Chapter 4

I sat in my office lost in my thoughts when I decided that it was time to call my old advisor, Dr. Putnam, on this matter. I called the Security Division to make sure he still had his green hexagon clearance and a secure line, then called him up.

"Dr. Joseph Putnam speaking."

"Dr. Putnam, this is Agent Bishop. I was your student at one time and was hoping you could help me out on a current case."

"Ahhh, Hephaestus, my dear boy, it's been simply ages since you've called. Pity it took business to accomplish the task. How can I assist you?"

Yes, Hephaestus is my given first name. Another reason why I was happy to take a code name from the bureau. You don't even want to know what my middle name is. Suffice to say my name made me the toughest kid in my neighborhood, since I was in the most fights.

"I'm sorry that I haven't gotten back to you earlier, Dr. Putnam, but work has kept me busy."

"Quite, quite. Duty first and all that. Well, tell me about your latest dust-up."

I reviewed the latest case with all its details, making sure to use euphemisms when describing more intimate details. Dr. Putnam was English and expected euphemisms. I once heard him describe a marital infidelity by a colleague with a reference to Anna Karenina.

He listened intently. There was a studied silence when I finished. "This is nasty business you've gotten yourself into, Hephaestus. I have a suspicion that this spell is a monochromatic one."

That ... was not pleasant news. Most magic is grey. That is to say, magic is like, say, dropping a penny. The magic itself is neutral. If you drop a penny into a wishing well where the proceeds go to a charity, the end result is good. Drop it from a ten story building on the head of a pedestrian, the end result is not so good. But in both cases, you dropped a penny. The penny itself is neutral. The same with magic. At least all the magic I can do.

At the higher level, there are spells that are of a dual nature, depending on the caster. These are called monochromatic, being either "white" magic or "black" magic, depending on how it's cast. I know the theory of such spells, which include such things as summoning demons and transforming human beings. A spell that sacrificed a human being could grant its caster enormous power or save a village from destruction. It would be basically be the same spell, but nuances in the spell would divide it between "black" and "white" (an involuntary sacrificial victim vs. a voluntary one, for example). It may seem as if I'm arguing semantics, but there is a vital difference between neutral and monochromatic. The effects on the caster and his karma, both immediate and in the long term, are very real.

Dr. Putnam theorized that the original crafter of the spell didn't care to "show his hand", as it were. So he used an agent, a fairly powerless one, who would be incapable of double crossing him. The fact that I acted so fast probably saved Amber's life. Whatever rewards super mage planned to reap, me interceding negated and turned them toward me. Because I acted with kindness toward Amber, and I was the one who removed the shielding keeping her captive, I seemed to have inadvertently activated the "white" aspects of the spell and suppressed the "black" ones. At this point Dr. Putnam went into euphemism overdrive. What I could deduce from the conversation that was embarrassing us both was that the connection that was established between Amber and me fed our own desires back and forth between us.

Case in point: I've always been something of a "breast" man (like Jerry Seinfeld said, why would I be a leg man? I've got legs). Because that was my preference, Amber's sensitivity was enhanced in that area. And because she was enjoying it, her emotions made me more inclined to dwell in that area. A very enjoyable loop that I wouldn't mind exploring more if the opportunity presented itself again.

Another side effect seemed to be enhancing my mental ability and psychic reserves. The last was temporary, the first seemed to be minor, but permanent, as my mastery of the Dual Nature Theorem seemed to indicated. Dr. Putnam agreed with me on this point. And it gave him some facts to start speculating on what benefits the super mage would have gained if he had succeeded. He promised to get back to me as soon as he did some more research.

As soon as I got off the phone, my boss called.

"We got another disappearance that looks identical to the first, Bishop. I need you to move on it now."

When my boss said fast, he meant fast. I was getting jurisdiction to jurisdiction escort all the way to a tony section of Richmond, Virginia. As I pulled up, the head of the local FBI office walked up to me as I got out of the car. "So you must be Bishop. Special Agent in Charge Walker. You must rate. I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to assist you in anyway I can, but otherwise stay out of your way and don't ask questions. So here's the situation. Part of the house is missing. No explosions, no bright lights, no anything. Just part of the house goes missing. Nobody notices it until the local landscaping company comes in. And we have a missing person along with the missing portion of the house. A Ms. Tiffany Jennifer Lee; father's a fairly successful lawyer and the mother's an owner of a successful catering company. Both with connections in the local and national political arena, just so you know where the pressure to get this solved fastest is coming from. Here's a picture of Tiffany."