As I got out, I saw Graham as he walked into another office at the end of the corridor. I changed directions and went the other way. It was better to avoid another war of snide words with him.
“May I know what your equation with Agent Graham is?” Bryan asked.
I pressed the button for the lift. “Agent Bryan, I don’t believe I am under any orders to give every single detail about my personal life to you. We are working together on a case, and when it finishes, you go your own way and I go mine.”
“So you admit that whatever you have with Agent Graham is personal.”
Irrigated, I strode in and pressed the button. “Shut up.”
He laughed as he got in. Now it was time to get back to work. We didn’t have a moment to lose, not if we intended to find out who was behind the series of attack and what their purpose was. I’d a feeling that there was a certain deadline to this situation, and if we missed it, we might be in greater trouble than we bargained for. I’d every intention of getting to the bottom of this mystery, and I wouldn’t leave any stone unturned to find the way.
Chapter Seven
We staked the bar. The night was cool, a bit sharply so. The brisk wind that swirled around us made me wish I was sitting inside, sipping on a hot cup of cocoa. But this was work, and it was crucial that we got it done.
“Why aren’t we going in?” I hissed.
“There is a man inside, our local, FBI contact. He will give us the green signal after he detects the man.”
I didn’t like leaving such important work on others. It wasn’t my style to do it this way; I would have stalked inside and found the son of bitch. One hit of a well-aimed spell and he wouldn’t have moved from his seat. Then I would have led him to a place of my choice and interrogated the hell out of him. But Bryan’s presence complicated matters. He wanted to do everything by the book. I wasn’t that much of a stickler for rules, but working with the FBI had taught me that they liked to dot their I’s and cross their T’s.
Shit.
“Let’s just go in.”
“Wait.” He sighed. “Maybe James isn’t inside. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t tell us…”
The phone rang, and with a sigh of relief, he picked up. “The man’s sitting on the stool on the right hand corner of the bar. He is alone.”
I heard the voice almost as if he spoke in my ears. Good. With a silent leap, I was on the road, and Bryan ran behind me. At the door, I paused, pushed my fingers through my hair, and took a breath. I didn’t want the guy to see me huffing and puffing. That was bad for the image. When Bryan joined me, I walked in. Rather than stand and take stock of the situation, I strode towards the corner where he was supposed to be sitting.
“You fool woman. How many times have I told you not to come here without me? You’re wasting my money and my time.”
I couldn’t help it. My gaze was drawn to the couple that stood in another corner. The woman was drunk, obviously so. She’d a drink in one hand. The way she swayed on her feet, I could tell that she might fall over anytime. Still, the guy had no right to treat her like this, and she shouldn’t let him get away with this kind of abuse. My blood boiled, and I stood for a moment, undecided if I should interfere. The woman solved my dilemma by throwing the contents of her glass on the man’s face. He sputtered and raised a hand, but much to my surprise, Bryan was there even before I made the decision to leap to her defense.
He held the man’s arm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Hey, stay out of it,” snapped the guy. “This is between me and my woman.”
“I’m not your woman anymore,” she shrieked. “We broke up two days ago.”
“And you were drunk even then.”
“You’re right that I have an alcohol problem, but at least I am not an asshole. If I attend the AA meetings, I might get well, but you’ll have this same personality all your life. Stay away from me, and or else I will get a restraining order.”
Perhaps I was mistaken. The lady certainly didn’t need our help. Back to business. I turned my attention to the right corner of the bar. The stool was empty. Shit. I was pretty sure he was sitting there a few seconds ago. The commotion must have drawn his attention to us. “Damn it,” I snapped.
I ran towards the far door. He didn’t walk past me so the only conclusion I could draw was that he slipped out from the back exit. After careening through the door, I ran into the dark alley. Perhaps this wasn’t wise. He could have set up a spell. Almost as if my thoughts brought this to life, an arrow of fire whizzed past my head. I shifted sideward just in time. In return, I let loose a volley of frigid air. If he wanted to play rough then I was up for it. Much to my disgust, the swirls of frigid air drew flew past me, but the scream that broke the silence of the night came from behind me. Ahead, I could see a grill. He would have to climb over it, and that would cost him precious moments. I could grab his legs. Maybe I could even pin him with a spell, but time was working against me too.
Bryan was hit, and I was the only one around who could help him.
Shit.
I wanted to chase James, but I’d a duty towards my partner too. What the hell? I wasn’t supposed to babysit him. But with a loud oath, I turned back and ran towards him. He was slumped against the wall and the arrow of fire was stuck on his arm. The whimpers that escaped his lips were low but intense. I’d no idea how he tolerated the pain. Long ago, I was hit once, and it was an agony that couldn’t be described in words.
“I’ll take care of it. Close your eyes,” I ordered even as I dropped on my knees beside him.
If the magic wasn’t stopped, it would spread like poison through his body. A human couldn’t take the infusion of magic. It would make his blood boil and the veins would burst. Death would be painful and not instantaneous. My hands hovered over the arrow and slowly it slipped out of the wound. My eyes watered with the effort. Inflicting wounds was easy; healing took a lot of energy. When the arrow was out, it fell on the ground and the fire frizzled out now that it didn’t have life energy to sustain it. But the wound still festered.
His face was white and drawn, and yet to his credit, he didn’t scream. “It hurts like hell.”
“A moment longer,” I assured him. Taking off a pouch from my belt, I opened it and took out a pinch of Augusta’s healing powder. It was something I carried with me everywhere. In layman’s terms, it was something like aspirin, but with the ability to heal wounds. It was Augusta’s own blend, and she painstakingly made it after years of effort. It didn’t heal everything, but it worked on most things, and it was the best healing powder I ever saw. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch for a few seconds,” I told him. “Try not to scream.”
“What..?”
Giving him time to anticipate the pain was crueler. I dropped a pinch of powder on his wound. His scream vibrated through the air. His blood bubbled. It frothed, and then the skin began to knit on its way. “Son of a bitch,” he murmured. There was water in his eyes. I pretended I didn’t see it. Yes, magic had the potential to kill someone, to maim, and injure. I don’t think he had realized the extent of the danger he was in when he hung around with mages.
Oh well, this was a lesson he wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
Poor baby.
I wanted to hug him.
With an effort, I kept my hands to myself.
When the wound healed, he rotated his shoulder. “It’s perfectly healed.”
I looked back at the alley where James escaped. He must be half way across the town by now. “We lost him. Who told you to chase after me? I was handling the situation. If you weren’t hurt, I wouldn’t have had to come back to help.”
He sat. “Hey, how was I supposed to know that he could do stuff like this?”
I glowered as I hung the pouch back on the belt. Didn’t the moron realize how close he came to dying? “What did you expect a mage to do when he was cornered? Of course, he attacked with all he had.”
“But that arrow…it came out of
nowhere.”
“Of course, it did. Did you expect him to warn you first? FBI. Bah! You’ve no idea of the dangers you court when you play in the big league.”
Pissed off, I stood. While I had the urge to stomp my feet and behave like a spoilt child, this wasn’t the time or the place to vent my frustration. Much of the fault was mine; I should have told him about the dangers. He didn’t know anything about mages and what all they could do. I should have given him some sort of protection. It wasn’t fair to pin this on him.
“Bryan, I…”
“I’m sorry,” he said before I could utter another word. “I saw you run out, and I panicked. I didn’t anticipate something like this.”
The man sure did have a way of making me feel like an idiot. I ran a hand over my forehead. “It’s not your fault. I should have anticipated that something like this might happen. Damn it.” There was no point crying over spilt milk. “We need to devise some sort of protection for you.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain on the way. We’ve lost James, but we’re not done as yet. Come on. We’ve to meet someone else.”
“Who?”
“Desmond Cullen. He is a mage.”
Bryan rubbed his arm as if he could still feel the pain. “Why do we need to meet him?”
“He is one of the few men alive who can read the Mayan language. An expert in ancient languages, he has written a few books, but we don’t have the time to read them, so we’re going to have a discussion with him. Let’s see if he can help us with the spell that this rogue gang is trying to accumulate.”
“Sometimes I feel as if I stepped through some kind of an invisible barrier into an alternative universe. It’s only when I receive messages from my mother that I realize that I’m still in this very world, and it’s just that I am discovering things that I didn’t know existed.” He sighed. “Oh, by the way, that guy left his bag behind. I saw it under the chair.”
Good observation.
Brownie point for the FBI dude.
“Wonderful. Let’s go get it.” It didn’t take Bryan long to flash his badge and get the bag from the bartender. It contained James’s wallet and there was a little bit of money in it. I stuffed that into the tip box. “Not much to go on.”
Bryan eyed the money I’d put into the tip box. He probably thought I should have handed it to the FBI, but there was no point to it. The man deserved to lose the hundred dollars or so since he left the bag here.
I slipped a picture of a woman out of the wallet.
“Who might she be?” he asked.
“His girlfriend. Wife. Sister. Who knows?” Taking out my phone, I snapped a picture and sent it to Jeremy. “We’ll get some answers soon.”
After striding out, I threw the bag on the back seat. Bryan was welcome to submit it to FBI. There wasn’t any other information we would get from it. Opening the car door, I sat in. He took the driver’s seat. “Ah! It’s sweet that you keep in touch with your mother.”
“I’m the only son. If I don’t get in touch, she thinks I am dead, and then she drives my sisters loony.”
“You shouldn’t have chosen this profession, and you definitely shouldn’t have opted for this department.”
We drove through the streets. Although both of us weren’t familiar with the roads, the GPS was a Godsend. I fed the address and we followed the directions. “I didn’t opt into this department, but rather they chose me. After some tests, I was told that I would be perfect for a role in the paranormal division.”
That was strange. It wasn’t often that the department courted people, but perhaps they thought he had some kind of a skill that made him perfect for this work. “I hope you haven’t told your mother about your current job. She will probably freak out.”
“Of course, she will. But I couldn’t tell her anyway because it’s against my contract.”
I rolled my eyes. The man was too uptight. “But of course…how could I have forgotten that?”
He snorted. “I’ve a feeling that you’re not much into rules, Mage Cleo.”
“You’re extremely right, Special Agent Bryan. I think rules are meant to be broken by those who know better.”
“That’s how chaos comes into this world.”
“But that’s how creativity flourishes.”
I didn’t see him as I was too busy looking at the GPS, but I could sense that it was his turn to roll his eyes. We were as different as chalk and cheese. The man had a healthy respect for authority and rules, while I was just the opposite. I didn’t mind obeying the rules as long as they didn’t interfere with my plans. But sometimes, it was crucial to take matters in my own hands. “That must be the house,” he said.
After he parked the car, we got out. I rang the bell. No one answered. I rang again. The man who opened the door was old and wizened. He stooped a little. “You’re late,” he barked.
“I apologize, Professor Desmond,” I said. “We got delayed due to some unexpected problems.”
He studied me and then turned his attention to Bryan. “FBI? I wasn’t told you would be accompanied by one of them.”
Since he made it sound as I’d brought along an annoying pet, I smothered a smile. “We’re working on a case with them, Professor.”
“Keep him under control,” he barked.
I saw Bryan twitch, but he didn’t say anything. Swallowing my laughter, I walked inside. “Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Professor.”
“If Augusta wasn’t the one who called me personally, I wouldn’t have entertained you. I’ve a very demanding schedule, and it’s not something I allow anyone to mess with.”
“I’m extremely grateful, but this is an important case. Our commune was attacked.”
“I heard.” He gestured for us to take our seats in his cluttered living room. Books and newspapers covered all tables and were lined in bookshelves. “I hope none of you were hurt.”
“No, professor.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Clearly, he didn’t want to waste time. I handed him the folder. “What is this?”
“It contains pictures of all the artifacts that were stolen. Well, not all. But as much as we could gather. I would like you to take a look and see if you can decipher the writing that has been written on all those pieces.”
He grabbed the folder. “If it’s written in Mayan, I would know what it is.”
Suitably chastened, I settled back in my seat. “Yes, Professor.”
After turning the page, he peered at the first photo. “Grab that writing sheet and the pen,” he said. “And write down the words I say.”
Since there was nothing on the first picture, I waited. Much to my surprise, he gave me a date. “13.0.”
“13th of what? Is that a date?”
“I’ve no idea as yet. That’s what written here. I thought you wanted a translation?”
“I do.”
“Then let me do it.”
He turned the page. I could tell that Bryan was resisting the urge to laugh, but I didn’t even look at him. Professor Desmond sure was a sour puss. Or perhaps he just didn’t abide fools, much like me. It was better to keep my mouth shut. “There is a power,” he said.
After I wrote it down, he turned the page. “Hmm. Interesting. To cross to another.”
He turned to another page. “A number again. Write it down. 3.” Rubbing a hand on his chin, he looked into one corner. He remained deep in thought for some time. Then he resumed turning the pages. “Unlike other.” None of it made any sense to me. “Ok. Here is another. Between the worlds. Place, another time. In the world.
I looked down at the words he’d dictated. “There is a power. To cross to another. Unlike other. Place, another time. 13.0.3. It makes no sense.”
He peered at me. “Young lady, I can’t possibly give you a lecture on the Mayan language and calendars. Give that paper to me, please.”
After I handed it over, he studied the words. There was no way he could glean
any information from that gibberish. Maybe this was a dead end. Perhaps I had read too much into the writing. It could be that the thieves were merely collecting the pieces for someone’s private collection or perhaps because they were bored and had nothing else to do. If they sold all the pieces as a collection, it would earn them quite a bit of money. Of course, for a mage, there were easier ways to get their hands on some cash, but maybe they just wanted to do it for their entertainment.
Taking the pen, he scribed some lines under the words I had written. He then opened his smart phone and checked something on it. I saw him punching in some numbers on his calculator. Finally, he set it aside, wrote on the paper, and gave it back to me. “Would this make sense?”
When he turned the page, I read what he’d written. “In the world between the worlds. There is power unlike other, to cross to another place, another time. 8th February.”
“But…how?”
“The lines have been divided among various artifacts. I assume these are two lines that were written on six pieces, and the date was inscribed on three more. Some of the pieces don’t contain any information. I believe they were taken so that it wouldn’t become very apparent that they were collecting segments of a spell.”
“And the date?” Bryan asked.
“The Mayan calendar was different. I’ve done the calculations to translate to dates of our times.”
“So they are trying to get together a spell?”
“It’s pretty obvious. That’s why you came to me, right?”
The old man might be grumpy, but he sure was sharp. I glanced at the paper again. “Yes. So this date…8th February. How did you get it?”
He huffed. “If I was to give you a lecture on translating Mayan calendar dates into our current calendar, it bare minimum it will take two hours. Do you have that much time?”
00 Mayan Thief (The FBI Paranormal Casefiles) Page 6