Don't Hex with Texas

by Shanna Swendson

  “What was me?” he tried as a look of panic crossed his face. He rolled to his side, as if to prepare to get up and run. Owen bent, grabbed his arm, and helped him to his feet, then didn’t let go. His knuckles turned white, he was grasping so hard. Dean made as though to pull away, and I thought I felt the tingle of building magic. Dean frantically mumbled words, his eyes growing wider and wider as Owen stayed put and was entirely unaffected by whatever he’d tried to do.

  After about a minute of this, Owen’s grip on Dean’s arm tightened and he said very softly, “Don’t even try it. You are so outclassed here that you can’t even comprehend the class I’m in.” Then, quite suddenly, Owen released Dean and stepped backward. Dean’s muscles tensed, ready to run the moment he was let go, but he was frozen in place, unable to take a step. Owen stood there watching him, his arms folded across his chest, not even breaking a sweat.

  Then Dean yelled at the top of his lungs, “Hey, this is your burglar! He’s the guy who did it!” People kept walking up and down the sidewalk, not giving him more than a passing glance.

  “You’re not the only one who can hide what you’re up to,” Owen said mildly. Then he added, “Katie, I’ll stay out here and keep your brother company while you wrap up your errand. We have a lot to talk about.”

  “What are you doing with my sister, you freak? Katie, you come back here, don’t do what he says!”

  Dean shouted. He then began mumbling words and wiggling his fingers at me. I felt the magic but, of course, it did nothing to me.

  “Give it a rest, Dean,” I said with a sigh. “I need to go make these deposits.” I didn’t want to leave them alone, but I was holding the morning’s receipts for the store, including the checks that had come in over the weekend, so skipping this errand wasn’t an option. I headed to the bank, shivering as I crossed through the wards at the threshold, and gave one last glance over my shoulder before I entered. I wasn’t sure if the lines were longer than usual or if they only felt that way because I was so eager to get back outside and see what was going on.

  My brother was the local criminal wizard? There had to be some kind of mix-up or coincidental misunderstanding. Maybe he’d tripped or slipped on the steps instead of bouncing off the wards. But no, he’d been using magic—or trying to—on Owen and me. There couldn’t be any doubt, unless there was another local wizard who’d done all the illegal stuff, but then that wouldn’t explain all of Dean’s new acquisitions.

  It seemed to take forever to make my deposit, and while normally I’d have been glad that the teller double-checked the amounts, this time I couldn’t help but drum my fingers on the counter in impatience. I practically grabbed the deposit receipt out of her hand and shoved it into my bag while I jogged across the lobby to the exit.

  Owen and Dean were still right where I’d left them, in the middle of a staredown. “All done!” I announced. “Now, where do we go from here?”

  “Is there a place we can talk without being overheard or interrupted?” Owen asked.

  “In this town? Let’s see, Mom will be at home. Sherri will be off work soon, so Dean’s house is out. I know, we can talk in the barn.”

  “Good idea, Katie,” Owen said, still sounding calm and collected, but I noticed a small muscle in his jaw twitching.

  “Katie, you’re siding with this guy?” Dean asked, the faintest hint of a desperate whine in his voice.

  “Do you know what he is?”

  “I know exactly what he is. I’m just not sure you know yet what you’re really dealing with, and I guess I don’t know what you are anymore.”

  Owen waved a hand ever so slightly, making an “after you” gesture, and Dean’s legs began moving, walking him toward Owen’s rental car. Every so often, Dean gave a little jerk, like he was trying to break free, but Owen only intensified his control. He made Dean sit in the passenger seat.

  Owen then took a small cell phone—or something that looked pretty much like a cell phone but that I imagined had a few extra magical features—out of his shirt pocket and pushed a couple of buttons.

  “Sam, meet us at the barn behind Katie’s house,” he said into the phone. “And be careful. You know about her mother.” The way Owen had to hold the phone away from his ear told me that Sam definitely remembered my mother. She’d hit him in the face with her purse when she was in New York at Thanksgiving, thinking he was an overgrown bat.

  I went to get my truck, and Owen followed me out to the house. I pulled up into the horse pasture behind the barn so the truck wouldn’t be visible from inside the house, then once Owen had parked, I led the way into the barn. The dogs came running up to greet us, but then came to an abrupt halt a few yards away, almost like they’d sensed that this was something they didn’t want to get involved with.

  Owen shoved Dean down to sit on a wooden crate inside the barn, looming over him. “What were you trying to pull? Did you really think you could get away with it?” he yelled. I couldn’t help but wince and take a step backward. Owen almost never raised his voice.

  “Get away with what?” Dean asked, trying—and failing—to look innocent. I recognized the tactic from childhood. He wanted to make sure he knew what our parents thought he’d done so he wouldn’t accidentally admit to something they didn’t know about yet.

  I was about to list his crimes when Daisy, our old mare, stuck her head into the barn to see what the commotion was. Dean patted his leg in what I knew was a signal for her to come to him. He’d always been her favorite, and I guessed he thought he’d found an escape route. But Daisy went straight to Owen, nuzzling his neck in a way that made me just a little jealous. Dean took advantage of the distraction and jumped off the crate, running for the door on the side of the barn closest to the house.

  Owen barely jerked his head and that door slammed shut. Before Dean could run for the other exit, Owen gave a hand signal and Daisy went to stand blocking the barn entrance. She pawed at the ground with a foreleg and her ears flattened against her head when Dean moved as though to run in her direction. Dean’s eyes bugged out, and I could see it dawning on him exactly what he might be dealing with in Owen.

  He went back to the crate and took a seat, as though that had been what he had planned to do all along. “So, what is it you think I’ve been doing?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath, then shouted, “What have you been doing? For starters, you’ve been freaking Mom out. What was up with all that dancing on the square wearing Teddy’s old Jedi robes?” I’d finally recognized the robes and realized where they must have gone. “And then panhandling?

  Really? That was so tacky. Oh yeah, and the window at the motel. What was up with that?”

  “But those are all minor,” Owen put in. “Pickpocketing and burglary, however, took things a step too far. Magic used to commit crime is automatically classified as dark magic, regardless of which forces you channel to carry it out. Influencing people to your benefit, as you were doing while panhandling, is more of a gray area, but crime is definitely over the line.”

  All the color drained from Dean’s face. “How—how did you know?” he asked, his voice shaking.

  “I watched you dancing around the courthouse,” I said. “And to think you were going to let them lock Mom up in the loony bin for reporting what she saw, when you knew all along that what she saw was for real. That was really low.”

  “No one was supposed to see that. And Mom really was nuts about some of that stuff, like what she thought she saw Gene Ward doing. Everyone knows his dad has an account at the pharmacy.”

  I refused to get sidetracked from his crimes. “I also saw you at the theater. You were the one who sent the snake illusion after Nita and me, weren’t you?”

  “I was only having a little fun. It wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  “Ask Nita if it was fun. I didn’t even see the snake.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “That’s why you shouldn’t play with things you don’t understand,” Owen said, pacing as he tal
ked.

  “For instance, did you know that there are people your magic doesn’t affect, who can see what you’re doing, no matter what spell you use to hide yourself? That might have been good for you to know before you made a public spectacle of yourself.”

  Dean looked at me. “You?”

  “Yeah, and Mom, too, only she doesn’t know it. And there’s a strong possibility that there are others in our family, too.” I turned to Owen. “Speaking of which, how is it that he’s magical when Mom and I are immune?”

  “It’s not entirely unheard of. It all involves the same gene—the immunity is actually caused by a mutation of the magical gene, but then that itself becomes an inherited trait. It’s possible for both traits to exist in the same family. I’m not sure exactly how it works. Magical genetics isn’t my area of expertise.”

  Although he’d answered the question I asked, my real question remained: How come my brother got to be magical? It was no fair. I thought I was the special one in the family with my magical immunity, and Dean had trumped me by having actual magical powers. But I kept my pouting to myself so I wouldn’t sound like a bratty baby sister.

  “Who are you, anyway?” Dean asked. “I take it you’re not really here as Katie’s boyfriend. You’re here to track me down, right?”

  “I’m here for a number of reasons,” Owen said neutrally, glancing at me. “One of which was to determine who was doing unauthorized magic in a place with no registered magic users. The timing of your magical activity in this location was highly suspicious, considering Katie’s position.”

  Dean turned to look at me. “You’re mixed up in all this magic stuff?”

  “At a very high level,” I said, trying not to sound like I was gloating about knowing more about magic than he did, even if he was the one with the powers. “It’s a long story, and I won’t get into all the details, but Owen and I both work for a company called Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Incorporated. Well, Owen does. I used to. You might think of it as the Microsoft of magic—they come up with and sell most of the spells used in the magical world. They needed me because of my magical immunity. There’s a rogue wizard out there trying to get darker spells into the market as our competition, and we’re—our company—trying to stop him. I had to come back here because he was targeting me in New York.”

  “He’s the one running your magic school, and I came here to get to the bottom of it all,” Owen added.

  “But that doesn’t get you off the hook. You’ve been using magic to commit crimes, and I can’t let that slide, no matter who you are.”

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m…” Owen’s voice trailed off, as though he wasn’t sure of the answer to the question. “I’m a fully trained and qualified wizard,” he said at last. “The kind of stuff you’re doing, I learned how to do by the time I was five. Of course, I didn’t apply it in quite the same way you have. Now I run the theoretical magic division in the research and development department at MSI. I study old spells and try to find ways to apply them to modern life, in addition to creating new spells for specific situations.

  And I’m more or less leading our efforts to counter this rogue wizard, since he used to work with me and I know how he thinks.” I noticed that he left out the part where he was probably the most powerful wizard of his generation.

  “What should we do with him?” I asked Owen. “We should probably turn him over to the police, but then that would require explaining how he committed the crimes.”

  “Hey!” Dean protested. “How do you know I’m the one who robbed the stores? Maybe there’s another wizard around town.”

  “You had all the stolen stuff in your house,” I reminded him.

  “So, magic really doesn’t work on you?” he asked me, turning the subject away from his guilt. Then he raised his arms and chanted some mumbo jumbo. I felt the magic surround me, but as usual, it didn’t affect me a bit. I copped a casual pose, even yawned in mock boredom.

  Owen let it go on awhile, then waved a hand. “Enough of that,” he said. I felt the magic die down.

  “You don’t want to accidentally set the barn on fire with us in it.”

  “You mean I could do that?”

  “You have so little control over your power that you’re more likely to do the exact opposite of what you want than to actually accomplish anything. Now, where were we? Ah yes, we were explaining to you how stupid you were.”

  “And trying to decide what to do with him,” I added.

  “What we’re going to do is teach him a lesson or two, and then get some information out of him.”

  “You’re not going to torture me, are you?” Dean asked, starting to look truly frightened.

  “I don’t have to torture you,” Owen said wearily. “You’ll tell me what I want to know without me laying a hand on you. That’s a point you don’t seem to be grasping.”

  Outside the barn, the dogs sent up a chorus of barks. A second later, Sam swooped into the barn and perched on a rafter. Dean screamed—a high-pitched, girly scream—and fell off his crate. “That—that thing! What is it? Get it away!”

  Sam dropped to the ground in front of Dean, folding his wings back. “That ‘thing’ is a gargoyle,” he said. “Or, if you want to be politically correct about it, I’m a carved-stone American. Ancient guardian of churches, now serving as head of security for Magic, Spells, and Illusions, Incorporated.

  Sam’s the name, investigatin’s my game.” He glanced over at Owen and me. “I take it this is our perp.”

  “Sam, this is my brother, Dean. And yeah, he’s our perp.”

  Sam came closer to Dean, studying him intently. “Seein’ as how he’s your brother, Katie-bug, I won’t tear his limbs off, just as a favor to you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think special treatment would be fair at all,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “You do what you think is right, Sam.”

  “Okay, dollface, but only if you say so.”

  Dean screamed again and scrambled to cower in the corner against a hay bale. He shook visibly.

  “You had no idea there were magical creatures, did you?” Owen asked. There was a trace of pity in his voice. “That’s yet another reason you shouldn’t play with things you don’t understand. Magic isn’t a game. It has serious ramifications. Do you even know what it can do?”

  Dean shook his head silently. When he spoke, his voice was high and childlike. “What can it do?”

  “Anything you have the power, the skill, and the spell to accomplish.” He held a hand out in front of him, and a glowing ball grew there. He then tossed it up, where it hung just beneath the barn’s ceiling, shedding light on the shadowed surfaces. “What would you like to see?”

  “Can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?”

  “He did it once in FAO Schwarz,” I said. “And that’s stage magic, which he can also do. What you’re not getting is that this is real. There are people who work at magical companies, live in magical enclaves, and use magic for every aspect of their day-to-day lives. Instead of cooking, they zap something into existence. They turn on their lights by waving a hand instead of flipping a switch.

  They summon subway trains when they need them—and that’s when they’re not riding flying carpets.”

  “Here, you look like you could use a drink,” Owen said, and a split second later, a tall glass with beads of condensation on the outside appeared in his hand. Dean crawled back onto his crate and took it from him.

  I continued with my lecture. “There are magical creatures like the gargoyles, along with fairies, elves, and gnomes, walking the streets of New York like anyone else, and no one knows because they can hide themselves behind disguise illusions that make them look human.”

  Dean looked awed, but he also seemed to relax. The tension in his shoulders eased into his more usual slouch. “What is it you want to know?”

  “Where did you first learn about magic, and what did they teach you?” Owen asked.

  “If I coope
rate, will you take it easy on me?”

  “I think a lot of that depends on you. I can’t allow you to be a threat to yourself or anyone else. But you could go a long way toward convincing me you’ve learned a lesson by cooperating. How did you get involved in this?”

  “I saw an ad in a magazine. It said if you could see that ad, then it meant you had power and you should learn how to use it. I could see it, so I thought what the heck, I might as well check it out.”

  Owen and I exchanged a look. “I hope you have the material that was sent to you,” Owen said, sitting wearily on a hay bale.

  “Of course. I still need the references, and I haven’t finished the course.”

  “Do you remember which magazine you saw it in?” I asked.

  “One of those magazines for guys—not the porn kind, but with sexy pictures of actresses and some articles. I don’t remember which one, but I’m pretty sure it was the March issue.”

  “Oh, boy,” I said, joining Owen on his hay bale. “Maybe you should zap up some drinks for the rest of us. The ad I saw earlier was only regional, but if they’re running recruitment ads in national magazines like that, then this could get ugly. There might be amateur wizards wreaking havoc all over the country, and we only know about it because I happened to be here.”

  “If it’s in that kind of magazine, I wonder how Rod missed it,” Owen mused. “I think he gets all of them.”

  “He’s been dating Marcia since New Year’s Eve. Either he doesn’t need them anymore, or she got mad enough about him having them that he decided to give them up.”

  “I need to see your course materials and that magazine, if you still have it,” Owen said.

  “You can take my truck, since it’s really your truck, after all,” I said. “You still seem to have a set of keys.”

  “And you trust me, after all that? How do you know I won’t take off?”