Federal Agents of Magic Boxed Set

by T. R. Cameron

  With an incantation and a wave of his arm, his features changed into those of the old man he’d used before. He walked slowly down his target’s tree-lined street and admired the houses and watched the traffic, prepared to slow his approach or abandon the action for another walk around the block should any human authority appear. Nehlan scanned extra carefully for one of the dark, supposedly unmarked government vehicles that were nonetheless surprisingly easy to distinguish from any other cars that might be near them.

  There was nothing to see. The time was right. His heart beat faster at the thought that finally—finally—things were about to begin. If he played his cards right, if it all went according to plan, Diana would give her power up to become part of his necklace, which inched ever-closer to completion. Soon, my magical strength will surpass Dreven’s, and then we will see what we will see, oh yes, indeed.

  He glanced forward and back at his hirelings whom he’d posted as lookouts on the corners, and neither signaled him to stop. The old man walked up the small flight of stairs with a totter appropriate to the image he presented and rang the doorbell. His wrinkled face tilted to smile at the camera mounted above and held up the package he had brought as an excuse, printed with the words, A gift for, followed by the target’s name.

  She opened the door, kept the chain latched, and looked through the gap. “Hi, I don’t think I know you.” Her hand was hidden, and for a moment, he worried she might have a weapon and be about to attack. Then, he smiled. Maybe if it was the other one. But not her.

  He grinned wider, and even though he knew he should continue the charade, he simply couldn’t wait any longer. He stood tall and allowed the illusion to fall away, and the woman’s jaw dropped. She started to push the door closed, but a blast of power knocked it open, shattered the chain, and threw her across the room. The woman slammed into a small wooden dining table and tumbled over it to land in a heap on the far side.

  Supremely confident, he stalked inside slowly and gestured with a hand to shut the door. He’d seen that she had no weapon hidden, so now it was merely her skills against his power. He held no fear that she might win. Again, maybe the other one, but not her.

  The woman’s blonde hair was the first thing to emerge from behind the table, followed by a very angry face. He nodded. “You don’t seem afraid. You really should be.”

  “Of you?” she replied. “Come closer, pointy, and I’ll kick your ass right back to your own planet.”

  He laughed, deep and long. “It figures that the best friend of Diana Sheen would be as overconfident and disrespectful as the woman herself.” His target paled when she realized that he desired to not only hurt her but to use her against one she cared for. It makes the effort even more delicious. Perhaps, before I kill him, I will thank Dreven for changing the plan.

  She yelled a battle cry, vaulted the table, and charged at him. Nehlan let her get close so she’d imagine she was doing well, and when she jumped to kick him, he slapped her aside with a fist backed by his power and catapulted her into the couch at his side with enough force to topple it. He circled slowly and looked at her where she lay blinking and dazed on the floor, her temple bleeding. A small gesture applied gentle magical pressure to the blood vessels in her neck until her eyes rolled back in her head.

  He crossed to the door and leaned out, then beckoned for his hirelings to join him. Things had to move quickly now if they were to close the trap on the vexing agent.

  Diana had come into work on Saturday because she couldn’t stay at home any longer. She and Rath drove each other nuts and both of them fed off the other’s sense that something was in the works. They talked about it but had arrived at no solutions. They’d sparred, gone for a run, and even tried playing board games, but nothing would push away the funk that hung over them.

  Even Kayleigh wasn’t immune to it and had locked herself away in her basement apartment with her video games and essentially remained disconnected from the world. The only thing Diana could think of that might have helped was a training session with her magical mentor, but the relationship with the Drow was still very much one-way. Unless it was a dire emergency, Nylotte called her, not the reverse.

  She replayed the footage fed back by their glasses from the battle in Philadelphia to see if there were any clues at all in it. Alfred hadn’t found any, so she wasn’t particularly confident about her ability to do so, but she had to do something. When her phone rang, she instantly hoped it was the Drow somehow reading her thoughts, then reconsidered. If she can read my mind and knows what I think about her during training, I’m basically screwed. When she saw Lisa’s name, a small smile managed to crack through her stress.

  She forced a light tone, not wanting to burden her friend with her worries. “Hey, girl, what’s up?”

  “I’m sorry, Lisa can’t come to the phone right now.” The voice was deep and menacing.

  Diana’s blood turned to ice. “Who the fuck is this, and where’s Lisa?”

  He laughed. “Oh, Agent Sheen, there’s no reason to be that way. After all, it’s you we want. And your friend is unharmed. Well, mostly. For the time being, anyway.”

  She growled a rumble of anger. “I promise that I will end you in the most painful ways I can find if Lisa comes to harm.”

  “A fair response. Noted. However, it is up to you whether she does or not. In three hours, you must be in the exact center of the football field in your former city’s stadium. Right on the feathers of the logo. I’ll be nearby, and when I see you, we will make a simple trade—you for her. Do not even consider bringing assistance. If anyone appears other than you, your friend dies in agony.”

  Diana gritted her teeth as her mind raced, but she had no ideas. Nothing but white rage filled her brain. She said shakily, “I’ll be there. Remember my vow.”

  He laughed again, the condescension so antagonizing that she had to fight to keep herself from screaming. “You do not scare me, woman. But know that your insolence has earned you days and days of torment before you die.” The line dropped and Diana released the pent-up scream at the top of her lungs to vent the fury.

  Panting, she dialed Bryant. “Someone’s taken Lisa. I’ll go to deal with it. But this might be the start and I need you here to lead the team.”

  “Done. Go.”

  She dragged in a breath and rushed to her locker. Working by instinct rather than by conscious thought, she retrieved her Glock and its waistband holster, two extra magazines of anti-magic bullets, and the leather jacket she always kept at work. While she gathered those, she tapped the activator for her microphone. “Alfred.”

  The cultured tones of the AI replied through her earpiece. “Yes?”

  “Red Alert. Get everyone in. Tell Cara she’s in charge until Bryant gets here. Confirm, please.”

  “Red alert. All personnel to report to headquarters. Agent Binot has command until Special Agent in Charge Bates arrives.”

  “Good. Execute.”

  She waved her hands and summoned her magic. These bastards will wish they’d never laid eyes on Lisa. Glyphs glowed on both her bare arms as she created a connection between the base and the training area in the basement of the Drow’s shop. She stepped through, already shouting for her mentor.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Drow was at her side in seconds, the shop’s warning system no doubt having alerted her to the presence of magic that wasn’t her own. “What has happened?”

  Diana paced, unable to stay still as she shared the story with her teacher. She finished with, “I need a way to kill him and anyone he brings with him.”

  Nylotte tapped her finger against her teeth, her expression thoughtful. “No, that would be to play into their hands. If you were thinking clearly, you would have realized this already. What we must do is strike when they don’t expect it. This three-hour mark…there’s no reason for it.”

  “To get into position?”

  She shrugged. “They can portal wherever they desire to be, I’m sure, assu
ming they’ve done even the minimum of planning. No, this is probably something else. Some part of their plan to defeat you. We need to reverse the scenario and change from prey to hunter.”

  Diana shook her head. “We can’t risk Lisa. It’s my fault she’s caught up in this.”

  Her teacher slashed a hand through the space between them and raised her voice. “Diana. Clear your thoughts. Fault doesn’t matter, and Lisa is already at risk. If you truly believe that the enemy will simply give her back, you are fooling yourself.”

  The white haze crept in at the corner of Diana’s mind again, so she stopped pacing and took a deep, intentional breath like she had so many times before in this space. It felt good, so she did it again. Her brain began to work properly, and she realized her teacher was right. “Okay, how do we turn the tables?”

  Now, Nylotte was the one in motion. She seemed to have a conversation with herself and muttered all the while. Diana reached absently under her t-shirt and pulled out the half-heart to rub her thumb over it while she made silent promises of vengeance against whoever had taken her friend. Her reverie was interrupted when the Drow snapped at her. “What is that?”

  She blinked and raised the pendant. “Lisa gave it to me. It’s one of those silly high school friendship things.”

  Nylotte stepped to her and held it in her hand. “Does she have the other part of it?”

  “I can’t know for sure, but we’ve both worn them basically all the time since she got them for us.”

  The Drow yanked and the thin chain holding it in place snapped.

  “Hey—ow.”

  Her teacher rolled her eyes and extended her other hand to summon an ornate brown wooden platter with runes etched around the outside and a pair of scarlet cushions. They spun into the center of the space and settled in a line. The Dark Elf sat on the closest one with the plate in front of her and placed the necklace inside it. “A scrying pool would work better, but I don’t have one handy and every second probably counts.” She closed her eyes and waved her hands over the jewelry as Diana lowered herself onto the other pillow.

  Misty images appeared in the air over the platter and reminded her of an early scene in Star Wars. The small voice in her mind managed a laugh despite her gnawing fear. Help me, Nylotte. You’re my only hope. A bare room of chiseled stone wavered into view, apparently seen through Lisa’s eyes judging by the visible arms wrapped around jeans-clad knees and running shoes. She whispered, “Is that her right now?”

  Her teacher nodded. “There is enough resonance between the pieces of jewelry that I could use that connection to seek her. Fortunately, they were once a whole that was then cut in two. If they had been made with separate molds, this wouldn’t have worked.” Her voice was as intense and focused as Diana had ever heard it. “Now to find out where she is. Those blocks look Oriceran.”

  She thought they merely looked like stone but wasn’t about to argue. The viewpoint rose, and she had a glimpse of Lisa before it passed through the ceiling and out of the building. She recognized nothing but her teacher apparently did. “Clever. They are hiding in the dark forest. But not clever enough to take the basic precautions of stripping one’s captive so they can’t be traced. Your foe is an arrogant fool.”

  Her heart did flips. “So you know where she is?”

  The Drow nodded.

  “And you can get me there?”

  She shook her head, and sickness suffused Diana for an instant. Then, her mentor smiled. “I will get us there. I have a professional obligation to meet someone who’s this big an idiot personally. Call it research.”

  “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  “A moment.” She muttered an incantation that caused the pendant to glow, then rose and crossed to the supply cabinet and withdrew potions, two each of energy and healing. Finally, she reached into a small box before she returned to Diana. “I assume you were too stupid to bring potions, right?”

  She cringed but nodded and accepted the single vial of each type that her teacher handed her. The woman dropped two charms into her hand. “You’ll like these. The first creates mirror images of you—a simple illusion. I don’t know how many it will make, but it could be handy in the right situation. The second generates a cloud of smoke.” She had Diana repeat the trigger words several times before she nodded and removed the robe she wore in the shop to replace it with a long leather jacket that her trainee hadn’t seen before. It covered down to the woman’s thighs.

  Diana was immediately filled with fashion lust for the coat and couldn’t resist asking, “Where did you get that?”

  The Drow raised an eyebrow. “Even if this were the time and place to discuss my sartorial choices, I still wouldn’t tell you. Some secrets are too valuable to share.” Her smile vanished as she squared her shoulders and rolled her neck. “It is my assumption that we will enter the enemy’s stronghold. There will probably be defenses and defenders to try to stop us. Are you ready for that?”

  She slipped the potions into her back pockets and checked the draw on her Glock. Satisfied, she zipped her leather jacket—which was one of her favorites and had seemed really cool before she saw Nylotte’s—closed at the neck. “I’m more than ready. Let’s teach this asshole that you don’t go after people who aren’t playing the game.”

  The Drow nodded and waved her arms to summon a portal that led to the room revealed through Lisa’s eyes. When it materialized on the opposite side, they both leapt through, prepared for anything.

  The room they landed in was not the one they’d seen through the portal. Diana assumed that had something to do with the wicked wrenching she’d experienced partway through. She stumbled but didn’t quite fall and spun to look at Nylotte. The woman merely looked irritated. “Magical wards. They couldn’t stop us but could redirect us.” She lifted the pendant. “It’s warm, which means your friend is close by. Apparently, his arrogance is such that he hasn’t sent us far.”

  “I didn’t know that was possible.”

  She laughed, her amusement short but sincere. “The list of things you don’t realize about magic could reach to the moon and partway back, Diana.”

  “Which moon?”

  “No more nonsense.” She pointed toward the closed door at the far side of the room. “Let’s not try to be subtle, since our quarry certainly knows we’re here. We need to move fast. Destroy that.”

  “With pleasure.” Diana channeled her power into a force blast, still her strongest attack, and reduced the exit to splinters. They strode forward into a long hallway that turned in the distance. Halfway down, a pair of enormous rats charged toward them. The creatures were bigger than Great Danes and had large fangs and evil eyes.

  The Drow sighed. “It’s amateur hour.” Two wicked spikes of ice rocketed down the corridor and impaled the animals. They convulsed in their death throes as the women strode past.

  Diana looked at the blind angle ahead. “I should have brought some grenades.”

  Nylotte didn’t reply until they were near the corner and then snapped, “Shield.” She summoned her own of shadow, and Diana created a buckler of force, ready to expand it if necessary but tried to minimize her energy expenditure lest the Dark Elf turn this adventure into one of her teaching moments. She realized that she’d walled away the anger that had threatened to overcome her, thanks to her teacher’s guidance, and was now filled only with purpose. As training sessions go, this might turn out to be a good one. As long as Lisa’s safe at the end.

  Turning the corner resulted in a hail of darts fired at them from a short distance away. Diana reacted by extending her shield in time to block them before they struck. Okay, maybe trying to save power wasn’t so clever. The hallway turned again several feet ahead, and Nylotte sighed as they approached. “It’s a labyrinth. This is ridiculous.” She stopped, spun in a circle, and held the pendant in an outstretched hand. “I have the bearing. We need to take this turn. Shield again.”

  This time, when they rounded the corner and took a step,
flame erupted all around them. Diana yelped and started to expand her shield into a bubble, but her teacher cast ice barriers on all the surrounding surfaces with a gesture to seal the holes and halt the attack. She pointed at the left-hand wall, about a third of the way down the long hallway. “That one. Destroy it.”

  A dozen snarky comments leapt to mind but she discarded them, cupped both hands in front of her chest, and generated a large ball of force between them that she sculpted with circular movements. When it was the size she wanted, Diana hurled it forward and it detonated against the stone and shattered it. Cries of pain issued from the area beyond, and they stepped through the rubble to find a human on the ground, bleeding from a multitude of cuts from the shrapnel. A pistol lay near his outstretched hand.

  Diana turned to her teacher. “Did you know he was back there?”

  She shook her head. “No. But it is convenient. Two birds with one stone.”

  He made a weak movement toward his gun, and Diana kicked it gently down the hall and secured him with zip-ties before she grabbed the pistol and shoved it into her waistband. “Where to next?”

  She pointed at another section of wall on the same line as the one they’d stepped through, and Diana blasted it away. They repeated the process three times before they emerged into what appeared to be the final room of the labyrinth. It had much thicker-looking walls, an exit door, and a pair of humans whose nervous looks were probably the result of the sounds of the explosions coming nearer. They reacted quickly to raise and fire their pistols.

  She flung herself to the right and into a roll, drawing her Glock as she moved. It struck her that the comforting weight of her chest armor was absent. Damn. Did I really leave without my vest? I’m an idiot. The voice in her mind was argumentative. You were freaked out. It happens. Perhaps you should focus on the moment. Oh, and try not to get shot.