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I was about to turn and head for home when I noticed bright lights across the crowd. It looked like there was a television camera set up over there. They’d been filming the whole thing.
9
“We’ve got to get you away from here,” I said, already steering Owen down the sidewalk.
“What? Why?” he asked, but he didn’t resist.
“That reporter from the meeting is here with a camera crew.”
“But I thought she was covering a school bus crash.”
“That must not have been a live report. She can do more than one story a day.”
“You’ve got to wonder how she knew to be here. What did they do, put out a press release?”
“Maybe. I’ll look into it. I would tell you to make yourself invisible, but that won’t work if she’s immune, and it might just draw attention to you if you suddenly disappear.”
I wished I knew what Carmen was doing, but to find out, I’d have to look directly at her, and that would increase the risk of her seeing and recognizing me. Instead, I kept my head turned so she would be less likely to see my face. It was fairly dark, so she probably couldn’t see past the range of the TV lights, and the odds were slim that she’d think to look for people she recognized in the crowd.
“Did you know those guys in black?” I asked Owen. “They looked like Council enforcers.”
“I’ve never seen them before, and that’s not the way the Council operates. Black is the universal color for covert-type operations, cat burglars, ninjas, and other people who don’t want to be seen or identified. My bet is that it was a stunt to make it look like his message is being suppressed.”
“Do you think they know about the enforcers and what they look like?”
“If you want to look like a dangerous secret organization, you’re probably not going to wear pastels, so I don’t think the black attire means anything.”
“Excuse me! Excuse me!” a voice shouted. My instinct was to turn around, but I reminded myself that there were a lot of people here. The woman could have been shouting at anyone. “Kathleen!”
“Uh oh,” I muttered.
“Are you suddenly trying not to be Katie?” Owen asked.
“I did try that when I first moved to New York, but it didn’t stick. However, that was the name I gave at the meeting so it wouldn’t necessarily instantly track back to me, but it also wouldn’t be a lie. Now, go. Head home or to my place, just get away from here.” I released his arm and quickly turned away from him, heading toward the shouting voice and hoping the crowd filled in behind me to hide Owen.
Carmen left her cameraman behind to approach me, but I didn’t let my guard down. For all I knew, they had a night vision lens and long-range microphone. “Did you know about this?” she asked.
“No,” I said, trying to sound casual, like this was no big deal to me. “I was just on my way home from dinner and passed by.” Although that was the absolute truth, I was afraid it sounded shady. Then I realized I was still holding the stack of tabloids and tucked them under my arm, hoping the headlines didn’t show. I doubted a real journalist would be impressed by someone who read that stuff, and I couldn’t tell her why I was reading it. “I showed up toward the end, so I’m not even sure what was happening.”
“So they didn’t send out info to everyone in the group?”
“I don’t know that there really is a ‘group.’ I know I didn’t sign up for any mailing list. They wouldn’t have had a way to send me any information.”
I thought she relaxed a little. “You’re right. I didn’t sign up for anything. So maybe it was just a news release.”
“About what?”
“Something about a demonstration that would prove the existence of magic and that there was a conspiracy to cover it up.”
“Did it?”
; “Prove magic? Not that I could tell. That guy just shouted a lot, and then some people came and hauled him away. Maybe that was supposed to be the proof of the conspiracy to cover it up, that they didn’t want him talking about it.”
“If it was magic people trying to silence him, wouldn’t they have just made him disappear or turned him into a frog, or something like that?” I suggested, scrambling for an excuse.
“But that would prove that magic’s real, defeating the point of the conspiracy to keep it hidden.”
