Undercover Magic (4 page)

I headed for one of the many abandoned neighborhoods in Charlotte. Ducking past the
shattered entrance of the once prestigious gated community, I took off down a pitted,
overgrown road. Running as silently as I could, I cut to the right, darting through
the beaten down ruins in a zig-zag pattern that I hoped would confused the Were trackers
that  would be brought in when they realized they'd lost me.

Once I was sure I was out of sight and that I'd given them enough trails to stay busy,
I wound my way to my real goal—a half destroyed home at the end of what had once been
a family-friendly cul-de-sac. I imagined happy kids riding their bikes around in front
of their houses, which had probably never happened given the level of wealth and prestige
this particular community had commanded.

I ran toward the collapsed and charred corpse of what was once a large brick colonial.
Smashed walls, exposed floors, and broken furniture were all that remained, as if
a giant toddler had decided her doll house displeased her and had taken a bat to it.

Darting behind the half of the house that still stood, I prowled to the back. Approaching
a section of the foundation that had cracked, I glanced around and then slipped feet
first into a crevice at the base that was hidden behind the weeds.

Now you see me, now you don't
, I thought as I slid from the humid warmth of the late morning and down into the
cool, earthy space that was once the basement entertainment hub for the occupants
of the home. I landed with a crunch on the broken glass scattered over the floor and
stepped carefully toward the stone fireplace.

The fireplace was a classic rustic design made of heavy gray stone with an inner hearth
that was about four feet by five. The huge flat-screen television that had once hung
over the mantle now lay in a shattered mess and was the source of most of the glass
covering the floor. Next to that were the remains of a pool table, long ago salvaged
for kindling, as well as the guts of a leather sofa whose leather had been stripped,
probably to be repurposed as clothing or storage containers.

I climbed into the inner hearth and sat down facing forward, hugging my knees to my
chest. This particular access point had been one of my ideas and I was particularly
proud of it. I pressed my hands against the slate and my skin tingled as the scanner
read my identity. Two handles popped out into my palms. I gripped them.

"Addison Kittner. Access required," I said in a firm, clear voice and I braced myself.

The back of the fireplace flipped over, carrying me with it head over heels like I'd
done a fast backward summersault. Left behind was an empty fireplace and the trashed
room that would immediately be sprayed with a fine mist composed of water and skunk
discharge. The perfect cover to hide my trail from sniffing Weres.

The panel at my back jerked to a stop and locked into place, and I dropped to a dirt
floor, landing on my feet. The clean, moist scent of earth and rock washed over me.
The tunnels Falcon had designed during the war stretched to my right and left with
periodic low-level blue lights strung along it.

He and I knew every inch of these tunnels and they'd saved my life more than once.
These days we only used them for emergencies, not wanting to risk their discovery.
As far as we were aware, we were the only ones who knew about them or used them, but
the world was full of dangerous and clever things and only fools assumed life was
safe.

Drawing my gun, I backed up against the cool, packed earth of the tunnel wall under
the fireplace trap door.

When nothing jumped at me, I headed off to the right. Time to get the only other person
I cared about to safety.

*  *  *

Traveling through the tunnels, I'd managed to cross the city in a few hours without
mishap. I'd stopped once for food and water at one of the lockers we had scattered
throughout, but other than that, I'd kept an unbroken, steady pace. When I reached
the access point I needed, I eyed the hole in the wall just above eye level with distaste.
This one had been Falcon's idea. Figured.

Resigned to my fate, I backed up to the other side and judged my trajectory. I got
a running start, jumped and dove into the hole. I managed to get my upper body in
and scrambled the rest of the way, feeling like Winnie the Pooh stuck in Rabbit's
house.

Once my thighs passed the entrance, I commando crawled up the ascending passage. Only
four and a half feet high, the short tunnel narrowed down to three and if you didn't
know any better, you'd think you'd just gone to a lot of trouble to get to nothing
but a dead end.

Anyone claustrophobic, or with knowledge of tunnel integrity, wouldn't give it a second
look and would move on to pursue more obvious exits. As it was, this particular little
sweetheart was our main access point to Falcon's shop.

When I reached the debris piled at the end, I squeezed over onto my back. The tunnel
above me looked like nothing special, mostly dirt and roots and no way out. It was
actually a fake composite of soil mixed with plaster and various realistic touches
like dead bugs and rocks that we'd spackled over the cement foundation under the store. 

I pressed the pads of my forefinger and middle finger to a spot just to the right
of a large fake root, spitting crud and a few curses when soil showered into my face.
I tried again and was rewarded with the sluggish clatter of locks disengaging. When
the noise died down, I braced my palms on the surface above me and pushed. The trapdoor
into Falcon's shop didn't budge.

With a grunt of effort, I pushed harder, my teeth crunching on an extra dose of dirt.
Slowly, painfully the door inched up. As I squinted and coughed from the sawdust drifting
down on me, I heard a large container of some kind laboriously coasting off the door.

Annoyed, I gave a final shove. The blockage slid away with a complaining thump, the
door flipped open and late morning light spilled into the tunnel. Pulling myself up
using the edge of the frame, I climbed out into Falcon's back storage room.

A jumble of shelves, barrels, trunks and tables full of all things magical, magically
enhanced or just plain gadgety cluttered the space around me, making the twelve by
twelve room look like the playhouse of a magician hoarder gone mad.

I shut the trapdoor and pushed the blasted crate back over it. Brushing sawdust and
dirt off my clothes, I opened the door to the shop and stalked out.

Magical Bits, as I liked to call it, wasn't open yet and the main area spread out
in front of me was empty of people except for the lanky, bespectacled seventeen year
old hunched over the counter. Falcon's faded jeans, stained cartoon-covered T-shirt
and his eternally mussed rusty brown hair were as hodgepodge as his uncle's shop where
he'd worked since he was twelve.

Also like the shop, his external appearance effectively hid a wealth of powerful secrets.
Unlike the shop, that included an astronomical level of genius. At least, I didn't
think the shop was sentient. I'd have to remember to ask him about that. Right now
I was too pissed about the tunnel entrance.

"Jesus, Falcon. An old crate of books? Seriously?" I complained.

"What up, Addie K?" he said, grinning as he continued fiddling with the insides of
some ill-fated electrical device.

"No time for retro surfer fun. Is Wizard safe?"

"Little Wiz is cozy and cosseted in a secret location known only to the good witch
of the North."

I rolled my eyes and leaned on the counter to get a better look at his project. "You
packed?"

"Unnecessary."

"Not a choice. Bellmonte won't hesitate to hurt you."

"Has to get me first," he said, his tone turning serious.

He tweaked some secret inner working of the device and it blinked to life. Retrieving
the silver-colored back of the gadget from the corner of the counter, he snapped it
into place.

Falcon held up the device, aimed it across the shop at a stack of what looked like
human eyeballs in glass tubes and pressed a button. The eyeballs exploded like pimples,
splattering goo all over the insides of their containers.

"It does other cool stuff, too," he said, smug satisfaction sparkling in his eyes.

"Better than vaporizing cow eyes? Awesome. Now let's go.  My way out of the country
leaves in two hours."

"Nope."

"Does this have anything to do with the girl hiding against the wall behind the Tarot
card display?" I turned around, braced my elbows on the counter and gave the kid standing
against the wall a hard look. Her eyes went wide, but she didn't move.

"You're not invisible, kid. I can see you," I said.

Falcon leaned over the counter and waved his hand in front of my face. I reared back
and gave him a dirty look. 

He stared at me and then toward the wall about a foot to the left of accurate. "Actually,
she
is
invisible."

"Ha. Ha. There's a skinny kid about twelve or thirteen years old with dark skin, braids
and scowling like she wants to kill me standing right there. Sound familiar?"

The pretty African-American girl stepped forward and glared at Falcon. His gaze focused
instantly on her as if he'd just noticed she was there.

She marched toward the counter. "You told her," she accused Falcon.

"I didn't say anything. Don't know how she saw you."

Jolly jokesters. "So what's your story, kid?" I asked.

"My uncle's looking after Chiwa for a while," Falcon supplied.

The girl stopped a couple yards short of me and lifted her chin. "I'm in practitioner
school."

"Congratulations. That's not much of a story."

"My mother's dead and my father's scared of me."

"Better."

She gave me an assessing gaze. "You helped Falcon catch Laiyla Billings' killer last
summer. Now that she's famous, we have to study one of her books," she said, her tone
implying that somehow that was my fault. "I told my teacher that unless it included
an anti-boredom spell, we were screwed."

"She got lunch detention," Falcon added, and I thought Chiwa's scowl might set his
hair on fire. "Oh! I almost forgot." He reached under the counter and pulled out a
folder. He handed it to me. "The good witch left this for you."

"You know Ms. Fairview's not actually a practitioner," I said, opening the envelope.

"She was in tight with the vamps and stayed the noble path. That's magical, man."

"Whatever." I pulled out a report and glanced through it. My blood ran cold. By the
time I was through, it was boiling with anger.

"I'm feelin' that's not good news," Falcon said.

"It's a summary of Cooper's investigation so far." I looked at Chiwa. "What school
do you go to?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"The Rhea School for Practitioners," Falcon cut in, worry in his voice. "Why?"

"Seem like a good place?" I asked.

"Local coven thinks so."

"How about one called—" I checked the report. "Obdulia Torres School for the Exceptional.
There's a mouthful."

Chiwa's scowling demeanor instantly shifted to a mix of excitement, envy and wistfulness,
a combination only an adolescent girl could pull off without spraining something.
"That's an awesome school! Only the really talented kids get to go there."

"Named for the first practitioner to step forward when the paras attacked New York.
Protected a school full of kids," Falcon said with approval.

"Yeah. Good times." Not. I zeroed my attention back on Chiwa. "Know anything else
about that place?"

Chiwa's enthusiasm dimmed. "My best friend got one of their scholarships. She left
last week."

"She message you a lot?"

She shook her head. "But I'm cool with it. They're gonna be future covens leaders
and stuff. They stay busy."

"I'll bet." I gave Falcon a hard look. "We need to talk. Alone."

"Can I go first?" Chiwa piped up. "Alone?"

I gave her my hard back-off-sucker stare, but she held her ground, her gaze steady
and unblinking. Points for her.

I glanced at Falcon and he shrugged. "Sure. But make it fast," I said.

Falcon gave Chiwa a curious look which she ignored as he ambled around the counter
and into his lab so the kid and I could talk alone. When he closed the door behind
him, worry flickered over the girl's face and she stepped closer.

"I need to hire you," she whispered.

CHAPTER FOUR

I frowned at her, not sure how to respond to that. Her head barely came to my chest.
Come to think of it, she barely even had a chest.

She was a kid. What could a kid possibly need a PI for? A missing puppy? "I'm expensive,"
I said.

"I have money."

"I don't mean your five credits for lunch. I mean expensive. As in five thousand.
Half up front. Half when the job's done." A slight exaggeration, but I wanted to make
a point.

She glanced away and worried her bottom lip between stark white teeth. After a moment,
her big brown eyes came back to my face. "I can get that."

What was important enough to a twelve year old that they were willing to even talk
to someone like me? Let alone lie about paying them?

Chiwa looked uncertain like she was thinking about backing out, but after a moment,
she squared her shoulders and lifted her small, pointy chin, displaying the ever present
defiance that I already associated with her. "I want you to investigate Falcon," she
said.

I blinked. "Come again?"

"He and his guardian have been hosting me for almost two months. Uncle Ben's never
here. I think Falcon might be in trouble."

Worry nibbled at the edge of my mind and my attention sharpened. If Falcon needed
help, I wanted to know about it. "What kind of trouble?"

Her eyes almost betrayed the fear churning behind them before she beat it down and
opted for annoyance. "How should I know? Isn't that what you're for?"

Smart aleck. "Some idea of what you think is going on would be useful."

"Shipments come in to the store a lot. Sometimes every week. Tibet. Africa. South
America. All over. Some of them Falcon doesn't let me near. Others he has me unpack
and catalog. Two days ago, I snuck a look into one of the forbidden boxes."

"Of course you did."

"The only thing in there was this ugly statue from like the stone age. No, 'I'll see
you next week' notes. No return address. Nothing."

"Maybe Uncle Ben was in a hurry. I hear the indigenous tribes over there can be murder
with their poison dart blow pipe thingys."

A frown creased her smooth forehead. "Uncle Ben is me and Falcon's guardian. What
if he's doing something illegal? What if someone comes looking for him and finds out
he's never here?" Her agitation expanded and her voice rose an octave. "They'll send
me back to my dad!"

"Neglected by a criminal guardian. Have to go live with your father. I can see your
problem. I would
walk
to Africa if it meant I could see my dad." And then I'd probably punch him in the
nose for abandoning me, but that was beside the point.

"You don't understand." A flush skated over her cheeks.

"Sure I do. You're scared about being forced to be somewhere you don't want to be
with someone you don't want to ever see again. I get it."

I knew I'd hit home when Chiwa scowled at me. "Are you going to take the job, or not?"
she asked.

"I'll take it."

"Because I can totally find— What?"

"I grew up in the foster system. For kids who are different, it's no picnic."

She studied me, a crumb of respect and a boatload of curiosity churning in her eyes.
"You're a lot like Falcon," she finally said.

"Not even."

"He covers it with goofing around. You do it by acting tough. Inside neither of you
like to see people who don't deserve it getting hurt."

"Careful, kid. I might think you're warming up to me."

Chiwa gave me an up and down assessment and apparently decided that she found me lacking.
"Don't worry. I still don't like you. You saw through my magic."

"Try hiding in a box to eavesdrop next time. Maybe that'll work out better for you."

*  *  *

I sent Chiwa across the street to get herself a hot chocolate, my treat. You'd think
I'd given her a gold bar instead of my nearly depleted credit unit, she was so excited.
I waited until she scooted out the front door and then bravely made my way around
the counter and into Falcon's inner domain.

The modest-sized room had probably once dreamed of being an office. Instead, it was
a mad scientist heaven. Wires, coils, metal sheets, bunsen burners, beakers, tubes,
jars of things you did not want to look at too closely, old car parts...name it, and
it lay in piles, lounged across table tops, hung from ceilings and generally seemed
to be having a drunken party with the other junk.

I made sure that the kid hadn't snuck back in to eavesdrop on us and then closed the
door. Falcon looked up from the computer that occupied its own island of cleanliness
and his fingers stopped moving over the keys. "Aren't you catching a ride out of the
country?" he asked.

"I've decided to stay."

"Any special reason?"

I wasn't about to tell him his sassy pants houseguest wanted me to snoop into his
Uncle Ben's business, so I focused on what I'd read in the report Ms. Fairview had
given me. "Ever heard of VR?"

He started typing again. "Run-of-the-mill vamp venom hit enhanced with magic. Supposed
to give a longer, better orgasmic trip. Also ten times more addictive and five times
as likely to fry the user's brain. Very rare."

"Not anymore."

His gaze scanned the screen. "How did you see Chiwa?"

I ignored his genius ramblings and stuck to the topic at hand. "Cooper was investigating
the sudden VR influx. He was going to shut down whoever was behind it."

"Is it connected to the way you smell rotten jasmine when dimensions are forced open?"
Falcon muttered to himself.

"No, it's not. He suspected a connection between that Rhea school and whoever's making
the VR."

His fingers flew over the keyboard. "Only one known species could discern dimensional
cloaking and smell breaches in natural dimensional shifts. But they haven't been alive
for ten thousand years."

"Try and focus, would you? The most promising students of the school where Chiwa goes
are given scholarships and sent on. After that, they drop off the map."

That got his attention. He looked up at me and his pewter-grey eyes went steely. "What
do you mean, 'drop off'?"

"Usually it's kids from poorer families or those with no folks at all. Relatives get
a check every month and a letter saying how happy their child is. Other than that,
no contact allowed."

"What happened when Cooper went to the other school, the exclusive one?"

Frustration gnawed at me. "He couldn't even find it. So he started looking for the
rich patron who sponsors both schools. Next thing he knows, he's being falsely accused
of taking bribes and the FBI is on his tail."

"Is Lord Bellmonte the sponsor? Is that why he has his panties in a wad over this?"

"My gut tells me no. He feels pscyho-level strongly about people who exploit what
he considers to be the master race. Plus, he was targeted, too."

My mind churned with possibilities, and none of them seemed plausible. I glanced at
the closed door and then looked back at Falcon. "Chiwa can't go back to school," I
said quietly.

Uneasiness flashed across his face. "No way. That school is the first happy thing
that's ever happened to her." The worry on his face deepened. "You know why her father
named her 'death'? Because her mother
and
her twin sister died when she was born. He barely gave her the minimum to survive
and cut her loose as soon as her magic manifested. I'm—Uncle Ben and me and that school
are all she's got."

I kept my face completely neutral as thoughts and feelings churned through me. There
were so many layers to what he'd just told me that I wasn't sure whether to get pissed
about a parent who couldn't handle things or focus on the fact that Falcon had made
a major slip.

Were Chiwa's instincts right on target? Had Falcon been holding down the home fort
all on his own while Ben roamed the planet as free as a bird? I'd met Falcon's uncle
about a year after the paranormal attacks, right before Falcon's operation had joined
up with mine. He was a burly man who looked like he'd once been on the jolly side
until the war had shocked it out of him.

As much as it hurt that Falcon might be in trouble and keeping it from me, that was
at least a problem I could do something about. I couldn't make Chiwa's dad step up.
I could only try to find out if my friend needed my help.

I flicked a wire with my finger and kept my thoughts and feelings to myself. Instead,
I pretended to be only mildly annoyed that he'd balked at my suggestion. "Fine. But
if she gets called up for a slot at that other place, pull her out."

"What about the rest? The kids who are missing and the ones that'll go next?"

I grinned, glad to move on to something simple and straightforward. "We fight for
them. What else?"

"I hope that by fight you mean sneak around and avoid getting arrested," Falcon said.

"If we're lucky. Sure." I gave him a steady look and told him my plan.

*  *  *

The career that Margaret Stillman had put her heart and soul into for five years had
turned sour a long time ago. The office that she could easily have called home since
she spent so much time there, had begun to feel like a prison. And after this last
breach in protocol, she could no longer ignore the fact that her beloved FBI had stopped
making any effort to dodge corruption.

Not that it mattered. Her loyalty always lay with the Alpha and his brother first
and it always would. Family, Clan and then human government. There was no other hierarchy
possible.

She leaned against the corner of her desk, arms and legs crossed. Agent Fuller and
his human counterpart, Agent Baker, stood in front of her looking disheveled and penitent.

"Let me make sure I understand," she said to them, making sure she sounded displeased.
"My best tracker and a team of top agents lost a nineteen-year-old girl. A human.
Again." She looked at Agent Fuller. "Does that clearly summarize your report?"

He kept his gaze properly on the carpet. "Yes, ma'am."

"Any unusual theories like last time? Maybe she sprouted wings. That would explain
how she snuck past your team the first time when she was supposed to be trapped on
an eight story office building." She stared steadily at him for another moment to
make sure he knew his place.

When he refused to meet her eyes, she let herself soften a bit. "I won't mention this
embarrassment to Alpha Ryker."

The tension drained out of the other Were. "Thank you, ma'am."

"You will not lose her again."

"No, ma'am."

Satisfied she'd made her point, Margaret pushed away from her desk. "I've had reports
of a man matching Agent Daine's description near the Duck and Fire pub. The owner
has a soft spot for Ms. Kittner and may be giving him aid. I want you to put together
a surveillance team to cover a two-block radius. Daine may be holed up in the vicinity.
Don't report back to me until you have results. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am." Agent Fuller nodded to his partner and they hurried off.

Margaret trailed behind them, closed the door and locked it. Crossing back to her
desk, she waited a moment to be sure the other Were was out of earshot and then took
out her Clan-issued iC from inside her jacket pocket.

She pressed in a code and put the device to her ear. "They've been redirected to the
Duck and Fire," she relayed when the secure messaging system picked up.

Disconnecting, she went to the other side of her desk and pulled out the box she'd
left hidden underneath it. She thought that she probably ought to feel some kind of
regret for ditching the career she'd worked so hard to build, but she didn't.

Instead, relief warmed the middle of her chest as she started packing her personal
items. She was tired of playing both sides. It would be good to take on security again
and to work with Marc. He was infallibly straightforward, excellent in a fight and
as devoted to the royal family and those they cared about as she was.

And if what she feared was truly happening, then Cooper and Addison would need all
the protection they could get, even if neither of them thought they needed it.

*  *  *

While Falcon went through his arsenal of gadgets back at the shop, I slunk my way
through the city to the safe house and got on my computer. I still felt guilty snooping
into my friend's business, but if it meant keeping a promise I made almost nine years
ago, I'd put up with a little discomfort.