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“Must be nice,” Trish said. “Even better would be to make it so you didn’t have to hear anyone else.”
“We can do that,” Rod said, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t work for you, unless it’s a true sound barrier. So, what do we do about this?” He gestured with his chin toward the stairs where Owen had gone.
“I’m worried,” I admitted. “Maybe this lunch was just to get his guard lowered. Then she can invite him somewhere else where something will happen.”
“Yeah, I don’t believe in a million years that this was just catching up. I’ll keep an eye on him. Maybe you can keep him busy.”
“With the wedding, that won’t be hard. Now I’d better let Sam know about that thing tonight in the plaza.”
Trish and I went back outside to where Sam sat in his usual post on the awning. When I showed the flier to Sam, he gave a low whistle. “Well, now, they’re getting into our territory. I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s so close to our headquarters. They’ve gotta be up to something. And we’d better be ready.”
14
We went into high gear to prepare for the event advertised on the flier. Gargoyles searched the city, seeing how far and wide the fliers were distributed and if any similar events were being planned elsewhere. When we got the report that this seemed to be the only event and that it had been promoted throughout the city, Sam ordered half of his forces to stay around the office building.
“You think this is a pretext for attacking here?” I asked.
“I think it’s an excellent way to draw our people out to the plaza, leaving the building vulnerable. But don’t worry, we’ll still have plenty of folks keepin’ an eye on the plaza.”
“Remember, there’s a good chance that some of these people are magical immunes,” I warned. “That’s probably why they see magic stuff. Your veils won’t work on some of them.”
“That’s why you’re one of the folks keepin’ an eye on the plaza. The gargoyles will be minding the fort back here, but we’ll be ready to swoop in if you give the word.”
“That would be an extreme last resort. And maybe it’s what they want us to do. They might be goading us into showing ourselves.”
A crowd had already started to form near the fountain when I left the office. I recognized a number of MSI people, including Rod and Trish, mingling among the crowd. Fortunately, there was no sign of Owen. I wondered if Rod had resorted to handcuffing him to his desk or if Owen had merely been sidetracked by some project. In spite of him being warned to stay away, I wouldn’t have put it past him to show up, in case he was needed.
Since I’d gone to that one anti-magic meeting with Trish, I figured it would make sense for me to be seen in public with her, so I wandered over to her. “Fancy meeting you here,” I said.
“There are more people here than I expected,” she said.
“I never thought anyone actually read those fliers.”
“I wonder how much is the fliers and how much is people seeing a crowd and stopping out of curiosity,” she said, scanning the plaza. “It is going-home-from-work time.” She dropped her voice to add, “See anyone you know?”
I was shorter than she was, so had a harder time seeing beyond the heads and shoulders of the people around me. I did a double take when I saw a familiar head of curly red hair: Mimi. It made sense for her to be
drawn to an event like this, given her experiences, I supposed. I couldn’t tell if she was involved with the event or just a curious bystander. Someone climbed up to stand on one of the benches by the fountain. She wasn’t familiar, but I recognized a woman standing near her. “Yeah, the person who tipped me off about all this in the first place.” I felt like I’d come full circle. Oddly, this was the first time I’d encountered her since the bridal sale. She hadn’t been at the meeting or the demonstration at Union Square. Did that mean this was a different faction?
The woman standing on the bench was tall and thin, with long, straight graying hair held back from her face with a hairband. I wondered if looking eternally middle-aged was a common trait for those who believed magic existed and wished it didn’t, because she reminded me of the guy from the other meeting. There had to be a certain humorlessness about someone who wanted the world to be less magical, and it was a good reminder to watch my own attitude. I was way too prone to wishing things were more normal. It was easy to get so caught up in facing the latest magical threat that I forgot to think of how amazing it was that magic was real and I got to be a part of it.
The woman raised a bullhorn to her mouth, cleared her throat, and called out, “Can everyone hear me?” There was a general murmur of confirmation. “Well, um, good. I’m sure you’re all here because you’re seekers. You want the truth. You’ve heard things, seen things, and everywhere you turn, all you get are denials. No one believes you. Even if they see something for themselves, they deny it. And, of course, the authorities treat you like a crackpot. It’s enough to make you wonder what you really saw, to make you doubt your own eyes.”
“Sounds like an immune to me,” Trish muttered, and I nodded in agreement. I wondered if telling this woman the truth would stop all this. Maybe it wasn’t so much that she was opposed to magic as it was that she was tired of not being believed.
“Well, today we’re going to change all that,” the speaker declared, her voice going shrill with emotion. The bullhorn amplified that, making her unpleasant to listen to. People started drifting away from the plaza. Seeing her audience departing made her get even more strident. “I’m here today to tell you that magic is real, and I’m going to prove it to you.”
That got the attention of the people just passing through the plaza, going to and from the nearby subway station. I looked around for any sign of reporters and didn’t see any TV cameras. I thought I saw Carmen, in incognito mode, the way she’d been at that previous meeting, and without her camera crew.
“Yes, I said magic. Not pulling rabbits out of hats or sawing women in half, but real magic. And believe me, it is real.”
I heard a few snickers around me. One person muttered, “It’s probably some kind of promotional thing. We’ll find out it’s about a new movie, or something.” But a few people listened intently, Mimi among them.
“Magic is all around us in this city. There are magical creatures living among us. There are wizards manipulating the world to their own ends. Great magical battles have happened right here, and most people remain oblivious, probably because the magical people fog their minds, keeping them from noticing. But we’ve been documenting it all, every incident, with as much evidence as we can find, and we’ve been studying the patterns of the way magic is used.”
That had to mean they knew more than they’d posted on their blog, because I hadn’t been able to find any patterns, in spite of knowing the truth. Or else someone who did know something had tipped them off.
“We’re in the part of the city that’s the core of magic here,” the speaker went on, and I tensed. That sounded like she knew about MSI headquarters. The location of this event hadn’t been accidental. “There’s a building that isn’t always there, or that only some people can see, and it’s the seat of magical activity in this city. But tonight, you’ll see it all when the moon passes overhead a few minutes from now, lifting the magical veil that hides it from the world.”
