Spell Caster

by Clara Coulson

  A third group jogs off to check on auxiliary team A and hand off the retreat command, and a fourth group is assigned the same tasks for auxiliary team B. And finally, the last group, consisting of me, Naomi, Newman, and Li, stays behind to load the polong into the trunk of Argent’s SUV and discreetly transport it back to the office before any first responders happen upon the strange sight of a binding circle.

  When we finally slide the concrete slab far enough into the trunk to close the door, my arms feel like they’re going to fall off. Every muscle from my fingertips to my shoulders is on fire, the aftereffects of channeling so much poorly controlled energy through my arms at one time. I say “poorly controlled” because, according to my textbook, experiencing severe body aches post-magic use is a sign that you’re expending a great deal of waste energy.

  Instead of being utilized properly in the spellwork, waste energy just bounces around inside your body until you release the associated spell, at which point it practically steams out of your skin, causing varying degrees of damage. Extreme levels of waste energy can split your muscles, tear your tendons, even break your bones. I’ve never screwed up my spellcasting quite that much, thank god, but with the way my arms feel right now, I can tell that massive force vortex was a close call.

  I can’t afford to stumble so close to a critical magic failure again. Not with wickedly dangerous practitioners, like Alexander Targus, prowling through my city’s streets. Not with Methuselah and the Black Knights all but guaranteed to rise again and wreak more havoc in the near future. Not with the ICM’s own sanctimonious High Court sanctioning heinous crimes right under everyone else’s noses.

  The supernatural world is balanced on a pin right now. Sooner or later, something’s going to come along and knock it off with a simple flick of a finger, and that world is going to fall into a frothing ocean of war. Everyone with a stake in that world, including me, needs to be ready for that inevitability. Because anyone who isn’t ready is simply going to drown.

  Someone taps me on the shoulder, startling me out of my trance. “Yeah?” I say thickly.

  “We’re ready to head out.” Naomi gestures to the open front passenger seat of the SUV. Newman and Li are already lounging in the back, tending to each other’s injuries with a first-aid kit on the seat between them. I was so lost in my own thoughts I didn’t even notice them scrounging the kit out of the trunk, crunching right past me on the gravel, climbing into the vehicle, or loudly ripping open several plastic packages. I also have no clue when Naomi wrenched her dislocated shoulder back into place.

  That’s what I get for ruminating in public. I probably looked like a goddamn zombie, staring off into the distance for five minutes straight.

  “Hey,” Naomi adds, “if you need to recharge on the way back to the office, feel free to take a nap. I know you must be exhausted after all that magic you did back there.” Her gaze drops to my shoulder. “I imagine that degree of healing also saps your strength.”

  Faking a yawn, I reply, “You’re right. I’m pretty bushed. Might try to get a few winks in before we reach the office and the everlasting debriefs begin. Don’t want to fall asleep during one of those. Again.”

  Naomi smiles. “Yes, the commissioner wasn’t too pleased with your snoring last time.”

  “Hey, I’d had a late night.” I trudge up to the open door and practically flop onto the seat. “Seem to have a lot of those these days.”

  “Well, there’s a reason we call them the ‘things that go bump in the night.’” She marches around the front of the SUV and climbs into the driver’s side. “The supernatural world has a longstanding affair with insomnia.”

  I lean back against the seat cushion, a genuine wave of fatigue washing over me as the last of my adrenaline burns away. “Then maybe if we shove a bottle of Ambien down its throat, we can all get a good night’s sleep for once.”

  “Ah, Kinsey, if only it was that simple.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I jolt awake as a bolt of terror shoots down my spine. For a second, I have no idea where I am, and my eyes dart left and right on the hunt for signs of imminent danger. But all I find in my immediate vicinity is Naomi Sing, who appears to have just slammed on the brakes of the SUV I apparently decided to actually take a nap in. Plus Newman and Li, curled up in the back seats, who are hissing in pain because they were thrown against their seatbelts when the vehicle suddenly decelerated. The impact jarred their injuries.

  Beyond the cracked windshield of the SUV, I fail to locate any obvious threats. There’s nothing ahead of us but a debris-strewn road, although some sort of thick black wire, hanging from above, is swaying back and forth in the breeze.

  “Oh,” I say hoarsely as I follow the hanging wire to its severed end, which is sparking brightly in a shallow pothole puddle, “a power line.”

  Naomi whispers something in Thai before she responds, “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I hit the brakes so hard. I was going to maneuver around the line, but I had this sudden surge of fear out of nowhere and…” She pauses, eying my face. “What is it?”

  Ordering my pounding heart to calm the heck down, I unclip my seatbelt and turn around, peering into the trunk section. “Hey, you! Cut that shit out,” I shout at the invisible creature inside the dimly glowing binding circle. “A pinch of fear isn’t going to convince us to set you free. You’re not going anywhere except back to the realm you originally came from. So give it up, will you?”

  The unnatural fear spikes sharply for a moment, then dissipates as quickly as it formed.

  Naomi’s mouth twists into a scowl. “I’m guessing that was the ‘fear defense mechanism’ I read about in the report on the conflict at the Wheeler apartment?”

  “Sorry I didn’t warn you.” I drop back into my seat. “I should’ve realized it would try that as a last-ditch effort.”

  “Not your fault.” She switches the vehicle into reverse and backs up ten feet so she can more easily pull around the dangling power line. “I should’ve been ready for it.”

  Newman chuckles dryly. “After that basement brawl, Captain, I don’t think any of us are ready for anything.”

  Naomi sighs. “That is all too true, unfortunately.” She yanks the gear shift back into drive but doesn’t take her foot off the brake, as something ahead of us catches her eye.

  I lean left to peer around a badly cracked section of glass and whistle as I find what snagged her attention. “Wow, now that’s what I call a first response.”

  Five blocks ahead of us, where the terrain abruptly shifts from ramshackle to revitalized, that awkward architectural border on the fringe of all gentrified neighborhoods, a virtual army of Aurora PD cruisers, ambulances, and fire trucks are turning off the four-lane highway and onto this two-lane road. Leading the pack is an unmarked police car, identifiable as a police car only because the driver has switched on the red and blue lights, and those lights are flashing up a storm as the driver guides the procession of first responders toward the outer rim of the debris field from the massive explosion.

  Naomi fiddles with the console between the front seats until she finds the switch for our own lights, and flips them on to indicate we’re friendlies. The driver of the lead car must radio back to the others, because the entire procession except that car falls back, while the leader continues forward, dodging tree limbs and chunks of fencing and whole uprooted bushes, and parks about twenty feet away from us, on the other side of the hanging power line. The driver loiters inside the car for the better part of a minute, as if making some determination, before they finally step out to reveal they are none other than Matt Lassiter.

  What are the odds? I choke back a laugh.

  As Naomi puts the SUV into park, I pop my door and slide out onto the roadway.

  Lassiter’s attention latches on to me, and he immediately lets out a groan. “Calvin Fucking Kinsey. Why am I not surprised?”

  Giving the power line a wide berth, I stroll up to him. “Because I’m DSI, and DSI alway
s appears wherever the supernatural shit does?”

  Lassiter shoves his hands into his pockets and grumbles something unintelligible. I let him rant to himself without interruption so I can give him a once-over. He looks better than he did the last time I saw him in person, the unsteadiness in his gait no longer as pronounced, his steps more certain, his posture more upright. The balance problems that have plagued him since the nearly fatal injury he acquired during the curse epidemic must be resolving at last, and I assume his assignment to lead the first responders to the blast site is a clear indicator he’s gradually being shifted back into field duty. He’s still got a couple months of recovery left before he’s fully cleared by medical, I’m sure, but at least he’s no longer stuck doing home reno projects to occupy his days.

  “So, what happened this time?” Lassiter asks. “I was over here thinking we had a gas main explosion until I spotted your tank in the road.”

  I glance at the waiting line of emergency vehicles and decide to give him the short version of the fake story: “Evil wizard threw a hissy fit when he realized he couldn’t beat us, turned himself into a bomb, and blew himself up.”

  Lassiter’s mouth drops open. “You’re telling me that massive explosion was a person?”

  “Trust me, there wasn’t enough left of him to reasonably call a person by the time the big magic bomb actually went off.”

  His jaw snaps shut. “Sheesh, you must’ve really pissed that guy off.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “I do say. You all have a bad habit of pissing off things that bite back.” He motions to something behind me. “Was that set off by the blast?”

  A giant column of dark smoke is rising from the Nottaway property. “Nah, that was set off by a fireball spell.”

  Lassiter says flatly, “Naturally.”

  The distant sound of the house collapsing rolls through the area like thunder, and flames shoot high into the air, disturbing the smoke. By the time the firefighters douse the blaze, there won’t be enough left of the place to even call it a building. There also won’t be enough of the interior left for us to gather any usable forensic evidence, which means we’ll have no DNA to compare to the blood sample I took in the woods. Which means we’ll have no way to confirm that the man I fought in the woods and the man we fought in the house were the same person.

  Exactly as Targus intended, I assume. Even the most desperate practitioners usually aren’t stupid enough to cast massive fire spells in confined spaces. Setting the basement on fire was likely part of Nottaway’s “programming”—and a backup option in case he didn’t get the chance to explode inside the house and vaporize the entire property. Targus, after all, is nothing but thorough. He strikes me as the sort of guy who has redundancies for his redundancies.

  But there’s only one Sadie Wheeler, I think, biting the inside of my cheek, and he lost his chance to kill her.

  Naomi strides over, acknowledging Lassiter with a nod. “The debris field gets heavier the closer you get to the epicenter of the explosion, so I would recommend you warn the fire trucks in particular that it’s going to be difficult to navigate the worst-affected areas.” She eyes the hanging power line, the torn end still sparking against the ground. “You should also call the power company and get them to shut off the electricity to this neighborhood.”

  “We did that already,” Lassiter huffs. “They’re just dragging their feet.”

  Naomi frowns. “Perhaps I should have a word with them?”

  He cracks a grin. “I appreciate the offer, but if they don’t hop to it in the next five minutes, Mahoney’s going to ream their asses himself.”

  Remembering the police commissioner’s response to the museum attack last month, I can’t help but laugh. “That’ll teach them a lesson they’ll never forget.”

  Naomi doesn’t smile, but the corner of her lips twitch. “Well, Detective, unless you’re in immediate need of our particular brand of assistance, then we’ll be on our way. We have a few more teams in the area, but they should clear out in short order. I’d appreciate it if you’d ask the other PD responders not to hassle any of us on our way out of the area, as some of our agents may have serious injuries.”

  Lassiter glances at my shoulder. The top few layers of skin are still raw. “Right. I’ll send that over to dispatch, make sure everybody gets the memo.”

  “Thank you.” Naomi directs me back to the SUV with a hand gesture. “And please let Commissioner Riker know if you need additional manpower to help with the cleanup efforts. Since this is technically our mess, I’m sure he’d be amenable to lending assistance, especially since we have so many new recruits to break in.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” Lassiter snickers as he retreats to his car. “Ah, giving newbies the drudge work. Now that brings back memories.”

  On that note, Naomi and I return to our vehicle, and then we’re on the road again.

  The drive back to the DSI office requires sixteen detours, on account of the traffic jams clogging every major artery into and out of downtown Aurora. Somehow, Naomi manages to squeeze us through an intersection where a dump truck collided with a tractor-trailer, causing both vehicles to overturn and hurl their payloads across the asphalt. After we pass within two feet of the gawking crowd of onlookers, she jerks the vehicle into a sharp turn, skidding us onto the service road that leads to the secondary fence gate adjacent to the office’s large garage.

  The guard at the gate post peers through the cracked windshield, and upon recognizing us, hastily retracts the boom barrier and smacks the button to open the fence gate. Naomi pulls the SUV forward and swings around into the garage, parking in her team’s designated spot even though this isn’t their assigned vehicle. Knowing how meticulous Naomi is, I’m sure she would have chosen to park in the spot assigned to Argent’s team, just to keep everything neat and orderly, if her own team’s spot wasn’t fifty feet closer to the door. Apparently, the risk of looking disorganized isn’t as worrying to her as the chance of throwing out her back when we carry the concrete slab inside.

  We all climb out of the SUV and head around to the trunk. The slab is as we left it, binding circle intact, the subdued polong occasionally flapping a tentacle to test the spell’s stability. Every time it does that, there’s a ripple along the wall of the cylinder, the only obvious sign the creature is still locked up tight.

  The four of us secure the slab, haul it out of the trunk, and shuffle toward the entrance. Before we reach the doors, they fly open, and Riker marches out into the garage with his coat flapping behind him, cane striking the concrete so loudly the acoustics carry the sound to every corner. Hot on his heels are Desmond and Amy, the former walking stiffly so as not to jar his broken ribs, the latter clacking along on a pair of crutches that her pinched expression clearly articulates she loathes with a passion.

  “The hell is that?” Amy squawks when she gets a load of the binding circle.

  “The polong,” Naomi answers. “Kinsey trapped it in a circle.”

  Riker hikes an eyebrow. “Really now? I didn’t know you’d come that far in your studies, Cal.”

  I blow air through my teeth. “It was a long shot at best. I’m honestly surprised it’s still holding.”

  He pokes the wall of the cylinder prison with the tip of his cane. “How much longer do you think you can keep that up?”

  “How long until you can call in a practitioner to punt this thing back where it belongs?” I counter.

  “There are a few local practitioners who owe me favors for past misdeeds I graciously overlooked. I’ll dial them up as soon as I get back to my office. I’ll need to use the landline because the cell towers can’t handle the increased traffic caused by the ‘gas main explosion’ on the outskirts of Aurora.” He gives me a critical look. “On that note, why don’t we walk and talk on the way to my office? You can tell me all about how you blew up a planned community development neighborhood.”

  “Hey, I didn’t blow up anything this time
!” I sputter.

  Li mumbles, “Well, you did blow a giant hole in Nottaway’s house.”

  I glare at him. “For real? You’re going to call me out on that?”

  Li shrugs, and nearly drops his side of the slab in the process. “Just thought it was worth mentioning. For accuracy’s sake.”

  “No, you just want payback because I accidentally broke your nose.”

  He goes silent and refuses to make eye contact.

  Riker clears his throat. “All right. That’s enough squabbling. Back to business.” He tells the security guards at the turnstiles to call four agents down to the garage to relieve us of the polong. Grateful, we set the concrete slab in front of the doorway, and when the requested agents spill out of the elevator a couple minutes later, Riker waves us into the building.

  As we’re slinking through the turnstiles, Riker tells the assisting agents to take the polong to a secure storage room in the basement and set a guard at the door. The agents spend a few seconds gawping at the softly glowing binding circle and trying to spot the invisible polong inside, then heave the slab up and carry it through the gate that the security guys only open for deliveries.

  I guess the polong sort of counts as a package.

  The next hour passes in a blur of medical checks as the rest of the agents from the Nottaway strike operation trickle back into the office. Ortiz takes one look at the bloody hole in my uniform and the freshly healed skin beneath, and scolds me for “allowing” myself to suffer such a serious injury. She orders me to go shower, change into some medical scrubs, and run through a series if general tests with a nurse, just to make sure there’s nothing stranger than usual happening inside my body. After being poked and prodded to within an inch of my patience, the nurse gives me the green light to leave, and I power walk toward the exit, praying no one stalls me.