Legacy of the Mad Mages Page 3

  She turned her attention to the files that Darien had put into their shared folder and spent some time submerged in facts about the half dozen stolen objects, the times of day that each went missing in, and other various details about the sites, the owners, the histories of the pieces and so on.

  By the time she looked up again to stretch, it was almost eleven o’clock and two hours had passed. Her phone showed no reply from Darien, which was fairly odd. Just as she reached over to send another message, her desk phone rang.

  “Caroline Peters,” she answered briskly. Not a lot of people called her agency-assigned cell phone, and the few that did already knew they were calling an intern, so there wasn’t a need to identify herself beyond that.

  “Ms. Peters? I’m calling from Smyth County Community Hospital. Darien Webb asked us to call you rather than his emergency contact since you are closer to us here,” said a professionally calm voice.

  “Is he okay? What happened?” Caroline was already collecting her purse and locking her computer.

  “It seems that he was mugged early this morning, and while he has been mostly awake and lucid, he does have a concussion and some other injuries that required attention. He is also unable to drive as a result of this, and will need a ride home once he is discharged, which should be soon unless something odd comes back on his test results.”

  “Mugged? What… where was he mugged? How was– you know what, I’ll ask him when I get there.”

  Caroline dropped the phone into the cradle and snatched up her cell phone with her other hand. She fumbled with her maps app with one hand and slung her purse over her shoulder with the other. Once it was settled, she reached out and grabbed an arm as she walked past the break room door. She clearly needed more hands.

  Shakes stumbled when she yanked him out of the doorway and protested weakly, but let her drag him along behind her. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Thank you for your call.”

  “Caroline…”

  “You drive, right?” She asked as she pulled him out the door.

  “Er… yeah?” Shakes said.

  “You have anything urgent right now?”

  “I’ve got a few things going, but I was going to take lunch while my machines run through it all,” Shakes answered. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll buy you lunch if you drive Darien’s car back here.” She punched the elevator button to take them to the underground garage.

  “Oh, okay, sure. Where is it?”

  “Presumably it’s wherever he parked to stake out the damn museum mansion. Darien, however, is at Smyth County Community Hospital with a concussion. Dumb jerk got jumped while doing surveillance. Again.” Caroline growled out the last word, and Shakes’ eyes widened.

  “Um, again?” He rubbed his arm now that Caroline had dropped it, and then ran his hands down his t-shirt to smooth it.

  “The day we met he was a mess of injuries. Concussion, cracked ribs, bruises that were turning colors no humanlike person ought to turn. Because he was jumped while staking out a supposed target. Granted, that time he’d been set up by that shady jerk Beckett, but still.” Caroline grumbled.

  "I heard about that. I was hired to take over from one of the ex-chief's corrupt lackeys," he said. "I forgot that you were involved in all that mess."

  Shakes nodded and ran his hand through his longish, sapphire blue hair. He was growing the color out, much to his mother’s dismay, and Caroline had to crack a small smile since everyone in the office had heard her reaction when he video chatted with his mother in the break room a week earlier.

  She was his human parent and tried to make sure that Shakes didn’t stand out too much, even though she was fully aware that he now lived and worked around paranormals that had a much harder time blending in– not to mention oddly colored hair was becoming almost boringly common these days– and felt that his natural hair color was far too conspicuous. She was dismayed by his choice, to put it mildly.

  “What happened this time?” Shakes asked.

  Caroline pulled carefully onto the street and headed for the freeway. “I don’t know yet, but if he was jumped by elves again I’m going to kick his ass.”

  “Yes, I was jumped by elves again. But I swear, C. It wasn’t nearly that bad. One of them got a lucky blow and that’s it.” Darien sat sideways on the hospital bed, ready to hop off it as soon as the nurse came back though with his discharge papers. Caroline just glared at him.

  “Yes, it was elves again, but this time they weren’t ready and waiting for me with elf-shot and advanced warning. I just walked right into them while I was taking a pass around the fence to wake my legs up. I think they were probably up to something and already defensive.”

  “Yes, they were up to something. Assaulting a Federal Officer!” Caroline grumbled.

  Darien laughed. “Well yes, but I don’t think they knew that. I think they just thought I was a random hired security guy. Still, I’m fine.”

  “Well, I don’t quite know about fine, Agent Webb, but you could be a lot worse.” The nurse stepped into the curtained hubby with the rustle of her scrubs and an air of not having time for whatever nonsense Darien had been giving them. “We’ve wrapped your wrist, but please try to avoid using it, and whatever they hit you with left one hell of a lump on your head. We're all a bit surprised you're doing as well as you are. By all rights, you should still be out cold. At any rate, you told me that there is medical staff where you’re headed, but I’ll go over these instructions with this young lady to make sure that you’re taken care of.” She turned to Caroline and explained the appropriate care for Darien’s various wounds.

  Caroline didn’t tell her that he was likely to get back to the office, pop open a can of blood and speed up the whole healing process that way. It really wasn’t fair the way vampires got to cheat sometimes. He would probably be completely fine by tomorrow morning.

  Once she got him loaded into her car she turned to glare at him. “You have a lot of explaining to do. You don’t get to complain about me putting myself in danger again for a while, you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Darien grinned and she could hear the amusement in his voice. “But in all fairness, at least it wasn’t an ambush this time. I really did just stumble onto the group of them. They were at least as surprised as I was. And the good news is that even though they got away, I did stop a second theft. They were clearly going back for another try at that exhibit.”

  “Why wouldn’t they just steal everything they wanted the first time?” Shakes asked.

  “They were interrupted the first time,” Darien said with a sigh. He reclined the car seat a bit and leaned his head back with a slight wince. “What I want to know now is why they’re so interested in these pieces that they’re willing to go back for them, even though the security has been stepped up and there are many more eyes on it all?”

  5

  As soon as they returned to the office Point had sent him to the medical suite for a checkup from some more vampire-aware medics, then spent twenty minutes grumbling at him for getting caught off guard by a group of thieves that he was actively watching for.

  “At least you didn’t send them,” Darien grumbled back, and they all fell quiet and dropped the subject. None of them liked to remember how close the former chief had come to not only getting Darien killed but also all the other highly illegal, borderline treasonous activities the man had engaged in.

  Now, Caroline was sitting at her desk, watching Darien crack the magic seal on a can of “tomato juice” he kept in his desk cooler in case of emergencies. Usually, that meant he forgot to have his supplement earlier in the week, but once in awhile it meant he’d gone a few training rounds with Peaches. Very few people came out unbruised from sparring with Peaches.

  “So, I hear you got jumped by some kids.” Greg perched on the side of Zanna’s desk and grinned at Darien, who threw a wadded up paper at him. Greg just batted it away into Caroline’s trash bin and kept grinning.

/>   “Yes, I ran into a group of elves getting ready to break into the museum. It seems that they knew I was there– though I don’t think they knew who or what I am, exactly. I think they were under the impression that I was extra security hired by the estate– and when I took a walk around the fence they were waiting for me to pass by.” Darien swigged back the last of the blood in his can and carefully screwed the lid back into place. Too many sensitive noses around the office to leave bloody bottles lying around.

  “So Ms. Misstlethwaite was right. They were interrupted and going to go back.” Caroline scrunched her face up.

  “Apparently. So what else were they after?” Darien leaned over his desk, flicking through the digital photos of the crime scene that they had taken.

  Caroline chose to scroll through the online virtual tour of the exhibit, reading the short descriptions of each item, and following a few links to full histories of them. The missing jar, for example, had a known history. It had belonged to a minor elven mage by the name of Cithrel the Elder. No one is sure if that was his actual name or simply the name he used professionally, so to speak, but his study was pillaged when his patron’s stronghold was ransacked in 1178.

  What was especially interesting about Cithrel was that he wasn’t particularly interested in transmuting lead to gold, like popular culture would believe all alchemists were, nor was he eagerly searching for an elixir of immortality. He was mostly interested in discovering new properties of and uses for the blood of several paranormal species.

  Honestly, it was this very pursuit that led to the attack on the fortress and the end of his studies, career, and life. Caroline shuddered when she read about the particularly final way he was executed. Nobody could possibly come back from that, paranormal healing or not. Ew.

  She shook her head and clicked back to the exhibit page, looking for other items that would share some important traits with the jar. There were three other jars in the display: one was only a part of a jar from a late stone-age site in Asia that had the residue of a potion on the inside surface that had very faint magical traces. It was actually a very valuable artifact and was on display briefly since it was actively being studied.

  There was a renaissance jar from Venice that was absolutely gorgeous glasswork. It was reported to have been used by Leonardo DaVinci at one point, but Caroline had her doubts when the article never confirmed it with any other facts.

  The last jar was a modern example of alchemical lab glass, and as such seemed unlikely to be the object of theft. They were cheap and easy to get hold of anywhere. Heck, five minutes online and Caroline could have an entire case of them on their way to her.

  So what else seemed likely?

  Of the thirty pieces on display, at least half of them were considered valuable, not only to collectors but to historians and anthropologists. The rest were probably valuable at least to collectors, excepting the few modern examples of magical tools that were displayed for comparison.

  Well, let’s see what else shares a trait with this jar…

  Caroline was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Greg coming up behind her until he leaned over her shoulder and whispered right into her ear, “Who let Darien go out on surveillance all alone again?”

  Caroline jumped and actually smacked Greg’s chin with her shoulder, and he recoiled back to Zanna’s desk, clapping a hand over his mouth and glaring at her.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have snuck up on her like that, then. You’re the one who wanted to play sneaky big brother.” Darien laughed from his chair.

  “I’m going to have a fat lip!” Greg pouted.

  “Little sister’s prerogative.” Caroline stuck her tongue out at him and he returned the gesture.

  “So, What are you looking at, Kitten?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what those guys were going back for. What do all these things they stole have in common?”

  She clicked through the digital photos of the stolen objects again and grumbled. “I think I’m going to print all these out and spread out on the break room table.”

  A few minutes later she was frowning at the line of photos on the table in front of her. A wine jar and a tankard, both from the same display but from two clearly different social strata. An inkwell, a comb, and a coin, all three enchanted. An apothecary jar. A rusty and slightly bent knife.

  “The drinking equipment was taken from a display case that was warded shut and locked. A ward breaking spell was used, and actually ended up unlocking not only that case but every case in three rooms, and the completely human guard that was halfway across the building felt it go off,” Greg said, bouncing his rubber ball from the other side of the table.

  “Okay, so this is the order they were stolen in.” Caroline starts sliding the photos around to line them up in order. “Coin, wine jar and tankard. together. Comb. Knife, then inkwell and finally the apothecary jar.” She glared at the line of photos.

  “The coin is enchanted. Well, it was enchanted, anyway, before scholars nullified the spell. A wealth-attracting spell couched in terms of probability, so most likely used in gambling,” she muttered. “Then the drinking stuff was snatched using a ward-breaking spell.”

  “A sloppy one, too. Massively overpowered and wasteful, seemed like amateur work to me and Zanna.” Greg said. Darien stepped into the room to consider the photos as well.

  “Right. A sloppy ward-breaking spell. Still, we got called in. Then after that, the comb was taken. Again, it is an enchanted item, but the spell was left intact as it was deemed not particularly dangerous.” Caroline glared at the comb for a moment and fingered her own hair, falling over her shoulder where it escaped her braid.

  “Hair taming is rarely considered a danger to life or property, it’s true,” Darien agreed.

  “Tell that to Rapunzel,” Caroline said. “Okay, the knife is, as far as we know, just a tool, but again a spell was used to access the room. Not as flashy as the ward-breaker, but security on their rounds did notice the ward on the room was down when they went through the space that night. We have about an hour and a half window of possibility for that theft. Then we have an inkwell that was enchanted to never dry out no matter how long it was left uncapped, and our apothecary jar which was not enchanted but was likely used in enchanting other things.”

  The three of them regarded the photos for a long moment of silence, only broken by the sounds of Greg’s bouncy ball hitting the floor, and the muffled noise of the office outside.

  Caroline slid the photos around to group the coin, comb, and inkwell together, the totally mundane- as far as they knew- tankard, wine jar, and knife were pushed together in another group, and the photo of the jar she picked up and flicked the edges of it.

  “Was magic used to steal this, was it enchanted at some point, or is this one the odd one out?” She asked.

  “That’s a very good question. I think magic has to have been involved since we can’t find any evidence of anyone going into the building that doesn’t belong there. Shakes has gone over the security footage and found zero evidence of tampering,” Darien said. “There are several wards up that prevent anyone not specifically exempted from entering certain parts of the grounds, and a second layer of a similar ward over the house and any rooms that contain artifacts. The security mages have to specifically and deliberately exempt any new guards hired, and nobody new has come in for well over a year,” Darien said.

  “So, either they somehow found a way around the wards, they bought one of the already exempted guards, or they managed to teleport the damn thing away.” Caroline snatched the photo from Darien and banged it down next to the tankard.

  They glared at the pictures again, before Darien started sliding them around again. Tankard, knife, coin, inkwell, wine jar. He squinted for a moment at the comb, his eyes flicking back to the wine jar for a moment, then putting them down comb first, then the wine jar and the apothecary jar.

  “This is the approximate age of the object. They’re all fro
m the same period, give or take. That’s the only thing that we can find that links them together,” Darien said. “They’re all late tenth to late twelfth century artifacts.”

  He pointed to the tankard. “End of the tenth century, based on the objects it was found with. Same with the knife. The coin is dated to around eleven ten. The inkwell is fairly well documented, all things considered, and came from a monastery which was finished in eleven forty, and the inkwell was enchanted in eleven twenty-seven. The comb is made of bone, and the enchantment on it can also be dated. It was enchanted in eleven fifteen and made not long before then. The wine jar had residue in it that could be carbon dated, so the jar is from eleven fifty or thereabout. The last known use of Cithrel the elder’s alchemy chamber was in eleven seventy-eight.”

  Caroline was about to speak when her phone chirped. She glanced down at it and felt her brows raise when she saw the text from Lucas.

  I didn’t find much but I’m in the middle of some things here, but that does seem like a strange assortment of things. That comb is an odd choice especially, in my opinion. Who used all the things that were stolen? What do they have in common? Be careful on this one, everything looks sketchy to me lately.

  She blinked at the small screen before Darien snatched it from her hand.

  “How the hell does he know anything about this case?” Darien glared up at her.

  “I have no idea,” she answered. She tried to think back to exactly how she had worded her question earlier. “I just asked if he had heard anything about recent thefts. Not what was stolen or where from, or any details. I’m not that new.”

  Darien glared at the screen again, joined by Greg, who leaned over his shoulder. “I don’t trust this guy. I know he helped us with the trafficking case but who is he?”

  “I’m going to have Shakes look into him again,” Darien agreed.

  “Someone say my name?” Shakes asked as he rounded the corner. “Before you tell me what you want, I should tell you that I figured out how the thefts are all connected.”