At Tina’s exclamation, Heather started to turn, eyes searching for the disturbance. When she spotted him she gave a small scream, hands covering her mouth, eyes like saucers. They were clear.
“Oh my god, Rex! Is that you?”
Several things happened in quick succession. Sebastian opened his mouth to utter his prepared reply, but saw that Heather’s mouth had still not closed, though her hands had dropped to her neck, clawing at the necklace which hung there. Only it was no longer hanging. It had tightened, digging into the skin and choking her like a garroting wire.
Cursing, Sebastian let the glamour disappear and leapt forward, hands reaching for the necklace as his mind raced for a plan, a spell, anything that would help. Why hadn’t he thought of this? Of course John Faust would have put something in place to silence this woman if the memory spell failed.
As his hands scrabbled on Heather’s neck, trying to find purchase on the slender but incredibly strong chain, Tina just sat there, frozen in shock. “Do something!” Sebastian yelled. “Call 911. Now!”
“But—I—what—” she stammered.
“Do it!” Sebastian roared, looking desperately about the room for something slender to stick under the chain and cut it, perhaps a pair of scissors. But there was nothing in sight, and Heather’s face was growing bluer by the second, her desperate choking making his mind race in hopeless circles. His fingers were already bloody—his or Heather’s he had no idea—from trying to get under the chain.
“Come on Heather, stay with me. Stay with me!” he yelled at the choking woman, trying to avoid her thrashing legs as she struggled in panic. Her eyes rolled in their sockets and her bloody hands were now scratching at his face and arms in desperation, her brain no longer getting enough oxygen to think straight. He couldn’t—quite—get—his—fingers—under—
Tina’s frightened voice broke through his panic as she yelled into her phone. “Yes, imminent danger, she’s dying! He’s choking her! I mean the necklace is! Rex—oh never mind, just come! Yes! Right now, we need an ambulance!”
The last thing he heard was Tina rattling off the address, getting it wrong twice before she scrambled in her purse to find where she’d written it down. But by the time she’d hung up—ignoring the operator’s order to stay on the line—it was too late.
Sebastian stood, body numb and mind frozen in shock as he looked down at the dead woman. She’d rolled off her chair onto the floor in her mad thrashing and now lay splayed, lips blue and eyes staring blankly at him in death.
“Oh—my—” Tina’s voice shook as she stared at the poor woman. Then she seemed to snap out of it. Scrambling across the floor, she retrieved the camcorder, stuffing it into her purse as she made a mad dash for the door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Sebastian exclaimed, catching hold of her arm.
“You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to stick around, buster,” she said, trying to break free from his hold. “That woman just died. The police will think we did it! This is your mess, not mine. Now let me go!”
“But we can’t just leave her here! We have to explain what happened, we have to…”
“Uh-huh,” Tina said sarcastically, seeing the realization in his eyes. “Nobody is going to believe you didn’t do it. Magic doesn’t exist, remember?”
“But you were a witness, you can tell them the truth.”
“I’m not a witness. I’m an accomplice, you idiot!” she yelled, digging her nails into his hand. “Even if I was stupid enough to try and tell them a necklace mysteriously choked a woman, it wouldn’t do any good. They would just say I’m covering up for you. Now come with me or let me go!” After one last, ferocious dig of her nails, he released her arm with a yelp and she sped out the door.
He stood, helplessly torn between what was right and what was smart. He had caused this. No, it wasn’t his fault, it was John Faust’s fault, the murdering sack of dung. But he, Sebastian, had still caused it to happen.
Looking back at the horrible scene on the living room floor, he hadn’t even begun to decide what to do when he heard the squeal of tires and saw Tina’s car speeding away. Well, he thought, I guess now I don’t have a choice. Fleeing on foot was a possibility, but the neighborhood kids had already seen his face—his real face—and there would be a manhunt. He could escape, most likely, but the incident would dog his steps for the rest of his life. Better to stay and hope for the best.
He tried to force his mind to consider alternatives, anything to salvage the situation. But all he could think of was his mother’s face and her soft, brown eyes as she told him to “be kind, even when the world punishes you for it.” It was one of the last things she’d ever said to him before she died, and he’d always tried to live up to it. This woman deserved better than to be discovered alone on her living room floor, the victim of a crime that would never be solved.
As he knelt next to her body, belatedly attempting CPR in case she wasn’t completely gone, he berated himself, calling himself every kind of fool. That’s where the policeman found him bare minutes later when he burst through the open front door, gun raised.
“Hands where I can see them! Step away from the woman!” the cop shouted, and Sebastian complied, attempting to explain himself.
“Sir, calm down, I’m trying to help. I didn’t kill this woman, she was choking and I was trying to help her.”
But the policeman didn’t want to hear it, yelling at him to be quiet and put his hands behind his back. He was cuffing Sebastian when the ambulance arrived.
Part II
Episode 6
Of Wheels and Deals
1
Big Girl Pants
Lily sat on her bed at home, knees tucked up under her chin, arms wrapped around her knees as she held up a photograph of Madam Barrington. It was a normal enough photograph. Or at least it had been, until her mentor cast a conveyance spell on it and an identical copy they’d mailed to Sebastian first thing on Monday. The spell was for sound only, so it had been odd listening over the past few days while the picture traveled through the mail system and finally found its way into the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
Judging by the odd bits of conversation she’d caught earlier that day, she knew the letter had been delivered and opened, and Sebastian had been allowed to keep it in his cell—a common practice for inmates who were not high security. She’d been waiting all evening for the call of lights out, so she and Sebastian could converse.
Of course, Sebastian might not know the picture was enchanted. He’d probably guessed, but Lily hadn’t been able to put any sort of hint in the letter, lest a prison guard read it and confiscate the whole thing on suspicion of containing a coded message.
Finally, Lily heard the call for lights out echo through the prison cells. She kept quiet, waiting, assuming it would take several minutes for things to quiet down.
Sure enough, a few minutes later she heard: “I’m assuming this picture has been enchanted, or am I just making a fool of myself by conversing with a photograph?” Sebastian’s whisper came through, quiet but crisp, and Lily let out a sigh of relief, despite the fact that she was severely vexed at him.
She was briefly tempted to let him stew for a while. After all, where had he been when she’d needed him? But then Sir Kipling, sitting alert at the end of the bed, gave her a knowing stare and meowed impatiently. A guilty twinge at the thought of Sebastian, alone and friendless in a prison cell, was enough to prompt a reply. With a quiet word—she’d been practicing the non-verbal spell casting Allen had taught her, but hadn’t yet made any progress—she activated her side of the conveyance spell so Sebastian could hear her speak.
“Hello.” She ought to say more, but couldn’t think what. Dominating her thoughts was a jumble of feelings, too tangled to even begin to unravel. Hurt, disappointment, longing, anger, relief, uncertainty, elation. What was she supposed to do with it all?
“Hi, Lily.” His whispered reply, surprisingly tender, caught her off guard, a
nd she stared blankly at her cat.
Sir Kipling took the opportunity to meow a greeting, and Lily heard Sebastian chuckle. “Hello to you, too, Kip,” he said.
“Um…how are you?” Lily finally asked. It was all her overstimulated brain could come up with.
“I’m doing okay. For being in prison, at any rate. It’s not like I couldn’t break out if I wanted to. But I’d prefer to not spend the rest of my life on the run.”
“Oh.” A few months ago, she would have scoffed at his casual assertion that prison bars couldn’t contain him. But not anymore.
“Um…right…” Sebastian paused, obviously at a loss for words—a rare occurrence. “Thank Aunt B. for the lawyer, will you? She’s seems quite, um, competent.”
“Sure,” Lily promised. Madam Barrington had, of course, gotten her nephew the best initiate lawyer money could buy. It didn’t happen often, but there were, occasionally, situations where magic and the law collided. It behooved the wizard community to have a few of its members—initiates, of course, because what wizard would want to be a lawyer?—in a position to obscure or reinterpret any irregularities caused by magic so as to ensure the best outcome for their wizard clients and the continued ignorance of the mundanes.
It was through the lawyer and at Sebastian’s request that they’d gotten the basic facts of his case. He’d been charged with first-degree murder, though the FBI was trying to cut a deal to bring the charge down to involuntary manslaughter if he agreed to cooperate. They wanted information on some random person named Rex Morganson, and Lily had been both annoyed and confused at this news, failing to see the connection all this had with John Faust and their mission.
She’d had time to cool off after her initial, incandescent rage at Sebastian for pulling another one of his irresponsible, ridiculous stunts, getting himself into trouble when they needed him. When she needed him. She’d also had time to reflect on her feelings, specifically how many of them existed that shouldn’t. It was time to stop projecting her feelings onto someone who was obviously uninterested, not to mention of questionable reliability.
She reminded herself that any personal feelings of betrayal were irrelevant. There was nothing between them, and she simply needed to come at this from a professional standpoint. As a friend and ally, she would, of course, make every effort to help Sebastian out of prison. But she couldn’t let herself get emotionally attached…okay, so it was too late for that. Rather, she couldn’t let her feelings, which she was in the process of bringing to heel, get in the way of doing her duty.
To that end, she took a deep breath, cleared her mind, and got down to business. “I’m not sure how much time you have, but I need a detailed explanation of what’s going on so we can create a plan of action. I’ll be passing everything on to Madam Barrington.”
“I may have to go silent if a guard walks by, but we should have plenty of time,” Sebastian assured her. “As far as a plan, where’s Tina? She knows what’s going on and what to do.”
Lily’s temper flared, as it usually did when the witch’s name was mentioned. “Tina slammed the door in my face before I could even begin passing on your message,” she bit out, her clipped tone leaving no doubt as to her feelings on the matter. “I’ve been back several times, but the apartment has been dark and no one is answering the doorbell or her phone.”
“Ah. Hm. Well, that puts a wrench in our plans,” Sebastian said, sounding guilty.
As he should be, Lily thought, stewing.
“Sebastian Blackwell. You had better tell me what’s going on right now or you can consider this conversation over. I can’t help someone who refuses to be frank with me.” She laid out the ultimatum in an even voice, but her heart was pounding like a drum. At Sir Kipling’s reproachful look, she glared back defiantly, tired of fumbling around in the dark.
There was a moment of silence. Then Sebastian let out a long, weary sigh. “Lily…I can’t tell you everything right now.”
“Then—” she began, but was cut off by his hiss of impatience.
“Will you just hear me out? Good grief, relax, woman. We’re on the same side.” His voice was full of impatience, a tone he’d never used with her before. He’d always treated her in a teasing, good-natured fashion. She withdrew, hurt, and annoyed at herself for feeling so.
Perhaps he regretted the harshness of his words, because his next ones were very gentle. “I’m sorry, Lily. I can’t tell you everything because I don’t know everything.” He sighed. “Tina and I were trying to dig up evidence on your dad—evidence of his illegal activity—so the FBI could deal with him and we wouldn’t have to. I’m sorry if you felt I was going behind your back, but I didn’t want to hurt you. That worthless prick has already caused you enough pain. I didn’t want to add his ongoing douchebaggery to that list. Of course you deserved to know eventually, but I at least wanted solid evidence before bringing it up. We were following a lead when, well, you know what happened. I think our, um, questions activated some sort of spell that choked the poor woman. But we obviously can’t tell the FBI that. With me struggling to get the necklace off, there’s enough of my DNA on the body for any lawyer worth their salt to spin me into some kind of woman-strangling psychopath.”
Lily was silent, her mind reeling with questions and her carefully controlled emotions once again a confused tangle. Of course he’d been trying to help. If she was honest about it, that’s all he ever did: try to help. But why did he think she couldn’t take the news? Did he think she was weak? Of course he did, because she was weak. She’d lived an easy, sheltered life. But how was she supposed to help if he refused to be honest with her? What had her father been up to this time? How bad could it be? Her stomach clenched at the thought.
“Uhh, Lily?” Sebastian’s whisper broke through her thoughts, jolting her back to the moment. She scrambled to collect herself.
“I’m here. Yes, I suppose the details aren’t immediately relevant. Personally, I don’t think the FBI can help us. It’s not as if they could keep John Faust in prison anyway, unless they knew to use wrought-iron shackles. Be that as it may, getting you out of jail is top priority. We need you here. While you were…gone,”—she resisted the urge to use a more accusatory word—“John Faust managed to track us to Allen’s house and kidnap him, as well as steal Morgan’s journal.”
“I know,” Sebastian said miserably.
“I—what? What do you mean you know?” Lily demanded.
A quiet cough, probably Sebastian clearing his throat, came from the photograph. “Well…it wasn’t like I’d leave you there without any backup. I had one of my, um, fae friends hang around. To keep an eye on things. He warned me as soon as John Faust showed up, but I was already in jail by then and couldn’t help, so I sent him to wake Sir Kipling.
So that’s what Kip had meant by a little voice. “I see,” she said, not sure what to think. At least he hadn’t completely abandoned them. He had simply appeared to have completely abandoned them. “And how many other times have you left one of your ‘friends’ to keep an eye on me?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Ummm…weeell…a couple times?” he said very slowly. Tentatively. As if he expected her to explode. It was not an unfounded fear.
Lily pursed her lips, torn between annoyance and relief. On the one hand, he obviously cared more than she’d given him credit for. This made it harder to squash those pesky emotions she was attempting to ignore. On the other hand, he sure had a funny way of showing it. And, she suddenly realized with a blush, if he’d been spying on her, he might know more about her…activities, than she really wanted to share. Did his “friends” eavesdrop on her conversations? Did they follow her around to, say, dinner? Dinner with a particular someone…
“You weren’t—that is, last Friday when I was—when I went out, were you ‘keeping an eye’ on me then?” she asked, attempting to remain calm.
“Um…about that,” Sebastian began. “I know it’s none of my business, but there’s some things you
don’t know about Agent Grant that—”
“How dare you!” Lily exclaimed, cutting him off. Yes, Sebastian should be afraid of an explosion. He deserved it, the nosy, interfering little—
“I would advise against taking your unwarranted indignation out on Sebastian.” Sir Kipling spoke unexpectedly. His yellow eyes had never left her face as he listened in on the conversation. “He was only helping me.”
“What!” Lily squawked, almost dropping the picture in surprise.
“What is it?” Sebastian hissed, sounding nervous. “What’s he telling you?”
Lily spoke a hurried word, muting her end of the conveyance spell, then glared at her no-good, backstabbing, devious feline. He blinked at her, utterly unfazed. She huffed, trying to hold onto her sense of self-righteous betrayal in the face of Sir Kipling’s no-nonsense stare.
“Stop being childish,” he said, no apology in his meow.
“I—I am not—”
“Yes, you are. First you act like a spoiled teenager mad at her crush for not being at her beck and call. Then, when he tries to help, you get all indignant that he isn’t playing by your rules.”
“I—he is not—how dare you—” she spluttered.
“Get over yourself and start acting like an adult. It’s time to put on your big girl pants.”
Lily glared at her cat, trying to stare him down. It didn’t work, as she knew it wouldn’t. Yet her pride wouldn’t let her do otherwise, mostly because she knew he was right. Drat that cat.
“Pride is unbecoming to humans,” Sir Kipling pointed out, as if he could read her thoughts. “Only cats and dragons do it justice. You are neither, so I suggest you focus on what you are good at. Mainly, using your courage, intelligence, and skill to make the world a better place. By getting rid of John Faust, of course,” he amended.
Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Allies Page 16