Burned (A Magic Bullet Novel Book 1) (15 page)

M
y mini-mart
meeting with Tom Watt finally yielded a much-needed invitation to visit Oscar Martinez, an official with the Enclave. Because the location of the magicians' headquarters was secret, I received a text from Oscar's assistant, telling me to wait in LOVE Park for further instructions.

Officially, the park is called John F. Kennedy Plaza, but everyone refers to it as LOVE Park because of a sculpture that consists of large red letters that spell out the word 'love.' I was mildly surprised they wanted to meet me in such a public location until I arrived there.

The park was closed for major renovations. The construction crew was nowhere to be seen, probably on the first of many breaks -- not that I blamed them, the heat was already brutal and it was only early morning.

I slipped past the sign warning people like me not to enter and looked around. Pigeons were still milling around the plaza waiting for food. Clearly, they hadn't received the memo about the closure.

"I'm here," I said. "Anyone coming to throw a bag over my head? Maybe a tasteful blindfold?"

A fat pigeon waddled over to me. I was about to shoo it away when I noticed a note strapped to its skinny leg. A carrier pigeon. The Enclave was kicking it old school.

I removed the note. It instructed me to drink the vial located under the pigeon's wing.

Gently, I lifted the wing and, sure enough, there was a small vial of pink liquid there. I wasn't too excited about drinking an unknown liquid in the middle of LOVE Park without any backup, but I didn't see much choice. If I wanted answers, then I needed to drink. So I did.

Immediately, my head began to swim and I plopped down on the ground beside the pigeon.

"This better be safe," I said to the pigeon. The words came out garbled, not that the pigeon would have understood me anyway. The last thing I remembered before I fell unconscious was staring into the pigeon's beady eyes.

I woke up in a reception area made of clear glass. Everything around me appeared to be glass, from the receptionist's desk to the walls between rooms. It was a giant fishbowl and carnival funhouse rolled into one.

The young man at the reception desk noticed me sitting up.

"Terrific, you're up," he said, with an upbeat energy that I generally reserved for -- well, never. "My name's Justin if you need anything. I'll let Mr. Martinez know you're ready."

I wiped the drool from my chin and studied my surroundings. Possible exits. Number of magicians. The glass was disorienting. I could see magicians all the way down the row of rooms. A couple of the rooms were full of people. It seemed to be a class of some sort.

"Justin, any chance I could get a drink of water or is it vials of drugs only here?" My throat was dry and hoarse.

"On the table beside you, Miss Winters," he chirped.

I glanced beside me and, voilà, there it was. I gulped it down eagerly, not caring that I was dribbling half of it down my top.

"Miss Winters, I presume."

A pair of men's sandals appeared in front of me. I followed them up past the hairy legs to the red board shorts and black T-shirt until I reached the deeply tanned face of Oscar Martinez. His wavy black hair was slicked back. I noticed that the ends curled up at the nape of his neck.

"You must be Oscar Martinez." I stood and wobbled slightly.

He held my elbow until I regained my balance. "Don't worry. It'll be out of your system in another minute."

"Good, because I'd prefer to be coherent for this conversation. Otherwise, I would've met you at a bar."

He smiled. "Come this way. I've reserved a room where we can talk privately."

I followed him down a corridor and we passed by the fishbowls that I could see from the reception area.

"This is an interesting layout," I remarked, motioning to the glass walls.

"It has a certain aesthetic appeal," he said.

"And you can keep an eye on your mages," I said. "I guess there's not a lot of trust in the Enclave."

I saw his shoulders tense. "I assure you, Miss Winters, unlike your castes, trust is not an issue within the Enclave."

Ooh, snap.

"Hey, I know her." I pointed to one of the rooms where Pinky stood at the head of the group. I recognized her by her gum. A huge bubble emerged from her mouth and she sucked it back in, like a frog catches a fly.

"Pinky is one of our more capable mages," he said. "She teaches some of the basic classes."

"But she's so young," I said.

"Age is not necessarily indicative of skill level. You of all djinn should know that." He paused in front of their room. "Observe."

In a flash, the inhabitants of the room disappeared. All except Pinky. She spotted me in the corridor and I saw her nose scrunch up in confusion. She lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave.

"She's teaching them how to do cloaking spells," Oscar said.

Before I could wave back, the students were visible again. Oscar continued walking so I followed him. I wondered whether he knew about her involvement with O'Leary. Too many mages were linked up with mobsters these days for the Enclave to remain in the dark. Maybe there was an alliance the djinn and the Nephilim didn't know about. I decided to test the boundaries.

"Why does the Enclave allow its mages to work for criminals?" I asked. Very subtle.

He gestured to an open doorway and I stepped inside. There was no door. Just an area cut out where a door would be. There were two chairs inside the room. Thankfully, they were not made of glass. My bony human butt needed a cushion.

"Why does the Marida court allow its djinn to stray from the flock?" He smiled again. His teeth were unnaturally white and I found myself squinting from the glare. "Why does PAN allow its best agents to be poached by the Shadow Elite?"

Touché. "Is this your way of infiltrating the crime families?" I asked. "Send a few pretty mages in to help them out, keep their eyes and ears open?"

His smile faded and my eyes relaxed. "Pinky is young, powerful and stubborn," he said. "As I'm sure you know, it's a difficult combination. She's a teenager with teenaged tendencies." He sighed gently. "We hope it's a phase."

I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, but it probably wasn't a phase. I was a prime example.

"So where is this secret location?" I asked, looking around. There were no windows in any of the rooms. "We're underground."

"Underneath a few of the city's greatest treasures," he said.

Instinctively, I glanced up, trying to picture what was above us. The Liberty Bell? Independence Hall?

"Our mutual friend says that you are investigating the recent spate of murders, among other things," Oscar said. His eyes zeroed in on a scuffmark on the floor. He retrieved a red and white-checkered handkerchief from his pocket and attacked the mark with vigor.

Interesting to note that even magic couldn't cure OCD.

"I keep turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time," I said. "So unless I can figure out who's behind the murders, I'm going to be the one serving time for them." I held up my cuffs. "These are punishment enough. I'm not interested in a life behind bars, too."

"Yes, an unfortunate situation," he said. "Any news on the who or why?"

I pressed my lips together. "Not yet. I've been a little distracted with trying to track down a stolen heirloom and two murderers."

"Two?" he echoed. He refolded his handkerchief and returned it neatly to the pocket of his shorts.

"I think there are two people involved," I explained. "A mage and someone else."

His dark eyebrows shot up. "You're accusing one of ours? Do you realize that some of the victims have been magicians? Patrick Sells was a devastating loss. I trained him myself."

Patrick was Day-Glo sneakers guy.

"I'm not accusing anyone in particular yet." I explained my theory based on the murder at Viper Pit. He looked thoughtful.

"But as you witnessed here," Oscar said, "even our beginners learn cloaking spells. That hardly narrows it down."

"What about glamours?" I asked. "I'm not certain, but the killers might be trying to frame me. I think the mage even glamoured herself to look like me."

"Glamours are also for early learners, I'm afraid."

I suspected as much.

"Watt says that you have a problem with unregistered mages," I said. "Is it possible it could be one of them?"

Oscar bristled. "It's not so much a problem as a concern."

Okay, he wanted to play semantics. That was fine with me, as long as I got my answers.

"The Enclave is concerned enough to engage outside help," I said. "What happened to make it a priority?"

He stared at me and I knew he was deciding what to say, if anything at all. He drummed his fingers on his thigh and seemed to make up his mind.

"Unregistered mages have always been an issue for us," he began. "It's not new. We can't possibly keep track of all the illegitimate children that might possess magic. For that, we'd need to keep far closer tabs on the colony's djinn than we are capable of."

"Or comfortable with," I added. A djinni didn't need some pervert magician recording each and every dalliance with a human in case it resulted in an offspring. If that were the case, Farah would need dedicated mage support.

"Indeed." He stretched his neck from side to side. "There have been a few incidents in other colonies recently where an unregistered magician used magic to harm humans. Our colleagues were, thankfully, able to clean up the mess quietly."

"So you're being proactive," I said.

"The Mid-Atlantic Colony is viewed as one of the stronger, more organized groups," he explained. "We cannot afford to have rogue magicians wreaking havoc within our bounds. It weakens us all." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "If this murderous team includes a mage, it is our duty to stop them by whatever means necessary."

My thoughts turned to Pinky teaching others the cloaking spell. What if Pinky were so desperate to prove herself to her new crime family that she agreed to participate in these hideous murders? If there was a crime syndicate connection, that could mean Pinky, or any one of the mobster mages, was involved.

"And what if one of your own is responsible?" I asked. "What if the mage is a registered member of the Enclave?"

Oscar's expression grew somber. "Then we will do what we must. The penalty for murder among magicians is the same as for djinn."

"Death," I said and he nodded.

A
fter our meeting
, the kind magicians at the Enclave left me on the lawn in front of Independence Hall, lending credence to my theory that the Enclave's headquarters was underground there. Enough tourists took pictures of me with their phones that I was pretty sure my unconscious body was trending on at least one social media site.

I decided to seek refuge in the nearest safe place to process what I learned. That happened to be Mix's apartment.

He'd arrived home from work only twenty minutes before and was trying to decompress with the help of his game console.

"I mean, it's too much of a coincidence, right?" I said, as I opened a can of fake spaghetti in fake tomato sauce and dumped it evenly into two bowls. Magical drugs made me hungry.

"You showing up at multiple crime scenes?" he asked.

"Not that. Mages start working with mobsters and chaos ensues. Maybe O'Leary's involved and has Pinky helping him."

"And they're using you as a distraction?" he queried.

"Possibly, but why commit the murders? Is he trying to muscle into the organ guy's turf? Oust him as the leader?"

I placed both bowls in the microwave and covered them with a plastic lid. Mix wasn't big on cooking so his food options were limited. I briefly wondered whether Paulette cooked.

Mix cast a sidelong glance at me. "Why didn't you run straight to Farah with all this?"

"You were closer."

"There's beer in the fridge," he said, heading back into the living room.

"Don't you have any vodka?" His silence answered my question.

I opened the fridge and pulled out two bottles. Now where was the bottle opener? It sucked to have to look for things and not simply summon them into my awaiting hand. I peered inside the top drawer and my hand froze.

A semiautomatic handgun rested on top of a notepad in the drawer. I yanked it from its hiding spot and marched into the living room.

"What's this?" I asked sternly.

Mix glanced up from the video game he'd started. "A gun." He continued to play his game.

"I can see that. What is it doing in your kitchen drawer with the crossword puzzles? Any why do you have crossword puzzles?"

"It's Paulette's."

"The crossword or the gun?"

He gave me a pointed look.

"Why does your human girlfriend need a semiautomatic?"

"So she should have a snub-nosed revolver because she's a girl?" he countered. "Alyse, you should be ashamed of yourself."

I blew the air out through my nose. "Jeremy Mix, are you dating a Republican?"

Although he tried to keep his attention on the game, he was failing miserably. "In case you haven't noticed, we live in a rather crime-laden town."

I examined the weapon. It was good quality. I wondered if it had been part of Farah's collection. I checked the chamber and was surprised to see copper bullets.

"Why does she need copper bullets?" I asked. "Who exactly is she protecting herself from?"

Mix stopped his game and stood to take the weapon away. "I doubt she's even aware there's copper in the bullets. It'll work just as well against a human."

I bet Mix would be more concerned if she'd stuffed it full of cold iron bullets.

I frowned at the gun. "Why is it here if she wants to have it for self-defense?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but she sleeps here most nights," he told me and placed the pistol back in the drawer.

"Do you know how to use it?" I asked.

"Of course I do. Now leave it alone. I thought you were making dinner."

"I am. I needed a bottle opener. I can't summon one anymore, remember?" I held up my aggrieved wrists.