Nothing Familiar: RELUCTANT FAMILIAR MYSTERIES, #4

One

It hadn’t been all that long ago since I discovered that Angels actually walked on Earth again. It had been an even shorter time since I’d seen the Angel standing before me last.

In that moment, I hoped it would become a whole lot longer before I saw him again.

I thought this had been taken care of, Tollman, I asked him.

The angelic being dressed like a police detective glared down at me from a great height of six-feet-something.

In my mind, he’d always be well over seven feet tall. Not because of the kind of man he was; it was just that he got a lot bigger when he dropped the human mask and assumed his true form.

That kind of thing sticks in your mind.

Tollman shrugged broad shoulders, a glint entering one dark blue eye. The spell to wipe memory only works on humans, Mapes. The Guild are apparently as immune to magic as they are adept at using it.

But, The Guild are human, Deg argued, frowning.

Tollman looked down his perfect nose at Deg. Do you know that for sure?

My Witch’s frown deepened. Nobody knew exactly what the Sensitives were. Though their auras appeared human, with a slight shading that reflected their use of magic, we still hadn’t come up with an explanation for why magical energy could flow through their bodies without cooking them from the inside. So, you think one of The Guild told this reporter…what’s his name again? Deg asked.

Becksmart, Tollman growled out. He smoothed long fingers through his thick, mahogany hair and sighed. Malice Becksmart.

Quite a name, I murmured.

Yes, Tollman agreed. His square, bristled jaw flexed with disgust. "And he definitely lives up to the malice part. We’re all very lucky I’m the one he approached with this."

Shoving a long strand of wavy red hair behind my ear, I fixed him with a slightly hostile blue-green gaze. Did he know about what happened in Town Square? Or just about magic in general?

"Specifically, Town Square. But he seemed to believe magic use was running rampant in Illusion City. He implied humans were in danger."

Deg and I shared a look. There had been an incident in December in the center of town. Magic had been indiscriminately used against humans. We’d had to scurry to remove the memory of it from the human population’s minds.

Up to that point, we’d thought the erasure spell had been one hundred percent successful.

You wiped it from the reporter’s mind? Deg asked, his tone worried.

Nodding, Tollman leaned against the island in my cozy kitchen and crossed muscular arms over his chest. As usual, despite the frigid outside temps, he’d rolled the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows and wore only a dark, slightly rumpled pair of slacks with the shirt.

But the lived-in look of his clothing did nothing to diminish the almost visible energy flowing through his big body. The angelic being exuded strength and confidence, intelligence burning in his navy eyes. That won’t stop The Guild from telling someone else. Despite your warning, they seem determined to expose the magic-using community.

Deg shook his dark head. Like the Angel, my witchy partner was tall and good-looking, with black hair and intense silver eyes. Deg exuded an abundance of power too, but his was a totally different type of energy from the Angel’s. As with all Witches and Familiars like me, Deg’s power came from the earth―the elements―and was a light energy that left the world feeling cleaner with its use.

By contrast, Tollman’s power was born of the Celestial environs. It was a foreign energy that rode the atmosphere of Earth like an oily film rather than filtering into it to become one cohesive entity.

During the weeks Deg and I had known him, Tollman had used his power sparingly. I figured the Angel knew his energy was too foreign for the Human Realm. Either that or he was trying to keep a low profile with the powers that be in the Celestial Sphere.

After all, we really didn’t know why Tollman was living among humans. Or who he’d hacked off to be sent to us.

He’d been strangely tight-lipped about his presence on Earth.

What do you want us to do? Deg asked.

Tell the council, for starters. The leaders of every magic house should be aware of the dangers and take the necessary precautions. Then I need you to help me silence The Guild.

My head was already shaking. I didn’t like the sound of that. I won’t be party to killing innocent humans, Tollman.

His handsome face folded into a disgusted frown. I’m not talking about killing anyone, LeeAnn. But we need to find a way to muzzle them, or they’re going to take all of us down.

Thinking of The Guild members I’d recently met, there was one in particular I’d suspect of going to the press with our secret. I know someone we can speak to about it, I told Tollman.

He waited a beat for me to go on, but I held my tongue. I’d work with the Angel for the good of my people, but I didn’t entirely trust him.

Mostly because he didn’t even half trust me.

I’ve already spoken to Littleton, Tollman told me. He doesn’t know anything.

Argold Littleton was a Dark Elf, and one of the wealthiest people in Illusion City. He was currently dating a Guild member and fully understood why they were dangerous…though he trusted them a bit too much for my taste. On the face of it, he would seem to be the perfect person to approach about our current problem. However, I’d learned one important thing during my last interaction with The Guild. They believed they were a cohesive unit. But I knew they had at least one member with a deadly agenda that wasn’t good for the magic-using community. We’d busted that member, but I suspected he hadn’t been alone in his ideology and goals.

I’ll keep you in the loop, I told him by way of a response.

Tollman held my gaze for a long moment before nodding. Let me know if I can help.

We climbed into Deg’s car because my little two-door, convertible sports car was death on snow, and I dialed one of our fellow council-members as Deg headed into the city. Brock was a Demon, a friend, and a good guy to have in our corner. He also worked at Familiar, Inc., my family’s company and ground zero for the magic-using population.

He answered his office phone on the fourth ring, sounding winded. Talk.

I blinked. Tough day?

You have no idea. The Trolls have destroyed the plumbing on the fifth floor, and the Fairies caught them using the facilities on their level. I’ve been picking Fairy feathers out of the ceiling tiles for an hour, and the ventilation system can’t keep up with the explosion of Fairy dust.

Fairies tended to discharge Fairy dust when they were upset. It played havoc on people’s sinuses.

The sparkly stuff’s spreading in clouds throughout the whole building. We all look like we have swine flu. He sneezed as if to emphasize the point. War of the Realms has broken loose. Everyone seems to think I’m the guy to fix it.

It sucks being a ‘get ’er done’ kind of guy, I teased.

He sighed. When did I become such a grunt, LA?

I fought a grin. If I were you, I wouldn’t use that particular word during the current situation.

Har. The response held no humor, but I could see him grinning in my mind’s eye.

I’ve called to save you.

Thank goodness. What’s up?

The smile died from my face as I remembered how dangerous our current problem was. Tollman came to see Deg and me today. He says the magical mind-wipe from the Town Square fiasco didn’t work quite as well as planned.

That’s bad, LA.

Ya think? I frowned, fighting to keep my temper in check. Apparently, Sensitives are immune to memory-wipe magic.

One of them talked?

Worse. Somebody went to a human reporter, and that reporter came to the police for a statement. Luckily, Tollman caught the case. He wiped the man’s memory and sent him on his way.

"But The Guild’s agenda still lives, and whoever told the reporter will probably do it again."

Yeah. And this time they’ll most likely make sure we don’t get a chance to wipe it again.

Okay, yeah, this is really bad. What do you need me to do?

Can you put people on all the news organizations? We need to know if anyone from The Guild shows up telling tales.

Of course. But what do you want us to do if we catch one of them?

"Bring him or her into Familiar, Inc. We need to figure out a way to diffuse this."

Will do. Mandy’s in the lab, working on some general use spells. I’ll put her on finding something that will work on Sensitives. Just in case.

Good plan. Thanks, Brock. Deg and I will be in the office in a couple of hours. When we get there, we’ll fill you in on what we found.

Where are you two going?

I grimaced before I could stop myself. We’re headed into the eye of the hurricane.

Two

The Guild had recently suffered a fire in their headquarters. The fire had been set by one of their own, and I hadn’t paid enough attention to know if they’d rebuilt the organization afterward.

Apparently, they had. Unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending on perspective. I wasn’t happy that they were still meeting and planning their foray into the world of magic, but at least we could keep an eye on their machinations, as long as they remained relatively out in the open.

Deg stopped his car underneath a railroad overpass, and we stared at the glass-fronted doors on the other side of a broken and weedy sidewalk. The doors were set into a blackened brick wall, just four concrete steps above ground level, with wrought iron railings that were covered in pigeon poop.

An elongated lump on the sidewalk in the shadow of the steps twitched just enough to tell me it was a homeless person, covered with a plastic tarp on the icy ground.

I frowned at the sight. That’s got to be cold.

Deg nodded. I might be able to help. He climbed out of the car and locked it as I followed. I stood looking up at the overpass, my mind still hearing the groan and rumble of the train that used to cross there.

I’d been sad when Illusion City’s mayor had announced five years earlier that the train would no longer run.

Lack of interest apparently.

I figured it had been poorly run like most government entities. What we needed to get it up and running again was a private solution. Somebody with a bit of expendable cash and an entrepreneur’s spirit needed to take it on and create a desirable passenger experience that would bring back the riders the Illusion City run once had.

Deg stopped a few feet away from the lumps―because as we got closer I realized there were several of them mashed together for warmth―and lifted his hands, sending the oddly twisted components of a spell into the air with his dancing fingertips.

From our work together, I recognized the remnants of a heating spell. Sure enough, the spell stretched with a soft whine as he completed it and then snapped back into shape, glowing red like burning coals. Deg sent it floating toward the group of homeless with a wiggle of his long fingers, and it settled over them, dropping down to wrap around the entire group like a blanket.

From within the cluster of mounded tarps, several long, happy sighs were the only sign of its effects.

I started toward the steps, a smile on my face. Too bad The Guild can’t learn to do things like that. Things that actually help somebody.

Deg frowned at my comment, no doubt remembering the last magic we’d encountered from the rogue Guild member.

None of it had been helpful in any way.

The steps were icy, and the glass doors were locked. I placed my hand over the lock and formed a mental image of the metal workings shifting inside. A moment later the lock disengaged with a soft but satisfying click.

I threw Deg a grin.

Well done, Tadpole, he said, grinning back.

The door whined loudly when Deg pulled it open. We stopped, wincing at the sound. It was going to be hard to sneak up on them after that.

No sound met our jarring entry. Nothing moved through the vast, high-ceilinged space that had once been the public area of the old train station.

After a moment, Deg sent a quietus spell toward the door and let it close. He twisted his fingers in the air, and the deadbolt snicked back home.

No sense inviting innocent humans into the space. Just in case things turned ugly.

We walked softly, our hands stretched out in front of us, ready to respond with magic if necessary. I had a movement-squelching power word on my tongue to halt any shenanigans.

But none of our protective measures were necessary.

We rounded a wall that severed the public restrooms from the main space and found the man we were looking for standing there, his hands clasped before him and his icy-blue gaze locked unerringly on us. Welcome to our new headquarters, the man said. I’d only met him once, but he’d made an impression on me that seemed out of proportion with his presence.

He was a small man, probably not much taller than five feet eight inches, with an abundance of dark silver hair and a mouth that looked like an anus when he was annoyed. The eyes that watched us approach were a light blue, colder than the wintery day beyond the train station’s walls.

I’d never learned his name during our previous interaction because The Guild apparently embraced anonymity. Or he believed, as Demons did, that names contained power and that you should never give your enemies power over you by sharing yours.

I noticed he didn’t look surprised by our arrival. You were expecting us?

He inclined his head. Mr. Littleton was kind enough to tell us he’d given you the address.

I would have expected irritation for the Dark Elf’s interference.

I didn’t see any.

We told him it was of vital importance, Deg told the man.

He shrugged narrow shoulders. The Guild has nothing to hide.

I seriously doubted the truth of that. You know why we’re here?

He frowned. I thought I heard a soft sigh escape his lips. Are we to be blamed now for every intrigue in the magical world?

No, I said. But this instance seems to point directly to you.

How so? He tilted his head, the dim light high above him highlighting a half-dollar-sized bald spot amid the dark silver hair.

It certainly doesn’t benefit the magic-using community to be outed to the humans, Deg said.

But we also are magic-users, correct?

I opened my mouth to respond but wasn’t sure what to say, so I hesitated. What he said was strictly true. But there was a big difference.

You’re human, Deg said. "If magic is discovered, you won’t