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“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not sure what you thought you were going to show us or why it didn’t work.” Which was somewhat true, since I didn’t know what Sam had done to keep the building from being revealed.
“It’s easy enough to tell if you’re lying,” the speaker said. “Bring the tester.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Trish and Rod take a step closer, but I shook my head slightly. Although we were getting dangerously close to “burn the witch!” territory, unless they did something silly like throw me into a pond to determine whether I sank or floated, I figured I’d be okay, since I knew I was about as far away as you could get from being a witch.
A man in the group brought over a device that looked a bit like a Geiger counter, and it seemed to work in a similar way. He waved the wand extension around me while looking at a dial on the device. After a few passes of the wand, he frowned, tucked the wand under his arm to free his hand, and gave the device a thump. He tried again and shook his head. “She’s not a witch,” he said. “In fact, she’s … well, I’ve only seen readings like this once before.”
“Are you sure it’s working?” the speaker asked.
He waved the wand around his own body, checked the dial, then waved the wand around me again. “It’s working. It’s just … I think she’s like you. She’s pure.”
The speaker stepped down from the bench and took my hands in hers. “Is it true? There’s another who is utterly pure of the taint of magic?”
This sounded close enough to cultish to make me nervous, so I caught Trish’s eye. Now was a good time for an intervention, as long as it wasn’t magical. “You people are nuts,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re untouched by magic,” the speaker said. “That allows you to see the truth. Together, you and I could spread the word to help others see the truth.”
“Kate! There you are!” Trish called out. “We’re going to be late. C’mon.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go,” I said, pulling my hands away.
I wasn’t fast enough. The woman caught my wrists. “But we need you. We could show you the truth, and then you could help us tell others.”
“Um, can I think about it and get back to you?” I said.
She released my hands, reached into her pocket, and pressed a card into my hand. It was the same business card the woman at the sale had given me, which suggested that maybe the speaker was Abigail Williams. Now I really had to wonder whether it was a pseudonym or if she’d lived up to the name she’d been given. “If you give this any thought, I know you’ll call us.”
“Yeah, okay, thanks,” I said, taking a step away from her. “I’ll definitely think about it.” I hurried toward Trish before she came close enough for that device to get a reading on her. I didn’t know what these people would think about finding yet another immune.
“You okay?” Trish asked when I reached her. “Those people looked pretty intense.”
“They let me go, which is a good sign.”
“So, back to the office?”
I glanced toward where the speaker and the bridal show woman were still eyeing me. “Not yet. I don’t want her to see me going into the building she thinks of as the headquarters of magic.”
Instead, we headed into the subway, where Rod soon joined us. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure what to do when she grabbed you.”
“I’m fine, and you were right to hold back. We need to talk about this, but not here, and I don’t want to go near the office until those people are gone, and until we’re sure they’re not watching me.”
“Let’s head to my place,” Rod said. “I’ll call Owen and some of the others to meet us there. It’s not as big as Owen’s place, but, as far as I know, no one’s watching me and I’m not under suspicion from any faction, so it should be safe.”
Rod lived in a modern high-rise, in what could politely be called a bachelor pad. When we arrived there, I realized that he’d toned it down quite a bit since the last time I’d seen it. Even so, it was playboy enough for Trish to roll her eyes at the leather furniture and all the chrome. “It used to be worse,” I whispered to her.
Sam reached us first, landing on the balcony railing, then hopping in through the open sliding door. “Thanks for the alert, doll,” he said. “I think we could have fought their spell, but the early warning kept us from being caught with our pants down even for a second. We were able to shield against any dampening spell, and it was a pretty powerful one.”
“I thought it was the other group that was being secretly run by magical people,” Trish said. “This one’s the one run by a magical immune who’s frustrated that no one sees what she sees. They shouldn’t have been able to drop the MSI veils, should they?”
“Not if they don’t have magical powers,” Sam said.
“She seemed to think it was some kind of natural phenomenon that would disrupt the magic, something about the moon passing overhead,” I said. “That sounds to me like someone’s messing with her.”
“It seems there’s a lot of cross-pollination between the two groups,” Trish said. “Maybe the magical people tipped her off, with an explanation, and then they were ready to make it happen with their magic.”
“My, aren’t you the devious one to think like that?” Sam said. “But, yeah, someone with some serious magical chops had to be involved, whether or not these people were aware of it.”
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a drink,” Rod said, turning to his well-equipped bar.
