Lewis didn’t wait for her to appear. He opened the meeting. “This meeting is a courtesy to you all. It is not required under the Collegium’s regulations.”
“Hardly.” The objection came from one of the two mages who’d fallen into Lewis’s office. “If you hadn’t called this evening’s meeting, we’d have summoned you to answer questions about your sudden use of magic.” The sharp-voiced man stared across the table at a tall, painfully thin man. “William said your power had burned out.”
“It has,” William answered in a deep voice that had about as much flexibility as iron.
“Kora witnessed him use it.” The other of the two troublesome mages added his bit.
Where was Kora?
The first troublesome man edged forward in his chair. “I questioned one of the guardians who accompanied Kora to Cape Cod. He said he’d never witnessed power such as Lewis exhibited. Lewis contained the magic and physical movement of eleven mages.”
That would have been the young, scared guardian. Gina couldn’t imagine Sven giving this elderly, accusatory fuss-budget the time of day.
Lewis certainly didn’t. He continued as if the senior mage hadn’t spoken. “The reason I called this meeting was to outline a threat I’ve been tracking for two years. Until now, I lacked the proof to justify employing Collegium resources against it. Now, with two attacks against Gina’s home and the online evidence she has found, the threat is naked. The time of this group hiding has passed.”
“You’re the one trying to hide.” The two troublesome mages spoke in unison. “Don’t duck the issue,” one added.
Gina wished she knew their names. It’s hard to hate people when you have to call them Fuss-budget and Stained Tie.
Someone knocked at the boardroom door. Haskell silently stood and opened it.
Kora walked in. She walked around the table, behind Lewis’s chair, and took the empty seat opposite the door. Unlike the other mages present who wore some version of business attire, Kora wore the unofficial uniform of guardians in the field: tough hiking gear.
Lewis ignored her belated entrance. Just as he ignored the tension and suspicion in the room. “The threat is a group of five individuals who use both mundanes and hired mages to influence activities around the globe. Destabilization has benefits for those whose greed outweighs conscience and commonsense. It wasn’t something to involve the Collegium until the use of mages could be established as a characteristic pattern. Kora, did the combat mages hired to attack Gina have any useful information?”
Kora stared at Gina. “No.”
“This is my report on the Group of 5,” Lewis said. “They operate efficiently and hire via intermediaries. Gina is familiar with the dark web—”
“The what?” Stained Tie broke off muttering to a colleague to bark the question.
Zhou Tan answered. The Collegium’s chief intelligence officer often stayed at Gina’s family’s hotels, and had been known to request information from her family. The Sidhe family were discreet, but when it came to solving difficulties, sometimes the best solution was a quiet word with Zhou. “Have you heard of the internet, Neville?”
“There is no need to be sarcastic, Zhou. My secretary prints off my emails and types up my responses before sending them.”
It was like dealing with a dinosaur—but dinosaurs could be dangerous, Gina reminded herself. Just which department, and form of magic, did Mr. Stained Tie Neville represent?
“The dark web is the Wild West of the internet,” Zhou said. “It is the online space inhabited by people who require more privacy than standard email accounts offer.”
Neville’s pale blue eyes bulged. “Are you saying people read my emails?”
Kora intervened. “The Collegium email server is warded.”
“In the dark web, many things can be hidden,” Zhou continued. “It requires significant skills to track someone through it.” He swiveled in his chair. “I look forward to your presentation, Ms. Sidhe.”
“Gina won’t be presenting her findings,” Lewis intervened. “Her report, attached to mine, is comprehensive. She’s here to answer additional questions.”
“We can hardly have questions when we’ve only just received the report.” A pertinent point from a female mage who’d been silent till now.
“Read it, now.” Lewis was uncompromising.
Everyone around the table stared at him, then started reading.
He leaned back in his chair.
Gina couldn’t work out what he was doing. Suddenly he wanted the Collegium board’s approval for chasing the Group of 5, yet his whole attitude stated that he’d commit the Collegium’s resources to pursuit of the group regardless of the board’s vote. Was he even putting things to the vote?
“Fine. Send the guardians after this group that has you worried.” Neville slapped the report onto the table. “It seems a minor matter to me. A handful of people operating for their own advantage, but it seems they do hire mages while themselves showing no particular magic. I don’t care for mundanes utilizing magic even at one remove.”
“I would like to know who the fifth member of the group is.” Zhou looked at Gina. “Do you have any suspicions? Any ideas you weren’t willing to commit to paper?”
“No. He or she is more adept than I’d anticipated at hiding their identity and location. However, everyone slips up. It’s a matter of how many resources can be thrown at the hunt.”
The Collegium’s chief forecaster nodded. “I will ask my people to work on the problem.”
“Thank you,” Lewis said. “In the real world sphere, I’d like the guardians to locate and observe the four people who have been identified. Kora?”
“You’re asking for a significant reallocation of resources.”
Until just over a month ago, Lewis had been commander of the guardians. Everyone in the room knew he understood precisely what he asked of Kora, and that it wasn’t a request.
“I’ll pull them off other duties,” she said.
“I’d like Sven to head the team.”
She nodded, tight lipped.
“Now, can we get back to the reason we’re really here?” Neville’s colleague demanded.
“What would that be, Samuel?” Lewis was blighting.
“Your power, damn it.”
“Oh. That.”
Gina had to suspect Lewis was being purposely difficult. She didn’t think it like him, and she noticed other concealed blinks and stares of surprise from the board members.
Lewis stood. “I’ll say this once. It’s a personal matter and not up for debate at a board meeting, so consider this one final courtesy from me. A year ago, pursuing the suspicion of the Group of 5’s existence they lured me into a trap. Five people died in that helicopter crash during the ice storm. I burned out my magic. William can attest to my absence of magic, as can anyone who looked at me with mage sight during that time. No magic coiled in me or around me.”
“It still doesn’t,” Kora said.
Ah. Gina had forgotten to consider that for magic users, Lewis’s power would be inexplicable. She slipped into mage sight and saw the boardroom glowing golden with wards, protection, personal spells and the magic each mage held. But around Lewis, there was a void.
He was a conundrum for everyone, and that meant everyone, who didn’t know of clarity of sight and the Deeper Path.
“For a year I have been without magic. It has shown me the world in a new way,” Lewis continued. “On the far side of magic, there is something else. I’ve never been a research scholar and I lack the words to describe it. After the Group of 5 is stopped, I will answer questions for those who wish to investigate this far side of magic, one which I am still discovering.”
“No one else has ever…” Samuel’s protest faded into a strangled squawk.
“This is the ability I discovered when guardians and hired mages fought near Gina’s home—in public—where mundanes could have observed them or been hurt.”
Kora flushed at
the reprimand. “Sometimes hiding is impossible. We were outnumbered.”
“Give me back my magic,” Samuel panted.
“I never took it,” Lewis said. “I simply moved the energy I saw somewhere else. You see magic as golden threads. I see the world in layers of silver.”
Samuel’s friend Neville stood. He leaned gnarled hands on the table, perhaps in an attempt to hide that they shook. “You can’t control all of us, Lewis.”
“I don’t intend to. I never have. I never will. But you elected me as president of the Collegium because you thought I could be controlled. That was an insult to the role of president. Whoever takes this role after me must be free. The new layer of reporting between president and department heads means lines of accountability exist, but respect boundaries. The president can once again become a touchstone.”
“So you would judge the truth of us?” And that was William, the healer.
“My successor’s primary role will be to assess the truth of the Collegium’s activities.”
“More chairman of a corporation than CEO,” Gina said.
Everyone turned to stare at her.
Except Lewis. “The Collegium has become a bureaucracy and needs to be one to succeed. But from the presidential office I can see the imbalance. If we are to serve justice, then we must pursue truth.”
Gina’s stomach tightened. What did Lewis see when he looked off into the distance? Other dimensions. Did the world she knew and all of the people in it vanish for him? She realized that the Collegium could argue and debate, question and criticize, but he’d already eluded them all. He could translocate out at any time. And who knew what else he could do?
A soft tap at the door barely came to Gina’s ears.
Closer to it, Haskell stood and opened the door. An urgent if indecipherable whisper and Haskell pulled the door wide.
Shawn Johnson entered. His face was fierce with some controlled emotion. A powerful one.
Already on his feet, Lewis strode around the table. “What’s happened?”
“The United Nations office in Beirut has just been blown up. And the geomages here report an earthquake in Izmir, Turkey, on the Aegean coast. The city is…devastated. The earthquake was triggered by magic.”
“No!” By Neville’s appalled reaction he was a geomage. “No one would. The destruction. In such a location…” He slumped in his chair, mouth quivering.
“Get up,” Lewis snapped. “Get to your people and try and stop the aftershocks.”
Neville stumbled out.
“Weather will be affected.” Samuel went after him.
“I need more information.” Zhou cut around them, fitter and more motivated.
William, chief healer, was already out the door.
“This is the Group of 5.” Lewis stared at Kora. “Find the four we know and bring them in. Whatever it takes. It has to be a priority. At the same time, send help to Izmir. Coordinate with Fay.”
“Pardon?” Kora jerked back as if he’d slapped her.
“You remember Fay Olwen?” Sarcasm, harsh and brutal as Lewis’s control of his temper slipped.
“Of course.”
“She lives in Cyprus. She’s close to Izmir and she has her own magic plus the support of the weres. Work with them.”
“Good idea.” A gray-haired woman who’d been seated one chair down on Lewis’s right bounced up. “The closer we keep Fay, the stronger we keep the Collegium.”
“It was her father who as president allowed the demon in,” someone argued.
“And it was Fay who banished it. Fay who has always been stronger than any of us.” Did the older woman’s gaze linger on Kora? “And it is Fay who is mated to the weres’ new Suzerain.”
“I still don’t know what that means. Suzerain? Pah,” her opponent muttered. But he was obviously already giving up. “We never worked with the weres in the past.”
Weres were shifters, people who changed into an animal form. They and the Collegium generally ignored each other since weres couldn’t be directly affected by magic—something that disconcerted mages who were used to controlling their world via magic.
“Some of us did,” Kora said. “Guardians and weres have a history of teaming up. Although not as personally as Fay. If you’ll excuse me?” She walked out.
“Meeting adjourned. Move, people!” Lewis commanded. “If you can’t help with the immediate problems of earthquake and terrorism, look for patterns. I want to know about trouble before the Group of 5 bring it to our door. They practice misdirection. I want to know what they’re planning, what they hope to achieve, and how we can stop them.”
He gathered up Gina, pulling her to her feet and out with him. She had to concentrate to keep pace with his quick return to his office. “One of these could be the Group’s real objective or they could be distracting us for a hit somewhere else. Do you have any feel for…?”
She put a hand on his arm, halting him just inside his inner office. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t have any inkling of this. I thought…I thought they’d concentrated on you and me.”
“Damn.” He reached for a remote and switched on a television high on the wall.
The traditional news media were streaming coverage by journalists on the ground, but mostly, images private citizens had shared on social media. The earthquake in Izmir had caused immense damage. Houses and apartment blocks were tumbled, jagged nightmares. Fire licked among the ruins. Faces were distorted in shock and terror.
“Good God.” English words among the torrent of images. The television news focused on one video, streaming live. How the news crew managed to be on the scene and with a satellite connection was one of those mysteries of a connected world. But someone held a high quality camera steady on the fifth story window of a broken building. Flames crawled over the building, engulfing it. But in the window…
“Lewis!” Gina would have clutched his arm, but he was gone.
On screen, in the fifth floor glassless window, a little girl wailed in silent terror. The orange glow of fire lit the room behind her. She clutched a doll with black curls like her own.
And then, the girl was gone.
Had Gina seen, just for a fleeting instant, a black-suited arm with an immaculate white cuff wrap around the girl? She couldn’t be sure for the smoke that obscured the window. But the smoke cleared for a moment, and the little girl was gone.
The camera shook, then steadied, focusing on the window before the image fell away, searching the building and down to street level.
“She’s safe,” Lewis said. “The girl recognized a young man, her father, and ran to him in the street. No one noticed me.”
“They’ll notice you, now.” Gina wiped at the soot on his cheek and inhaled the dust and smoke smell of him.
The door to his inner office clicked closed as Lewis shut out likely visitors. “I’ll shower and change.” He put a hand either side of her waist and they were in his apartment. Translocation was that easy for him. “People would expect me to have a change of clothes in the office.”
Gina ignored the change of scene. What mattered was the man in front of her. “Thank you for saving the girl.”
“I can’t save everyone.”
She uncurled his left fist and put the palm of his hand against her face. “Thank you for trying.” He looked at her bleakly, unconvinced. She understood. He would burn himself out, not just his magic, but himself, trying to save the world. It would be a heart-aching loss. She kissed his unyielding mouth. “Shower.”
He strode off to the bathroom and she walked to the window of his apartment to look out at the city. Not that she saw the city. Her mind replayed those moments in his office. The sight of the child’s terrified face, Lewis’s absence and return, and her own emotions in between. Her heart had ripped in those few seconds of his absence. She’d worried for him.
The shower turned off. Lewis returned, looking tough and ready for a fight in his guardian gear. The khaki cotton shirt delineated the breadth of
his shoulders and chest.
“Your hair’s wet,” she said.
“It’ll dry.”
She crossed to him and put a hand up to touch his hair, darker blond with the water that glistened on it. “May I?”
“Yes.” He looked into her eyes. He could have been a million miles from her, and yet, he’d brought her with him to his apartment and now he bent his head to her touch.
A whisper of her house witchery magic dried his hair.
An instant later, Lewis translocated them back to his office. “Thank you.” He took his hands from her waist.
She exhaled unsteadily. “I guess I’ll see if Zhou can use my help tracking the Group of 5 through the dark web.”
Chapter 10
Gina knew she was a skilled hacker, but working with Zhou’s forecasting mages was a revelation. They had minds that spun out in a thousand unconventional ways. They asked what if, but then they answered that question uniquely before calculating odds to maybe a hundred different answers.
She also realized that Zhou had accepted her offer of assistance for reasons other than her hacking skills and experience of the Group of 5. He wanted to learn more about her, Lewis’s supposed girlfriend. At least he and his team were subtle about it. They observed her rather than outright questioned her about herself, Lewis and their relationship.
What relationship? It was too complicated. Analytically, she knew Lewis was a huge relationship risk. His focus would be out there, whether in galaxies opened to him by the Deeper Path or out trying to save people.
If she acquired clarity of sight and learned the Deeper Path, in theory, she could go with him. But in practice…she wasn’t sure she had the detachment to burn through her magic. It hadn’t been one catastrophic event—the North West Passage ice storm—that had torn away Lewis’s magic. He’d eroded his ties to Earth and those around him for years.
Definitely not a good relationship risk. And yet…
“Has anyone gotten even a tingle as to this unidentified fifth member of the group?” Zhou paced a circuit around the Forecasters’ Zone.
The Zone was a mix of multiple screens with complex news feeds, computers, desks, lounging areas, food areas and even an exercise bike for people who needed to move to think. People talked or slipped on noise-cancelling headphones.
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