Conjuring Quantico (The Federal Witch Book 1)

by T S Paul

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Author Notes

  Copyrights

  More Books by the Author

  Chapter 1

  Ever had one of those days where nothing seems to go right? That’s been my whole life.

  My name is Agatha Blackmore and I am a witch. That is witch with a W, not a B, although I can be that, too. In the paranormal world I am what could be considered a prodigy. I cast my first spell at four, did my first transmutation at seven, and was forced to join the FBI at seventeen. My own family is terrified of me. My aunt Cordelia is afraid I will turn her into a pink chicken. Again. One of these days I just might. It’s her fault that I had nowhere to go and no one to train me. She called all the witch schools and told them of my little problem. The Witch Council had to step in and make me an offer I couldn’t refuse. They would teach me if I joined the FBI and went to the Academy. My grandmother agreed with their plan and here I am. Fortunately for the FBI, they have really good insurance.

  This is my second term with the FBI at the Academy. If they didn’t need me so badly, they would have kicked me out by now. My first term was easy compared to this one. In addition to the culture shock of having actual classmates, I had to deal with other paranormal races. I’m not a racist or a classist like many witches can be. I was raised by my grandmother after my mother was hospitalized. Contrary to the belief of many in my hometown, it was not because I put her there. Daddy was killed by a drunk driver when I was six. Mom just wasn’t the same after that. I accidentally created an incident at my seventh birthday party that polarized the town against me. If only my uncle had not tried to give me a unicorn. Like many young girls my age I wanted a pony. I tried to fix it. Power meet crazy. That is how I ended up with Fergus.

  “Agatha snap the hell out of it! It’s not your fault this time. How were you to know they were behind you?”

  “Fergus, I should have checked. Magnus always said to cast a reveal spell before attempting any diagnostic of any kind. I didn’t do one first!”

  “Magnus? Which one was he?”

  “He was the first trainer, remember, the one with the funny white hair?”

  “Are you sure he wasn’t the one with the hooked nose?”

  “No, that was Erik. He was the German one. Magnus was the guy with the funny accent who always called me Missy.”

  “I think you’re wrong. The Missy guy was the Texan. Mannerly or something like that. He didn’t stay very long.”

  That is the problem right there. The FBI only had mercenaries on staff. The Witch Council had promised the FBI that they would send trainers to fix my magical problem as part of the deal that allowed me to join.

  I kept breaking them.

  They gave me conflicting instructions or approached my problem the wrong way. None of them were actually injured; well, except that one guy. Brady something. How was I to know the bridge by the highway had an actual troll living under it? I have to agree with Fergus though. He did look pretty funny being chased across the front lawn by a large hairy beast.

  My magic is broken. I can do little stuff, but anytime I try a large spell or something off-the-cuff, there is a fifty-fifty chance of something unusual happening. That is what happened today.

  “Agatha, cast the spell exactly as I have written.”

  “But, Sir. Shouldn’t I cast a reveal spell first? I really should check first.”

  “Young lady! You will do as I have asked or I will tell the Witch Council you are refusing to cooperate. Now do as I say! Cast the spell.”

  The instructor’s name was Montgomery. Not Monte and definitely not Gomer. He resembled that old guy from the first Dinosaur movie. The one about the theme park.

  “OK, Montgomery. Here goes.” I cast my first diagnostic spell. It was supposed to examine the crime scene and identify any magical traces. The effect was that each foreign trace would light up and glow. It was pretty cool when he did it. I glanced at my cheat sheet and began the spell. It must have been either my pronunciation or a hand motion but something was wrong.

  “Stop! Stop! You must stop! Stupid girl!” Stupid him. I was committed and had to finish the spell, even he knew that.

  As I said the last word, a bright flash of light lit the field up and I heard a sound behind me that was a cross between a grunt and a screech. “Uh, oh.”

  I spun around just in time to see what looked like a large rabbit hop by. The animal was twice the size of a normal rabbit but now had antlers.

  “What did you do? That is not the spell I gave you!” The new Council teacher was beyond mad. His face was inflamed and fire was spitting from his eyes.

  “Sir, it is. See!” I held out the spell to him. He grabbed it from my hands and began checking it line by line.

  “What is this notation right here?”

  I peered at the line halfway through. “It looks like the word verða.”

  “It’s not. It’s the wrong tense. It needs to be umskipti. I didn’t write it that way. Why is it on here?” He thrust the paperwork back at me.

  “Sir, I copied it exactly from your notes.”

  “I do not make mistakes! You are trying to blame this disaster on me and I won’t have it!” He stormed away, ranting to the heavens. I stared at the paper in my hands. We used old Norse as a modern magical language for all our spells. The word ‘change’ actually has five different spellings in old Norse. I guess now I know what happens when I use the wrong one.

  “You just broke another one, Agatha!”

  “How? I don’t see what it is I did wrong! He just walked off.”

  “Uh, did you see the creature a minute ago?”

  “Yeah it looked like a rabbit or something.”

  “You made another one, Agatha. That used to be a rabbit and a deer.”

  That horrified me. Those poor creatures. Somehow my use of the wrong word for ‘change’ made my magic modify those beautiful creatures. “I guess he is going to report me...”

  “It’s not your fault, Agatha.”

  I patted my shirt pocket and told Fergus thanks. I walked back to my dorm. I really needed to go to my lab and check on the experiments I have running, but it can wait a few hours. All of my magic classes were conducted on the old football field. There was very little in the way of risks of collateral damage to be had there. The school had posted signs that told of danger and death for the unwary. And those signs were taken very, very seriously. But animals generally can’t read.

  The Academy was set up like any military school would be. The only difference is we were in training to be law enforcement. After the Demon wars in the 1940’s the FBI made accommodations for any Paranormals that wished to join. We were citizens just like other Americans. More dormitories were constructed, and the curriculum was adjusted to have subjects similar to those found at any local college. My first term was like that. Basic math, English, science, and history. Like many Paranormals I was home-schooled by my grandmother. I am not dumb. Not at all. But I didn’t have a diploma or even a GED to show for my studies. The FBI is picky about that. My witch training didn’t come into play until the end of the first term. The Witch Council deemed it
necessary that I stay during winter break and learn to do Magic. So for the past three months it has been a never ending carousel of teachers and instructors who all tell me different things.

  Classes were due to start back up in a day, so many of my friends were coming back today. I could see cars and trucks in the parking lot as I walked across the field to the dorm.

  “Hey Agatha!” I waved at the trio of girls in the bright red convertible. They were sirens and triplets to boot. They were here to train to become Sea scouts. An underwater version of the FBI that only a few races could participate in. I knew of a spell or two that worked underwater. Maybe this year I could see if they would let me use them?

  I heard a yell then a scream as a very large box began sliding out of a truck heading for the ground. I made a quick hand motion and hoped for the best. Off-the-cuff magic was always a bad idea, but I was learning. It was as if time stopped around the truck. Everyone was frozen including the box and those unloading the truck.

  “Nice one, Aggy!”

  I glanced over my shoulder at a very large man with a hairy chest and arms. He stepped up to the box and lifted it easily off the truck and set it on the ground. I just rolled my eyes. Werewolves. Always have to show off. He looked back at me and smiled. “You going to let them go now?”

  “Of course. Thanks Chuck.” He frowned at me. Chuck’s real name was Charles Winthrop Jr. and he didn’t let anyone forget it. I took Lucy’s advice and called him Chuck. His parents might be scary but my grandmother was worse.

  I made a dispel motion with my hand and muttered ‘bak.’ The people unfroze mid scream. Glancing around them they noticed the box on the ground a few feet away and us watching them. “Are you guys OK?”

  Checking themselves they just stared at the box. “Chuck over there set it down for you. Are you OK?”

  “We’re fine... Thank you. Uh, how?”

  I smiled. “Sorry, I should have said so in the beginning. My name is Agatha Blackmore.” I held out my hand to the couple. Who visibly flinched and withdrew in horror. “Is something wrong?”

  “Evil! Get from me, Satan!” The man made the sign of the cross and climbed into the truck. The young woman stood there for a moment as if making a decision. She turned without a word and climbed into the truck too. They burned rubber out of the parking lot. The trunk was left in the parking lot like a monolith.

  “Good work Aggy, you scared off another one!” Chuck patted me on the back as he walked back to his car.

  “We didn’t need her kind here, anyway. Forget about it, Agatha.”

  All I could do was shake my head in disgust. Paranormals were revealed to the world in the early twentieth century during World War One. Since then we have been accepted by most of the mundane world: except for a few deeply religious sects, and most of the southern United States. It didn’t help that on my first day of school I almost destroyed it. It was just a small misunderstanding, but it got my name in the paper in a negative way. I’m still paying for that one because it was one more reason for my family to insist I stay far away from them. Things may have ended far differently had grandmother not supplied me with her protection spells. I personally do not know how to make bullets bounce off me. Not yet. That is one of my goals this year. Provided I can keep a tutor for more than an hour or two.

  The lobby of my dorm was full of returning and new students. I pushed my way through them carefully. Trying to squeeze past a couple of large beefy men I bumped one rather hard. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, what the hell! Bitch! Why did you just push me?”

  “I bumped you. I apologized, don’t go there.”

  The large man ignored what I said and began to turn belligerent. “I was talking to you!”

  I Ignored him and continued to walk. He was about to step after me when his friends stopped him. “Idiot! Don’t you know who that is?”

  “She’s going to be in a world of hurt when I’m finished!”

  “No, you idiot! That is the school Witch! She could turn you into something.”

  “I already turn into a wolf! Who cares?”

  “She could make you a pink wolf or turn you into a squirrel! Leave her be.”

  I paused at the stairwell and let the fireball in my hand fade. One thing I did have control over are offensive spells. No one touches the Witch. Not ever.

  I began to climb the stairs. There were elevators, but I needed the exercise and it allowed me time to think. I lived on the second floor down at the end. As I stepped out of the stairwell, I could hear music and see my door was open.

  “It smells like Cat in here. Is she back?! You said she was gone!”

  “Fergus, I said she was gone for the winter. School’s back now. Of course Cat is here.” Catherine Moore, or Cat, is my roommate. She is a werecat and Fergus is constantly trying to get rid of her. I stepped into the room through the open door and found Cat spinning about the room singing and dancing to Lady Baba. She was dancing the ‘chicken dance’ as she put her clothes away. Cat was a small woman with a dancer’s body. She, unlike me, was very thin and muscular. I began laughing as she stomped the beats with her feet. I knew next to nothing about modern music until last year. Cat gave me a crash course. Both mundanes and Para’s had our own groups, but they crossed back and forth all the time. Lady Baba was a Russian magical group, and they wore chicken feet when they did the Yaga dance.

  “Agatha! Great to see you! How was magical training?”

  I reached into my pocket and removed Fergus. He stepped off my hand and onto the surface of the desk. He shook himself to get the pocket lint off his coat before commenting drolly. “She broke another one a few minutes ago!”

  “Hello to you too, Fergus. How about we play a game of cat and unicorn later?”

  Fergus was my familiar. Most witches didn’t need the magical boost a familiar can supply. They were very rare in the modern world. Fergus has been with me since my ill-fated seventh birthday party. He used to be full sized and of the non-talking variety. For all that he was indestructible and mostly immune to magic, he was deathly afraid of cats. Grandmother has a very large Savannah Cat named Zeus that thinks he is a toy.

  Fergus shivered and trotted over to my coffee cup and hid behind it.

  “Cat, don’t tease him. You know he gets freaked out easily.” She laughed at that as she gave me a big hug.

  “He’s in the wrong business then. So what did he mean you broke another one?” She plopped down on her bed and pulled me down with her. “Spill it Witch girl!”

  I sighed and explained the whole story about the dozen or so trainers and all the problems I had had with them. Ending with the creature I made today.

  “Interesting. Was it just one or did you make a bunch like those squirrels you told me about?”

  “I don’t know. Hopefully it was just the one. I’m sure I will be visited by the FBI administrator again.”

  “Ouch. He hates you! Ever since you left him hanging upside down up in the air last year.”

  “Yeah, I know. But no, he retired or transferred. Something. We have a new one. A woman this time: SAC Mills. The other agents say she is hell-on-wheels, but I have yet to meet her. I’m pretty sure she will make her presence known before too long.”

  Cat shook her head. “This year will be nothing like last year. We have weapons training, physical fitness training, and law enforcement classes. Fun!”

  “You just want to get all sweaty with the coaches and the other Weres. I know how you operate, Cat. How was your winter?”

  “It was great. There was a pack gathering in the Black Hills. The Native tribes allowed us to use their territory for a mass hunt and cookout. Over twenty packs participated. It was so awesome!”

  “That sounds like fun. How did your pack get permission to use the land? They don’t let just anyone do that.” We had learned all about the tribal system and how reservation law worked in our history classes last term. Cat’s pack was one of the oldest in the country. It didn’t surprise me s
he used information she learned here.

  She smiled at me. “We made a deal. Father worked it out with them but they seemed happy afterward.”

  Her father was the Beta in the pack. She got much of her business sense and attention to detail from him. “Did you take any pictures?”

  “Of course! How could I not? I know how much you like new places.” She reached into her ever present backpack and pulled out a large fat envelope. We sat and giggled like little girls for over an hour as she related her stories about the trip. The pictures were awesome.

  “Cat, do you have a car this year? I ask because I need to check my lab then get some food. The cafeteria is closed today.”

  She made a face. “I forgot to get snacks. We can borrow Chuck’s car. Dad said I didn’t need it this year, too many opportunities for trouble.” She put the pictures away and picked up her backpack. I stood up and walked over to my desk.