Convergence (Winter Solstice Book 1)

by J. R. Rain

  Now, there’s no sacred law of secrecy or anything. I’m not the only one in the world who can do real magic, and none of us go out of our way to make sure people never see anything strange. No, what happens is actually simpler, and sadder. Human brains have a habit of refusing to accept stuff like magic. I’ll do something, someone will see it, and either refuse to believe on purpose or their mind will tuck it away in a little envelope and toss it in the fireplace. So, the secrecy thing tends to work itself out. Hell, the way I see it, magic doesn’t believe in people. I didn’t believe in it either until Dad made me float around the room when I was eight, and repeated it enough times that I had no choice but to believe what happened.

  A couple of guys in FBI jackets are grumping around in the hall by powerful freestanding lights. Looks like she’s keeping the forensics guys on hold until I’ve had a chance to sniff around. Yeah, that’s why they’re looking at me like that. All that college plus technical training plus experience, and they get to cool their heels while the sideshow act snoops. After polishing off her Chinese.

  I’d probably be pissed too.

  Still, I give them an overacted grin and duck inside.

  Jade’s standing in the middle of a relatively tidy hotel room bathed in the pale glow of a laptop screen, her straight, black hair fluttering in the breeze from the window, which is gone. Not even broken, gone. Torn out of the frame, a hole in the wall. A younger man, also FBI from the look of him, picks at the frame with tweezers and a flashlight. The room lamps are all off, except for one dim, yellow flicker in the bathroom. As soon as I walk in, a charge in the air tingles over my skin, a gentle caress of ten thousand needles. It’s faint, but something arcane happened here.

  I can’t say I prefer women, but I’ve thought about playing around sometimes. Especially with Jade. Hasn’t happened though. Probably won’t. Her girlfriend Paula is the jealous type. I’m not even sure what Diego would think of that. He’d get territorial over another man, but blah. Only idle daydreams. Still, she’s easy on the eyes. An average-looking African American dad and a plain Chinese mother got together and made an exotic beauty. She inherited her father’s skin tone and her mother’s hair. It’s hard to make out her expression in the dim light, but it’s probably not a good one.

  “About damn time.” Jade’s hair rolls like a waterfall off her shoulder when she turns to give me ‘the look.’

  “Sorry. Food just got there and reheated mei fun is awful.” I stop beside her and look around. “So, what am I…” Rips in the rug. Lots of them. “Claw marks?”

  Jade folds her arms. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me what did that? I sent a couple of image caps back, but Quantico is scratching their heads. Best guess is a brown bear, but I’m sure someone would’ve noticed one of those in Manhattan.”

  “Hmm.” I take a knee.

  At a soft whisper, a glowing ball appears in my hand. An hour from now, the cops will all swear I held a tiny Maglite or something. Their minds won’t let them believe. Jade will, though. She’s seen enough of my tricks that her brain doesn’t auto-reject magic anymore. I lean closer. Something with four long toe claws shredded the rug where it stepped. The damage to the carpet looks unintentional, a side effect of something stomping around in a loop from the window, past the desk, and back to the window.

  “Something with clawed feet came in through here, ran in a circle, and left the same way it arrived.”

  Jade quirks her eyebrow at me. “So it is a something?” Her seriousness fades in a few seconds, but she doesn’t smile. Uh oh. Someone got hurt. She steps closer and lowers her voice. “What are we looking at here?”

  “First thing that comes to mind is gargoyle. That covers the flying and the sharp toenails, but…”

  Jade squats to trace her finger over one of the gouges. “What’s the real reason you don’t think it’s one of them?”

  “They’re heavy.” I point to the dull wood under the carpet. “There’s just not enough damage to the floor under the rug.”

  “Soo…. Not a gargoyle. Damn, girl. Those things exist?”

  Still staring at the loopy path of scratches, I mutter, “Yeah.”

  “Big?”

  “Yeah. And territorial. They don’t like light much. Especially sudden light.” I shiver. “Like from camera flashes.”

  “Hmm.” Jade glides to the window, examining the damage. “Anything else come to mind that might’ve done this?”

  “A Kardashian?” I ask with a grin.

  Jade shakes her head and tugs me by the arm over to the desk. “This is important, Sol. The missing person’s a minor dignitary. Do magic or whatever it is that you do.” She’s trying to project reassurance, but she’s freaked. “Whatever you did with that subway mess.”

  Usually, I hate being treated like a civilian by my friend―even though I am one. Especially after helping them track a suspected serial killer across most of the subway system. Turns out, wasn’t an insane person. New York had a ghoul problem. Fortunately, only one ghoul. And I am glad she didn’t let me go in that chamber where it had laired. Some things, I’m fine not seeing. By the time that got to the news, they blamed it on a homeless person who’d leapt onto the tracks in an effort to escape the police, only to be struck by a train and mangled beyond recognition. The enchantment I threw on Jade’s bullets worked, otherwise they wouldn’t have done a damn thing to it. Except for her, everyone else remembers it as a freaky-crazy wild man. It really is simpler.

  “Magic doesn’t work like that. I can’t just snap my fingers and see where she went.” My eyebrows go up. “Diplomat?”

  “No.” Jade pokes a key on the screen, brightening it and opening a video messaging client. “Foreign though. Dr. Pushpa Kumar. She’s affiliated with CERN, works at the Large Hadron Collider. Currently, the lead researcher studying dimensional theory.”

  “Sounds heavy.”

  Jade almost chuckles. “If you think you get looks when you talk about magic, say ‘alternate dimensions’ to some people, and they start reaching for a phone to call the men in white coats. Can you do anything with the name? Full names have power or some shit, right?”

  “They do, but not here and not fast. I can try to ‘open the inner eye,’ but it’ll take me an hour or so back home.”

  “Geez, Lau.” A young-thirties guy in a suit with an FBI badge hanging on his belt saunters over, giving me a condescending smile. “You must be getting desperate. I’ve heard about this one… subway slasher case, right? She gonna whip out that crystal ball again?”

  I grin, pantomiming holding a bowling ball. “Yeah, basically. I got a real nice one. Romanian crystal. Almost invisible. But you can see it, right? Only obtuse jackasses can’t, so I understand.”

  He squints at the space between my hands, and it takes him a second to understand. The guy mutters, “Oh, piss off,” and walks off to the window, shaking his head.

  I give Jade the side-eye. “New guy, huh?”

  “Yeah. Special Agent Walter Prince. Just transferred to my unit. Hooper’d had enough of the weird shit.”

  “Nice.” I pat her on the shoulder. “Guess you’re not the fledgling anymore.”

  “Honey, I haven’t been a fledgling for a long damn time.” She points at the screen, then taps a key, starting the video. “Pay attention to the lower window at eleven minutes, five seconds.”

  “Hey,” says a guy at the door. “Are we gonna be standing out here all damn night while you two chase spooks and watch YouTube vids?”

  Jade waves him in. “Yeah, go ahead and set up.”

  As the controlled chaos of the technical team filters into the room, I focus on the screen. Most of it contains a well-dressed man in his early fifties with foofy blond-going-grey curls. A smaller window at the lower right holds the image of an Indian woman a bit younger. Both speak not-English. The woman gives off a sense of irritation while the man’s expression and body language convey excitement.

  “Any idea what they’re talking about?�
�� I scratch my head, as the guys drag the lights in and arrange them like my little sister used to do with her Mega Block figures. “That’s French, right?”

  Jade edges up beside me, arms crossed, staring at the screen. “She’s not happy about being here in the US, and he’s asking about some upcoming experiment. But most of the technical details flew right over the translator’s head. It’s still being analyzed.”

  She fast-forwards the call to a few seconds before the eleven-minute mark, and lets it play. At 11:05 on the timer, a shadowy blur appears in the window behind the woman. Jade mashes pause. I lean close, trying to make it out. Mostly human-head shape. Stubby little horns, yellow glowing eyes. The body itself appears to be made entirely of shadow or at least pitch-black skin. Between dark outside and a bad angle from a cheap laptop cam in a tiny picture-in-picture display, I can’t tell if it’s got wings.

  “Ugly little thing,” says Jade. “You ever see one of… whatever that is… before?”

  “Nope. If you want to send me a still, I can run it by Dad.”

  She sighs. “Bringing you in on this is bending rules enough already. You know I can’t release an image from a crime scene.”

  “Well… I can try to describe it to him and see what he thinks. So what happened after that?”

  “Not much.” Jade leans out of the way of one of the tech guys carrying a big case. “The laptop crashed and rebooted. The video call ends at 11:07.”

  Agent Prince walks up on my right, leaving me with FBI on both sides. “All the bulbs are blown out. So is the little box that controls the TV.”

  “You mean cable?” I glance up at him. Gah. Short girl problems.

  “No, hotel thing. Gotta pay for any decent channels.” He gestures at the laptop. “That thing survived somehow. So I hear Lau’s ‘magic friend’ is the real deal… what do you think?”

  I shrug. “I know a quick hex that makes technology spaz out for a while, but it doesn’t burn things out. Could be the same concept.”

  Agent Prince rubs his eyebrow. “Okay, except if this magic stuff’s been around for hundreds of years, how is there a spell that affects technology?”

  “It’s not specific to technology. It creates a rapid fluctuation of energy in the air that’s basically an electromagnetic pulse, but I think they used it on ghosts before they ever tried it on iPhones.” I wink.

  “So, you’re drawing a blank here?” asks Jade.

  “Yeah… sorry. I can’t give you anything more than you already figured out. Something came in the window, grabbed this woman, and went back out the window with her.”

  “Back out the window?” Jade tilted her head. “You’re sure she didn’t go out the door?”

  I point at the looping claw trails. “The marks on the floor on that side are deeper. On the left, the wood’s not damaged. On the right, there’s scratches in the floorboards. More weight.”

  “Damn… good eyes.” Prince hurries over and takes a knee, lifting a camera off his chest for some zoom photos. “She’s right.”

  “Shit.” Jade grumbles to herself for a few seconds before putting on a forced smile. “Thanks for coming down. If your Dad gets any ideas, let me know?”

  “Will do.”

  “Oh. Hooper wanted me to grab your ass for him.” Jade chuckles.

  I stick my butt out. “Go for it.”

  Jade laughs, but doesn’t.

  “You’re so professional.” I overact a pout.

  “And taken. Paula doesn’t like to share.” Jade closes the lid on the laptop. “If you can do anything… I need a hand on this one, Sol. There’s no evidence of any kind that anyone but Dr. Kaur was in this room tonight. Whatever got her isn’t a person.”

  I stuff my hands in my coat pockets. “Yeah, I got that from the video. There’s something in the air, but that could’ve come from someone like me zapping the lights.”

  “Oh, baby”―Jade leans close enough to kiss me, lowering her voice to a whisper―“there’s no one like you.”

  I bite my lip, tempted to see where the rabbit hole leads, but I can’t do that to Paula… or Diego. I’m not even sure if I want to do it to myself. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”

  My thoughts spin so much around that strange shadow figure in the window, I forget about wanting coffee until I’m halfway home in the back of a taxi.

  Damn.

  he taxi drops me at my apartment a little after 11:30 p.m.

  Morningside Heights, Harlem is a far cry from where I grew up in New Hope, but I’ve been calling this place home for a couple years now. The area’s a lot nicer than I’m told it used to be, but there’s still something about being alone, outside, at night that puts me on edge. Fortunately, I’ve only gotta walk a little ways to the front door. No need to try getting an Inconspicuous glamour to stick so no one pays any attention to me. Last time I tried to enchant myself with one, I wound up glowing like a firefly for an hour.

  Six flights of stairs later, I’m home. Mr. Moody, my cat, is waiting for me in the wonderful hospital-green hallway connecting the door to the living room. Maybe for a nine-year-old child, it would count as a hallway. To me, it’s more of a passageway. He’s not been too happy with me lately. The cat, I mean, not the hallway. Had to put him on special weight-control food. He’s a beautiful grey-and-black tiger, but he’s getting close to twelve pounds.

  “I know, I know. I didn’t get home on time.” I hang my scarf and coat on pegs and hurry to the kitchen.

  “Mrrrrow?” says the cat.

  “I was at Diego’s.”

  I explain my crummy night interrupted by Jade’s ‘I need you now’ phone call while I pop open a can and dump it into a bowl. Mr. Moody weaves between my legs the whole time and trails me over to the side of the kitchen where I put it down for him. He makes a noise halfway between a meow and a pigeon’s trill then digs in.

  My coat half off, I pause. The guys―my friends―wanna hit this place they scoped out tomorrow, late. I took the day off so I can go with them, but it’s not really a day off. After all, I might wind up getting something for The Spiritualist while I’m there.

  My friends are ghost hunters.

  Only they’re not famous or anything. No Travel Channel budget. Most of the time, we wind up sneaking into places we’re not supposed to be in. Like tomorrow, wandering the Pennhurst Asylum after midnight. They told me the place sometimes permits tours, but Melodie is convinced nothing real ever happens with groups that big. She thinks ghosts are shy. I’m going to be about as lively as a zombie tomorrow if I don’t do a little prep tonight so I don’t fall asleep on them in the middle of the ‘ghost hunt.’ A little coffee and staying up ‘till three in the morning ought to work.

  The Starbucks a few blocks from my apartment closes at midnight. I check the time… I can just make it. I grumble again to myself about forgetting coffee on my way out of the hotel. Laziness wants to keep me inside, but ugh. I’m going to pass out.

  “Be back in a bit.”

  Mr. Moody glances at me, licks his jowls, and resumes eating.

  “Okay. I can do this.” I close my eyes and concentrate on not being seen. No sense asking for trouble, right? Magic swirls around me, a tingling ripple down my body like a giant fabric softener sheet peeling away from wool socks right out of the dryer, only minus that wonderful smell.

  One by one, I open my eyes. No glowing. I’m not pink again… hair’s still where it belongs. Still blonde. Moment of truth time. I duck into the bathroom and check the mirror. Nothing out of place. So… either I got it to work, or nothing happened. Maybe I turned Mr. Alvin upstairs into a potted plant again. Nah. His wife didn’t scream. Guess I’ll trust it.

  No one bothers me on the walk. I pass two homeless men who don’t even look my way, and one car rolls by, headed parallel to me for a while. Chances are, wherever the driver’s going, his arrival’s going to be more welcome than mine. Going into a Starbucks, or any place like that, five minutes before closing time is bound to
tick off their last employee standing. I’m sure they’re already cleaning up so they can zip straight out the door as soon as the clock strikes midnight. Heck, I would be.

  The Starbucks occupies the corner of a high-rise; a little black iron fence surrounds a tiny patio with four tables out front. Only one barista is inside, Andy or something. So near the closing time, I guess he let the others go early. Pale fluorescent lights aren’t kind to his mocha complexion, though they drain the color out of everything else. He’s about my age, but looks it more than I do.

  Not that I drink much, but it’s irritating to be thirty-four and treated like a teenager trying to break the law. Last idiot at a liquor store didn’t believe my ID was real. Between the hassle and not understanding the allure of alcohol, I don’t often bother.

  Best I can remember, this guy’s been working here about six months. Despite the hour, he smiles from ear to ear as I walk in. I can’t ever remember seeing him in a bad mood. He’s always jovial. Something soft and jazzy leaks from speakers overhead, an instrumental piece I don’t recognize. Ambiance music. I walk up to the counter, gazing up at the board. His name badge reads: ‘Andre’ in handwritten sharpie marker. Wet-looking semi-curly black hair hangs to his shoulders, making him look like some Euro soccer star.

  He taps the touchscreen, still grinning like he’s in on some joke I (and the rest of the universe) have missed. “A fellow night owl. Hey, I hope that look in your eye doesn’t mean someone’s been bad to ya.”

  “Rough night.” I give him a small grin.

  “You need me to knock some heads together for you?”

  This time I really do smile at him. Still, I can’t tell if he’s being serious or sweet. I settle on sweet. “Thanks, but I have it covered.”