Shifty Magic (16 page)

I imagined the surprise and alarm radiating
from whoever was on the other side of the doors. After a moment,
locks clattered as they disengaged, and we pushed through into an
open lobby that looked like the twentieth century New Age movement
had thrown up on it.

Amateur-level murals of
Egyptian gods and goddess cavorted across the walls in dazzlingly
shades of turquoise, yellow, red and the ever-present purple.
Mystical symbols of all kinds decorated the high ceiling, slapped
on using metallic gold and silver paint. Wherever there was some
extra space on the walls and ceiling, inspirational posters
declared worthless nonsense like:
Yes, you
can!
and
Think it
and you can do it!

A spindly, thirty-something woman stood
waiting for us in the middle of the impressive tackiness, her hands
winding around each other like they had something sticky on them
that she couldn't quite rub off. Her light auburn hair hung around
her thin face in fine wisps, and her wide, brown eyes regarded us
with nervous uncertainty.

"W-welcome to the international..."

Cooper gave her his most charming smile. The
receptionist's face turned red, and I thought she might faint.
"We'd like to speak with Mr. Tasson," he said.

"S-school of...what?" she ended with a
squeak. "He...I...is he in trouble?"

"We just have to ask him some
questions."

"He...doesn't interact with the public.
The...uh, energy disrupts his chi."

"He can talk with us in the comfort of his
office, or he can come with us to the station. His choice," Cooper
responded, his tone firm though not unkind. That was one of the
things I'd always liked about him. He was perfectly capable of some
serious intimidation, but he knew where to draw the line. Going
tough on someone like this poor soul would be nothing short of
bullying.

"He'll be...very displeased," the woman
said, her voice wavering into a whisper.

But sometimes a little pushing helped speed
things up.

"Get a lot of unhappy people looking for
him?" I guessed. Based on the décor alone, the guy had to be a con.
Real practitioners never flaunted it. They were too focused on
trying to blend in with the rest of humanity.

The mousy receptionist turned pale and tore
her stunned gaze from Cooper's pretty face to focus on me.
Personally, I'd never worried too much about blending in. If you
were willing to kick some ass, advertise it, and then the person
getting kicked had only themselves to blame. Thus, my limited
wardrobe of black or navy tanks and Ts, worn jeans and custom-made
boots.

"Um, well, oh dear," Mousy stuttered. "He
hates t-to be interrupted when he's working." The warmth of pride
touched her expression. "He's writing a book."

"He'll get over it," Cooper said. "How about
you let him know we're here."

"Oh, I couldn't."

"We can search the school, upsetting the
students and generally causing mayhem," I said, giving her a
benevolent smile. "Or you can do what my partner suggests." Out of
the corner of my eye, I saw Cooper give a start and glance at
me.

The receptionist stared at me in dismay, and
then scurried for the small receptionist desk to the left of the
lobby. She poked a series of keys on her laptop console and after a
moment, breathed a sigh of relief. "He's not answering. You'll have
to come back tomorrow."

"Search it is," Cooper said, heading for the
elevators next to her station. Mousy dashed from behind the desk
and slapped her hand over the call panel. "You can't go up! No
one...except registered students are allowed on the upper floors.
Classes are in session."

"Where is he?" Cooper
asked, gently moving her hand and pressing the
up
button.

"Last...oh, dear. It's his lunch time, you
see."

He leveled a hard look at her—the kind he
gave Stillman when she crossed the line.

"Second floor...on the left...down the
hall," she whispered.

We stepped onto the elevator and I jabbed
the button for the second floor. Cooper looked at the panel and
grinned.

"What?" I asked, wondering why he was
suddenly so amused.

"She's not as omega as she lets on," he
said, a touch of admiration in his voice. "More likely his Beta.
Based on what I've seen so far, Tasson will be on the top floor,
the king of all he surveys." He reached around me and pressed the
six on the control panel.

"I don't speak werewolf, but I think you're
saying the receptionist takes her job as first line of defense
seriously and lied to us."

"She's in love with him."

"Yeah, I wondered about that." I recalled
the way her eyes had lit up with admiration when she mentioned her
boss was working on a book. "He must be something else."

The elevator stopped at the second floor and
the doors slid open. We peered out at a white-painted hall with
cheap fluorescent lights tracking down the ceiling for the length
of it—about sixty feet.

A subdued bustle of people swam through the
narrow space going about their business of getting to class. They
seemed to be all ages and trailed unhappily from one open room to
another in small groups. A few glanced our way, curiosity
brightening their eyes for a moment at the sight of Cooper. Most of
them ignored us.

"Notice anything odd?" I murmured to
him.

"They're all women." He pressed his thumb on
the close door button, and we were off.

When the doors opened again, my eyes
widened. Where the reception area looked like a New Age nightmare,
the upper lobby was something from a gaudy Arabian nights sex
fantasy. Metallic gold paint covered the walls. Gauzy material
echoing the dazzling colors of the lobby draped in even scallops
around the ceiling.

Six women with dull,
unhappy expressions and barely-there costumes that ranged across
every stereotypical male fantasy lounged on sofas and divans and
even an old bean bag chair. They talked quietly, slept, or just sat
there looking stoned. The only exception was the slave girl
Princess Leia in the corner who was studying a fat textbook
entitled
Professor Tasson's Guide to
Finding Your Inner Practitioner.

We stepped off the elevator and the women
looked up. Time held its breath as shock registered on a few
faces.

"Haven't seen that for a while," the harem
girl said in a smoky voice. "You're a guy."

"He's had them before," the school girl
sitting next to her on an overstuffed sofa said. "Usually likes
them without quite so many muscles though." She took a sip from the
Styrofoam coffee cup in her hand, and her gaze moved up and down
Cooper.

"Great costume," Harem Girl said to me.
"That gun looks real."

"Steady," Cooper said, and I reluctantly
took my hand away from the Browning.

"What are you playing?" School Girl asked,
her eyes only for him. "A detective? Big T's been getting into
authority figures this week."

"Ladies." Cooper's smile swept over the
women in the room as he held up his iC badge, careful to include
all of them. "FBI." Everyone with their eyes open froze.

"Huh. That's new," School Girl commented
after a moment.

"Where can we find the professor?" he
asked.

The few women who didn't look stoned out of
their minds glanced at each other. Hope skated over their faces and
my shoulders tensed. What was this Professor Tasson jerk playing
at?

Some unspoken agreement passed between the
harem girl and the school chick. Harem Girl nodded behind her
toward a door draped heavily in purple and silver gauze. "In
there." A smile played over her full, red mouth. "If you hurry, you
might be able to arrest him."

* * *

Tasson's office was exactly what I expected after seeing his
waiting room. That is, a pathetic attempt to look like a hot
player's bedroom. Tasson, however, was not what I
expected.

For one thing, he was short and fat. I
estimated him to be about five-six and at least two hundred pounds,
though it was hard to tell in his currently reclined position on
the giant bed in the center of his "office". For another, he was
old, the muscles of his barrel-like chest and arms flaccid,
unimpressive things. His head was a shiny, bald dome. He had a
large, hawk-like nose and a thick-lipped, greedy mouth slashing
across underneath it.

As the door shut, his average blue eyes
darted frantically between us and the girl sitting beside him,
casually buttoning up her Halloween store cop uniform. Her short
hair was dyed in a rainbow pattern and shagged around her face,
emphasizing the soft roundness of cheeks that told me she probably
wasn't even seventeen. My blood started a slow, outraged boil.

Cooper aimed his badge at the man and kept
his expression a blank mask. "Xander Tasson, we need you to come
with us."

"I haven't done anything! I have signed
contracts," Tasson squealed, clutching the covers in his fists and
scrambling up until his back was to the padded, black satin-covered
headboard.

Glancing at the badge, the girl reached over
to the bedside table and picked up a dropper. She released a drop
of clear liquid onto her tongue and in seconds, her grimace
softened, and her expression relaxed into lines of contentment.

"He's a freaking dealer too?" I snarled,
stepping toward the bed. Cooper grabbed my arm before I got
anywhere.

The girl released a slow sigh and languidly
climbed from under the covers. Her shirt came to just below her
butt, giving her some coverage for which I was grateful. Padding
over to a chair in the corner, she retrieved the pair of
short-shorts that matched her costume and pulled them on.

"Block the door," Cooper said in the same
steady tone he used when he was angry but needed to remain
professional. "No one leaves unless I say so."

"What!" Tasson protested. "You have no right
to do this! We're consenting adults!"

The girl wandered toward me, her wide,
curious gaze taking in every inch of my outfit.

"You'll be surprised to learn that hooking
students on V isn't remotely legal," Cooper said to Tasson. An edge
of disgust slid into his calm voice. "And I doubt you're both
adults."

A cagey expression settled over the other
man's fat, saggy face. "They can't be here if they aren't eighteen.
And if they're drug addicts, that's no business of mine."

The girl stared at my Browning. "I wanted a
gun, but Xanny said it would only get in the way. Is it real?"

"Tell me your real birthday, and I'll show
it to you," I answered.

She smiled, twirling a lock
of green hair in her fingers. "October 9
^th
, 2017."

"How about that," Cooper said. "Sixteen
makes you a child molester."

"She's lying!" Tasson shouted from the
bed.

The girl leaned closer and whispered, "A lot
of us lie on our applications."

"I noticed," I said, thinking of the girls
in the lobby and struggling to keep from drawing my gun and
shooting Tasson where he most needed it.

"You'll be a big hit in jail," Cooper
added.

Alarm stretched across Tasson's features.
"I'm old. I won't last. I didn't know! Her records said she was
eighteen!"

I flipped the security strap off my holster
and pulled my gun out, after all a promise was a promise. If I
happened to accidentally aim the barrel at the scum freak on the
bed, no one could prove it.

The girl's eyes widened with admiration at
the sight of the Browning. "Can I touch it?" she asked.

"No."

Cooper grabbed the black satin robe at the
foot of the bed and tossed it at Tasson. "I'm shutting you down
professor. How long you stay in prison depends on how cooperative
you are in the next five minutes."

"You can't do this," he protested. "I'm
human. I have rights."

"It's your laws I'm following. If they were
my clan's rules, you'd already be dead."

I didn't think the old turd's eyes could get
any bigger, but they did, nearly bugging out of his face.

"That's right," Cooper said, leaning down
until his face was about four inches from Tasson's monstrous nose.
"I'm Were. I can smell every perverted inch of you, and I'll know
if you lie to me."

My trigger finger started itching, so I
holstered my gun. See? I can be mature. "I don't recommend you lie
to him, Xanny."

"This is harassment. Police brutality," he
sputtered.

"Not yet, it isn't." I rested my palm
against the handle of my gun. "I suggest you cooperate."

Giving a last, longing look at my Browning,
the girl wandered over to a snack table in the corner and started
picking over the food.

"I want to know about a former student of
yours," Cooper said. "Gregory Frost."

Tasson's gaze slid to the side. "I don't
remember anyone with that name."

"Did you fall asleep during the part where I
mentioned I didn't like being lied to?"

"We already know you enroll mostly female
students," I added, disgust curling around in my stomach now that I
knew why. "You know exactly who we're talking about."

Tasson's Adam's apple bobbed up and down as
he swallowed noisily. "Yeah, okay. It's coming back to me. A skinny
kid. Dark hair."

Cooper held up his iC with a picture of
Frost displayed. "This the guy?"

Tasson glanced at the photo and looked away.
"Yeah."

"Why was he here?"

"Why are any of them?" he said, turning back
and giving Cooper a belligerent look. "To bring out their magical
talents."

"I did a scan of the girls in your waiting
room," Cooper said. "They're all human."

The Police Girl picked up a chocolate cookie
from a tray. "No, we're not. Xanny knows how to make a scanner more
sensitive. We're yellow-purple. That means suppressed
practitioners."