Inherited Magic (14 page)

Chapter 47

John woke up, showered, and dressed with an acute awareness of how different the world suddenly was—he paused to correct himself—how different his perception of the world was. He wanted to appreciate the beauty and wonder that was suddenly open to him, but he also wanted to be in control, to be able to shut it off. Some small part of him knew he was in too far for Owen to help, past his measure of wisdom and skill that he had come to depend on for so much over the past few months. He had to try though and had to hope that he could be . . . Normal was out of the question a long time ago. He just wanted to be able to fake it.

The cold winter air was a welcome slap in the face. It was bracing and reassuring as he walked to the Brown Line stop on Montrose. It was a long walk, and he could have taken the Red Line and transferred, but there was a screaming urgency for direct lines in John’s mind. It was reinforced when he sat down on the L, and the Tribesman was in the window seat next to him. For a brief instant, John was enraged, and he could feel himself getting hot on the back of his neck. He opened his mouth to let his imaginary friend have a few choice words, when he noticed how startled the Tribesman looked and slowly realized that he was startled about John. In a flash of realization, John knew that the Tribesman knew somehow that he was different.

There was a silent and awkward moment that was broken when the Tribesman picked up a bright plastic bag that had been tucked by his feet, pulled out a doughnut that was apparently filled with over sweet fake jelly, and offered it to John with a sorrowful smile. John accepted the doughnut; it was fresh, still warm. He took a bite of it without taking his eyes off the Tribesman, who fidgeted with his spear and plastic bag.

“I'm sorry,” said the tribesman, with a British accent better suited to high tea than doughnuts and spears. John was so shocked he stopped in mid bite. “We had no idea you had a complete Primer. We . . . I thought you just had a fragment, like Owen's. Had I known . . .” He shook his head sadly, and his iron gray dreadlocks swayed gently. They reminded John of a weeping willow.

“Help me with this,” John asked.             

“I can't yet. You have set in motion a storm of events that is still gaining strength. If you survive it, we'll talk. I'll tell you this, though: There is no turning back.” With that, the Tribesman's pattern folded itself flat, then bent in on itself and vanished along a thin golden thread that arced south and over the horizon.

John sat there in a frustrated silence till it was time to get off the train.

Owen's pawn shop was surrounded by police cars with their lights on. There were a few news vans across the street and directly in front of the door was an ambulance with its lights off. John was filled with a sense of dread as he walked towards the yellow police tape that kept a small crowd at bay and was watched over by a young officer.

“What happened?” John asked, trying not to sound anxious.

“Nothing, move along.” It almost sounded like a damn joke.

“I work here; what happened?”

“Wait here.” The officer stepped back and conferred with his radio in hushed tones. After a few moments, he stepped forward and asked him; “You John Carter?”

“Yeah.” John answered, wondering how bad it could be. After all, the FBI was supposedly already watching him.

“The detectives want to talk to you.” The officer lifted the yellow tape and escorted him into the store, where a number of plainclothes cops were leaning against the counter talking. The door to the back room was open, and John could see a lot of activity, but had a hard time figuring out what was going on.

“You Carter?” asked one of the cops. He had on a cheap winter coat over layers of clothing and looked anything but police-like.

“Yeah. Is Owen OK?”

“When was the last time you saw him?” asked his partner, who was dressed like he either had just left or was on his way to a dance club.

“A couple of days ago, when I was at work. I called yesterday, but no one answered. Is Owen all right?” John was getting fed up with having the police in his life so often.

“He was shot and killed this morning. Do you know anyone that would wanna hurt him?”

“Owen’s hurt?”

“No, he’s dead.  I’m real sorry, but did he have any enemies?”  The detective’s tone of voice didn’t change, he was being patient with John, or as patient as he could be.

“No.” How was he gonna explain that there was some model perfect bitch that threatened to kill them both without explaining why. What was he supposed to do say; “Oh, yeah. There is this one woman who is pissed off because we weren't discrete enough when we killed a magical madman that I created somehow.” John was a lot of things, but dumb enough to say that was not one of them.

“How long you been working for him?”

“A couple of months.”

“You own a gun?”

“No.”

“Why don't I believe you?”

John was about to make a smartass comment, but stopped himself because he knew where this was going. Either they were intimidating him to see what would happen, or they thought he did it, and a smartass remark, no matter how funny, was not the way to go. “Officer, when I was broke and had no place else to turn Owen gave me a job. He tried to look after me and be a father figure. Owen was perhaps the smartest man I've ever met and he helped me a lot. I would never hurt him.”

“You know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think you got caught slipping cash out of the register. The two of you argued, and you shot him with a gun you stole out of the back room.”

“No.” Owen’s death was a shock that had instantly changed John’s demeanor.

“Where were you last night?”

“Home, asleep.”

“Alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Cuff ’im and take ’im in.” The detective smiled in a cruel way. What John had no way of knowing was that this particular detective no longer cared. He just wanted his cases closed, and the judge could sort out who was guilty or innocent.

John was handcuffed and read his Miranda rights before being taken outside to a waiting police car. As he was waiting for the officer to pull away, John looked out the window at the small crowd across the street. Most of them were bland; one was not and neither was his pattern.

He standing at the back of the crowd with a smirk. He was tall enough to stand out and looked like one of the guys you see striking a pose in an expensive suit for a fashion magazine for men. You know the kind, nice suits on one page, and scantily clad women on the next. His pattern was muffled, hidden, by the pattern of his coat, had John not altered his perceptions he would have missed him completely. It was a neat trick and John made a point of remembering it, being invisible might be useful someday. There was another thing about him that troubled John: he was wearing a purple scarf that was easily the counterpart to the one that Bitch (yes, she deserved a capital B), Veronica, wore.

The squad car pulled away, and as John lost sight of the guy in the crowd, he was enraged. Owen had been killed for imaginary control over territories that no longer mattered; he was killed for power and control over nothing. He felt tears of rage and sorrow start to compete with each other and relented to their conflict. Slumping low in the back seat, he let the city go by because he was alone again. John sadly mused that the more we look up to fathers and mentors, the more painful the void is when they are gone.

Chapter 48

The police fingerprinted him and took his picture. This time, it was not amusing. John wandered between depression and anger, with frequent stops at frustration. He could do a lot to catch Owen's killer if people would just get the hell out of his way. It was easy for him to see how a truly powerful and skilled mage would be tempted to use their abilities to sidestep all this and just get things done. So easy, that he was toying with the idea himself. Finally, they were done processing him and dumped him in an interrogation room, handcuffed to a rail on the table.

After a while, a couple of new detectives walked in and started to interview him. At first, they played nice, and after he stuck to the truth they started pressuring him. Explaining just how hard it was gonna be on him if he kept lying, how long he was gonna be in jail, and a very graphic explanation of how he was going to be raped in prison. John was sick of it. He almost told one of the detectives that he could see the tumor behind his left ear; it was an incongruous pattern that was unpleasant to look at.

“Look, Johnny,” said the man with the tumor. “Just tell us where you put the gun and why you killed him. So we can get this over with.”

“What? So we can all go home and forget it?” John tried not to stare at the tumor. “I didn't do it, I have no idea who did it, and I—”

He was interrupted when Special Agent Harris entered the room unannounced. She was carrying a large, expensive briefcase.

“I'm sorry, John. Were you asking for a lawyer?”

“I was and am, asking for a lawyer.” John knew full well he would never get a lawyer while Agent Harris was around.

“Too bad,” said Agent Harris through a venomous smile. The two detectives looked at her, startled that she had so blatantly violated their suspect’s rights. They were both painfully aware of the camera and microphone in the room and were wondering how to get out of the situation. “Gentlemen, this suspect and I have a history. As of now, he's in FBI custody. Your CO has all the paperwork.”

“He killed the pawn shop owner —”

“No, he didn't, and we can prove it. We've had him under surveillance for some time.”

The detectives looked at each other and wordlessly decided it was best not to mess with a Fed's suspect, so they left.

Special Agent Harris set her briefcase on the table and looked at John for a moment, gloating, before opening her briefcase with a snap of latches. She removed a small ceramic disc and set it on the table between them. She ran her finger around the edge of it, and the center gave off a faint blue glow. John was not surprised that it altered the general patterns of the room and space around them.

“Don't worry; it just prevents recording or eavesdropping.”

“I can see that.”

“I'm sure you can.” She pulled a large manila folder out of her briefcase. “You're in deep now, about to die. Veronica and her pretty boy are going to off you like they did the others, like they did Owen.” John sat back and said nothing; he studied Harris's pattern. She was dying her hair to cover some premature gray, perhaps it was the stress of the job? He also noted an old scar in her pattern on her right side; it went under her liver and to her back. She’d been shot.

“I suppose you're here to save me and put me somewhere you can study me.”

“At this point, we can't interfere.”

“Why the rescue since you can’t interfere?”

“Because, as dumb as you are, there is a chance you'll survive, but no chance you'll survive getting shanked in jail.”

“You keep saying I’m in danger.”

“Veronica has killed a lot of other mages, not always for territory. Our sources tell us she is looking for and may have found some ancient golden book.”

“She's killing people for a book?” John tried not to think about The Book—the Primer, as the Tribesman had called it—that was hidden in his apartment. At no point did John feel that it should be seen by the FBI or any other government agency.

“No, past tense, because we think she has one.” She paused and looked at him for a moment and seemed to be measuring him. Even though she felt he was lacking and not up to the task, she had no choice. “No more games, John.”

She opened the manila folder on the desk and spread out several photos. They were crime scene photos of dead bodies. Men and women slumped in pools of blood. There was one that was different though: it was a charred and almost skeletal body on an autopsy table. She held up Veronica’s picture. “We know about her. Tell me about him and I will tell you who killed Owen and where to find him.” She put a mug shot of the man he had shot on the table next to morgue photo.

“Who was he?”

“A career criminal, mostly small time. He was wanted for the sexual assault of some college girls.” Agent Harris saw John relax slightly and felt she might have an advantage.

“I know who did it.”

She locked eyes with him for a heartbeat. “Who and why?”

“He saw a pattern; he wasn't meant to see it and couldn't understand it. He went insane.”

“Pattern? You mean spell?”

“Call it what you want.”

“Where did he find the pattern?”

“When my apartment got waterlogged, my notebook got soaked, and the ink ran. I think he found it there, but I don't know how.” John again felt the shame and guilt of being foolish all over again.

“He was working with his uncle, who worked for your landlord doing maintenance work. You saved the tax payers the price of a trial. He was scum. Why did the spells drive him crazy?”

“Go ask your 'sources,' because I don't know.” John was uncomfortable talking about these things so openly with anyone but Owen. He sighed and accepted that he was going to be missing Owen for a very long time. “Now, tell me about who killed Owen. Was it Veronica?”

“No, but she was behind it.” She handed John a photograph of the guy he had seen lurking across the street from the crime scene. Even in the bad surveillance picture, he looked like he had posed for it. “His name is Peter Winters. He's Veronica’s boyfriend, and we think student. He's slippery as hell and we have a hard time keeping track of him, but we know he met her three years ago in New York.”

“Where can I find him?”

“You gonna kill him?”

“I don't know.” John was at least being honest. He had a rage in him that lived off the pain of losing Owen. He had killed before, and he was pretty sure they were going to try and kill him next. This is what Agent Harris had been suggesting all along.

Agent Harris looked at John, measuring him. Would he? Could he? Should she let him? Was it the only way to stop Veronica and protect the innocent? If she let him go, and he killed Peter, they could use that to control him. It was pretty clear John had killed the other guy, but there was no way to prove it. This was dangerous territory ethically. There was no question that she would be responsible if she let John go and he killed. He would be killing another mage though, and putting himself firmly in her grasp. “He's staying downtown at the Congress Hotel.”

“Am I under arrest still?”

“No.”

“I'm leaving.” John, for the first time, used magic in front of someone other than Owen. He applied a bit of force to the ratchet that locked the handcuffs, and they fell away as he stood up.

Agent Harris was unimpressed and not surprised.