Wizard Unleashed Page 22

  “Only supposed to be two,” the man grunted.

  “Make the call,” Dukats advised. “Let’s give him a little room.” She herded us backward two feet.

  After a few minutes of consultation over the radio, one of the dark steel doors swung open. Agent Dana Anderson held the door with her shoulder as she pointed her drawn service weapon at the ground and looked out at the five of us. The blonde, pale-skinned agent was dressed neatly in a gray suit and long, winter trench. Her eyes locked onto Dukats and then she turned on me. “Are you nuts bringing a civilian, Slade? Dukats needs to stay out of this.”

  “Couldn’t be helped. She’s already in it,” I said. “This whole deal doesn’t work if she still thinks Joe is on the hook.”

  “Damnit.” Anderson swore under her breath, looking at Dukats. “How far down the rabbit hole are you?”

  “Pretty damn far if witches, wizards and werewolves are any indication,” Dukats said.

  “Wish you didn’t have to know that. There’s no going back.” Anderson put her pistol away and nodded for us to follow her back into the hangar.

  The scene we entered was organized chaos. A sleek private jet had been pushed to the far side of the bay and there were far more people running about than I’d expected. The agents that I could see were split into different groups identifiable by the clothing they wore: tactical gear, suits, lab coats, and the smallest group of all belonging to those wearing comfortable, natural fibers. It was the last group that held most of my attention as they were busily drawing an elaborate runed circle on the floor.

  “Anderson, this is no place for more lycan.” The British voice belonged to Jardeep Farha, an agent we’d met in North Carolina. I had little trust for the man and knew him to be a practitioner working for the FBI. He was accompanied by a team of armed agents who raised their weapons threateningly at our group.

  “Put your weapons down,” I said. “Squirrel and Daphne are here on my invitation. They have as much stake in this as any of us. Joe is their alpha.”

  Jardeep pushed his way through the armed agents. “What are you up to, Slade?”

  “We’re on a short leash here. Are you really looking to get into a pissing contest?”

  “Stand down, men,” Jardeep said officiously, which earned him an annoyed look from the tactical team leader.

  “Just to be clear,” the group leader said, locking eyes with Squirrel. “We’re carrying silver laced rounds, werewolf.” His men hadn’t moved at Jardeep’s command, but now followed their leader as he backed away cautiously and lowered his weapon.

  “Aren’t you special,” Squirrel replied.

  “Time to hand over Joe,” I pushed again, as it appeared that Jardeep was distracted by the building tension in the room.

  “I’m afraid that’s not the bargain,” Jardeep said. “We get the demon in custody first, then you’ll get your dog.” The derision in his voice prompted a low growl from Squirrel, which was not lost on the tactical team. They shifted menacingly, but stopped short of raising their guns again.

  “I need to review the immunity agreement,” Gabriella said.

  “Slade, bring your witch and the cop and go with Anderson to look at the papers. The rest of you need to stay right here,” Jardeep said.

  I looked to Dana and she nodded. Apparently, Jardeep was calling at least some of the shots tonight.

  “We won’t go far,” I said, trying to reassure Amak, Daphne and Squirrel.

  “Careful, Felix,” Amak said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

  I followed Anderson to a plastic folding table. There were two chairs on our side and two on the other.

  “Bring the DA,” Anderson said to a suited agent who stood next to the table.

  The agent nodded to a guard near the front of the hangar. Beyond the guard and through the door, a black limo sat idling. On cue, the vehicle’s rear door opened and none other than Gabriella’s ex-fiancé, Dean, stepped out. Six-foot-two, dark hair and chiseled good looks. He was everything I wasn’t.

  “Gabbs!” he exclaimed as he walked through the door. His serious expression brightened into a broad smile. Shit, but I hated his perfect white teeth and twinkling blue eyes. One man could not be more photogenic. “What are you doing here?”

  Gabriella stood, crossed the distance between them and accepted his friendly hug. It did not go unnoticed that he gave her a more than friendly kiss on the cheek. My stomach burned with jealousy.

  “I represent Joe Lozano,” she said.

  “Nasty business, this,” he said. “I don’t see what all the fuss is. We could have finished this up at my office tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re all dressed up,” Gabriella said, walking with him. “Hobnobbing again tonight?”

  “Small party at the governor’s. They’re all asking about you,” he said.

  Gabriella smiled as she turned to me. Her eyes caught mine and I’m not sure what she read, but I was no doubt broadcasting my insecurities. She quickly let go of his hand and turned back. “Dean, have you met my friend, Felix Slade?”

  Dean didn’t miss a beat. He gave me the full treatment as he stuck out his hand in a sincere greeting. “Felix Slade. I’ve heard so much about you. Fantastic to finally get to meet you.” He held my hand firmly as we shook and just as we were letting go he squeezed hard enough that it was momentarily painful. “I understand you’re the competition.” He winked amiably, playing to the small crowd of Dukats and Anderson who stood nearby.

  “Iveta. I wasn’t expecting to see LPD here tonight. I thought this was the feds’ game?” Dean continued on to offer his hand to Dukats.

  “Last minute addition,” Dukats said, eyeing Dean warily. My estimation of her rose.

  “Agent Anderson informs me that Joe Lozano - one of our own, from what I recall - is to be released tonight. Standard immunity deal, although the wording is a bit strange. Joe Lozano is trading information about the murder of George Rosen and we’re promising not to hold him liable for the events of that evening. Does that sound right?”

  “Our lawyers have already reviewed the documents,” Anderson agreed.

  Dean nodded to a staffer who had joined him at the door when he’d arrived. The young man had a harried look about him as he pulled a manila folder from a briefcase and set it on the table.

  “Gabriella, I assume you’ll want to look through this. It’s our standard boiler-plate agreement. Section C has language about transfer of a federal prisoner.”

  Gabriella sat at the table and pulled the papers in front of her. She read through them quickly at first, then more slowly a second time. As she did, the staffer explained language as she got to each section. It became clear that the young man had done the work of putting together the agreement at Dean’s direction.

  “Where is Joe now?” Gabriella asked when she finally finished reading the papers.

  “Armored vehicle outside,” Anderson said.

  “I need to see him.”

  “Do you need anything more from me?” Dean asked.

  “I didn’t see your signature,” Gabriella said.

  Dean raised his eyebrows and smiled as if he’d been caught in a white lie. He crowded in to where Gabriella sat. She hastily stood so he had full access to the papers. Accepting a pen from his staffer, he signed with a flourish. “I’ll walk out with you.” He looped his arm into Gabriella’s and gave me a friendly wink. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into joining me at the Governor’s Mansion?”

  “Not tonight,” Gabriella said as they walked toward the door with Dean’s assistant following in their wake.

  “That man has your number, Slade,” Dukats observed as Anderson picked the papers up from the table.

  I took my gaze off Gabriella and Dean and rolled my eyes. “What are we doing?” I asked, ignoring her.

  “Valverde has asked to see the prisoner,” Anderson said. “It’s part of the agreement.”

  I followed Anderson through the same door Gabriella and Dean had disa
ppeared through. The front of the hangar was crowded with black SUVs and we worked our way over to where a blocky, gray armored vehicle sat idling. Something heavy banged at the sides of the vehicle from the inside. Jealously, I looked over to where Gabriella lingered, talking with Dean next to his stretch limousine.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow.” Gabriella called as she waved over her shoulder and jogged toward us, a feat that still amazed me given the heels she wore. I took it as a small victory that Dean didn’t get a goodbye peck on the cheek.

  Loud arguing at the door we’d just excited caught my attention. When I looked back, Squirrel was being unsuccessfully held by three burly agents.

  “Dana, we have trouble,” I said, directing her attention.

  “Let him go,” she yelled and stepped toward the door.

  Squirrel shrugged off the agents he’d been dragging and stalked toward us.

  “You were to stay back,” Anderson said as he approached.

  Squirrel, not one for unnecessary conversation, gave a curt nod.

  Anderson knocked on the back door of the armored vehicle. A metal window no more than two inches tall slid to the side. Seconds later, the door swung open and an armed guard stepped out.

  “Ma’am. We have less than two hours before this gets critical,” the guard complained.

  I looked inside the vehicle to where Joe sat chained to the inside and separated from us by a steel mesh curtain. He was alive, but in bad shape: hunched over and panting rapidly. His head swiveled toward the light let in by the open door, but he didn’t seem to recognize any of us.

  “Shit,” Daphne said as Squirrel held her back from the truck. “He’s starting to change. We need to get him out of town.”

  “Not so fast.” Jardeep had caught up with us. “You haven’t delivered your side of the bargain.”

  “You really want this, Jardeep? That thing will kill you,” I said and I wasn’t referring to Joe - who just might, as well.

  “I need its name.” Jardeep pushed.

  “Have your driver take Joe out to the country,” I said, looking at Anderson. “You have an entire werewolf pack sitting not more than a block from here and it’s a full moon. How do you think this is going to go?”

  “Demon first,” Jardeep retorted.

  Anderson considered the back of the cell where Joe thrashed, pulling wildly at the chains. It wasn’t obvious to me that the shackles would be sufficient.

  “That’s not our agreement,” Jardeep interjected.

  “If Joe dies in there, it’s on you,” Squirrel looked at Jardeep.

  Jardeep spun on the thick lycan and stared at him menacingly. “I hunt were for sport, Sport. You’d do well to keep off my radar.” Jardeep's eyes glowed purple as he crowded Squirrel.

  If I’d been a betting man, I’d have put money on Squirrel taking the man out at that very moment. I was surprised when Squirrel took a step back and whined, bowing his head slightly.

  “Go back to your pack and wait this out like a good little cur.” The menace in Jardeep’s voice carried magic I was unfamiliar with. Squirrel turned away from him as if he’d been physically struck.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Anderson said, disgusted, as she turned to the jailer. “Agent Henderson. The situation has changed. We have a pack of lycan that are about to shift. You and Agent Boswell will drive our prisoner out of town. I want you to ride in the cab and you’ll hand the key to Mr. Donohoe once you receive a call from me. Under no circumstances are you to exit the vehicle. Do you understand?”

  “Copy that,” the guard replied. The relief in his face was evident as he jogged around to the front.

  “Daphne. You stay here and make sure she lives up to her end,” Squirrel said.

  Daphne didn’t answer other than to nod her head in agreement.

  “Give me the name, Slade,” Jardeep pushed as Squirrel conferred with the driver of the truck.

  “I need to see your circle first.”

  “Fine. Let’s get this done,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Dukats asked.

  “This would be a good time to go home, Iveta,” I said. “You’ve seen things, but this is a new level. Don’t let curiosity drag you in further.”

  “Fuck off, Slade. You brought me here. I’m seeing this through.”

  I sighed as we followed Jardeep. “Last year a demon came to Leoville. The only way we could stop it was to trap it in my basement in a spell circle.”

  “Your house is burned to the ground,” Dukats said. “There was nothing in the basement other than mechanicals.”

  “Two basements,” I said.

  “The demon is still secure?” Anderson asked, accelerating her stride so she came even with Dukats and me.

  “It is,” I said. “Pissed off, but secure.”

  “How bad is a demon?” Dukats asked.

  “Bad enough that I wish you weren’t here. If it gets loose, better than even odds no one survives,” I said. “It killed fifty people in North Carolina.”

  “One hundred forty-two,” Anderson corrected. “Including my partner.”

  “Damn,” Dukats said.

  “How long is Jardeep going to hold it in this hangar?” I asked.

  “We’re building a longer term holding cell for it. Your call took us off-guard,” Anderson said.

  “What’s the hurry?” Dukats asked.

  “Joe will change into a werewolf tonight,” I said. It wasn’t technically accurate; he was already a werewolf, but that phrasing was easier for a layman to understand. “If we don’t get this done before he changes, it’ll be bad at an epic level.”

  “You haven’t seen bad yet, Slade,” Daphne growled.

  “Won’t he kill people?” Dukats asked, ignoring Daphne.

  “Joe got this over a year ago. It’s a disease and he’s managing it. The pack is smart. They get out of town when they need to change. The older were like Squirrel help the younger because they have more control,” I said. “Joe doesn’t deserve to be put down like a sick dog.”

  “He’ll eventually kill,” Jardeep said as we joined him next to the ornate circle that had been scribed into the cement. “They all do. Joe Lozano died last year, he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Daphne glowered at Jardeep. “And you just made the list, bitch.”

  “Give it a rest, Daphne.”

  All eyes were on us as we re-entered the hangar.

  “Give me your flashlight,” I said to a lab technician who stood next to a six-foot diameter circle that had been drawn onto the floor with some sort of white marker material. The runes inscribed onto the cement were both elegant and unrecognizable. Even with the plentiful light in the hangar, there were shadows. I had to be certain the circle was complete.

  “What are ya looking at?” A dark-skinned woman spoke with a Jamaican accent. Unlike the others in the room, she was dressed in a gypsy skirt and peasant blouse and unruly dreadlocks sprouted from her head. I held her gaze. For a moment, we struggled as she pushed at me with a form of compulsion magic, which I shook off. “Dat be a right powerful wizard, der.”

  “Any break in the circle and we’re not getting out of here alive,” I said as I slowly walked around the circle, illuminating the carefully drawn runes. I knelt at a seam in the cement. I was pleased to discover the practitioners had been careful to build up the material so it did not break as it crossed.

  “Dis not be our first rodeo,” she said. It took me a moment to recognize the last word as her accent fell on the wrong syllable.

  I couldn’t find any flaws in the circle.

  “It’s time, Felix,” Gabriella said. “Joe won’t make it much longer.”

  “Who is summoning?” I asked. “Everyone else should be cleared out.”

  “What’s your issue?” Jardeep asked.

  “Your summoner is going to use Gester’s full name. Do you want fifty people knowing that name? If it were leaked, you’d have chaos. Your circle only works if he’s not summoned out of it.”


  “This is the FBI. We’re smarter than that,” Jardeep said haughtily and pointed at a man in a lab-coat. In response, the man walked over to what I’d thought was a microphone that sat on a stand. When he flipped the switch my ears popped.

  “What is that?”

  “Noise cancellation. See those cones?” he asked. I followed his arm. Someone had placed orange traffic cones in a twenty-foot circle surrounding the spell circle. “No noise gets outside that range. And just as a precaution, everyone will be wearing ear-muffs. I’ll need everyone except Slade here to back off.”

  “Da name, Wizard.” The Jamaican woman stared at me and pushed again.

  I allowed her compulsion to draw the name from me. “Phezore Gesteriph Feoro.”

  Chapter 22

  Adajania

  It didn’t take much urging for me to move away from the summoning circle and I found myself next to Gabriella. We watched as the Jamaican witch sat with her back to the assembled crowd. I could feel the power build around her, even though I was unable to make out her words. Gabriella’s hand found my own as the circle’s inscribed lines glowed orange.

  In addition to the hangar’s overhead lights, the FBI had set up several tripods holding additional portable lights which brightened as the summoning continued. Finally, the lights reached their limit and exploded in a brilliant flash that flung molten glass shards into the assembled group. I brushed furiously at the specs of glass and removed them from Gabriella’s back. The next to go were the hangar’s overhead lights and then finally all power in the building.

  With the muting technology disabled, we heard the Jamaican’s fevered voice as she continued her chant, “Phezore Gesteriph Feoro” I was able pick out from her foreign speech. I winced at the myriad witnesses to the powerful demon’s name.

  The circle’s glowing outline had transformed to eight-inch-high flames that followed the intricate design. Each word spoken by the witch caused them to jump several inches, only to die back in her silences.

  Movement from Anderson caught my eye as she lifted her phone to her ear. A voice on the other end of the line acknowledged her call, but she remained silent.