by Kal Aaron
“I wonder how long it’ll take,” she mumbled.
“How long what’ll take?” Jofi asked.
She’d almost forgotten he was there. That was dangerous. She should never allow herself to forget about the spirit.
“For Damien to turn up something.” Lyssa sat on the couch. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’m half-wondering if that job was a trap.”
“That’s what you’re concerned about?”
She retrieved a water bottle sitting on a small end table. After downing a quarter of it, she let out a sigh of relief.
“There are a lot of people out there I’ve helped take down who are still alive.” Lyssa set the bottle back on the table. “Twelve years of being a Torch, and most of my targets have been the worst kind of trash. Some make Alvarez look like a saint.”
“Are targeted assassinations of Torches typical?” Jofi asked.
She was surprised by the question, but she shouldn’t have been. They didn’t spend much time discussing Society business, but Jofi was always there to passively listen and observe when she received orders. Ultimately, his view of the Illuminated Society was narrow and shaped through the experiences of one young-ish Torch.
“No. I can’t say they are, whatever you might think. There aren’t a lot of Sorcerers and there are fewer Torches. On the other hand, it’s not like the threat can be ignored. You might not appreciate the politics of all of it, but there’s a reason Torches and Eclipses have to be careful about who knows their true identity. Soldiers and assassins are bigger targets. No one’s going to go out of their way to screw with a Sorceress with healing sorcery and Earth Mother regalia.”
“The mere possibility of an assassination isn’t the same thing as verifying an occurrence,” Jofi said. “There are many negative events that could happen but haven’t.”
“Such as?”
“A large meteor destroying a major city,” Jofi explained, “like they spoke about on that show you were watching last week.”
“True.” Lyssa laid her head against the back of the couch. “The thing is, an assassination’s far more likely than a killer meteor, and I feel like there’s something here worth looking into. I want to know what it is before I stick my neck out.”
“Are you sure you’re not seeing connections that aren’t there due to the incident with your brother and the anniversary? You’ve demonstrated emotional distress well beyond normal in the last week.”
Lyssa jerked upright. “This isn’t about that. Mostly. Besides, it doesn’t change what I’ve said.”
“Is there another possibility you can think of?” Jofi asked. “Something less pernicious that might make you worry less?”
Lyssa opened her mouth but closed it without uttering a single syllable. There were too many possibilities, and that was the problem. No one liked accepting that there were many different reasons someone might want to kill them.
“Let’s not worry about it for now.” Lyssa stood. “I’m going to take a shower, then go out to get something to eat. I’ve been ordering in too much.”
“Will I be coming?”
“No, I think I can grab a chicken sandwich without needing to shoot someone.”
“You should take a normal weapon, just in case.”
Lyssa smiled. “I’m not going to have a shootout at Emperor Chicken unless they’ve run out of chicken sandwiches again.”
She waited for him to offer an additional complaint with a hint of guilt stabbing her. She wanted to be honest with Jofi. Her brother might not be the only reason someone might want to take a shot at her.
No. She wouldn’t worry about the spirit. One crisis at a time. That was all she could handle.
Lyssa stopped in her garage and stared at her bike. She still planned to get food, but the shards and Alvarez snuck back into her mind.
Waiting around was adding to her agitation. She trusted Damien to get her information, but the EAA had its limits. They couldn’t handle shards without the help of the Illuminated.
She ran her hands through her hair and groaned. “This sucks.”
“What?” Jofi asked. “You’ve yet to leave. It seems premature to complain about your meal before you’ve eaten it.”
“I’m trying to be patient about the shards, but I can’t let it go.” Lyssa shrugged. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a job where I got ambushed by something that unexpected.”
“The rocket launcher incident in Sacramento didn’t bother you as much?”
“No, because they told me ahead of time those terrorists might have weapons like that.” Lyssa moved over to the bike and straddled the seat. “Knowing I’m in for a tough fight doesn’t bother me.”
“Then your primary concern in this incident was the lack of forewarning?”
“Sort of.” Lyssa shook her head. “The trap alone wouldn’t have bothered me. A single crossbow or the robe alone wouldn’t have spun me up as much. But the entire package? It was too much.”
“You survived with only modest injuries.”
Lyssa snickered. “You were the one who wanted me to get rougher from the beginning.”
“Due to tactical considerations, nothing more.”
Lyssa thought for a moment and hopped off her bike. “I’m not going to sit around doing nothing.”
“You’re not going to the chicken restaurant?” Jofi asked.
“I am, but first, I need to get one of my spare phones out of the safe.” Lyssa headed toward the garage door. “I need to give Reed a call.”
“Didn’t you threaten to kill him last time you talked to him?”
“Sure, because he gave me a bad tip.” Lyssa grinned. “He’s got a chance to make up for it now.”
Lyssa donned her regalia before making the call. She’d long since learned faking her Hecate voice without her regalia was harder than she expected, and the last thing she wanted to do was provide a sleazy informant like Reed Peters any clues about her true identity.
She kept a box of burner phones she’d purchased all over the country, but in this case, there was no reason not to use a local number. Her identity might be a secret, but the fact that Hecate lived in Maricopa County wasn’t.
“You’re not going to visit him directly about this?” Jofi asked.
“That would require me to get near him.” Lyssa wrinkled her nose. “And the less time I spend around that guy, the better. Plus, there’s something that bothers me about his suits. The guy’s not rich, but he can afford a suit that fits? It’s crazy.”
She dialed and waited patiently. There was no reason for Reed not to answer, given the time of day. Unless he was dead. That was always a possibility.
“Yeah?” Reed answered, suspicion thick in his voice.
“It’s me,” Lyssa replied, the gruffness of the regalia coming through. “It’s a new phone.”
Reed giggled. “Hecate, I’m not the NSA. You ain’t got to worry about me tracing things.”
“I’m not worried about you.” Lyssa scoffed. “And I don’t want to waste a lot of time with chitchat.”
“You know me. I’m always up for a nice, well-paid chat. And you pay better than most.”
“Is that why you haven’t tried to sell me out yet?”
“That and you might drink my soul,” Reed replied.
“Good, remember that. But let’s get down to business. I’ve got an important place to be.”
“Weren’t you going to Emperor Chicken for a meal?” Jofi asked.
Lyssa put her hand over her phone. “Quiet, you. You’re going to mess up my flow.”
Reed coughed over the line. “Before we get down to business, I’m wondering.”
“Wondering what?” Lyssa asked warily.
“Does it always have to be money?” Reed chuckled nervously. “Maybe you could owe me a fav—”
“Don’t press your luck,” Lyssa growled. “Jorge Alvarez. You know him?”
“Yeah.” Reed sounded offended. “I ain’t some idiot, you know. I knew abo
ut him before you kicked in his door and beat his ass. What about him?”
“He had shards.”
“That’s what they said on the news.”
“Would you happen to know anything about that?” Lyssa asked.
“Ah, I got you.” Reed chuckled. “I ain’t got anything right now, but that don’t mean I won’t get nothing. Give me some time.”
Lyssa hissed in frustration. “Everyone needs time, and no one knows anything.”
“Whoa. Calm down there, Hecate. I’ll find what you need. You want to know where he got them, right?”
“Yes.” Lyssa ground her teeth. “Get me answers within a week, and I’ll pay you twice as much as normal. The faster you get that info, the bigger the bonus.”
She was more frustrated than she’d expected to be. Calling Reed crystallized the truth about what had happened the other day.
“Now that’s what I call motivation,” Reed replied. “I’ll get what you need. Old Reed Peters ain’t ever going to let you down.”
“I hope not. For your sake.”
Chapter Eight
Lyssa munched quietly on her spicy Szechuan chicken sandwich in the corner of the Emperor Chicken dining room. Despite her frustration, there was nothing to do but wait and relax by focusing on the mundane. Tomorrow, she had somewhere to go that would help distract her from the anniversary, but the only thing keeping her grounded for the moment was food.
Eating a chicken sandwich and sipping iced tea was about the most mundane thing in the world. No one would suspect that Hecate the Night Goddess would be at a corner Chinese-fusion fast-food place.
A TV hung in the corner of the dining room, blaring the news. She’d hoped everyone had moved on from the Alvarez incident, but it was still headlining broadcasts days later. A split-screen came up as the anchor introduced an alleged expert, a round-faced bespectacled man in a gray suit and a red bowtie.
She grimaced. She’d never met the man, but she recognized him from an article she’d read before moving to Phoenix. He was a member of an anti-sorcery activist group.
“We’re joined today by Grant Harris,” the anchor said. “He’s the president of the local chapter of the American Council for Sorcery Safety. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us.”
“It’s my pleasure to be here,” Grant replied with a smile. “I consider adding to public safety awareness the duty of every citizen.”
“In that vein, we were wondering what your thoughts were on the recent raid in Phoenix on the home of reputed cartel member Jorge Alvarez.” The anchor kept a serious expression. “The government brought in a Sorceress who goes by the name of Hecate. While the police, FBI, and EAA aren’t being open with all the details, it’s clear the alleged criminals present, including the now-deceased Jorge Alvarez, were in possession of multiple illegal magical items, sometimes referred to as shards.”
Lyssa rolled her eyes. She loathed the word “magic.”
It was a petty complaint. She could understand why Shadows didn’t see a difference between magic and sorcery, but in her mind, sorcery was real, the result of careful training and study combined with the power of the regalia. It was ancient, older than Shadow science. Magic was something a guy in a top hat with a half-naked assistant did in Vegas at a super-cheap, way off-the-Strip casino.
The dictionary battle was lost, and her faction had been routed and humiliated. That was obvious to anyone. The day sorcery was revealed to the modern Shadow world was called M-Day, not S-Day. She’d have to get over it.
Grant steepled his fingers and nodded, his face grim. “The insistence by the government that this was a routine event is completely misleading, and I’m surprised that more people aren’t terrified about what happened. That’s one of the reasons I’m here today.”
She hated agreeing with the man about the incident being more than it appeared, though her reasons were likely far different.
The anchor nodded slowly. “I see. Could you expand on your meaning for the people at home?”
“Of course.” Grant nodded back. “The last time I checked, it was the job of law enforcement to apprehend criminals. Now, I have nothing but the utmost respect for our men and women in law enforcement, but hiring a witch to come in and do dangerous magic is not a good long-term solution to solving the problem of criminal threat inflation.” He sighed and shook his head. “What if innocent people were hurt? It’s my understanding that they didn’t know about the shards beforehand, and the combination of this lethal woman flinging her powers around with these criminals using dangerous magical items? Well, we don’t know the long-term effects or if a collision of their spells might have blown the entire neighborhood away. Do you want to trust your children’s safety to a witch dressed like that?”
Lyssa rolled her eyes. She wasn’t a witch, and the only people who could get away with bowties were college professors, guys who always went by three names, and English actors playing ancient alien time travelers.
The anchor nodded. “That’s a big concern, especially with recent revelations about alleged accidents and dangerous occurrences that turned out to be the result of sorcery.”
There were many mysterious explosions and dead bad people all over the world who’d been done in by Torches. Before M-Day, the leaders of the Illuminated Society hadn’t been above trying to manipulate countries and societies both directly and indirectly. With greater numbers, they might have been more effective.
Lyssa took a sip of her drink. Grant Harris and his friends might be paranoid, but that didn’t make them wrong. The problem was his people wanted to take down all Sorcerers.
“That’s what led to the formation of the ACSS and our sister organizations across the world.” Grant shook a finger. “It’s important for everyone to remember that this Illuminated Society hid for thousands of years. Even if we believe their fanciful claims that they are descendants of people from a lost sunken continent, that doesn’t change the fact it was an accident that revealed them to the world five years ago, not their honest attempt to reach out. I don’t know about you, but if someone’s been lying and hiding from me for a long time, it makes me suspect they’re not being honest about a lot of other things.”
“The Society claims they’d been intending to go public for a much longer time,” the anchor replied. “They simply took advantage of that incident to come out of the top hat, as it were.”
“Come out of the top hat?” Lyssa chuckled. She might not like the term “magic,” but that expression was clever. She’d have to use it.
“It’s obvious that’s a lie.” Grant furrowed his brow. “And it doesn’t change that these people didn’t have a problem with hiding themselves for so long. It’s shocking to me that the government maintains such a cavalier attitude toward them.”
The anchor replied, “The Extraordinary Affairs Agency insists the situation is well in hand.”
Grant guffawed before wiping away a tear of mirth. “I don’t know about you, but hearing a government agency say, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got this under control’ worries me on the best of days, let alone when we’re talking about sorcery.”
The anchor laughed. Lyssa controlled herself. Unsurprisingly, growling at random TVs in public attracted attention.
“Given the range of magical abilities,” Grant said, “we can’t rule out undue influence on the government by the Society.”
“Are you stating here, in public, that you believe the US government has been infiltrated or supernaturally influenced by Sorcerers?” the anchor asked, sounding surprised.
“I’m only noting it’s a possibility we shouldn’t ignore.” Grant frowned. “I’m far more concerned about the local risks. Let’s not ignore the other frightening aspect of this situation. Dangerous criminals had illegal magical items.” He clucked his tongue. “Given how rare that used to be, it’s obvious the Society isn’t doing enough to keep their criminals in check, and now they’re flooding our streets with their dangerous magical we
apons.”
“Isn’t that more reason to hire Torches and other Sorcerers?”
Grant looked offended. “Don’t you think that’s convenient?”
“Convenient?” The anchor’s eyebrows lifted.
“Dangerous criminals suddenly have magic items, forcing the government to rely more on the Society, but the only possible source of those items is the Society.” Grant’s smile became more of a smirk. “I’m not accusing the Society of anything. I’m only noting we have to keep all possibilities in mind when we’re looking into the situation.”
Lyssa clenched her jaw so hard it started to hurt. The extra-annoying thing was Grant was right. Alvarez wasn’t a god. He was a cartel thug, and unless something awful had happened, there was only a single source for shards.
She didn’t buy into Grant’s convoluted logic of a dark plan by the Society as a whole, but there could be a Sorcerer at the end of the tunnel. That didn’t fit with her paranoia about it being a trap, but a good conspiracy theory wasn’t stopped by mere evidence.
“Also,” Grant continued, his cheeks red, “we can’t ignore that we don’t even know where the capital territory of these people is. I continue to find that amazing.”
“Isn’t that Last Remnant?” the anchor asked.
“We know a name, and we know it’s an island that is, by their admission, hidden by their magic somewhere in the Indian Ocean. But where exactly is it? Would you sign a treaty with another country if you didn’t even know where they were? The Cold War didn’t become World War III because the Russians realized if they nuked us, we’d nuke them. We don’t have a similar balance with the Society.”
The anchor looked concerned. “We’re not at war with the Illuminated Society, and we’re not engaged in a Cold War either. Don’t you think most people would say the situations aren’t analogous? Sorcerers live among us.”
Grant shook his head. “And doesn’t that ever keep you up at night? You never sit in a restaurant and look around, wondering if someone eating a meal next to you might be one of them?”