Spellbent (13 page)

“Don’t go gettin’ all stressed about that, now,” Bo said. “They always give an eviction notice first moment you’re late ‘round here. Takes ‘em six weeks to evict anyone, so they want to get a good early start on laying the hammer down on folks.”

“They want a seventy-five-dollar late fee on top of the rent and the water bill,” I said, reading the notice. “That comes to seven hundred and thirty dollars. And they want it as a cashier’s check. Joy. I might be taking you up on that offer, Bo.”

“No problem, just let me know,” he replied.

I unlocked the door and stepped into the apartment. It had been built as the mirror image of Bo’s rental: a fairly basic two-bedroom town house with a drafty cinder-block basement. The bedrooms were spacious enough for most people, but got pretty cramped in a hurry if you had to find a place to put a library of arcana and a few hundred canisters of spell ingredients.

Cooper and I had decided not to magically expand the interior of the apartment as Mother Karen had done with her house. We didn’t know if we’d be staying there more than another year or two, and undoing that kind of enchantment was complicated and noisy and tended to leave magical residue that would be disconcerting for future tenants.

So Cooper bought a two-bedroom shack way out iii the woods in Athens County for a few thousand dollars, banished the termites and roaches and mold, and set up warding spells that would dissuade any rural burglar. He set up a trans-spatial door in the upstairs hallway of the apartment, and we were able to use the shack as our library, storeroom, and practice room.

We could have expanded the shack and just kept a one-bedroom or efficiency apartment as a portal into the city, but we were concerned about people seeing us carry in boxes and furnishings that the apartment couldn’t possibly hold. Curious neighbors usually became nosy neighbors. Northglade was in a handy location and allowed dogs. At the time, the extra expense seemed trivial.

“I better call Mr. Handley and see when I can get my paycheck,” I said to Pal as I locked the front door behind us. Pal clambered down and humped over to Smoky’s water bowl.

I sat down on our love seat by the living room phone and punched in the number for my day job.

Maria, the secretary, answered the phone. “Handley Construction, how may we help you?”

“Hi, Maria, it’s Jessie. . . look, I had an accident earlier this week, and that’s why I missed work and didn’t call in. Is Mr. Handley there? Can I talk to him?”

“Oh. Jessie.” Maria sounded uncomfortable. “I’ll . . . see if he’s available.”

The line abruptly switched to easy listening.

Pal humped into the living room. “I think something went bad in the kitchen. . . what’s going on?”

“Not sure. . . she put me on hold.”

The phone clicked silent for a moment, and then Mr. Handley was on the line: “I’m surprised you’d be calling here, Miss Feathers.”

What was with the “Miss Feathers” stuff? “Hello, Mr. Handley, I just wanted to—”

“Apologize for stealing three hundred dollars from petty cash? It’s a little late for that.”

“What?”

“Don’t play innocent with me. Not after you lied on your job application about your criminal record,” he said.

“I’m not a criminal. I didn’t steal from you,” I said, feeling lost at sea.

“I’ve got a copy of your arrest details right here in front of me,” he replied sharply. “Don’t you know this kind of thing is a public record? You were convicted of misdemeanor theft twice in the past three years.”

“No, I never—”

“Stop.
Please.
The police tell me there’s not enough evidence to have you charged. And you’re not worth suing. I don’t want to see you or hear from you again, clear?”

The line went dead. My heart was pounding in my ears.

“What was that all about?” asked Pal.

“I suddenly have a police record,” I replied, acid rising in my throat. “Everybody at Handley thinks I’m a liar and a thief. I’m a hundred shades of fired. Oh God. Where am I going to get rent money?”

The farmers. Cooper and I
did
manage to call down rain, after all, and the tornado didn’t touch the farms. The three-thousand-dollar fee would solve my most immediate problems. I flipped through the telephone book until I found the co-op’s number.

After a couple of minutes on hold, I was connected with Cooper’s farm contact, Mr. Maedgen.

“Yep, that was a right fine rainstorm,” he said. “Tell Cooper his money’s waiting for him here at the office.”

“Oh good,” I said. “Can I pick it up this afternoon?”

“Sure, as long as Cooper comes with you.. . we can’t give the payment to anyone but him.”

“But he
can’t
come with me,” I said, trying to keep my frustration out of my voice. “He had to go out of town on an emergency, and I don’t know when he’ll be back. We live together; I can show you the lease with both our names on it. Our rent’s due, and we’re going to be out on the street without that payment.”

“Well, I’m sorry, miss, but the terms of the contract are that the money is to be paid to Cooper Marron and nobody else.”

“But I helped him with the spell,” I protested. “You owe me as much as you owe him.”

“I’m sorry, but your name isn’t on the contract. Rules are rules. I can’t help you.”

I thanked him, hung up, and sat there with my head in my hand.

“Bad news?” Pal asked.

“If I ever get Cooper back, there are going to be a few changes in how he writes up his work contracts,” I said bitterly.

“Is there anyone who could lend you money for the time being?” Pal asked.

Well, there’s the Warlock,
I thought back.
But since he didn’t bother trying to get in touch with me after we didn’t show up at the Panda Inn Sunday night, maybe he’s trying to stay out of all this.

I punched in his number. A second later, I got a three-tone beep and a recorded female voice announcing, “I’m sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected. . .“

I hung up, feeling even sicker than before. “That’s not a good sign.”

“Could you try to open a mirror at the Warlock’s home?” Pal suggested.

I shook my head.
He and Cooper refuse to keep enchanted mirrors around. They say they’re too easy for other Talents to spy through.

“And telephones aren’t?”

I shrugged.
We all pick and choose. Cell phones are easy, and you can’t play MP3s on a pocket mirror. Or at least the boys have never been able to work that kind of magic.

I glanced down at my feet. Mr. Jordan’s contract and the quill pen lay a few inches from my left sneaker. Swearing long and hard, I grabbed the contract, balled it up in my hand again, and threw it with as much force as I could muster across the living room.

“This completely sucks,” I muttered, trying hard not to start weeping.

“Look, it’s not all bad,” Pal replied. “As Bo said, you have six weeks to avoid eviction.”

“I suppose so,” I said, taking a deep breath to get hold of myself. “But since Mr. Jordan’s been so kind as to rewrite me as a convicted petty criminal, I don’t think I have much of a chance of finding a job anytime soon. And there’s no way in hell my dad— I mean, my stepfather—would lend me the money. So I figure eviction’s unavoidable at this point.”

“Well, Cooper owns the house in the woods outright, doesn’t he?” Pal asked.

Yes,
I thought back.
He got a load of money from that exorcism he performed up in Cleveland.

“So if worse comes to worst, you can just move everything into the house, right?” Pal asked.

Sure, if all our stuff will fit,
I replied.
My architectural skills are crap; I couldn’t expand it any further.

“Well, then let’s go to the house and do some old- fashioned measuring, shall we? With the proper charms, I am quite sure you can get most anything into the house.”

Pal crawled up on my shoulder, and we went upstairs. The steel door to the house was right there on the wall between the master bedroom and the bathroom, huge and red and completely out of place. I stopped. Cooper always made sure to hide the door when we left the apartment, just in case maintenance decided to pay an unexpected visit.

I know he hid that before we left,
I thought to Pal. “I’m sure he did, too.” Pal sniffed the air. “Something’s burning.”

I went up to the door and put my palm against it. I, too, could smell burned wood and metal.
The steel’s warm.

Bracing myself, I spoke the key to release the lock. The door swung open to a burned wreck of smoldering boards and scorched fieldstones. Nothing of Cooper’s house still stood but the fireplace and chimney. Only an intense fire could have caused this kind of damage, but the flames had not spread to the pines that were only a few yards away.

Clearly, this was no accident, and no act of a mere vandal. Cooper had been very careful to protect the house against fire. Nobody but a powerful wizard could have countered his spells.

I stared at the ashes where our library used to be. Dizzy, I fell to my knees in the doorway. “Oh God. Some of those books were older than Moses... they didn’t
exist
anywhere else.”

“I don’t think they burned,” Pal said. “There would be magical residue from their destruction, and I don’t sense anything. Whoever did this absconded with anything of real value before they burned the house.”

“Whoever”? I don’t think there’s any question about who did this,
I thought grimly.
Why’d he bother leaving the apartment intact? Why not just burn it, too?

“He wouldn’t want that much collateral damage to the community,” Pal replied. “Better to show you he can find your secrets and defeat your master’s magic. Better to force you into eviction and break your will to oppose him.”

The fitful wind was blowing smoke into the apartment; our bedroom fire detector started beeping shrilly. I shut the door and spoke the word to hide it, then hurried over to the detector to hit the reset button.

Jordan sure didn’t waste his time putting the screws to us, did he?
I thought as I opened the bedroom window to air the apartment out.

“No, he didn’t. I am surprised at how far he’s gone to pressure you, and how quickly he’s put things in motion,” Pal replied. “A man in his position needs the approval of a Virtus for such extreme actions. He must have convinced at least one of them that Cooper poses a serious threat.”

But why?
I asked.
What threat could he possibly pose to anyone?

“I’m as much at a loss as you are,” Pal said. “There’s more to this than I can fathom right now. Even if Mr. Jordan was driven out of sheer sadism to torment you. . . well, he didn’t rise to his current position through self-indulgence. He’s committed nontrivial magical resources to breaking your will.”

Well, Jordan can go screw himself,
I thought.
If he thinks he can bully me, hes got another think coming.

“If the Virtii approved of arson, they may approve of murder,” Pal warned. “That’s a rare and serious step, but it could happen.”

Well, they didn’t burn down this lousy wreck of an apartment complex,
I replied.
So I guess they’re not ready to kill anybody over this yet. At least nobody but Cooper.

I looked around the bedroom. A few of the jewelry cases on my dresser looked as though they’d been moved slightly, but I couldn’t be sure.
Jordan’s goon squad went through this entire apartment, didn’t they?
I asked Pal.

“I can’t be certain, but given the circumstances I’d say you’ll probably find anything of any magical power to be mysteriously gone,” he replied.

Well, if Jordan’s got the keys to this place, and if I’m going to get evicted, I’m sure not going to stay here,
I thought.
Let me take a nap, and then let’s get this place packed up.

“Where will we go?”

Someplace where Jordan can’t find us, that’s for sure.

Supersonic Butterfly

I woke up groggy, socket and stump throbbing, as Pal poked my neck with his sharp little nose.

“What now?” I mumbled.

“Think to me, don’t talk,” he warned. “We need to find someplace else to stay as soon as possible.”

I sat up, looking around the bedroom. Everything seemed pretty quiet.
What’s happened?

“My overseer summoned me to his lair,” Pal replied. “They want me to abandon you and take an assignment with a new master.”

So you’re getting pressured, too? Swell.

I flopped back on the bed, then immediately regretted jostling my stump. As I rolled over onto my good side, I felt something crinkle beneath me. It was Mr. Jordan’s parchment and the quill. Again. I shoved them off the bed.

“No, you don’t understand,” Pal insisted. “This is unheard of. We familiars are supposed to be above any local political trouble a Talent might get into. We can be recalled if a master is formally convicted of a crime and banned from using magic, but this. . . this under-the-table coercion isn’t supposed to happen.
Ever.”