Wizard in a Witchy World (7 page)

"I believe you have retained counsel who is intimately familiar with our laws and could explain this to you. But, for sake of clarification, I can hit some of the highlights. First, as an unclassified super, you have no right to a territory," she said.

"You want me to move?" I asked.

"No. As an unclassified you have no residential restrictions. Territory for witches is mostly a responsibility for defending that territory from spiritual and mystical attack. It also delineates the boundaries of recruiting. If I understand wizards correctly, you care little for recruiting," she said.

"True enough," I said. "What about Chamber's County Recreation Area?"

"That is my coven's territory and you will need to get my permission to be there," Camille said.

"And?" I asked.

"That's hardly the purpose of this meeting," she said.

"I disagree. You want to know if I'm going to be a problem. Seems like you have the power to eliminate a source of conflict," I said.

"Are you threatening me?" she asked.

"Think of it as me asking for your permission," I said.

She closed her eyes and sighed. "Fine, Mr. Slade. You are allowed to utilize the Chamber's County Recreation Area," she finally said. "Anything else?"

"I'd like a chance to read through your agreement," I said.

"You've a week."

"Ma'am." I only half recognized the troll woman. This was the first time I’d seen her in decent lighting. I didn’t fully understand trolls, apparently, as she seemed to have two forms. Astonishingly, the ‘small’ form she presently assumed was just under six feet tall, but with her face and ears smoothed, she fit within human norms. Gone was the odd grey skin, tusks and pointy ears.

"Yes, Amak? What is it?"

"It's...." The tall woman looked at me pointedly.

"We're all friends here. Right, Mr. Slade?" Camille asked.

"We're well on our way," I said.

"It's just… There's been another murder," she said.

"Who?"

Felicia reached out to Gabriella, her face ashen. She already knew something.              `

"Benita," she said.

Tears streamed down Gabriella's face. She clearly knew the woman.

"Where? How?" Felicia asked.

"Her apartment. And, it was another mauling… just like Victoria Barrios," Amak replied. "Her daughter, Clarita, is missing. Police think it might be an abduction."

"Mr. Slade, this is an internal matter. Amak will drop you in town," Camille said.

I stood and laid my hand on Gabriella's arm. "I'm sorry, Gabriella."

My heart broke at the depth of pain in her face. This wasn't my place, so I walked toward the door where Amak stood waiting.

Felicia hurried past me with Gabriella one step behind. Amak was blocking our way out, still looking uncomfortably at Camille.

"Move!" Felicia placed her hand on Amak's chest.

There was a weird moment when the six-foot-tall troll looked down her nose at Felicia, who couldn't have been more than five foot three inches - and that was with heels. Felicia’s physical contact was a challenge and Amak looked like she might reciprocate. Then a small amount of energy welled up and discharged from Felicia. Amak's eyes glazed over and she passively took a step away from the door. I would love to have known what in the world Felicia cast to make that happen, but it was neither the time nor the place for inquiry.

"You're with me, pretty boy," Amak said, her eyes clearing as she shook her head.

I followed her through the brightly lit mansion into a wide hallway that joined with the front entryway. The leaded glass doors in front of us soared to fifteen feet. Amak walked fast and I did my best to keep up with her as she pushed her way through the doors and jogged down wide stone steps two at a time. We arrived just in time to see Gabriella's sedan exit the bricked, circular drive.

Amak wasn't wasting any time and headed directly to a small parking lot where her Jeep was parked. I hustled after her, although I was pretty sure she couldn't leave without me.

"Are we okay?" I asked. Amak had removed the Jeep's soft top and I used the roll bar to help me swing into the seat next to her.

"I still owe you a beating, but it's nothing personal," she said, placing her hand on my thigh. "I could probably come up with something we could do to work off your debt, though."

"Oh?" I asked and then it hit me what she was suggesting. "Oh… Uh… let’s put a pin in that. Okay?"

She spun the Jeep’s wheels in the loose sand on top of the brick pavers and I hurriedly pulled the seatbelt across my chest, struggling to click it in place.

"Just keep it in mind," she said and patted my leg.

We rode in silence down a long, asphalt lane that wove through a field of uncut grasses. It was late enough in the fall that the grasses had turned amber and red instead of the green hues of summer. A pheasant ran across the road in front of us and Amak veered in an attempt to run it down, cackling as she did.

The fields gave way to a pine forest, which we drove through for about half a mile before reaching the main gate. Once through the gates, we turned onto a rural two-lane highway and headed toward Leotown.

I finally got my bearings as we crested a hill and the skyline of Leotown rose in the distance. We were a solid thirty-five minutes from downtown, coming in from the north.

Amak turned on a heavy-metal station and seemed to be enjoying herself. Between the music and the wind buffeting us through the open cab of her Jeep, there was no potential for conversation. That suited my mood just fine. I leaned my head back and stared out at the corn fields. Rows and rows of stalks whizzed by, my eyes trying, in a millisecond, to follow each row to the horizon before being forced to move on to the next.

She turned the music down when we finally made it into the downtown area.

"Going to your house?" she asked.

"No. Howling Hounds."

"Copy that," she said.

When we arrived at the coffee shop, I was annoyed to find that my truck was no longer parked where I'd left it.

"Damn it! I must have been towed," I said.

Without warning, Amak turned hard, executing a U-turn in the middle of the street, bouncing over the curbs of the center divider.

"What in the hell?" I complained.

"Impound yard isn't that far. Been there a few times," she said. "Witches are always losing their cars."

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into an industrial area under an elevated section of one of Leotown's main thoroughfares. The impound lot was surrounded by a twelve-foot-tall chain-link fence, complete with circular razor wire on top.

I hopped out of Amak's Jeep as she drove up to a break in the fence where a guard shack had been set up.

"Thanks for the ride," I said.

"Stay out of trouble," she said and pulled away, throwing gravel from her vehicle's heavily knobbed tires.

I chuckled to myself at how our relationship had changed within the last thirty-six hours.

The interior of the guard shack was empty and the lights were off. I did a quick, mental check and realized it was Saturday. Sure enough, the sign inside the window announced they were closed for the weekend. Remind me again, why I liked this town? I considered calling a cab, but it was mid-afternoon and a nice day. I could afford to walk, even though I was five miles from home.

An hour and a half later, I rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill two blocks from Mrs. Willoughby's house and my apartment. My heart sank as I saw a veritable host of police cruisers parked on the street and in the driveway leading to my lab. Whatever was going on, wasn't good.

The door to my lab was destroyed and two people were rummaging through my stuff. The brand new door to my apartment had received the same treatment and even more people were inside.

I caught the eye of a uniformed officer as I stepped toward the dirt path leading to the house.

"Hold on there," she said, stepping between me and the stairs.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Who are you?"

I frowned. "Felix Slade. I live here."

She took a step back and pulled her gun from its holster. "On the ground, Mr. Slade," she demanded.

"What's going on? What's this about?" I asked.

"ON THE GROUND," she repeated. This time she attracted the attention of the officers tearing apart my lab.

I sank to my knees and placed my hands behind my head. Rough hands grabbed my wrists and twisted them one at a time behind my back, locking cuffs on as they did.

"Stand up, Slade." I recognized Officer Lozano’s voice. He pulled on my arm as I complied.

"What's going on?" I asked, turning toward him.

Any doubt as to whether or not Lozano had been infected by lycan was gone. He looked like crap. His eyelids were red and puffy and his eyes extremely bloodshot. It looked like he hadn't shaved in weeks.

"We're taking you downtown for questioning," he said.

"Am I under arrest?" I asked.

"What? Are you Clarence Darrow or something?" The female officer asked.

"Yeah, something like that," I said.

Lozano stepped in. "Lieu wants you to come downtown for a conversation. That going to be a problem?"

"Are you asking or telling? I haven't heard my rights, so it sounds like you're asking. But then, you're trashing my place and I'm in cuffs, so imagine my confusion."

"Let's say Lt. Dukats is giving us a lot of room on this one. She tends to do that when children are missing," he said.

"I'll go with you, but if I'm not under arrest, you're taking the cuffs off," I said.

"We'll take 'em off when we get to the station," Lozano said as his partner patted me down, pulling my wallet and cell phone out as she did.

She pushed my cell phone and wallet into my front pockets. "He's clean."

"Let's go." Lozano pushed me in the direction of the street where several cruisers sat.

"I'll catch up with you at the station, Joe," the female officer said.

"Yup."

"Tell me you have a search warrant for my apartment," I said.

"We do," he said opening a door for me. "Hold on." He un-cuffed my right hand and re-cuffed me so they were in front and then helped me into the back seat.

Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking garage beneath the station and opened the door to the cruiser.

"Cuffs?" I asked, holding them out to him.

"Don't push it, asshole," he said.

There have been times in my life when I’ve regretted the lack of a filter between my brain and my mouth. This turned out to be one of them.

"Rough night?" I asked. It had been the full moon and he looked like hell. It wasn't much of a bet that he'd turned into a wolf last night and awakened this morning naked and in a strange place.

I didn't see it coming when he grabbed and pushed me back into the cruiser. He brought his elbow around and cracked me on the side of the face.

"Keep your mouth shut." His breath stunk and I got a whiff of musty dog.

"Problem, officer?" A woman's voice asked from behind us.

"No, Mr. Slade here stumbled. Just helping him back up," he said and pulled me off the trunk of the cruiser.

"That right?" The uniformed woman looked at me questioningly.

"Yeah, caught my foot in the seatbelt on the way out," I said.

She nodded and walked off.

"You talk to anyone about it yet? Like your Grandma?" I asked.

He looked at me angrily, but didn't toss me again. "My Grandma? What the fuck are you talking about?" He pushed me toward the doors of the basement entry.

"You said she's Virarica," I said. "She'll know what's going on with you."

"She's not in the picture and how do you know something's going on?" he asked and pushed me through an automatic door.

"How's this sound? You blacked out last night and woke up in a strange place."

He spun me around and got in my face again.

"What aren't you telling me?" he asked. "What do you have to do with this?"

I wasn’t going to be his mentor on this. "I've already said too much. You need to talk to your grandmother."

"She's involved?"

"No. There's no freaking conspiracy," I said. "You’re sick, she's a shaman. You need her help."

"I don't believe in that crap," he said.

I shook my head. "You're about to."

"Shut up."

He grabbed my arm and led me to an elevator. We rode in silence and got off at the third floor where he locked me in an interrogation room. Once he was gone, I slid my hands beneath the table and released the locks on the cuffs.

Twenty minutes later the door opened and Lt. Dukats walked in.

"Thank you for coming down, Mr. Slade," Dukats said.

"Like I had a choice."

She looked at the cuffs I'd set on the table.

"We're looking for a missing girl," she said. "We think you know something about it."

"Clarita Barrios?" I asked.

"So you do know something. Where is she, Felix? It will go a lot better for you if you tell us now."

I mentally face-palmed. I shouldn't have acknowledged anything. "No. I was with friends when they received a call that Clarita was missing."

"Where were you last night around ten o'clock?" she asked.

"Spent the night in the country - same friends," I said.

"Who? Anyone corroborate this?"

"Camille Parasyn," I said. I had no idea if she would vouch for me, but I doubted she would want me to expose that the Council had locked me up in their dungeon last night.

"Phone number?"

"I don't have her phone number, but it shouldn’t be that hard to find," I said. "You tossed my apartment. Do you like me for a murder or a child kidnapping?"

"Two murders of women who, upon investigation, appear to be heavily involved in the occult. And, when we
tossed
your apartment, we found a significant number of books and paraphernalia related to the occult," she said, enunciating the word tossed strangely.

"What's wrong with the word 'tossed'?" I asked.

"Makes you sound like a bad T.V. show. We don't talk like that," she said.

"Am I under arrest?"

"Should you be?"

"No. I think you've asked to talk to me because you didn't find anything. If you thought I was good for this, I'd be under arrest," I said.

"You're involved in this, Mr. Slade. I can feel it," she said.

I could feel it too, but hell if I knew how. All I really knew was that a wolf was after Gabriella and that Joe Lozano needed a friend in the worst way.

"We found bloody scraps of cloth in a glass jar when we searched your things. Do you want to tell me about that?"

"No," I said. I didn't know if they would be able to match it back to Lozano or not. It might be hard to explain why I had a swatch of towel with Lozano's blood, but I didn't think it would be a big problem.

"We're having them analyzed. I've got to be honest, they seem like trophies," she said.

"Were they covered by your search warrant?" I asked.

She pulled a paper from beneath her notepad and handed it to me. It was the search warrant that covered my apartment, the garage and my truck. I didn't understand much of the legalese, but it seemed broadly defined.