Worldweavers: Cybermage (11 page)

Thea stared at Humphrey, trying to imagine the Alphiri chasing down birds in the streets of New York. The image was ludicrous. But then she thought of the ramifications of the whole idea, and any notion of humor vanished.

“If they have figured out the same thing that
you
figured out, through Rafe’s ill-advised confidence in Miss Otis, we might have lost this race already,” Humphrey said. “Something was discovered back at Headquarters in the wake of Miss Otis’s disappearance, something that hints pretty strongly that some of your old friends are involved here—the Faele, perhaps, and even the Trickster himself. Your Coyote spirit. The same one who turned up last summer as young Beltran de los Reyes’s tutor. The same one who was involved in Diego’s bargain with the Alphiri.”

Thea flinched at the name. Terry saw it, and bit his lip; Humphrey did, too, and reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We—
I
—gave you a heavy burden to bear in that matter. But Diego, however powerful he might potentially have been, was an untrained and ignorant child. If the Alphiri can actually harness Tesla himself—the only quad-Elemental
in history—we are in trouble so deep that even I am not sure where it all might lead. Thea…we need your help, once more.”

“The pigeons are his magic,” Thea said. “His Elemental side. Without that power restored to him, he is not what the Alphiri seek. But he himself took that out of himself. Can that Elemental magic be restored? Is it even possible?”

“It’s Elemental magic,” Humphrey said. “You’d know more about the fine detail of that, even now, than I do. But with Elemental magic, everything is theoretically
possible
, even though a high price might be demanded for some things to occur.”

“We need to find the pigeons,” Thea said. “Before the Alphiri do.”

Humphrey appeared to be on the verge of saying something else, but then apparently reconsidered. “But they’re
pigeons
,” he said. “Let’s say they are truly Elemental in nature and not subject to the lifespan of an ordinary bird, and that they are still around. From what you’ve told me of your own vision of them, they still don’t
look
any different from any ordinary bird out there. Rafe might have been a reckless fool here, but he does have a point—chasing pigeons in New York borders on lunacy.

And we have no way of knowing if there is even anything to find.”

Almost a year had passed since Thea had rescued Humphrey from the lonely place he had allowed a spellspam to trap him into. He had been anxious back then, uneasy, concerned—but not frightened. This time, he was afraid.

“I’ve been working on some of the equations you left with me,” Terry said suddenly, filling the gap of silence. “I think maybe I’ve found a few useful things. Can you give me another twenty-four hours?”

Humphrey hesitated. “If need be,” he said at last. “But please understand—if there
is
something there that can be useful, you’d better find it before the Alphiri do. Time is of the essence here.”

Thea’s heart thumped painfully again. He hadn’t mentioned the cube, but this might imply that he was waiting for them to own up, that it might go easier with them if they would simply step up and make a full confession….

Terry cleared his throat and Thea drew a deep breath. She looked away, aware that she had been almost mesmerized, her mind snared by the myriad unpleasant possibilities.

“Are you going to be staying at the Academy for
a day or so? Or do you have to get back to the problem?” Terry said.

The question seemed almost artless, but Humphrey answered it.

“I’ll be here for another day. If that’s what it takes,” he said.

Thea glanced at the two of them, and then at her wrist pad. Touching the
ENTER
key brought them back to the quad, with other people hurrying by. It was starting to look like it would rain again.

“I’ll be in touch,” Humphrey said, and turned away to stride across the quad in the direction of the administration building.

“He’s afraid,” Terry said softly, watching the FBM mage’s retreating lanky frame. “It might have been Rafe who spilled the beans, but
both
of the people involved in this fiasco report directly to Humphrey. He’s the one ultimately responsible. He took his eye off the ball back at the office, watching you, and now he’s painted into a corner.”

Someone was calling Terry’s name, and he turned his head to see his sister running across the quad toward him. Trailing in Tess’s wake, dragging her feet but with her eyes alight with unwilling interest, came Magpie.

“What did he want?” Tess asked breathlessly as she reached them. “What’s he doing back here?”

Even as Terry opened his mouth to answer, another voice came from behind Thea.

“All right,
now
can you talk about it?” Kristin, trailed by a furious-looking Ben, was standing only a few feet away.

“What, are you two following me now?” Thea said, a little sharply.

“Not exactly, but I
was
going over to the library. I saw you heading there, and I thought maybe we could, you know, talk about stuff.” Kristin shut up abruptly, suddenly going red, aware that everyone’s eyes were on her. “Well, all right,” she said, suddenly defensive, “I’m curious. So sue me.”

Thea rolled her eyes.

“All
right
, since everyone’s here, come on, then, all of you.”

A quick tap on the
ENTER
key shifted the world around them for the second time in a handful of minutes. The air was suddenly a little warmer, and the school grounds around them were noticeably emptier than they had been moments ago.

Thea rounded on Terry. “Terry, what’s going on?” she said, letting her wrist drop. “You look like you
already know what Humphrey is here about. But it can’t be that—they can’t have found out anything already…”

“You
did
steal it, after all!” Kristin said. “Didn’t you?”

Ben glared at her. “Haven’t you done enough damage?” Kristin just shrugged, and Ben turned his attention back to Terry and Thea. “You didn’t, did you? Tell me you didn’t listen to her! I
told
you that was a preposterous idea.”

“You’d be right,” Terry said. He quirked an eyebrow at Thea, and received a nod in response. “We did go in.”

Ben did a horrified double take.
“We?”
he said. “You actually went
with
her? Have you both gone crazy?”

“Well, it was that or blowing the whistle on the whole thing. I was hardly likely to let her go in alone.”

“They got you, didn’t they?” Ben said. “That’s why Humphrey’s here, isn’t he? How much trouble
are
you in?”

Terry glanced at Thea again. “It isn’t public, and that’s only to be expected—they would never admit that someone waltzed in and out of their highest-
security area at the Bureau headquarters,” he said. “But I stayed behind at the Nexus after you left, just to keep an eye on things for a little while. By the time I went to bed, everything was still quiet. And there’s been very little chitchat over the last day or so. But when I checked this morning…” He shook his head. “Nothing firm, nothing that can be nailed down, or actually pinned on anyone. But there was a definite sense of a hornet’s nest being upset when I got back to the computer this morning. And one name kept popping up.”

“Thea’s?” Ben asked, appalled.

Terry shook his head. “A certain Miss Kay Otis,” he said, very quietly. “Apparently she’s gone missing in a very strange way. And so has a very important artifact.”

“What did you do with it?” Kristin asked.

“With
what
?” Magpie asked, head swiveling from one to another as she tried to make sense of what was being discussed. “What are you all talking about?”

“They took the cube,” Tess said faintly. “They actually walked into the Federal Bureau of Magic headquarters and stole the Tesla cube.”

“Why?” Magpie said blankly.

“Because
she
thought it was a good idea,” Ben growled, tossing his head in Kristin’s direction.

“Not that I know much about it,” Magpie said, “but even given that someone might have thought it was a good idea…
how
? It isn’t like you can just wander into the heart of the FBM—”

“So who’s this Kay Otis person, then?” Kristin interrupted.

“Actually, that name sounds awfully familiar,” Magpie said, frowning. “Have we met her?”

“Kay Otis. Kayotis. Coyote,” Terry said. “Thea says that it’s the Trickster himself.”

“In the midst of the FBM? You can’t be serious! Do they have any idea?”

“Do they think
she
took the cube?”

“How did they ever let her in there?”

“Didn’t they realize—”

“Everybody just shut up a sec and let me think,” Thea said, exasperated. “What about Kay Otis, Terry? How do you mean, ‘gone missing in a very strange way’?”

“Don’t know, exactly. What information I have right now is sketchy at best.”

“I don’t understand, I really don’t, how you two weren’t nabbed in the first five seconds that you
were there,” said Ben grimly.

“They didn’t
nab
us because she really is what Humphrey said she is,” Terry said with a sudden grin. “If anyone else had tried to waltz in there, I swear it would have been alarms all the way. She just made the place…forget us.”

“An Elemental,” Tess said.

“Do you think that the place might have remembered you, just a
little
, after all?” Ben said. “If they
do
know it was you, Thea—if they have any idea what you two idiots did last night, you’ll be lucky if it ends with you just being kicked out of school and not in court.”

“Isn’t he always the bright ray of sunshine,” Kristin said.

“This is all your fault,” Ben said, rounding on her. “You and your brilliant idea.”

“Actually, if Kay Otis
is
the Trickster, I’m awfully glad she had the idea,” Thea said. “We’d better get back. I’m guessing there’s one person at the Academy right now who knows what’s going on.”

“Humphrey wasn’t saying very much, if you mean him,” Terry said thoughtfully. “But I think he screwed up. He was too focused on you, and trusted this Rafe fellow far too freely with what was going
on back at Headquarters in Humphrey’s absence. When Rafe screwed up, so did Humphrey, simply because he’s Rafe’s boss. But he came out here to find things out, not tell us what he knows. If he knew that we…that Thea took that cube, he would be out here with guns blazing. But he didn’t come to demand, he came to
ask
. That was as much humility as I’ve ever seen in a senior FBM mage.”

“How would you know?” Kristin asked.

Tess couldn’t help a quick grin. “Family business,” she said. “We’ve been around the FBM type all our lives. Starting with Mom and Uncle Kevin, and all the interns that come marching through the house beginning to cultivate the proper aura of arrogance and an air of invincible righteousness. You don’t get far in the system without those—you have to think you’re always right, or you can’t expect anyone else to believe that you are.”

“I know,” Terry said, flashing a smile almost identical to his sister’s. “Thea, I think this is a negotiation, and you’ve got the upper hand right now. Humphrey badly needs a victory, and really quickly, too. I think he’ll be willing to give you almost anything you ask if you can guarantee one for him. For all he knows the Alphiri already have the cube, and
all that’s missing from the equation is the pigeons.”

“Where
is
the cube, then, exactly?” Tess said.

“Safe,” Thea said, “for now.” She lifted her wrist, poising her left hand above her keypad. “Ready?”

They were suddenly back in the real world; the temperature had dropped a couple of degrees, and it had started to rain. Magpie flipped up the hood on her sweatshirt, and all of them scurried for cover.

“You think anyone saw us?” Thea said, scanning the grounds.

“This is so cool,” Kristin said, grinning from ear to ear with those preposterous teeth on full display, hugging her elbows with glee. “I don’t think anyone was paying attention, Thea, but if they were, they’re probably thinking they’re working way too hard and have gone off to have a nap.”

Ben stared at her. “This isn’t a game,” he said.

Kristin turned to stare at him for a long moment. The ghost of a smile still hovered around her lips, but her eyes had gone serious.

“I know,” she said.

“If anything does come down on Terry and Thea, it’s all your fault,” Ben said. “If you hadn’t been so—”

“Cut it out, guys,” Thea said. “Well, I suppose I’d
better go find Humphrey.”

“I asked him to give us a day,” Terry said. “You sure? You can make him sweat over this, just a little.”

“No, I’d rather get it over with. I have an idea.”

“You want me to come with you?” Terry asked.

“You want us all to come?” Magpie said unexpectedly.

“I’m hardly likely to be expelled or deported from this place on the spot, even if he
does
have a clear idea of what happened. But if he doesn’t know anything, there’s no point in putting anybody else in the cross fire just yet.”

Terry was staring thoughtfully at the keypad on Thea’s wrist. “Does that thing do e-mail?”

“I have no idea,” Thea said. “I’ve never really tried it. Why?”

“Because, now that I think of it, you might need help at some point, and it would be a good thing if you were able to send out a Mayday message. But it might be set up so that it can communicate with only one outside port—Humphrey. And it wouldn’t be hard for him to keep tabs on you, if it is.”

Thea lifted her head sharply. “You think Humphrey knows where I go? When I do use it?”

“If he does, then he already knows everything, and then some,” Ben said.

“Not necessarily. Thea, you write in your own shorthand when you do this stuff—things that mean something to
you
, and will take you to a place that only
you
know the precise details of. It isn’t like you’re writing in an exact set of directions. So even if he can keep track of your keystrokes, he still might not know where whatever it is that you’ve written down will take you. But all the same…you’d better use that thing very carefully.”