by Jamie Davis
Winnie thought of Joey, again. He needed some semblance of honest work to keep his nose to the grindstone and out of a Sable box. “I have someone in mind. This is something my cousin can do, and it will enable both of us to keep an eye on him, given his past indiscretions. If you offer him a job in your offices, he could bring what we need home, then give them directly to me.”
“That can be arranged. It will take a few days to establish the logistics with my people, but Mr. Gunderson will be in touch when the position with your cousin is in place.”
Winnie leaned forward to shake the man’s hand. “Looks like we have a deal.”
“You’ve missed the most important part,” he said, smiling.
Winnie raised an eyebrow.
“Your cousin will carry orders and materials to you, then return my cut of the proceeds to me. I expect that fifty percent of your operations will suffice, after expenses of course”
“Fifty percent? That’s insane. I’ll offer fifteen. My crew and I will be taking all the risks.”
“But my referrals will bring all the business to your door. Forty.”
Winnie thought of Danny and his connections. “I have my own sources for business, too. Twenty.”
“Thirty.”
“Twenty-five percent, Artos.”
“Done. And don’t share that arrangement with anyone. There aren’t many of my underlings with such a generous profit sharing deal. Ah, here we are at your flat.” Artos reached over and extended his hand. She shook it to seal their arrangement, feeling a slight tingle in her palm as she pulled away.
“What did you do?” Winnie said in alarm, examining her hand for some sort of mark and seeing nothing in the magical spectrum.
“A sort of contractual spell I came up with. It will have no effect on you, which is why you can’t see it. It will, however, notify me immediately if you double cross me in any way. I find it useful in ensuring loyalty. I’d be happy to show it to you. The spell will come in handy when you assemble your crew.”
“I don’t need such things to ensure the loyalty of the people I have in mind.”
“As you wish, Miss Durham. Naivety might be a lesson best learned on your own. If you need to learn it, I can teach it to you in the future. Until next time, I wish you a prosperous start to your new venture.”
Winnie nodded and climbed out of the limo. She shut the door and it drove off with barely a whisper of its engine. She watched it go, pondering the change in her life invited by the last twenty-four hours. It was late, and tomorrow was going to be a full day.
She opened the door and started up the stairs to her floor, wrestling too many thoughts and not enough time.
CHAPTER 18
Victor entered the squad room and conversation stopped. He walked to his desk and pretended not to notice, like he did every other morning. He didn’t fit in with the other Red Legs in the unit. Part of it was that Victor was certain they didn’t share his dedication to the cause. The other part was envy over his commitment and connections within the Assembly and at the Department of Magical Containment. They were jealous of his private audience with the Director himself.
He reached his desk and turned around. The other officers looked away when he caught them glancing his way. They were probably all whispering about the previous night’s failed arrest and his humiliation. That chanter girl had blindsided him with her connections. Director Kane had not mentioned them when he’d requested the arrest. Her companion must have been under some sort of spell — that much was obvious to him as he thought about the previous night again. Why else would a boy of his status slum around with her? Victor had been tempted to call the bluff and take him home, but deep inside, the thing he was most afraid of was failure, humiliation, and rejection — that weakness kept him from pushing forward and doing what had to be done. Victor growled to himself. He hated weakness.
He didn’t doubt Director Kane’s information on Winnie Durham’s activities. That meant that she’d stashed whatever magic she was running somewhere nearby before he got to her. He had come so close to catching her in the act, and he would be there to catch her next time. The Director was counting on him. There had to be a way to learn what she was up to.
“Officer Bratt. Please pull every record on the chanter shop owner Guinevere Durham. I’d like to conduct a thorough background check.”
Victor watched as the tall, red-haired officer stopped chatting with his co-workers then left for the records room to retrieve the necessary files. Some of the information would be digitally stored, but most of it was still in the older analog registry that detailed every chanter — the only way to ensure the middlings’ safety.
After Bratt’s departure, it took but a moment for the room to resume its whispers.
“Don’t the rest of you have work to do?” Victor snapped. “There are leads to follow and informants to contact. This city is squirming with illegal trade. Get to work.”
The oddest thing had happened since Resolution 84 passed: Magic seemed more popular now than it had been before the passage of the Resolution. Victor shook his head, wondering at the way others ignored the Sable trade, allowing it to destroy their city and its people from within. They had to be protected from themselves.
He turned on his computer screen and brought up the report he needed to fill out on last night’s failed raid. It infuriated him that he had to detail his failures, reliving the humiliation on repeat. He was typing a narrative account of what had happened when Bratt returned from the records room holding an overstuffed binder. The junior officer planted it on Victor’s desk harder than necessary.
“This is everything on the Durhams. Whole family. Did you know her father’s a middling? Guess you can’t fault a guy for dabbling with a chanter from time to time. I’ve heard that chanter women can — ”
“Maybe we should move you to Vice.”
“Sorry, sir. I was just — ”
“You were just what?”
“Nothing, sir. May I be excused? I have anonymous tip logs that need my attention.”
Victor dismissed the junior officer with a wave. They were all disgusting with their petty obsessions. He didn’t have time for that kind of garbage. He didn’t care what the others thought of sex with chanter girls, or any other form of recreation. It was all a distraction, and always led to sin and destruction.
Victor watched Bratt return to his desk then pretend to pour over his logs. Victor caught the shared looks with the others and saw Bratt’s rolling eyes. The impertinent man would pay for his passive disrespect. But later. There were other, more pressing needs for now.
Reaching over, he pulled the binder in front of him. The first section of the standard registry form listed the names of the chanters inside, along with their particulars and most recent photo. He looked at Winnie’s mother, Elaine, but saw no reason to target her. She’d become crippled by some debilitating disorder or another, probably paying the price for dabbling in strong magics that had been made illegal years before.
He flipped the page to a photo of Winnie Durham and read the notes beneath her photo. She’d taken over the business from her mother at a young age and was still in charge of running the shop today because of Elaine’s illness.
Reading on, Victor learned she had little contact with her father, though Winnie had a half-sister named Morgan Bennett, a middling who occasionally visited her chanter sister at the shop. Morgan and Winnie were the same age — their father had been dallying with Elaine rather than staying home and supporting his pregnant wife.
Victor made a note on a separate pad to follow up. Perhaps the sisters didn’t get along. Maybe he could drive a wedge between them. The father and sister might be the key to unraveling this mystery.
Victor tapped a query into his computer and stared at the screen as the database delivered new information. The father had no criminal history — not even a parking ticket. A shame. If Victor could threaten the father, Morgan might be convinced to come in and help him tak
e her sister down. It was something to look in to. He looked up Morgan’s info and found that she attended the City University.
He had the beginning of a plan in mind. If he could catch her at the right moment of weakness, his work could be advanced by leaps and bounds.
Victor stood and looked around the squad room, looking at the other officers in disgust, trying to pick one to join him before deciding to go alone. They were all soft. None would understand what he had to do with this sister, and a few would show sympathy to the girl at a time when he couldn’t afford for them to show any. He stalked from the room, hearing the return of the murmured conversations as he left.
An hour later, he stood in the registrar’s office at the University. The woman behind the desk looked back at him in defiance as he repeated his request for Morgan Bennett’s schedule.
“I told you Constable, I’m not allowed to release student records without a court order. If you return with a proper warrant, I’ll happily print the information you require.”
“And I told you this is a vital matter for the Department of Magical Containment. I don’t have time to get the warrant.”
“Well, until you return with the proper paperwork, my hands are tied.”
Victor took out a pad from his tunic pocket. Clicking his pen, he looked at the woman. “Your full name and address, please.”
“Why do you need that?”
“While I secure the warrant, I’m going to have my men do a routine scan of your home. Your antagonistic response to a simple request from the Department suggests to me that you are a chanter sympathizer and leaves me to wonder if there’s any illegal magic in your home. You might be surprised by the things a supposedly ordinary family has laying around. My men are very good at their jobs. They always find something.” He leveled his gaze. “Always.”
She swallowed and looked away in shame. Ha. He was right, she did have something to hide. Most people did these days. He kept the pressure up.
“Your address. Now.”
The woman looked back at Victor with cold fear in her eyes. It made him wonder what she had in her home. But he didn’t have time for that now, and it wasn’t why he was here. He could always come back later to investigate further.
“I have a job to do. If you make that job easy, I see no reason to trouble you further.”
“I could lose my job.”
“Unemployment is better than confinement in the Department’s detention facilities.”
The woman wrung her hands in frustration then started typing. “The name again?”
“Bennett, Morgan Bennett.”
“I didn’t know we had any chanters.”
“I didn’t say she was a chanter.”
“Well, here it is. Let me print this out.”
Victor waited while the printer chattered out the schedule on paper. The woman reached down, retrieved the sheet, and handed it over.
“You won’t go waving that around and telling people where you found it, will you?”
“Madame, I am a paragon of discretion. If I were you, I would see to any errant magic you might have at home. I am dedicated to my job and will have to follow up on all leads discovered while on duty. I’m sure you understand. Shall we say you tend to it within the next twenty-four hours?”
The woman’s eyes were suddenly wide and hollow. It looked like it took everything inside her to barely nod.
Satisfied on all counts, Victor walked back out to his squad car. He cross-referenced Morgan’s schedule with a campus map and decided he could drive around to the building in question. A glance at his watch — he’d arrive just in time for Miss Bennett’s class to let out.
Victor parked in front of the business and accounting building then loaded Morgan’s driver’s license photo onto his phone. He vaguely remembered seeing her behind the counter at Charmed, but the image would help him sift through the group of students exiting the building. Victor got out of the car, ascended the main entrance steps, and waited.
Soon, a flood of college students poured through the doors. He didn’t see her in the mass of young men and women. Victor thought that he’d made the wrong move, waiting out here for her, when he finally spotted her chatting with another girl across the entrance. She stopped when she saw him, taking in his uniform and giving him a frown.
Victor used that opening and approached Morgan. Her friend noticed him and gave a hurried goodbye.
“Miss Bennett, I’m Constable Victor Holmes from the Department of Magical Containment. I need to speak with you about a matter concerning your father.”
Morgan blinked. “Don’t you mean my sister?”
“No, this concerns your father. We are exploring middlings who have fathered chanter children. There is evidence that they may have chanter DNA themselves. If that’s the case for your father, you would both be in violation of the mandatory registry of chanters as required by the Department, the Assembly, and the Resolutions.”
“We’re not chanters. Why are you doing this? We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Because of recent charm running activities your sister is associated with, Miss Bennett. Did you know that your sister is a charm runner?”
Morgan shook her head, eyes wide. Victor continued.
“She is working for a noted Sable trader named Artos Merrilyn. He is careful with his business, making sure that we’re unable to catch him by enlisting others, like your sister, to transport illegal and dangerous magic.”
“Look, Constable, I don’t always agree with the things my sister does, and sometimes we don’t get along all that well, but I can’t believe she’s involved in something like this.”
“Last night, she was witnessed traveling after curfew in Assembly Hill, delivering a package for Artos Merrilyn. We were unable to catch her in the act but her presence there after a tip led us to her is enough for us to investigate other members of her family such as yourself and your father. She should know that everyone she knows or is related to will be subject to intense investigation. We must stamp out this harmful and illegal activity at all costs.”
“I can’t believe she would put us in this kind of position. I was at her shop helping on the night Resolution 84 went into effect.” Morgan put her hands on her hips, gritting her teeth in anger. “You’d think she’d be grateful for all my father and I have done. We treated her like one of us, like real family, and this is the thanks we get?”
Victor shrugged. “Some chanters … well, they just don’t see the middlings as their equals. They think they’re better, above the law.”
“What can I do? There must be something. Being investigated by the Department would ruin me. They might kick me out of school. My father would lose his job.”
“It is my hope that we enlist your aid in cracking down on this city’s charm runners, including your sister. If you could help us gather evidence, and tell us when she and others like her are making deliveries, we might get lucky and put an end to Artos Merrilyn’s entire operation. Our gratitude would be extensive.”
“And my sister? What happens to her?”
“It will depend on how deeply involved she is, and how willing she’ll be to cooperate after her arrest. But I must confess, Morgan, she doesn’t act like someone who wants to work within the law.”
Victor watched as the girl chewed her lip while she pondered the dilemma he had presented to her. He decided to try and impress her some more.
“The Department of Magical Containment is working very hard to rid our world of magic entirely, Miss Bennett. We have a very secret project that relies on getting to the center of the Sable trade. Your sister is the key to that project’s success. I will do anything to get to that key.”
“You’d get rid of all magic? How is that possible?”
“Can’t you see the wasting world around you? Haven’t you learned of what befell Europe and most of Asia? That will happen here, too, if we don’t act soon. We must do what needs to be done before it’s too late. That includes you, Miss
Bennett.”
“So what do I do, Constable?”
“Go to your classes. Act normal around your friends, and especially your sister, if you see her. I’ll send you a message soon, to your phone, with my direct contact line. Don’t go through any other Red Legs. I don’t trust my co-workers in this either, and it might endanger you or your father. So do as I say and I can make sure that you both stay safe and away from Department scrutiny.”
“So I can go now?”
“You are free to go, for now. Understand, I will be watching you, and you’re not the only one I’m using to get inside. I’ll know if you betray me and warn your sister. Then nothing will save you or your father from a full investigation and a very public trial. Do you understand?”
Victor waited until the girl nodded; he enjoyed the fear and worry in her eyes, savoring it and filing the feeling away for later. She was an attractive girl.
“Now go, and wait for my message.”
Morgan nodded and rushed off, looking over her shoulder on the way. She saw him watching and walked faster.
Satisfied, Victor walked back to his squad car and returned to the station. His thoughts returned to Miss Bennett several times during his return drive.
CHAPTER 19
Danny spent a few days going through the motions of his privileged life. He had everything he could wish for — all the money he could ever want to spend — and yet he couldn’t stop thinking about Winnie Durham and their encounter with the Red Legs. He couldn’t stop thinking about the senator. It had been the most exciting moment of his sheltered life and he wanted more. He was desperate for another jolt of adrenaline, to feel that alive again.
He started talking to his friends, other privileged children of the Temperance and governing elite. They were all bored. He got them sharing secrets, comparing family vaults. It was surprising what magic was out there, even in the homes of the top Temperance leaders. The hypocrisy of it all fueled Danny’s desire to enter the trade. If he could get Winnie involved, he’d live on the edge of the law and finally feel truly alive. All he had to do was get the best charms and forbidden magic for his friends and connections in the city’s middling upper crust.