Legacy of the Mad Mages Read online

  “I still want to know where the hell those extra dolls are. According to Benford, there are at least four more still out there,” Point rumbled. “That’s four more possible thefts.”

  “There are four things on that list I sent you,” Caroline said. “You still have people watching those targets?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got two people on each one, with eyes on the artifact itself, as well as both magical tracker tags and electronic ones added to each one. The tags will activate if the things are moved more than ten feet, I’ve been told, though I don’t understand how half this stuff works. I want to find this group, find their headquarters, and find out who’s in charge of stealing these artifacts. Get on out of here, and get some rest. I want to start making real progress on this tomorrow.” Point’s shoulders slumped a bit and he grimaced. “I have a phone call with Deputy Director Silverrain tomorrow afternoon and I would love to have some real progress to report this time.”

  18

  Caroline hadn’t been asleep for more than a couple of hours when her phone woke her. She blindly fumbled it off the nightstand and almost dropped it when the charging cable caught on the drawer handle and almost yanked it out of her grip, but somehow she managed to get it close to her face and hit the ‘accept call’ button.

  “‘Lo?” She managed. She glared at the glowing blur of her alarm clock until it resolved into numbers. Four forty-seven am.

  “Sorry to wake you, Sunshine.” Darien didn’t sound a lot more awake than she was. “I’m on my way over to pick you up, and yes, before you ask I have coffee for you. One of those artifacts we were watching was stolen. That robe and the scribe things that we looked at the other day. Probably because they were easy to grab both at once. And I think something else, too.”

  “Ugh. Okay. Okay, I’ll get dressed.” She flipped her lamp on and yanked the charger from her phone.

  “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.” The phone went dead and she blinked at her dresser for at least two of those minutes, trying to get enough of herself together to function adequately. Caroline had learned one very handy fact about herself this past year at college: staying up all night was fine and dandy, but waking up after just a couple hours of sleep was one of the worst forms of torture for her brain. It just didn’t go well.

  She managed to get dressed and even remembered her ID badge, and Darien wisely handed her a travel mug of coffee as soon as she was buckled into her seat. The drive to the office went quickly with almost no traffic on the roads to slow them down.

  “So what happened?” Caroline finally asked as Darien was parking. The coffee had helped, but she still felt foggy and sluggish. “Shouldn’t the trackers have told us where to go and catch the bad guys?”

  “That was the idea, yes. All I know is that Point called me and I could almost smell the smoke coming out of his ears over the phone,” Darian answered. Caroline winced since a pissed off Point was not a good thing to have around the office.

  They took the secure back elevator up and popped out behind the interrogation rooms. They could hear Point’s voice rumbling through the walls before the elevator doors even slid open.

  “— if they weren’t going to do a damn thing? Why am I wasting resources monitoring this shit?”

  “Uh oh.” Caroline wasn’t sure she was awake enough to deal with a rampaging troll, even if he was her boss.

  “And I want Goodwin and Cheshire on leave for the rest of the damn week! Once they’ve healed up they can come in and chat with me about exactly how many goddamn procedures they completely failed to even acknowledge, let alone follow!” His voice sounded like boulders crashing down a mountain, a sure sign that his troll temper was very close to the surface.

  Darien glanced at Caroline and stepped in front of her as they came around the corner to see Point, still in the same clothes he had worn at dinner with his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbow and his tie missing. His salt and pepper hair stood up wildly, evidence that he had been running his hands through it and probably tugging. Caroline must have made some noise coming into the room— Darien was moving almost as silently as Greg did when shifted— and Point’s glare softened slightly when he saw them. Once his attention was off of her, the medic who had been the focus of Point’s ranting rolled her eyes and headed down the hallway to the medical suite, presumably to deliver the news of their medical leave to Goodwin and Cheshire.

  “You two finally here, then? Good. Let’s go find Shakes. I want to know what the hell happened to the electronic trackers.” Point stomped off towards the staircase and the floor trembled slightly, though it had been reinforced specifically with trolls and ogres in mind.

  Darien and Caroline followed a bit slower, waiting to start up the stairs once Point was off them, just to be sure.

  “We should make sure we check in on Cheshire and Goodwin later. Sounds like they could use a bit more than some soup to recover,” Darien said softly.

  Caroline nodded. Either that or they needed a sympathy card from someone else who got yelled at by Point when he was in a fit of near-parental worry. Once Point was put into the Section Chief’s position, he got very protective of his agents, even when he's protecting them against themselves.

  They could still hear his rumbling voice, slightly less rumbly and mountainous now as he tried to understand the electronic trackers.

  “Look, the short answer is that the spell that disabled the magical tracker also took out the electronic ones. Apparently, whoever made these things for the Federal Paranormal Activities Agency didn’t think to shield them against magical interference. Because why would they possibly be around enough magic to, I dunno, warp energy fields or anything.” Shakes’ voice was nothing but sarcasm by the end of what he was saying.

  “That does seem like a fairly significant oversight, I agree. And I will be taking it up with them soon,” Point rumbled.

  “So… catch us up?” Caroline asked. She perched on the edge of a nearby worktable that was surprisingly clear of anything on its surface.

  “A small exhibit was hit about an hour and a half ago, just outside of D.C. and two items were taken,” Point said.

  “The robe and the writing tools?” Caroline asked.

  “Exactly those. Goodwin and Cheshire were keeping an eye on the place and watched on their surveillance feed as one of those damned dolls popped out of a ventilation duct. They were on their way in to disable the doll and were on the phone with me when the doll activated a ward-breaker spell.”

  Darien winced. “Was it like that one last month? That the human guard could detect?”

  Shakes grimaced and glanced at Point.

  “It was, but bigger since the wards on this place are much heavier-duty. It’s a privately-owned museum–you get in by appointment only– and apparently, they get a lot of diplomats and officials in, and each room is separately warded in case of whatever. The wards prevent movement between rooms unless you’re specially keyed to them. I'm just glad ward-breakers aren't very common," Shakes said.

  “At any rate,” Point grumbled. "The golem activated a ward-breaker so that it could enter the room fully and move about freely. Unfortunately, that affected Goodwin directly thanks to his pixie heritage and almost knocked him out. As he fell, he hit his head on a display case.”

  Darien winced, having had his own head injury recently.

  “Which left Cheshire on his own in the museum, trying to corral the damned doll, which seems to have been controlled remotely like a drone, and waiting for museum security to catch up,” Point continued. “Which might have been good enough, but the damned thing was outfitted with self-defense gear. Apparently— and I haven’t managed to get a lot of sense out of him yet— Cheshire thinks he was hit by stunning powder and a taser in combination. What jackass decided to equip a golem what a taser I don't know, but I want to get my hands on him. Anyway, Cheshire is still slurring his words pretty badly. When the museum’s security got there, the room was full of colored smoke. By the time it
was all vented, the doll was gone and so were the artifacts. One of the guards called emergency services and another was smart enough to call me. You two, get up there and try to—”

  “I’ve got them! I think.” Mitch burst into the room in a swirl of energy, his glasses sitting slightly crooked on his nose.

  “What do you mean you’ve got them?” Darien frowned.

  “I was here when Point got the call so I jumped right into the tracking spell since I don't trust the remote bugs that the pencil-pushers upstairs love so much. Cheap and shoddy garbage, if you ask me, just cutting corners and just attracted so whatever's new and shiny. There's a reason the old-fashioned ways have stuck around so long. Anyway, I think I know where the thieves went.” Mitch’s excitement was infectious. Even Shakes sat up straighter. Point rumbled low and deep in his throat.

  “Shakes, pull up a map.”

  19

  Mitch’s "old-school" magical tracking— which seemed to be halfway between a divination and a sort of mystical bloodhound following a trail— led them from the museum in a fairly urban area just outside of D.C. across the Potomac River into Virginia, then on a winding route west. When Mitch burst into the room and pulled up his tracking spell on Shakes’ map the thieves were still moving. While he kept an eye on their progress, Mitch explained it all to Caroline who only managed to follow about half of what he was saying.

  By the time the track started to dissipate, they were fairly certain that they knew what area to look in, and Caroline headed to the locker room to change into a more stakeout-slash-raid appropriate outfit. Jeans and a sweatshirt were fine for rolling out of bed and trying to make sense of new information in an office. Not so much for storming the possible headquarters of a thieving terrorist organization.

  Zanna was there, strapping her sidearm on, and she sent Caroline a tight smile. “You going to be good?”

  “I’ll manage,” Caroline answered. “By the time we get there both the third cup of coffee and the adrenaline will have kicked in.”

  Zanna grinned at that. “True enough. Greg went ahead to do a flyover and scout the area out. With luck, he can nail down the location a bit and get a sense of who’s going to be there and all that. We probably aren’t actually going to move anytime soon. Fair warning.”

  Caroline shrugged into along sleeved FPAA t-shirt and nodded. “Makes sense. There are no hostages or victims inside that we know of.” She pulled her hair back to keep it out of the way. Letting it stay loose was asking for problems.

  “Exactly. If we damage any of those artifacts we’re in for months of trouble. Going in like an invading army is one thing when we’re trying to rescue folks like you and distract the hell out of kidnappers, but accidentally shooting a valuable artifact? Paperwork you would not believe.” Zanna laughed.

  “Well, we’ll hope I never find out, then.” Caroline grinned and shut her locker with a clang. “Let’s get out there and see what we can come home with.”

  “Dibs on the fancy robe! I have some shoes that would look amazing with it at the next office party,” Zanna laughed.

  They ended up sitting in a motel room for most of that day, waiting for Greg’s occasional reports. Mitch’s tracking spell had petered out just over the border to West Virginia, and since most of the thefts they were aware of had been to the east, they guessed that Amberlight’s gang’s hideout wasn’t too much further from the state line, and they guessed right. After a little while, Greg caught sight of Keryth Amberlight himself, stopping at a gas station.

  After following the elf for a while, Amberlight led him to a farm about three miles from the freeway. According to what he could see the place looked pretty run down, but then even if they were there legally, none of Amberlight’s plans involved raising crops or livestock, and that’s all the land around the property was meant for. Most of the activity was around the rickety barn, but Greg guessed that the artifacts were being kept in the farmhouse where Amberlight himself spent most of his time.

  By mid-afternoon the team felt like they had a good idea of the ins and outs of the farm, and how many people were there. Greg counted a half dozen of what he called ‘brainless thugs’— five elves and one big bruiser of a human that wasn’t showing much evidence of questioning their place in the scheme. They seemed to be much more interested in who they could find to sleep with at the next event.

  “At least they seem to be weirdly open-minded bigoted jerks. One of the thugs seems to be gay, and they weren’t giving him a much worse time than anyone else. Just changing pronouns around when they gave him shit about their night out.” Greg almost sounded impressed over the speaker of the phone. Almost. “Shame they just transferred their bigotry to other groups.”

  “Like literally everyone that isn’t an elf or a human?” Caroline said.

  Greg just grunted.

  “Elves have always been fairly unconcerned about sexual preferences,” Zanna shrugged. “At least as far as I know about it. So are we thinking late-night raid? Dawn tomorrow?” Zanna asked from where she sat on the bed.

  “I think dawn is probably our best bet. We should keep surveillance here, but I’m going to need some sleep,” Greg said. “But we’ll play it by ear if we find new information.”

  “I’ll come to relieve you. Give me half an hour and I’ll be there. Then Darien can take the last shift before the raid.” Zanna stretched and rolled off the bed.

  “Thanks, Zan. See you soon,” Greg ended the call, and about forty-five minutes later he walked through the door and fell face-first onto the bed Zanna had abandoned. “Wake me up in a few hours. I pretty much didn’t sleep last night.” He was almost snoring before he finished speaking.

  “You got it, Greg,” Caroline said. She shook her head and bent to yank his boots off. “Poor guy.”

  “Yeah. Sucks that his skills are so damn handy all the time,” Darien agreed, shaking out a blanket and draping it over Greg. “Being able to basically fade into the background isn’t exactly invisibility, but it’s damned close, and in situations like this it’s usually the safest way for us to get the intel we need.”

  She lined Greg’s boots up neatly next to the bed and tucked the blanket over his feet.

  “I suppose we should nap, too. It’s going to be a long day,” Caroline said. She looked at Greg, who took up most of the twin bed he lay on with his large frame, then at the other twin bed, then grimaced.

  “I can stay up in case Zanna calls. Don’t worry about it,” Darien waved her to the bed. “She probably won’t call in unless something changes dramatically, but she’ll text in her status every hour at least. You go ahead and nap.”

  “You didn’t get any more sleep than I did,” she protested.

  “Sure, but I guess I’m used to it.” Darien shrugged.

  Caroline narrowed her eyes at him and stared for a long minute. “Darien. I do not need an exhausted partner. I know you’re super magical and you probably snagged one of your cans of blood while we were changing this morning so you’ve got that extra rush of energy. But not even a vampire feeding from a live donor can work without any sleep, and you’ve had a head injury recently. Now we have been through enough garbage together that if lying on a freaking bed and resting up for a raid is going to make you nervous, I think we need to have a very serious talk.”

  Darien sighed, then after another long glare-off, his shoulders slumped and he sat on the edge of the bed next to her. “You sure, Sunshine?”

  “I’m definitely sure. I can’t have you being so tired that you miss something important and get jumped. Again.” She grinned at him. Getting these guys to take care of themselves while on a case was probably the most difficult part of her job, and it wasn’t even technically in her job description.

  Of course, technically she was still an intern, so going out on a case at all wasn’t in her job description. Details.

  “Okay. You win,” Darien bent down to take off his own boots. “I’ll at least lie down and flip on the TV and doze a bit”
>
  Caroline laughed and grabbed another blanket from the tiny, open closet. “Fine. I’ll take it.”

  20

  Caroline followed Darien behind the old farmhouse to crouch between the edge of a bush and the corner of the house. The dusk light helped hide them by obscuring outlines and blurring shapes from solid objects into twilight shadows.

  Greg hadn’t exaggerated about the rundown feeling to the whole place. They had checked the county records, and the farm wasn’t exactly abandoned, though nobody lived there. It was a common enough story— the people who had lived and worked the farm grew older and when the time came their children had their own lives in a city somewhere, leaving the farm untended and being reclaimed by the wilderness.

  The farmhouse was two stories tall with peeling white paint and a wide wraparound porch on three sides that had once probably been a wonderful place to sit and chat at the end of a busy day. Now it sagged with rotted floorboards and was covered in leaf drifts and weedy growth. The windows were surprisingly unbroken and the door was new, installed recently by the legal renter of the property, one Frank Stanton. Zanna had suggested that was the legal name of the elf known as Keryth Amberlight, and a quick check by Shakes proved her guess.

  There were two men in the house with Amberlight, including the bear of a human. That guy was in the kitchen, just on the other side of the wall from where Darien and Caroline were crouched. They could hear his voice clearly enough through the window above their head, the single pane of glass rattling with each breeze.

  “So what’s next on our list, boss?” He rumbled loudly.

  “Our patron has actually got a request for us, so we will look into that first. Then we will search for another artifact to showcase our great history.” The voice that answered was slightly nasal but firm and unwavering.