Eve Langlais (5 page)

“Hey, Hunter,” said a slender young man with long hair held back in a pony tail sitting at one of the terminals. “I thought you were taking a few days off.”

That was Owen, also from the Realm. Resident computer geek—aka information gatherer—and Hunter’s friend.

Hunter shrugged at him. “I was bored so I thought I’d come in and see what was shaking. So what have we got going, Owen?”

Owen typed away for a second on his keyboard, his fingers flashing faster than light—Hunter, a hunt-and-pecker, himself, envied that skill. Owen then scooted his chair across the floor several feet to a printer spitting out paper.

“A couple of possible faerie sightings. One definite troll, but that one was in Devon’s half of the country so he got it.”

Shoot
, thought Hunter. He could have used the exercise.

“The Bermuda Triangle has gotten even more unstable. Sasha says the boundary is just about gone in that area. We’ve got a team of wizards on that one. They think they can patch it.”

“Any more missing ships and planes?”

“One cruise ship went through the boundary in the Triangle area and ended up in Mermaid Bay,”

said Owen, chuckling.

“What’s so funny about that?” Mermaids could be nasty, especially when it was that time of the month. Definitely not a laughing matter.

“It was a cruise ship of old folk. The poor mermaids were quite miffed when their singing didn’t work on the men. And then the men’s wives started calling them hussies and screaming at them to put their clothes back on.”

Hunter chuckled. He’d have liked to have seen that. A pissed off siren wasn’t something you got to see often. “How did they cover that one up?”

“Pretended it was a movie set. Amazing what people will swallow sometimes,” said Owen, shaking his head.

16

Actually, having seen a lot of the movies on this side of the boundary, he could see how easy it would be to convince people. Hell, a dragon could fly down the main street of town and people would be looking for projectors. This side of the boundary truly didn’t believe in magic. Everything had to be special effects. Made it easy for them to do their job and cover it up. But back to business, there were more pressing matters at hand. “What’s this about the Dragon escaping?”

“Yeah, we just heard about the Dragon’s escape this morning. Word on the vine is the whole prison over there is in for a reaming from the commander.”

Hunter winced. He’d been reamed out by the commander quite a few times—it made hand to hand combat with an ogre seem like a day in the park.

“Bob said for you to go see him when you showed up. He’s got the full details.”

“Okay. Is he in his office?”

“He should be soon. It was his turn to mind the shop,” said Owen with a snicker.

“Oh-oh, what did you guys do to him this time?” asked Hunter.

“Oh, nothing except book a
Harry Potter
birthday party.”

“You didn’t,” said Hunter, trying not to laugh. Although it was kind of funny, especially if you knew Bob. He hated
Harry Potter
with a vengeance. Said it made light of a very serious profession—wizardry.

Bob lacked innate magical ability to be a wizard, himself, but magic and wizardry were his passion, and he could go on for hours about it.

What Bob lacked in magical talent, though, he more than made up for in brains. His smarts and organizational skills had made him an ideal choice for the head of the new department called Realm Incursions. A new agency created a few years ago to deal with the growing problem created by the thinning of the boundary—the magical barrier that separated the Realm, where magic still existed, from the rest of the world. The main agency office hid in plain sight above a mundane store while the portal itself lay below ground, well hidden, of course, not that the guardians would let any pass without proper authorization first. There were various other offices scattered around the world, mostly in areas where the boundary had been showing signs of decay. A phenomenon that had the Realm’s brightest wizards baffled.

The boundary had held magic and its denizens at bay for hundreds of years. Why it had suddenly started to thin out was a mystery, one he’d leave to the scholars. His job and that of the other hunters was to find those who kept slipping over the boundary. He tracked them, trapped them, and then brought them back to the portal for transport back to the Realm. But the incursions were increasing, and the media kept reporting more and more strange happenings. It wouldn’t be long before something caused the mundane world to sit up and take notice.

As to how a portal—a magical doorway to the Realm—ended up being below a mundane store?

Simple—when initially created, the portal in this area lay surrounded by wilderness, no signs of habitation anywhere. Unfortunately, civilization came along, and to protect the Realm, a building was established around the portal area. To cover its use, it started out as a bordello—easy to sneak people in and out in muffled cloaks back then. But then bordellos became frowned upon—damn prissy womenfolk didn’t like knowing their men were straying—so for a short while, it changed venues and became a book store. Boring! And then, about thirty to forty years ago, right around the time
Star Wars
came out, and cults collecting plastic figurines were born. Somebody in management with a sense of humor came up with the perfect cover. The store became The Magic Emporium, a collectors store for the arcane and weird. If someone wanted pewter dragons, wizards, or unicorns, the Emporium had it.

Dungeons and Dragons
cards,
Star Wars
and
Star Trek
collectibles, real swords and crystal balls, the Emporium carried it all along with costumes, magic books, Ouija boards. . . Well, you get the idea.

Turned out the idea was also financially sound. The store not only supported itself, it also made enough for them to afford all the high tech gadgets and gizmos they required in a world where magic was considered a children’s fairy tale.

17

Given the store’s odd merchandise and even odder clientele, this switch to the arcane, which many still found ironic considering their ancestry, made it easy to stay open twenty-four hours a day and served as great camouflage for the sometimes strange visitors that came through here. Take the giant bunny that had hopped over last March. Being close to Easter, nobody on the street had said a word when he’d brought the giant pink bunny hopping up the street and into the store. Yes, another one of his less than stellar moments.

A loud cursing was heard from the far end of the room where the stairs to the store below were. In lumbered a heavyset man with jowly cheeks wearing a ridiculous pointed, black felt hat covered in stars and a black, flapping robe shimmering with pasted on moons.

“Stupid bloody
Harry Potter
. I swear, when I find out which of you rotten scoundrels booked that party, I’m gonna kill you!”

Hunter winced, but Owen just grinned. “Aw, come on, Bob, weren’t the kiddies just adorable?”

“Kiddies!” roared Bob. “The youngest one was sixty-two, and they all wanted to sit in my lap.”

Flinging the hat one way while tearing the robe off with his other hand, Hunter’s boss, Bob, jerked his head at Hunter and indicated he follow him into his office.

Once the door shut and Bob had safely ensconced himself in his leather chair, he sighed.

“That Owen. I am going to get him one of these days,” Bob said with a scowl. Then, he let out a big belly laugh. Good thing Bob had a great sense of humor for all his gruffness. “Silly kids. Well, Hunter, I knew you couldn’t stay away. Good thing, too. We got a worrying report about the Dragon.”

“He’s escaped?” asked Hunter, leaning against the wall.

“Yes. Seems they allowed some rookie inside the prison to bring him his meal. The commander is on a rampage. Apparently, nobody thought to tell the rookie never to look in the Dragon’s eyes. He got mesmerized by the Dragon and let him loose. Poor kid didn’t even know what had happened till they found him sleeping like a baby in the cell.”

“What about the rest of the guards? Didn’t anybody notice?” Hunter’s brows were raised high in astonishment. Sounded like the prison guards deserved a good reaming. That was just plain lax on their part.

“Nobody even knew the Dragon was gone till they went to bring him his next meal and found the rookie in his cell. By then it had been about four hours. Needless to say, heads are now currently rolling.”

Yes, the commander would definitely not be happy about a screw up like that.
I’m glad I’m not there
, he thought. Although, if he had been, it probably never would have happened. “So, what’s the Dragon got to do with us?”

“Well, you heard about his capture on the west coast, this side of the boundary, three years or so ago?”

“Yeah. I heard about it, but that was before I came to work for the agency. So?”

“Well, our trackers say he’s heading toward our portal this time. And while I know he’s not stupid enough to try and go through the actual portal with the guardians, the boundary has been getting thin enough in spots in this area that someone with his powers could probably get through.”

“Shit!” Even without his magical powers, the Dragon remained someone you did not want loose, anywhere. The higher powers only knew what kind of deadly mischief he’d get into.

“Shit is right.”

“But,” said Hunter pensively, “what is there for him in this world? Even if he escapes through the boundary, his powers then become neutralized. The thinning of the boundary hasn’t changed the lack of magic on this side.”

“We think he’s coming to finish what he started three years ago. We only wish we knew what that was.”

“Were you able to trace his movements back then?” asked Hunter.

18

“We did our best after the fact, but we’d just gotten the agency offices set up, and well, we were still learning our way around computers back then.”

“So, what do we know?”

“We know he pretended to be a professor at a west coast university, his subject, don’t laugh—Fairy Tales and Other Myths. We’re not quite sure what he was attempting. We checked the archived news records for unusual occurrences and deaths, but nothing came up. We’ll keep digging, though.”

Knowing Bob, he’d do more than dig—the man was very thorough. Give him a few days and he’d probably know what brand of detergent the Dragon used to wash his clothes.

“Maybe he wanted to try and turn over a new leaf. Live a new life free of the magic that had tainted him.” Hunter didn’t really believe it, but hey, stranger things had happened. Look at the ogre a few years ago that had decided to become vegetarian. He’d been unfortunately eaten by his comrades, but at least he’d tried. And then that oddball unicorn that decided it preferred courtesans to virgins—claimed they knew how to rub his fur better.

“Not likely. Our intelligence says he was making plans to come back to the Realm when he got captured three years ago. He claimed that he’d accomplished what he’d set out to do, and when he escaped, we would all rue the day we’d imprisoned him.”

“Hmm, that doesn’t sound too promising,” said Hunter pensively. What the hell had the Dragon been up to? “Keep me posted. Any pictures of this guy in case he does show up on our turf?”

“How’s tall, dark, and handsome?” said Bob sarcastically. “We couldn’t get anyone to paint him in the Realm safely—you know those artsy types are too fragile for his type of magic. And, well, once caught, no one bothered to get a photo of him, and the university that hired him as a professor missed him when they took staff photos. About all we know is he’s about six foot with raven black hair and grey eyes. Handsome according to the ladies. He tends to prefer black for his clothing. Oh, and while living this side of the border, he used the name Damian Draco.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow and laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding. Damian Draco. What kind of stupid name is that?”

“Yeah, well I guess he didn’t think Phineas Porter went with his image.”

“Ouch,” winced Hunter. “I’d change names too if I got stuck with that.”

Bob leaned back in his chair, which groaned alarmingly at the weight. “I think the clue to his current whereabouts might lie in his past, so we’ll be sure to dig deep and hard. Find out who his friends were back then. If someone was crazy enough to date him.”

“Sounds good. Let me know if you find anything. If he’s in my turf, I’ll find him,” said Hunter. Yes, he could use a good hunt. And this Phineas, or Damian, whatever the hell he liked to call himself, sounded like the perfect thing to get his mind off of other soft and luscious things.

With a farewell wave to Owen who diligently tapped away, Hunter went back to his office to putter for a while.

What did the Dragon want? Crossing the boundary made him magicless, so what had he accomplished during his time here? Did he have accomplices? Lots of questions rolled through his mind, but without further info, his hands were tied for the moment.

A knock on the door had him calling, “Come in.”

An elderly, hunched over woman stepped in. “Excuse me, young man, but you’re a private eye, aren’t you? I need help finding my cat. She’s missing.”

Swallowing a sigh, Hunter stepped into his role of mundane investigator. Another not so exciting day awaited, but once the Dragon was found, the real fun would begin.

19

God, Suzie hated shopping with kids. It had been much easier when they were babies. Strap them into a stroller and off they went. But they were too big for strollers now and, unfortunately, their new grocery store only had the single-seater carts, so she spent a good portion of her time chasing down giggling monsters. The rest of the time she spent pulling out groceries she hadn’t put in the cart—Lucky Charms, double fudge cookies, chips. All the healthy stuff, of course. The kids whined when she put them back and replaced their choices with Corn Bran, rice crackers, and—shudder—yogurt. Yucky, slimy stuff. She wouldn’t touch it, but all the kids books and magazines swore by it.

Finally, the groceries and other errands done, they piled in the car with their purchases to head back home. They were pulling out of the parking lot when Jared said, “Mommy, why is da man wooking at uth?”