A loud voice broke out in the dark, “You completely disregarded this Wizard Council’s procedures. If the magic goes wrong and dissipates and they find out what we did, what you did, this could lead to a wizard war. Did you think of that?” a short, balding wizard bellowed.
Annie turned to Milo. He frowned as he spoke. “We have the very best in computer hackers in the world working for us. Bucky Hart trained his staff, and they can handle what we need them to handle. No one outside of this room knows what Annie did, and no one in this room will share this information with anyone. Not your bosses or spouses or children. We need to keep this out of the public and keep it with the smallest number of people as possible.” Milo, stern with resolve, didn’t back down as two hundred and fifty people watched him.
“What if there is a problem?” the man asked.
“There won’t be,” Milo warned strongly.
Annie and Milo stared at Ryan. “What else?” Ryan asked.
“I am formally advising the Wizard Council that I’m building a case against Marielle Beauchamp. We think Marielle was the wizard guard directing Amelie to murder the Van Alton family. I plan to prove these modification spells were used to hide several vampire killings across France.”
Again, the room broke into a chaotic swell of voices. It wasn’t often that one Wizard Guard unit charged another with wrongful behavior. A crystal in Row 20 East lit up.
Annie pointed.
“I accept the premise that this wizard guard was in the wrong. If you are to pursue this, I assume you will follow international rules and laws to accomplish this?”
“I’m working with the law department on this. I want to make sure that it’s handled with the proper care. But I think we have enough evidence to be concerned about the behavior. I think that the French Wizard Guard is doing this on multiple occasions, not just what Marielle is doing. This is a serious problem,” Annie advised.
She glanced at Ryan who, through his exhaustion, offered her a well-deserved smile.
“Anything else?” Ryan asked.
“That’s all,” they answered in unison.
“Meeting adjourned,” he said.
Chapter 33
“I took my oath this morning,” Cham announced as he entered Annie’s cubicle. After the short meeting last night, they went home and were both asleep by the time their heads touched the pillow.
“It was supposed to be a big thing at your first meeting. I guess a possible wizard war pushed it aside,” Annie replied as she stacked her notes on Marielle into a folder.
“It’s always that weird?” Cham asked, sitting in her comfortable chair across from her desk; better suited for home than work. He leaned against the pillow.
“Just one item on the agenda and an update about an international incident. I expected more discussion and debate. We acted on our own. We’re not supposed to do the memory modification without permission AND on another Wizard Guard unit. They accepted that too easily. It’s a little disturbing.”
“What if Amborix wasn’t modified enough?” Cham asked. Annie sat in the second chair, pulled her legs under her body, and cuddled against the back.
“We shouldn’t have done it.” Annie sighed.
“Too late now,” Cham reminded her.
Annie’s eyes fluttered open and closed again. She hadn’t slept well since before the Black Market was eviscerated, and chasing Amelie took much of her energy. Last night hadn’t been enough to cure her of her exhaustion.
Footsteps shuffled across the carpeting. A hollow knock sounded against her cubicle wall. Annie jumped and opened her eyes. A man from the mail room, Malcolm McMahon, stood before them holding an envelope.
“Hey Mal, what’s up?” she asked.
“Sorry to interrupt. But this came for Ryan.” He held up the envelope with gloved hands: a letter addressed to Ryan Connelly and nothing else.
From a mysterious sender. I bet I know who!
Annie summoned a rubber glove and took the envelope from him. “Thanks, Mal. Did anything else suspicious come?”
“Just that. We’re on alert for anything else odd. We’re scanning everything,” he promised.
“No return envelope. No stamps. It didn’t go through the postal service,” Cham noted.
“It came through the international mail chute, magically sent. We just can’t find the trace,” Mal said. “I figured it might have something to do with the princess. I didn’t think Ryan should get an unmarked package without having the Wizard Guard verify,” he added sheepishly.
Annie gently patted the thick envelope, which was stuffed with padding. Pressing against the package, she felt a hard nodule inside the plastic bubbles.
“Any idea what’s inside?” Mal asked while she perused her credenza drawer and pulled out a small kit.
“Not sure.” Annie turned to the mailroom employee. “Be very careful handling the mail. I’m positive this is from the French Wizard Guard. I’m just not sure why.”
“If you think so, that will help us find the trace. When we find something I’ll let you know.” He bowed slightly. “If there’s anything else?”
“No. We have it from here.” She smiled wanly and watched him back out of her cubicle. She waited for his footsteps to fade into the large expanse of Wizard Hall.
“I don’t like this,” Annie said as she pulled out a small brush and dark powder. After dipping the brush and shaking off the excess, she brushed the envelope. “There’s no fingerprints,” she said incredulously.
“Be careful with that,” Cham warned as Annie ran a finger under the flap and opened the thick packing envelope.
It’s empty, except…
Annie turned the opening downwards and let the object fall in her palm.
“What the hell?” she asked as she stared at the wizard pin from France. It was new and shiny; the light sparkled against her hand.
“That’s ominous,” Cham remarked.
“Marielle knows what we did. She must have faked passing out, knowing we were going to wipe her memory too. But I stuck one of these on the back of her shirt before we did,” Annie remarked.
“A magical amulet. Something to block the magic,” Cham suggested.
Annie slipped the new pin inside a plastic bag and marked it. She attached it to the envelope it came in.
With the evidence safely processed, Annie summoned the pin she switched out from the security guard named Francois, at French Wizard Hall. “Good thing I kept this.” She summoned a second bag and dropped that one inside, with the label:
FRENCH SECRET PIN FRANCOIS
“I know the mailroom has this under control, but I’m taking this to Bucky. I want him to find the tape proving Marielle sent this.” She banged her hand against her desk, Cham jumped. “I knew this would happen. I can see the French Wizard Guard or their council blackmailing us. With all that animosity between our groups.”
Annie bit her lip while she thought.
I never should have done the spell.
“At least Marielle doesn’t know we know about these,” Annie remarked as her fingers grazed the evidence bag with the pin inside.
“Unless she saw the security tapes before Bucky erased them,” Cham suggested.
“Thanks for that,” Annie said. “What are you doing today?”
“Working with you. Spencer and Gibbs are out and about handling some demons that were seen along Damen Avenue. Ready?”
*
The telecommunications department was one of the many departments housed in the large expanse of the basement, much of which sprawled under the city of Chicago, with the nonmagical community unaware they existed. This particular room was a bit odd to those coming in for the first time. It had been designed as a joke of sorts, with the walls encased in thick stone and lined with several wall sconces lit with only thick waxy candles. The door had been created from thick oak and was carved with ancient runes and pictures of Viking ancestors. But the oddest of all were the rows and rows of tables that held
computers, monitors, printers, fax machines, and photocopy machines. They buzzed and whirred, blinked and flashed.
Though that seemed out of sorts, the farthest corner of the room contained a large thick tube. Every few minutes, an envelope or box slid down the tube and landed in a large pile of mail.
Bucky was the best telecommunication specialist in the American Wizard Hall and, therefore, they all believed the best in the world. That stature made him always available to the Wizard Guard. Annie and Cham followed the path of the overhead fluorescent lamps toward Bucky’s cubicle, winding through the tables, machines, and people busy with their computers, phones, and other machines.
His work area was covered with posters and artifacts from nonmagical television shows and movies; his favorites seemed to be someone named Buffy. Sticky notes papered his cubicle walls, and his printer continuously spat out pages of paper.
Annie knocked on his wall.
“Annie, Cham, what can I do for you?” He offered them a seat by removing several stacks of folders from the metal chairs along the wall. When he smiled, he exposed his gold tooth that sparkled in the light.
“We’re not done with the French,” Annie whispered.
Bucky held his hand against the cubicle wall, a white light flew around his cluttered walls, casting them under the muffle spell. As he held his arm out, his AC/DC shirt rose up, exposing his belly. When he was finished, he lowered it and glanced at them with a serious, drawn expression. “What happened?” He bent forward ready to listen.
“Ryan received this,” Annie said and pulled out the envelope with the pin attached.
“This is that famous pin,” Bucky said and took the package.
“Yeah. Every employee who works at the French Wizard Hall is given one and they all wear it. From my first investigation, they’ve placed several memory modification spells on their own people using that pin,” Annie told him.
“Someone knows what you did,” Bucky said. “Did you test this one?” He examined the pin under a magnifying glass.
“Not yet. I’m assuming it’s one of the hundreds I found in Marielle’s desk.”
“She runs the program,” Bucky said as if it were the truth.
“That’s my guess. She probably sent this.”
“And you need to know for sure,” Bucky said.
Annie and Cham had worked with Bucky on almost every case that passed either of their desks for the last five years. He knew them well enough to know what they would want before they asked.
“Yes. And only the Wizard Council knows we did a memory modification on the entire French Wizard Hall.”
“What exactly do you need?” Bucky asked though he was already tapping on his keyboard, pulling up a window.
Annie glanced at Cham. “I know you scrubbed the tapes. You also said you have the originals. There are two things we need to know: Did she send this package, and does she wear an amulet? If so, does she take it off and when? I want to know if she’s protecting herself from the pin and how. It’s the distribution point for the spells.”
Bucky was already in the security system of the French Wizard Hall and clicking on several windows. “I’ll pull tapes from the mailroom see if this was sent from there, and then I’ll check the tapes from the main hall. If her desk is anywhere on this tape, we can see what she’s done over the last twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”
“How long do you think?” Cham asked as he intently watched the screen.
“Give me a sec. It won’t take long.”
His fingers grazed the keys, words scrolled down the screen. He clicked enter and the screen adjusted, all the tapes appeared.
Finding the one he wanted, he clicked again and panned the room.
“There.” Annie pointed to Marielle. “That’s her.”
Bucky sped the tape up, watching Marielle’s movements. There were no envelopes.
She left her desk. Bucky slowed down the tape. They watched her as her hips sashayed when she walked.
“Around her neck,” Cham noted. Bucky tightened the shot on the screen until they could see the amulet hanging around her neck.
“Yeah. I remember that. Can you print this?” Annie asked.
Bucky blew up the necklace and drew a line around it. The printer whirled to life and spat out the picture. He handed it to Annie.
“Standard amulet. Could protect her from the magic,” Cham said.
“Let’s see more tapes, please,” Annie requested.
“On it.” He was already pulling up the following hours, watching the Wizard Guard team as it went about it business, watching Annie and Spencer, Cham and Gibbs doing their jobs.
Vampires were taken to the prison wing, and Brite was rushed to the hospital wing.
“Here, Annie,” Bucky said. It was the night before the memory modification spell. Marielle, after they had gone to their room, placed a pin inside the envelope and sealed it before leaving. They followed the tape of Marielle on her way through Wizard Hall to the mailroom, where she sent the package to Ryan Connelly in America. Bucky copied this section of the tape to a flash drive.
Without missing a keystroke, he fast-forwarded through the tapes, finding Annie searching through Marielle’s desk and deleting Annie’s presence on the tape. He continued forward to the morning, 5:00 a.m., where Cham and Shiff retrieved Brite and helped him home. He stopped the tape when Marielle entered and zoomed in on her.
“She’s wearing the amulet,” Bucky said.
“Same one?” Cham asked.
Bucky blew up the size as much as he could and printed it, handing it to Cham.
“Yeah. I think we can assume for now that this is how she avoided the spell.”
“You think she’ll tell Amborix?” Bucky asked.
“That would be my play if I wanted to achieve something, though Amborix for now is thankful for our help,” Annie answered.
Bucky continued through the recordings, finding Annie and Gibbs working on the memory modification spell. “I see you placing the pin on her,” Bucky commented as he copied this portion to the flash drive and handed it to Annie. When the tape was finished, he deleted their presence and the deed.
“Do you think she’s got copies?” Bucky asked.
“Maybe. They’re not as computer savvy. You can check her computer, but if she’s smart she’ll take it home with her, make additional copies,” Cham said.
Bucky pulled up the French Wizard Hall network and searched for the computer belonging to Marielle. So familiar was he with the inner workings of the computer system, he easily broke into her computer and took the files he wanted.
“That was too easy,” Annie said.
Bucky entered the human resources server and printed Marielle’s employee file for Annie. When the computer finished spitting out the information, Annie grabbed the stack and perused it quickly.
“Have Graham take care of it from here. She purposely set you up,” Bucky said.
“Yeah. Thinking back on it, she was insistent we do the spell. Was very apologetic for her boss’s behavior. See if there’s a connection to any one person. She’s got to be working with someone. Her emails, maybe?” Annie asked. But Bucky was already back inside Marielle’s computer and pulling up her emails.
“What will you do if we find something?” Bucky asked as he typed.
“Not sure yet. If they’re doing this to their own people, who knows what other units they’ve done it to.”
“Why don’t you guys head out? I’ll call you when I find something.”
“Thanks, Bucky,” Annie said with a sigh.
*
Annie had learned her lesson—never let a threat linger; take care of it immediately. It had almost been too late with Rebekah Stoner, the television reporter who had found out too much about Annie and magic. They hadn’t been able to risk the exposure. As a result, Graham performed a memory modification spell on the reporter at the last minute. Annie didn’t want that to happen again.
She knocked on Grah
am’s cubicle. He was hunched over his desk, writing something in his notebook.
“Hey, Annie, Cham. What’s up?” He waved them in. Annie plopped down the folder and passed it over.
“Marielle Beauchamp,” Annie said.
“You’ve discovered something since last night’s Wizard Council meeting?” Graham asked as he perused the file.
“Yeah,” Cham said.
“We’re having Bucky looking for a partner. But that memory modification spell, she blocked herself from it. She sent this pin to Ryan,” Annie said and held up the evidence.
“She can blackmail you with this,” Graham said. “We’ll take over from here. Are you going to test the pin she sent?”
“Yeah. We’re heading to the lab next. I’ll give it to you when we’re done. In the meantime, you can take this one I swapped out from the security guard. And you have the notes from Bucky.” She handed him the pin.
“At least you didn’t wait this time,” Graham said and offered a wink.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re a funny man,” Annie said.
Chapter 34
The Wizard Hall laboratory consisted of two large spaces, the first being the morgue. It contained three gleaming tables that shone under the intense light above. They were laid three in a row at the center of the room. Above each table, a large mirror was tilted for easy viewing. The walls were lined with cabinets and drawers that stored equipment for autopsies, storage containers, beakers, test tubes, cauldrons, mortar and pestles, herbs, and crystals.
To the right of the entrance was the door to the changing room and showers. And just outside the door was a thick plastic chute that lead to the incinerators. The roaring fire could be heard from the tube.
When Annie and Cham entered the empty morgue, the bell above them chimed softly. Perkins Abernathy, the lab manager, exited his office.
“Hey, Annie and Cham,” Perkins greeted them with a warm smile. “How can I help the Wizard Guard?”
“Well…” Annie pulled out the plastic bag containing the pin. “We need to figure out what this does.”
Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set Page 98