by Jim Butcher
—any time now.
“You,” Steve said, pointing a thick finger at me. “It’s after free hours. No visitors on the grounds after nine. You’re gonna have to go.”
I eased back around Nurse Jen and out of the room Irwin was in. “Um,” I said, “let me think about that.”
Steve scowled. He had a very thick neck. So did his two buddies. “Second warning, sir. You are now trespassing on private property. If you do not leave immediately, the police will be summoned and you will be detained until their arrival.”
“Shouldn’t you be out making sure the boys aren’t sneaking over to the girls’ dorms and vice versa? Cause I’m thinking that’s really more your speed, Steve.”
Steve’s face got red. “That’s it,” he said. “You are being detained until the police arrive, smartass.”
“Let’s don’t do this,” I said. “Seriously. You guys don’t want to ride this train.”
In answer, Steve snapped his hand out to one side, and one of those collapsible fighting batons extended to its full length and locked. His two friends followed suit.
“Wow,” I said. “Straight to the weapons? Really? Completely inappropriate escalation.” I held up my right hand, palm out. “I’m telling you, fellas. Don’t try it.”
Steve took two quick steps toward me, raising the baton.
I unleashed the will I had been gathering and murmured, “Forzare.”
Invisible force lashed out and slammed into Steve like a runaway car made of foam rubber. It lifted him off his feet and tossed him back, between his two buddies, and out the door of the infirmary. He hit the floor and lost a lot of his velocity before fetching up against the opposite wall with an explosion of expelled breath.
“Wah,” I said, Bruce Lee style, and looked at the other two goons. “You boys want a choo-choo ride, too?”
The pair of them looked at me and then at each other, gripping their batons until their knuckles turned white. They hadn’t had a clear view of exactly what had happened to Steve, since his body would have blocked them from it. For all they knew, I’d used some kind of judo on him. The pair of them came to a conclusion somewhere in there—that whatever I had pulled on Steve wouldn’t work on both of them—and they began to rush me.
They thought wrong. I repeated the spell, only with twice the energy.
One of them went out the door, crashing into Steve, who had just been about to regain his feet. My control wasn’t so good without any of my magical implements, though. The second man hit the side of the doorway squarely, and his head made the metal frame ring as it bounced off. The man’s legs went rubbery and he staggered, bleeding copiously from a wound that was up above his hairline.
The second spell was more than the lights could handle, and the fluorescents in the infirmary exploded in showers of sparks and went out. Red-tinged emergency lights clicked on a few seconds later.
I checked around me. Nurse Jen was staring at me with her eyes wide. The wounded guard was on his back, rocking back and forth in obvious pain. The two who had been knocked into the hallway were still on the ground, staring at me in much the same way as Jen, except that Steve was clearly trying to get his radio to work. It wouldn’t. It had folded when the lights did.
I spread my hands and said, to Nurse Jen, “I told them, didn’t I? You heard me. Better take care of that guy.”
Then I scowled, shook my head, and stalked off along the spell’s back-trail, toward the administration building.
The doors to the building were locked, which was more the academy’s problem than mine. I exercised restraint. I didn’t take the doors off their hinges. I only ripped them off of their locks.
The door to Doctor Fabio’s office was locked, and though I tried to exercise restraint, I’ve always had issues with controlling my power—especially when I’m angry. This time, I tore the door off its hinges, slamming it down flat to the floor inside the office as if smashed in by a medieval battering ram.
Doctor Fabio jerked and whirled to face the door with a look of utter astonishment on his face. A cabinet behind his desk which had been closed during my first visit was now open. It was a small, gaudy, but functional shrine, a platform for the working of spells. At the moment, it was illuminated by half a dozen candles spaced out around a Seal of Solomon containing two photos—one of Irwin, and one of Doctor Fabio, bound together with a loop of what looked like dark grey yarn.
I could feel the energy stolen from Irwin coursing into the room, into the shrine. From there, I had no doubt, it was being funneled into Doctor Fabio himself. I could sense the intensity of his presence much more sharply than I had that morning, as if he had somehow become more metaphysically massive, filling up more of the room with his presence.
“Hiya, Doc,” I said. “You know, it’s a pity this place isn’t Saint Mark’s Academy for the Resourceful and Talented.”
He blinked at me. “Uh. What?”
“Because then the place would be S.M.A.R.T. Instead, you’re just S.M.A.G.T.”
“What?” he said, clearly confused, outraged, and terrified.
“Let me demonstrate,” I said, extending my hand. I funneled my will into it and said, “Smagt!”
The exact words you use for a spell aren’t important, except that they can’t be from a language you’re too familiar with. Nonsense words are best, generally speaking. Using “smagt” for a combination of naked force and air magic worked just as well as any other word would have. The energy rushed out of me, into the cabinet shrine, and exploded in a blast of kinetic energy and wind. Candles and other decorative objects flew everywhere. Shelves cracked and collapsed.
The spell had been linked to the shrine. It unraveled as I disrupted all the precisely aligned objects that had helped direct and focus its energy. One of the objects had been a small glass bottle of black ink. Most of it wound up splattered on the side of Doctor Fabio’s face.
He stood with his jaw slack, half of his face covered in black ink, the other half gone so pale that he resembled a Renaissance Venetian masque.
“Y-you . . . you . . .”
“Wizard,” I said quietly. “White Council. Heck, Doctor, I’m even a Warden these days.”
His face became absolutely bloodless.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “You know us. I’m going to suggest that you answer my questions with extreme cooperation, Doctor. Because we frown on the use of black magic.”
“Please,” he said, “anything.”
“How do you know us?” I asked. The White Council was hardly a secret, but given that most of the world didn’t believe in magic, much less wizards, and that the supernatural crowd in general is cautious with sharing information, it was a given that your average Joe would have no idea that the Council even existed—much less that they executed anyone guilty of breaking one of the Laws of Magic.
“V-v-venator,” he said. “I was a Venator. One of the Venatori Umbrorum. Retired.”
The Hunters in the Shadows. Or of the Shadows, depending on how you read it. They were a boys club made up of the guys who had the savvy to be clued in to the supernatural world, but without the talent it took to be a true wizard. Mostly academic types. They’d been invaluable assets in the White Council’s war with the Red Court, gathering information and interfering with our enemy’s lines of supply and support. They were old allies of the Council—and any Venator would know the price of violating the Laws.
“A Venator should know better than to dabble in this kind of thing,” I said in a very quiet voice. “The answer to this next question could save your life—or end it.”
Doctor Fabio licked his lips and nodded, a jerky little motion.
“Why?” I asked him quietly. “Why were you taking essence from the boy?”
“H-he . . . He had so much. I didn’t think it would hurt him and I . . .” He cringed back from me as he spoke the last words. “I . . . needed to grow some hair.”
I blinked my eyes slowly. Twice. “Did you say . . . hair?”
“Rogaine didn’t work!” he all but wailed. “And that transplant surgery wasn’t viable for my hair and skin type!” He bowed his head and ran fingertips through his thick head of hair. “Look, see? Look how well it’s come in. But if I don’t maintain it . . .”
“You . . . used black magic. To grow hair.”
“I . . .” He looked everywhere but at me. “I tried everything else first. I never meant to harm anyone. It never hurt anyone before.”
“Irwin’s a little more dependent on his essence than most,” I told him. “You might have killed him.”
Fabio’s eyes widened in terror. “You mean he’s . . . he’s a . . .”
“Let’s just say that his mother is his second scariest parent and leave it at that,” I said. I pointed at his chair and said, “Sit.”
Fabio sat.
“Do you wish to live?”
“Yes. Yes, I don’t want any trouble with the White Council.”
Heavy footsteps came pounding up behind us. Steve and his unbloodied buddy appeared in the doorway, carrying their batons. “Doctor Fabio!” Steve cried.
“Don’t make me trash your guys,” I told Fabio.
“Get out!” Fabio all but screamed at them.
They came to a confused stop. “But . . . sir?”
“Get out, get out!” Fabio screamed. “Tell the police there’s no problem here when they arrive!”
“Sir?”
“Tell them!” Fabio screamed, his voice going up several octaves. “For God’s sake, man! Go!”
Steve, and his buddy, went. They looked bewildered, but they went.
“Thank you,” I said, when they left. No need to play bad cop at this point. If Fabio got any more scared, he might collapse into jelly. “Do you want to live, Doctor?”
He swallowed. He nodded once.
“Then I suggest you alter your hairstyle to complete baldness,” I replied. “Or else learn to accept your receding hairline for what it is—the natural progression of your life. You will discontinue all use of magic from this point forward. And I do mean all. If I catch you with so much as a Ouija board or a deck of Tarot cards, I’m going to make you disappear. Do you get me?”
It was a hollow threat. The guy hadn’t broken any of the Laws, technically speaking, since Irwin hadn’t died. And I had no intention of turning anyone over to the tender mercies of the Wardens if I could possibly avoid it. But this guy clearly had problems recognizing priorities. If he kept going the way he was, he might slide down into true practice of the black arts. Best to scare him away from that right now.
“I understand,” he said in a very meek voice.
“Now,” I said. “I’m going to go watch over Irwin. You aren’t going to interfere. I’ll be staying until his mother arrives.”
“Are . . . are you going to tell her what I’ve done?”
“You bet your ass I am,” I said. “And God have mercy on your soul.”
Irwin was awake when I got back to the infirmary, and Nurse Jen had just finished stitching closed a cut on the wounded guard’s scalp. She’d shaved a big, irregularly shaped section of his hair off to get it done, too, and he looked utterly ridiculous—even more so when she wrapped his entire cranium in bandages to keep the stitches covered.
I went into Irwin’s room and said, “How you feeling?”
“Tired,” he said. “But better than earlier today.”
“Irwin,” Nurse Jen said firmly.
“Yes ma’am,” Irwin said, and meekly placed the breathing mask over his nose and mouth.
“Your mom’s coming to see you,” I said.
The kid brightened. “She is? Oh, uh. That’s fantastic!” He frowned. “It’s not . . . because of me being sick? Her work is very important.”
“Maybe a little,” I said. “But mostly, I figure it’s because she loves you.”
Irwin rolled his eyes but he smiled. “Yeah, well. I guess she’s okay. Hey, is there anything else to eat?”
Later, after Irwin had eaten (again), he slept.
“His temperature’s back down, and his breathing is clear,” Nurse Jen said, shaking her head. “I could have sworn we were going to have to get him to an ICU a few hours ago.”
“Kids,” I said. “They bounce back fast.”
She frowned at Irwin and then at me. Then she said, “It was Fabio, wasn’t it. He was doing something.”
“Something like what?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know it . . . feels like something that’s true. He’s the one who didn’t want you here. He’s the one who sent security to run you out just as Irwin got worse.”
“You might be right,” I said. “And you don’t have to worry about it happening again.”
She studied me for a moment. Then she said, simply, “Good.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “That’s one hell of a good sense of intuition you have, nurse.”
She snorted. “I’m still not going out with you.”
“Story of my life,” I said, smiling.
Then I stretched out my legs, settled into my chair, and joined Bigfoot Irwin in dreamland.