How To Be A Badass Witch: Book Three Read online

  Chapter Seventeen

  James was glad they’d started setting things up early since it took a good half-hour to get all the necessary technology running. They then had to smooth it over with a couple of infusions of magic, not to mention the obligatory cloaking spells to stop the FBI from listening in.

  Anyone outside the room or watching surveillance inside it would hear a quietly-murmured conversation about very boring things. James hoped it drove them crazy. After all, he’d wanted to be in a hotel, not here. He and LeBlanc had pointed out that they had ways of remaining incognito, but the agents had insisted they remain here.

  Since their contacts were useful, James and LeBlanc had decided to accept the terms, though he was not best pleased to be sleeping in an old full bed instead of a new, luxurious, king-sized one.

  Finally, the video conference was ready to go.

  James and Mother LeBlanc sat close together by a small desk in one of the safe house’s bedrooms. On the screen of his laptop, the picture came into focus and divulged the other ten members of the Council of Thaumaturgy sitting in their usual arrangement, although they had congregated at Lauren Jones’ house rather than headquarters.

  Lauren was the most well-rounded thaumaturgist among them in terms of her aptitude for different types of magic. She was also the best teacher, so it was fitting that she was hosting a roundtable on whether they should take on a new student. She was a thoroughly average but pleasant-looking woman and often had to remind people to call her “Lauren” instead of “Miss Jones” or her personal non-favorite, “Hey, lady.”

  James waved at the camera and watched the motion in the lower corner of the screen. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us.”

  LeBlanc waved too and gave them a nice smile and nod. “We appreciate your convening on such short notice.”

  James noticed something, though. Despite Lauren providing the venue, the arrangement of the members at their table suggested Lady Mitchell was in charge.

  Of course, he lamented, but he was fairly sure he managed to prevent his consternation from showing on his face. She had better not keep going off on nitpicky tangents like she did last time.

  “Good evening,” Mitchell began. “Assuming that this is indeed as important as you told us it was, we are willing to consider it worth our time. Of course, please do not waste time, either. Let’s hear it.”

  The other members nodded.

  James didn’t want to be doing this any more than they did. He had no complaints about getting it over with quickly and efficiently.

  “Of course. To summarize the agenda, we have a new plan concerning the final prospective witch, the one in Los Angeles who has been causing us so many headaches.”

  Four or five of the people on the other side of the screen started in their seats. They hadn’t expected such an announcement. They had probably figured their two wayward colleagues were going to announce that they’d dealt with the problem and were coming home.

  Everyone except Hugh Buchanan, who was always taciturn, tried to talk at once. Amidst the general clamor, James made out a handful of iterations of “What plan?” and at least one person used the word “ridiculous.”

  Mother LeBlanc raised a hand to convince them to shut up, and Mitchell did the same thing on her end. Silence set back in.

  Mitchell took the lead again. “A new plan, you say? Why, did the old one not cause enough problems for everyone?”

  James cleared his throat loudly and folded his hands together. Rather than answer her bad-faith question, he dodged it to continue explaining his purpose.

  “The individual we have locked onto possesses power the likes of which we haven’t seen for many years. This is a channeler of once-in-a-generation abilities, my friends, and their actions suggest greater wisdom and self-control than we had expected at first. There is a degree of potential here that would be downright tragic to waste.”

  Lady Mitchell made a clucking sound while covering her eyes and remarked, “You refer, of course, to the person who is pretending to be a superhero and has attracted the attention of the FBI, yes?”

  Grave rumblings of discontent circulated among the ten.

  James went on, attempting to make his point as clearly as possible before Mitchell could sabotage him further.

  “Our nascent thaumaturge has managed not to burn out, despite being active for a greater period of time than the others. They’ve kept their identity hidden, and we suspect they may have learned some rudimentary techniques for disguising the use of their magic. Whoever they are, this is a level of resourcefulness that demands respect. They keep doing needlessly flashy and bombastic things, yes, but they don’t seem to be seeking personal celebrity. It’s not as though they’ve come forth and started a self-aggrandizing cult or anything like that.”

  The other thaumaturges were silent. Damian Diaz asked, “Mother, what do you think? You haven’t said a word.”

  LeBlanc stated, “James and I have slight differences of opinion on this topic, but I will confirm that everything he has said is true. I question his conclusions, but I am forced to agree that we are dealing with an...exceptional individual.”

  “Very well,” said Mitchell. “What are those conclusions, Mr. Patterson?”

  James narrowly stopped himself from wincing. She had used his obnoxious nickname; someone had tossed it around at a party years ago in reference to the fact that both he and the famous author had started out in advertising.

  “I propose that we bring this person into the fold. Under heavy supervision, of course. Lay down the law, but also offer them the opportunity to advance far beyond what they could teach themself. Offer our guidance, but if they prove to be hopeless and unreachable, then, well, we’ll follow the standard operating procedure for loose cannons, but not before we try to make the best of such talent. Not before we try to accomplish what we originally agreed to do, which is pass on our ways to a deserving disciple.”

  He sat up straighter as he spoke and put all the passion he could into his voice, playing on the Council’s usually subdued fear of passing into irrelevance.

  The looks on their faces made him think that maybe, just maybe, it was working.

  Lady Mitchell would not be so easily deterred. “James, you speak of preserving our tradition, yet this person flaunts it. They are behaving like a human wrecking ball. Thaumaturgists are supposed to enjoy a quieter life than that since the work we do affects more people than the residents of a single city, yet on a milder scale. Hence, less unwanted attention.”

  Amanda Moore, monikered “the Dark One” due to her all-black wardrobe—mostly she found it to be a slimming color, but she also enjoyed the mysterious reputation it gave her—butted in. “And animals. We do not only serve humankind.”

  “Indeed,” Zacharia confirmed. “Our discipline exists for the benefit of all creatures that live under the sky, or even under the earth.”

  Rufus Mayer added, “They’re connected anyway. One can readily become another, given a little nudge.” He was a transmutation specialist, after all. “Of course, as Mitchell pointed out, it’s best to avoid doing anything too publicly.”

  James simmered with annoyance. They raised good points, but all of them seemed to be missing the main thrust of his argument. They were dragging the debate out with tangents related to their personal agendas while seeming to half-heartedly support Mitchell.

  LeBlanc kept quiet. She had agreed to hear the rest of the council’s opinion of James’ proposal and saw no point in speaking until something resembling a consensus began to emerge.

  Frustrated, James brought his fist down on the desk. The screen rattled and the bang passed through the microphone, startling the other council members on the video call.

  “If the traditional method of keeping our heads down is so foolproof,” he demanded to know, “why are we dying out? Answer me that. We must adapt. We need to reform how we approach these things and have the open minds necessary to accept an infusion o
f new people. Yes, we can ensure they follow most of the rules, but are we really so all-knowing as to think that no one else can teach us anything? This person may have found ways of working with power that our order has forgotten, which might serve us well as we forge ahead into the twenty-first century.”

  A few mutters greeted him, but James could tell he was getting to them. Zacharia of all people echoed his words, and Rufus, Amanda, Damian, and Samantha conceded that he probably had a point.

  Quiet set in again as the stalemate lingered.

  “Well,” Mitchell quipped, “that is six for and six against so far. Mother LeBlanc? Hugh? Have you anything to add?”

  Hugh Buchanan coughed and leaned forward, his grim but somehow kindly face drawn with intense thought. “I prefer not to speak up unless I’m certain about what needs to be said since those who talk before they know are seldom worth listening to. But within the flood of rhetoric that tends to issue from Mr. Lovecraft’s mouth, I’d say there is at least a small stone of truth. I say we allow him to proceed with his plan. With, of course, the understanding that he is to abort it if things go south.”

  James felt as if wings had sprouted from his back. “Thanks, Hugh.”

  Mitchell frowned. “I see. Well, then. The other five of us might not like it, but it would appear that you have the bare minimum support necessary to proceed, James.”

  LeBlanc raised her hand. “Consider me neutral, though I will continue to participate in the plan. I believe that James’ plan, since it contains a failsafe option, is fundamentally sound.”

  After another two minutes of vagaries and formalities, the conference ended.

  James told them, “Thank you again for your time, ladies and gentlemen. I strongly suspect this council has decided on the right course of action.”

  “We will see,” Mitchell replied. “Good luck to both of you.”

  James leaned forward and shut off the video and audio feeds. Then he leaned back on the couch, blowing his breath toward the ceiling and ruffling his hair.

  LeBlanc smiled. “Good performance. I agreed to abide by the council’s judgment, and so I will. You may indeed have a point, but everything depends on what we discover when we meet Motorcycle Man in the flesh. I have a feeling we’ll be able to make our final decision quickly once that is accomplished.”

  “Right.” James nodded. “So that’s that. Let’s find him.”

  Half an hour later, he sat on a couch in the safe house, waiting for his partner to finish dressing.

  They’d had a short debriefing session with Richardson and MacDonald, then they had made their plans for the evening.

  They would be going out for a drink at a bar called the Mermaid. It had been mentioned on the news in conjunction with a story about growing rowdiness and gang activity in the Little Tokyo area. As such, it seemed as good a place as any they could think of to begin the hunt for their prospective student.

  James sighed and glanced at his phone, which told him it was 8:23 p.m. They were on the verge of missing out on the earlier portion of the prime drinking hours, but he supposed that even a positively ancient woman with all the wisdom and miraculous power of multiple lifetimes could not be rushed when it came to getting herself ready for a night on the town.

  He had changed into a nice suit and tie. They were perhaps a tad outdated but fit his purposes. He wondered if LeBlanc was refurbishing her dress into something modern like a pair of yoga pants.

  At 8:25, footsteps moved on the second floor, then descended the staircase. Nodding with grim satisfaction, James stood up and went to meet his “date.”

  He stopped in his tracks. Mother LeBlanc looked...different.

  “How do you like it?” she asked.

  For once, she had put aside her flowing rainbow-hued dress. Instead, she wore tight black leggings that shimmered in the light, resembling an oil slick, and an oversize indigo sweater she had belted at the waist, with the hem coming halfway down her thighs. Though it flattered her figure, it seemed to have nearly as many folds and hidden pockets as her usual dress did.

  “Well,” James commented, “it’s different. In a good way. Damn. You know, honestly, if I seem flabbergasted here, I think it’s mainly that in all these years, I’ve never seen you wear anything else.”

  LeBlanc shrugged. “I am not going to attract undue attention by going to the bar in my usual attire. This is more conservative, wouldn’t you say?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” he conceded. “Less unusual, though a tad provocative.”

  She came down the rest of the stairs and put her shoes on. “That’s to be expected, isn’t it? I understand that young people these days go to bars to flaunt themselves by looks or other social signifiers. That’s common throughout most of history in one way or another.”

  James turned his mind to practical matters. “Okay, whatever. Let’s review the plan. We park somewhere in the vicinity of the Mermaid and walk a short way so we have an excuse to survey the area. Get a feel for who and what is around.”

  “Yes, of course,” said LeBlanc. “And while observing the clientele, we should do some rudimentary mind-reading and aura-sensing. That is a simple way to detect excessive concealment, which might point us in the right direction. Motorcycle Man might not be there, but someone might have information that can lead us to him. Or her.”

  They stepped out of the house and into the Rolls Royce, which James had to hope wouldn’t be too tempting a target for car thieves. Granted, he had ways of protecting it from such people, but still.

  As James fired up the engine and pulled onto the road, something buzzed in his brain—an overwhelming curiosity that demanded satisfaction.

  He couldn’t control himself any longer.

  “LeBlanc,” he began in a low voice, running his tongue over his lips. “I have to ask. With you in the new outfit and all, can you still do, y’know, the trick?”

  She turned her head to him, then, without a word, reached into her sweater and pulled out a live chicken. It clucked at them and tried to flap its wings, and a single white feather wafted to the floor.

  “Yes.” LeBlanc put the bird back where she’d found it.

  Doug and Mia parked the SUV and climbed out.

  “Well,” said Doug, “here we are, riding the coattails of someone else’s story. No career of our own anymore.”

  If he’d thought they drank too much a few nights ago, he had a feeling that tonight was going to be even worse. Both of them were in a bitch of a mood—well-earned, in his opinion.

  Mia checked her makeup in a pocket mirror. “Trey Mancuso is good, and he wasn’t the one who changed our article. If this is all connected like those agents are claiming, this is a good place to start researching. I still want to figure out what the hell is going on.” She sighed. “Even if we’re not employed as reporters anymore. You can take the reporter out of the newsroom, but…”

  “Whatever.” Doug sighed. “Anyway, even if we can’t find a scoop, they have alcohol.”

  They walked past the crowd of early-twenty-somethings who had gathered outside and who eyed the pair before returning to their loud, boisterous conversations. Doug pushed open the front door, and they seated themselves at a corner table with a good view of the rest of the establishment.

  The place was busy, and it looked like it would take a minute before one of the servers could be with them. They sat in glum silence, pretending to read the menu. The place was reasonably busy but hardly rowdy or violent.

  “Hey,” Doug quipped, “hotbed of gang activity, right? Gang stuff is our specialty. We’ll have a great story in no time flat. Get a new job.”

  “Mm, yeah, I guess.” Mia’s voice was barely audible. “Better than nothing.”

  A young woman came by and introduced herself as Stephanie, their waitress for the evening. The two journalists said hello and declined food, moving straight to drinks. Doug ordered a whiskey and Coke, Mia a vodka grasshopper. Both asked for the beverages to be made stronger than
normal.

  Stephanie jotted down the orders. “No problem. I’ll be right back with those.”

  “Thanks,” Doug told her.

  Ten minutes later, both had polished off the first half of their drinks and were starting to feel buzzed. They glanced around the bar, reflexively noting the characters who seemed troublesome or interesting but not truly focusing on any of them.

  “Fuck,” said Mia. “It isn’t the same. Nothing is going to be the same for a while, is it?”

  Doug stirred his whiskey-spiked Coke with a fork. “Probably not. If we took their offer, we’d be breaking our own rules. If we didn’t, we were as good as fired; we knew that. Nothing we find tonight is going to change that, so let’s get drunk and hope something falls into our laps. We can do real investigating another night when the world doesn’t seem so terrible and ridiculous.”

  Mia slugged down the rest of her grasshopper. “Whatever. Are we on a blacklist now? We did get sold the fuck out, after all. Frank shipped us down the river to Shit Creek, paddle-less. Dropped this ‘choice’—which was not a choice, not a fucking choice at all—in our laps. We were finally starting to get somewhere, and…” She shook her head. “Yeah, we’re definitely on a blacklist.”

  Her partner shrugged. “Who knows?” Then something occurred to him—a fight-fire-with-fire notion.

  “Mia,” he said in a low voice, practically a whisper, “I have an idea about how we can pay them back and have our fiendish revenge and stuff.”

  She faced him, bug-eyed and skeptical. “What? How? You’re not talking about going postal, are you?”

  “Tempting, but no.” He glanced around to ensure no one was listening. “You know how government employees are always leaking information to journalists? Well, nothing says we can’t do a certain amount of leaking ourselves.”

  Her interest piqued, Mia sat up straighter and banished the fuzz of inebriation from her mind. “Huh. You mean, quit and keep surreptitiously putting out the real stories?”