Chapter 6

The following characters appear in this chapter:

Mark Sneered

Name Nick uses for his glamour, he appears to be about 5’-9’’’ tall, about 50 years old, a bit overweight with a receding hair line

Bob

Minor Demon, short at 4’-6’’ tall, red skin and horns on his head, gray beard and hair, fancy seventeenth century clothing, silver buckles on his shoes

Sara called me again on Tuesday afternoon. She was again in a panic.

“Nick, I’m still being followed. I felt them when I went to lunch. There are several of them. What can I do?” she asked in an upset voice.

“Are you at work?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You should be safe there. Give me the address of where you work. I’ll check the area as soon as I can get there. Don’t call me again at this number on your phone. Someone may be listening,” I told her. She gave me the address of the business where she worked. Fortunately, I knew where it was and would be able to transfer to an area not too far from there. It would be quicker than trying to drive there, and the CIA was still watching my house and my car.

Appearing in the back room of a store about a mile from where Sara worked, I quickly made my way out of the store, making it appear that I had only stopped in to use the restroom. It was a decent enough day, and the walk to the area where she worked went well enough. On approaching the area where her building was, I began to pay a lot closer attention to things.

When I had appeared in the back room of the store, I had pulled up one of my ready-to-use glamours, and it was a good thing that I had, I now realized. This glamour made me appear to be a man of about fifty years old and a bit overweight. The image had a receding hair line and was wearing a moderately expensive suit and good shoes.

What I had detected in my current disguise was that there were two different organizations watching Sara, but neither organization seemed to be aware of the other. These people would be a lot harder to dissuade from watching her, as they were both from official organizations.

Having detected both watching pairs, but no others, I made my way to the business where Sara worked to speak to her. On entering the lobby of the building, I was stopped at her desk by the receptionist, an older woman of about fifty with a no-nonsense attitude.

“I’m Mark Sneered. I need to speak to Miss Sara Hankel. I’m her attorney,” I told the receptionist to a blank look from her.

“Miss Hankel is at work and can not be disturbed. You will have to wait until she finishes for the day, or arrange to meet her after work,” the receptionist informed me without so much as batting an eyelid. I was about ready to do something I might regret when Sara appeared in the lobby.

“There you are!” she said in a surprised tone of voice before turning to the receptionist.

“I’m on break, Harriet,” she told her to a sour look from her, but she didn’t say anything.

“Let’s move over near the door,” Sara told me, and we moved away from the reception desk.

“I felt it when you entered the building,” she told me in a near whisper. “What about those watching me?” she added.

“We have a little problem there. Those people won’t be easy to convince to stop watching you,” I told her.

“What gang do they belong to? Why would they be more difficult, because they are out in public?” she asked.

“To start with, they don’t belong to a gang unless you believe the Charleston police and the FBI are gangs. They have probably connected the gang members who were going to stab you and the gang leaders who were killed. They may believe that they or others may try it again,” I told a surprised young woman.

“The FBI!” she uttered in shock.

“They’re probably from the Gang Task-force,” I told her.

“But what can we do? I don’t want them following me around all of the time,” she told me.

“They know where you work and live, They probably also know where your mother lives. That leaves all of those places out,” I told her before telling her what I thought.

“You probably won’t like what I am going to suggest, but it would remove you from their observation,” I told her and paused to see how she reacted.

“Tell me,” she said after a few seconds of thought.

“Quit your job here and come to live at my house. They don’t know where I live and wouldn’t be able to find you,” I told her to a startled expression from her.

“Your house! How can I live anywhere without a job? Also what about my things in the apartment? If we go there, they will follow us to your house. They’ll still be watching me,” she complained.

“We can go to your apartment and get your things tonight. They will never see us, as I will transfer us there, and your things and us back to my house. I can also pick you up from work and transfer us out to my house. They’ll never see you leave work. You can come in tomorrow or the next day to tell Mr. Barker that you need to leave, as the police are tracking you,” I told a very unconvinced young secretary

“If I were to do this, what would I do at your house?” she asked after a few seconds.

“You could concentrate on the study of Magic. The quicker you learn it, the safer you will be when out on your own,” I told her.

“Alright, we can try that for a time. I’ll keep my apartment for a while in case this doesn’t work out,” she told me after a bit of thought, but still not totally convinced that this would work.

“Where should we meet when I get off?” she asked next. I had been looking around the lobby for a time and had spotted the rest rooms in a hallway back behind the receptionist’s desk.

“I’ll use the restroom now while you return to work. I’ll leave a marker there. When you finish work, come down to the lobby and use the ladies’ room. I’ll be able to tell when you move and will transfer to the men’s room. When you exit the rest room, I’ll join you, and we can disappear from the short hall there,” I told her.

“Alright, but I need to get back to work now. I’ll see you at quitting time,” she told me. She left, and I approached the receptionist.

“Okay to use the rest room?” I asked her.

“Yes, but don’t be long,” she told me. It didn’t take long to cast the Marker spell.

On leaving the building, I had several hours to wait until Sara would finish work, and I didn’t have anything to do.

“There must be something to do,” I said to myself before remembering something. On checking those on stake out duty, I found that I didn’t know any of them. This suggested to me that I should screw with them. Stake out is a long usually boring assignment. I had seen Beverly Hills Cop several times. In it Eddie Murphy sent out a late dinner to those on stake out, and then screwed with them by putting a banana in the tailpipe of their car to prevent it from operating.

The little boy in me decided that I needed to screw with those on stake out for scaring Sara. I, however, wouldn’t be using a banana. First though, I needed to consider what to do to them. I didn’t want to affect them personally, but I could mess with their vehicles, I decided. HOW was the question.

After considerable thought, I settled on two different solutions. For the Charleston police, who were using an unmarked police car, I cast a ward on their catalytic converter that would block its outlet. The spell was set to last eight hours. After sitting here for the entire afternoon at least and then for some time after those working in the building had left, at some point they would probably go inside to check if she was still at work. On learning that she was gone, they would try to leave to locate her. Their car wasn’t going anywhere until much later that evening.

For the FBI, I needed to devise something even more insidious. They were in a van with a good bit of electronic equipment to help keep tabs on her. It took me a while, but I finally came up with an idea. Affecting the brakes was out, as it was much too dangerous especially in the city. So was playing with the fuel or the batteries if this was an electric vehicle. The government was big on electric vehicles. However, all vehicles ran on tires. They would certainly notice if I let the air out of one or more of their tires. But they were less likely to notice something like caltrops scattered under their vehicle.

Caltrops were usually made of metal with three or four spikes. When strewn on the ground one of the spikes is always facing up. Armies in the past had used them to slow down attacking horsemen and ground troops. The VC had used punji sticks to great effect in Vietnam. I didn’t have any actual caltrops, but that had never slowed me or others down in the past, as we had improvised. I had boards and nails at home and could create my own version to deal with their tires.

Transferring home, I pulled out some pine boards, cut them to length, and hammered six to eight good size nails into each creating my own version of caltrops. I also cast an Invisibility spell on them but in standby mode. I would wait until they were in place to activate the spell. On transferring back to the area near where Sara worked, I cast the Invisibility spell on myself before moving close to the FBI’s vehicle and using a spell to move the improvised caltrops into position in front of all four of their tires.

When satisfied with their positions, I activated the Invisibility spell on them and withdrew. I was sure that they would also eventually check to see if she was still at work, and when they learned that she was gone, they would want to leave here to locate her also. Four flat tires would definitely slow them down.

Having completed that bit of deviltry, I looked around for something else to get into while waiting for Sara. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything else to amuse myself with, and still had well over an hour until she would be off from work. With just a little searching, I did find a very nice conference room that wasn’t in use in a nearby building, and transferred into it to take a short nap while waiting for her.

Awakening at ten minutes to five, I checked on the marker in the men’s room and transferred there. It was empty, and I sat in the handicapped stall until 5:00 PM in case anyone else needed to use the facility. It was easy to detect Sara’s arrival, and I gave her a few minutes in case she needed to use the facility.

Stepping out of the restroom, I waited in the short hall for her to emerge. When she came out, I took her hand without saying anything and transferred both of us to her apartment. She immediately had a question on arriving.

“How long will it take for me to be able to do that?” she asked after looking around at where we were.

“A lot of studying and a good bit of practice,” I told her. “You must learn to visualize correctly. Remember that I have had a lot of time to perfect doing this,” I reminded her to a look of disappointment.

“It’s not that bad,” I told her with a grin on seeing that. “It will take a couple of months and a lot of practice on the visualization after you have learned sufficient Magic,” I continued to a brighter look from her.

“Oh, I thought you meant years and years,” she said.

“No, nothing like that,” I answered with another grin before turning serious. “We need to start packing what you want to take with you for now. We can return for anything you may need later,” I told her.

“Just mainly clothing and personal things like music, books, pictures, computer, beauty products, and bank and tax records. Those sorts of things. Having been to your place, I’m assuming that I won’t need things like pots, pans, dishes, and food,” she finished.

“Yes,” was all I said. Sara stared packing things in suitcases, boxes, and bags, and I transferred them to my house. It wasn’t long before the apartment was looking rather bare.

“I think that should do it for now,” she said shortly after that looking around the apartment.

“There is one last thing to do,” I told her with a smile.

“What?” she asked a bit confused.

“Those tailing you don’t know that you are already gone. After a time, they are going to check to see if you are still there. On discovering that you are gone, and they didn’t see you leave, they are going to want to find you. The first place they are going to look is here,” I told her.

“The thing is, I screwed with their vehicles, and they aren’t going to run. That will slow them down, but they or someone else will be here soon enough. I’m going to leave a spell here that will be activated by the first ones to enter the apartment after we leave and freeze them in place. When the second group arrive, that will cancel the spell, and they can scream at each other about interfering with their operation,” I finished with a grin.

“You’re a real devil, aren’t you?” she asked while holding back a grin of her own. I transferred us to my house following that. We still had a lot to do to get her settled tonight.

Back at Sara’s work place, the Charleston police were the first to tire of waiting for her.