Science and Sorcery (13 page)

Suddenly, a blue line seemed to shimmer into existence, connecting the paper with Gavin, out on the field.  Calvin’s eyes snapped open; the blue line flickered and vanished.  Harrow had cautioned him that mage sight – the ability to see, rather than sense, magic – required shut eyes, but it still felt as if he’d failed when the line vanished so abruptly.  But at least it confirmed that there was a link between Gavin and the paper Calvin had carefully prepared for magic. 

All right, you bastard
, he thought, remembering all the little humiliations that Gavin had inflicted on him.  He hadn't been as bad as Moe, but he’d been quite bad enough, particularly when he’d beaten Calvin up for being lousy at sports. 
Let's see who’s laughing now
.

Power flared through the runes as he concentrated, reaching out towards Gavin.  The jock was running after the ball when his legs suddenly locked up, just for a second, and he went flying forward and landed on his face.  Calvin felt a hot rush of delight as his enemy hit the grass and was nearly trampled by one of his friends.  Coach Thornton, who had returned to the field while Calvin was preparing the runes, shouted angrily at Gavin.  His little accident had caused his team to lose control of the ball. 

Calvin smirked as the Coach stormed over to Gavin and berated him in front of everyone on the field.  They all knew that the Coach had ambitions to rise higher in his chosen field, but the only way to do that was to prove that he could lead a team of football players to victory.  Calvin hadn't realised that he was prepared to give his favourites a tongue-lashing too, not until he’d seen it.  He might have been more forgiving of Gavin if he had. 

He clutched the paper again as the Coach faced Gavin and concentrated, hard.  Gavin’s fist came up at lightning speed and struck the Coach right on the jaw.  Thornton tumbled backwards as Gavin stared in horror at his hand, unable to believe what had happened.  Calvin took the opportunity to have Gavin kick Thornton in the groin and then stood up, heading towards the exit.  Everyone was staring in horror at the fallen coach.  Like Gavin, they were having some difficulty grasping what had happened.

Calvin didn't laugh until he was well away from the sports hall.  Gavin’s potential career had been absolutely ruined.  No one was going to forgive him assaulting a coach, even if the coach
was
an asshole.  And Thornton was going to find it harder to bully everyone now that the entire football team had seen him knocked down and out by a mere student.  His career probably wouldn't survive either. 

He was still chuckling as he returned home, walked upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom.  Filling the sink with water, he cast the spying spell again, this time focused on Gavin himself.  The young man was sitting on a bench, his hands behind his back.  It took Calvin a moment to realise that he was in a police holding cell, presumably helping the NYPD with their enquires.  He’d assaulted someone and wouldn't be able to claim any excuse.  How would he prove that he had been under outside control?  How could he even
suspect
the truth?  After a moment, Calvin switched the spell to the Coach and saw him lying in a hospital bed, spitting with rage.  Two policemen were listening carefully to his every word.

Shame I can't get sound on this
, Calvin thought, fighting down the urge to start snickering again.  Harrow had said that it was possible, but he hadn't managed to master the trick. 
I wonder if...

The water exploded into steam and he stumbled backwards, silently grateful for the protective spells he’d cast on himself as soon as Harrow had taught him how to do it.  They protected him from accidentally burning himself.  Shaking his head, he started to clean up the mess, kicking himself for using the spell for too long.  Harrow had warned him that the spell wouldn't last for more than a few minutes, depending on just what he was doing.  It would probably have lasted longer if he’d just looked at one person.

I could look at Marie again
, he thought, and then shook his head.  He had other things to do, starting with finding a safe hiding place for his collection of hairs and then seeing if he could borrow – or steal – one of Mindy’s dolls.  They weren't designed for sympathetic magic, but he knew he could make them work.  And who knew what he could do then?

He finished cleaning the bathroom, checked his handiwork, and then unlocked the door, heading back to his bedroom.  The thought of the look on Gavin’s face made him giggle.  Horror, and humiliation, and terror...just how Gavin had made Calvin feel, before the magic.  Gavin had only got what he deserved, for what he’d done when he’d been strong.

Calvin felt no sympathy at all.  Why should he?

Chapter Thirteen

New York, USA

Day 10

“You want to see the records too?”

Matt nodded, handing over his NYPD card and the search warrant the FBI had produced for him by the simple expedient of running it past a tame judge.  The secretary looked at it suspiciously, checked it against a template she had stored in her filing cabinet and then scowled up at Matt.  Matt looked back at her, trying to project the impression of calm and control that the NYPD encouraged its officers to learn.

“This is the second request this week,” the secretary said.  She was middle-aged, with a face that could charitably be called homely.  Matt would have called it ugly.  She looked as if she drank iodine for breakfast and rubbed her skin with something to pickle it.  “Do you realise what this is doing to our reputation?”

Matt nodded.  A fatal accident – or a murder – in school was bad enough, but having a second incident that involved the law within days of the first one was potentially disastrous.  According to the NYPD file, a sixteen-year-old student, one Gavin Harrison, had been arrested and remanded in custody for assaulting his Football Coach on school grounds.  As far as anyone could tell, it was an open-and-shut case, with plenty of witnesses and physical evidence, apart from the minor fact that the case was lacking a motive.  The Coach had been reprimanding young Mr. Harrison at the time, but the witnesses had claimed that he did that to everyone.  Harrison claimed that his hands and legs had just moved of their own accord.  It hadn’t convinced anyone to believe him.

“I think that your reputation would be served by allowing us to get to the bottom of things as quickly as possible,” he said, finally.  “The NYPD feels that the case should be investigated thoroughly.”

“I must warn you that these files are covered under various laws,” the secretary said, as she logged on to a computer and started bringing up the school’s records.  “If you want copies, I am obliged to note which ones you copy and seek assurances that they are kept under strict security.”

“I understand,” Matt said.  There were laws against leaking files concerning schoolchildren to the world.  No one would want to wake up one morning and discover that their children’s file had suddenly become public.  “I won’t let anyone see them who isn't already part of the investigation.”

Moe Levisohn, Ian Murray and Andy Montgomery had been fairly normal schoolchildren, according to the records.  All three of them had low grades, but they made up for it on the sports field.  They’d probably been warned that they couldn't get into college unless they could win a football scholarship or something else sporty, as their grades suggested that they were barely scraping through.  Not that it really mattered; Matt recalled his own schooling well enough to know that one could graduate without learning anything of value.

There were notes relating to an arrest a year ago on suspicion of drug abuse.  The NYPD had raided a dance club and arrested a number of youngsters, but the suppliers had managed to make their escape and the perpetrators had gotten off with a caution.  Judging from some of the other records, the arrest hadn't scared any of them straight.  There were a long list of disciplinary problems noted by their tutors, none of which seemed to have been tackled properly.  But then, it was illegal to thrash schoolchildren – even teenagers – to within an inch of their lives. 

“Curious,” he said, out loud.  Moe seemed to have had a habit of picking on people, the weak and nerdy in particular.  He knew the type well, the kids who kept growing worse and worse until they discovered that the bad habits they picked up at school didn't help them in the real world.  Most of them ended up going into jail.  “How many enemies did this guy have?”

The reports weren't very detailed, he noted.  In fact, as time passed, the reports had actually become
less
detailed, as if the people writing them had stopped bothering to write out all the details.  It was an impulse he fully understood – a large part of working as a policeman was paperwork, which took up valuable time he could be using patrolling the streets – and if no one bothered to actually
do
anything about the reports, people would eventually stop writing them.  But it was frustrating.  Moe might have been killed by magic, his killer either unaware of what he had done...or intending to do worse. 

Might
?  He asked himself.  Ever since Golem had explained how the first burst of magic could be dangerously uncontrolled, there had been no doubt in Matt’s mind that the whole affair was caused by magic.  The only real questions were who, and why.  If Moe had been half the asshole the report painted him as, it would be hard to blame his victim for lashing back at him with magic.  But why hadn't he come forward?

Matt snorted a moment later.  Of
course
the killer hadn't come forward.  Who would have believed him, at first?  Later, now that the President had acknowledged magic’s existence, he would wonder if he would be charged with murder.  Matt had seen enough incidents in schools to know that the bullied often felt as if the whole world was against them.  The killer probably
knew
that he would be blamed, no matter how badly Moe had acted.  Most school shooters started out as people who were alienated from the world, mainly through bullying, until they crossed the line into madness. 

He skimmed through the other two files and nodded to himself.  Ian Murray had been a jock, just like Moe: Andy Montgomery seemed to have nothing going for him, apart from a string of disciplinary records a mile long.  A quick glance at his personal file confirmed that he had been raised in a single-parent family by his mother, who had four other kids to bring up.  Like so many others, his life had been wasted right from birth.  Matt shook his head sadly and, on impulse, pulled up the record for Gavin Harrison.  A red note indicated that the boy had been suspended from school, pending the outcome of the court case. 

The original investigators had been right, Matt decided, several minutes later.  There was
no
discernible motive for Harrison to knock out his Football Coach.  That didn't mean that he hadn't done it – witnesses and physical evidence said he
had
done it – but it was odd.  People could and did go crazy, particularly when they had had too much to drink, or taken something that altered their frame of mind, yet still...

I’m supposed to be a Hunter
, he thought, sourly. 
I should be able to find the killer with ease
.

Golem had told him as much, but the brief period of poking and prodding the doctors had given him had found nothing.  They’d had more luck monitoring Kaleen’s brainwaves as she used her magic to heal people.  The doctors weren't quite sure how her powers worked – Golem had said that some people just knew instinctively how to use their abilities – but they did have ways to detect them at work now.  They could sort out the fakes from the real healers.

Pushing the thought aside, he passed an FBI-issue USB stick to the secretary and asked her to copy the files over onto the device.  The analysts would go through them and see if he’d missed anything, although privately Matt doubted that there was anything they could use.  Maybe he’d have to interview some of Moe’s fellow students and ask if he picked on anyone in particular, except that would get around the city in no time.  Someone would draw the correct conclusion – the internet already had – and parents would start holding their children back from school.  How could he blame them?

Once the secretary had finished copying the files, Matt allowed her to lead him to the washroom where the murders had taken place.  The NYPD had locked the room, complete with a notice warning that unauthorised access was a criminal offense, but somehow he doubted that would keep the kids out for long.  Everyone would want to see the scene of the crime.  He opened the door with the secretary’s key and stepped inside, trying to clear his mind as Golem had suggested.  There was a faint – a very faint – sense of the fire, but nothing else.  The forensic team had removed the bodies and the rest of the physical evidence; the cleaners had then scrubbed away the burn marks and painted over the rest of the damage, such as it was.  Matt concentrated harder, but there was still nothing. 

“You can lock it up again now,” he said, as he stepped back outside.  He’d hit a dead end, unless he could find someone willing to talk.  Moe’s friends had already been interviewed by the NYPD and they’d had nothing useful to say.  But then, it was possible that his colleges simply hadn't asked the right questions.  “Thank you for your time.”

“I hope that you do catch the person responsible,” the secretary said, her voice becoming more human as he started to leave.  Previously, she’d sounded alarmingly like a female version of Golem!  “Those kids didn't deserve to die like that.”

Matt had his doubts on that score – Moe’s file had told the tale of a boy who was out of control – but he kept his peace.  Instead, he walked out of the school and back to where he’d parked the FBI car.  It was funny, he realised, just how quickly he'd come to terms with the whole idea of magic.  The rest of the world seemed to be either panicking or trying to work out how to exploit it.  But perhaps that too was part of a Hunter’s magic. 

He picked up his cell phone, reported in to Caitlyn, and then headed back to his apartment.  Night was falling and he wanted to get at least one day of sleep before he returned to Washington, unless he found another way to search for the murderer.  Perhaps Golem would have some ideas.

***

“My daddy says that werewolves can't come inside the door without permission,” a little girl said, as he stepped into the small eatery.  Matt looked down and saw a girl who couldn't be more than five years old, wearing a white headscarf and dress that suggested that she had just come back from the mosque.  “And that God protects us against all evil things.”

“Let us hope that he is right,” Matt said, gravely.  He
liked
children; they tended to be much less complicated than adults.  It was teenagers who caused the real problems.  “But I thought that that was vampires.”

The girl pointed to the doorframe.  Matt saw that a set of Arabic letters had been painted above the door in neat, precise script.  “
That
will keep out all evil,” the girl assured him.  “They will flee from the words of God.”

Matt concealed his amusement.  There had been a sudden upsurge in all forms of protective magic, from Native American to ancient folklore from Europe.  Apparently it was suddenly impossible to buy a horseshoe for less than a thousand dollars, which suggested that someone was hiking up the prices.  Every magic shop in New York had sold out of all kinds of products, most of which would have been dismissed as useless ten days ago.  Not to mention the man who had opened a wizard’s school years ago claiming that
he
was responsible for the rebirth of magic.  The world was changing at terrifying speed.

“So we have always been told,” her father said.  His family, who had emigrated from Pakistan years ago, ran a kebab shop.  “My uncle assured me that the mullahs were saying that it would work in Pakistan.”

“Good,” Matt said, dryly.  From what he’d heard, all of the major world religions were still having problems coming to terms with the existence of magic.  There had been nasty incidents all over the globe, including a young boy being beaten to death by his parents after doing
something
supernatural.  “I’d like a kebab with extra chicken.”

He took the food, paid for it, and then headed to his apartment, picking up his mail on the way.  A white envelope with the NYPD logo, a handful of pieces of junk mail and a flyer advertising another wizard school.  Someone else was clearly trying to cash in on the whole affair.  He pocketed it, made a mental note to show it to Caitlyn so they could check to see if it was more than just another scam, before putting down the kebab and opening the NYPD letter.  As he had expected, it confirmed that he had been cleared of professional misconduct and acknowledged that he was seconded to the FBI for the duration of the crisis, but his pay would still be coming from the NYPD.  Matt rolled his eyes, particularly at the line offering counselling for trauma, and put the paper to one side.  His kebab was getting cold.

While eating, he clicked on the television and watched the latest news directly from Washington.  “Crowds of Native Americans have gathered in Washington today to protest the Presidential Directive sealing off all places of religious significance issued just after the President informed us of the return of magic,” the talking head said.  “The spokesman for the protest claimed that depriving the Native Americans of access to their holy sites was a direct assault on their rights as American citizens.  In a televised interview earlier this morning, Senator Bilaganna of Arizona had this to say.”