A Catastrophic Theft

by P. D. Workman

  “These standards have been in place for many years. You deem them to be too harsh and Miss Rawlins thinks they are too lenient, which perhaps tells us that we have hit a fair balance. We cannot make the rules so strict that they prohibit you from feeding at all, and yet we wish to protect the members of our community.” Davyn turned his head to look at the colleagues who sat behind him. From what Reg could see, he mostly got encouraging nods.

  How could they think that they had struck a fair balance when that meant that unsuspecting women were being attacked? Reg shook her head in disgust.

  “Before the members discuss appropriate disciplinary measures, I would like one more opportunity to plead my case,” Corvin said.

  There were impatient sighs and movements from the gallery behind Davyn. Davyn himself leaned his chin on his hand as if too fatigued to remain upright without the support.

  “I trust this will be short.”

  “In hearing from Miss Rawlins today, the council may be under the impression that she is an innocent victim who suffered a harm at my hands. I can assure you that nothing could be further from the truth.”

  Reg straightened with a squawk. “What?”

  Davyn gave her a glare. Reg opened her mouth to argue with Corvin, but the woman to her left gave her a nudge. “If you want to argue, you have to let him have his say first,” she whispered. “Don’t start a shouting match or they’ll have you ejected.”

  Reg closed her mouth with a great effort. She sat there with her arms folded, giving Corvin the worst glare she could, imagining burning him up with her eyes.

  Corvin turned away from her, facing Davyn directly, his shoulder and back toward Reg.

  “Regina is not the one who brought the complaint against me,” Corvin said in a low, confidential tone. “She and I know each other and have worked together both before and after this incident. While we both regret it, I don’t think that she would ever have brought charges if left to herself. In fact, these complaints were not brought by any human, but by fairies.”

  There were mutterings among the spectators and council members. Fairies and humans associated loosely with each other, but left to their own devices, usually dealt with their own kind and were suspicious of each other. There were treaties and understandings between the various races, but even so, they all tended to be a little xenophobic.

  “Lord Bernier has already spoken today,” Davyn pointed out. “He was present and therefore entitled to bring these charges to bear.”

  Corvin nodded. “Just as you say. But without Lord Bernier’s… participation… in the process, I don’t believe there would have been any hearing. Regina and I would have been able to work things out between us, just as we have before.”

  There was no comment from anyone else about this statement. Corvin nodded and went on.

  “As you noted, Reg was not an innocent who was a stranger to my condition. She had full knowledge of what I was. Perhaps she is one of those people who likes to flirt with danger.”

  Reg opened her mouth to object, the but woman next to her pinched her arm. “Don’t say anything. He’s baiting you.”

  It was a struggle for Reg to remain quiet, but she did.

  “Or maybe she enjoyed the power struggle,” Corvin went on, “her attempt to dictate her own terms and see who came out on top… If you were to look into her background, you would find that Reg has a long history of con jobs and brushes with the law. She is being investigated in connection with the thefts of two valuable objects. She is not the innocent victim she would like to paint herself as. And it’s not the first time she’s made false allegations—”

  ⋆ Chapter Eighteen ⋆

  R

  eg felt like something snapped in her head. She saw nothing but red. Corvin’s dapper cloak burst into flames. For a moment, everyone in the room froze, including Corvin. Then he was suddenly moving, tearing the cloak away from himself and throwing it to the carpet, which luckily seemed to be flame resistant and did not catch fire or start melting. Corvin turned to look at Reg, his face angry and at the same time frightened.

  While she was staring at him, his nose started bleeding. Corvin raised his hand to touch the blood and looked at it in disbelief. He pinched it and tried to give instructions to the various witches and warlocks who started to swarm around him, giving advice and trying to physically assist him. Davyn stood up and raised his arms, trying to get everyone’s attention.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, everything is alright. Just a little technical difficulty. If everyone could please take your seats unless you are called upon to assist. We don’t want to end up with injuries due to panic and crowding. Please take your seats.”

  A few large security men moved into the room. Reg wasn’t sure whether they were hotel staff or whether magical tribunals often broke into violence so they had their own security on site. They started to push and redirect the spectators to clear the area at the front of the room again.

  “You see?” Corvin demanded, pinching his nose. He gave a little laugh. “You really think she is a victim here? She has remarkable psychic abilities. She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She doesn’t need any tribunal.”

  “It could have been anyone in the room,” one of the warlocks in the tribunal soothed. “You wouldn’t want to unjustly accuse anyone of—”

  “Look at her!” Corvin insisted. “Ask her! She’s—” Corvin’s jacket burst into flames and he howled and pulled at it, unable to get it off as quickly as the cloak. The man helped him to pull it off, trying to pat out the flames while doing so. Corvin glared at Reg across the room. His face was bloody and he wasn’t able to keep pinching his nose while he tried to wrestle his way out of the burning jacket. The flames just flared higher when they tried to pat them out. By the time Corvin got the jacket off, an alarm was ringing.

  “It’s fine. I’m fine!” Corvin insisted, trying to push the helpful hands away from him. He tried to advance toward Reg, but the others could see his goal and were not about to let him go after her.

  “If you keep it up, pretty soon I’m not going to have any clothes left!” Corvin growled at Reg. “There are much easier ways to get me to strip.”

  Reg marched toward him, determined to punch him in the nose and give it a real reason to bleed. Several people grabbed at her as she moved past them, until one pair of hands managed to get a good hold on her and closed tightly around her arms, forcing her to stop and be still.

  “Miss, that’s not a good idea,” the owner of the hands whispered in her ear. “Try to calm down before this gets out of hand.”

  “I’ll show you out of hand!”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Reg whipped her head around to look at the unfamiliar warlock. His hair started to smolder, a twist of black smoke ascending into the air. He didn’t let go of her, but the smoke disappeared as if the fire that had started had been snuffed out.

  “You are a dangerous woman to cross, aren’t you?” he chuckled. He was one of the big men who had moved into the room when things had started to get exciting. Magical security, not hotel security, if he wasn’t fazed by his hair spontaneously igniting.

  “Let me go.”

  “I don’t think so. Somebody needs to keep an eye on you.”

  “It isn’t me. I’m not causing all of this.”

  “I’d say it’s definitely coming from your direction.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “How about we all just take a deep breath here? Nobody needs to get hurt. Just relax.”

  “I told you, I’m not doing it. I can’t light fires. I have a hard enough time lighting matches!”

  “And you weren’t wishing just now that Mr. Hunter would burst into flames?”

  Reg frowned. Strange that he should ask that. “That’s not one of my talents,” she reiterated. “I wouldn’t know how to light a fire with my mind even if I wanted to.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can do, especially when under stress.”<
br />
  “It’s not me. There must be someone else here doing it.”

  “Perhaps.”

  It was some time before things settled down again. Reg stood by, waiting to see what was going to happen next. Corvin eyed her as he sat back down in his appointed seat. The excited crowd quieted.

  “Did you have more that you wanted to say, or were you done?” Davyn asked Corvin.

  “I guess… I was done. I wanted to point out that Miss Rawlins wasn’t a defenseless victim here, and I guess she’s proven my point.”

  Davyn considered this and nodded. He didn’t write it down on his record. “The council has a lot to consider. I think it would be best at this point for us to adjourn the public hearing, and discuss it privately. I do not expect to be coming to a decision today on guilt or innocence or on appropriate disciplinary measures.”

  The noise from the crowd was a long sigh, and then a moment of silence while everyone considered this and then prepared to leave. Davyn wrote one more note on his scroll and then stood up, going over to the rest of the council to talk to them.

  Reg looked at the security guard who was still standing with her, though he was no longer holding on to her.

  “So that’s it?” she asked. “We’re done?”

  “We’re done,” he agreed. “They will take some time now to discuss all of the points that have been brought up in the hearing before coming to a decision.”

  “How much time?”

  “Anywhere from a few hours to…” the guard trailed off. He shrugged. “I don’t think there’s any outside time limit. It’s not like courts or regulatory agencies that have to come to a decision in a defined length of time. It will probably be a few days… or weeks.”

  “But it could be longer.”

  “Could be.”

  “What about the right to a speedy trial?”

  “Well, you’re not on trial, so I’m not sure you could demand one. And that’s the regular court system… which this is not.”

  “And in the meantime, Corvin’s allowed to walk around doing whatever he wants?”

  “He hasn’t been convicted of anything. And the warlocks won’t be eager to bind him if he is found to be guilty of the charges, either. They don’t like to do that.”

  Reg sighed. “Yeah… I remember him saying something about that.”

  The guard looked at her. “That must have been an interesting conversation. How did it come up?”

  “Not about this…” Reg made a gesture to indicate the hearing. “It was a case we were working on.”

  “Ah. I see.” The guard glanced around. “Are you, uh, by yourself? Maybe I could walk you to your car…?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “You don’t want any of these people harassing you because of something that was said today. Why don’t I just see you safely to your car. I’d feel better about it.”

  Reg was about to say no again when she caught something in the guard’s expression. He wasn’t offering out of a sense of duty or because he thought she might be in danger. There was a particular glint in his eyes and looseness in his manner that telegraphed that he was interested in her. And after the experiences she’d had with men lately, Reg could really do with one who was squarely on her side.

  “Well… I don’t think you need to. But if you want to.”

  He grinned broadly. “I do.”

  Reg laughed. “Okay, then. It’s out this way.”

  As they headed toward the exit, Letticia made a motion to get Reg’s attention. “Everything okay?”

  Reg nodded and gave Letticia a wink to clue her in. “Just getting an escort to my car,” she said, “for safety reasons.”

  Letticia stared at her for a moment, and then she nodded, her expression blank, giving nothing away.

  On her return home, Reg remembered that Corvin’s trial was not the most important thing in her life and there were other things to be concerned about. Like Sarah, and whether she would even survive until they found the emerald. If they found the emerald.

  She was pondering the whole mess on the way home, not even turning on the radio because she wanted her mind clear to puzzle through all of the pieces. The answer had to be right in front of her face. She knew Sarah. She knew where the emerald had been kept. She knew the suspects other than herself. The motive for the theft was obvious. It was valuable, and someone wanted it either for its monetary or magical value. They either wanted lots of cash or health and long life.

  She couldn’t stop thinking that it was Corvin himself. He was the one who had thrown the blame in her direction. He was the one who had a need for powerful magical objects to feed his hunger. Would it cure him of his hunger, if it were a genetic disease like he had suggested? Or would it just give him the power he needed to survive from one day to the next to sate his hunger?

  Corvin and Sarah were friends. Reg had never understood their exact relationship, being so far apart in age. And Sarah had warned Reg that Corvin was bad news and she shouldn’t have him around. But she had also admitted to being attracted to him and had been eating with him at The Crystal Bowl. Could Corvin really be that cold-blooded? Pursuing his own appetites and watching the old crone die? Did he think, as Letticia had said, that Sarah’s time had come and it was time for her to give up the emerald and let nature take its course?

  Letticia herself could have taken the necklace. Sarah would have let her into the house upon request. Letticia was Sarah’s coven leader. Sarah would probably have shown her the necklace or let her hold it if asked. Then all Letticia had to do was throw some kind of confusion spell on Sarah and walk away with the priceless treasure. If she felt that it was time for Sarah to accept the inevitable, maybe she had decided to hurry things along. Or maybe she wanted the rare jewel for herself.

  Reg wasn’t paying much attention as she crossed the back yard to the cottage, and gave a little shriek when a black shape broke out of one of the bushes and streaked across the pathway in front of her in its hurry to get away. Reg stopped where she was, holding her hand over her heart and waiting for it to stop racing.

  “It’s just a cat,” she said softly. She followed it with her eyes. A black cat. Bad luck. Was it the same one that Sarah had been trying to whomp in the garden? “Kitty, kitty?” she called softly.

  The cat, in the process of jumping over the fence, turned and looked at her.

  “Kitty, kitty, kitty?” Reg called. “You want to come in and get some food?”

  It balanced there, looking at her, but the instant Reg took a step forward, it was gone. Over the fence and out of sight. Reg shrugged. She walked up to the cottage and let herself in.

  Starlight was on the back of the couch looking out the window. When Reg entered, he jumped down and started meowing.

  He and the cat outside were about the same size. Both were black. The cat outside didn’t have the same tuxedo markings and star that Starlight did, and it was skinnier, but she had only had a fleeting glimpse. There could have been other similarities. Reg frowned, thinking about that as she got Starlight something to eat.

  “Were you looking out the window at the other cat?” she asked him. “Did you see him?”

  Starlight stopped meowing and looked at Reg expectantly.

  “Hmm. Maybe you did.” Reg tried to reach out to him mentally. She could often feel what he was feeling, but he wasn’t close enough to human for her to actually understand his thought processes. “What did you think of him?”

  She didn’t need any words to explain the warm feelings that came from Starlight. He obviously wanted to meet the new cat. That was why he’d been wandering around at night howling at the windows and watching outside intently. He wasn’t sick and he wasn’t trying to drive Reg crazy. He wanted to make friends—or maybe more—with the newcomer.

  ⋆ Chapter Nineteen ⋆

  R

  eg fed Starlight and left him to eat while she walked across to the main house. She watched the door carefully as she opened and closed it, not wantin
g Starlight to escape or to let the new cat sneak inside. She knocked on Sarah’s door and tried to open it, but found it locked. She waited a bit, then rang the doorbell, beginning to worry that Sarah might have taken a turn for the worse. And there wasn’t much further to go.

  The door opened. It was Marian. Her lips tightened when she saw Reg. “So it’s you. What do you want?”

  “You’re the psychic; guess.” Reg pushed past her, entering the house. “How is Sarah?”

  “She’s sleeping. It’s probably best if you just let her rest.”

  “I need to talk to her.”

  Reg hadn’t actually been in Sarah’s bedroom before. It was a big house, and there were lots of bedrooms full of clothes and other goodies. She struck off toward the stairs, feeling for Sarah, and went directly to her bedroom. She peeked in and saw that Sarah was sleeping, as Marian had said. Reg walked in and sat on the chair beside the bed. Still warm from Marian sitting there keeping an eye on her friend. Reg didn’t like Marian, but softened a little, realizing how devoted she’d been in staying by Sarah’s side in her time of need, while Reg seemed pulled in every other direction.

  “Sarah.” She put her hand on Sarah’s. She seemed to have lost weight, her limbs shrinking, the skin loose and fragile. “Sarah, can you wake up?”

  It took a few more prompts before Sarah started to move and to blink blearily. She looked at Reg for a few minutes and then smiled weakly, a little drool collecting in the crease that ran down from her mouth.

  “Reg.”

  “Hi, Sarah. How are you feeling?” It was a struggle to sound cheerful, but Reg didn’t want to sound like she was visiting a friend at her deathbed.

  “I’ve had better days.” Sarah attempted to smooth her nightgown and look presentable. “I suppose it won’t be much longer now.”

  Reg tried to ignore the suggestion that Sarah was going to die. Not if she could help it. Not if Reg could find the emerald in time.