Trio of Sorcery (6 page)

Dammit.

The best thing to do would be to get more information from that cop. And the best way to do
that
was to invite him into her apartment. Oh, hell no. That was not going to happen. She still didn't know if this was one of the cops who occasionally harassed Lavinia, who'd just used her name to get himself in Di's door.

Righto then. Make an appointment to meet him at the station.

For which she needed a phone, and she was not going to use a pay phone in this neighborhood. She had a healthy sense of where it was and was not safe for a woman to stand around on the street, preoccupied with talking. So, back home, phone the number on the card…or rather, hope that the line was free, because she had a party line, and then call the number on the card…

Oh, jeez. Another complication. Hope that no one is listening in, accidentally or on purpose, because the very last thing I need is for my neighbors to decide I am a narc, an informant, or both.
…

All right, set up a spell to tell her if someone on the party line had picked up.

I hate party lines.
But it was all you could get at short notice in that building. And it was much cheaper than a private line.

Do the magic, then phone Joe O'Brian. Complications. Always complications.
Bloody hell.

Set up an appointment that wasn't going to conflict with her classes. Unless she could get him to give her more information over the phone, which wasn't likely. Maybe phone Lavinia and ask
her
about O'Brian, see if he really was her cousin, or if Di was being set up.

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket and headed for the bus stop. An hour wasted that she could have used for studying. And it was getting colder.

The ride back mirrored the ride out; the only person who wanted to sit by her was a tired-looking woman who
had some sort of uniform on under her shapeless coat. Probably a maid, she was so happy to have a seat on the bus that she would have sat next to a wino who drooled.

Maybe Di was a little more sensitive than usual, but as she approached her building, still brooding about Tamara, she began to get prickles on the back of her neck. Not bad prickles as such, but there was no doubt that someone in the apartment building was fooling around with magic, and inexpertly. Fantastic. Just what she needed. Another do-it-yourself wizard trying to vibrate his way to Middle Earth. By the time she reached her own flat, the prickles had localized.

To the apartment directly above hers.

She groaned.
Great. Just great. I have a budding wannabe Gandalf living upstairs. Just shoot me now.

She waited apprehensively for some sign that this was yet another mess she as a Guardian was supposed to take care of, and finally breathed a sigh of relief when no such sign came. Then she made sure all the wards were up on her space, and strengthened them until she couldn't feel the tingle anymore.

There. That should keep what he was doing from interfering with what she was going to do.

First things first. She set up a little ritual circle around the phone with chalk and candles. She generally used birthday-cake candles, since they were the right size and colors for such a small bit of magic. First, the chalk circle—inside her personal wards, this was more of a size-
limiter than a protection. She used a simple piece of blessed chalk and a string and muttered the circle spell under her breath. Then she set up the candles and evoked each element in its proper space—yellow in the north for Earth, blue in the east for Air, red in the south for Fire, and green in the west for Water. With all that in place, she was ready to work the actual spell. This was all personal; there would be no Guardian help here. Which meant that she needed to be as economical as possible.

“As economical as possible” meant minimal use of energy, and minimal use of energy meant that she had to give careful consideration to exactly what she needed the spell to do. It was possible to give whoever touched a phone on this party line while Di was making her call the illusion that they were hearing static. But that would take more energy than she intended to use, and on top of that, it might have repercussions. If someone wanted to make a phone call and got static, he or she might go from door to door to find out who had left the phone off the hook. And while that might not be a big deal, it just might, if someone found out that she was a witch.

So the best, safest, “cheapest,” and simplest thing was just to set up something that would tell her when someone was listening. It was a spell that witches had been using for hundreds of years, and it was pretty obvious why a witch would want a spell like that. When you were doing something that was going to get you hung, burned at the stake, or otherwise shuffled off the mortal coil, it was a
good idea to have a way to tell when someone was snooping around.

After casting wards around the phone, Di touched it, infusing it with a bit of power, and with her finger, drew the sigil against eavesdropping on the middle of the rotary dial. She felt the energy leave her, making her feel a little more drained than she had the moment before.

Well, at least it worked.

She picked up the handset and dialed Lavinia's number first, watching the sigil, or rather, where she had drawn the sigil. Only if there was a third party on the line would it flare into life.

The other end of the line rang twice before someone picked up; the moment the person's hand touched that phone, Diana knew it was Lavinia. Just as Lavinia knew it was her.

“Good heavens, Diana, you are a suspicious little creature. The sigil against eavesdropping indeed.” Lavinia chuckled. “And of course you are calling about young Joe, because you cannot believe I would have sent him to you. If you had bothered to call me when you first moved here I would have told you all about him.” Oh, dear. A social faux pas. The Queen was Not Amused.

Di rolled her eyes. “And you are entirely too credulous for a Guardian,” she said crossly. “For one thing, I'm on a party line. And for another, you should know better by now. For all I knew this Joe O'Brian found your name on a casebook and—”

“And how would he have gotten your address then, if I hadn't given it to him?” Lavinia replied archly. “Really. You hippies—”

Diana suppressed the urge to make a rude noise. “I am not a hippie. But I'm considering becoming one, if only to irritate you.” She settled down into the chair next to the phone and prepared to take notes. “Tell me about O'Brian.”

“He's not really a cousin, he's the son of a very dear friend who always called me her cousin. He's a good boy. And more to the point, dear, he has had his share of cases he couldn't explain, and he's quite ready to Believe.” The way Lavinia said the last word, you could hear the capitalization. “I have worked with him a time or two when I got the Call. Mind you, I never, ever let him see just what we were getting into, but he certainly knew that there were things that I took care of that he would never want to put down on his reports.”

Well, if he'd gotten even a glimpse of what most Guardians got into, his hair would be white. “All right so far. You absolutely vouch for him?” She didn't need to capitalize anything. “And did you get—”

“Yes. And yes. This is something that needs to be handled, and not by me.” Unspoken was the “by you.” Di felt a headache coming on. Lavinia was a hell of a Guardian and the fact that she was still going strong at fifty and not dead was a mark of that. But her royal attitude sometimes left something to be desired.

Lavinia's tone softened. “Diana, dear, I don't have the
right skills. Your grandmother taught you how to debunk, yes, but this may be a situation where more than mere defensive
magic
may be needed, or even magic of the combative sort. Or as you have put it in the past, it is going to require mundane defenses—and perhaps, offenses as well. I know very well you have, and know how to use, firearms. I suggest that you get whatever you brought with you out and make certain it is cleaned and ready for use.”

Di got cold chills then, not just at Lavinia's words, but at her tone. “I will,” she said slowly. “Is this just a premonition, or have you gotten some sort of warning?”

Lavinia paused for a moment. She was probably trying to get a feel for the situation, which was what Di would have done in her shoes. Di let her take her time; this wasn't something you wanted to rush. “For now, just a premonition. Now call Joe, and tell him whatever it is you've seen or need to know. The two of you should take it from there.”

Di knew a dismissal when she heard one. The audience with Her Majesty was over. “Thank you, Lavinia,” she said. “Goodbye for now then.”

“Goodbye, dear.” Di waited for Lavinia to hang up before doing so herself. One retreated from the Royal Presence properly, after all.

Then she dialed the number on the card Joe O'Brian had left with her. With a much more businesslike manner, she arranged to meet him in the library of Dudley House between classes. That should be an appropriately
neutral spot. She still wasn't going to let him in her apartment. Not yet, anyway.

Then she sat back with a sigh and erased the sigil on the phone, extinguished the candles in the right order, and wiped out the chalk circle.

Which left her with—

The tingle from upstairs, currently blocked by her general wards, but she knew it was still there.

Which wasn't going to give her any peace for studying unless she looked into it. It was just going to nag at her until she found out which of the boys it was, how deeply into magic he was, and got as much detail as she could without either of them thinking she was a busybody or a nutcase.

Curses.

But if she was going to go charging up there, she had better do it with a peace offering in hand. People were more likely to think well of you if you came bearing gifts.

One came immediately to mind, because if one of those guys had ambitions to be the next Merlin, her candles would be especially welcome.

She delved into the cupboard and came up with two of the plain white “smells good” unconsecrated ones, a couple of fat pillars that would fit very nicely in a bowl. She stuck her keys in her pocket, made sure the door locked behind her, then made her way down the hall, up the stairs, and back down the hall. The halls in this place were virtually
identical, floor to floor. She wasn't sure what they had looked like in their heyday, but at some point in the fifties they'd gotten a renovation and hadn't been changed since. Linoleum floor, old tin ceiling with tiny, inadequate single bulb lights, white-painted walls, green-painted doors.

She could see now why there were studio apartments on the third floor and none to be had on the fourth. There simply weren't any studio apartments at all on this floor. These were the luxury apartments, a full story above the roofs of the surrounding buildings. Well, there was no accounting for what people in the early 1900s had wanted in their apartment buildings. Maybe the unblocked view, the unrestricted sunlight, and the breezes four stories up made up for the inconvenience of four flights of stairs.

Or—she tried not to grind her teeth a little, as she spotted an elevator door. One which did
not
have a corresponding door on the third floor. So that was how it was. If you paid the higher rent, you got to ride in style instead of schlepping up four flights of stairs.

On the other hand, do you really want to trust your safety to an elevator old enough to be your great-grandpa?

Maybe not.

So, Emory and Itzaak were in 4C. And there it was. 4C in old brass on the door. She knocked on it.

It opened immediately, and the face that topped the tie-dyed T-shirt could only belong to Emory, who was an exceedingly good-looking Asian man, taller than Di, with
slightly shaggy hair. The first words out of his mouth were “Em! You're ear—” Then he blinked. “Oh. Sorry. I was expecting someone else.”

It was pretty obvious that the “someone else” was not male. Not from the sheepish grin on his face.

Dammit. He has a girlfriend.
He also was not the would-be magician. There were absolutely no “vibes” of any sort coming from him.

“Sorry, I'm your downstairs neighbor, Diana—”

“Oh, geez—” He ran a hand through his hair, looking distressed. “Are we making too much noise? Is it the stereo? Is it us? I keep telling Zaak—”

She had to laugh, and interrupted him. “No, no, not at all! I just thought I should introduce myself so if I
do
come pounding on your door, you'll at least know who I am. And I brought—”

By now the door was standing wide open and she could see right into the apartment. And she was jealous, because it was huge. A living room twice the size of her entire place, a big kitchen, and it looked like at least two bedrooms and the bath between. It looked as though she wasn't the only one living under these guys; there must be another studio and a one bedroom down there with them overhead. A shaggy, curly head popped out of one of the doors, pretty much confirming her guess as she held out her peace offering. “Candles,” Di concluded.

The round little face beneath the curls lit up with a smile. “Candles! That's exactly what I need for my ritual!”

It was Di's turn to blink, her mouth almost falling open in astonishment that someone would just come out and
say
something like that in front of a stranger.

Her vibe-o-meter started to edge over into the red. It wasn't exactly going wild, but there was no doubt. Itzaak was the one trying to be a wizard.

Hoo-boy…

Emory rolled his eyes. “Zaak, how many times have I told you that you need to censor that mouth of yours before it gets you into trouble? What if this was a Jehovah's Witness?”

“Then I'd say I was glad our virgin sacrifice got here.” Itzaak's grin was infectious, though Emory still looked a bit annoyed. The rest of him came out of the bedroom; he looked a bit like Art Garfunkel, only with black hair instead of red. He approached with his hand held straight out. “Hi! I'm Zaak, Comparative Religion. This is Emory, Applied Mathematics. He thinks I'm crazy.”