Love, Lies, and Hocus Pocus Identity

by Lydia Sherrer

  Mrs. Singer nodded, and with that, Sebastian spun on his heels and headed out the door, down the steps and to the old Buick parked on the curb. Sir Kipling sat ready and waiting on the car’s hood, the perfect picture of feline nonchalance except for the rhythmic twitching of his tail.

  “Come on, Kip, we’ve got work to do.”

  The cat meowed in agreement, then jumped to the pavement and up into the car as soon as Sebastian opened the driver’s side door. Sebastian himself slid in and got them going, his mind busy making plans and considering contingencies. It wasn’t until three streets later that he finally noticed Sir Kipling’s incessant pawing on his arm. He slowed down at a stop sign and turned his head to look at the cat. “What’s the matter, Kip? Forget your bowl of cream at the house?”

  With a look that Sebastian could have sworn was the cat equivalent of an eye roll, Sir Kipling hopped into the back seat and meowed loudly.

  “What the heck—” Sebastian began, twisting farther to stare at the oddly behaving cat. That was when he noticed something out of place, and looked down to find Jamie Singer squashed onto the floorboards in the back of Madam Barrington’s Buick.

  2

  Grumpy McGrumperstein

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “No.”

  “But—”

  “Abso-freakin-lutely not! Get off the floor, I’m taking you home.”

  “You don’t understand, I have to help find my sister!” the teenager protested as he extracted himself from the cramped floorboards and crawled up into the back seat.

  “You won’t be helping anyone when you get yourself killed from being an immature, reckless sixteen-year-old who knows just enough magic to get you and everyone around you killed,” Sebastian ground out, doing a quick U turn there in the quiet street.

  “That’s not true,” Jamie said, crossing his arms with a stubborn look on his face. “I know lots of spells. I’ve been studying at night. And I’m good at them too, I swear! You have to let me go with you.”

  “Not a chance, bucko. You may think you’re hot stuff now, but take it from me—sixteen years is just enough time to learn some really dangerous stuff, but not nearly enough time to learn how not to make stupid decisions with it. It’s a lethal combination, and I basically ruined my life because I didn’t listen to older, wiser people when I should have. No way am I letting you do the same thing. So you’re gonna sit down, shut up, and when I get you back home you’re gonna march your butt inside and stay there, understand?” Judging by the mulish jut of Jamie’s chin that Sebastian could see in his rear-view mirror, his words of wisdom were lost on the teenager. Sebastian shook his head, amazed at the things that had come out of his mouth: him, advising someone else to be safe and listen to their elders. What was next? Was he going to start a “how to be a responsible teenager” class at the local boys club? He was probably the world’s worst role model, but that didn’t mean he was going to sit back and let Lily’s kid brother get himself killed.

  In no time, they were back in front of his aunt’s house. When Jamie didn’t move, Sebastian sighed mightily, clamped down on his frustration, and twisted around to fix the teenager with a serious stare. “Look, kid, I get it. I know what it feels like to want to do something, anything, to help the people you care about. But...well, this isn’t the way to do it. Sorry to break it to you, but you’d just slow me down. I’d be too worried about making sure you stayed out of trouble. You know Lily would skin me alive if you got hurt, right? And losing my skin would seriously crimp my style.”

  Jamie’s stubborn expression eased a little as one side of his mouth quirked upward. “Yeah, she can be pretty scary when she wants to be. Not anywhere near as scary as Mom, but close.”

  “Exactly, and nobody wants scary Lily. We want safe, alive, unhurt Lily. Well, and possibly a little annoyed,” Sebastian added, managing a wink for Jamie’s sake. “We wouldn’t want her to get too complacent, right?”

  This time Jamie’s face broke out into a reluctant grin. “Nope, we sure wouldn’t.”

  “Glad we agree on something. Now, march yourself up those steps and into the house, okay? The most useful thing you can do right now is keep practicing magic—the basic stuff, mind you. None of this will-blow-you-to-smithereens nonsense. You can’t help anybody if you’re dead.”

  “Pretty much all magic will blow you to smithereens if you get it wrong,” Jamie said with a shrug. “That’s why we use wards, duh.”

  Sebastian rolled his eyes so hard they almost got stuck looking into the back of his head.

  Teenagers.

  “Whatever. My point is, go home and keep studying. That’s the best way you can help Lily.”

  Still, the boy did not budge. Sebastian resisted the urge to pull out a chunk of hair, his internal clock tick, tick, ticking away the time.

  “Look, I promised your mom I would tell her as soon as I figure out where Lily is, okay? If you’re so hellbent on rescuing your sister, then get in that house and stick close to your mother. Be as helpful, responsible, and mature as you can possibly manage, and maybe she’ll keep you in the loop.” There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Mrs. Singer would let her son anywhere near a magical fight, but at least this way Jamie would be her problem and not his.

  The teen held his gaze for a long moment, emotions warring across his face. Sebastian felt sorry for the kid. He remembered what it was like to be that young—and that helpless.

  “Ugh, fine,” Jamie finally conceded with all the lack of grace one might expect from a sixteen-year-old. Giving Sebastian one last dirty look, he clambered out of the car and trudged up the steps to the front porch. Sebastian waited just long enough to make sure the kid went inside before gunning the engine and heading off again.

  “Good work, Kip. Now, let’s go pay our friend Anton a visit and hope he doesn’t shoot us.”

  Sir Kipling hopped back into the front passenger seat and gave a smug meow, as if to assure Sebastian that if anyone was going to get shot, it most certainly wasn’t going to be him.

  ***

  Sebastian had no time for subtlety, much less courtesy, so he marched straight into Anton’s gallery and made a beeline for the man. Sir Kipling no doubt slipped in on his own somewhere behind him. The art dealer was speaking to a middle-aged couple as they stood in front of a gilt-framed monstrosity, and he made no sign that he even noticed Sebastian’s entrance. Yet as soon as Sebastian got within a few paces and had opened his mouth to call out the man’s name, Anton smoothly disengaged from his customers and stepped directly into Sebastian’s path, shooting him a petrifying look worthy of Medusa herself. It was enough to make Sebastian rock back on his heels—more from surprise than anything else—which gave Anton the chance to swoop in and catch his elbow in a pincer-like grip with long, thin fingers and spin him around to march them both toward the back of the gallery.

  “Do not utter a word, Mr. Blackwell, or I will take you to the back alley and put you down like a rabid dog.” The man’s calm tone was belied by the glacial fury lurking beneath his words.

  Knowing he would have to deal with the contention between them one way or another, Sebastian allowed the older man to steer him to the door in the back wall, which led to Anton’s offices and storage rooms. In one movement, the art dealer opened the door and shoved Sebastian through it, then gave him a look that promised swift retribution if he so much as moved an inch. Finally, he shut the door with a click and the sound of his steps receded.

  “Well, that went about as well as I could have expected,” Sebastian muttered into the quiet corridor. He assumed Anton was wrapping up with his customers and would return momentarily. In the spirit of not ticking off a dangerous criminal with a gun any more than was strictly necessary, Sebastian stayed put, despite his strong temptation to snoop—he knew Anton had storage rooms full of priceless and quite-possibly-stolen artifacts back here somewhere. But doubtless they would be locked and guarded by mundane and possibly even magi
cal means. There was no way he could hope to—

  The trilling sound of Sir Kipling’s “hey you” call echoed down the corridor, and Sebastian spun just in time to see the cat’s tail disappear through one of the last doors on the left.

  “Kip!” Sebastian hissed, “Get back here, you dratted cat! You’re going to get me shot and I don’t have time for that.”

  When there was no reply—and no sign of the errant feline—Sebastian wavered, trying to decide which would make Anton more angry: if he moved, or if he didn’t and Sir Kipling caused some sort of mischief. Curiosity weighed in and toppled the scales, and Sebastian cursed quietly as he raced down the hall, hoping Anton’s clients were the chatty and indecisive sort.

  When he reached the open door, he cursed again at the sight of an expensive-looking biometric fingerprint lock. “How in the nine circles of hell does that cat do it?” he muttered, peering closely at the door for any sign of untripped alarms. Only because he was looking for it did he notice the tiny dimmu runes engraved into the door frame and around the lock, and he smiled grimly to himself. So Anton did have a line on some rogue wizard, or at least a wizard working secret side jobs out of the sight of their peers. According to Lily, such people didn’t exist and no self-respecting wizard would dream of doing magic for a mundane. But then Lily was as idealistic as she was naïve—well, maybe not anymore, but several years ago when he’d met her he would have loved pointing to this door and laughing as she glared daggers at him.

  All joking aside, if Anton found out the door had been opened, no matter how it had happened, Sebastian would very likely have to talk his way out of a body bag. He didn’t have time for that either.

  “Kip,” Sebastian called out as loudly as he dared through the six-or-so-inch gap between door and frame. “Get your fluffy little butt back here right now.”

  He heard a few meows come from inside the room, the pleased sort of sound Kip made when he’d found something interesting. But Sebastian didn’t dare step through the doorway. For all he knew, there was a spell on it to zap anyone who tried to pass without the proper key or whatever. Obviously, it did not work on cats; what wizard would have thought to include nosey felines in their spell parameters?

  Shooting a nervous look down the hall toward the gallery, Sebastian tried again, this time letting the desperation and fear he’d been suppressing seep into his voice. “I’m serious, Kip. Get back here now or Anton might refuse to help us. Lily is more important than your curiosity.”

  There was an annoyed sort of huffing noise, but then Sir Kipling appeared at the doorway, twining his body through Sebastian’s legs as he exited. Sebastian hesitated, wondering how in the world he could get the door closed without tripping any alarms. Before he could do anything, he felt claws sink delicately into his sock, pricking his ankle as Kip tugged, clearly ordering him back down the hall.

  “But—”

  Sir Kipling hissed, a threatening sound that Sebastian had never heard the cat direct at a friend before. Whatever he was trying to tell Sebastian was obviously serious.

  “Alright, alright, I’m going. I hope you have a plan, though, because Anton’s bound to notice the door.” Sebastian turned and hurried back to the spot where he’d been standing—and not a moment too soon.

  The door to the gallery opened, revealing Anton’s wiry frame and hawk-like face that was not at all softened by his trim beard and mustache. Without a word, the man grabbed at Sebastian’s elbow again. This time, however, Sebastian jerked out of reach, then crossed his arms and met Anton’s deadly expression, glare for glare. He was sore, tired, angry, and holding onto his self-control by the tips of his fingers. He would gladly grovel at Anton’s feet if that’s what it took to save Lily, but that wasn’t Anton’s style. The man had a code, and wasn’t driven by pride, so Sebastian would gain nothing by playing the doormat. He just had to figure out how to hold his ground without letting the reckless urgency pulsing in his chest get the better of him.

  Anton’s jaw clenched, but he swept his arm out and gestured down the hall with a little mocking bow. The hardness never left his eyes.

  Turning his back on Anton took an effort, but Sebastian headed down the hall nonetheless, his senses alert for the tell-tale shift of cloth that might be Anton reaching into his jacket for a weapon. Instead of attacking, however, the art dealer stopped him at a door on the right of the hall, opened it, and motioned Sebastian inside. It was a minimalistic space of clean lines and modern decor, except for the elegant wood desk that looked to be an antique. Sebastian just had time to cast a sneaky glance back and see that the door Sir Kipling had opened was mysteriously shut again, and the cat was nowhere in sight.

  Well I’ll be darned, Sebastian thought.

  He was so surprised that he forgot about Anton for a moment, then jumped when a loud scrape drew his eyes to the chair Anton had pulled back for him. Sebastian sat, and Anton slowly rounded his desk, though he did not sit. Instead, he remained standing behind it, arms held loosely at his sides with the only sign of his anger being the occasional flex of his fingers.

  The art dealer gave Sebastian a long, heavy stare, and Sebastian opened his mouth to shoot off some witty insult to break the tension. He paused, however, then closed his mouth again, reminding himself that he couldn’t afford to be his usual flippant self when Lily’s life was on the line. As much as it irked him, he had to try and be...well...polite.

  This was going to be a disaster.

  “I, uh, regret interrupting your conversation with a client, Anton, but I need your help,” Sebastian said, working to keep any trace of sarcasm out of his voice. There, that was polite, wasn’t it?

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t what Anton had been expecting, for one of his eyebrows lifted imperceptibly, and the hardness in his gaze eased a fraction, though his tone was still hostile. “You will soon regret it even more if I am not suitably impressed by the reason you barged into my respectable establishment like a drunken hoodlum and nearly cost me a lucrative sale.”

  Sebastian gulped—not at the steely glint in Anton’s eyes, but at the thought of how much angrier he would be once Sebastian told him why he was here. “Let me preface this by pointing out that if you kill me, I won’t be able to help save Lily.”

  Anton’s eyes narrowed, and Sebastian quickly continued on.

  “She’s been kidnapped, I’m pretty sure an FBI agent by the name of Richard Grant did it, the only person I can think of who would have put him up to it is John Faust, and I need you to tell me where he’s hiding so I can find her and bring her back.” Sebastian stopped to take a breath, and, based on the deadly stillness of Anton’s gaze, tensed in case Anton attempted to make it his last.

  There was a very long moment in which neither of them moved a muscle. The silence rang in Sebastian’s ears, pressing down on him as he held his breath and wondered how many different ways Anton was murdering him in his own head. He didn’t dare break eye contact, though he almost did when he saw Anton’s hand twitch out of the corner of his eye, as if the art dealer was resisting the urge to put his hands to good use strangling one errant witch. If he tried it, at least this time Sebastian would deserve it.

  Finally, Anton’s lips moved, biting out three bitter words. “I warned you.”

  The words were like an arrow straight to Sebastian’s heart, and for a few seconds he could do nothing but ride out the pain. Finally, he took a shuddering breath, giving in to his lungs’ demand for oxygen.

  “I—I know.”

  The two men stared at each other for another long moment, and Sebastian wondered if Anton’s piercing gaze could see past his walls, past his frantic impatience, and right into his soul, where torturous guilt was eating him from the inside out.

  “Tell me every detail, from the beginning,” Anton said, his words clipped and icy with carefully controlled rage.

  “We don’t have time to—”

  “Now.”

  Sebastian glared up at the man. It was a waste of time, n
ot to mention that the last thing he wanted to do was give a devious criminal and information broker the intimate details of his and Lily’s private feud with a powerful and influential wizard. Such information was potentially worth a great deal.

  “First you have to give me your word you’ll help me find Lily,” Sebastian insisted.

  “I can assure you, Mr. Blackwell, that I was invested in Miss Singer’s safety long before you ever met her and will continue to be so in spite of your willfully foolish interference.”

  “Because she’s your niece,” Sebastian said before he could stop himself, his intense stare full of accusation.

  Anton went very still and his unblinking eyes seemed to size Sebastian up like a mongoose would size up a snake it was considering for its next meal. After a moment, however, the sharpness in his expression faded until his gaze was almost back to its usual, cool detachment. “Yes, because she is my great-niece,” he corrected Sebastian. “Now speak, or leave.”

  With a sigh, Sebastian began, keeping things short and succinct. As he spoke, Anton finally pulled back his plush leather desk chair and sat. With his elbows on the arm rests and fingers steepled together, the man looked for all the world like some sort of corporate tycoon.

  When Sebastian finished, Anton leaned forward, his hands clasped together as they rested on the desk’s surface. “Your conclusion, while not entirely without basis, is hasty, not to mention questionable. There are any number of people who might have kidnapped my great-niece, for any number of reasons. I will not risk my professional reputation on a hunch.”

  “No,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “Richard working for John Faust is the only logical possibility. They’ve got to be the ones responsible.”

  “Are you willing to wager Miss Singer’s life on it?” Anton asked coldly.

  Sebastian glared at him, but before he could retort, a meow came from somewhere and a gray form leaped gracefully up onto the desk to sit blithely atop a stack of important-looking papers. Sir Kipling’s sudden appearance almost gave Sebastian a heart attack, despite the fact that he should have been used to it by now. Anton, to Sebastian’s annoyance, did not jump, shout in surprise, or otherwise seem put out by a sudden feline presence where no feline presence was meant to be.