Modern Sorcery: A Jonathan Shade Novel (18 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

The woman held a black baton in one hand and wore what looked to me like a horse jockey’s uniform with white pants, red jacket, and black boots.
 
She even had a helmet, which only made her look more intense.
 
Cantrell shook his head.
 
Al looked pissed, but if you ask me, he always looked like someone had jabbed a corncob up his ass.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” I said to the woman.

“You’ll wish we hadn’t.”

I nodded.
 
“Already there.”

The woman waved her hands, and a light shimmered across the doorway and seemed to solidify.
 
I assumed it was some sort of barrier to prevent us from leaving the room.
 
She, Al, and Cantrell stood on the opposite side of the force field.

Cantrell shrugged.
 
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he said to Naomi.
 
At least, I hoped he wasn’t talking to me.
 
That would prove awkward.

“Frank,” the woman said, motioning for him to lean toward her.
 
She whispered in his ear while she slapped her baton against her thigh.

“Should I go listen?” Esther asked.

I shook my head.
 
I suspected the woman was simply getting the lowdown on what was going on.

I nudged Naomi.
 
“Who is she?”

“Anselma Kaiser,” Naomi said.
 
“She’s head of the Wizard Council at DGI.”
 
She looked worried.

Anselma kept slapping that baton against her thigh as she whispered to Al and Frank.

“I’ll bet she has quite a bruise on that leg,” I said.

Anselma turned her attention back to Naomi.
 
“I’m disappointed in you, Naomi.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“You had such potential.”

Naomi looked ready to cry.
 
“We thought we were doing the right thing.”

“Those shards on the floor,” Anselma said, pointing at the shattered crystals with her baton.
 
“All three crystals?”

Naomi hesitated a moment then slowly nodded.

Anselma closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Naomi stared at the floor.

“And you brought an outsider into our sanctuary?
 
In the old days, you would have been executed for such gross negligence.”

“Good thing these aren’t the old days,” I said.

She shot me a look that would make an oak tree shrivel up and blow away.

“Show some respect,” Al said.

“Blow me.”

“He ain’t one of us,” Cantrell said to Anselma.
 
“He don’t know how this is supposed to go down.”

“I’m not here to educate a vulgarian,” she said.
 
Then to me, “Curb your tongue, Mr. Shade.
 
This only concerns you to the extent that your utter incompetence has exacerbated the problem and endangered the lives of my associates.”

“Hold on a second,” I said, but she refused to look at me.

Al shook his head.
 
“You don’t have the right to address the Head of Council,” he said.

“Fine,” I said.
 
“I’ll talk to you instead.
 
Tell Hitler-with-Tits here that she needs to climb down off her high horse and—”

“Why you . . .” Al started but couldn’t get the words out.
 
Somehow I think I may have overshot the effect I was aiming for by, oh, a few light years.

Al and Cantrell both stared at me in shock and anger.
 
Al’s fists glowed before Cantrell’s, but both of them were drawing up energy to blast me to shreds.
 
The five-second rule for pulling up magic didn’t help me here because there was nowhere to go.
 
I knew that in a moment, they’d discover that I was immune to direct magic.

As they let loose their attack, it occurred to me that maybe I could have been more diplomatic.
 
The room flashed white as the blast shimmered through the barrier.
 
I wasn’t sure what to do when the energy washed over me.
 
Was this supposed to stun me?
 
Kill me?
 
Should I fly across the room and pretend to be injured or unconscious?

In the end, I simply shrugged and gave them an impish grin.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Al and Frank stared at me for a moment, amazed that I wasn’t out of commission.

“What the hell?” Frank said.

“We can’t penetrate the barrier,” Al said.

Sometimes people will believe what they want to believe, and all the evidence in the world won’t change their views.
 
If they’d bothered to pay attention, they’d see that the crystal shards had been blown around my feet and the front half of the room had nothing on the floor.
 
They might have noticed that the wall behind me had wisps of smoke trailing from it.
 
Maybe their view was slightly obscured by the shimmering barrier, but that barrier had not blocked their attack at all.

“You got lucky,” Cantrell said, stabbing a stubby forefinger in my direction.

“Damn, I knew I should have bought a Powerball ticket today.”

I approached the barrier but stopped before I reached it.
 
I didn’t want to just walk through it while they were still under the impression that magic worked on me.
 
That would be stupid, and my mother tried to instill some sense into my head before she passed away.
 
I like to believe that some of it took seed and maybe even grew.
 
Then again, when I was twenty, I felt certain that I knew everything, while these days I felt certain I knew nothing.
 
Amazing how the intelligence goes away as you get older.
 
It can’t be that we learn that we aren’t as smart as we think.
 
Right?

Anselma stared at me.
 
It was a stern look, but from the modicum of respect it contained, I wondered if she realized the energy had passed through the barrier.
 
I decided she must not have been able to tell or she’d have said something about it.

She looked away from me and addressed Naomi.
 
“You and I are going to talk.
 
I don’t want this conversation to be overheard by Mr. Shade.
 
He knows far too much already.”

“I hired him to help.”

“You’ll accompany me to my office,” Anselma said.
 
She gestured to the barrier, and it opened enough for Naomi to pass through.
 
As Naomi still wore the backpack, Esther was forced to follow.

“I guess I’ll be your ears,” Esther said as she passed through the barrier.

Anselma flicked her wrist, and the force field closed up.
 
“We have a great deal of work to do.”
 
The men nodded and trailed after her.

“What?” I said.
 
“You’re going to just leave me here to rot?”

Al and Frank threw another glare at me.

“Can you at least send down a pizza and some beer?” I asked.
 
“Pepperoni would be fine.”

They followed their leader without speaking to me again.
 
Esther moved after them down the corridor and tossed an occasional glance back at me.

As they left, the flames on the sconces leaped along after them and left me in total darkness.

I reached into my pocket, pulled out my cell phone, and flipped it open.
 
It didn’t give off much light, but it was enough for me to see where I was going.
 
I checked the room to see if there was a broom and dustpan so I could sweep up the crystal shards to take with me, but the wizards didn’t bother with such crude tools.

It probably didn’t matter anyway.
 
It’s not like I could put them back together.

I moved behind the crumbled counter that resembled a wet bar.
 
The weak light from my phone revealed an odd-looking, bent stick.
 
I reached down and picked it up then realized it was a severed arm that had been burned to a crisp.

“Charming,” I said and dropped it.
 
I kicked some debris out of the way and found more charcoaled body parts.
 
I guessed they were the remains of the wizards who acted as custodians of the other crystals.
 
So far it seemed Naomi had at least told us part of the truth.
 
I wished I knew what she was going to tell Anselma.
 
Would she tell the old bat the whole truth?
 
She did respect the High Council, so for her it was like being sent to the principal’s office in grade school.
 
Only worse, I guess, since technically the High Council can strip wizards of their station and incarcerate them in specially constructed cells.
 
Maybe if Naomi told them the truth, all the wizards could team up and stop Ravenwood and I could take the rest of the week off.

Somehow that didn’t seem likely.

The phone light went out, so I pressed a button, and the screen glowed again.

I wondered if I should sit down and wait for them to come back.
 
That way, I could carry on the ruse that magic affected me.
 
Of course, that meant I might be waiting for hours.
 
I figured, screw it.
 
When they came back and found me gone, my escape would just be a mystery.
 
I stepped through the barrier and moved back the way we had come.

When I reached the Dragon Gate, I leaned against the wall across from it and gazed into the flames for a time.
 
Could it destroy Ravenwood?
 
If so, was there a way to get him to come down here?
 
I didn’t think he’d accept an invitation, but I stored it away as a possibility.
 
Still, I knew I needed to find a way to deal with him without the gate.
 
I needed something that would work no matter where I faced him.

I took the elevator back to the corridor that led to Starbucks, and when I had a decent cell signal, I heard the beep signaling the arrival of a text message.

I flipped open the phone to read the note.
 
The one-word message was from Naomi:
Help.

“Hey, Phil,” I said as I entered the DGI building.
 
“Get that raise yet?”

“Oh, shit,” Phil said.
 
He took a step back from his station and found his back to the wall.

“Don’t worry; Kelly’s not with me.”

He seemed to relax a little.
 
“You know I’m just doing my job here, right?”

“I know.”

“You don’t have an appointment.”

“I know that too.
 
But I’m here to
make
an appointment.”

“Really?” he said, clearly not convinced.

“Buzz Anselma Kaiser and tell her Jonathan Shade is here to see her.”

“Ms. Kaiser is in Switzerland.”

“Phil, I already know she’s here.”

“She doesn’t meet with regular people, Mr. Shade.”

“She’ll want to see me,” I said.
 
“Tell her I’m with you in the lobby.”

He hesitated.

“Go on, Phil.
 
You can do it.
 
I have faith in you.”

He sighed and picked up the phone.
 
He pressed a button and waited then said, “Jonathan Shade is here to see you.”
 
He frowned.
 
“No, ma’am.
 
He’s standing right in front of me.”
 
More frowning.
 
“Yes, ma’am.
 
I’m sure it’s him.
 
Okay.”
 
He gave me a look that started with impressed then shifted to what I took to mean sorry you’re about to die.
 
“She says to go on up.
 
She’s in thirteen-oh-seven.”

“Thanks, Phil.”

I took the elevator and ran through the extra procedures to get to the thirteenth floor.
 
Al and Cantrell were waiting for me when the doors opened.

“Hi, guys.”

“How the hell did you get out of there?”

“Ancient Chinese secret,” I said.

“Secret my ass,” Frank said.

They led me to Anselma’s office.

Esther met me outside the door.
 
“They took Naomi away.
 
Be careful with the old tomato in there.
 
She’s one cranky bearcat.”

When Al opened the door, Anselma rose and gave me a nod.
 
The office consisted of a simple, wooden desk with an intercom system and a telephone.
 
Anselma’s helmet and baton sat on the edge of the desk.
 
There were two chairs and a huge window behind Anselma with a beautiful view of the mountains to the west.
 
There were two more chairs perched against the wall on my side of the room.
 
One of them held the backpack with Esther’s typewriter.

“Be seated.”

I moved the backpack to the floor and sat down.

Anselma waved Al and Frank off.

When the door closed, she studied me for a moment and said, “There’s more to you than meets the eye.
 
I’m impressed.”

“You should see me on the dance floor.”

“Don’t push her,” Esther said.
 
Esther stood by my chair, and if she weren’t a ghost, I’d have thought she was about to have a heart attack.

Anselma didn’t seem upset right now, though.
 
She seemed almost amiable.
 
“I’d like to thank you for trying to help us in this matter.
 
If you’ll send Naomi’s invoice to us, I’ll see that you’re properly compensated for your efforts.
 
That said, we don’t require your assistance anymore.”

“Where’s Naomi?”

“She’s safe.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Mr. Shade, surely you can appreciate that we have rules here at Dragon Gate Industries and when those rules are broken, there are ramifications.
 
Naomi broke so many rules that she faces serious consequences.”

“I’m sure she does,” I said.
 
“And I’m sure she’ll be delighted to do penance for years to come once the Ravenwood situation is resolved.”

“Go home, Mr. Shade.
 
That is all.”

“Not quite.”

“Don’t,” Esther said.

I leaned back in my chair and spread my hands.
 
“See, I don’t work for you.
 
Naomi hired me.”

“And as she works for us, by extension, so did you.”

I shook my head.
 
“Sorry, Aunt Selma, it doesn’t work that way.
 
I was hired on personal business.”

“Anselma,” she said, unfazed.
 
“But if you must refer to me, it should be as Ms. Kaiser.
 
And Naomi’s business was not personal.”

“Naomi hired me to help her, and at the moment, I’d say she needs my help.”

“Mr. Shade, if I call for security, your exit from the building will not be pleasant.”

I was about to say something clever but alarms blared.

Anselma stabbed at an intercom.
 
“What’s happening?”

“We don’t know,” a tinny voice said.
 
“The wards are going off but nobody’s there.”

Esther stepped through the wall.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“What?” Anselma said.

“I think you’re about to lose your job.”

“Shit,” Esther said, returning to the office.
 
“Turn around, Jonathan.”

I looked behind me and saw Blake Ravenwood’s spirit phase through the door.

“We meet again,” I said.

“Meet again?” Anselma said, a hint of panic in her voice.
 
“I don’t see anyone.”
 
She grabbed her baton from the desk.

Ravenwood glanced at me.
 
“Don’t worry, Shade.
 
I’m here for her.”
 
He darted forward and grabbed Anselma.

Her eyes went wide, and she tried to struggle for a moment—but only for a moment.
 
Then she dropped the baton.
 
She tilted her head to one side then the other.

“This is better,” Anselma said.

Only now it wasn’t Anselma doing the talking.