Spring's Calling (A Season of Magic Urban Fantasy Novel)

by Sarah Biglow

  “It was just a dream,” I murmured over and over to my reflection, hoping if I said it enough times it would quash the nugget of fear behind my ribcage. I pressed my right hand to my ribs and shock made me stand upright. It wasn’t an imagined lump below the bones and cartilage. There was actually a solid mass situated beneath my ribs. I probed the spot with my fingertips. The spot even appeared ashen, the same color that Kevin had been.

  “You aren’t going to win, you bastard.”

  It didn’t appear to be spreading like it had with my feet in the park. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t become more aggressive if I let my guard down. Anxious about what new terrors would plague me if I went back to sleep, I padded into the kitchen and set about throwing together something to sate the hunger gnawing at me. I came away twenty minutes later with a sandwich, some leftover potato salad and a questionable microwaved burrito. I really needed to go shopping.

  The DVR told me I’d only been asleep for an hour before making my trek to the kitchen. That had been neither long enough nor restful, but I was too freaked to go back to sleep yet. So, I settled on the couch with my makeshift snack and stuffed my face. My stomach balked halfway through the burrito, but I managed to keep it down. At some point, I must have turned on the TV because early morning news buzzed in the background. Whatever station I was on was replaying Taggart’s press conference. I reached for the remote and paused, unsure whether to just turn it off or toss the remote at his smug, lying face.

  A cooler head prevailed and I turned the TV off. The lack of sleep was catching up to me again, weighing down my eyelids and tugging at my ability to stay awake. I gave sleep a valiant fight, but it won out in the end and I slumped over on the couch, half-eaten burrito still in my lap.

  A SHARP KNOCK ON the door to my apartment jolted me from a restless but thankfully dreamless sleep. My hand went to my hip on instinct, but there was no gun. Panic rose momentarily until I surveyed myself and the early hours came back to me. I was in my underwear because I’d been too lazy to actually put on night clothes. The burrito still sat in my lap. Setting it aside, I got to my feet and went in search of clothes. I pulled on an old pair of sweatpants and a tank top from the laundry pile and went to the door. Holding my breath, I undid the bolt and eased it open.

  Kayla stood on the other side of the threshold. She was solid and wore an impatient expression. “You aren’t planning to go to work in that, are you?”

  “You knocked.”

  She smiled. “I guess we’re both capable of change. Anyway, Des and J.T. wanted to make sure you arrived on time.”

  I scrubbed the drowsiness from my eyes. “Give me a few minutes.” I stepped aside, leaving the door open as a gesture she was welcome to come in. She’d seen me bleeding and bruised in my home. Some dirty dishes and half-eaten food seemed like nothing.

  “You know, J.T.’s not the only one who’s never seen what you did to Kevin. How’d you know how to do it?”

  “I didn’t, not entirely, but it seemed logical enough,” I answered as I grabbed a set of work clothes from the closet and headed into the bathroom again. This time the circles weren’t quite as pronounced under my eyes and even the spot on my ribs looked like normal skin tone. Almost. I jumped in the shower, letting the water work its own kind of magic on my muscles.

  When I emerged ten minutes later, the apartment had been tidied up and I even heard the “swish” of the dishwasher starting up. “Wow, thanks.”

  “You saved Kevin’s life. You gave us a second chance. Figured I could be nice and clean up your mess in here as a thank you.”

  “I’m not sure I saved him. He’s going to be spending quite a long time in prison for what he’s done.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault.”

  “And that’s why the law considers mitigating circumstances and actions under duress. But that’s what his lawyer is going to have to deal with. Magic or not, he committed a whole lot of crimes and he needs to be held accountable.”

  I grabbed a jacket from the back of the door and gestured at her. “Come on. Let’s go before they release the bloodhounds.”

  Kayla remained solid all the way to the car, going translucent once she was buckled in the front passenger seat. I eyed her as I pulled into traffic, hoping the fact that most people were already at work—and if they weren’t they were at least going in the other direction—meant it wouldn’t take forever to get to our destination.

  Eager to fill the dead space between us, I asked, “So, what’s it like being a Whisperer?”

  She snorted. “You know, I hate that name.”

  I shrugged one shoulder and flipped the blinker on, merging into the lane to my right. “I didn’t come up with it. Blame the old dusty corpses from eons past.”

  “Yeah. It’s … fine. I don’t really think about it much.”

  “Magic made you this way, right?”

  “Mostly. Let’s just say I grew up in a very paranoid family and my parents overdid it in teaching surveillance spells. One backfired on me and here I am.”

  “Sorry.”

  She waved a see-through hand dismissively. “I’m over it. It has its advantages. Shopping is super easy what with humans not seeing me.” Color drained from her face—what little color there’d been anyway—and she shrunk against the seatback. “Crap, I just admitted that to a cop, didn’t I?”

  “Yep. Not my department though.”

  “I still have a bank account and stuff. I could live like a normal person if I wanted to. Most of the time I do, actually. Still, being invisible and walking through things can be fun.”

  “So, the whole punk rocker thing is what … a fashion statement?”

  “Hey, I don’t judge you, ginger.”

  I couldn’t help but let out a hiccup of laughter. “Okay. Fair enough. Can I ask you something else?”

  “Sure.”

  “You and Desmond. He only lets people he’s really close to him call him ‘Des’. And I know he’s dating Avery. What’s the deal with you two?”

  “He does some consulting work for the Authority. I needed someone to talk to after I … changed and we became friends. I actually introduced him to Avery.”

  We passed the rest of the trip in companionable silence and I was grateful. My mind raced with everything I had left to do to finally find some peace. Top of the list was, of course, taking Taggart down. It was probably too much to hope that whatever ritual the Order was planning would be foiled simply by detaining their lead FBI agent. So I still needed to pinpoint the exact location of the spell. At least I still had a couple of days to sort that out. They weren’t going to chance it before the eclipse and the meteor shower. What better way to mess with the Equinox than to blot out the sun completely?

  In the light of day, headquarters was far more bustling. Half a dozen cars were pulled into the circular drive and the front door sat open and welcoming to a steady stream of people. I half-recognized some of them as members of the Council. Others were unknowns, dragging young children in tow, no doubt to get their magical education.

  “You really don’t like it here, do you?” Kayla said in a hushed tone as we left the car behind and followed the stream of people up the front steps.

  “Too many bad memories,” I murmured.

  She said nothing as we stepped into the foyer and had to pay attention to children darting between us. Kayla had enough time to shout, “They’re in the library,” before getting shoved out of view. Or maybe she went invisible to avoid being run over.

  I shouldered my way through the throng gathering outside the library and slipped inside. As promised, Jacquie and Kevin were sitting at one of the tables. Desmond stood by one of the windows studying a photo on one of the shelves. I caught a glimpse of a teenage boy with dark hair and olive skin near the left edge of the frame. J.T. was nowhere to be seen. Kevin must have recovered enough from losing his magic to no longer need a healer.

  “So, now that we’ve had some rest, let’s get this show on the
road,” I said, hoping my call to action would spur people to their feet.

  Jacquie was the first to acknowledge my presence. “We need you to see something before we go. And the Council wanted to speak with you about what you did to Kevin.”

  “They can wait until Taggart is in custody,” I snapped.

  “You can’t avoid them forever,” Desmond offered, still facing away from the rest of us.

  “I’m not. Work comes first. If they want to work with me, fine. But they have to know that I’m a cop first.”

  He turned on his heel to face me. “We still need to show you something. Come on.”

  “We aren’t leaving Kevin alone,” I blurted.

  “He’s coming with us,” Jacquie said. On cue, Kevin stood and held his hands loosely at his sides, no doubt doing his best to show that he wasn’t a threat anymore.

  It was only as I followed Jacquie and Desmond up the spiral staircase that I noticed Kevin’s change of clothes. It was a good move. It would be hard to explain how he’d been in the same set of clothes for five years when we brought him to the precinct for booking. Our quartet ended up cutting through the Council chamber—which was vacant yet again—through the door to the tech room. Avery spun in her chair at our entrance. She looked exhausted, but she wore a triumphant smile. “We finished cleaning up the tapes.”

  “All of them? Even the dashcam footage?”

  “Yep.”

  “But Morgan said he couldn’t get a clear image of my attacker.”

  “We just had to use a little magic to nudge the file along. You’ve got crystal clear footage. And … I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her gaze slid over Kevin and he took a step behind me. “You know you’re on these, right?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “You should really consider joining the police force or at least freelancing. We’d have a much better shot at getting usable footage,” I said.

  “May just take you up on that offer, Detective. But maybe after we survive the coming shit show that Mother Nature is heaping on us.” She held out a pile of writeable CDs to me to take with us.

  I accepted her offering and turned to Jacquie. “You ready to put this one to bed?”

  Her lips turned up in the tiniest of smiles. “Lead the way.”

  Stepping back into the Council chambers felt like I was stepping out into a brand-new day. Things were finally going our way. We had the evidence we needed to nail Taggart for his involvement in the murders and my attempted murder. We’d caught Kevin, even if it had meant stripping the magic out of him, and we still had time to stop the Order.

  “I’m going to call Captain Beech and let her know we’ve got someone in custody. Just so we know for sure the FBI will be there,” Jacquie said, phone in hand.

  “Good. The sooner we can get him in cuffs the better.”

  “You said you can protect me and my family.” Kevin’s voice was small and strained.

  I clamped a hand on his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. “We will. I promise. Besides, he’s going to have to worry about being law enforcement in prison. They aren’t exactly the most popular of people.”

  “But he’s not alone.” It came out as a whine.

  “We are going to do everything we can to keep your mother safe,” Jacquie added as we escorted him out to the waiting patrol car she must have arrived in.

  As I rounded the front of the car to take the wheel, Kayla flickered into existence on the front steps and beckoned me with one hand. “Give me a minute.”

  Jacquie settled Kevin in the back seat and I crossed the distance to Kayla. “Do you know where he’s going to end up?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure yet. But I can let you know.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  “He’s going to need someone to be there for him while he rebuilds his life.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I’ll see you around, Kayla.”

  I headed back to the car and she called after me. “You aren’t as big of a douche as I thought.”

  I didn’t respond, but I cracked a smirk that she couldn’t see. We’d gotten off to a rough start, but she was growing on me and I suspected she would become someone I could rely on. Buckling up behind the wheel, the realization dawned that it might be nice to have people I could trust around me. I didn’t have to go it alone.

  “Everything all right?” Jacquie snapped me out of my musings.

  “Fine. Just thinking.” I started the engine and eased the car through the obstacle course of other cars in the circular drive to get back to the street.

  By the time we made it to the precinct, we were only a few hours shy of our regular shift starting. We pulled into the side lot and let the engine block cool. I eyed Kevin through the rearview mirror. I expected him to be a bundle of nerves, but he sat calm, hands already cuffed behind his back. I got the impression he was trying to remove the bonds, but not even a whisper of wet limestone filled the car. I’d really taken his magic from him. My heart hurt at the thought that, if I’d done it to him, someone more powerful than I could do the same to me. It sent icy fingers clawing down my back and I opened the door with more force than strictly necessary to get out of the confines of the car.

  “We’re about to walk into a room full of pissy cops and Feds. So maybe don’t go shouting Taggart’s guilt to the rooftops just yet,” Jacquie reminded me as I led Kevin from the back of the car and around to the side entrance.

  I mimed zipping my lips and throwing away the key with my free hand while she opened the door. The moment we stepped into the bullpen the electricity of the place struck me. Every cop and Fed in the room turned as one to look at us. They’d all seen Kevin’s face plastered on the news. They knew who he was. As we moved toward one of the interrogation rooms someone started a slow clap. It picked up steam for a few seconds but died out as Captain Beech appeared in the doorway of her office. She gave us a satisfied nod but said nothing.

  I glanced around, but there was no sign of Taggart. We still had the element of surprise. Maybe we could catch him off guard. We settled Kevin in the interrogation room, transferring his cuffs from behind his back to the bar on the table in front of him.

  “Do we have to make a show of you questioning me?” Kevin asked in a low whisper.

  It seemed silly given that he’d already told me everything, but if we wanted this to stick, we needed to do things by the book. So Jacquie and I sat down across from him.

  “Mr. Ellery, we’re going to give you another opportunity to hear your rights,” Jacquie began.

  “I don’t want a lawyer,” Kevin said, his voice stronger this time.

  “Are you sure?” I prompted.

  “Yes. I know what I’ve done. I don’t want to waste your time, Detective. I want to make a full confession.”

  “You sure you don’t want to think about this for a little while?”

  He shook his head. “No. I just want this to be done.”

  I nodded at Jacquie and she retrieved a pad and pen and set it in front of him. He picked it up and pressed the tip to the first line but paused. “I didn’t do this alone.”

  “Okay. If you identify your accomplice, we can tell the prosecutor that you’ve cooperated,” I said.

  Kevin licked his lips and his gaze darted to the two-way mirror on the wall to his right as if he expected someone to come through it as he spoke. “I didn’t want to kill those people. He made me. He threatened to hurt my family.”

  “Who?”

  “Agent Jamison Taggart.”

  No sooner had the words passed Kevin’s lips than the door burst open and Taggart loomed there, filling every available space. His eyes went wide at the sight of me, but he covered his shock by turning to look at Jacquie. “How dare you conduct this interrogation without my people?” he bellowed.

  Captain Beech appeared behind him, giving him no choice but to join us in the room. Not built for comfort in the first place, the
space was beginning feel claustrophobic—or maybe it was my proximity to the man who’d nearly succeeded in murdering me.

  “I don’t think you have the right to go accusing my people of anything. Or did you not just hear who this young man fingered as his accomplice?” Captain Beech snapped, placing herself in his path.

  “He saw me on television. He’s clearly lying to mislead you all.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” I was on my feet before my brain realized the impulse had been sent. “He’s confessed to his part in the murders.” The wound in my belly ached at the nearness of him. “And we have evidence you were involved, Agent.”

  The nauseating scent of his magic seeped from his pores. “What evidence?”

  “Yes, I’d like to know what you’ve got too,” the captain said. Her tone was far more inquisitive than his.

  I reached into my jacket and pulled out the CDs with the cleaned-up footage. “Our techs were having trouble with the surveillance footage so we took it to a freelancer. She’s very good. Cleaned it right up. Why don’t we watch it together?”

  Taggart started to argue, but Captain Beech held up a hand to silence him. Her eyes were focused on Kevin who sat there, his body quivering at the sight of the man who’d forced him to do terrible things. “You say this man forced you to kill people?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He said he’d hurt my mother if I didn’t.”

  She seemed satisfied with his response and turned her attention to me. “Get someone to sit with him while he finishes his statement. Then meet us in my office. We’re going to do this in private.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Jacquie was around the edge of the table and flanking Taggart before the words finished leaving my mouth. They ushered him out of the room and out of view, leaving Kevin and me alone.