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That almost made him smile, and he had to fight to keep looking stern. “Okay, then. How do you plan to explain your ability to get in?”
“The nonmagical people will think I’m a medic, and the wizard should be baffled, which is what we want, right? Then when it’s all over with, I can slip out with the other hostages and you can make me disappear. You’ll be cleaning all this up anyway, won’t you?”
“Oh, yeah, we’ll be cleaning up,” Mack said. He waved his hands and an EMT jacket and hat appeared in them. He helped me with the jacket, then waved his hands again. A medical bag materialized. “You know what to do with this?”
“I know basic first aid—Dad made us all take a course at the store, since we work with sharp objects and poisons. The main thing is to stop or slow the bleeding—I mean, aside from coming up with a way to distract our wizard, which is my primary objective.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Owen asked. He still looked intensely unhappy about the whole situation.
“I’ll have to improvise,” I said with a shrug that I hoped looked more casual than it felt. In spite of my show of bravado, I was going shaky with the realization of what I was about to do. “It all depends on the wizard himself.”
Mack took my arm and said, “Let’s get this done,” but before he could lead me away, Owen stepped forward and kissed me fiercely. As Mack led me toward the besieged jewelry store, I glanced over my shoulder at Owen, who looked like he was contemplating sending me back to Texas, and then I was standing in front of the shop.
I had to clear my throat a couple of times before I could get enough sound to my voice to call out. Not that I really needed to say anything. I felt like my heart was pounding loud enough that they could hear me inside. “Medic!” I shouted through the broken glass of the door. “I’m here to see the injured man. I’m not armed. I’m just here to help.” When there wasn’t a response, I took a few deep breaths, and then with a trembling hand, I reached out and opened the door.
It was a tiny store, but with the merchandise they sold, they didn’t need a lot of space. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw that there were four people inside: an older man in a perfectly tailored suit, an equally well-dressed young woman kneeling on the floor next to a uniformed delivery man who was lying still, and a wild-eyed young man wearing a hooded sweatshirt.
I figured the agitated young guy had to be our wizard. He backed away from me as I made my way into the shop, one of his hands crooked in an odd position—maybe as part of doing his spell. “How–how did you get in here?” he stammered. That verified my assumption—only the wizard would know that it should have been impossible for anyone to get inside.
I gave him the blankest, most innocent look I could muster and raised the medical kit. “The police let me through, since I’m a medic,” I said. While he was still stammering and trying to find a way to say that wasn’t what he meant without revealing that he was using magic, I knelt beside the injured man. “How is he?” I asked the woman tending to him.
“I–I put my scarf on that wound on his arm,” she said. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the wizard and whispered, “He’s got a gun. Aren’t you afraid?”
Ah, so that’s what that funny hand position was about. He’d conjured an illusion of a gun and was “holding” it. I didn’t see illusions, so I just saw his hand bent in a way that looked very uncomfortable. “I don’t think he’ll shoot us,” I whispered to the woman.
Just then, she ducked and screamed, and the deliveryman jerked as though he was reacting to something loud or frightening, I turned to see the wizard holding his gun hand out in front of him, like he was taking aim. “Next one won’t miss,” he said, breathing heavily.
“Oh, did you shoot?” I asked. “I didn’t notice.” He frowned and brought his gun hand up to his face, inspecting it. I shrugged and went back to the injured man.
I carefully peeled back the scarf—which had a designer logo and probably cost more than my entire outfit—and saw that the gash on the man’s arm was bloody, but not deep and not bleeding badly enough to be life-threatening. I wouldn’t have to stretch my first-aid knowledge to play medic. “The bleeding seems to have slowed, so I’m not going to put much pressure on it, in case there’s some glass in the wound,” I said, making my voice calm and reassuring. I wrapped the wound in gauze and handed the scarf to the woman. “Soak it in cold water, and the blood should come out,” I told her. “If that doesn’t work, try club soda.”
“I don’t know what happened,” the deliveryman mumbled groggily. “I just suddenly went through the glass door.”
“Someone must have pushed you,” I said as I bandaged the other cuts on his arms and legs. Considering the amount of glass he’d gone through, I thought he was extremely lucky not to have a severed artery.
That part of my mission dealt with, I tried to think of something I could do to distract the wizard. He was obviously disconcerted by my arrival—pacing anxiously, his hands shaking, and his shoulders twitching—but since Owen and Mack hadn’t yet stormed the place, I figured he wasn’t distracted enough.
The wizard loomed over me. “How did you—” he began, then shook his head. “Why are you –”
“I told you, I’m a medic,” I said, standing up and facing him. “There’s an injured man here. You may be willing to sit around all day, but I figure he appreciates the help. It would be even better if you’d let him go as a sign of good faith. They might be less likely to shoot you as a way of resolving this.”
“They can’t shoot me,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Oh, okay,” I said in the exaggeratedly soothing tone you use with crazy people. “But what are your plans? I mean, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life here. You’d run out of food. And, believe me, they’re not getting bored out there. They’re not going to just wander off when the game comes on and let you sneak away.”
“Shut up!” he screamed, pointing his non-gun finger at me. I felt a wave of magic, but it didn’t do anything to me. He frowned at his finger and gave it an “is this thing on?” shake before whirling to point it at the older man. The older man’s eyes went glassy, then he squawked like a chicken.
“Father!” the young woman cried out, rushing to his side.
The wizard turned back to me. His breaths came faster and more shallow. If he kept this up, I wouldn’t have to worry about a distraction because he’d pass out. To help that along, I said, “You do know the Special Situations squad is out there, right? You don’t want to go up against them. They can handle all kinds of stuff, if you know what I mean, and I’m pretty sure you do.” I hoped he wouldn’t know I’d made that up.
He raised his imaginary gun at me and braced it with his other hand. “Shut up! You don’t know anything! I’m more powerful than everyone out there!”
“Everyone?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and allowing myself the slightest hint of a smile. “Really? Are you sure about that?”
“I’m not talking about guns!”
e him the blankest, most innocent look I could muster and raised the medical kit. “The police let me through, since I’m a medic,” I said. While he was still stammering and trying to find a way to say that wasn’t what he meant without revealing that he was using magic, I knelt beside the injured man. “How is he?” I asked the woman tending to him.
