, formed a two by two formation in front of me. I surveyed their faces, looking for an indication of who was in charge. The closest person to me was one of the women. She looked vaguely familiar and then I remembered. She was the witch who had been at the hangar when we had recovered Tess’s bolts. Surely, she hadn’t been the one to knock me off Beast. I caught the glint of recognition in her eyes and then she looked down, avoiding my gaze.
The man next to the witch was short, probably not more than five six and his head was level with the witch’s. She was wearing flats while he looked like he might have lifts in his shoes. He was frowning at me as though I had interrupted his lunch or maybe his naptime. The woman behind him was tall, at least six feet, and had no trouble meeting my gaze. She didn’t appear hostile at all, rather if anything I got the feeling that she was bored with the whole business. She wore a suit that looked too nice for a civil servant and had diamond studs more appropriate to over-paid football jocks than to a businessperson.
What kind of business was she in? I wondered.
The last of the quartet was the oldest of the four. He looked ex-military and stood with an erect posture that would have been more at home in a Marine Corps ad. He was frowning at me too.
Why did everyone seem pissed at me when I didn’t know any of them?
“I’m glad you were available for this meeting,” I began. “I know it was short notice, but I just couldn’t stop by Florida without having a sit-down with you.”
I made a point of glancing around the bare floor of the room. Hmm, no circle. Did that mean that they knew I had no magic or that it hadn’t occurred to them? “Ah, well a stand-around rather than a sit-down.”
I thought I saw a trace of a smile on the witch, but she quickly hid it.
The perfunctory little man directly in front of me turned to the witch. “Are you certain this is the person who broke into the hangar in December?”
The witch turned slightly to face him and nodded. “Definitely, it’s him.”
“I thought he was supposed to be something special.”
“If I’m not special, why are you talking to me?” I asked.
The bureaucrat, by this time I was certain he was of the family of paper-pushing morons who know little about anything that isn’t in their narrow worldview.
“He’s changed. I checked his aura and it’s odd,” the witch said.
“Odd, how? Explain.”
“When I saw him in the hangar he had a strong gray aura. I’ve never seen anyone else with a gray aura except for the woman who was with him. Now, he still has a gray aura, but it’s pale, so pale that it’s hardly visible.”
“And that means?”
The dark haired woman in the back spoke up for the first time. “For Pete’s sake, Wendell, it means he has lost his magic.”
Wendell, the bureaucrat, turned to face the new speaker. “Is that possible, Aesa?”
Aesa? That name sounded familiar, but I was certain I didn’t know her or these other three.
“Obviously,” Aesa replied. “Otherwise, as Ms. Lowden stated earlier, your little gun wouldn’t have taken him down.”
“About that,” I interjected. “Just what did you shoot me with?”
The ex-military type pulled something from his pocket and slid it across the table toward me. When it stopped sliding, I saw that it was about the size of a roll of quarters, but was clear. There were letters on the side. Taser XREP.
The older man’s voice was raspy, as if he’d spent too much time as a drill sergeant and it had affected his voice. Frankly, it sounded better on Bonnie Tyler than him. “It’s a Taser shotgun round. After the break-in, we deployed several auto-firing shotgun variants of the CROWS III system. It’s not ideal for protecting facilities, unless your objective is to capture rather than kill.”
“So-o-o-o,” I drew out the word. “Now we shoot civilians without warning?”
“Hostiles,” he corrected. “We shoot hostiles without warning.”
“Enough,” ordered the bureaucrat. “We aren’t here to chit-chat.”
“What are we here for then, pray tell?” I asked meeting the man’s hostile gaze.
“The OTF is interested in anyone who displays magical abilities. We thought you were our intruder, but that hardly seems likely if you have no magic.”
“I told you, he’s lost it. He is definitely the one I saw,” the witch, Ms. Lowden, interjected.
“The one you told us we should avoid? You witches are too afraid of anyone you don’t understand. So he’s lost his magic. Will he get it back
