Spellbound (6 page)

“Let’s try that again.”

Francis was dragged up by the shirt and placed on the bench. The blow had staggered him, but he’d felt worse. Francis’ initial reaction was to use his Power. There were dozens of items scattered around the detective’s office that would look better stuck through the G-man’s ribs, but he needed to see what this was about first.

“Will you get a load of that bruise? You sure did get banged around during that attack, didn’t you, boyo? Let’s try this again.” Crow returned to his seat, perched on the edge of the desk. “Normally I only get to beat confessions out of darkies or bohunks. I never thought I’d get to beat a confession out of a rich kid. If only mom could see me now.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Yes. I. Can. State of emergency, OCI is now in charge of any investigations involving Actives. Things have changed. You just don’t know how much yet. So tell me, Francis, why is it that there have been two major acts of magical terrorism in the last year and you were a survivor of
both
?”

The Peace Ray had been aimed at his estate in Mar Pacifica because an Iron Guard wanted to blot a group of Grimnoir off the face of the Earth.
Today?
“Just lucky I guess.”

Crow casually backhanded him. Francis’ head snapped around.

“The assassin . . . Did you know him?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve never seen him before.”

“Maybe you’ve seen this?” Crow held out his hand. In it was a familiar gold ring with a black stone. A Grimnoir ring.

This was very bad.
“I don’t know.”

All knights received one when they took the oath. It was spellbound with a few minor wards, the insides engraved with designs of Power. They were useful tools and a symbol of the office. Francis didn’t wear his in public. He was too famous, photographed too much, and the Society didn’t need the exposure. He always kept his ring nearby though . . . Was that his? Had they searched his luggage? Did this OCI know about the Society?

“What’s the ring for?”

“It’s just a trinket. I don’t know. Is that mine? Because I’ve got lots of rings.”

Crow held it up to the light. “There’s writing on the inside. Magic? Isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Francis said evenly.

“Funny. This was on what was left of your dead German friend . . .” Crow set the Grimnoir ring on the desk, then reached into his pants pocket to take something out. He placed an identical ring next to the first. “This one was on the man you decapitated. Or was it the other way around? Did I get them mixed up? Hard to tell, since they’re
identical
, even down to the funny writing inside.”

The killer had a Grimnoir ring? Had the killer been a member of the Society?
Impossible!

Crow got tired of waiting. “What? No reaction?”

“I’m not a jeweler.” Francis sniffed. “I’d like to talk to an attorney now. The lawsuits are going to be very impressive. I don’t know what your agency pays, but I hope you like soup lines. I’ve got
butlers
with a bigger salary than you.”

“Oh, I’m not in this for the money.” Crow shook his head sadly. “Tsk tsk, young Francis. I’m trying to have an honest conversation here and you’re trying to complicate matters with legal mumbo jumbo.” He came off the desk in a flash. Francis barely had time to brace himself before Crow slugged him in the mouth. Francis saw stars. Crow stepped away, shaking his hand loose. “God, I love this job.”

That’s enough of that nonsense.
The next time Crow got up, Francis was going to teach him a lesson in humility. There was a solid-looking paperweight sitting on the desk. Bouncing it off his teeth at fifty miles an hour ought to do the trick. He lifted his head with a groan and looked the G-man square in the eyes. “I don’t know anything.”

“Your bodyguard had a weird thing on his chest, half tattoo, half scar. What was that?”

Since Jake Sullivan had worked out the kinks, Heinrich had volunteered to be bound to a Healing spell a few months back. It had been painful and dangerous, and a fat lot of good it had done him. It helped you recover faster, but too much damage at once and you still died just like anybody else would. “Beats me. I don’t know what my employees do off the clock.”

“I know you don’t have anything like that on you. I asked the doctor after he patched you up. But strangely enough, the man you gave the old guillotine treatment had something similar . . . Bigger and more complicated, but the same general idea. That strike you as odd?”

Francis’ response was a stony silence. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. Somebody had tried to kill the president and was pinning it on the Grimnoir.

The lack of response seemed to anger the man. “Was Zangara a loose end that needed tying? Was your job to kill your triggerman before he could talk? Was that why you were here, Francis, as cleanup for your little magical plot?” Crow shouted, spittle flying from his lips. “You thought you could get away with it! You people always think you can get away with it. Well, you aren’t better than anyone else. I got you, Francis. You helped try to kill the president.”

“That idea’s got holes an imbecile could drive a blimp through. You must have come up with it yourself. You’re quite the gumshoe.”

Crow came off the desk, hand curling into a fist. Francis concentrated on the heavy paperweight, reached for his Power, and—

Nothing.

Crow knocked him silly. Francis hit the tile and Crow kicked him in the face. Francis got his arms up to protect himself as Crow kicked him repeatedly. “You tried to use magic on
me?
” Crow stomped him hard, again and again. One shoe caught the cast and ground the freshly broken bones. Francis cried out and curled into a ball. The door flew open with a bang. Several Miami cops spilled into the room. Crow was roughly pulled away and dragged from the room. shouting, “Magic won’t work on an OCI man, asshole. You better warn your friends.”

The cops were trying to help. Somebody asked him a question. His head was swimming and he couldn’t remember what his answer had been. His Power had failed him. For the first time in his life, when he’d reached for it, the magic hadn’t been there. They got him onto the bench. Somebody stuffed a towel against his nose to catch the blood. There was more commotion in the doorway. Francis recognized the man standing there waving a briefcase as a UBF attorney. How had his Power failed? Somehow he was on his feet, and weaving his way down the hall. The lawyer was talking to the police, rapid-fire legalese flying faster than bullets. They were heading for the exit.

Crow had been backed into a corner and blocked off by two cops. His face was red. “Everything’s changed now, Francis. Your kind aren’t untouchable anymore.”

“This isn’t over!” Francis shouted back.

“We’re watching you.” The cops had to hold Crow back. “Hunting season’s coming! Opening day . . .” He stuck out his finger like a pretend gun. “Bang.”

Francis made it outside. He hadn’t realized how late it was. The darkness was a bit of a shock. He stumbled down the steps to a waiting car. Flashbulbs popped and photographs were taken. The attorney made sure that the press got plenty of shots. From how hot his face felt, he knew he had to look like a bad meatloaf. The driver came around and opened the door.

“Get us out of here. Snap to it,” Francis ordered. The attorney barely had time to climb in before they were rolling. “Give me your pen.”

“Huh?”

Francis reached over and snatched a golden ink pen from the lawyer’s pocket. He held it in the palm of his hand and concentrated. The pen lifted, spun in a lazy circle just like he wanted it to, then fell back in place. His Power had returned. It felt perfectly normal, but when he’d tried it against the government man it was like his magic wasn’t even there.

He tossed the pen back to the surprised attorney. “Crow’s right,” he mumbled.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Francis stared out the window. “Everything has changed . . . Driver, get us to the airfield.”

The Miami Police detained Crow. Federal lawman or not, he had just assaulted a prisoner, and not just some prisoner off of the street, but an extremely important man,
and
the press knew. Heads were going to roll. The locals put calls in to contact Crow’s superiors, but rapidly discovered that his superiors were very difficult to reach. Crow waited long enough for the cops to not have a direct eye on him and then easily made his escape. There was no cell that could hold him if he didn’t feel like it. He even stopped long enough to pick up everything that had been confiscated: his fabricated identification papers, his .45, the Dymaxion nullifier, and his coat, before walking right out the door.

Later, the police would finally get through to somebody at the mysterious Office of the Coordinator of Information, only to be told that they had no officer by the name of Crow. The U.S. Attorney’s office would be stymied as well. Eventually the whole thing would go away like these things tended to do.

His men picked him up on the corner. The automobile barely even slowed as he got into the back. “Status?” he asked in greeting.

“The President is going to live, but he might still lose the use of his legs.”

“That’s unfortunate news.” Crow feigned sympathy rather well. “I don’t know if the country is ready for a cripple to be in charge. What about the prisoner?”

“He’s been secured, sedated, and sent with two Dymaxions to headquarters.”

“Good news. Where is Stuyvesant now?”

“Heading for the air station like you predicted.”

“Excellent.” Crow’s manner was completely different than when he’d been questioning Stuyvesant. Inside, he’d acted hot-headed, erratic, and violent. That had been necessary. He needed Stuyvesant rattled. Out here it was back to business, so Crow was collected and focused. Hot, cold, good, evil, friendly, vicious, it didn’t matter, they were just modes. He picked the one he wanted and wore it like a suit. It was all about whatever it took to get the job done.

The brazen assault on Stuyvesant would raise questions as to why an investigator had been so angry with the rich kid and supposed hero of the hour—even though Stuyvesant’s presence had been an unexpected development and certainly not one to be wasted—but with the press there, rumors would begin to spread about Stuyvesant’s possible involvement. And all that would occur without the OCI having to say anything official at all.

“I rattled him. I want Stuyvesant’s every move watched. I want to know who he talks to, who he calls, who he meets, where he goes. I want to know how his breakfast tastes and I want to know the temperature of his bathwater. The second he meets someone else on the list, do the same to them.” He thought about it. “And I want two layers on that kid. Make one obvious but put our best men on the second. When Stuyvesant thinks he’s lost the first, that’s when he’ll make contact with his conspirators. Don’t underestimate him. He’s sharper than he looks. Most importantly, watch out for that Traveler girl. The second she shows up to check on her boyfriend, I want her brought in.”

“Yes, Mr. Crow,” the OCI agents answered in unison.

“
Alive.
” The girl was the most valuable one in the bunch. If they lost her, the boss would be very upset. “What else have we got?”

The driver spoke. “The situation in New York has improved. That mercenary girl found the Heavy. Our men will snatch him shortly.”

“No. I want a soft touch on that one. Play it easy. Check the reports. He’s worked with the Bureau a bunch. Find somebody he doesn’t hate, if there is such a thing, and use them to make contact. Borrow whoever we need to, but do
not
let the BI know what this is about.”

There was a serious professional rivalry developing between the new OCI and the entrenched Bureau of Investigation. J. Edgar Hoover thought that Active criminals should be treated like any other type of criminals. He saw OCI’s lumping of all undesirable Actives together as foolish. Hoover grumbled about violating civil liberties, but Crow figured he just didn’t want to lose clout.

“Let the Heavy take the call and see what that’s all about. Then we’ll take him down.” Crow didn’t use the word arrest, because from what he’d heard about the Heavy, it would be a bloodbath. “Nothing flashy. There’s no way we could take that one alive.”

They only knew who a handful of these people were. Stuyvesant was one, but he was just a kid. The Mover was like a tree. You could shake a tree to see what fell out. Sullivan? That son of a bitch had strolled through Second Somme. The Heavy was a rock. You shake a rock and it was liable to just roll over and squish you.

“How do you want us to handle it?”

“Wait until he’s done talking, then put a bullet in him . . . Make that lots of bullets. Don’t let our boys take any lip from the military intel types that are there, either. Let the Heavy take the call, then pop him. I’ll fill out the paperwork.”

“Yes, Mr. Crow.”

Crow wasn’t his real name. He’d gone by dozens of names over the years, doing things outside the law for people too squeamish to do them through official channels. He’d worked for everyone from United Fruit to Woodrow Wilson, though this was the first time he had an entire government agency at his disposal. Plus the laws were actually on his side for once, or would be soon at least. Those were being written now.

No, Crow wasn’t his real name, but it was real enough to accomplish his current assignment.

Eliminate the Active group known as the Grimnoir Society.

Chapter 3

The more we progress the more we tend to progress. We advance not in arithmetical but in geometrical progression. We draw compound interest on the whole capital of knowledge and virtue which has been accumulated since the dawning of time. Some eighty thousand years are supposed to have existed between Paleolithic and Neolithic man. Yet in all that time he only learned to grind his flint stones instead of chipping them. But within our fathers’ lives what changes have there not been? The railway and the telegraph, chloroform and applied electricity. All before the invention of magic. In the span of my own life what has man not accomplished? Telekinesis, teleportation, pyrokinesis, biological manipulation, communication with spirits. Ten years now go further than a thousand then, not so much on account of our finer intellects as because the light we have shows us the way to more. Primeval man stumbled along with peering eyes, and slow, uncertain footsteps. Now we walk briskly towards our unknown goal.