Magic Ain't a Game

by P. D. Workman

  Chapter Nine

  Julian.

  Reg groaned aloud. “No…”

  Julian smiled. He was handsome, his smile rakish, and he was stunning with his white hair and whip-thin physique. But it was like the smile of a swamp goblin.

  And Reg would know.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Everyone is welcome at the Ostara celebration.”

  “But you’re not even from here. Shouldn’t you… I don’t know… be reporting back to the mother ship or something?”

  He danced along to the music. He was good, his movements perfectly timed and executed. But he was too good. She didn’t feel drawn into the dance. It was like she was standing apart from him, watching a performance.

  “I am not an alien,” he said, his face expressionless.

  His blankness reminded her of the boy he had been when they had been in foster care together. Blank, with no affect. He hadn’t yet learned to be charming, to react to people naturally. Instead, he was like Mr. Spock or Data on Star Trek. An outsider trying to learn about human emotion by observation, not because he actually felt it himself. She and the other children had known that he was different. That there was something alien about him. They had probably teased him for it. Reg didn’t remember seeing anything blatant, but she had been aware that there was something bad going on beneath the surface.

  “I am an investigator,” Julian told her. In case she hadn’t read or had already forgotten his business card. “That’s an elite position. There are not very many of us; we have to go through a rigorous training and vetting program. It’s very prestigious.” He drew himself up even taller, proud and straight, towering over her.

  She could see that it meant something to him. He had actually accomplished something in his life, despite his less-than-favorable start. So many of the kids Reg had known in foster care ended up on the streets or in prison. Foster care wasn’t a fast track to success.

  There were success stories; kids who had been given the right opportunities or who had pulled themselves up out of the muck by sheer force of will. But many of them fell by the wayside, discarded and forgotten by society.

  “Good for you,” she said, soothing his ego. She didn’t have a clue what he was investigating her for, but she assumed that he would be much better disposed toward her if she stroked him and got him on her side. “That must have been really hard. You must have really had to work at it.”

  Julian nodded. “Yes, exactly,” he agreed eagerly. “It wasn’t just handed to me. I had to fight for it. I had to make something out of myself.”

  “That’s amazing. Me… well, most of the time, I’ve barely been able to keep body and soul together. I’ve done all right since I got here in Black Sands, but before that… Well, things were not going too well for me. I was lucky to find this place and to meet up with Sarah, my landlady. She’s been a big help to me. Giving me a cottage at rock-bottom prices, helping me to get new clients. She’s really been awesome.”

  “I looked into your background. What I could find. You managed to stay out of sight for long periods of time.”

  Reg shrugged. “I only started using my own name again recently. And a lot of the time… well, you run a cash business, you don’t report to anyone. You use different names and you move on at the first hint of trouble.”

  Maybe something she should be considering now that Magical Investigations was after her. She couldn’t understand why Julian was knocking at her door. What they thought she had done wrong.

  “I figured something like that.”

  They danced for a few minutes in silence. The song was stretching out too long. Reg wanted it to be over so she could go get another drink. Maybe find Jessup and Francesca and go home. The party was bound to run all night, but that didn’t mean Reg had to stay there the whole time. She could beg off sick. Or say that she was too upset about Corvin being there, stalking her again.

  It wouldn’t be a lie.

  “Reg Rawlins,” Julian said, looking down at her, in a tone that was halfway between hunger and admiration. It gave her the chills.

  And not in a nice way.

  “That’s me,” she said with a shrug. “No one special. Just… you know, making a bit of coin reading palms or tea leaves. Without Sarah’s cottage, I never would have been able to afford to live here.”

  “The great Reg Rawlins.”

  It always made her uncomfortable when people used adjectives in front of her name. She didn’t want to have to live up to a reputation or to somehow find a way to show that she had earned it. She didn’t want to be great or famous. She just wanted to be Reg.

  “I don’t know who’s been talking to you. I’m not anything special. Someone has been exaggerating.”

  “Have they. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of investigating your background. Some of the stories have been… difficult to believe. But they have been corroborated. And I remember you.” He took her by the hand to bring her close to him and then to spin her out. “I remember the feeling I used to have around you. The… electricity.”

  And yet, her fingers and skin did not tingle when she touched him like they did when she touched Corvin. Between the two of them, there was always a buzz of electricity. Did that mean that Julian was less powerful? Or just that the two of them did not connect in the same way?

  “Looking back, sometimes you see things that weren’t actually there before,” Reg cautioned. “You embellish. Add things. Insights. Things that… didn’t actually happen that way.”

  “I don’t do that. I have a very good memory. I don’t need to embellish.”

  “Everybody does it.”

  Did a shadow of doubt cross his face? Reg thought she sensed a slight weakening. But it was so very small, she might have imagined it.

  “What is all of this about?” Reg demanded. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve just been here, doing my thing, not harming anyone. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? It’s all good as long as you’re not hurting anyone else?”

  “Not exactly the poetic turn of phrase that I usually hear, but yes, that is a basic tenet of our faith.” he gazed down at her. “Not that you are exactly a believer.”

  “I believe… in some things.”

  “What? In what you can see and touch with your own eyes and hands? There is so much more to the world than what you can see and touch.”

  “Other things too… some things you can write off as coincidence, but I have seen some things that… defy description.”

  “You’ve seen things.”

  “Yes… but I’ve also felt things. Heard things. I’ve been able to do things that… I shouldn’t be able to do. I’ve had experiences that…” She trailed off.

  “Defy description,” he repeated.

  “Yes. I guess. I don’t know how else to put it. Things that, if we had seen when we were kids, back in foster care… we would never have believed.”

  “I would have been a lot harder to surprise than you. I grew up in a magical home, remember.”

  “For a few of the early years,” Reg temporized. “You weren’t raised by them.”

  “I was. I was only put into foster care for a few years at the end. I remembered my family, all of the things that we used to do. The powers that they had. That I had.” His voice was angry as if she had accused him of lying. Or had tried to take his past away from him.

  But that wasn’t what Reg remembered. He had not been grown when they had been in Mrs. Newburg’s home. He was only a couple of years older than Reg, and he had been in other homes before arriving there. He had a reputation as a child who had been put through a lot of different programs and families.

  “I was in foster care since I was four or five,” Reg told him. “I remember…”

  He cocked his head, waiting to hear what she remembered from those early years. Reg thought of Norma Jean, her mother, the last couple of places they had lived. The grinding poverty, watching her mother shoot up with drugs, men in and
out of her life over and over again.

  “I didn’t remember magic from back then,” she said. “I guess I had… a guardian who tried to help me. But my mother… she was too far gone to use her powers back then.”

  Until Weston had taken Reg back in time, had changed things, had made it so that Norma Jean survived. That the Witch Doctor hadn’t been able to kill her. But Reg had grown up without her anyway, moved from one foster home to another, pretending there was nothing different about her. Nothing at all.

  “You liked being different?” she asked Julian. That was what she remembered. That he had been attention-seeking. He got in trouble and he did things that demanded lots of attention, that he had relished it when he was punished for his misdeeds, because at least then he knew that they had noticed him. That he was able to have an effect on the world around him.

  “Yes. I’m proud to be different. I would never want to be the same as all of those milksops that we grew up with. No power. No talents. No gifts. I didn’t want that. I never wanted to be like all of the other kids.”

  “Yeah.”

  Chapter Ten

  The song ended, and Reg took a couple of quick steps back to separate herself from Julian.

  “I have to go. I’m tired.”

  He looked at her, knowing that it wasn’t the truth. His white hair made him look like some kind of angel. But Reg didn’t feel warm and safe around him. Far from it.

  “I’m still going to need to set up an interview with you,” Julian said, following her off of the dance floor. “There are questions which must be answered.”

  “I don’t know what it is that you’re investigating, but I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Then you can answer my questions honestly and you won’t be punished for anything. But if you have broken the laws of the magical community, we will take action.”

  “I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t know all of your magical laws. I’m not part of that community. I’m just a psychic. I don’t cast spells.”

  He took a step toward her and opened his mouth to argue. In a flash, Corvin was there in front of Reg, inserting himself between her and Julian.

  “I think you’ve finished your dance,” he told Julian sharply, baring his teeth in a smile. “It’s someone else’s turn now.”

  He took Reg by the arm, and she found herself pulled away, leaving Julian behind to fume once more over her refusal to talk to him. She faced Corvin on the dance floor, her face flaming hot, her own fury bubbling up this time over his presumption after she had made it very clear to him that she wouldn’t dance with him.

  “What was that?”

  Corvin shrugged. “I became aware that you were dealing with a warlock you did not want anything to do with, and I devised a plan to get you out of the situation.”

  “I told you I don’t want to dance.”

  “And since then, you have been dancing. Surely you can spend a couple of minutes with me, if only to protect yourself from an intrusive stranger.”

  Reg’s feet moved of their own accord. She felt herself swept up by the beat of the music like she hadn’t been for any of the other dances she had participated in that evening. Somehow, the music thrummed inside her as well as out. Her whole being moved with the rhythm and the winding melody, as if she knew the song.

  “He’s not a stranger.”

  “Oh, my mistake. He is unfamiliar to me. Where have you met him before?”

  “He was… I knew him years ago. Before Black Sands.”

  “How mysterious. I thought you left your former life behind when you came here. I thought that you had certain reasons for not wanting your past life to catch up with you here.”

  “Yes. I do. And yet… here he is.”

  “And you would like him removed from your life?”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  Corvin scanned the crowd behind Reg. “He’s already disappeared. I don’t think you need to worry about him.”

  “He’ll be back. He said he has to interview me.”

  “Has to? What is he? A reporter?”

  “No. Something called Magical Investigations.”

  Corvin’s brows went up. “Really?” He leaned closer to her. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing happened. He showed up at the cottage, said he wants to talk. I told him I was going out. Then he shows up here, dances with me, and starts asking me questions again.”

  “About what?”

  Reg looked around to make sure that no one was paying any attention to their conversation. “Something to do with the Everglades.”

  Corvin nodded slowly, rubbing the neatly trimmed whiskers on his chin. “Maybe you’d better fill me in on the stuff that happened while you were alone in the swamp. Or… not alone. We can go through it, figure out what it is that he wants to talk to you about, devise a plan. I’ll back you up. I’m sure Damon will too.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong, so I don’t need to explain myself. I don’t have to lie.”

  His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I’m sure you didn’t. But sometimes, enforcers see things differently. The wrong shading, and something perfectly innocent can suddenly appear to be a gross misstep. Like our little incident,” he reminded her. “A misunderstanding. A little slip-up, natural under the circumstances, and suddenly I am in the spotlight, under examination by the tribunal. Even though you never filed a complaint. It wasn’t your idea. But when someone else makes a complaint, and they are determined to railroad you…”

  Reg snorted at Corvin’s characterization of his attack against her. A misunderstanding? A slip-up? He knew very well that wasn’t the case, and so did she.

  “I don’t need your help,” she snapped. “I don’t need anyone’s help. I’m not even going to talk to the guy. He can take a hike.”

  “You’ll talk to him.”

  “I don’t have to. What is he going to do? Force his way into my house? He can’t. It’s protected.”

  “They have far-reaching powers, these investigators. Maybe he can’t get past your threshold. But even if he can’t, he can track you down other places. How did he know to find you here tonight?”

  “Where else would I be tonight? This is where everyone is. I said I had to go out, and it didn’t take him long to figure out where. But that doesn’t mean I have to tell him anything. I know my rights.”

  “You don’t know your rights. Or the rights that you don’t have. We are not talking about the laws of the land. These are ancient laws and they can be very complicated. Breaking them can have… lasting consequences.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Reg insisted.

  “Perhaps not. But we should talk about it. Make sure before you say anything to him.”

  Reg shook her head stubbornly. If she needed help, she would seek it from someone other than Corvin. She’d dealt with him in her life enough already.

  When the dance ended, Jessup was there to rescue her. And Jessup held something over Corvin, some kind of threat or promise. When she told him something, he listened to her, even if he scowled and didn’t like it. Jessup put one arm around Reg’s shoulder and smiled sweetly at Corvin. “I think you’re done here tonight, Hunter.”

  “I have as much right as anyone to participate in Ostara.”

  “Not since you were shunned by your coven, you don’t.”

  “I don’t have to be here under the auspices of a coven. Everyone is welcome.”

  Jessup opened her mouth to argue.

  “Everyone,” Corvin insisted.

  “Well, you’ve worn out your welcome. I think it’s time for you to go home. And you know better than to show up at the Spring Games, don’t you?”

  Corvin swallowed, his face red with fury. He didn’t argue with her on that point. Jessup steered Reg away from him, but kept an eye on Corvin until he headed for the door. Reg helped herself to another glass of punch.

  “Why can’t he go to the Spring Games?”

  “His kind have been b
anned from the Spring Games for hundreds of years. Too dangerous to have a being like him where there is such a large gathering of practitioners.”

  Reg thought about that. So many people with powers gathered together in one place would be like a smorgasbord to Corvin. An all-you-can-eat buffet. It wouldn’t be hard for him to separate one or two unwitting victims from the crowds of observers and to charm them into yielding their powers to him. And he would become stronger and more insistent with each one.

  “Yeah, I guess I can see how that would be a problem,” she admitted. Thinking back to how Corvin had fed on the Witch Doctor’s artifacts and directly from him, Reg couldn’t help wondering if they had made a mistake. They would not have had any hope of defeating the Witch Doctor without him. Yet those powers were all held by Corvin now. Even if he only understood how to exercise a fraction of them, it was still a vast reservoir of power residing in just one person. And she was coming to understand that was a bad thing, even if his intentions were good.

  “I think… I’d like to go home now,” she told Jessup. “Is that okay? I don’t mean to take you away from all of this, but…”

  Jessup nodded. “Sure. If you’re getting tired…”

  Reg didn’t say that she was getting tired. But she was tired of having to fend off Julian and Corvin and didn’t want to take the chance of having to face either one again.

  “I’ll just see if I can find Francesca,” Jessup said. “I’ll see whether she wants to go home now, or if she wants me to come back or can get a ride from someone else.”

  “Sarah is here.” Reg looked around, trying to spot Sarah’s gray head among the crowd, feeling her presence. “Francesca could get a ride from her. Or Letticia.”

  “I don’t know that I would recommend riding with either one of them.”

  Reg smiled. She’d ridden with Sarah, and that was a pretty frightening experience. She suspected that Sarah didn’t have a license. Who would give her one with the way that she drove? “Letticia isn’t so bad. I haven’t ridden along with her, but I followed her from her house back to town, and she didn’t put any lives in danger.”