by Elsa, Sandra
Jerry had brought me a t-shirt, jeans and my shoulder holster recovered from the church. He hadn’t packed the short coat I frequently used to cover the holster. I decided to wear my weapon anyway. Not like anybody in the district wasn’t well aware I carried it.
Five minutes to the second, I suspect, an authoritative knock announced Mr. Jamison’s return. I opened the door and tugged Nan and Jallahan through it. We walked out on the balcony and I checked for beetles, wishing I had a wand to check for electronic bugs. I only found one beetle. I hoped that meant they were getting tired of wasting them. After snuffing the one I found, I did a manual check for other devices and asked my father, “You got Jamison?”
Jamison stepped out on his balcony several rooms away and Jallahan waved to him. “Yes, I’ve got him.”
“But we talked all about this earlier, inside where there’re likely to be more listening devices,” Harrison said.
“You think I didn’t check for beetles last night? I guess they didn’t realize we’d be staying here until it was too late to plan ahead. I’m not finding any electronics out here either, so I reckon they flew one beetle here from their balcony.” I bent over and picked the thing off the ground. “Note the haphazard placement, barely hidden--”
“You said flew?” Harrison questioned.
“Of course,” I held out a metallic wing. “why do you think they call them beetles?”
“Variation of bug? Which is an ages old word for things that infest a room.”
“Beetles can actually fly and sort of creep into hiding, they just don’t usually do a very good job of it without the person directing them to tell them where to go. They don’t think on their own.”
“I didn’t get the impression Mr. Jamison was willing to be patient for long,” Nan said.
“Quite right, my love,” Jallahan said. He proceeded to confirm most of our guesses about stealing magic. He did mention Flanders was fortunate I stole his spell before it was more fully formed or like the net it would have ripped through not only his talent, but his physical body. He told me the best ways to control the talent, so it didn’t turn deadly. Told me I should have turned the spell off and then stolen Flander’s talent.
“I never thought of it as two different things. I just looked at it as turning a spell off after it’d been flung, and before it’d been flung. So what do you do with the stolen energy?” I asked.
“The only thing I can do. Ground it out.”
“Anything else I should know about?”
“Little bit of levitation. Unless yours is much stronger than mine I wouldn’t count on it for much of anything though. Just be careful what you wish for. Sometimes magic takes me literal when I wish I could reach something across the room. Oh…and finding things.”
“Wait…finding things? Like missing people, stolen property?”
“Yes. You see why it frustrated me so to not be able to find your mother.”
“So you’re saying I’ve been making a living off magic for the past ten years?”
“I’ve little doubt you’d have solved your cases anyway. But it might have helped on some of the tougher ones. There’s nothing else of any consequence.”
“The way he’s pacing, I suppose we should go see Jamison,” I said. “We’ll meet you downstairs in the dining room, unless you want to do your own thing today.”
“We’ll be waiting. We both get the feeling the two of you are going to fall off the face of the earth after we all leave. So we’d like to spend some time with you.”
“Great,” Harrison said. “I don’t plan to give Jamison much of my morning. See you in half an hour.”
#
Mr. Jamison opened his door before we could knock. Five mages sat at a table, all of them dressed in black suits, shoes, and ties, and a crisp white button up shirt. Haircuts were short, expressions grim. The blond man at the head of the table held a sheaf of papers. Two of them looked familiar.
It took me a moment to place him, add shoulder length hair, jeans and a flannel shirt, and the brown haired man on the side of the table furthest away from us was the man we’d run into at the trolley stop in District Seventeen after the dinner at Romanelli’s. I nodded my head at him. Not so much being friendly, but telling him, ’I know you.’
The other man who looked familiar, I couldn’t place. But I stared long enough to let him know I hadn’t forgotten him either. He returned my steady regard, not shrinking from the recognition, expression as blank and unrevealing as I schooled mine to be. Beside him a good-looking, thirty something dark-haired man had a notebook open, pen at the ready. Each man’s suit coat bulged over a shoulder holster. I spent a moment contemplating what weapons they might carry. I had to admit to myself they looked efficient.
Moaning came from the next room and Jamison wasted no time. “Who did what to Mr. Flanders?”
“He’ll be fine.” Harrison said. “I wouldn’t if he’d been permitted to cast the spell he started,”
“That doesn’t answer the question. Let me make this easy. President Drover informed me she’s a null so you don’t need to pretend otherwise.”
“Now, is this another talent of hers, or do you continue to develop, Harrison?”
“She’s mage Jallahan’s daughter. She turned off his spell.”
The square-jawed dark-haired man scribbled every word we said.
The blond paper holder scanned the top sheet of his stack. “Then it’s true. Nulls inherit their parents’ talent?”
“Sorry boys, but if you think I’m going to sit here and discuss me, you’ve wasted the morning,” I said.
“Then tell us what is wrong with Mr. Flanders?”
“Nothing time won’t cure. His energy is depleted,” Harrison said.
Jamison barely hesitated as he decided the best method of getting our cooperation, which is to say he deferred his interest in my abilities. “I’ll leave alone how that happened, but I need to know what Flanders did to merit such a harsh punishment,” Mr. Jamison stood at the table, arms crossed over his chest, staring, as though daring us to defy him again.
I wanted to. Just to let him know how stubborn I could be.
Harrison spared Jamison the frustration. “Frankie made the connection that he may have been the one behind the siphons that attacked me and Jerry. He didn’t deny the accusation. Then he started building a spear of malevolence. She stopped him.”
Jamison’s eyes twitched only slightly wider. “Can you prove that? How do you know what he was gathering energy to do?”
“Because I’ve seen the nearly finished product?”
“Can you prove it? You don’t see magic.”
Harrison looked at me and I nodded. “There are some landscapes where I am perfectly capable of viewing magic. If I have to, yes, I can prove it.”
The gleam in Jamison’s eyes was quickly schooled back to professionalism. This would be a major victory for him. “If we’re to justify detaining and investigating Mr. Flanders, it will be necessary to have proof.”
I wondered if President Drover had treats he fed him as rewards, I had little doubt I and my secrets were the bone he’d been sent to uproot. But I didn’t see any way around revealing the existence of nullspace if I wanted Flanders safely locked away.
Harrison told Jamison, “We’re meeting our parents for breakfast, then we’ll take a drive. I’ve never handled a spear before and I’d prefer to remove it where it can’t do any harm.
Every pair of eyes at the table fixed on us, like rabbits staring into the gaze of a rattler. Jamison’s jaw went slack. He quickly collected his wits. “The spear still exists?”
“Yep. And make sure at, least one of your witnesses can see magic, so he can tell you what color the energy is.”
Dark-hair with the notebook glanced up, “I’ll go as witness, Sir.”
Jamison nodded. “We’ll all be there.”
“Now though,” Harrison said, “we’ll be going to breakfast.”
“Yes. By all means,
meet us out front at noon. And be aware I’m quite certain your father will be going along, Harrison.”
We hadn’t even closed the door before Jamison was on the phone with the local watch, requesting someone be sent around to collect a man accused of treason.
We ate breakfast and explained to our parents what was going on. Father quickly became Mage Jallahan, head of research and development at MNU. “If Jordan’s going, I’d like to be there as well.”
“Kinda figured. Just don’t ask us to explain what we can do.”
“But why?”
“Because we really don’t know what makes it work.”
“Will you offer any guesses?”
“Maybe when the circus goes home.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
I cleaned my plate, using a bite of pancake to sop up the last of the strawberries, then leaned back to enjoy my coffee. While we ate, Dee and Teach arrived in the dining room. Dee came over and hugged me. “Any plans for today, Girlfriend?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“By the enthusiasm in your voice I guess it has something to do with Daddy dearest. No insult to present company.” She laid a hand on Jallahan’s shoulder.
He patted her hand. “No insult taken. I think we all know who irritates Frankie most in the world.”
I shook my head. “Actually, it’s not even him, this time. It’s Flanders. I don’t understand why he’d try something like that.”
“Flanders?” Teach entered the conversation.
“He showed up this morning, pounding on our door,” Harrison said.
“Whatever for? We all know the rumors about you and Susie were lies. Is he still on about that?”
Harrison rubbed my leg under the table and grinned. “Frankie saw through him immediately. Accused him of causing other problems and he tried to spear me.”
“Spear you?”
“Spear of malevolence.”
“He missed?”
“Frankie turned it off, then disabled him.”
“Disabled Flanders?” Disbelief lay heavy in Teach’s voice. “He’s powerful. What’d she do, shoot him?” Once again I heard the, your-wife-has-no-talent,-Harrison, even though it remained unsaid.
“You knew him?” Harrison ignored Teach’s question and tone.”
“We weren’t great friends. At one time he taught some classes down the hall from me. Quit working at the school a couple years back, haven’t seen him since.”
“What were his talents? Besides the spear of malevolence.”
“Were?” Teach didn’t miss the past tense.
“He’ll regain his skills in time if the watch permits it. You know there’s a lot I can’t tell you.”
Teach’s fingers drummed lightly against Dee’s thigh. “If you still have your connections why not just use the registry. And what does it matter what skills he had?”
“As for the registry…we don’t plan to go back to District Seven anytime soon. And the second falls into the category of things I can’t tell you. Will you tell us what you know?”
Dee shifted her hip a little closer to his ministrations as his hand worked upward.
Teach shrugged. “You never used to be so secretive, Harrison. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. Flanders could create illusion with the best of them, so real you could smell food cooking, feel the feathers on a bird. Hear it sing a lovely song. He could also create walls.”
“Walls?” I asked for clarification.
Teach’s finger’s stopped drumming as he considered how to explain. “I think it was taking his illusion skills one step farther. He could turn the illusion of a wall temporarily solid, for protection. I’m afraid that’s all I really knew about him.” Dee reached over and massaged his shoulders.
“That’s more than enough,” I told Teach. “Thank you.”
“Well, since you’re nearly done eating, I think we’ll just get our own table.” I got the feeling he just wanted to spend more time with Dee.
Harrison said, “Have a good morning.”
We paid for our breakfast and strolled down to the beach. Harrison held me close to his side, and Jallahan bracketed me nearly as close on the opposite side.
“So do you plan to explain to me what that was all about? What difference does it make what talents Flanders has?”
“I’m afraid that’s not something we plan to share until we’ve worked out the best way to use it,” Harrison said. I was more than happy to allow him to speak for me on the matter of magic, particularly since he seemed to have figured out, the need for caution.
Father leaned away from me and stared at us, his eyes traveling from Harrison’s face to mine and repeating. Finally he said, “You have his talent. Not only did you keep the spear, you kept the talent you snatched from him. That’s why you asked me what I did with it.”
Harrison shrugged.
“Why can’t I see it? If you carry a living mages talent, it should be visible.”
“Why should it be any more visible than her own natural talent?”
“Flanders was beige, everybody knows that.”
“Not everybody,” Harrison said, “but yeah. And the mage on the beach was emerald, and the landscape of nullspace is littered with every spell ever cast at Frankie, in their original colors. I can’t see auras in the real world, but in nullspace they’re dazzling.”
“Nullspace!” Jallahan looked entirely too excited. “Of course. That makes perfect sense.”
Harrison snorted, “Glad you think so.”
“How did you figure this out?”
I laughed. “You sure you want to know? It’s not exactly scientific.”
“Yes I want to know.”
“It’s not a tale for listening ears and I don’t even trust the open beach with so many mages here? We’ve probably already said too much.”
Frustration crossed Jallahan’s face, but he nodded agreement. “Who’d have thought my own daughter would turn out to be the most intriguing research project I’ve ever gotten involved in?”
“You can’t write down the things we tell you,” I said to him. “We’d like to include you because you can probably improve on things we already know. But if you write it down, it won’t stay secret long.” I had the feeling this particular subject was going to be in the wind by the end of today anyway. Jordan Drover wasn’t likely to be happy with simply producing the spear. He would have to know all about how it was produced and contained. Unfortunately if I wanted them to hold/charge Flanders with anything, I had best get used to the idea I needed to share. I abruptly changed course from those sour thoughts. “Speaking of secret projects…how’s my unicorn coming?”
“I think I’ve figured out how to combine the DNA of a narwhal and a horse. Horse DNA we have in abundance but Narwhal is rare. In fact, when I went searching I began to think there wasn’t any. But in a university on the northern shore of Europe there are several frozen samples. I bought one and had them ship it out via drone. I expect it to arrive sometime in the next two weeks.”
“Intelligence isn’t hard either,” Harrison said. “It’s the addition of magic that’s going to take some thought.”
“What about Paul’s great-grandfather?” I asked. “Changing from legs to fins has to require some magic.”
“So it would--” my father started, then promptly turned our steps closer to the beach. “You’re certain they actually change?”
I grinned and nodded, watching Poppy play in the waves. I waved to her. Not much later, Paul’s head surfaced. He pointed toward the pier and we made our way in that direction.
The guard at the pier tossed me a pair of shorts as we went past. I left them at the top of the ladder the mer used to exit the water. We continued down the pier and I turned to watch Paul come up the ladder. By the time he cleared the water he was wearing legs.
Harrison sat down between me and the naked man I was examining. “Honestly, Frankie. Why do you have to stare at him before he gets dressed?”
He leaned over and kissed me. “Dear God, I love you.”
“I know.”
Paul squeezed in between us. “What’s up, folks?”
“We were discussing the creation of my unicorn,” I said. “The men in my life think they have the form figured out, but it includes a fairly good dose of magic and while it’s obvious magic has been scientifically manipulated before, there aren’t any notes left about the process. At least not in my case. We were rather hoping your great-grandfather might have some pointers because changing from fins to legs seems to be a magical process.”
“It is. I don’t know if he still has notes but his mind is as sharp as ever and his coworker never forgets a thing.” He grinned as though at a private joke before continuing. ”I’m certain they can tell you. What do you plan to do with your unicorn? Will you make them able to cleanse fouled water systems and remove poisons like those in books?”
“Hadn’t really thought about specifics. Just knew we needed magic, but if we could…” I stopped to consider the implications, then let my mouth runaway. “If we created a breeding herd of them with that specific magic…We wouldn’t have to worry about killing our planet again. A pair of unicorns for every village we start…More for forested areas.”
“And mercorns for the ocean,” Paul added. “Grandfather will want to participate.”
“I already had the impression he planned to do that,” Jallahan said.
“Now all we need to do is scan the registry for somebody with the magic we need,” Harrison said. “not that that’s going to be easy.”
“Once you have a name, you have to talk him into helping,” Paul added. “He’ll need to contribute his DNA.”
“All we need is his talent,” Harrison said.
“How do you plan to make the talent breed true?” Nan asked.