Chapter 9

The next few days went by without anything major happening at work. I continued to work on the false trail that I had started to investigate. I even spent time out of the office checking on things that came up as a result of the research. It was good to get away from the building and my cubicle for a while. I also hadn’t heard anything from the Equipment Department.

The same could not be said about Maureen. She was still worried about me being discovered. She was so worried, in fact, that she had moved all of my clothes and personal effects from my apartment to the hotel room, which was a bit crowded now. She seemed a lot happier following that. The only thing that we used my apartment for now was having breakfast, and she would pull up her wards around the apartment when we arrived and lower them when we left. I will admit that it was a bit boring most of the time, except when we were both together, and then it was blissful. We just seemed to be made for each other and enjoyed being together.

There was one other thing that Maureen insisted on. That was, that I continue to practice transferring so I could get out of any trouble that came my way. So each evening, she would transfer us to a different place where I would practice transferring. The first location was a large field where there were trees at one end of it. She transferred us there near the trees. Then she had me stand near one particular large tree and look at it intently for a time.

“Memorize everything about this tree,” she told me, and I spent many minutes looking at the tree and noting everything about it, but not any of the others near it.

“Okay,” she said after a time. “I’m going to transfer us to the other end of the field. From there, I want you to transfer back to this particular tree,” she told me. Of course I already knew the transfer spell, but the problem was visualizing correctly where I wanted to transfer to. That is what the practice was for.

The other thing was that I had to take her with me, in case I had trouble and wound up in the wrong location or lost. Yes, before you ask, I did get lost, twice actually, but Maureen was always able to transfer us back to where we had started. She has had a lot more practice transferring than I have or probably ever will have. After a few evenings of practice, I was getting much better.

Late on Monday afternoon, Mr. Paramus had a very private meeting with the Agent in Charge of the Boston office and with the Deputy Director of the FBI in charge of the Paranormal Division, a Mr. Stone, by phone.

“It didn’t work!” Paramus said when the phone connection was completed, as he slouched in a chair across from the desk of the Boston AIC.

“Explain yourself!” Stone demanded over the phone which was in speaker mode.

“The plot to investigate Parks didn’t work since all of the equipment that had been planted in Park’s apartment appeared back in the vault some time between Friday evening and this morning. He claims that it disappeared before he got home on Friday,” Paramus told them.

“That’s impossible!” the Boston AIC said in shock.

“Not if someone was using Magic, or perhaps Witchcraft, but I would bet on Magic in this case. Someone is helping Parks. I don’t believe it is Cook, as we have heard nothing from her and none of the other Witches have been able to contact her,” Stone told them.

“But who?” the Boston AIC asked.

“That is the question, and I have no idea of who it could be. On another piece of business, you had better get some security set up against an attack by Paranormals, now that Cook isn’t there anymore. I’ll get some of our government Wizards up there to set some wards also. Have some of those on the Witch hunting teams find someone to make up charms to expose and stop other Paranormals also,” Stone told them.

“What about the other equipment that your people still have?” Paramus asked.

“We’ll keep it for now. If we need to bury anyone else, we’ll get what we need there. Just cover for the missing equipment,” Stone told him.

“I told Phil to write it off. It’s all old tech but still works well against the unwary,” Paramus said with a smile. “It’s all surplus at best anyway.”

Neither the Boston AIC nor Director Stone were happy that their plan to place Parks under investigation had failed. Paramus didn’t really care, as he was just a bureaucrat.

Once Paramus had left, the Boston AIC had more news for his boss.

“The bug that we put on Park’s car produced nothing. It seems that he drives without talking or listening to the radio, as the bug picked up nothing.

“It was useful for tracking him, but it didn’t reveal any useful information. He went to lunch on Friday at an Italian restaurant with a rather good looking woman, and then arrived at his apartment that evening with her for the weekend. My people checked the security tapes at his apartment complex. They show the two of them arriving on Friday evening, but they weren’t seen again until this morning. They apparently were in his apartment all weekend. They have also been keeping track of his utilities, and the water and electrical usage were all up by Monday morning.

“There was one problem however. Parks arrived this morning at the usual time, but the GPS tracking bug indicated that his car was still at his apartment. I had some of our trusted people check that out too, and they eventually found the bug in a small pothole at the apartment complex’s parking lot. It burst into flames when they tried to retrieve it. Those bugs aren’t supposed to do that. They only do that if they are force-ably removed,” the AIC told his boss.

“Basically what you are saying is that we don’t know if he was there all weekend or not, as you have no idea when the bug was separated from the vehicle,” Stone told him in an upset voice.

“No, we don’t know where he really was all weekend other than in the apartment. Someone was there, but who? Maybe the bug fell off this morning, but we don’t actually know,” the Boston AIC agreed. Both men were less than happy about this also.

Thursday morning, the 10th of April, I actually arrived at work five minutes early. The lead that I had been following was about exhausted, though I knew that it wouldn’t lead to anything, and I was wondering what I could do next when at about 11:00 o’clock, I detected a minor Talent entering the building. A more careful check revealed that there were actually three minor Talents that had entered the building.

I panicked not sure if they had detected my Magic senses checking on them or not, but there was a lot of confusion in the entrance area that I had also detected. I decided that it was time to leave, as I didn’t know if Maureen had detected them, or even if she was at the hotel presently. Rising from my desk, I headed for the men’s room at this end of our floor. Once inside, I went into the handicapped stall, tried to settle down, and visualized the tree that I had been practicing transferring to in my mind, before casting the transfer spell and vanishing from the FBI building.

In the building’s lobby, the three arriving government Wizards had set off the charms that had just been installed there that morning after the start of work. Allen had missed them by being early for work, or he would have set them off. The Wizards were immediately accosted by several agents from the Witch Task-force who had been in the area still explaining things to the guards. The charms made a loud whistling sound that couldn’t be missed. During the confusion and panic that this caused, all three Wizards detected the large amount of Magic that Allen had used when he transferred. This upset them even more and added to the confusion which lasted for several more minutes until the AIC arrived on the scene to straighten things out.

The agents on the Witch Task-force were upset that the charms, that they had spent two days acquiring, had all been set off and were now dead, and they would need to acquire new ones. The original ones had been hard enough to get as it was, and a new batch would be even harder.

The Wizards were upset by their reception, and that there had been another Magic user here in the building, and he or she had vanished without a clue. They had harsh words for the AIC when they reached his office.

“Why do you have Witch charms in your lobby instead of a ward covering the entire building,” was their first demand.

“They were just installed this morning. We had no idea that you would be here this soon,” the AIC told them, before continuing, “the Assistant Director said to get something set up to warn us if the Paranormals tried to attack us.”

“Then why didn’t it warn you that you had a Magic user working in your building. We detected the Magic used when he or she transferred out of the building. It was definitely a major Magic user,” all three Wizards assured him.

“Here in this building?” the AIC demanded in shock on hearing this.

“Yes, in this building. Whoever it was departed soon after we arrived to that disaster in the lobby,” the lead Wizard assured him. The AIC immediately called all of his section chiefs and department heads and demanded that they conduct a head count to determine who was missing. He also called personnel to get a list of all of those who had signed in that morning.

The Wizards stood back and waited while all of this was going on. They would get little work done today they realized.

I was ironing some of Allen’s shirts in the hotel room when I felt the use of Magic as Allen transferred. It was definitely him as I recognized his Magic signature. Quickly recovering from my surprise, I unplugged the iron before carefully sending out my Magic senses and discovered the three minor Talents in the lobby of the FBI building. I could tell that they were very upset about something, but I had more to worry about presently than them.

Sending my Magic senses out in a broader search, I soon detected Allen’s Talent and transferred to the oak tree where he had appeared, but used considerable less Magic than he had. Well, he was still learning. I appeared about five feet from him in the park with the trees.

“Are you all right?” I asked when I appeared in the shade of the trees.

“Yes, three Wizards entered the FBI building. I detected them and decided to leave. I used the handicapped stall in the men’s room rather than disappearing from behind my desk, where people would have seen me vanish,” he told me.

“Yes, I detected them after you had left. There seemed to be a lot going on at the entrance of the building,” I told him.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

“With my Magic senses, your Talent was very easy to locate. I guess we both are to someone with a sufficiently strong Talent,” I told him.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“We chill out for a while. Those Wizards will be at the FBI building for a while. If we reappear at the hotel now, it’s possible they could detect us. Let’s go to lunch and hang out somewhere for a while. I’ll check out the FBI building from time to time to see when they leave. We’ll return to the hotel then and move all of our things. We probably won’t be able to use your apartment again either,” I told him.

“No, they are sure to have someone watching my apartment as soon as they realize that it was me who disappeared,” he told me, but had a question.