AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay, how about his place at eight?”
I was spoiled by having had a crosstown subway station practically at my front door and a major station with multiple up/downtown lines a few blocks away, so while my new neighborhood was cute, it was somewhat limited in easy transportation options. And then I remembered that I was making money now and had an apartment that was paid for. I walked a few blocks to a busier street and hailed a cab, feeling utterly decadent doing so, which was weird, considering I was driven to work in a luxury sedan.
At his apartment, Rod greeted me with a hug. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “Marcia’s on her way. So, what did you want to talk about?”
I handed him the spell I’d copied. “Here’s the latest thing for Owen. And what do you know about how someone would go about recruiting magical thugs?”
“You’re not planning a life of crime, are you? Those Collegium people must be a bad influence.”
In spite of myself, I grinned. “You never know. But that’s the next step in Roger’s grand plan for world domination, according to the book. He’s got the funding after taking out Philip. Now he’s supposed to use that money to hire soldiers who are loyal to him rather than the Collegium, so that should mean he’s recruiting from outside.”
“Well, in my job in Personnel, I’ve never had much occasion to hire thugs. We prefer to fight with our brains and our powers. But I think what you might find is that he’ll hire creatures.”
“Like the ones Idris had working for him—those skeleton things, harpies, and the like?”
“And there would certainly be some unemployed ones. I know he created a thing or two, which would have faded when he quit supporting the spell, but yeah, most of his allies were goons for hire. They’d be loyal to whoever was paying the bills.”
I couldn’t help but make a face. Those things had been awful to deal with. They’d followed me around, and I could see them while other people couldn’t. “That must be where he was this afternoon, out recruiting.”
Rod scratched the back of his neck and looked uncomfortable. “That would explain the call he made to me today. I don’t think he’s just hiring thugs. He wants talent, too. He wanted to know if I knew of anyone who might be amenable.”
“Maybe this is our chance to infiltrate his group further.”
“That was what the boss said, so I gave him a few people I know are loyal and who have been briefed. It’s not full-time work, just as-needed. I’m pretty sure they’re not coming under the Collegium umbrella. They won’t be going to work in that fortress of theirs.”
Marcia arrived, which put the conversation on hold while Rod served dinner. He was a decent cook, probably from his playboy days when he’d been desperately trying to impress women. For a little while, I was able to forget my concerns and enjoy being with friends, but by the time he served dessert, we were back to business.
“I really feel like it’s all coming together,” I said. “We at least know what Roger wants and have the scoop on his plan to do it. Now we’ve got Owen checking out his spells before I give them to him, and sometimes I’m adjusting them. We just need to catch him in some way that will stop him.”
“And stop the Collegium,” Rod reminded me. “We might stop him and still have to deal with them. But we’ve altered our wards, so that spell of his can’t work on us, even if he could drop off a beacon somehow.”
“Will that clue him in that I’ve passed the spells on?”
“Why should it? He’s getting them from a hundred-year-old document. I’d hope we’d have updated our security since then.”
“Good point.”
“You do realize how crazy all this sounds,” Marcia said.
“Welcome to the magical world, my dear,” Rod said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “And what would you think if we were infiltrating the mafia to protect ourselves?”
“I’d think you were crazy because that’s the FBI’s job. Don’t you have magic cops?”
“Kind of,” Rod said. “But I’m not sure how much we can trust the Council enforcers, especially with a couple of Council members having recently been replaced. Jurisdictional boundaries are rather fluid in our world. If you know about a problem, you deal with it.”
“It sounds like the Wild West to me,” Marcia said, shaking her head. “And don’t you have undercover specialists? Why send Katie?”
“We tried sending someone else,” I said. “I was the one who got recruited. Though I suspect that may have been a Roger thing—he thought he’d get some inside scoop on MSI from me, and then I know some other highly placed people in the magical world.”
She took a sip of wine. “Well, I have to say, a job where they give you a West Village apartment and drive you to work every day doesn’t sound all that bad. Not to mention providing the work wardrobe.”
“On the other hand, I’m totally cut off from the world while I’m at work. I can’t even put a photo of my parents on my desk or carry out a grocery list I jotted down while I was on a phone call. And I don’t know where my office is.”
“Okay, that part is weird. That’s worse than when I worked retail when I was in college and they had to search my purse before I could leave every day. I guess if you’re untrustworthy, you don’t trust anyone else.”
After we’d helped Rod clean up from dinner and started to head out, he caught me at the door. “Do I have to tell you to be careful? Cooperate with them and do what they say, even if they’re doing something you have a problem with. Remember the big picture.”
“That’s how I’m sleeping at night,” I said grimly.
