Annie sat in the desk chair and stared at the clean, neatly organized desktop. Pen holders, file organizers and an unused blotter were squarely placed on the desktop. Annie touched the blotter and a large calendar, which was empty, and several months behind.
She ran her hand across the paper, searching for indentations, as if Marielle had written on another paper. It was clean.
What do they do here?
Annie ran her fingers under the edge of the desktop, feeling for hidden buttons. Finding nothing hidden or magical, she slid open the top drawer. It was filled with rubber bands, paper clips, and sticky note pads neatly stored in various sized organizers.
She’s obsessively neat and tidy.
Searching for hidden pockets, she pulled the storage bowls out, touched the sides of the drawer, and placed the bowls back.
The middle drawer was much of the same: pads of note paper and spiral notebooks were neatly stacked. She opened them and saw that they were unused. Her flashlight revealed nothing.
From the outside, the bottom drawer looked large, but when Annie opened it, she saw that it appeared more shallow than it should have been.
Annie smiled and pulled out the folders that hung neatly inside. Her fingers grazed the bottom of the drawer, finding the smallest of latches at the front of the drawer. She grabbed the small metal handle and pulled up the false bottom. Inside was a large stash of thousands of Wizard Council pins that gleamed in the light from her flashlight.
Everyone has one, Marielle said.
Annie grabbed one.
It was half the size of a fingernail, silver plated, the witches mark etched at the center. She hadn’t noticed previously, but the pin vibrated and buzzed against her skin.
As she held it to her ears, the magic hummed softly. Summoning a pink translucent crystal, Annie held it above the pin, collecting any magic inside. The rock lit up a bright grayish white light.
“Huh?” she said.
Not exactly good magic, not exactly bad magic.
She pulled out a second pin from deeper inside the pile and tested it; the magic was the same.
“What are you?” Annie whispered to herself.
Though Roland had made the initial suggestion to perform the spell, it was Marielle who was so insistent that they do. They had both told Annie of how they had done this before, using the Eiffel tower to broadcast the spell to anyone who wore this pin.
How often do they cast spells on their people?
Annie pocketed the pin and closed the desk.
With sleep no longer an option, Annie summoned the phone Amelie gave her and switched it on. Surprisingly, even in its charred state, it easily powered up. She scrolled through the call list. All calls came from a single number, but any contact information had been left out of the phone. Annie texted Bucky the number and asked for the name and location of the owner.
It’s probably a burner phone.
While she waited for any answer, Annie summoned the papers she had stolen from the seaside cottage. She safely tucked away most of the stack in her field pack and settled on a short, handwritten note to read. With a swipe of her palm, she translated the note to English and began to read.
Dear Auntie Marguerite and Uncle Louis,
It has been so long and I am so glad that I found you at your new location. The seaside cottage was always such a lovely place. I would very much like to take a holiday there. But I know this location is so very important to you. Would you consider letting me stay for a little while?
Please let me know. It’s been so long and I would so like to see you again.
M
M for Marielle?
She placed the letter in the folder and pulled out what she though looked like a contract. With a swipe of her palm, she translated the words, they shimmered from French to English.
Yeah, this is a contract!
It was plain and clear; this contract transferred the title of the house by the sea from Marguerite and Louis Van Alton to Marielle Beauchamp.
She tricked them? Threatened them? How did she do this?
The pin vibrated against Annie’s leg and rustled her pants. Annie gently touched it.
“Gibbs is right. I need time to build a case against Marielle,” she whispered to herself and bit her lip. With all she could get from Marielle’s desk, she walked to the front entrance of Wizard Hall, leaving through the security door where a guard named Francois was reading a thick book. Beside him, the monitors swept through the hall.
“Hi,” Annie said causally.
“Hello. It’s awfully early. How can I help you?” he asked. He made no mention of her riffling through Fabien and Marielle’s desks.
Maybe he didn’t see me.
“Can I ask to see your pin? The one on your lapel.”
Confused, he nodded, and pulled the pin from his jacket. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“I was speaking with Marielle about something, I find these pins fascinating. Thanks.” She took the pin from him and waved her crystal over it capturing the magic inside. The crystal glowed, several shades of white, gray and black.
“What is that doing?” Francois asked.
“It’s collecting magic. I’m not sure why, but it’s very interesting.” Annie closed her fist around the pin, before handing it back to Francois. He stared at it still confused by her ardent interest in the small pin that everyone wore. He thought for a moment before placing it back on his lapel.
“Is it safe?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah. You’re fine. Mind letting me back in?”
“No problem.” He opened the door and Annie strolled back through the hall toward the sleeping quarters.
Chapter 31
He should have had surgery the night before. Instead, Michael Brite lay heavily sedated and sleeping in the hospital wing of the French Wizard Hall, carefully observed by his Wizard Guard partner and best friend, Sebastian Shiff. While Shiff tossed and turned on a hard metal chair watching the clock, the rest of the American wizard guards raced against time, preparing to return him home.
The heat roared on as the building rolled awake to receive employees. Annie and the team skirted through the cubicles toward the hospital.
While the rest of Wizard Hall was under dim lights, the hallway to the hospital was blinding. Annie, Cham, and Gibbs stopped short of the reception desk; nurses were scarce. Glancing around the corner and ensuring they were alone in the hallway, they entered Brite’s room unseen.
“How’s he doing today?” Annie asked.
Well medicated, Brite slept peacefully. His hand was wrapped in thick gauze. Specks of blood dotted the bandage where it had soaked through.
“He slept… better than I did, I think,” Shiff said with a deep yawn. He stretched his arms above his head and rubbed the rest of the sleep from his bloodshot eyes.
The clock on the wall read 4:35 a.m. “Yeah. You look like hell. Get some sleep once you get him to the hospital.” Annie offered a wan smile.
In turn, Shiff offered her a smirk. “Thanks.”
“You ready? I think it’s time to get moving.” Annie dropped her phone in her pocket.
Shiff glanced quickly at Brite’s bandaged wrist before gently waking his partner. Heavily sedated, he was difficult to rouse from sleep. Shiff shook him a little harder, finally waking him. Brite’s dopey grin grew larger when his eyes fluttered open and he noticed his team waiting for him.
“’s time?” he asked and closed his eyes again.
“Come on, Michael. We need to get moving,” Shiff said as he gently slapped Brite’s chilled cheeks. “I need to get you ready.”
Brite’s eyes fluttered opened once again. Dazed and unfocused he said, “Okay,” and held his breath as Shiff helped him sit.
As his arm was stabilized in the sling, he held his breath, wincing at the pain.
“I’m going to wrap your arm to keep it from moving during teleport,” Shiff announced. The stretchy wrap spread across Brite’s back, his chest,
and his forearm, securing his arm to his torso. “Ready?” Shiff asked. Without waiting for an answer, Shiff and Cham helped him from bed.
“Won’t miss it here,” Brite mumbled as he was guided from the hospital wing. Dizzy from the drugs, he stumbled against his partner as they entered the main wizard hall room.
“I’m going to teleport him down the hallway. He’s never gonna make it at this rate,” Shiff said.
“You need help?” Cham glanced through the darkened hall toward the hidden back door where they would make their escape.
“I’m good,” Shiff said as he wrapped long arms around Brite. “Good luck,” he said to Annie. She offered him a weary hug and kiss on the cheek.
“Be safe,” she said and kissed Brite’s cheek. “Get well. I’ll see you when we’re done here.” She watched as Shiff teleported Brite away.
“Text me when you make it back,” Annie said to Cham.
He kissed her goodbye. She in turn put all of her exhaustion, worry, and anxiety into the kiss, searching his mouth with her tongue, letting him wrap his arms around her. Eventually, he reluctantly pulled away from her.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“You too. Nothing fancy.” His lips grazed her forehead before he teleported away, the unmistakable sound of air rushing into the space he just vacated.
Annie and Gibbs watched into the darkness as the door squeaked open and slammed shut with a vibrating thud.
*
“Are you comfortable completing the spell?” Gibbs followed her through the cubicles, dodging the cameras that blinked and flashed.
“After going through Marielle’s desk and reading the papers from the sea side cottage, I realized you were right. I need to build a case against her, and this will give me time,” she replied and pushed open the door to their sleeping quarters. It swung wildly, banging into the wall.
“They’re off okay?” Lial asked. Sitting on the floor cross-legged, he was wrapping up his supplies and shoving them in his bag.
“On their way home,” Annie said. Her palm rested against the cold, rough cement wall; the spell flew from her palms, enveloping them in a shimmering glow. She plopped down on the empty cot, then jumped when her phone buzzed in her back pocket.
“Hey, Bucky. What’s the word?”
“First of all, the phone number you gave me,” he started.
“A burner phone?” Annie asked.
“You would think so, but no. The number belongs to Marielle Beauchamp.”
Annie smiled.
So why use her own phone to call Amelie?
“I’m grateful she’s an incompetent criminal, but she’s a wizard guard. You’d think she’d know better,” she said.
“Agreed. And that leads me to the other goody I have for you. There are two magicals in French Wizard Council who are related to the Van Alton family. The first a woman named Antoinette Van Alton who’s married to a third cousin.”
“And the other?” Annie’s heart pounded wildly in anticipation.
“You need to be careful because it’s Marielle Beauchamp. She’s a first cousin once removed and does have claim to the remaining money and property.”
Annie’s hand shook. “I thought that might be the case.”
“Girl. You need to walk lightly with this one,” Gibbs warned.
Lial’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Yeah,” Annie admitted and shifted on the bed. “Did you get my other texts this morning?” she asked Bucky. Gibbs glanced at her, quizzically.
“I did. I’m in the French Wizard Guard server now. We’re adjusting the tapes directly. You’ve all been scrubbed from the tapes. By the way what were you doing this morning?” he asked.
“Let’s leave it at plausible deniability, Bucky.” Annie chuckled lightly.
“I know nothing. Just be careful, Annie. Marielle is dangerous.”
“I will. Thanks, Bucky,” Annie said and clicked off the phone.
She relayed her story quickly, regaling them with her early morning adventures through Wizard Hall. She finished by saying, “So I’m prepared to erase their memories of our time here and buy us time. When we have enough proof to put her away, we give them back their memories,” She glanced at her phone. “We don’t have much time before Marielle gets here.” She handed Gibbs a crystal.
He ran a palm over the rock, reading the magical trace she had stored in it.
“What is this?”
“I captured the magic in the security guard’s pin.” She summoned the pin and held it in her palm. “This pin, actually. I switched them out when he wasn’t looking. Marielle, Roland, Jory—they’ve admitted to doing this before. And the magic corroborates it.”
Gibbs took the pin, which vibrated against his skin.
“There’s a stash of pins in Marielle’s desk. Hundreds of them. They already contain a grayish white magic. These pins, I think, were designed for this,” she said excitedly.
“You think she’s hiding the vampire killings?” Lial asked.
“I can’t be sure, but it is so weird that there were so many unidentified vampire deaths throughout France. How does a Wizard Guard unit not search and track that better?” Annie asked. Both Gibbs and Lial let that thought sink in.
“Memory modification seems like overkill,” Lial noted.
“It’s definitely a plan,” Gibbs grumbled.
“I thought from the beginning Amelie was being helped. And now with Bucky confirming Marielle’s related to the Van Altons, it all seems to fit. She’s systematically killing off the remaining family for whatever money or property is left.”
“You need substantial proof to go through with the international wizard tribunal,” Gibbs pointed out. His steel blue eyes were intense and icy; Annie felt them burn through her.
He’s not wrong.
“If she hadn’t been insistent on the memory modification, I might not have pursued it so strongly,” Annie admitted.
Gibbs maneuvered the crystal over Annie, searching for any magic. “I’m not sure if it’s because we’re here or you’ve been using a lot of magic, but there’s residual energy around you.” He glanced at the crystal, grayish, beige and dirty.
“What is it?” She looked at the crystal and couldn’t make out what magical energy was attached to her.
“Not sure. Work this like any other case, girl. Be extra careful. That guard is not to be trusted.”
“I believe that to be true.”
Annie returned the favor, siphoning any magic from Gibbs and Lial. As of now, there were no memory modification spells or other magic attached to them.
And what did she do to me?
“So now what?” Lial asked.
“Wait for Marielle and perform a memory modification spell and hope this will be the last death attributed to Marielle.”
Annie looked at her phone.
It’s time!
“Keep an eye on Marielle,” Gibbs ordered.
Annie nodded, placed one hand on the wall, and removed the muffle spell. The hazy perimeter dispersed immediately, just as Marielle strolled down the hall to their sleeping quarters.
“Good morning,” Marielle said with a wide smile.
It doesn’t fit her mood or her face today!
“Good morning,” Annie replied curtly. She found it difficult to pretend to be friendly with the wizard guard.
Somewhat unnerved by Marielle, Annie let her lead them back to Wizard Hall and remained several feet from her. Gibbs maneuvered himself closer to Annie, glared at Marielle and remained his normal grumpy self. She wouldn’t have known there was any change in his demeanor.
Lial followed behind as they entered the large hall, still blanketed in darkness. Marielle led them to the direct center of the room, just below the brass rod. It hadn’t been there prior; Marielle had set up a four-foot-high, two-foot-wide square altar. The ancient, very well-used piece of furniture held a battered, gold-plated bowl on the flat surface.
I’m sure it’s been us
ed often, Annie thought as she summoned one of the pins from Marielle’s desk. With it between her fingers, she slipped the pin inside the folds of Marielle’s shirt and stuck it there with a basic sticking spell.
“I will watch for other cases to make sure that there is nothing suspicious. Okay?” Marielle asked.
“Yes. We need to make sure no one ever finds the connection between the cases,” Annie said. Knowing what she knew made Annie more restless and eager to return home.
Marielle hummed softly as she tossed ingredients into the bowl.
It only served to make Annie angry.
When the ingredients were emptied from a plastic bag, they filled the entire circumference of the bowl.
“Ready?” Marielle asked and lit the foliage. The combination of herbs smoked as the fire consumed them; smoke billowed out of the bowl. “Say this spell.” Marielle ordered.
Reluctantly, Annie grabbed the spell, which was written neatly in French on a well-used card.
Word flew through her lips; her hand hovered above the bowl. Smoke grew thicker and rose higher, snaking its way toward the rod.
A bright gray light formed at the base of the rod. The magic traveled upwards through the ceiling and up the Eiffel Tower, finally shooting out of the antennae where it searched for the pins scattered across France and, in some cases, across Europe itself. Marielle’s eyes fluttered closed, and she dropped against Annie.
Unable to stop the spell, Lial and Gibbs raced to Marielle, pulling her away as Annie murmured the new reality, one in which the American Wizard Guard hadn’t been to France the last few days, nor had the French Wizard Guard had been cleaning up an exceptionally large amount of vampire deaths.
When Annie finished with the memory modification, they carried the limp guard to her cubicle where they sat her in the chair and rested her head on the desk.
Exhausted after performing two memory modifications so close together, Annie stumbled after them and leaned herself against the flimsy wall. “We have very little time if we’re going to leave without being seen,” Annie whispered.
“You okay, girl?” Gibbs asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Let’s just go,” she said as she pushed away his effort to assist her.
Wizard War Page 29