I raced back to the door and carried Principal Sanchez out, hoping that once I got her past the threshold, she would be out of the spell’s influence.
It worked. “Each of us … what?” She blinked repeatedly as she realized where she was—on the sidewalk, probably a dozen steps from the front door. The fire bells were ringing loud. Smoke was billowing out of the windows and people were running toward us. “Oh, my lord! Fire!”
I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to meet my eyes. “Listen to me. There’s a spell on everyone in the school. Probably tripped when we opened the door. There’s been an explosion in the basement. I can’t sense any fire, but I’ve got the fire department coming to get the kids out. We need to find out whether you can get back in the school without being affected by the spell again.”
Some spells are like that. If you can break away from the influence, often it won’t reaffect you. Without another word, she pulled away from me and raced back up the steps. I followed her in case she needed to be brought out again. But she didn’t slow down, so I’d been right about the spell. She looked in door windows, as I did, finally realizing I wasn’t lying. “I’m sorry!” She yelled it at me to be heard over the bells.
Everybody says that after the fact and I find it more than mildly annoying. I had to struggle not to frown or growl, because this was not the time for recriminations. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve got to get the kids out!”
She propped open the first classroom door and started to untangle the first child from her chair. I shook my head no and pointed toward the teacher. “If we get the teachers first, we’ll have more hands!” I was already tired of shouting, tired of the noise that was making my head pound. Sanchez nodded and headed toward the front of the class, where a slim, older woman was staring at the clock and pointing, with a piece of chalk, at the door.
Like a lot of schools in the district, Abraham Lincoln was built on a single story and every classroom had a fire door that opened directly onto the playground. As principal, Sanchez had a key. The first thing she did was unlock the door and prop it open. It was the smart thing to do. She must have been a firefighter in a previous career, too, because she picked up the teacher like she was a cardboard cutout and tossed her over one shoulder before heading out the door. I did the same to an older brunette girl sitting in a chair in the corner. I was guessing she was a student teacher or a college intern.
More people had arrived because of the smoke and were being directed by Jamisyn, who either had gotten away himself or must have been pulled out by a passerby. Sirens in the distance were getting louder. I set the girl down and shook her lightly to clear her head. While I was explaining what had happened to her, I spotted movement near the end of the building.
I had turned, taking a couple of steps in that direction, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned my head and was surprised to see Terrance Harris, one of the Santa Maria de Luna cops. He was a recently arrived Haitian immigrant, a level-six mage. He’d been brought in to be part of the magical enforcement squad. I’d met him once before, at a Christmas party. He nodded toward the school, but I noticed that he was looking at a point near the rooftop of the building, on a ledge. I followed his gaze. I didn’t see anything. “I knew when I saw you over here that this wasn’t just a building fire. You set off smoke bombs because of the curse, didn’t you?”
The distinctive accent didn’t distract me. Instead, the words made me look at the unobtrusive middle-aged man suspiciously. “What do you know about it?” He looked like he was off-duty, because he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, but it seemed awfully convenient to see a powerful mage at a place where an equally powerful spell had been cast. That “they always return to the scene of the crime” thing is mostly true.
He pointed at the ledge. “I can feel it. The source of the spell is up there. It’s a powerful one. I’m thinking it was done last night and set with a trigger or timer. It’s too complicated and too public for someone to have done this just now.”
Could I trust him? Would either of the mages I knew be able to tell me all that about a spell just by encountering it on the sidewalk?
Actually, yeah, they would. Bruno could for sure, and probably Creede, too. Bruno was a level nine. Creede an eight plus. So maybe I shouldn’t shortchange Harris. I turned to ask him if he could tell anything specific about the curse but was distracted when I spotted more movement in the place that had caught my attention a moment before.
A basement window was being opened … from the inside. Okay, that just screamed sneaky. There were plenty of exit doors; why crawl out of a window unless you were up to something?
I gestured silently toward the dark-skinned man emerging from the open window. He was trying hard to use his camo clothing to blend in with the shadows. Terrance followed my gesture and started heading that way, pulling what looked like an actual carved wand from a holster on his belt. I don’t know a lot of witches or mages who use wands, although I’ve seen them for sale in weapons stores.
Harris shouted, “Police! You in the window. Freeze. Don’t move!”
Crap. I’d been hoping for a little more … subtlety. I know there are laws that say they have to give that warning. It just seems like it gives the bad guys an edge when you can’t sneak up on them. The man in the window pulled down on his cap and it became a face mask, just in time to keep me from getting a good look at him. As I expected, instead of not moving, he started moving faster, kicking to get out of the window before we could get to him.
Go figure.
Terrance raised his wand and twirled it in a fast circle before throwing power at the masked man. “Glacia!”
I knew that spell, which was, literally, “freeze.” It should have stopped the guy cold in his tracks. Except that I was right about him being a spellcaster. He threw his hands sideways and deflected the magic. Toward me. Then he took off running down the street.
A wave of ice cold hit me and made my muscles tense. But there’s a reason I spend serious money on protection charms. It only took a second for the medallion around my neck to heat and push away the cold. I didn’t wait to have something more serious hit me. The best defense is a good offense. I put a hand inside my blazer, extracted a charm disk as I ran, and brushed my fingertips over the raised lettering to be sure I’d drawn the one I wanted. Pouring on the speed, I hit the guy from behind with a flying tackle. We tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs and dirt. Before he could utter the next curse, I stuffed the charm in his mouth and slammed his jaw shut. The Speak No Evil charm is specially made for spellcasters. For the next hour, he wouldn’t be able to say anything that could be harmful.
He gagged and coughed as the liquid in the charm slid down his throat. “You folking titch!” He spat out the words and then realized what I must have done. He tried to curse me, but it came out as “Beneficent Harmony!”
Terrance, breathing hard from the run, pulled handcuffs from a holster on his belt. His skin was at least two shades darker than that of the man under me as he slapped the first cuff against the caster’s wrist. “Good thing you did that. You don’t want to even know what that curse would have done.”