Mulberry Wands (10 page)

“It’s three pm.”

“We can drink till five. Please. I’ll tell
you everything you want to know,” Paul said. “I still don’t have
your phone number, and if you leave now I’m afraid I’ll never see
you again. Please. Have dinner with me.” He was barely holding
himself in the world, with the afternoon sun beating full on his
back. He had maybe thirty seconds before he had to grab the
umbrella or fade into the light.

She used half of that time deliberating.

Paul held a pleasant, what he hoped was
unthreatening, expression. The light was pulling him away, molecule
by molecule. She could probably see through him by now. He held his
hands against the car like a mime, because if he leaned forward
he’d fall through it completely. He was vanishing.

She shrugged assent, and reached over to
unlock her car door.

Paul reached down for his umbrella, and in
its shadow his hand solidified enough to grab the handle. That
solidity was enough for him to swing it up over his head, which
gave him enough substance to open the door and sit in Susan’s
car.

“Tell me where you want me to drive, and then
start talking.”

Paul named a steakhouse on the north side of
downtown, famous because it was the oldest building in the city. It
was the only one he was sure would still be there.

“I’m a Sunward,” he said. “I’m human.”

Susan sounded skeptical. “You’re not a
gnosti?”

“I’m a normal guy, or at least I was. See, I
was chosen by the lady of light. I’m a Sunward. All the Sunwards
together form the parliament, and the parliament wanted me to
investigate you.”

“Why are so many men convinced that women
like it when you lie to us?” she said. “Why couldn’t you have said
this all up front?”

“Because … I don’t know. I’m sorry. Can we
start over?” Paul asked.

Susan drove, her mouth closed tight, frowning
as though she were concentrating on figuring out where she was
going, though they were going back downtown where they’d just come
from. “Okay,” she said.

Susan reluctantly admitted to herself that
she was still attracted to him. She had resolved to answer his
questions, just to get him off her back, so he’d leave her alone.
Except now she wasn’t sure she wanted to be left alone.

Brian had two personas when he interviewed
people. He was either the competent authority you better not mess
with (in which case you noticed how tall he was) or he was the
super-cheerful friendly guy that gee, couldn’t you just tell him
anything cause he was so trustworthy? Paul sounded more like a guy
who was trying really hard to get the girl he liked to not dump
him. As investigative techniques went, it sucked. As a way of
convincing even a hard-hearted cynic like Susan to give him a
second chance, it worked pretty well.

He was pretty cute, and anyway, who was she
to hold thaumaturgy against someone?

She glanced at him again, and pulled into the
parking lot of the adobe landmark that he’d chosen as their dinner
spot.

When she was a kid, La Casa Vieja had been
the nicest steakhouse in town, where they went on the rare (twice)
occasions when her sister Julia’s dad came to visit. Since then it
had been eclipsed by other, newer restaurants, and only the
tourists went there, impressed by a centuries-old adobe building
with local character, and still going by old guides that couldn’t
keep up with the rapid turnover of college drinking and eating
spots.

They left a name with the hostess and went to
the bar to wait. It was dark, and slightly crowded despite the
early hour.

“So, what do you want to know?” she said,
climbing onto the bar stool.

“Can’t this be a real date? How about we have
a drink and chat about other things, then talk about that after
dinner?” He signaled the bartender with a folded twenty. “Black
Russian?”

“Diet Coke,” she said.

“How are things going?” Paul asked.

“Meh. We’re moving next Saturday. You’re
welcome to come if you want to help move boxes,” she said. “How
about you, what’s going on in your life?”

“Meh?” He imitated her. “You want to talk
about it?”

“No,” she said, but she couldn’t help feeling
pleased that he asked. Having a guy express an apparently sincere
desire to listen to her complain about her life was twice as sexy
as checking her out and saying, “Damn, you look fine!”

“What’s that sound? Argh! Something’s got
me!” He flailed at the pocket of his jeans, spinning around in his
attempt to get the pager out of his pocket. He reminded Susan of a
dog chasing its tail trying to get a piece of tape off. She put a
hand over her mouth to hide the fact that she was trying not to
laugh at him.

“That means our table is ready.” She took the
pager out of his pocket and hopped down off the bar stool.

Paul’s expression went from panicked to
curious. He flipped the pager over, watching the red lights blink
around its edge. By the way he looked at it, it was something
dropped by an alien space craft. “I’ve never seen one of those
before,” he said.

Either it was a great act, or Carlos’ story
was checking out. Paul did act like a guy who had been pulled out
of time for forty years. No wonder he didn’t have a Facebook
account.

“Right this way,” interrupted the hostess,
plucking the pager from his grasp. She led them into the depths of
the restaurant.

Susan had always been a little freaked out
inside this restaurant, because the adobe building had ceilings too
low for her comfort. It was like a cave in there, dark and closed
in, with inadequate lighting and floors that creaked and dipped at
odd places. Paul kept touching everything, reveling in the textures
of the exposed wood beams and the plaster lathe. He exclaimed at
the dingy western prints, talking about them as though he still saw
the beauty of the original where Susan only saw a poor copy covered
over with cigarette smoke and grime.

Usually when she was on a date, she ordered
whatever sounded “light,” low calorie and ladylike. That had been
salads until she learned the awful truth about blue cheese
dressing. But since this so-called date was a non starter anyway,
she ordered a grownup sized steak, and got blue cheese dressing
with her salad (and anyway she’d been really good that day and only
had a grapefruit for breakfast).

Susan watched him as he ate, wondering if he
was going to be one of those guys who never ate vegetables. She’d
never trusted those types, always thought of them as immature. He
passed that test. He also didn’t drink beyond the first one,
switching to water halfway through the meal. That was good too. She
realized that she was looking for a reason to dislike him, and not
finding one.

They had a nice conversation. She couldn’t
remember what they talked about, but he made her laugh. When she
finished as much food as she thought her dieter’s guilt would allow
and asked for a box for the rest, Paul pushed his own plate aside.
He dug into his back pocket and pulled out a wooden stick. It was
about as long as her hand and as thick as a dry erase marker, with
the bark still attached.

“What’s that?” she asked, wiping her mouth
with a napkin.

“It’s a magic wand,” he said.

“A magic wand.” She let her dry tone and her
eyebrows convey her skepticism.

“Someone fixed magical energy into this wand
so that it could be released at another time,” he said. The way he
said it sounded like he was a teacher, or someone on one of those
science programs, which usually made her mad because she didn’t
like being talked down to. Except in this case it was like they
were just a couple of experts talking shop, so that was okay.

“Let me explain why that’s impossible,” Susan
said, using the same tone. “First of all, the only way a mage can
fix unfocused magic into an inanimate object is with life energy,
so you’d have to be a psion and a witch, and good at both, or
there’s no way.”

“You don’t know any witches who are also
psychic?”

Susan looked rueful and nodded to show he’d
caught her. “Okay, well, my mom and I could do it, but even we
can’t muster enough psychic energy to make it worth the effort.
It’s just not efficient. You’d drain yourself into a coma just to
give someone else the ability to send a telepathic text
message.”

He frowned. “Text message?”

How could anyone not know what a text message
was? It was like going on a date with someone’s grandpa. “It’s
a—”

“Never mind.” He shook his head. He was
playing with the wand, tapping it against his other hand, the way
some people play with pens. She hoped that meant that it was spent,
or more likely, that it wasn’t really a magic wand, and not that he
was just careless. “What about blood magic? That’s life energy,
right?”

“I don’t do blood magic,” she lied. She had
used it once, and that wasn’t her fault, but she had used it, so
technically the MIB could crack down on her. Three people knew
about it. Three people could keep a secret, if one was dead and the
other was banished to the Elsewhere, but four people couldn’t keep
a secret. She looked down at her hands, and her throat got tight.
Thinking about blood magic always made her scared, and guilty, and
sad that someone had died to save her, even though she hadn’t liked
him and dying had been kind of his idea.

“I’m not saying you did it. Of course you
don’t do blood magic.” Paul reached forward and touched her hand
lightly. He looked gentle and patronizing, like he was trying to
break bad news to a young child. “But there are people out there
capable of all sorts of things.”

“You think there’s a mage out there who’s
been killing people and putting their life energy into sticks?”

He let the stick slip out of his hands and
roll across the tablecloth. “When you put it like that, it sounds
pretty horrible. Don’t you think we ought to find and stop
them?”

“Let the MIB deal with it. That’s what they
do,” she said. “Or better yet, let the cops deal with it, because
the cops will give the murderer a fair trial instead of just making
her disappear.”

“Her?” Paul asked. He picked up the wand
again, but this time instead of playing with it, he held it still
and leaned forward. “Why do you say her?”

“You think it’s me. You think I’m killing
people to make these wands.”

“I didn’t say people.”

“I don’t kill animals either,” Susan said.
She didn’t like the way this was going. For a while there, she’d
been having a nice dinner with a cute guy who liked her. Now she
was being accused of killing animals for black magic. “And even if
I were, it’s none of their business. It’s not illegal to kill
animals, unless they’re cats and dogs.”

Paul steepled his hands in front of his face
and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t going how I
planned.”

“How did you think I was going to respond,
when you accused me of killing puppies? Or is it kittens?”

“I don’t know what they’re accusing you of.
They just said it was a territorial conflict and they wanted
information about you. They said they sent a translator, but you
murdered him, and—”

“Murdered? I’m supposed to have murdered—wait
a minute … you mean the little Ken doll?” Susan asked. “What does
he have to do with the wands? Is someone killing those little
people?”

“The parliament sent him to talk to you, but
he was murdered, so they assumed you killed him to keep something
secret. I was supposed to find out what that was.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Susan said. “I was
investigating, trying to find out what killed him, but I couldn’t
find anything, not even what kind of gnosti he was. I didn’t know
they could talk. I figured he was one of the garden fey.”

“Now I’m totally confused,” Paul said.

“Okay, let me figure this out,” Susan said.
“You said that the parliament was concerned about a territorial
conflict. So someone’s muscling in on their turf. It has something
to do with the wands, and we are pretty sure that someone is using
blood magic to make the wands. Does the parliament make wands too?
Is this a business thing?”

Paul snorted and quirked his mouth in a
half-smile. “No. We’re all thaumaturges, not witches. We get our
power from the goddess.”

“So if they’re not interested in the wands,
they’re probably interested in whoever is killing animals to make
the wands,” Susan said. “Is your goddess big on animal rights?”

“No. Owls have no problem with killing.
They’ll kill anything edible except …” Paul stared off as if he had
a sudden thought. “But what if it’s not animals? What if someone is
killing translators? Sunwards don’t kill translators, ever. It’s
some kind of treaty they made a long time before I joined the
light. In exchange, the translators … well, they translate for when
an owl needs to talk to a member of another species.”

“Why do you say owl?”

“Because almost all Sunwards are owls.”

“Are you an owl?” she asked. She’d seen
enough not-normal happenings since she came to this reality that
she didn’t want to take anything for granted anymore. “The old lady
at the Mercado called you one of the owl people.”

“No, I’m a man.” Paul shook his head. “I’ve
tried to turn into an owl, but I’ve never been able to do it.”

“Me neither,” Susan said.

Actually, she wasn’t really sure if that was
true or not. Susie, her counterpart who used to inhabit this body
before she decided to switch places with Susan, knew all kinds of
magic. Every time Susan took a browse through the spellbook, she
found something else she hadn’t seen before. Last time she had gone
looking for a spell to make dark roots look blonder (the spell
components were more expensive than a professional dye job, so she
didn’t do it,) she’d found a spell to make a female cat
uninterested in sex. Not infertile, just uninterested: a female
feline saltpeter.