Much Ado About Magic (9 page)

“Do you need my help?” I asked.

I could tell from his expression that he was about to automatically say no, but then he paused to reconsider and said, “I might, since you wouldn’t be affected by the spell.”

Philip stepped forward, but Owen shook his head. “No, too big a risk. I know they’re gunning for you, and if anything happens to you, then there’s no way we’re getting that money out of their hands.” The bad guys were using Philip’s family’s financial business to fund their work, after the current owner’s ancestor had turned Philip into a frog to get him out of the way. We were still working on getting the business back for him. “You and Rod stay here and keep an eye on Marcia and Gemma. I’ll call you if I need you.”

I was halfway down the stairs when I realized I was still dressed for moving. Whatever was going on, I hoped I didn’t die or make the news because I didn’t have time to change.

When we got to the Diamond District uptown, I saw that you wouldn’t have to be in on the magical secret to know there was trouble. The street was lined with police vehicles, their lights flashing. A couple of fire trucks blocked traffic, and there was even an ambulance. People hovered behind the official vehicles, trying to see what was going on.

“Come on,” Owen said as he tugged me through the crowd. “And don’t worry, no one can see us.”

Just inside the police perimeter we came across one of the men in black who’d handled the armored car incident. I felt like we should have flashed badges at each other as we entered the crime scene, but he and Owen just nodded in greeting. “Hi, Mack,” Owen said. “What’s the situation?”

Mack gave a world-weary sigh. “Some idiot decided it would be fun to knock over a jewelry store by getting an innocent delivery guy with a hand cart to crash through the glass door, bust open a display case, and grab the ice. Only problem was, that glass is pretty damn hard to break. It went into shards, injuring the delivery guy, who’s still inside. When the perp’s victim couldn’t pull off the crime, the wizard panicked and blocked the whole place magically so no one can get in or out. The cops think it’s a hostage situation.”

“Which is the part you’re having trouble with?”

“That damned blocking spell. We can’t get past it, either.”

“Is the wizard inside or out?” I asked.

“We think he’s inside. That spell isn’t coming from anywhere out here.”

I turned to look at Owen, and he immediately shook his head. “No. No way. No how.”

“What?” Mack asked, watching us with narrowed eyes.

“I’m a magical immune,” I said. “I could get in there.”

“Oh, now this gets interesting,” Mack said, scratching his chin as a smile twitched his lips. “Very, very interesting.”

“What good would it do for you to go in there?” Owen asked.

“For one thing, I could get a first-aid kit in to that injured deliveryman. And for another, doesn’t generating a magical field like that require constant effort and attention if he hasn’t laid all the groundwork for a continuous ward?”

“You’ve spent way too much time with me,” Owen said, pride and dismay warring on his face.

“Think about it, Owen. I could distract him, which gives you a chance to break his spell, and we could end this thing.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Mack said with an expansive shrug. “You got anything better?”

Owen ran his hands through his hair and glared at the scene for a while before turning to me. “You’ll be careful?”

“No, I’m planning to recklessly endanger myself just to annoy you.”

That almost made him smile, and he had to fight to keep looking stern. “Okay, then. How do you plan to explain your ability to get in?”

“The nonmagical people will think I’m a medic, and the wizard should be baffled, which is what we want, right? Then when it’s all over with, I can slip out with the other hostages and you can make me disappear. You’ll be cleaning all this up anyway, won’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, we’ll be cleaning up,” Mack said. He waved his hands and an EMT jacket and hat appeared in them. He helped me with the jacket, then waved his hands again. A medical bag materialized. “You know what to do with this?”

“I know basic first aid—Dad made us all take a course at the store, since we work with sharp objects and poisons. The main thing is to stop or slow the bleeding—I mean, aside from coming up with a way to distract our wizard, which is my primary objective.”

“How do you plan to do that?” Owen asked. He still looked intensely unhappy about the whole situation.

“I’ll have to improvise,” I said with a shrug that I hoped looked more casual than it felt. In spite of my show of bravado, I was going shaky with the realization of what I was about to do. “It all depends on the wizard himself.”

Mack took my arm and said, “Let’s get this done,” but before he could lead me away, Owen stepped forward and kissed me fiercely. As Mack led me toward the besieged jewelry store, I glanced over my shoulder at Owen, who looked like he was contemplating sending me back to Texas, and then I was standing in front of the shop.

I had to clear my throat a couple of times before I could get enough sound to my voice to call out. Not that I really needed to say anything. I felt like my heart was pounding loud enough that they could hear me inside. “Medic!” I shouted through the broken glass of the door. “I’m here to see the injured man. I’m not armed. I’m just here to help.” When there wasn’t a response, I took a few deep breaths, and then with a trembling hand, I reached out and opened the door.

It was a tiny store, but with the merchandise they sold, they didn’t need a lot of space. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw that there were four people inside: an older man in a perfectly tailored suit, an equally well-dressed young woman kneeling on the floor next to a uniformed delivery man who was lying still, and a wild-eyed young man wearing a hooded sweatshirt.

I figured the agitated young guy had to be our wizard. He backed away from me as I made my way into the shop, one of his hands crooked in an odd position—maybe as part of doing his spell. “How–how did you get in here?” he stammered. That verified my assumption—only the wizard would know that it should have been impossible for anyone to get inside.

I gave him the blankest, most innocent look I could muster and raised the medical kit. “The police let me through, since I’m a medic,” I said. While he was still stammering and trying to find a way to say that wasn’t what he meant without revealing that he was using magic, I knelt beside the injured man. “How is he?” I asked the woman tending to him.

“I–I put my scarf on that wound on his arm,” she said. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the wizard and whispered, “He’s got a gun. Aren’t you afraid?”

Ah, so that’s what that funny hand position was about. He’d conjured an illusion of a gun and was “holding” it. I didn’t see illusions, so I just saw his hand bent in a way that looked very uncomfortable. “I don’t think he’ll shoot us,” I whispered to the woman.

Just then, she ducked and screamed, and the deliveryman jerked as though he was reacting to something loud or frightening, I turned to see the wizard holding his gun hand out in front of him, like he was taking aim. “Next one won’t miss,” he said, breathing heavily.

“Oh, did you shoot?” I asked. “I didn’t notice.” He frowned and brought his gun hand up to his face, inspecting it. I shrugged and went back to the injured man.

I carefully peeled back the scarf—which had a designer logo and probably cost more than my entire outfit—and saw that the gash on the man’s arm was bloody, but not deep and not bleeding badly enough to be life-threatening. I wouldn’t have to stretch my first-aid knowledge to play medic. “The bleeding seems to have slowed, so I’m not going to put much pressure on it, in case there’s some glass in the wound,” I said, making my voice calm and reassuring. I wrapped the wound in gauze and handed the scarf to the woman. “Soak it in cold water, and the blood should come out,” I told her. “If that doesn’t work, try club soda.”

“I don’t know what happened,” the deliveryman mumbled groggily. “I just suddenly went through the glass door.”

“Someone must have pushed you,” I said as I bandaged the other cuts on his arms and legs. Considering the amount of glass he’d gone through, I thought he was extremely lucky not to have a severed artery.

That part of my mission dealt with, I tried to think of something I could do to distract the wizard. He was obviously disconcerted by my arrival—pacing anxiously, his hands shaking, and his shoulders twitching—but since Owen and Mack hadn’t yet stormed the place, I figured he wasn’t distracted enough.

The wizard loomed over me. “How did you—” he began, then shook his head. “Why are you –”

“I told you, I’m a medic,” I said, standing up and facing him. “There’s an injured man here. You may be willing to sit around all day, but I figure he appreciates the help. It would be even better if you’d let him go as a sign of good faith. They might be less likely to shoot you as a way of resolving this.”

“They can’t shoot me,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, okay,” I said in the exaggeratedly soothing tone you use with crazy people. “But what are your plans? I mean, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life here. You’d run out of food. And, believe me, they’re not getting bored out there. They’re not going to just wander off when the game comes on and let you sneak away.”

“Shut up!” he screamed, pointing his non-gun finger at me. I felt a wave of magic, but it didn’t do anything to me. He frowned at his finger and gave it an “is this thing on?” shake before whirling to point it at the older man. The older man’s eyes went glassy, then he squawked like a chicken.

“Father!” the young woman cried out, rushing to his side.

The wizard turned back to me. His breaths came faster and more shallow. If he kept this up, I wouldn’t have to worry about a distraction because he’d pass out. To help that along, I said, “You do know the Special Situations squad is out there, right? You don’t want to go up against them. They can handle all kinds of stuff, if you know what I mean, and I’m pretty sure you do.” I hoped he wouldn’t know I’d made that up.

He raised his imaginary gun at me and braced it with his other hand. “Shut up! You don’t know anything! I’m more powerful than everyone out there!”

“Everyone?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and allowing myself the slightest hint of a smile. “Really? Are you sure about that?”

“I’m not talking about guns!”

“Neither am I.”

His eyes went so wide, they seemed to be mostly whites, and his breathing sped up to sharp little pants. Momentarily forgetting his hostages, he turned to look out the window, and I figured that was my chance.

I spun with a high kick, hitting his hands and, I hoped, knocking away the imaginary gun. He knew the gun was just an illusion, but the other hostages didn’t. The older man threw himself on the floor, grabbing thin air and then holding his hands up as though aiming at the wizard. While the wizard was still shaking his hands and cursing, I dove at him in a flying tackle that would have made my brothers proud, knocking him to the ground and digging a knee into his stomach.
Okay, Owen, is that enough distraction for you?
I thought.

It must have been, for a moment later, the door flew open and Owen and Mack ran into the shop, both of them wearing official-looking police jackets. At the same time, two other guys wearing FBI jackets burst in through a back door. Both of them held their wrists up, showing wide rubber bands like those fundraising and disease-awareness bracelets. They weren’t carrying guns, which led me to believe that they weren’t real FBI agents. They looked more like TV FBI agents. That or the Swedish water polo team. They were blond, and brawny, with toothpaste-commercial smiles.

The non-FBI guys seemed surprised to see Owen, Mack, and me. For a moment, they lost their pretense of authority as they looked at each other in confusion. “How did you get in here?” one of them blurted before the other could elbow him in the ribs and give him a stern shake of the head.

The second man then glared at Owen and Mack. “We’ll take over here,” he said. “FBI. I think we outrank you local guys.”

“It’s not your jurisdiction,” Mack said.

“It’s part of an ongoing investigation,” the fake FBI guy shot back.

His partner cleared his throat and said, “I think they know what we are. I recognize them. One of them’s with the Council and the other one is that Palmer guy from MSI.”

“What the heck?” muttered our suspect, and I remembered that I was still sitting on him. I figured I was light enough that it wouldn’t kill him if I stayed there until we worked all this out.

“Since you seem to know who we are, who, exactly, are you? You’re obviously not FBI,” Owen said.

“We’re here to help,” one of the blond guys said. “We were able to get through the barrier with these.” He pointed to his rubber bracelet. “So we thought we’d help with the situation.”

The delivery guy and the store staff were all looking at us like we were nuts, and I could hardly blame them. “Um, guys?” I said to the four pseudo officials who were posturing above me. “We have an audience. You can work out who the hero is later.”

“I’ll take it from here,” Mack said, stepping forward. “I’m the real official here. Thank you for your assistance.”

They looked like they might argue, but then the apparent leader shrugged and backed away. “We’ll leave it to you,” he said. The other guy frowned before following his lead.

I eased myself off the wizard and let Mack yank him to his feet. While Mack bound the wizard’s hands with silvery cords, the older man who worked at the store said, “He had a gun, and I got it when the medic kicked it away, but I must have dropped it in all the excitement. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere.”

“We’ll search the scene, sir,” Owen said, sounding very official. “Now, I need you two to leave. There are police waiting for you.”

The woman kneeling by the injured deliveryman asked, “What about him?”

“We’ll see to him, don’t worry.” Owen stared at the two of them for a long moment, then both of them blinked and looked a little foggy. The woman went to the older man, who put an arm around her, and with a last anxious glance over her shoulder, they went outside. The two fake FBI guys went with them, acting like they were the ones who’d rescued the hostages.