Wild Magic (41 page)
Authors: Ann Macela
Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #Paranormal, #Romance, #Suspense
In the Finster study, Jim listened to their ideas while he and Irenee ate candy bars for energy restoration, and somebody cast a spell that dissipated the smoky smell left from the fireworks. Feeling more energetic, though still tired, Jim agreed with the suggestions. He trusted Ken Erlanger, but if he himself hadn’t been part of the battle, he’d never believe the tale from someone else.
Baldwin knocked over a chair and did a little more “set decoration,” since the interrogation was supposed to have taken place in the study and the fight with Leroy in the hall. Somebody dragged the still-unconscious muscle out. Ubell was stretched out on the floor in front of the desk—where, John remarked, he had said Finster originally collapsed.
Jim sat in the big chair behind Ubell’s desk and pulled Irenee into his lap. He called his boss from the desk phone and put it on speaker.
“It’s Tylan.”
“Jim! Where have you been? Where are you? We’re about ready to move on Ubell.”
“Hold on, boss. Ubell’s moved ahead of us. He kidnapped me, brought me to the Finster mansion, and had a thug beat me up, trying to get info on what we’re up to. He tricked my fiancée”—he winked at Irenee, who looked quite startled at the word—“to come over here with the idea of using threats against her to make me talk. When she came in, she distracted the muscle so I could jump him and knock him out. Ubell started screaming at me and then had a fit, literally, and he keeled over. He’s lying on the floor right in front of me. He’s still breathing, and his heart is beating, and that’s about it. We need the paramedics.”
“You stay there. We’ll be right over.”
Jim disconnected the call. “Here they come. Irenee, when they get here, let me do all the talking, okay?”
“I won’t say a word,” she answered.
“We’re headed out the back,” Baldwin said. “Leroy is in the hall, still unconscious, shackled with your handcuffs around one of the newel posts on the stairs. Here’s your gun and one clip. We cleaned and reloaded it, so it doesn’t appear to have been fired. You have your other stuff.”
He waved toward the upper floor. “Upstairs is clean—still damaged, of course, but with no trace of you or Irenee, including the bullets you fired and their shell casings. After your people are finished here, we’ll be back to check for any pieces of the Stone we missed. I’d like to find its hiding place, too. We’ll see you later at the HeatherRidge.”
“Thanks,” Jim and Irenee said in unison.
“You two did real good,” Baldwin said with a grin and left.
Almost immediately, Jim heard sirens.
He held Irenee close, swiveled the chair, and glanced up at Otto Finster’s portrait. “You know,” he said, “I think the old man is mad as hell.”
Irenee stirred and tilted her head to stare at the painting. “I think he looks crazy, as crazy as his grandsons.”
Jim leaned to see it from her angle. Finster’s eyes seemed to glint with deranged malice. “You’re right. A psycho if there ever was one.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The sirens died outside the house, and for the next several minutes, people were everywhere. One set of paramedics hauled Ubell away. Another set separated and checked over Jim and Irenee. When they wanted to take Jim to the hospital, he refused, saying he’d see a doctor later.
At the beginning of the invasion, Ken Erlanger made sure Jim was all right and left to investigate the rest of the house. When things were organized, he returned. Erlanger was a big, burly man with dark brown skin and a deep voice, which reminded Jim of James Earl Jones. He could sound like a jovial, kindly man one instant and the wrath of God the next.
He walked straight up to their chair—Jim had her on his lap again after the paramedic exam—and held out his hand to Irenee. “Ken Erlanger, Ms....”
Irenee sat up straight, smiled, and shook hands. “Irenee Sabel.”
Erlanger’s eyebrows shot up. “Of the Sabel Industries Sabels?”
“Yes.”
“I understand congratulations are in order.” He looked from Jim to Irenee and back with a smile. Jim could see Ken was still surprised by the news. Hell, so was he.
“Thank you. We’re very happy,” Irenee said with a big grin before Jim could say anything. She pulled Jim’s arm tighter around her.
He winced. “Careful, honey”
“Okay, what exactly happened here?” Erlanger asked, all business again, as he pulled up a chair and sat down.
“I spent the night with Irenee and went back to my apartment early to get ready for the meeting. Four of Ubell’s guys jumped me there and knocked me out,” Jim explained. “When I woke up, I was here. Ubell tried to question me about our plans. When I wouldn’t talk, the one piece of muscle still here—Leroy—beat on me for an incentive. When I still wouldn’t talk, Ubell called Irenee on my phone and told her he’d kill me if she didn’t come here.”
“So, I came,” Irenee put in.
“Yeah, even though I told you not to.” Jim frowned, gave her a “keep quiet” squeeze, and continued, “I figured he was going to threaten to beat her—or worse—to get me to talk. While she was on her way, Ubell left the gorilla with me and went somewhere. I don’t know where. When Irenee came in, her entrance distracted Leroy, and I was able to take him down. Ubell came back and started yelling and screaming—something about killing both of us. I told him he was under arrest for assault, and he turned white as a sheet and fell over, shaking like he was having a seizure. After a few seconds, he went limp. I made sure he was breathing and called you.”
“You didn’t hit him or struggle with him?”
“I didn’t lay a finger on him.”
And that was the God’s honest truth.
And that was the God’s honest truth.
“What happened in the big room upstairs?”
“The ballroom?” Jim shook his head, did his best to look puzzled. Better to offer no explanation. “Why?”
“It looks like somebody fought World War Three up there.”
The best defense being a good offense, Jim said only, “I thought we had people watching this house. They didn’t see a ruckus?”
“We pulled the surveillance to put more people on the increased drug sales last night. It paid off because we caught a couple of the major distributors in the warehouses. One of them is so mad at Ubell for moving too fast that he’s willing to give him up as the guy behind the scheme. If I had any notion we were going to capture them, I’d have had you come in when I called you. I know how much you want those guys.”
Erlanger shook his head. “Anyway, no, we didn’t see a fight. The damage upstairs is weird—burn marks and plaster all over the place. On the other hand, it doesn’t appear to have relevance to our investigation. Maybe Ubell had a temper tantrum and beat on the walls or maybe he liked to play games with blowtorches. It’s too bad we weren’t here, though. We might have seen you brought in and been able to spare you a beating.”
“Yeah, and moving in might have brought about a hostage situation and a bigger mess. Ubell wasn’t acting rational. I doubt he’d have given up without a fight.” Jim waved the hand not holding Irenee’s at the room. “Look on the bright side. We’re here now. We’re in the house. Assaulting me is a felony.
It’s a crime scene.”
It’s a crime scene.”
Erlanger smiled, a showing of his predator teeth. “I’ve called in a request for a search warrant for the entire property. We’re not going to let Ubell get out of paying for his crimes on a technicality”
“That has to be Ubell’s laptop,” Jim said, pointing to the one on the desk. “Maybe we can get straight accounting records here.”
Erlanger’s phone rang. After a couple of minutes of conversation, he hung up, a very satisfied look on his face. “Looks like everything is coming together. The computer guys reported they’ve cracked Ubell and Finster’s code on the drive copies you made. We’re going to nail those bastards and their entire operation to the wall. I can’t wait for them to wake up.”
“Assuming they ever do,” Jim said. Whipple, had been right—cut the power and the spells disappeared. “Listen, Ubell said something about knowing I was either DEA or ATF from a source. He didn’t name the guy, but I’ll bet it’s somebody in law enforcement.”
“I’ll look into it. We need to get busy rounding up all their associates and closing their operations. Oh, Leroy in the hall woke up and started yelling for a lawyer. Wait until he finds his boss in the next cell.” Looking extremely satisfied, Erlanger rubbed his hands together and stood. “Jim, you look awful. Get to a doctor. You tend to your wounds and Ms. Sabel this weekend. The paperwork can wait until Monday”
Since Jim’s phone was fried, they gave Erlanger Irenee’s number and walked out of the mansion hand in hand. While they were waiting in her car for the police to move some of their vehicles, her phone rang. She answered, said “yes” a couple of times, and hung up.
“That was Johanna. We’re getting an escort home.” When the exit was available, she pulled out, turned left at the corner, went down the street two blocks, and turned right. A big white Hummer was waiting.
Johanna came over. “Get in the other car, you two. We have some food. We don’t want you driving in your condition.”
Jim was perfectly happy to do so. He knew he was in no shape to drive. He’d been worried about Irenee’s strength also. If she was even half as exhausted as he was, she’d have a hard time staying awake on the road.
On the way to the Center, they ate some chocolate and a couple of apples and drank two bottles of water each, and fell asleep in the backseat of the Hummer.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Johanna roused Jim and Irenee at the HeatherRidge and shepherded them into a private dining room full of Defenders. Everybody gave them a standing ovation. Catherine and Hugh Sabel and Bridget Whipple hugged them both.
All Jim wanted to do was go to bed. He was still hurting in places—the healers’ quick fixes had only done so much. How long would he have to be here? What time was it? He looked at his watch. Fried, exactly like his phone.
“Eat,” Bridget commanded. “You have to replenish your magical and physical energy. That requires food, then sleep.”
So, they ate.
Irenee was certainly recouping her energy faster than he was, Jim noted while he shoveled in whatever they brought him. Sitting next to him and between bites, she gave an avid audience a blow-by-blow account of the battle.
She closed with, “I had no idea what Jim was planning when he dumped all his energy into me and ran over to Leroy, but I had no options left. I was about to run out of power, and I didn’t know if my fortress could withstand too many more bolts from the Stone. Jim’s been in shoot-outs before, and I trusted him to get us out of this one. When I saw the gun in his hand, I knew we had a chance.”
“Here’s to our wild talent,” Hugh Sabel said and raised his glass. Everyone followed suit.
Jim felt his face grow hot. He knew he was blushing as much as Irenee usually did. “Only doing my job,” he mumbled and kept on eating.
“I may have gone up part of another level,” Irenee announced. “I was throwing pure violet at the end.”
“Let’s see,” her father said.
“Lux!”
A violet lightball with indigo streaks floated in the air over her plate. She stared at it for a few seconds and frowned. “That’s funny. I’m pushing it to the limit, and I have plenty of power.”
A violet lightball with indigo streaks floated in the air over her plate. She stared at it for a few seconds and frowned. “That’s funny. I’m pushing it to the limit, and I have plenty of power.”
“Here, honey,” Jim said and put his hand on her back, “have some of mine.”
When he shared some of his energy, the lightball glowed pure violet.
Several people made exclamations.
“Take your hand away, Jim,” Baldwin said. “Irenee, keep pumping power into your ball.”
Jim did as instructed and used his hand to pick up another piece of bread to dip in the olive oil/parmesan cheese mixture. The stuff was addictive.
Irenee’s lightball retained its pure violet for a while, then reverted to her former color combination.
“Oh, wait until Fergus and the Defender masters see this!” Baldwin chortled. “You two are really something. We have to run some tests soon.”
“I’m nobody’s lab rat,” Jim growled.
“Of course not,” Baldwin said, with a smile belying his statement.
Well, Jim would fight that battle later. Right now he had other things on his mind. “What’s for dessert?”
After dinner, a couple of healers examined him and Irenee again. They cast some spells to take away most of his remaining pain from the beating and told them to get some sleep. Fine with him. Even with his aches gone, he was still bone tired and getting more so by the second.
Before they could head for the elevators, however, the Sabels drew him and Irenee aside. “Speaking for both of us,” her father said, “we want to thank you, Jim, for keeping our daughter safe and putting an end to all those monsters.”
“My stupidity was the reason she was there in the first place,” Jim protested. “If I’d been more alert, I could have stopped those guys from taking me, and we could have followed the original plan.”
“Jim, you can’t take responsibility for things out of your control,” Irenee scolded. “Ubell would have found another way to get one or the other of us in his clutches.”
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