Tracking Magic

by Maria E. Schneider

  Stepping inside the house, I shouted, "Tell me where your friend was buried!" It was my only clue. Delan’s friend had to be angry. Otherwise, why had the ghosts awoken in the middle of the day when we spoke his name? It still didn’t make sense unless the body had been there, but... "Did the wife bring Peter’s ashes along?"

  I kept one eye on the patio in case the name brought the ghosts out again. The other I kept on Delan. He was crouched behind a massive leather couch with some sort of blanket draped over his body.

  He froze in the act of standing up. "He’s buried. He was never here."

  "Fine." Rather than stand there and argue with Delan, I headed out.

  It took me two tries to find the right cemetery since I mistakenly went to Fairview first. I ended up calling into my computer to access the obituary and then driving back towards Austin.

  Cemeteries are largely the same no matter where you go, so I don’t know why I hadn’t figured out the limestone clue a whole lot sooner. I stood there staring at the evidence. "The elves would have guessed," I muttered, looking across gravestones and mausoleums. "Ghosts belong in graveyards."

  I didn’t bother to pay my respects at Peter Holm’s grave, nor did I check with the proprietor. I knew where Delan had gotten his stones.

  I drove back to the lake house and rang at the gate.

  "Oh, for God’s sake," Delan complained. "I’ll meet you out back on the patio unless those things are having a fit."

  I parked near the front steps and went around the side. I handed Delan the gold coin for the afternoon part of the job.

  "You’ve no choice but to take the stones back," I told him. "They’re stolen goods. Not only that, the ghosts aren’t going to go back to the cemetery without them. Maybe they took a liking to the guy who was supposed to have these stones built into a mausoleum."

  Delan glowered at me before staring off at the lake. "These stones didn’t belong to anyone. They were going to be used to build a dividing wall." He threw his shoulders back. "I checked. After the funeral, I talked to the guys out there."

  "What guys?" I asked.

  He took his time answering. "The guys there. Doing some work on the grave sites. Those stones were piled up. There were tons of them, too many for the short wall that was going in. Besides, no one was in a hurry; there were weeds growing in the stack!"

  "You have all kinds of money and you stole stones from a graveyard." I shook my head. "Unbelievable."

  "They’re stones! Dirt. No one was using them."

  "Oh, but someone was." When Delan opened his mouth to protest again, I pointed at the wall. "The ghosts. And they aren’t going to leave their stones. You had best call Juan and have him take the stones back."

  Delan looked startled. "Juan?"

  "The guy who delivered them. I imagine he works at the cemetery?" Delan grunted, not about to admit anything else. I shrugged. "It had to be someone who could get in and out of there in the daytime. Only a fool would try to steal from a graveyard at night, especially haunted stones." I thought a half-second before adding, "Only a damned idiot would try to steal from a graveyard period."

  "They were just sitting there!"

  I smiled. "They don’t belong to you. They belong to the ghosts, and they want their stones put back where you found them."

  I started towards the gate.

  "Wait!" Delan said. "You didn’t get rid of the ghosts."

  I stopped. "I’ve solved your haunting problem. All you have to do now is put the ghosts back where they belong. Hire Juan. I hear he delivers."

  At the last minute, I remembered the small piece of limestone brick I had taken. I took it from my pocket and set it on top of the wall. I didn't want Delan's ghosts to have any reason to follow me.

  Curses!

  A Max Killian Investigation

  Maria E. Schneider

  The pine crate was marked with skulls. "Hazardous material" was stamped in multiple languages across the side. A tingle of old death and magic emanated from it. When I tried to probe it, it was like a toothache, a funny throb across my bones. It was shielded or disguised in some way.

  My new client, Mark Toppo, was headed towards his octogenarian years on skinny legs that paced in front of the crate. "Max, I need you to investigate what is in here so that I know what to charge the company for returning it."

  I had no intention of telling Toppo about the magical vibes I was getting. If I advertised my extra sensory skills, I’d get taxed right out of my detective business. "Since it's hazardous, don't you just want to get rid of it?"

  "Depends." Toppo rubbed his hands together, creating a sound much like the crinkling of old paper money. "Could be worth more if I threaten to tell the media about the cargo. When the ship busted up, this thing washed up on the beach. The entire time, the company claimed the cargo was nothing but shoes."

  "Hmm." Toppo had woken me at 5 a.m. and offered to pay extra if I hurried out to his Texas Hill Country estate. I hadn’t shaved and my brown hair was a bit too long to impress a new client. I could have showered, but instead had used the time to look up Toppo’s background. Fifteen years ago, the man had made his fortune by teaming with his only son to invent a submersible with functioning gills. There were hints of illegalities surrounding the patents; magic, chemistry and the endangered giant bluefin tuna.

  "Found it right on the beach, huh?"

  He nodded happily.

  Maybe in his old age, Toppo had given up the glory of diving in exchange for beachcombing. The storm certainly had a number of people scouring the beaches of Galveston Bay as though salt-water laden shoes were the find of a century.

  "There’s a hazmat suit for you." Toppo waved at two bulky suits draped over the kitchen island. "I wasn’t sure I should keep the crate in the guest house, but I did some reading. Most hazardous material is stopped by concrete." He rapped his knuckles against the smooth peach-colored wall, almost knocking down an original Mel Grant print of a fairy stirring spells in a cauldron. "This building is state-of-the art--concrete fill poured right into the shape of the cottage!"

  I was fairly certain the hazmat experts were not referring to a designer-decorated guest house when they recommended a concrete barrier. They must have also forgotten to explicitly warn against storing hazardous material in food preparation areas because my client had put the crate on the Mediterranean stone tile next to the stove. A bowl of fresh fruit sitting on the small breakfast table had to be soaking up any hazardous rays.

  "This place for your in-laws?"

  His eyes slanted my way. "No, why?"

  I shrugged. "Never mind. We should both probably be wearing the hazmat suits since we’re next to the crate."

  "Damn things are heavy. I wore one the first few times." He stuffed his hands in his dress pants pockets. "Guess I should have given you one outside."

  Given the smell of death, I was worried, but would have been more so if the smell hadn’t been so ancient. I couldn’t quite conceive that death so old would have anything to do with toxic chemicals. Of course…maybe the chemicals were so nasty, they affected the way I perceived the death inside the crate. I grabbed one of the suits and put it in front of me, half draping it over one arm. "I’m going to need some supplies before I get started."

  "No problem! If I have it here, you can use it." He rubbed his hands together again, looked at the hazmat suit and lifted the sleeve. "Maybe I’ll just give you the key and let you get to work."

  "Okay." Since I didn’t want an audience, this was an especially good idea. I had always been able to smell magic and death, but I’d never had to work hard to determine the nature of magic before. Not being able to figure it out had me worried.

  # # #

  Why anyone would drag a large crate from Galveston to the Hill Country was a mystery, but more research showed that Toppo had done a lot of cargo recovery in his past. He had been the first to test the "Bubble," his submersible that looked a lot like a fat mermaid. Despite the questions surrounding the possib
le magical use of the gills of the endangered bluefin in the design, I noted that scientists had happily purchased time in the Bubble. When magicals, including mermaids, were enticed by the return of the gold standard to come back into the open, scientists badly needed a way to compete when it came to underwater exploration. In this case, it meant to hell with the bluefin.

  An electronic search of the sunken ship’s cargo manifest showed nothing but shoes. It looked like the only way to figure out what was in the crate was to open it, a conclusion that Toppo had probably reached before he hired me. I had a few more clues than he did, but my special senses weren’t going to keep me from wearing the hazmat suit. I gathered the few tools that I needed, ate dinner and waited until dark before driving back.

  # # #

  Since I had a key, getting through the high security on Toppo’s property wasn’t a problem. The hazmat suit, on the other hand, wasn’t the boon I expected. Under a full moon, the smell of the dead and magic should have been stronger than in the daytime, but with the suit on, I couldn’t smell anything other than stale, filtered air from the suit’s small canister.

  Never having worked without my extra senses…well, in this case they hadn’t told me much. In fact, maybe they would only be a distraction.

  Setting myself to the task, I withdrew a fairy globe from my bag. I didn’t like to use them because of the expense, but the guest house lights might lure Toppo back to watch me work. The fairy globe floated where I put it; the soft, diffused light and the ability to hang in mid-air allowed fairies to charge an arm and a leg for the things.

  The crate had swelled with water and then dried out. To make the job easier, I found some dish soap and used it as a lubricant on the rusted fasteners.

  Once the crate was disassembled, I encountered a long plastic drum. It was easy to open, but moisture had forced its way inside the drum, discoloring the packing material. The metal container under the material made me very nervous. It was sealed and locked. I expected that. What I didn’t like was the shape. It looked like a small child’s coffin. Automatically, I breathed deep, but all I got was canned air.

  I quickly put my lock picks to use. If not for the stupid hazmat suit, things would have gone faster, and I might have smelled the growing magic. Instead, as I inserted the pick, I got no warning.

  One second I felt the lock release, the next, an invisible knife chopped off the end of my glove. A warning bell tinged in my ear; some part of the radio control in the suit warned me that I had been breached.

  "Aaagh!" I didn’t need the infernal suit to tell me my hand was in danger. I jumped backwards and crashed into the boards from the crate. The hazmat boots were as long and maneuverable as flippers. Like a drunken tree, I fell and rolled sideways.

  The exposed skin of my hand tingled with magic. I yanked off the remainder of the still smoking glove and inspected my fingers. I cursed under my breath, but I was grateful to see all of them still in working order.

  Since the suit integrity had been breached, I shut off the air supply and removed the helmet. Cautiously I sniffed. My bones hurt. There was a lot of magic in that box, but I still didn’t know what it was.

  I touched a bit of the packing material with my naked hand. "Silk!" The crate was hazardous all right, but the silk indicated protection against magic, not toxic chemicals or radiation. Of course, I could still smell death. Had someone sealed a person inside and if so, why the silk?

  I wrapped a long kitchen spatula in the silk and used the good glove from the hazmat suit to slide the lid open. I immediately regretted it.

  A ball of light the size of a basketball zipped out and made me wish I had left the helmet secured. I ducked. It hit the kitchen window, exploding fragments of glass outward.

  I barely managed to keep my balance. My mouth might have been trying to form words, but all that came out was a sickly puff of air.

  The thing realized it had missed. It hovered for a second, got its bead on me and came back faster than a pro-pitched baseball. The red sphere learned, too. This time when I ducked, it curved lower at the last second, setting my hair on fire and taking a swath straight off the back of my head. Leaned over, I found my face directly over the crate.

  "Aaack!" I was face-to-face with the sarcophagus of an Egyptian mummy. "No! It wasn’t me! I didn’t disturb the tomb!"

  The magical protection wasn’t interested in my excuses. It took a vicious downward stab while I rolled around the kitchen in an attempt to extinguish the back of my head and shirt. The ball missed me, but the pine boards from the crate started blazing. Since dying of smoke inhalation was still dead, I rolled over the flames with the hazmat suit.

  "I’m serious! I was hired to find out how the, um," I spared a glance at the coffin, wondering what to call it. "How the child arrived here. Look around! This isn’t the tomb that has been breached!"

  On a long roll, I grabbed up the helmet. Even with my hair still smoking, I mashed the protective gear over my injured head. I wasn’t sure the helmet would hold against the magic. It was clearly a death missile, an Egyptian curse designed to protect the precious contents of a tomb. Somehow a collector had figured out how to extract the sarcophagus and conceal it on a freighter bound for Texas, only to have it stolen out from under him.

  Now that I had triggered the spell, it would kill me, leaving the mummy unprotected and nicely available for the collector. A nasty thought intruded as I dove across the kitchen island and down the other side. Had my client hired me to set off the protection so he could get at the contents?

  The ball hadn’t learned ninety-degree drop-offs yet. When I fell to the floor, the sphere skimmed straight by. It took out the fairy globe, splashing smaller light globes all over the place. I’d never seen one do that before, but it probably negated the warranty. I groaned.

  Of course, if I didn’t survive, I wouldn’t have to worry about the expense. "Look around," I yelled, as I dashed to the other side of the kitchen island. "Do you see the original tomb?" I knew the thing had eyes of a sort, otherwise it couldn’t keep coming after me. The rest of its awareness was up for grabs. "I’m the one trying to figure out who brought you here! If you kill me, who will protect the, uh…package and take it back home?"

  Did it hesitate? I wasn’t taking chances.

  I dove under the table. When the ball of fire hit the top, the oak split in at least four places, raining splinters, boards and fruit flambé across me. "I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I showed you my detective license?" The hazmat suit made it impossible for me to scramble out from under the mess that had been a table. The ball had me pinned, and it knew it. I stared into the face of my destiny. How much of the magic would the hazmat suit deflect? The helmet was skewed to one side, still unfastened. The smell of burned hair and skin made me gag.

  I lay panting for several seconds before I realized I wasn’t dead. I squinted. The ball of magic had gone from flaming red to a cooler pink. It oscillated back and forth.

  I raised my naked palm in a conciliatory gesture. "I didn’t steal from the tomb. But I think I know who did." If it wasn’t my client, all I had to do was figure out who had paid for the box to be delivered. I stared at the pile of smoking pine rubble on the floor.

  "Uh-hmm." I looked again at the fireball, but it hadn’t moved. "I don’t suppose you’ve seen an intact packing chip label around here anywhere, have you?"

  # # #

  I ran my own business so that I could run my own business. Mostly I didn’t even bother to explain to clients how I got things done, I just got them done. But then, none of my past clients involved giant fireballs trying to protect their old clients.

  The ball of light wasn’t about to let me walk out the door. Since the sarcophagus was carved from stone, there was no way I could take it and its fireball protection with me while I investigated.

  It was looking a lot like "check-mate" when, near morning, I suggested that the spell break into two spells. "Half stays here, and the other half can come with me
!"

  I wasn’t sure it even heard me until, with a loud pop, I was facing two menacing balls of fire. "Great." The thing wasn’t creative, but I had just taught it how to be two enemies instead of one.

  One blob of light changed color, damping from pink to a pale yellow. It perched on my shoulder. Expecting a burn, I flinched, but the ball had cooled.

  It rotated, waiting.

  # # #

  Presenting a client with bad news is never fun. Getting them out of bed to do it is about the worst. I expected denial, shock, and especially a little fear, but Toppo didn’t seem to notice the pale curse on my shoulder. He was busy with his own perceived problems.

  "No one will claim it if it’s illegal contraband," he shouted, stomping around his massive living room in turtle-print pajamas. His face was flushed. His breath came in short, angry bursts. I worried he would die before I could convince him to keep paying me to find out how to get the curse settled somewhere other than my shoulder.

  "The shipping company has to claim it since it was on their ship," I tried.

  Toppo swiped at a giant potted plant. When the leaves tore off, he shook several pieces at me. "They’ll claim it was stowed without their knowledge. They won’t pay for illegal goods, especially one with a curse!"

  Indeed, coming forward with a claim would be foolish. Anyone who had paid to ship it would immediately be arrested and have to deal with the curse.

  "Do you have the packing chip?" I asked. "Anything other than what was on the crate?"

  He sputtered to a halt. "Was on the crate?"

  "Did I mention that when the curse escaped, it set the boards on fire?"

  He leaned against the fireplace mantle. "We can’t prove it came off that ship? I won’t be able to at least claim damages from an insurance company?"

  His mind did work fast. "It doesn’t look particularly good at this point." Before he could slide to the floor in dismay, I said, "Let me do some more checking. Someone knows this was on board, and they are going to be looking for it, at least discreetly."