Magic 101 (A Diana Tregarde Investigation) Read online

  So the best, safest, “cheapest”, and simplest thing was just to set something up to tell her when someone was listening. It was a spell that witches had been using for hundreds of years, and it was pretty obvious why a witch would want a spell like that. When you were doing something that was going to get you hung, burned at the stake, or otherwise shuffled off the mortal coil, it was a good idea to have a way to tell when someone was snooping around.

  After casting wards around the phone, she touched it, infusing it with a bit of power, and with her finger, drew the sigil against eavesdropping on the middle of the rotary dial—and actually felt the energy leaving her, making her feel a little bit more drained than she had the moment before.

  Well, at least it worked.

  She picked up the handset and dialed Lavinia’s number first, watching the sigil, or rather, where the sigil was. Only if there was a third party on the line would it flare into life.

  It rang twice, and someone picked it up; the moment the person’s hand touched that phone, Diana knew it was Lavinia. Just as Lavinia knew it was her.

  “Good heavens, Diana, you are a suspicious little creature. The sigil against eavesdropping indeed.” On the other end of the line, Lavinia chuckled. “And of course you are calling about young Joe, because you cannot believe I would have sent him to you. If you had bothered to call me when you first moved here I would have told you all about him.” Oh, dear. A social faux pas. The Queen was Not Amused.

  Di rolled her eyes. “And you are entirely too credulous for a Guardian,” she said crossly. “For one thing, I’m on a party line. And for another, you should know better by now. For all I knew this Joe O’Brian found your name on a casebook and—”

  “And how would he have gotten your address then, if I hadn’t given it to him?” Lavinia replied, archly. “Really. You hippies—”

  Diana suppressed the urge to make a rude noise. “I am not a hippy. But I’m considering becoming one, if only to irritate you.” She settled down into the chair next to the phone, and prepared to take notes. “Tell me about O’Brian.”

  “He’s not really a cousin, he’s the son of a very dear friend who always called me her cousin. He’s a good boy. And more to the point, dear, he has had his share of cases he couldn’t explain, and he’s quite ready to Believe.” The way Lavinia said the last word, you could hear the capitalization. “I have worked with him a time or two when I got the Call. Mind you, I never, ever let him see just what we were getting into, but he certainly knew that there were things that I took care of that he would never want to put down on his reports.”

  Well if he’d gotten even a glimpse of what most Guardians got into, his hair would be white. “All right so far. You absolutely vouch for him?” She didn’t need to capitalize anything. “And did you get—”

  “Yes. And Yes. This is something that needs to be Handled, and not by me.” Unspoken was the “by you.” Di felt a headache coming on. Lavinia was a hell of a Guardian and the fact that she was still going strong at 50 and not dead was a mark of that. But her Royal attitude sometimes left something to be desired.

  Lavinia’s tone softened. “Diana, dear, I don’t have the right skills. Your grandmother taught you how to debunk, yes, but this may be a situation where more than mere defensive magic may be needed, or even magic of the combative sort. Or as you have put it in the past, it is going to require mundane defenses—and perhaps, offenses as well. I know very well you have, and know how to use, firearms. I suggest that you get whatever you brought with you out and make certain it is cleaned and ready for use.”

  Di got cold chills then, not just at Lavinia’s words, but at her tone. “I will,” she said slowly. “Is this just a premonition, or have you gotten some sort of warning?”

  Lavinia paused for a moment. She was probably trying to get a feel for the situation, which was what Di would have done in her shoes. Di let her take her time; this wasn’t something you wanted to rush. “For now, just a premonition. Now call Joe, and tell him whatever it is you’ve seen or need to know. The two of you should take it from there.”

  Di knew a dismissal when she heard one. The Audience with Her Majesty was over. “Thank you, Lavinia,” she said, “Goodbye for now then.”

  “Goodbye, dear.” Di waited for Lavinia to hang up, before doing so herself. One retreated from the Royal Presence properly, after all.

  Then she dialed the number on the card Joe O’Brian had left with her. With a much more businesslike manner, she arranged to meet him in the library of Dudley House between classes. That should be an appropriately neutral spot. She still wasn’t going to let him in her apartment. Not yet, anyway.

  Then she sat back with a sigh and erased the sigil on the phone, extinguished the candles in the right order, and wiped out the chalk circle.

  Which left her with—

  The tingle from upstairs upstairs, currently blocked by her general wards, but she knew it was still there.

  Which wasn’t going to give her any peace for studying unless she looked into it. It was just going to nag at her until she found out which of the boys it was, how deeply into magic he was, and as much detail as she could get without either of them thinking she was either a busybody or a nutcase.

  Curses.

  But if she was going to go charging up there, she had better do it with a peace-offering in hand. People were more likely to think well of you if you came bearing gifts.

  One came immediately to mind, too, because if one of those guys had ambitions to be the next Merlin, her candles would be especially welcome.

  She delved into the cupboard and came up with two of the plain white “smells good” unconsecrated ones, a couple of fat pillars that would fit very nicely in a bowl. She stuck her keys in her pocket, made sure the door locked behind her while she juggled one in the crook of her elbow, then made her way down the hall, up the stairs and back down the hall. The halls in this place were virtually identical, floor to floor. She wasn’t sure what they had looked like in their hay-day, but at some point in the fifties they’d gotten a renovation and hadn’t been changed since. Linoleum floor, old tin ceiling with tiny, inadequate single-bulb lights, white painted walls, green-painted doors.

  She could see now why there were studio apartments on the third floor and none to be had on the fourth. There simply weren’t any studio apartments at all on this floor. Well, there was no accounting for what people in the early 1900s had wanted in their apartment buildings. Maybe the view, the sunlight, and the breeze made up for the inconvenience of four flights of stairs.

  Or—she tried not to grind her teeth a little, as she spotted an elevator door. One which did not have a corresponding door on the third floor. So that was how it was. If you paid the higher rent, you got to ride in style instead of schlepping up four flights of stairs.

  On the other hand, do you really want to trust your safety to an elevator old enough to be your great-grandpa?

  Maybe not.

  So, Emory and Itzaak were in 4C. And there it was. 4C in old brass on the door. She knocked on it.

  It opened immediately, and the face that topped the tie-dyed t-shirt could only belong to Emory, who was an exceedingly good looking Asian man, taller than she was, with slightly shaggy hair. And it appeared he had been expecting someone besides her, because the first words out of his mouth were “Em! You’re ear—” Then he blinked. “Oh. Sorry. I was expecting someone else.”

  And it was pretty obvious that the “someone else” was not male. Not from the sheepish grin on his face.

  Dammit. He has a girlfriend. He also was not the would-be magician. There were absolutely no “vibes” of any sort coming from him.

  “Sorry, I’m your downstairs neighbor, Diana—”

  “Oh geez—” He ran a hand through his hair, looking distressed. “Are we making too much noise? Is it the stereo? Is it us? I keep telling ’Zaak—”

  She had to laugh, and interrupted him. “No, no, not at all! I just thought I should intr
oduce myself so if I do come pounding on your door, you’ll at least know who I am. And I brought—”

  By now the door was standing wide open, and she could see right into the apartment. And she was jealous, because it was huge. A living room twice the size of her entire place, a big kitchen, and it looked like at least two bedrooms and the bath between. A shaggy, curly head popped out of one of the doors, pretty much confirming her guess as she held out her peace-offering. “—candles—” she said.

  The round little face beneath the head lit up with a smile. “Candles! That’s exactly what I needed for my ritual!”

  It was Di’s turn to blink, her mouth almost falling open in astonishment that someone would just come out and say something like that in front of a stranger.

  And her vibe-o-meter started to edge over into the red. It wasn’t exactly going wild, but there was no doubt. Itzaak was the one trying to be a wizard.

  Hoo boy…

  Emory rolled his eyes. “’Zaak, how many times have I told you that you need to censor that mouth of yours before it gets you into trouble? What if this was a Jehovah’s Witness?”

  “Then I’d say I was glad our virgin sacrifice got here.” Itzaak’s grin was infectious, though Emory still looked a bit annoyed. The rest of him came out of the bedroom; he looked a bit like Paul Simon, only with black hair instead of red. He approached with his hand held straight out. “Hi! I’m Zaak, Comparative Religion. This is Emory, Applied Mathematics. He thinks I’m crazy.”

  She transferred the candles to Emory and shook the hand. Oh yes. Up to his neck in magic, and gods help me, he has the gift for it too. “Di Tregarde. Folklore and Mythology. Why does he think you’re crazy?”

  “Because I don’t believe in all that woowoo crap,” Emory said with a touch of irritation, dumping the candles into Zaak’s hands the minute Di let go, and shaking her hand himself. “This is all just a phase. He does this every year; we’re juniors. Last year it was Buddhism. God only knows what it will be Senior Year.” He rolled his eyes again. “Probably the Flat Earth Society.”

  “Aw, come on, Emory, you know I’m onto something this time!” Zaak didn’t seem at all put out by Emory’s attitude. “Did I, or did I not, manage to magic my way into that closed class?”

  “Well…you got in. It might have been a lot of reasons—”

  “And I’m going out with Angela Harris!” The grin got larger and more triumphant.

  “Now that, I must admit, is close to a miracle.” Emory shook his head.

  “It wasn’t a miracle, it was magic! The stuff works!” Zaak crowed triumphantly. “You just watch, my man, it won’t be long before you’re begging me to help you!”

  At that moment the elevator door opened and they all turned to see who it was. From the happy look on Emory’s face it was exactly who he was hoping to see. Zaak reached for Di’s arm and pulled her inside the apartment.

  “Come on in, sit down,” he urged. “Are these candles handmade?”

  “My grandmother and I made them,” she said, “Beeswax and bayberry. We got the wax from a honey farm.”

  “Better and better! Do you believe in magic? Not stage magic, that’s Marshal’s thing, I mean the real stuff.” He waved at one of the somewhat battered armchairs and perched eagerly on the corner of the equally battered sofa, putting the candles down on the door on two stacks of cinder-blocks that was serving as a coffee table. They might have a lot of room, but her furniture was better. She really didn’t want to know what the Indian bedspreads that covered the chairs and couch hid.

  At least there weren’t any busted springs poking her.

  “Who’s Marshal?” she asked. Someone who knew stage magic? That could be incredibly useful about now…

  “Friend of ours, he’ll be over tonight probably. So, do you?”

  She shrugged. Okay. Don’t lie. It’s never a good idea for a mage to lie, especially not around another mage…

  “There’s a lot of things you just can’t explain by scientific means,” she temporized. “I’m studying folklore, and you have to wonder where some of that stuff came from, you know? Every culture has some form of ghost, every culture has some form of shapeshifter, or vampire. Every culture has good and bad magicians. So, I guess—”

  She didn’t even need to go further. With a potential believer in front of him, Zaak was off and running. All she had to do was listen and make vague noises once in a while. It was too easy, and (not for the first time) she was just a little appalled at how naïve these self-taught occultists were. She wasn’t going to have to pry, Zaak was practically pouring everything she wanted to know right into her lap. And if she’d been the sort of creature he was likely to run into, a magician that got his power by draining it out of others, who got what he wanted by controlling them, she could have made him hers within an hour.

  It was quite possible that the only thing that had saved him so far was the simple fact that there were relatively few of that sort of predator…and so very many willing victims.

  As she had feared, he had picked up a handful of fairly dubious books, and now he was convinced he had The Answer. It wasn’t that the books in question were bad, it was that like him, they were incredibly naïve. These “new Druids” and “modern pagans” wanted to believe that everything “out there” was just waiting to welcome you into a joyful realm of harmony, peace and love.

  Well, they were right about one thing. There was a great deal “out there” that was waiting to welcome you. And not just the predatory human types either. The universe was not a friendly place, all sweetness and light, and ready to welcome the budding would-be magician with open arms. It was, in fact, like a tough neighborhood, filled with things that would be only too happy to mug you and take your metaphysical wallet. If you were lucky. If you weren’t so lucky, they would beat you up and leave you bleeding in the metaphysical gutter. If you were really unlucky…

  As it happened, she could do something about that. And there was no question of should she, because as sure as rain on your picnic, anything bad that Zaak got into was going to end up involving her no matter what she did. Just on the basis of pure practicality, all morality aside, it was going to spill over on her just due to physical proximity. And as for morality? Well, you didn’t let a five-year-old toddle out onto the highway, now did you? Not if you were the sort of witch that Diana and Memaw had been before Di became a Guardian.

  The big question was how she was going to handle this. Her mind was going a million miles a second, trying to juggle it. The obvious was to take him aside and play the Great and Powerful Oz with him and make him her student. It wasn’t as if she didn’t actually have the ability. And it wasn’t as if she couldn’t do things that right now he could only dream about, and show him too. The drawback was that she had no idea how good or bad an apprentice he would be. He could turn out to be nothing but trouble.

  I don’t need an apprentice. I don’t want an apprentice. I could use some help, but right now, this kid is just more trouble, not more help.

  Okay, then maybe the subtle approach. He didn’t get into Harvard by being stupid. So perhaps the proper approach was to remind him that, like mundane physics, there was a physics of the metaphysical as well, and every action did have a reaction, every deed a consequence.

  “I’m not saying I totally buy into this,” she replied, when she could get a word in. “But aren’t you mostly talking about influencing the way that people think? I mean I assume that magic has to mostly work in small ways, and that would be the most logical, right? So what you’re doing now, that would be going and changing how people react to what you want. You are changing their minds for them.”

  That brought him to a screeching halt. “Uh,” he said after a moment.

  “Well, doesn’t it make sense? The class you got into, and the girl that you got to go out with you…if magic did that, wasn’t it by changing what they were thinking?” she persisted.

  “I…guess…” By this point, Emory and his girlfr
iend had stopped sucking each others’s faces, and had closed the door, and both of them were actually listening.

  “And is that ethical? I mean, this is Harvard and they make us take courses about that sort of thing. So shouldn’t you apply that Moral Reasoning class you took? They make us take it for a reason, you know, it’s not just to bore us to death. Is it ethical to go into someone’s head without their permission and monkey around in there?” Zaak looked as if she had just smacked him in the face with a fish, as if none of this had even occurred to him. Probably because it hadn’t. After all, when the toddler gorges on candy, he’s not thinking about the possible stomach-ache to follow. Over his shoulder, Emory was grinning.

  “She’s got you there, Zaak,” said Emory’s girlfriend, who hadn’t yet been introduced. She took care of that herself. “Hi, I’m Em.”

  “Di.” She smiled, then turned back to Zaak. “And did you really think it through? I mean, there are consequences to changing things. What if someone who needed the course more than you got bumped? What if what you did caused someone to fail or get sick so the course slot opened? And what if you’re preventing the guy this girl is really meant to be with from ever meeting her because you’ve got her going out with you instead?” Not that she believed that anyone was meant to be with anyone else—but she would bet that he did.

  Zaak was really looking ill now. “I—uh—”

  “Isn’t the law of magic supposed to be ‘do what you will as long as you harm no one?’ I don’t think that means ‘trampling all over someone else’s life is okay.’” She raised her eyebrow in a Spock-like gesture she had perfected over years of practicing it in the mirror. It was usually pretty effective.

  It was this time too.

  “You seem to know a lot about this,” Zaak said weakly.

  “My Field of Concentration is Folklore and Myth,” she pointed out. “I mean, come on.”